It is prettty crazy this is the 9th week I have been here! The weather has gotten pretty nice. It is funny when it randomly snows, then melts, then gets hot again. I have 3 parts to this email today. 1st is personal revelation I received from a recent church conference talk, 2nd is an experience teaching an investigator, and 3rd is from church.
(Part 1) One of the best things about being on a mission is that you get trials on a regular basis that you need to ask God for help about! I had two questions - 1. Sometimes I question my faith, so I was looking to be spiritually uplifted and feel more confident. And 2. I was getting pretty annoyed with the new missionary here. Haha. Living with another companionship is awesome most of the time, but sometimes I wish they would stop telling random stories all the time when we should be working out, studying, or planning the next day. BUT the moral of this is that I sought God for help because I needed help and needed to change. I knew that me thinking this about other missionaries was not good. I checked out a General Conference talk from a year ago by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland entitled, "Lord, I Believe." Pretty much every talk I have heard from him is AMAZING, but this one was the perfect one for me to hear at that time. Turns out if you listen with specific questions that you receive specific answers.
The title of the talk refers to the story he uses from Mark 9:14-29 about a man whose son is possessed with an evil spirit. "Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." (v 23-24). From that, Elder Holland taught awesome stuff - check it out if you get the chance. But the main things I heard were to answer my questions. First, I love how Heavenly Father can speak through inspired men on the earth. He counseled how belief and faith is enough. This specific part really hit me:
"I said I was speaking to the young. I still am. A 14-year-old boy recently said to me a little hesitantly, “Brother Holland, I can’t say yet that I know the Church is true, but I believe it is.” I hugged that boy until his eyes bulged out. I told him with all the fervor of my soul that belief is a precious word, an even more precious act, and he need never apologize for “only believing.” I told him that Christ Himself said, “Be not afraid, only believe," a phrase which, by the way, carried young Gordon B. Hinckley into the mission field. I told this boy that belief was always the first step toward conviction and that the definitive articles of our collective faith forcefully reiterate the phrase “We believe." And I told him how very proud I was of him for the honesty of his quest."
I felt so uplifted that believing is good enough. That our faith is "the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" - or hope for the unseen which is true. I felt very secure in my faith that I do have instead of doubting it.
Second, he said this super profound part:
"So be kind regarding human frailty—your own as well as that of those who serve with you in a Church led by volunteer, mortal men and women. Except in the case of His only perfect Begotten Son, imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it. So should we. And when you see imperfection, remember that the limitation is not in the divinity of the work. As one gifted writer has suggested, when the infinite fullness is poured forth, it is not the oil’s fault if there is some loss because finite vessels can’t quite contain it all. Those finite vessels include you and me, so be patient and kind and forgiving."
That part helped a lot. All of us are imperfect; I know I definitely am. It persuaded me to be more like Jesus who simply accepted people where they were at. Everyone makes mistakes and we need to remember that and not attack people for making those mistakes. MAN, that helped me a lot. I do love my fellow missionaries and those I serve with; I hope to like them on a more regular basis too!
(Part 2) The coolest experience from last week was teaching a girl named Ty. Unfortunately she lives in Spokane, Washington so we won't be able to teach her more this week. But the reason why it was so amazing is because in the last month she became engaged to an awesome member in our ward named Mark. It was such a blessing to teach her because it shows that Mark really trusts us! They aren't getting married until September and she won't be baptized until after that date, so there isn't really a rush to get her taught. But he liked us enough to teach the most important person in his world - his fiance. AND they invited us over for a second lesson! After watching the Restoration video we asked Ty how she felt. She cried a lot and could barely speak because of how blessed she is to now know that this church is true. She said she never would have questioned her Catholic background - that there could be even more. After she learned that a few weeks/months ago, she immediately felt like telling everybody "even though I don't even know anything" she said. It is just SUCH a privilege to teach people and see their lives changing before our eyes. We are going to check with our mission president to see if we can teach her via Skype a couple times before passing her off to missionaries who are serving in the Spokane area.
(Part 3) Lastly, we had Fast and Testimony Meeting this last Sunday, moved up 1 week for General Conference next week (which I am so pumped for by the way! I love General Conference!). 2 amazing things happened. First, a member who hadn't bore her testimony for ~5 years got the courage to do it! We challenged her about 10 days ago to do it and she did! So proud of her. Second, Chris Tomlin (nonmember who will be baptized within 2 weeks) bore his testimony at the first one he has ever been at! It was such a privilege to hear it. He talked about how in Afghanistan he should have been blown to smithereens by an explosive he drove over, but it ended up leaving a silhouette of his body in the driver's seat. He has been wondering ever since what his purpose in life is and why he is still alive after so many near-death experiences. He is such an awesome dude. We are excited for him to be baptized! (our other investigator is doing good, she should also be able to be baptized this month. we shall see!)
The work is happenin' in Laramie! My companion and I are definitely trying to make the most of the time we have here since we don't expect to be here next transfer since school ends in ~5 weeks here.
Have an amazing week!
Sincerely,
Elder Jeff Campbell
Pretty much agree with all of that. Good stuff.
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