Hi Everyone! I hope this finds you well and that you are all doing awesome! :)
Transfers are tomorrow! This is the first one thus far I haven't had the opportunity to see where everyone in the mission is going since I am not living with the zone leaders, so I don't know that much except for the zone I am in. I think it is a pretty weird transfer... Because I am staying and my companion is leaving. He is becoming a new district leader, training a new missionary for the first time, being swept in to a new area, and is in a bike area. But the weirdest thing is that he is just moving 5 miles away! He is staying in the same District and will be my District Leader. I think that is weird since there are about 80 places he could have been put across northern Colorado and small parts of Wyoming and Nebraska, but he was put just down the street. He kinda prayed to Heavenly Father to ask for this because he is now in the most inconvenient position to receive his visa to go to Brazil. We figured that he would only get his visa when he is in a leadership position in a bike area with a new missionary. It would be very inconvenient to have to adjust the mission for that. So maybe he will get it in the next month or two!
I'm kinda saddened that he won't be my companion. We have been doing so many great things in this area. We hit most all our goals this week and had multiple break-throughs with different investigators. We have been finding new people and helping others so much throughout this transfer. People have really started to talk about the missionary work that has been happening since we have been here. I am pretty good at connecting with people and getting a conversation going and he is pretty good at being bold and being direct bringing up the Gospel. I think we are being moved because we have gotten somewhat comfortable together and you can't grow when you are comfortable! Though we have been making real progress every week developing more. Either way, he is being moved. Sad day.
Sooooo miracles with two awesome people/families:
Thursday May 29th we first met a Melissa and her son to begin teaching her the Gospel. And on Tuesday June 3rd she accepted a Baptismal Date! We are pumped. It seems she will probably move it back one week since we won't be able to meet up with her this week - her schedule is too hectic. However, it has been going really well. We thought that she wouldn't be at church on Sunday due to work, but she was! She was able to come to the Gospel Principles class and we studied about the priesthood of God and why it is important. After church we talked with her and the ward mission leader about getting baptized and whatnot. She was more excited yesterday than Tuesday. I ended up hitting a volleyball around with her 7 year old son Logan then too. I think we played for like 30 minutes! She texted us last night saying how much her son likes us and that we have made an impact on her life already. AMAZING. I cannot express how good it feels to be able to be positively helping her and her son. She is awesome. It's amazing to me that we are able to make such an impact when we have met in person only 4 times with her spanning just over a week. It is definitely not us, but the Spirit of God working through us an in her. As good as I or my companion are, we really aren't that good! It's humbling to be able to be used as an instrument in God's hands to help people.
There is one other most awesome thing (there are others that would take forever to write) that I wanted to share. On May 18th, we dropped by the house of a less-active member (Candice) and her non-member boyfriend (Jerry). They are in their mid 20s and have 3 children at home. They forgot that we had an appointment and she had changed her number. We ended up shooting around (basketball) with some neighbors. After 1-2 hours they came outside and we talked to them. Jerry had been drinking and was impossible. It was an experience for sure; he practically told us never to come back again. More interesting is that when he was 8 he wanted to be a missionary for Jesus, but had had crazy life experiences take him far away from living a Christ-centered life. We weren't really there to bring him to the Gospel, but to help both of them quit smoking. He was kinda receptive to that and we were finally able to come back this past Thursday. It was AWESOME. We totally inspired them to quit smoking. Jerry is super cool when he isn't drinking. And then ended up inviting us to come back again! Fortunately we didn't have a dinner appointment the next night and they were pumped to have us over for dinner. Together they had been smoking 1.5 packs a day and Jerry smoked like every 30 mins or less. But in that one day, he already made lots of progress and was taking more time between cigarettes than he expected. That night, we invited them to do family prayer/scripture study. Again, we fortunately didn't have dinner the next night and they wanted us back again!! So we came back again for dinner. They had watched some bible videos and read some scripture stories that day! And Jerry made even more progress. He has been smoking 1/2 a cigarette at a time.
Sigh... soooo amazing to be having such progress with these (and more people). I have never helped someone quit smoking before, but it is looking promising for Jerry and Candice! It is miraculous to have the hearts of people we barely know soften before our eyes. Jerry going from virtually do-not-contact to extremely receptive and our first real acceptance of a baptismal date in this area. I am so blessed to have had an obedient and hardworking companion. We definitely had God on our side this transfer and have seen miracles and blessings all over the place in our lives and in people we are serving. I am pumped to be in the Bison Ridge Ward of the Loveland, CO stake for another transfer. There are rumors that my new companion will not be as awesome as this one, so I will definitely need to step my game up and be a strong companion so that we can continue to have miracles in our lives.
Hope you all have an amazing week!
Sincerely,
Elder Jeff Campbell
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