Hi everyone!!
I don't know if you have experienced this before (I hope you have), but this week everything just seemed to click. Specifically what I'm talking about is the results at the end of the week. Since Elder Schenk got here just over 3 months ago, there has been a LOT of hard work being put in here. The results are really starting to come! We had about 15 people that we are working with that are either not members or less-active members of the church that made it to church this week!! We were ridiculously excited for that.
The biggest miracle of that was that 3 specific people came that we had been working hard to facilitate coming for 1-2 months. Two of them are Camden and Amanda. They have been meaning to come for a couple of weeks and we were finally able to facilitate them coming! The other one is Marcy who has a SUPER bad back and is on oxygen. Every week for months she hasn't been able to come for one reason or another, but she came!! We helped her get into her wheelchair and get to church and take her home. AND she came to our dinner that night with her fellowshipper friends the Hiney's. This was the most I have seen her out of her house and it was AWESOME! (We watched a video "Only a Stonecutter" with her on Saturday. That might have helped. It is about a guy who was called to be a stonecutter on the Salt Lake Temple who walked 22 miles to get there Mondays and 22 miles back on Fridays. After a number of years of doing this, he broke his left leg below the knee, got it amputated, and a year later resumed his calling - walking 22 miles 2x/wk with a peg leg to work on the Temple). I felt inspired as well in that video!
Definitely my favorite thing as a missionary is helping people really make progress in their life. It is EXTREMELY fulfilling to have people really start to grow and change and move forward in their lives as a result of your help. Obviously it isn't all about me, and as I've learned since I've been out here, very little is about me! Most any missionary could be here and meet with people and have the same things happen here. I just happen to be one of the two that are here right now when people are ready to hear the Gospel. But I love playing that small role that we are given - to teach and invite people to take action in their live in love.
It is crazy though that I spent about 6 months in the same ward in Loveland without this progress. I felt like we were working hard, but not many people made any significant improvement with our help in the Gospel. I don't know exactly what we are doing differently, maybe focusing more on really helping people take action? But I'm just humbled to really be seeing changes in people's lives!
Also, I found out who my great-great grandparents are! My dad's mom's dad's parents. It took quite a while to finally find a record that connects my great grandfather to his parents. The record was indexed improperly - it had him as a unique entry even though he was 15 years old and right below his parents on the census! I haven't had a chance to research much - only 1x or so per month for maybe an hour. But I'm excited that I'm starting to learn a little about my ancestors. (Although it is pretty likely that someone I'm related to already knows this stuff and I just need to find the research that has already been done instead of doing it myself!)
It's sure exciting out here to be working with people that are excited about missionary work and building up a new branch in Estes! Being with Elder Schenk is still a blast.
Have an awesome week! Check out christmas.mormon.org for a short 3 minute video about how HE is the gift this holiday season. It isn't about the presents, it is about THE present of Christmas. :)
Elder Jeff Campbell
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