Boy, have I been a slacker! I apologize! Life in the Campbell home has been busy to say the least.
Skyler left the comfort of the MTC on Aug. 26th for Richmond, VA. He called us from the airport in Cinncinati, OH. He sounded excited and great! Very grown-up!! His sisters were able to listen in and do a little bit of talking (Juliann was in school, so she called on her cell phone and we held it up to the phone and Mallory and the girls came up to the house.) His time in the MTC was really good. He left there with a good knowledge of basic Spanish and was totally excited to get out in the field and use it. There were 21 missionaries in his travel group; all going to VA. That night they bunked at the mission home where they had dinner and each of them had a personal interview with Pres. Millburn. As busy as he is, he took the time to write a letter to each missionary family telling them about their missionary. The next morning they were given their companion assignments and left for their new areas. Skyler was assigned to the Pembroke zone in Charlottesville where the Univ. of VA is and also Monticello (home of Thomas Jefferson). His companions (yes, companions) are Elder Nelson and Elder Gleave. We recieved a letter from him that he wrote from the mission home in which he informed us- "Getting rejected in Spanish for the first time is going to be awesome!" How's that for a positive attitude. Anyway, he e-mailed us a letter the following Wed., so I've included it below for you all. Thanks for reading Skyler's blog, and keeping him in your prayers.

Wow, I can't believe it's already been a whole week since I talked to you all!? It's crazy! The first day here was crazy! Oh, I'm in Charlottesville by the way. The weather here isn't bad. When I stepped off the plane, the humidity just dominated me. It was terrible. It's not QUITE as bad here in c-ville, but it's still there. It's been raining here for a few days, so the humidity has been worse, but it was fun tracting in the rain. I'm in a trio with Elder Scott Gleave from Littleton, CO (my trainer/dad) and Elder Nelson from Ogden. Elder Nelson has a friend, Elder Alder( its actually Aldste Alder now, he's going to Sweden) who just left the mtc. That elder, Elder Alder, was on my floor at the MTC and I played 4-square with him all the time! Small world huh? The apartment is pretty nice, it was really messy this week because they had to rearrange all the beds and desks because I showed up, but we got everything cleaned up now. There's a weight room here and tennis courts. We've been using the weight room pretty well, but over the last 2 days, these people have been showing up when we have 10 minutes left and turning on the TV, so we have to leave. I think I'm justa going to ask them to turn it off next time because working out is the only way I am able to stay awake during personal study! But the first day here was nuts. We went to check up on an investigator just down the road from us, and I couldn't understand a word she was saying! Elder Gleave just said everything. He used Tu form with me when we were talking to Maria and I didn't pick up on it at first because I've never used Tu form, so I just stood there for a few seconds in silence and then realized "Oh crap, that's me!". The teachers at the MTC told us to not even worry about Tu form because we're only allowed to use Usted form on our mission. and then when we were walking off the porch, I was so freaked and excited and nervous, I didn't see the AC box and I ran my head right into it! haha The investigator, Maria, was probably thinking "Why do I get all the super gringos here?". She lives in this trailer park with a bunch of other investigators, so we do a lot of work in there. That's where our favorite family, the Aguilars from Veracruz, live. Manuel, the dad, was baptized in January and his wife Lulu was baptized in May. They don't speak a lick of english, and the first day we passed them at this bus stop, so we stopped and talked with them. People from Veracruz talk SOOOOO fast it's insane! But we spend a lot of time at Manuel's because he feeds us a lot. On Monday he fed us Breakfast/lunch and dinner. I feel bad because they don't have jobs, Lulu is super pregnant and there are already two little kids running around their house, but they always call us and Manuel does his 'business voice' and forces us to come over and eat. He's thinking about moving back to Mexico to start being a police officer again, but he had to leave the Police force down in Veracruz because of the Mexican Mafia's influence in the police, so if he went back he'd probably get killed, so we're trying to help him find work. But I can pretty much understand most of what he has to say now which is really cool! I don't have a huge vocabulary, but I can understand most of the verbs he uses so I can piece together the sentences into cohesive statements. But he always laughs and talks, and when he laughs, he talks faster and is SO much harder to understand! It's hilarious though! The only bad thing about eating over there is he feeds us so much picante and that stuff really destroys me! I've been sick for about 3 days straight because of that stuff! But oh well! It's better than the food at the apartment! Oh, by the way, my address here is 1311 Villa Way, APT A, Charlottesville, VA 22901, so yeah, you can send stuff here and tell people to write me! It's getting lonely without letters!!! No, it's seriously a BLAST here!!! We had to take the bus 2 days this week because we ran out of miles because our area is so big, so we just drive as much as our miles will allow. The bus is SO innefective though, it's terrible! But I got to see a lot of the city that way, so that was cool. On my first day here, Elder Gleave took me to go ''by the way'' which is where we pretty much loiter outside of a store and hand out passalong cards and contact people. The hispanos are so polite and nice and willing to listen always, and they always say yes to an appointment, but that is also kind of a bad thing because then when we show up, they just aren't there or tell us that something came up. So we end up wasting a lot of time doing that, but we have to. We're currently trying to get a branch set up so we don't have to go to church with the Gringos. They don't even talk to the spanish elders or the investigators (i know it would be difficult, but we could translate) and we have like, 3 spanish families. We dont' have many investigators that show up to church because unfortunately we are assigned to go to the chapel on the OTHER SIDE OF TOWN! so we can't get many rides for the hispanos. Luckily our ward mission leader is awesome! His name is Bro. Jones, but we call him elder jones. He served in Ecuador and told us that he asked his wife if they could only speak spanish with each other! When he served, they didn't have preach my gospel, but he bought a copy in spanish and reads it for fun! We asked him if he could come to a lesson with us this week and he pauses, looks at Elder Nelson, and says "I'd rather do some finding. How's 6-9 on wednesday night? Can we make this a weekly thing?" and elder nelson's freaking out now. I was laughing SO hard! Elder Nelson is gonna get worked! So we got to teach this guy at the jail yesterday. He's the son of a member who was taking the lessons before he went to jail, so we went and taught him a little bit. We also went finding in an apartment complex. We were getting all the yard workers. One of them is from Chiappas and he could tell I didn't speak much spanish so he started speaking to me in english but I just kept talking spanish to him! He was really nice though, we talked with him for probably 10 minutes. I do alright at talking to people; it's just when I have to make small talk with them, that's when it gets difficult. But I'm practicing and tryin my best! Oh man, what else is there? I think I just described my entire first week here to you! Crazy! I can't believe it's already been a week. The first few days I was having a really tough time staying awake, but it's a little better now. I just get a good workout in the morning and I'm alright. But it's definitely tough getting up at 6:30 every morning. It sucks that Elder Nelson sets his alarm for 6 am and then just keeps hitting snooze until 6:30. It's really annoying. I might have to have a talk with him about that. But we all get along really well and like each other. We joke with elder nelson that he's gonna get married within 6 months of getting home (he dies in ~13 months) and he freaks out cause he says he doesn't plan on getting married until he's 28! It's wacky. It's definitely weird being out in the real world though. It's especially tough being in a town with a huge college and tons of people (and by people I mean girls) living and walking around town. I had completely forgotten in the MTC that there ACTUALLY ARE people who don't follow church standards for dress and appearance! It was quite the shock when I drove around the first day! But I'm getting pretty good at avoiding worldly things! It is tough though, believe you me! I'm going to freak out when I get home and actually have to start HUGGING girls again! It's going to be really awkward! But luckily that's still 22 months away! So yeah, everything here is great. I'm in the apartment with another companionship, Elder Fraga from Sandy, UT and Elder Gomez from Hawaii. He eats every one else's food so we get mad at him. We make fun of Elder Gomez because he has a spanish name and is the only one in the apartment who doesn't speak spanish! (Elder Fraga's parents are from Argentina). We call the English elders here Crisis (but pronounced like in spanish "creasies") because they're always running around like they're in a crisis. There are only ~20 spanish elders in the entire mission!! it's crazy! Elder Washburn got put in Richmond with the ZL's Elder Morris and Beach. Elder Wheatley got put in Newport News/Virginia Beach with Elder Lusk. The zone for the spanish elders covers the entire mission, so it's kind of weird, the whole chain of command here. So I have yet to teach more than 1 principle out of a lesson because we have so few return appointments kept. I got to double team "endure to the end" with my dad on Monday when we taught Beni. Beni has been baptized for exactly 1 year and 3 days now, so we started teaching him about prepping to go to the temple. I know, that's a long time that we didn't teach him that, but he was gone for a long time, so we started now. Unfortunately his family isn't supportive of his membership, so he's having a hard time right now. He's so awesome. It's funny just how much I already prefer being around hispanos than I do around white people. We were walking through an apartment complex last night and this family of white people walked past and when I said Hi, they just glared at us and kept walking. We don't contact non-hispanos because there are so few spanish missionaries we just usually ignore them, but we still say hi. But whenever we say Hi to a spanish speaker, they're really friendly and polite and willing to chat with us. They're so awesome! Oh, dad would like this- On thursdays at 7 we teach an English class to about 4 or 5 people. The first night I actually brought my notebook so I could take notes too! haha I couldn't understand people at all, but I've gotten to the point that I can understand at least about 60% maybe of what people say, sometimes more depending on where they're from. Hondurians, Veracruzians, and the 2 Chileans I've run into here are the most difficult to understand. Unfortunately, almost everyone in Charlottesville is from Honduras or Veracruz! But it's good practice! I'm trying to speak as much spanish as possible, but it's tough when I'm completely surrounded by english so much of the day. But I bought a Spanish for dummies book so I can get super fluent super fast! haha . But seriously. I did buy it. So we've driven by the University of Virginia campus a few times. I got to see the rotunda which was cool. If you don't know, it was designed by Thomas Jefferson, but you probably all know that. Also we drove past the football stadium which was sweet, and depending on if there's a game that starts around 12ish, we might be able to go! How cool is that? I'd be so stoked, and elder Gleave is a football freak! So he's even more stoked than I am. We're also allowed to watch a few disney movies in spanish on our p-days because it helps us with the language, but we only can watch them at the chapel. And we only have 10 p-day miles a week and the chapel is about 12 miles away, so that's tough to swing. So yeah, that's pretty much everything I guess. There's actually a lot more, but I don't have much more time to tell you and I couldn't fit it all in on an email. So yeah, you've got my address so now you can write me! hooray! The MSF cards don't get us very far cause we have to buy a lot more food because we never get member dinners except from Manuel, so we usually end up eating out instead of wasting the miles to go back to the apartment. I know, we could take a sandwich and some other stuff, but we always forget. So I hope everything is going good back home. President Millburn is awesome. I didn't get to spend much time with him because we had SOOO many interviews to do last Wednesday, but he seems like a really cool guy. He's really down to earth and he's actually pretty funny. I won't get to see him that much, but that's ok. I should be in this area for a while. Elder Gleave has been here about 5 months. He has only 11 months to go. So yeah, I have a feeling I won't get moved around a whole bunch. Alright, well that's all I got for now I guess. I can't wait to hear from you and anyone else you can convince to write me! Les amo(dad can translate that one). Stay safe. Write me. Let me know how everyone's doing. Ok, love you all. Talk to you later.