Soooo this week! I'm
starting my last week of my 4th transfer in Loveland in the Bison Ridge
Ward. I've had an awesome run! Ever since I began training Elder Harper
nearly 2.5 months ago, I've been anticipating leaving after this
transfer. While it is technically possible I'll still be here, it's not
super likely. The magnitude of what I just said didn't hit me until I
thought more about what I just wrote. I REALLY need to make this week
awesome as I may never see the people in this area again in my life
after this week!
In terms of missionary
work, the 2 top experiences this week was planning a time to go tracting
and then only having time to attempt 2 doors when we found a friendly
lady. The other was another day when we were going to go home early, but
decided to try one more house and ultimately talked for 30 minutes to
the nonmember teenage siblings of a recent convert who is a missionary
in the Dominican Republic.
Moving on to my
favorite part of the week, watching General Conference.
I gained a lot of spiritual witnesses and personal promptings during General Conference this weekend where the church leaders - who we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators - speak what God wants them to share about.
I gained a lot of spiritual witnesses and personal promptings during General Conference this weekend where the church leaders - who we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators - speak what God wants them to share about.
One
I remember the most is that during the last of the 5 two-hour sessions,
the member we were with got up to do chores during the session! I
couldn't believe it because people called of God were speaking! Then the
Spirit witnessed to me, "When you fail to do all of your studies in the
morning or don't study on your preparation day, you are doing the same
thing!" Whoa. I made a concerted effort to have a phenomenal personal
scripture study this morning. It was one of the best ones I had
recently.
Another prompting was that the church
leaders REALLY live the Gospel that they preach and that I need to
REALLY live the whole Gospel too. I have confidence that if we examined
the lives of all the people who spoke this weekend, you would fine
genuine men and women of God. They would be seriously living the Gospel
to the very best of their ability. They are not perfect for sure, but
they do truly live the Gospel. It reminded me of what President Dieter F
Uchtdorf said during conference. Something to the effect of when he was
my age and even into his mid professional years, he would look up to
the leaders of industry who are "successful" in the eyes of the world.
Subsequently he stopped doing that and now admires people who are
genuinely GOOD in the world no matter what the world says about them. As
I recall, he commented about how few truly GOOD people there are out
there. So many people look good on the outside. I think someone at
conference (maybe him) commented on how they were in a perfect church
branch. All the kids were well-behaved. All the home/visit teaching was
done. All were reaching out to friends and many were joining the church.
Statistically, it was one of the top producing branches in the whole
church. The couple who was retelling the story then served a two-year
mission for the church and returned to find out that 12 couples had a
divorce in the congregation! They couldn't believe how perfect
everything seemed while on the inside so many were not. What I
personally took away from these comments/insights is just that true
GOODNESS is on the decline and we all need to strive not to "look good,"
but to "be good." I know that my ambition, the most important takeaway
that I am striving for from my missionary service these 2 years, is to
truly BE GOOD.
The last most important thing
to note is what the Prophet of the Church, President Thomas S Monson,
talked about. He emphasized while it is great to travel to the Holy Land
and walk the paths that Jesus walked, more important is to walk AS
Jesus walked. He related many experiences Christ had - lamenting the
sins of Jerusalem, withstanding the temptations of the devil after
fasting 40 days, enduring the pain of suffering our sins at the Garden
of Gethsemane and Crucifixion on the cross. There are no easy lives for
true disciples of Jesus Christ, for the path they follow that Christ
walked was never easy. We cannot expect a life free from trials and
adversity for our great Exemplar lived through so many of them. He
reminded us that we "are free to choose liberty and eternal life,
through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death,
according to the captivity and power of the devil." And ultimately,
President Thomas S Monson invited us to ponder the paths of our feet and
recommit to being TRUE followers of Jesus Christ by living the Gospel
fully in our lives.
I know that the
messages I received from the Spirit during General Conference were what I
need to implement today and that everyone can listen and hear the
Spirit in the conference to know what they need to change in their
respective lives. I also know that what President Monson invited us to
do - be more obedient to living as Christ lived - is what all of us in
the world need to strive more to do. That is the message he was called
by God to deliver at this conference to the whole world. It applies to
every single one of us, whether we are members of the church or not,
because he is truly the Prophet of God for the world today.
I
hope you all have a great week. I'm so grateful to hear from many of
you and hope you are all do amazing! I appreciate the opportunity I have
to share what is going on in my week and my thoughts on them with you.
As always, I'm excited to hear if you have any thoughts/comments about
them!
Sincerely,
Elder Jeff Campbell
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