Hi!
I hope this email
finds you well. Another week has come and gone. First, I have a miracle
to share (3 paragraphs) and then a couple other thoughts.
A
miracle happened this week that I had a tiny part in! For our ward,
there is a lady who is in charge of coordinating dinners for us as
missionaries. She wasn't given a "Do not Contact" list and was just
calling people to feed us for this month. She called a family who was on
that list and somehow set up an appt with them for the Saturday Sept
20th. I was very confused/nervous when I saw it there. When the day
before came around, we attempted to call their number to no avail. Then
we decided to drop by their house, but the promptly said "just leave"
and closed the door on us. We were confused. We were confused already
because the first names didn't match up the people who we attempted to
coordinate the dinner with. So our dinner calendar lady set up a
different dinner for Saturday.
However, Saturday morning
she got 3 missed calls and 2 voice-mails about the dinner for that
night!
She confirmed with them and got their address and everything.
They were extremely excited to have us over (just as they had been when
she initially contacted them). I end up calling them and find out that
they live down the street from the Colorado State campus - way outside
of our area. Moreover, they are not even Mormon, but a different
Christian. I felt like cancelling it multiple times, but they were so
nice that I couldn't cancel it. Ultimately I called to Fort Collins Zone
Leaders who gave the information to the missionaries who cover that
area.
I got a call that night from the missionaries who
went to the dinner and they said it was AMAZING!! This family was so
nice and awesome and are excited for them to come back again to learn
more about the restored Gospel! Ultimately it appears that the number of
the Do-Not-Contact from church was a work number and the husband works
there and somehow agreed to feed the missionaries at his work! Either
way, this situation should not have happened or worked out if it wasn't
directly from God. I'm just glad I passed on the information to the
right people so that it happened!
--
Moving on to other
great things about the week. Someone tried to pay us for doing service
for him even though we cannot accept money. Theodore was struggling to
read scriptures, but is now back on track; we still haven't gotten the
OK for him to be baptized yet. Rachel (who I've never met and lives in
our ward boundaries) has been taught all the lessons by other
missionaries and is planning to be baptized this Friday. We visited a
Less-Active 2x this week that we hadn't been able to get a hold of for 3
weeks; he agreed to read the Book of Mormon and ask God if it is his
Word.
Two other last things. First, it is still hard to be
with someone (in my case 2 people) 24/7! We have been working a lot at
becoming more effective and having a better relationship together. I
think we need to work on our relationship more often though. Elder
Harper responds best with quality time. Although we are together 24/7,
we don't have personal important talks very often genuinely trying to
get to know each other more. On a positive note, he in the last week has
become a much better at testifying and teaching. Super glad about that!
Lastly,
we had a zone conference this week. I decided to not pay as much
attention to "getting everything out of it that was being taught," but
instead on having a testimony building experience. What was particularly
emphasized was that "Joseph Smith was the foreordained prophet of the
Restoration." He was not just a 14 year old who happened to see Heavenly
Father and Jesus Christ, he was as Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and
I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." I know that what was said
about Jeremiah was true for Joseph Smith. All I did for the majority of
that meeting was ponder about that and write my testimony of it in my
notebook. And I know that it is true. Probably the thing that has grown
the most since being out here is my testimony of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.
I hope all of you have an amazing week!
Elder Jeff Campbell
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