Happy Monday before Thanksgiving!!
The weeks continue to fly by. Every Sunday an awesome dude
from church with Down-Syndrome announces how many days there are until
Christmas. At first it was 90 days or so. But now it's 32... what the heck!? I think
I just need to accept that it will just keep getting faster forever.
So this week! We had lots of driving as it was exchanges
with Cheyenne and Casper. My drive through Cheyenne was crazy on Wednesday!! It
was like a semi truck graveyard. We passed about 10 of them on the side of the
road having blown over in the storm! I had never seen that before! I had to
keep both hands on the wheel for 20+ minutes straight because of the wind
beating on the car. Wyoming weather in the winter is serious! It was funny
because it was just as I was leaving Colorado that it started.
I got to go on exchanges with Elder Schenk this week!!! It
was awesome to spend some time with him. We kinda wanted to cancel all of our plans
in Windsor and drive to Estes Park and visit some families we taught there. :)
We aren't the same person, but he is definitely one of the people that is most
like me that I know! We hadn't been companions in Estes Park since January. I'm
glad that we were able to do some teaching and talking. It is a little sad that
the exchange with Casper was so short because we had to drive 4 hrs to do it.
He helped me recommit to legit living the Gospel in my life. I have made some
good strides since then and am grateful for him!
This Sunday School class was pretty scary... so Sister Bates
was able to come to church for the 3rd time and stayed for class. The man who taught
it had offended her 2 weeks previous (he has never taught the class since I
have been here; the teacher was out of town). And then he went off on a super
confusing tangent... I was SO excited for the lesson; it was going to be on
repentance. But then it was derailed for like the entire time. *sigh. I prayed
the whole time that she wouldn't be offended again. And it didn't appear that
she was! That was a miracle. I am grateful. Sister Bates is super close. She
started reading the Book of Mormon on her own! Huge Miracle! We are visiting her
again tonight.
Best part for me personally was going to the Denver
Temple!!! YAY!! It was awesome. Last time I made it was in January. Elder
Snelders hadn't gone for his year-mark trip, so I got to go with him!! I saw
multiple people that I knew there. haha. Brother LaMarr and Brother Hunt (I lived
at both of their houses in Loveland) and Brother Brien (in Estes Park) and
Sister Quist (also Loveland) and Bishop Knechtel (Bishop in Longmont in Long's
Peak, next to the Estes Park Branch and Left-Hand Creek wards that I served
in). Bishop Livingston (Elder Snelders favorite Bishop that he served with in
Laramie) asked me if I knew everyone. haha. I guess there are a lot of people
that I know that attend the Temple every Friday!!
Uplifting closing thoughts... I hope they make sense!
Awesome Gospel discussions are one of my favorite things as a missionary.
Yesterday after church we had one of those with Brother Stott. He is awesome.
It was on the purpose of life. He wondered if someday we would get advanced
enough as a society to be able to put a computer chip in our brain and download
various knowledge/skills. However, we were realizing if there wasn't any effort
to gain the knowledge, what would be the point? We tried to imagine a world
where that was a reality. For a while, it would be sweet, but we didn't feel
like it would be awesome. Brother Stott came up with a video game analogy to
explain why. A video game (or sport) is only fun if you struggle to win. He said
in a first-person shooter game a friend of his gave him a cheat code that gave
him an unstoppable weapon. So he destroyed everyone while playing against
people online. It was SUPER fun for a while. Winning just feels good! However
after a while, the challenge went away. He felt he had to choose to stop
playing the game or and stop using that weapon. It just wasn't as worthwhile
without the challenge! I have had the same experience in different video games.
After beating the game, what do you do? You have to move on to another game
with more challenge. These concepts are so true for life. The purpose of life
is to learn and grow from experience. We have trials and difficulties to learn
to trust God more fully.
The adversary tries to persuade us that there are ways that
we can get the results we want without sacrificing and changing to receive
them. Quick fixes don't exist!! If they did, the purposes of God would be frustrated.
We were put on this earth to experience this process of becoming. The Gospel is
about heart-change. Becoming something different and better. In the Gospel, we
are told to pray daily, study the scriptures daily, attend church weekly, and
serve others. If we don't do these things, we may still experience a lot of joy
and happiness... for a while. But long-term we cannot have a fullness of joy by
skipping these steps! We won't be able to receive the blessings God wants to
bestow upon us. We simply need to humble ourselves and submit to the process.
So let's do it! Not try to look for the easiest way, but the way that will
produce true results.
I hope you have an amazing Thanksgiving week!
Elder Jeff Campbell
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