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...
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