7/28/14 Well Howdy!

I'm very happy for grandma.  I want to be like her when I grow up. 

     This week was great!  I have to update you on the familia Salas!  They are doing well.  We had a couple of great lessons with them this week and built some great trust by eating food at their home. :) Including Bollos. Bollos are Mexican home-made popcicles.  They taste like monkey flips (banana-chocolate milk shakes) and you freeze them and suck them out of the corner of a bag.  So good!!  Sometimes I feel like I do nothing as a missionary, and am really terrible at teaching, but somehow Heavenly Father manages to bless our work so that sometimes it ends up better than worse for somebody.  For example, the before the lesson with the Salas, the members lovingly gave us some pointers to help along the work with the Salas, then we said a couple of words to guide the lesson as the members taught their new best friends/next door neighbors the rest. The Salas family has so much potential and are such a great family.  They speak Spanish.  They have 3 beautiful kids and love each other so much.  We taught the Book of Mormon to them this week and I felt a sincere love for them and they shared their hopes that this book will help them gain a spirit in their home that they feel like they might be missing. Pray for them!

 I've got to go! Sister Stradling and I are the only companionship that gets to stay together in the whole zone this transfer.  Wohoo! It is only a 5 week transfer.  Why do they keep getting faster and faster?!

Love,

Hermana Campbell

7/21/14 Lovely Week

My companion gave me her huge rainbow glasses today, and for some weird reason I feel like Jared.  Strange . . . Anyways.

    This week has just been crazy.  I feel like God leads me through different trials to teach me small simple lessons about who I need to be. I love that God never ceases to bless us with miracles.  We really needed one this week.  We didn't have very much time to work, and I felt like what I was offering to God was only this tiny window of opportunity to bless us with a really big miracle. So I asked God to bless our meager efforts and make them blossom into 10 fold. We sincerely asked God for a miracle to help us bless someone's life, and if that could happen, we would know our effort to work for this short period of time wasn't in vain. The moment we got out of the car, a slightly older woman walked by with her grand daughter. So we stopped and talked to them, and she said 6 or 7 years ago she used to go to our church.  She said she would really like missionaries to come by and to come to church, then she asked us for a Book of Mormon.  It is very humbling when your prayers are answered so quickly, and even the meager effort we give is blessed abundantly. 

   Also, a member surprised us this week with a wonderful family that they have been working on.  They invited the family into their home, and we had dinner and shared a fun family home evening lesson.  They excitedly agreed to let us come by and teach them again.  They have a lot of questions about the church.  It is so exciting when that happens.  It is a lot more intense and almost a whole different ball game when you work with members.  I feel like teaching on the street you can be super bold and just straight up ask to hear the lessons or ask if they want to be baptized, but with members, you have to be more sensitive to their relationship.  I just want you to know I had a great week this week, and next week I will know about transfers.  That happened super fast right?  I don't get how time just keeps speeding up.  Scary!

Love,

Hermana Campbell

7/15/2014 Rolling with Laughter at the Roja's

The Rojas have two of the craziest boys I've ever seen in my life, one is 3 and the other is 1 and a half.  They are hilarious!  I truly admire the patience of the parents of this family.  We just got done eating dinner and sat down in the living room for a family home evening game and lesson.  As game specialist, I came up with "Animals", my favorite one that I remember way back when we did family home evening. :) One person acts like a specific animal and everyone else has to guess what they are.  Well, it was my turn, and I decided to be an elephant, so I went all for it and make the best, most incredible, loudest elephant noise I've ever made in my life. The 3 year old's eyes opened so wide with surprise then he bursted out laughing, rolling and jumping.  he couldn't figure out what it was for a while, but he wouldn't stop for the rest of the night asking me to do my, "phhhhhh!" noise and trying to do it himself.  Then for the lesson we told whispered the story of Daniel and the Lion's den into his ear for him to tell his family, and evertime it was time to tell his family, he screamed it and raised his arms.  Kind of like how Josh does when he's telling bedtime troll stories. :) It was the funniest thing!

  Mauricio got the Holy Ghost this Sunday and we had a great experience with teaching the Salmond's girls how to play piano.  They ended up bringing in a stranger to be taught too (the gospel). Well, I've got to go.  I love you all!

Love,

Hermana Campbell

7/7/2014 Beautiful Baptism

What a miracle this week!  Mauricio is a young man who Sister Stradling found right before I came into the area.  Since we have been teaching him, he has changed so much!  last Monday we had an incredibly bold lesson with him.  He struggles with every single part of the word of wisdom pretty heavily. But asked him if he wanted to change and why and how that would bless his life.  Then we testified, taught, and invited him to repent and quit all of his addictions. He gave us his drugs and cigarettes in a great step of faith, declined going to the island to party with his friends, and almost everytime we go over to visit he is on the phone telling some friends that he can't because he doesn't drink anymore.  We gave his specific promises from reading the book of Mormon, which he has relied on, and as well as prayer to help him overcome these temptations.  He chose to prepare himself and was baptized this Sunday!  Saturday and Sunday morning were very difficult for him.  Satan works so hard the day before baptism!  His family fought with him and tried their best to convince him he was a drunkard, that he couldn't change, and that he shouldn't and wasn't ready to get baptized into a cult. He came to church Sunday with a lot of doubts.  He asked Sister Stradling to play the flute, and it broke, got lost, but eventually she was able to play it and he said that when she did, the spirit touched his heart and all of his doubts when away. I'm so proud of him!

4th of July was fun. Got to go!

Love,

Hermana Campbell