Transfers! :)

HI EVERYONE! I LOVE YOU!

Transfers are here and I am staying in Windsor and more than likely I will stay here for the remaining of my time as a full-time missionary. Elder Winter is being transferred to Scottsbluff, Nebraska. He is pretty pumped to train his last transfer before he goes home. My new companion is Elder Snelders. I still remember when he was a new missionary because I met him then. He came out the same time as Elder Harper (who I trained back in the day). It should be good. I feel pretty confident in the Windsor ward and as an Assistant to be the 'senior' one (even though there isn't a senior or junior assistant).

It was super cool this week to spend time with President and Sister Brown doing transfers. The questions that he asks, "who will bless this missionary?" and whatnot. It is powerful to see how much he truly cares about the missionaries and wants to bless them now and for the rest of their life. It is also really cool to see him in a more relax setting. It is also focused on receiving direction from God. One of the other best things is calling missionaries Saturday night and letting them know of their future assignments (like asking if they will train a new missionary or be a new district leader or zone leader). I love hearing people who are willing and excited to serve. It is just a lot more fun to make phone calls to people that are positive!

With the email going out pretty late, you can tell I don't have a lot of time with transfers happening tomorrow and the new missionaries arriving. The last thing is that Sister Bates is starting to do pretty well. We played Disc Golf with them last week and today with Brother Bates. She has just really started to open up. The Spirit has definitely been working on her and she is starting to have noticeable spiritual experiences.

It is really weird... I was at the mission office this morning and our secretary was requesting flights for all of the missionaries going home in January. Later in the day my mom emailed me my flight plans... it's getting real! But there is still time to make more strides forward! The mission has been doing well with miracles happening all over the place. I'm excited to have the opportunity to help focus and miracles continue to increase. It's the best.

Have an amazing day!

Elder Jeff Campbell :)

Baptisms and 3 months left (Windsor wk#6)

Happy Monday Everyone!!

To start off, it's October 19th 2015... I go home January 19th 2016. Wow. That's like 3 months away! Super weird. Time continues rolling forward, that's for sure. The time is not far hence! This next week, the last member remaining of my first district goes home. Elder Sanders is the best and had just finished being trained when I got to the field in Laramie. I feel like every day I am reminded how my clock is ticking! But back to the good stuff...

If you recall, at the end of last week's email I mentioned miracles that are happening throughout the mission. Lots of missionaries have been feeling like they are truly representatives of Jesus Christ and an instrument in the hands of the Lord. So that happened to us! A few hours after sending the email, we called while walking out of dinner. It ended up being the most memorable phone call I have received as a missionary. It was Sister Bates (her husband joined the church 3 years ago, she is not a member, and hasn't allowed her 14-year-old daughter to be baptized). She asked, "Some of our friends are coming in town this weekend, can my daughter be baptized on Saturday?" I stammered, "Sure! We can make that happened!" That for sure caught me off guard! So this week we met a couple times with them to make that happen. I found out later that Zoie has wanted to be baptized since she was about 8 years old! She was prepared to be baptized even before her father was baptized. She didn't need to be taught anything by us (it is pretty weird having a convert baptized in the ward without you teaching them). So ya! It was pretty cool.

Ironically, by not allowing Zoie to be baptized for six year, the requirements Sister Bates put on her daughter has made her a WAYYYY strong young woman. She has read the entirety of the Bible (I have read a lot of it, but not 100% of it) and the Book of Mormon. Both of the two men who spoke at her baptism said she knows the scriptures better than they do. In testimonies during the baptism, many shared stories meeting the Bates family for the first time in 2007. Zoie got a ride to school from their Mormon neighbors, the Morgans. She started coming earlier and earlier to their house in the morning to participate in reading the Book of Mormon for 10 minutes and having morning family prayer. The Morgans and Bates had family night each week together not for 30 minutes, but for 3-4 hours focused on the Gospel. It was amazing to hear all of the love that has been shown to the Bates family.

On Sunday after she was confirmed at church, the Bishop presented Zoie with her Young Women's medallion. The Spirit was so strong in the chapel. You could feel her Spirit too. I was emotional and I feel like a lot of other people were. It almost never happens for a young woman to be confirmed and receive her Young Women's medallion in the same day. I just looked through a personal progress book and it is INTENSE! It takes a serious amount of dedication overtime to achieve that. I could see Sister Bates wiping away tears. She loves her daughter a ton. Because of her, Zoie will be a light at church already!

Last Monday before dinner, we played Disc Golf because Elder Winter loves it. We told the Bates family about it and they LOVE disc golf too (really? lol). So we are going to play with them in a few hours! It is amazing... the more time that we spend together, the more connections we make!!

The other miracle... we were able to visit a part-member family this week after trying for the last four weeks. The second time we dropped by on Saturday, we were able to catch them just long enough to invite them to church, and they came (the visiting grandparents from Utah probably helped with that). We dropped by and visited with them Sunday afternoon. It was so cool to actually be able to go inside their house! lol. They are really nice. Though it took over an hour to persuade the boys to go to church, all three of them really enjoyed it  (I would consider that a miracle). AND Sister Sinclair met Sister Despain who has boys the same ages as she does! I am so pumped that other the Bates and Sinclairs took such big steps forward this weekend.

Being a missionary is the best. I have grown so much it is unreal. Still weird that it is quickly coming to a close, but it has been good! There is still time left for some more miracles!!

I hope you have the best week of your life!! :) This last week was definitely up there for me.

Elder Jeff Campbell

Sent from my iPad

Sister Morgan made a cool instagram photo that she shared with me. Top left is the Bates family (with a cousin and grandma in there). Brother Morgan baptized Zoie (he was the one who baptized Brother Bates). The bottom right has all the kids in the Bates and Morgan family. It is so cute... the littlest Morgan boy and littlest Bates girl hold hands a lot. There is already speculation they will be married even though they are only about 6. Haha.

Miracles Abound! (Windsor wk#5)

Hi everyone!

This week was awesome!! I am really loving being a missionary more and more by the day! I love both helping the mission be more unified on Our Purpose and teaching people in our area.

We finally got the Area Book Planner App this week. It takes some getting used to, but it is a very powerful tool. We are putting in our Area Book information into online teaching records that the ward council can easily access from their LDS.org account. Wow... it is so nice! I still don't really know how to use it, but it is sweet. I even already emailed the support people to see if they can add a few more features to it! :)

Last week we had a couple promising referrals we were able to contact this week! Elder Winter contacted a family on Tuesday while I was on exchanges. Hopefully I will get to meet them soon, but they are interested in the Gospel!

While he was on exchanges, I was in Greeley with Elder Blackburn. It was awesome. He is a great missionary. During dinner at Wendy's we found a potential investigator by talking to the cashier named Ashley. She doesn't have a religious background, but we got her phone number and the elders met with her on Saturday. Hopefully it goes well! Their investigator Travis was interviewed to be baptized (I got to go to it on Saturday!) and we got to teach an Institute class (about 6 people there). The Spirit was present as we shared the Restoration and discussed it. It is so amazing to me that whenever the First Vision is shared, the Spirit testifies that it is true. I can feel it over and over again.

The next day I was on exchanges in Windsor with Elder Snelders. We ended up visiting a lady I found tracting almost 3 weeks ago named LaNisa. She is moving to Loveland. Elder Snelders and I shared a message answering a lot of her questions about Prophets. We also explained why we talk about the Book of Mormon so much - it is the convincing evidence of the Restoration. Then we were able to help her move to Loveland. I can't believe how well it worked out. A lot of times when we do service, it doesn't seem to have any significant benefit. This time it did. LaNisa really had no idea how she could possibly move her stuff the ~10 miles to Loveland because she can't afford a moving company. We helped her load stuff into her car and put 2 beds in our truck. We texted the sisters in the area that she is moving to and elders in a nearby area; they were both able to come at 3:30pm to help unload, which took only 30 minutes. It was amazing. Moving people is always an ordeal that happens when we should be teaching people, but this was during the day! Moreover, the sisters set up a return appointment with LaNisa. It couldn't have been a more perfect handoff! We are going to help her move her last stuff tomorrow with some members from the ward.

The other awesome thing in the exchange was visiting the other referral family from last week, the Bates. They just moved in from Johnstown. After our weekly coordination meeting ended at 8:40pm, I almost decided to call it a night and go home. We ended up going to their house and it was great! Brother Bates was baptized just over 3 years ago, Sister Bates isn't currently interested, and their oldest daughter (14-years-old) wants to be baptized. I feel like we connected a lot and I am optimistic about them. On Saturday we were able to help them move a desk into their couch for about 30 minutes. It was another example of simple service that I feel like is going a long way to soften hearts. I'm glad we were able to help! Brother bates and the 3 daughters made it to church yesterday. The oldest daughter shared a one minute testimony and included the words, "I know this church is true." That is pretty awesome!

Other things from the week... we visited a man this week that was SUPER humbling to visit him. He has been a member his whole life (I think), but made some mistakes. He shared bits of his testimony of God's love for him and that the process of repentance is worth it. I could really feel that he truly has a "broken heart and contrite spirit." He has been brought to the depths of humility in this process. I am privileged to hear parts of the change of heart he has been experiencing. I feel like he is one of the spiritually strongest men I've ever met.

But ya. The Gospel is true!! Each week, the zone leaders have been reporting on which companionships in their zone would be good for me to call and hear about the miracles happening in their area. WOW. That is one of the most faith promoting things I have ever gotten to do! I have heard miracles tracting (i.e. a family of five preparing to be baptized), referrals from out of nowhere (i.e. from Utah or a visitor from Missouri), people coming up to the missionaries (i.e. three people came up to some missionaries while they were eating at Subway), and so many more. As some of them have been describing these miracles, I can hear the change that is happening in their hearts! New missionaries are finding joy in the work by praying for the needs of others. Other missionaries are seeing the Lord's hand in the work for perhaps the first time. It's so awesome!

My testimony is growing, particularly that scriptures like Ether 12:12 are true. It says, "For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until after their faith." As my faith and the faith of other missionaries has increased, we have seen miracles. We have seen "the Lord [make] bear his holy arm" (Isaiah 52:10 & Abinadi quoting Isaiah in Mosiah 12:24) in people's lives. Miracles abound as we have faith. I know that is true.

Have an amazing week!

Elder Jeff Campbell

Sent from my iPad

- I drew this on my tablet during one of the talks in General Conference about keeping the commandments. A barrier was put out in a cove in Australia, but some surfers visiting wanted to ride the bigger waves outside the barrier. When given binoculars by a local, they found out that there were sharks just on the other side of the barrier. So the barriers (commandments of God) are there to protect us from being "devoured." :)

Traversing the Mission, Checking out Casper (Windsor wk#4)

Hi Everyone!! I hope this email finds you well.

Another week I feel like I have forgotten in its entirety... it is really weird how fast Mondays come. Let's see... what did I do this week???

I have been learning recently I really enjoy administrative stuff. It is kinda unexpected to me because most of the time I hate being bogged down with details. I just like making it happen. But it turns out I love details when I believe that if I solve some administrative issues that everything will go more smoothly. I probably would have really enjoyed writing programs for software because that is essentially what I seem to like to do. Identifying a problem and creating a system that simplifies life and solves it. One little example is formatting a directory of all the missionaries that we make at the beginning of each transfer. We had to type out the same thing three times (one for the zone leaders, one for us, and one for the mission office). That was really annoying. So we formatted it with excel so that we only have to do it once and it is done three times. That was awesome. We have done other things like that too in an attempt to help the Fort Collins Colorado Mission be more focused on Our Purpose.

But I super love missionary work too! On Tuesday I was in Windsor with Elder Dutton. After teaching a lesson than ended right before our 5pm dinner, we found out dinner was actually at 5:30pm. Soooo we ended up going to an apartment complex looking for someone to talk to. We ended up seeing a guy pulling up with a large couch to one of them. "Perfect!" we thought, "We can help them move the couch!" But if you have ever offered to help a random person do stuff, more than 9 times out of 10 they say no, which is what happened. Soooooo, I helped anyway! :) They appreciated it. And we ended up talking to a cool named Ryan for 10 minutes that lives in that apartment. Hopefully we will see him tomorrow. After dinner we went tracting in a different complex. We found this really nice family that only speaks Spanish. It was quite exciting trying to teach the Gospel in Spanish... The wife read the introduction to the Book of Mormon in Spanish that I had on my iPad. It was really fun and really hard because I don't know Spanish very well. We did set up a return appointment for two days later and sent the Spanish Elders. :)

I got to go up to Casper on Wednesday. I decided to drive the whole way. I am weak. Driving for four hours is not awesome... and yet we have had missionaries drive 4 hours and 5 hours one way to a meeting and then had them drive back after... that is less awesome. A 10 hour day of driving!! Fortunately I was able to get back the next day so I could sleep in Windsor in preparation for a meeting on Friday morning. Ironically on Friday morning the missionaries who made it first to the 9am meeting arrived at 8am and drove in from Casper... I think they left at 4:45am.

Other missionary work... we contacted two families this week and received a referral of a family. We are excited to work with them! One has an unbaptized 14 year old daughter who already finished her personal progress (usually is completed shortly before age 18). I am impressed! We are optimistic.

The Semi-Annual General Conference happened this last weekend too... I learned a lot from conference. I had a chance to watch the Saturday Afternoon Session with President and Sister Brown where the three new Apostles (Elder Rasband, Elder Stevenson, and Elder Renlund) were sustained. That was the first time I have ever witnessed that! It was awesome. The one thing that sticks out most from that session is that the leaders of the church are human like me. When I spent the time with President and Sister Brown, I was reminded of their humanness - they have a family they love and desire to learn from General Conference like me. Also, Elder Martino (who visited our mission a few months ago) spoke during that session. The biggest difference in the leaders of the church made 'decisions [that] determined their destiny' and they have been called by God to lead today. They aren't people I worship or put on a pedestal. They are simply people who are walking the path to the Kingdom of God! Pretty sweet experience!

Lastly, I had an opportunity to talk with one of my favorite missionaries (Elder Sullivan) a few days ago. He finishes being a full-time missionary in 3 weeks. He said how happy/grateful he is of the growth our mission has experienced since he first got here. I agree. I am SUPER happy that the commonplace struggles that once permeated our mission are slowly fading away. We have grown a lot. While doing a mission tour two months ago with her husband, Sister Zeballos told us that we are serving in the best mission in the world because it is our mission. I have never personally said, "The Colorado Fort Collins Mission is the best mission in the world" because I have never honestly believed it. I have been frustrated at times with where we are at. But I agree with Elder Sullivan. It feels SUPER good to be a part of a mission with positive trajectory. Our mission leadership council on Friday was one of the best that we have had with some awesome engaged and enthusiastic missionaries. I am now proud to call the Colorado Fort Collins Mission my own. I am grateful that I was called here; I wouldn't change it for anything.

Have an amazingly awesome week!

Elder Jeff Campbell :)

Pictures...

- you know you have been a missionary for a while when you drive to a new town (Wheatland, Wyoming) and you locate the church building to take pictures in front of it... haha.

- and when you are sharing a shake with another Elder who you met 24 hours ago. haha.

- and a member let me hold one of his AR-10s. I got a picture so I could show Elder Brazell. I still know almost nothing about guns. But I did get to hold one! :)