The Year Mark is Here (Lvlnd wk# I lost count)

Hope you had a great last week awesome people!!!

This week. This week. This week. I can't remember anything right now... So many things happened this week it feels like more than 1 week has passed since I last emailed. Hopefully you learn something in this email and have a good time reading it. Sorry that it's kinda long.

Well, I did gain some spiritual insights this week that were really interesting. The first one was from Saturday night's adult session of stake conference. They were talking about councils in the church, especially ward council and family councils. I received insight in the family council when I likened it unto myself here as a missionary (though I teach that all the time, it is sometimes hard to listen with the right mindset to apply things to yourself). A lady shared an experience a friend of hers had a few years ago with an 16 year old son. He made a lot of bad decisions and was doubting the church and lots of things like that. Harsh words were said. After talking with their bishop she realized what she needed to do: pray to love her son (as she wasn't TRULY loving him in that situation). I felt that need too. We had a meeting this week with the missionaries in the zone that I had a chance to speak a bit at. I realized I don't inherently love all of them - some of them are harder to love than others. I realized that I haven't been praying to love them! I started a little in the last two days and am excited to see changes soon in doing that.

The other was INTENSE. Sister Crane (the wife of the stake president) shared a story of her mom and of herself at the Stake Conference General Session. Her mom was AWESOME. Had 6 kids and was pregnant with the 7th when her husband tragically was killed leaving her to care for all of the children. She didn't give up or lose faith. Then remarried a widower with 5 kids of his own (Sister Crane was ~3 yrs old so that became her dad). They had a great family. There was no "step" anything; they became truly unified. Her mom planned to go on multiple missions with her new husband after all the kids were raised. However just a few years before that, he got cancer and quickly died. Her dreams were crushed. Yet she didn't lose faith. She definitely never dreamed of the way her life turned out and still didn't understand why/how it was going that way.

--> The biggest thing that blew me away that for some reason I never considered was that life can seriously turn out way different than we plan. Tragedies hit us and we wonder why! Few ever believe it could be them that tragedy could hit. A girl we are working with had a shock to her system when the younger brother (teenager) of her best friend committed suicide a few months ago. She realized that she really needed to make changes in her life and really live the Gospel. I don't know what the future holds in store for me, but it will probably will not go perfectly according to plan! And I somehow didn't realize that life wouldn't/won't go according to plan and that I couldn't make it go according to plan until hearing that insight at Stake Conference.

On a lighter note... There are a lot of bizarre situations that happen out here. I said hi to a lady at Stake Conference I had worked with before. She who was walking past us behind me and instead of shaking my hand, gave me a hug and kissed me on the back of my neck... Had a lesson with a guy who said he just needs to apply his same devotion to the church as he did that day when he cataloged 3000 playing cards. I asked to see them and they were all My Little Pony... At least 3 meals we had with members this week referenced how their family is crazy and we probably won't want to go back. One of them had a baby snake they were trying to get Elder McConeghey to hold and he kinda freaked out... One when on a small rant about health foods when she found out that I make smoothies every morning and gave us lots of food... And one had a story that may or may not be appropriate to share. Last night upon entering our dinner appointment's house, I asked the man of the house a semi bizarre question about the chains on his gutters (I had seen it at a few other houses, and it was kinda cool and also kinda weird). They have 4 daughters (5th grade, junior in HS, and 2 in college) and he misunderstood the question...  At the dinner table when we brought it was brought back up he said, "So this elder asked, "How do you feel about chains on your daughters? I just thought, wow. That's a little forward Elder. Usually they wait until after their missions to ask that." So ya... exciting experiences!

But it all is awesome. We realized this week how big in our job description it is to help members develop the ability to do missionary work - and we actually developed a way to do that! Because of this, multiple have invited others to act. Two people accepted the invitation to have a specific question in mind when reading the scripture to gain revelation/answers to that question and have already started doing that. I followed a prompting (that I didn't want to) after a lesson at McDonalds this week with a member. I felt like I needed to talk to a group of people (and didn't want to). But ended up doing it and recognized a girl who I met just 2 days before. Upon leaving I felt like I forgot to do something and immediately realized in prayer that I needed to give her a Book of Mormon. So I went back and did. That same family I mentioned in the crazy story from last night is on fire with sharing the Gospel to their friends. It is really fulfilling to know that people are helping people move forward in the Gospel.

That was a long email. Definitely gotta go do stuff now.

Elder Jeff Campbell

--> And I went to the Temple on Tuesday. It was great. And there is a picture of Sabrina's Baptism. And a picture of Elder McConeghey next to a light that someone had in their house...

YSA part 2 & Loveland part 2

Hi Everyone!

This week has been a somewhat stressful adventure for sure!! But we had one of the best meetings I have been to in my entire life this week!! Elder Bednar (of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles) visited our mission and there is SOOOO much that I learned from him.

The best part of being with Elder Bednar was observing his teaching style. I had been pondering about that concept recently, especially after attending a Institute class. That teacher didn't have a specific thing that we were supposed to learn from the class. He had concepts and ideas and was able to create an environment where the Spirit was the teacher. He wasn't the teacher. That is exactly what Elder Bednar did too. He invited us to diligently study 3 talks that he had given about revelation and learning by the Spirit. At the meeting he told us that he was going to do 2 things. To write inspiration we received, not what he says. Also that we weren't going to play the game, "Guess what's in my head." When he said that, I had no idea what he meant by that game. He meant that we usually ask questions where there is a specific right answer. So for this meeting he asked us what we had learned from our studies and had some follow up questions to better understand our experiences applying/acting on what we learned. It is such a simple concept, but the way he demonstrated it was profound. He also did a GREAT job setting expectations so we knew exactly what we were talking about and what types of questions to ask. He made no quick judgments and made sure to completely answer questions during the Q&A. We all learned a lot by the Spirit - he did very little specific teaching or training. He was just trying to help us be agents and not objects. 

My takeaway was essentially to strive to be more like him. He was a great conduit for the spirit. He created an environment where we learned by the Spirit - everyone had different takeaways. I sometimes end up causing people to focus more on me than the Gospel. It is a bad habit! I try hard not to be the big deal or have people focus on me or my story or stuff like that. But sometimes I get caught up and have people look to me instead of to God. That is what Elder Bednar did so well. He helped us learn that it wasn't him that was teaching; the Spirit was the teacher.

As for the work, it has been about a year since I was swept into an area (aka when both missionaries leave and two new missionaries come). It has been a little hard to figure out what we are exactly doing here in the YSA. It is a fairly good sized area. I think the hardest part of having this large area is that there are actually members and people in all the parts of it unlike the YSA in Laramie or the branch in Estes. While those covered large areas, we didn't go to the middle of nowhere places very much. In this area, everywhere is fair game! So we have to make sure we don't schedule back to back lessons with one in South Fort Collins and one in Fredrick! But it has been fun and we should have this figured out by the end of the week.

My companion Elder McConeghey is AWESOME. Wow. I have been working for the last 3 months at writing something about my companion that I like on a daily basis. I probably have something written for 80% of the days since then. I forgot until yesterday to start a list about him, and I wrote more things than the number of days that have passed! He has sought to serve more than any companion before. He gave me a back massage after noticing my shoulders have been hurting because of my missionary bag. He made breakfast for me. He has washed dishes multiple times at other people's houses. He is awesome.

Lastly, I got to go to Sabrina Rittner's Baptism. It was really nice to be there. It was pretty stressful at the beginning, but the Spirit was there and I felt refreshed. I love baptisms! Elder Schenk and I taught her the last 2+ months in Estes. She is awesome. I would send pictures, but I didn't bring my SD/USB adapter because the computers in Estes didn't need one!

Have an amazing week!

Elder Jeff Campbell