Skyler Campbell's Missionary Blog

20 June 2011

2011-06-22T20:48:00.000-07:00

So this last week was rough, but really good. Juan, our awesome investigator, went to the DC temple on Saturday with our stake. He LOVED it. He thought that baptisms for the dead was the coolest thing ever. And he was bearing testimony on the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith. It was awesome. He says he's not ready to get baptized, because he doesn't know all the commandments, but he's progressing a TON! Yeah, it's really sad about our convert who just disappeared. The saddest part is that he kNOWS he's breaking the law of chastity, but he's just too caught up in it. Our other convert is slipping away also. He doesn't even get embarrassed when we catch him drinking anymore. It really makes me frustrated, because he KNOWS about his baptismal covenants.

Yeah, I'll try to stay awake. As Elder Tolstrupp so eloquently reminded me when a member asked how I feel and I replied "I'm tired." He said "You can sleep on the plane." It was hilarious. I'm definitely not ready to go home, but my body is just physically exhausted. I can barely stay awake through all 3 hours of church now, and I fall asleep in my prayers just about every night. It's hard.

In other news, I get to see Mormon Tabernacle Choir tonight. It's going to be awesome. And side note: Don't ever move to Colorado. It' been almost impossible for Elder Giesick to get his license. Colorado sucks. On Thursday/Friday, I got to go on an exchange to VA Beach with Elder Wiles, and we visited Fernando and Griszelda and also Teo and Mercedes. It was SO COOL! Teo and Mercedes are getting sealed on the 9th of July and they want me to be there! I don't know how much a plane ticket to and from DC would cost??? maybe? Fernando got the priesthood yesterday, and then I got to talk to Jaime Medina, my peruano. It was a really cool exchange.

As for raging waters.... I'm going to be a freshly released missionary, still awkward, with an extra 25ish pounds on me. I don't know if that's a great combo... And is no one else coming down with us?

Well, I don't really know what else to say. The going home jokes are getting more and more brutal as the days go on. My ward mission leader is making ribs for me on Thursday. We ate them with Elder Allen and they were SOOOO good. I just have to keep my head down 1 more week. I can do it.

See you next Tuesday :)

Elder Campbell

13 June 2011

2011-06-22T20:46:00.001-07:00

Well, that's sad to hear about uncle david. Kinda hard to believe actually. But, if C. Scott Grow's brother can come back after being excommunicated, it's possible for Uncle David as well.

Yes, Elder Giesick got the shoes and he's worn them a few times. I thought they were pretty cool. He wore them when we went to do service at the animal shelter. It was way fun! We only had to walk there, all of 4.4 miles, in 105 degree weather. Then walk back. But it was way fun. We actually rescued a kitten the other night and brought it to the animal shelter. She was absolutely adorable. We found her playing with the hair of this drunk guy who was passed out behind a 7-11, so I picked her up and then she wouldn't leave us alone. So we brought her in to the shelter and they let us name her. So we named her Lola. She was adorable, I have a picture of her. I'll show you when I get home.

As for my last monday, you can write me. My companion is going to be here to check his email, so I'll come and say what's up.

We did a lot of service last week, which was cool. We have mission conference this week, and afterwards, I'm going on an exchange in VA Beach with Elder Wiles. I'm going to go visit Teo and Mercedes and I'm SOOOO excited! We have district p-day today, we're making t-shirts adn playing basketball, so it should be way sweet. We're still seeing lots of opposition, especially with teh recent converts. One of them has completely disappeared off the map. Won't answer the phone and we don't know where he moved to. He just doesn't really want anything to do with the gospel. It's really sad. The other one at least came to church yesterday, so that was a big step. I made a deal with him that if he's at church every sunday until I leave, I'll buy him a carne asada on my last day. So, I have a question. More of 2 requests. On the way home from the airport, can we stop by In N Out? I assume I'm going to be hungry, and that would be AWESOME! Then, On Wednesday, the 29th, can we go to the temple? It's been FOREVER since I've gone and I REALLY REALLY want to go. Those are my requests.

It's going to be so weird being back in Galena Ward. I'm going to be a member of Galena ward in 3 weeks. THAT is weird! And yes, I mailed a package home. I sent it parcel post, so it could be there when I get there! haha It's got my camera and some other stuff in it, some notebooks and pictures I think. And my big winter jacket, which I DEFINITELY won't need here anymore. It's SO hot out here already. It's insane.

Well, I can't really think of much more, but I'll see you in 2 weeks anyway.

Love ya

Elder Campbell

6 June 2011

2011-06-22T20:43:00.001-07:00

haha, ok, if you really really want to send us some shoes, you can. My comp said a 12, because he has pairs of shoes ranging from 11 up to 13, so a 12 would be a safe bet. I think a 10 1/2 would probably be good. That's what all my other shoes are.

Yes, I got my trunky papers. I had to give my departing testimony at zone meeting on friday, and so I was already depressed because of that. And then we get home and I look in the mailbox, and there they are. I opened them up at the table, and I was going to read the letter out loud to Elder Giesick, but I got as far as "Dear Elder Cam" and then I started crying. It was horrible. Like, one of the most depressing days of my mission. talk about a double whammy!

So yeah, last week was better. I was able to sign up for 3 classes, because I don't know which ones I need apart from these 3, and I'm going to test straight out of the spanish. So we'll see how it goes. My first semester back might be a really weird schedule, but we'll see.

We're starting service at the Portsmouth Animal Shelter on Thursday. We're way excited. We get these sweet t-shirts. It's gonna be way fun. One of the options for service is "CAT TLC"- Cuddling with cats, playing with them, brushing them, etc. It should be sweet. We'll see about how much we do with dogs, because 60% of the dogs there are Pitbull/pit mixes. So....

Well, if I were to go to Europe, I would LOVE to go through Spain. That would be SWEET! But Italy would be legit also!

So Elder Giesick is having some acid reflux problems, so we had to go in today so he could do a berrium swallow and get x-rayed, and then on Wednesday he's going to get scoped through the mouth and scoped in the other place too. Kind of funny. We laugh about it alot. We got to do service for a family last night. As we were walking out the door, the wife says "Hey, we have something for you to do. WE need you to pull a branch down." There was a MASSIVE branch from one of their trees that was caught in the other branches due to the storm, so we lassoed it with an extension cable and took it down. Tonight we're going over to chop it up for them.

Apparently I've been hearing about all these weather phenomenon lately. Like, what's going on? I hear about everything so late because hispanics don't listen to the news. I didn't even hear about the Rapture prediction until the night it was supposed to happen. It's crazy. I'm SOOOO out of the loop.

I started making smoothies last week for breakfast and it is delicious! Best idea ever! I can make a better smoothie than Jamba Juice! It's great! you should try it for sure!

Well, I think that's all I got. Take care and I'll see you soon! Loves

Elder Campbell

31 May 2011

2011-06-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

So those little orange things are called chicharron(there are like, 8 different things called chicharron), it's pretty much just a fried wheat pasta kind of and they pour hot sauce on it and eat it. They're alright, I definitely don't ever have cravings for them though.

So the correlation for those verses. So, when we fall into sin and iniquity, we get to the point where the spirit ceases to strive with us(or abandons us). Christ never had the spirit abandon him in his entire life, until he was atoning for our sins. In those moments, he had to feel what it was like to be completely alone, have the presence of his Father withdraw from him, and know how we felt when we mess up and are alone. And he even asked "Why hast thou forsaken me?" Just kind of cool to think about, helped me understand the atonement a little more and appreciate it.

This last week was horrible. Probably the worst week of my mission! Due to my companion going to richmond, I was in Suffolk adn we had to go between Suffolk and Chesapeake all week, adn I got sick and had to stay home one day, and it was just ridiculous. I'll tell you more about it when I get home.

Yeah, I'm signing up for classes today. I've had quite the time getting ahold of the info I need to be able to do it. Lots of "We can't give that info out over the phone" and "You need to call this place to get that." Frustrating, but I've finally got everything. So I'll be doing that today. I hope it was a good letter from President. I can't believe that tomorrow is June. I should be getting my trunky papers thursday. That will be a sad day. But good news! On the 20th, we're all going to see Mo Tab at the scope arena in Norfolk. That should be fun!

Umm, last tuesday was the worst storm I've ever seen in my life! And we were in the middle of it! The tree outside of our apartment got split in half. It was crazy! A tornado actually touched down about 5 miles away from our apartment! It was nuts. But we survived, so it's alright.

Anywho, love you all, I'm going to go sign up for classes. Take care!

Elder Campbell

23 May 2011

2011-06-06T09:10:00.000-07:00

3 Weeks 1 day and 14 hrs and my sweet sunshine will be home!!!
Hi all-
So yeah. If you could check that (UNR sign up info) as soon as possible and call me or text me, I would appreciate it. I also have permission to go online to sign up for classes, so the sooner I get that started, the better.
This week has been pretty cool. I got to sit in on one of our recent convert's patriarchal blessings yesterday. That was really cool because he's somebody that I found down here while I was in VA Beach, and then to come back and he's a member and getting his blessing, it was really cool. He's doing really well right now. In other news, the other RC here just had some girl move in with him. He met her last week and they're already shacked up. It's really sad and he's really falling away right now. We've got an investigator pool now, so that's nice. Finding has been hard, but we're trying new ways and trying to not get discouraged.

I had a SUPER SWEET study today! I was reading in Mosiah Chap 1 and in verse 5 it talks about how the brass plates were what saved Lehi's family from dwindling in unbelief. It says how those that didn't read the scriptures didn't have that faith and ended up being the lamanites. So I started thinking about all thepeople we meet everyday who say "Yeah, you need to read the bible." yet they don't do it at all. And look at the quality of their life? Look at how they spend their time? They're just like lamanites. I don't want that to sound judgemental or racist or anything, but it's true. Reading the scriptures gives you a purpose in life adn helps you know where you're going, and gives you the faith to get there. It was pretty cool. Then I read Mosiah 1:13, and cross referenced it with 2 Nephi 26:11 and Matthew 27:47. read those and see what they have in common. It's way cool. Complete testimony builder of the atonement.

Yeah, I had heard that Kurt moved to Boston. Don't know how long ago.

Well, I don't really know what else to tell you. Think that's all I got. I'm sure I'll think of something else once I get off, but oh well.

Love you all. Take care

Elder Campbell

16 May 2011

2011-05-17T09:55:00.001-07:00

Well hello. So this week has been insane. Yesterday in particular. So Erenia, the awesome lady who was supposed to get baptized. Well, she's avoiding us. Way sad. But we found this guy Jose Luis Torres last saturday. We talked to him and invited him to church and he was like "Yeah! I'll be there!" well, he ended up getting called into work, so he couldn't come. So we taught him 2 times this week and he really enjoyed it. The church that he was going to in Mexico also believes in a restauration, that God and Christ appeared to this guy, and that they restored the church through him. Way weird, right? But he has seen a lot of things that aren't right with that church. So yesterday, he shows up 10 minutes early for church. He's sitting there enjoying the prelude music. Then in Gospel Principles, we teach priesthood organization and we did a demonstration with car keys representing priesthood keys. He understood it really well! He loved it! So then in 3rd hour, we just did a question and answer session and he goes "So how are your baptisms here?" Luckily, we have a returned missionary in class who just got home 2 weeks ago, and he was in the pilot mission that did Church tours in spanish. So he takes them to the baptismal font and starts explaining about baptism and afterwards, Jose Luis goes "Ok, well I ask because I want to get baptized." It was super legit! Then he asked about marriage and we explained temple marriage, and then he asked about if the church was all over the world. It was awesome.

So then, we're teaching these 2 guys that live with a member, and neither one of them knows how to read. We had no idea what to teach them, because everything we did, they didn't care about. So we asked them if they wanted to learn how to read, and the one shoots up in his chair and says "I DO!!!!!!!!!!" So we promised him that if he read the book of Mormon 10-15 minutes every day, he'd learn to read by the end of it. it was way cool. Then we almost got in a bash with a 10 year old (I'll have to tell you about that one later!) Then we had a former investigator who was going to get baptized find us and tell us that she wants to start taking the lessons again and that she was testifying to her downstairs friend about us and so now her friend wants to learn also! It was so cool! And all of this happened yesterday! It was crazy!

So yeah, things are going well. Didn't get a transfer call last night, so Elder Giesick and I are staying the same. I'm glad, I think we weork well together. We've been trying to find new ways to find, and we're going to set up an horchata stand outside some hispanic apartments :) haha We also are thinking about going to laundromats on saturdays because that's when all the hispanics do their laundry.

So that's about it this week. Oh, I also bought a new razor. Mine had the same head and blades for like, 4 years now, and it was just hacking my face up. So when I got to wal-mart, a nicer cordles razor was like, 8 bucks more than replacement heads, so I went for it. But now I look more nicer as a representative of the Lord! haha

i've had some SUPER COOL studies lately. My studies were just kind of dying out lately, but over the past 3 or 4 days, I've had some of the best studies of my life. I'm way excited.

So any news about UNR? Have they been able to get my password or anything? President Perry said I could go online and do my class sign up if I need, I'd just need to know what website to go onto. I think I could probably figure out my password I imagine, but I don't even know what to do to sign up for classes. If somebody (like you :) could find out WHAT classes are needed (like, what general classes there are that I need to take and what website to go to) I could prob ably remember or figure out how to do it. So. That would be awesome.

Love you all. Take care and have a great week.

Elder campbell

9 May 2011

2011-05-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

This was the day after our mothers day phone call, so there wasn't much to say.

Yeah, I don't really know what else to say. Haha Hope you have a great week and take care :)

Elder Campbell

2 May 2011

2011-05-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

Holy cow, she is super hairy. That's cool! Congratulations Mal! She is a little fatty. Looks kind of like a miniaturized version of me :) hahaha dang hispanic food.

I think I'm going to take a semester off and work when I get home, figure out what I'm doing. I feel like there's some big changes in my life plan coming up when I get home, so we'll see... haha

So tonight we're driving down to Elizabeth City, North Carolina to look for hispanics down there and see if maybe we can't get that place opened to spanish missionaries.
We should be having a baptism next week at 7 oclock, so I don't know what time you all get out of church. Hopefully it doesn't interfere with calls, but if it does, I just want you to know, I'd choose the baptism. No offense. It doesn't mean I don't love you. It just means taht I'll see you in 8 weeks! hahahah Erenia, from Nicaragua, she's getting baptized next week. Her boyfriend is moving out of the house, so she'll be obeying the law of chastity. It was sweet how it all worked out.

We're still struggling to find solid investigators, but I think I'm finally figuring out what PMG is talking about in finding. We've been working on just going straight into our message on door steps and teaching people by bearing testimony and it's working out pretty well. We had some guy that was not interested on his door step, and I just go "we share the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, that was restored through a prophet in these last days. The evidence of that is found here in the Book of Mormon, and you can know about it." And he just looked at us and then started talking about his beliefs and doubts and things. It was way solid. So Preach My Gospel really is inspired. Who knew?

My comp is doing good, his spanish is sloooooooooooowly improving :) haha He had a really rough weekend. His parents sent him a big envelope with all the letters and pictures that he had sent them throughout his entire mission, and they wrote a letter that said "Don't call on Mother's Day or Christmas. We don't want to hear anything about you." And that was it. It was real rough. Even worse was that it was on his birthday, so I'm taking him out to lunch today to celebrate. Hope you don't mind.

So elder beckman. Let's just say that for awhile, he was one of the most disobedient missionaries I had ever heard of. He's really shaped up these last 2 transfers though. It was incredible to see.

Umm, otehr than that, I don't really know what to say. It's been a good week. Pretty tough, but that's how it's supposed to be.

hope you're all feeling better and that you're sharing the gospel

Elder Campbell

25 April 2011

2011-05-17T09:48:00.001-07:00

Wow, so what happened to the house? I was looking at those pictures, and I thought "Who's house are they in?" That's weird. Haha

As for the easter box, they actually arrived in good condition. The robin's eggs and reeses eggs were a little spread out in the box, but they all end up in the same place right? haha I let my comp open the box, figured he'd enjoy it, and he sees the basket full of snickers and looks at me and goes "I love your family!!!". He was way excited. So thank you all very much for that, I think it really helped him. He really enjoyed the card as well.

As for bodily injuries, I'm pretty sure I permanently jacked up my right thumb, and I might have damaged my right ankle, not to mention my shin splints that never seem to go away. My thumb and ankle both got jacked up in Charlottesville, I can't bend my thumb all the way, but it still works, so no complaints here. My ankle seems to get better, but it doesn't stretch right in the morning when I wake up, but once again, it still works. Shin splints seem to be going away. I've been wrapping with an ace bandage and then I bought two calf support wraps, which seem to help a lot. We'll see today, we're playing ultimate frisbee for District P-Day. We're also going crabbing in the chesapeake bay. I'll take some pictures :)

So in our ward yesterday, they did an easter "cantata" which I had never heard of before, but it was WAY good. This one member, brother Owen, did a solo, and MAN that guy can sing! It was incredible. He sounds like an opera singer with this great baritone voice! Way powerful.

So yeah, this last week was pretty good. We've found 9 new investigators in the past 2 weeks, not all of them have been very solid though. But we've also gotten 6 referrals in the past 2 weeks, so that's nice. Things are looking up, but its wayyyyy hard to teach a lesson almost completely by yourself. My companion tries real hard, but he still can't help out a ton due to his spanish, but he's improving a lot. Yesterday in PEC, our bishop did something a little out of the norm. He usually tears the missionaries apart for any little thing he can, but yesterday he says "Elders, we're thankful for all that you do. I want to apologize for the lack of effort from this ward though. We're really not doing much to help you find new investigators, which is our job as members. We're going to change that." It was pretty cool. As for the set a date program, there's something that I've noticed with members. A lot of times, we think "which of my friends could I invite?" and then we can't think of anybody, so we assume it has to be somebody new. But here's a trick- pull out your phone and open your contacts. Scroll through them and look for someone that you WANT to share the gospel with. That's who the Lord will help you with. Do the sisters teach you HOW to find people? Or are they just asking you to DO it? Maybe you could suggest to them that they teach you HOW to invite people and maybe even do some roleplays for a family home evening or something? I don't know, just a thought.

Well, things are good here. I can't believe I hit 22 months yesterday. My companion said yesterday "Elder, you've only got your MTC time left! 9 weeks!" hit me like a ton of bricks.

Well, I love you all, will keep you in my prayers. Take care and find people to teach!

Elder Campbell

17 Apr 2011

2011-04-19T18:56:00.000-07:00

So no, I don't think any of my friends know when I'm gettting home. I doubt it at least.

This week has been really good. We found 5 new investigators and we've been working our tails off. like, we're going towards an appointment and we've got 5 minutes til it starts so we're like "We can go make 2 contacts in those 5 minutes." My companion is doing good. he's a little strange, so I'm having kind of a hard time relating to him, so it makes some of the conversations awkward, but he's a great guy. I was amazed at his spanish when he got out of the MTC. I thought it would have been a lot better for having spent 9 weeks in there, but he's improving really fast. He's not a visual learner, he's more of a verbal I guess, so I have a hard time teaching him spanish because for me, making verb charts over and over and over was what worked for me. So I don't know, I try to help him but it's really tough.

We had some heavy rain, but not flooding type. Lots of lightning, but nothing scarier than in Reno. The tornadoes were in NC and about 40 miles west of us, but they still had tornado alert going for us. It was kind of stupid. And I think the kid at the computer next to me is Bow Wow, formerly known as Lil Bow Wow. It's amazing.

So my comp is a huge fan of snickers. He loves em. He really will eat anything. Like, ANYTHING. It's quite incredible. There's not really a ton new to report on. THings are going good. The 15 lbs wights are awesome. I use them every morning and love them. They help out a ton. You can get very creative with free weights! I spent the night with Elder Beckman the other night. Him and his companion came up from Elizabeth City for the night for zone meeting, so that was interesting. I see this one librarian here every week and she is always wearing this black wind breaker and she has this giant lump that covers the entire lower half of her back. I'm trying to figure out what it could be. Any ideas?

So you should tell the sisters in Galena Ward to take a hike. That's Elder's territory :) just kidding. SIsters are pretty cool usually. But over here, they're sharks. They'll do anything for a baptism. I've known countless elders who had an investigator stolen by sisters who then went on to baptize them. Sharks I tell you.

I think i'm good on everything over here. I might have lost my quad and english PMG. Not sure on that one. But tha'ts ok, I speak spanish luckily :) haha

So when I was here before, we went over to visit this family Ruiz, my first baptism. And the kid was reading the book Corduroy. I was like "Oh, my parents used to always read that book to me! I love it!" so then last week we went over, and the kid comes running down the stairs and goes, "Elder, do you remember that book your parents always used to read you?" I said yeah and he pulls this mini corduroy bear out from behind his back and goes "I want you to have this." It was so legit! Not sure if I told you that already or not. But yeah

Well, I love you.

Hope you're doing well

Take care

Give out pass along cards

Elder Campbell

I'm one excited mom!

2011-04-19T18:54:00.000-07:00

So, I know it's late, but anyone who wants to go to the airport and be there to see Skyler that night, Come on down!!If there are any changes, I'll post them here too! 

***TENTATIVE***

CHURCH TRAVEL CWT                          DATE 19APRIL11

50 EAST NORTH TEMPLE ST                    AGENT VH/NO BOOKING REF 48CPFB

SALT LAKE CITY UT 84150

TELEPHONE: 801 240-5111                    CAMPBELL/SKYLER JAM 165120-R

FAX      : 801-240-5115

  MISSIONARY TRAVEL

  VIRGINIA RICHMOND MISSION

SERVICE               DATE  FROM           TO             DEPART  ARRIVE

_____________________ _____ ______________ ______________ _______ ______

DELTA AIR LINES       28JUN RICHMOND VA    ATLANTA GA     420P    605P

DL 1178             TUESDAY RICHMOND       ATLANTA ATL

T ECONOMY                                  TERMINAL S

           NON SMOKING                                    NON STOP

                            RESERVATION CONFIRMED         1:45 DURATION

                  AIRCRAFT: BOEING (DOUGLAS) MD-88

                            SEAT 34D NO SMOKING CONFIRMED

DELTA AIR LINES       28JUN ATLANTA GA     DENVER CO      715P    833P

DL 1539             TUESDAY ATLANTA ATL    DENVER    

U ECONOMY                   TERMINAL S

           NON SMOKING                                    NON STOP

                            RESERVATION CONFIRMED         3:18 DURATION

                  AIRCRAFT: BOEING 757

                            SEAT 31C NO SMOKING CONFIRMED

US AIRWAYS            28JUN DENVER CO      RENO NV        945P    1100P

US 6113             TUESDAY DENVER         RENO

M ECONOMY

                            FOOD AND BEVERAGES FOR PURCHA NON STOP

                            RESERVATION CONFIRMED         2:15 DURATION

UA 0961                    FLIGHT OPERATED BY UA UNITED AIRLINES

                  AIRCRAFT: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE A319

                            SEAT 22A NO SMOKING CONFIRMED

RESERVATION NUMBER(S)  DL/GI5HNU  US/EC3JS2

---------------------------------------------    

NORMA O - EXT 25152

.

(NO)MISSION PRESIDENT JAMES C PERRY

PH 804/ 330 9620 OFFICE 276-8766 HOME

..

11 April 2011

2011-04-17T18:31:00.000-07:00

Sooo. Yeah, my comp is awesome. His name is Elder Giesick. From Greeley, Colorado. He's friends with the missionary who's companion got shot in this area. Weird coincidence. He's a convert of 19 months and his story is incredible. He's really a trooper. His family wasn't supportive of him joining the church in the first place, but they kind of got over it, but then when he decided to go on a mission, they completely disowned him. In the MTC they sent him 1 email the entire time and it was just telling him how disappointed they are in him and how they don't want to hear anything from him while he's here. But he's a champ and knows why he's here and that it's where the lord needs him.

This week has been pretty rough. NOt a ton of success seen this week, but we're laying the foundation for a great work. We had a really cool contact with these two guys yesterday. They called because they want to come to english class but didn't know how to get there, so we took a map over to their apartment to show them adn we started talking about the church and it turns out they're from Idaho Falls(well, not originally) and they always saw the Idaho Falls temple. Also, turns out their bosses are LDS. So we're talking and they tell us how they're super bored waiting here for the rest of the crew to show up and how they don't have a TV, so we gave them both Books of Mormon and they were like "We'll totally read these and let you know how it goes when we come to english class." Pretty cool.

So on Saturday we showed up at one of our RC's house here and he was acting kind of weird and I got the feeling he was a little tipsy, but he wasn't showing any real signs of being drunk, so we go inside and he sits us down and just starts going off about how he's never really been able to overcome his drinking problem and he feels horrible for it. He starts crying because he doesn't have any family here and no one to support him and it was just super sad, and he tells us "I need my patriarchal blessing. That's what is going to tell me what I need to do. I feel like I'm slipping and I don't know what to grab onto!" So we helped him out and we go home and then on Sunday he doesn't go to church. So we go over last night and we see him and he's surrounded by a bunch of people adn so we walk over and he's got blood all over his pants and a bandana tied around his arm and he comes stumbling over and goes "Hermanos, I'm not doing so hot tonight..." Turns out he got drunk and elbowed a window and a shard of glass stuck in his tricep past the muscle and left about an inch long slice in his arm, and his friends (all drunk) are trying to tell me that it wasn't them, but that he did it to himself. So we call his home teacher to get him a ride to the hospital. So while we're waiting, everyone except one guy leaves. And I want you to think about Korihor in the book of mormon. Remember how he was super smooth with his words and whatnot? Yeah, this dude starts talking to Marco and he's like "Listen to me. I'm the truth. What did you believe in when you came up here? When you came up here from mexico, Who were you? And what did you believe in?" and he starts sayin some stuff and the spirit just DISAPPEARED. It was scary. Like, this guy was working some really bad stuff, and me and my comp just got this horrible, sick feeling. So I look at Marco and was like "Hey, come to the car with us." and his buddy goes "What, am I offending you? Is there something you dont' like?" and he's tryin to pick a fight with me, so I just grabbed Marco and get him to our car and his home teacher pulled up and took him to the hospital, he had to get like, 6 stitches or something. Kind of messed up. So he's kind of been a mess these last few days, it's been kind of rough.

But other than that, things are going good. I'm not rollin in a new car yet, but they said the mission is getting its next set of new cars in April(this month), so I should have one by next month :) hahaha

But yeah, that is the big news from here in Chesapeake. One of the English elders got ET'd (emergency transferred) on Saturday, but we dont' know why. He didn't do anything bad, I think it was because he has a really bad stuttering problem that he had gotten over in his last area, but here it just came back with a vengeance, so he said he needed to get out. I miss him though. He was sweet. he's a 6' 8" red head. funny guy. Elder Beus.

I'm sleeping surprisingly well. I hit the pillow and I'm out within about 5-10 minutes and I sleep straight through the night. I'm almost sleeping through the alarm too! haha never thought that would happen. My last few companions have complained because I'm sleeping so well that I'm snoring REALLY loud and it wakes them up sometimes. I think it's pretty funny.

Well, I love you all, hope you're doing well and you keep trusting in the Lord.

Alyea informed me that I have 79 days left. Will someone beat her for me? haha

Elder Campbell

4 April 2011

2011-04-17T18:29:00.001-07:00

Sooooo. Transfer calls last night. I was freaking out, because Elder Allen and I wrote down all the possibilities, kind of like an NCAA bracket, and it wasn't looking too good for me. Only ones that we figured were really up for transfer were ones that I don't really get along with. So we're sitting on the couch freaking out(me at least, because he's going home), and the phone rings, and it says "Mission office". SO I'm thinking, "ok, the AP's are calling from the office. That's cool." Well Elder Allen picks up the phone and Pres. Perry says "Elder Allen. I assume you heard the prophets advice today in conference. Get married. That was a recurring theme in conference. Everyone was talking about it. Be creative. Be loving and get married. That's pretty much the pre-game show for Tuesday. I guess you know I want to talk to your companion." So he passes me the phone and Pres. goes "Elder Campbell, you know the drill. The Lord wants you to train again. So I need you in richmond Thursday at 8:50. Wish I had more time to talk to you, but I've got to make a lot more calls. See you thursday." Hahahahahaha I was like "NOOOO WAYYYYYYY!" Elder Allen goes "man, I'm super jealous. I wanted to train again. I want to stay one more transfer adn train him with you!" It's funny how much LESS I was freaking out this time. It's just like "Ok, lets do it all over again. hahah" so yeah, that's the big news for this week.

I thought conference was great. I was really surprised at a lot of the talks. I thought there would be a lot more repentance, but I guess it makes more sense that if families are under attack, we need to learn the doctrine of the family. It was interesting to see how many talked about getting married. Poor Elder Allen, as if people weren't already making jokes about him going home, he's just been getting railed on by people "Oh, you heard the prophet. Your next mission is to get married. Getting transferred to Utah." He's super checked out though. THis whole weekend he's just been like dead weight. I don't blame him though. I probably will be too :) haha

So we've started looking through the phone book lately to find hispanics, and we found this name real close to our apartment and we go to knock on the door and this hispanic looking guy opens, like, looks straight up mexican. Elder Allen starts talking to him in spanish and the guy just gives us this stupid look and elder allen goes "I'm sorry. I thought you spoke spanish." and the guy jsut makes this angry face and slams the door. It was wayyyy funny.

Other funny story. So we've been going to the laundromat every monday since we got here. On saturday, I'm talking with Hna. Vazquez on the phone and I just for some reason decided to look outside and the door to this little shed that's attached to our apartment is open. So I decided to look inside, and we found we have a washer and dryer. I was like "Hna. Vazquez, do we share a washer and dryer with our neighbors?" (because she lived in the apartment before) and she just starts laughing and I'm freaking out going "We have a washer adn dryer now!" it was great. Reminded me of that episode of king of the hill where they go to Japan and spend the whole week in the welcome room of their super nice hotel room. I felt like an idiot.

So I bought 2 15 lbs. weights today. I'm way stoked. Hopefully my new companion will want to run with me in the morning to the church. It's like, 1.2 miles roundtrip to the church and back, so I'm hoping to start doing that 2 or 3x a week. Elder Allen doesn't handle mornings well. He sleeps straight through the alarm adn I have to pretty much body slam him to wake him up, so going outside to workout isn't really an option, even though by the time he comes downstairs, I'm usually asleep on the floor. So we'll see how it all goes.

So how do you enjoy the new car? And what did you do with the element? I'm gonna miss that car. We should be getting a new car real soon. We're at 50688 miles or something and the church replaces them at 50000, so we're a bit over. But I guess there's like, 2 other areas who need new cars soon, so I might be rolling around in a fly new car for the last month of my mission, we'll see :) haha

Erenia is doing alright. Haven't seen her lately because of her crazy work schedule. She had to go to the hospital yesterday because of her blood pressure(she's got diabetes and a slew of other health problems) so she couldn't come to conference. But she's definitely going to get baptized. She should be moving out in teh next few weeks, so as soon as that happens, she can get baptized :) Prayers!!!!!

Well, apart from that, I think that's all the exciting news to tell you about. Glad you liked the pictures. It took me about 2 hours to go through and caption all of them. But it'll help in the future. I've been failing on my journal lately, so I'm hoping my companion is a journal writer so I can get re-motivated to to it.

Well, I love you all, hope you have a great week.

Elder Campbell

28 Mar 2011

2011-03-28T16:59:00.001-07:00

So this last week has been kind of rough. We had a couple drop us (alma and alberto). He got baptized into a pentacostal church while the sisters were teaching them, and when we talked to them last week, we asked what they thought about getting baptized on the 2nd and she says "My husband, no. Me, I don't know. I doubt it. Why do you want us to get married before we get baptized? It doesn't say that in the new testament. It just says repent and be baptized. Alberto asked the pastor at the pentacostal church if us not being married was a problem, and he said no." Then 3 days later they dropped us. They didn't understand what fornication was I guess. It's way sad to see that 'fornicating' has become part of the main stream culture. People say "Oh, i'm moving in with this person." When they should really be saying "We're going to fornicate." It's ridiculous. But it's not like the Lord didn't tell us that this was going to happen in the last days :( Our investigator pool is really shallow (like, 3 people), but we've started working with the RC's here a lot, teaching them how to do missionary work. They're awesome guys and we're definitely going to be seeing miracles with them.

So on Saturday, we went to another baptism in VA Beach(2nd saturday in a row), and it's cool because with both of these baptisms, 2 of my converts were involved. The first one was a 17 year old girl named Ana Vilcherres from Peru. She was found by my convert Jaime. Then on saturday, I got to see Teo baptize his nephew David. It was way cool to see that. I've gotten to see a few of the fruits of my efforts already. It's a great feeling. But finding people has been really tough lately because the sisters here before us did a ton of knocking all the time, so this place has been sufficiently knocked, and I'm just exhausted/tired/fed up with knocking, because it just isn't effective. I heard about this study that the church did that found that the people who get baptized and stay active the longest are those who have a professional career. It also found that they are never found knocking. Why? Because they are at work during the day. They can only be found with member referrals. Now, I know, not a ton of hispanics have professional careers, but the same logic still applies. The hardest thing now is that our nights are full from 5-9 usually, but it's all that time before 5 that we have to fill up with something effective, and it's DANG HARD! haha Any ideas? What would you do to find hispanics during the day? We sometimes stand outside the hispanic stores and talk to people as they come out, but we can only do that for so long. What are some other ideas you could think of? We're doing english classes and playing soccer afterwards, so we'll see how that turns out. I just don't really know what else we could do. So that's where the members are coming in. I hope you can now see the importance of members in missionary work. If we want the church to GROW and for members to be "hot members" and not "luke warm", the missionaries need your help. So talk to your co-workers. Make new friends. Don't worry if you get rejected. Pres. Perry was teaching us how we will be blessed more for following a spiritual prompting but screwing it up than for not following it at all and missing an opportunity.

Anywho. I'm fitting more into my pants lately. Which is sweet :) about time! hahaha I'm trying to eat in as much as I can, but Elder Allen LOVES to eat out. He's going home in 8 days, so my next companion better buy a lunch box as well. Now we just need a weight set and we'll be alright! hhahaha working out in the apartment at 6:30 in the morning is the worst thing ever! It sucks! it's too cold outside to go run, but we don't have any workout equipment inside. Lets just say that couches are very very tempting in the morning. Having a gym would be a huge blessing!

So have you heard that VCU is going to the final 4? Crazy right!? I heard BYU got hosed in their last game. Everyone just bodied up on Ferdette and just shut him down. Our ward mission leaders wife is all too eager to talk about the tournament with us :) haha I won't complain.

We went to a fireside last night in VA Beach, a missionary fire side. The whole thing was based around Jesus Christ and testimonies of him, but it kind of turned into the Hna. Vazquez farewell show. She had a bunch of people from Chesapeake and Henrico come to it and she shared her testimony. It was good, but I think it kind of lost the focus of Jesus Christ.

BTW- I got bit by some bug on my forehead, and I have this lump the size of a quarter on there. It sucks. Everyone stares at me. I thought it was a gnarley zit at first, so I tried popping it and it just started bleeding. Now it lookes even gnarlier. Someone told me to take some benadryl. Hope that works.

Well, I think that's about all I got. If I think about anything else I missed, you probably wont hear about it. And yes, I'm SUPER STOKED for general conference. I can't believe it's been 6 months already. I'm freaking out. These 6 weeks have been the fastest of my mission. LIke, once you hit the year mark, it just starts hitting mach speed and there's nothing you can do to slow it down :(

Love you all, take care, do missionary work, find people to baptize

Elder Campbell

is it really only a month and a half til I talk to you again? Crazy

21 Mar 2011

2011-03-24T19:53:00.000-07:00

So I guess this week I'll just do a big update for everyone. The coolest news is that on Friday night, Elder Wheatley and Elder Andrade-Estrada(my son) came down from Richmond and stayed the night with us so that my son could baptize some 17 year old girl in the beach on Saturday. They inform me that Maria(the lady that I found in Richmond) was getting baptized on Sunday, and she wanted me to confirm her. So I was like, "Oh man, we're supposed to have a baptism on sunday!" I was freaking out! So it turns out that Erenia didn't get baptized on Sunday, but that's ok. On Saturday, I'm making all these calls to get a ride up to richmond so that I can confirm Maria, and everyone is just like "uhhh, I don't know...." In their defense, it's like a 2 hour drive up there.So as a last resort, I call Sergio, a recent convert, and ask him for a ride. He goes "Thats an answer to my prayers. My company called me yesterday and wants me to work on Sunday, but I don't want to work on Sunday and I didn't want to come up with an excuse and lie. But now I don't have to." So right after church we 3 pile into his red convertible mustang and we took off. In Newport News we decided to put the top down, so we cruised up to Richmond with the wind blowing through our hair :) it was sick! haha

So we get there and all these members are like "Woah, you're back?" It was fun. But then we pulled Maria out of Relief Society a few minutes early for her to change, and when she walked out and saw me, she almost passed out from surprise! She was like "oh my gosh, you didn't tell me that he was coming!!!!" she started crying and it was way sweet. Her adorable daughters were there too and they were soooooo cute. So she gets all changed into white and we're taking pictures and she looks at me and goes "I'm so nervous!" I was like "Don't be, Elder Andrade-Estrada is really good at baptizing." She smiles and goes "I'm not worried about that. The dress is see through!" It was way funny. Well the baptism went well and then I confirmed her and it was AWESOME! Confirming people is the coolest thing ever I think. I'm also way stoked because she's the very first person I've found on my mission that got baptized. POR FIN!

In other news, Erenia, our awesome sister with a baptismal date, her truck got stolen last night. She's talking with her friend on wednesday about their relationship because she REALLY REALLY wants to get baptized. So we're seeing a ton of opposition with her. It's about time. Everything was going super smoothly with her, I was wondering/worrying about when the opposition would start.

The time is just flying by here in Deep Creek. With Elder ALlen going home, it seems like it's flying even faster. We've been talking alot and reflecting on our missions and it's interesting to see. It's funny to see how much we've changed since we came out. Especially me and Elder Wheatley. Having him here on Friday was like we were back in the MTC. At the baptism on Saturday, about 5 minutes before it started, the VA Beach Elders say "Hey, the three of you are giving a message in the interlude." We were like "Thanks for the heads up!" So we just walk up there without any idea about what to do, and we just went for it, and the spirit was just super strong and it worked out great. We get done and a few people say "Wow, you were all super unified and it sounded great!" it was sweet. It's just so awesome how much the spirit can work through you when you've been out for a while. Like, it's just normal. I think a lot of times as missionaries we take that for granted, just how much the Spirit really works through us. It's incredible, but after so long, it just kind of feels normal. That's one of the things I think I'm going to miss the most after my mission, so I'm going to live it up while I can!

It's hard being here in Deep Creek, because the hispanics are concentrated in like, 3 areas, and so those three areas have been knocked again and again and again. So we're going to start looking through the phone book and stalking that way. Should be pretty fun. Had some success with it in Charlottesville. Any other ideas on what we could do to find hispanics?

I also got chewed out by a lady in North Carolina. We were calling all over trying to see where would be the easiest to get a marriage license for illegals (I didn't tell her it was for illegals), and this lady in North Carolina lit me up after she asked me some retarded questions. SHe asked me where I was and I was like "Portsmouth" and she goes in this nasty voice "Then WHY don't you just get it in Portsmouth?" I was pissed. Sometimes I just wish I could light people up too. One of the benefits of not being a missionary :) haha

So congrats on the new car. I tell the story sometimes about how Grandpa Campbell messed me up in my perception of how you get a new car. I remember when he had just bought the Crown Vic, and he got a flat, so he just took it to the dealer and got a new car. So for a long time, that's what I thought you do. I just figured that when you get a flat tire, you got a new car. I should be getting a new car down here in Deep Creek soon. The church rotates them out every 50000, and our is at 50168 or something. So maybe before I go home, if I'm still here in Chesapeake, I'll be rolling around in a brand new car :) That would be cool. So hows the traverse? I saw one the other day, and they look like a giant jelly bean on wheels. I don't know what Chevy has been thinking lately. I think their cars are kind of ugly. The new Lexus Hybrid is SWEET though! Seen a few of those rolling around here. But the most popular car with the population here (70% blacks) is the Chrysler 300 or the Dodge Charger.

We're going to play ball today on a college-ish size court. Should be way sweet. I'll hopefully be sending you some pictures of the baptism today(Marias). It was sweet. Wish you could have been there. I also got to see Teo and Mercedes on Saturday. They're prepping to go to the temple :)))))))))))))))))) HOW SWEET IS THAT!!!!! I love them so much! They're awesome!

Well, think thats it for the week. Take care.

Hand out pass along cards to hispanics

Elder Campbell

14 Mar 2011

2011-03-15T21:18:00.001-07:00

So. What a week. They're just FLYING by. I can't believe I've been here almost 3 weeks already. It's insane. But, we had an AWESOME church yesterday. So we had a lesson with 2 of our investigators on Saturday night, Alma and Alberto. We committed them to church. He had to work, but she said yes. Then like, 1 hour later, we get a call from her and she says "I can't go to church tomorrow. I'm going to be too busy." I was super fed up at that point. Maybe it was my pride combined with the fact that the day hadn't gone well at all, but I just sat there for a few seconds and then started asking her "Do you think that God wants you to come to church tomorrow? Do you want to feel the same peace and tranquility that you do when we're over?" and I kind of guilt tripped her, but she said "ok, I'll be there." And she showed up! And we had Erenia there and then 3 less actives! and our 3 regulars! It was the most hispanics we've ever had at our ward! And the coolest part? Jay E. Jensen spoke. Don't know why. He just decided about 3 weeks ago that he was going to come speak at our ward. And it was sick. He didn't really share one cohesive message, he just talked. But it was great!

We're scrambling to get Erenia baptized this saturday. She wants to get baptized so bad, so we're trying to teach her everything before saturday, but it's really hard when she's working 15 hour days 6 days a week :( but she's a trooper. We've had to start teaching her over the phone on her lunch breaks. I taught her about Joseph Smith and the first vision today. It was way tough. But we have faith that it's going to work.

So my pants are finally back from missionary mall. Not sure if I told you. My blue suit pants ripped in the crotch back in december. So I've been down to just one suit since then. I don't know how, but I lost my other pair of blue suit pants back in december of 09. So I don't know how I'm managing.

We've been getting fed dinner about 3 times a week here, the members are awesome. My goal is to not eat out for the rest of the month. I have an excuse for the chili's bills :) We went on exchanges and our district leader wanted to go to chili's and then saturday was my comp's b-day. So. But I bought a lot of vegetables and fruit last week, and I"m going to live the word of wisdom how it says to! That's the goal at least. We had a member text us on saturday at like, 8:40 in the morning and she said "going shopping soon. what do you want?" we thought maybe she texted it to her husband, so we were like "Sorry, this is the missionaries." and she was like "Yeah, I know. What do you want?" We were like "Oh no, we're good for now, but thank you." And so she texts back and says "TP? Laundry detergent? Paper towels? Snacks? Milk?" so we were like "well, we would appreciate any of the following: fruitsnacks, granola bars and chips, and then laundry detergent would be awesome :)" and so she showed up at 4 in the afternoon with a box full of pretzels, chips, dip, fruitsnacks, granola bars and a big bottle of laundry detergent. It was sweet! Our ward is legit!

Man, what is going on with the world. I heard bits and pieces about the earthquake in Japan. Something about a nuclear power plant exploding or somethign? I don't know.

In other news. One of my recent converts, Jaime, flew back to Peru on Friday. Supposedly he's coming back in like, May or something. I had no idea he was even leaving. I'm kind of glad he did though, because his family treated him like a slave. They would just leave him at home all day to take care of the kids while they went out and did whatever. So I'm glad he's back at his home and can finally enjoy life again! haha

Well, you're all awesome. Love you mucho. Take care

Elder Campbell

7 Mar 2011

2011-03-07T15:14:00.000-08:00

Skyler James Campbell to Jeff, me

show details 10:34 AM (4 hours ago)

So we had a total miracle last week. We visited this former investigator, and we started teaching him and he wasn't really interested, but his aunt sat in on the lesson with us and we invited them to church and she said yes. So she came and then two days later we're talking with her and she goes "I loved church. I felt so good there, peaceful and tranquil. I want to go spread the gospel like you two do. I want to help people. And I decided that this is the church that I'm going to go to from now on." So we set her for baptism and she was super excited! She's the coolest! Her name is Erenia and she's from Nicaragua. Way legit. We shared Mosiah 18:7, 8 and 10 with her(I think) and said "these people had the same desires as you. You want to help people, you want to be a witness to God, and you want to be clean. Then this is the way to do it. Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the authority of God?" and she just looks at me and smiles and then says "Yes. I will." It was SOOOOOOOO sweet. She's so awesome. The whole ward already loves her. She's had a really hard life and she's just such an amazing person.

So yeah, I'm in Chesapeake stake only this time. When I was in VB, we covered VA Beach stake and Chesapeake stake, but when I got transferrred to Chesterfield to train, they threw Hna. Brewer and Hna. Pitchforth in here to open the area. And now I took it over :) And it's awesome :) My companion is sick. We teach so well together and we've got eachothers back in everything. I feel like I finally have a companion who can back me up when I'm teaching or finding. Not that my other companions weren't good, but I just feel like I can really trust Elder Allen when we're teaching. It's legit. He's from Orem, UT and goes home in 4 weeks :( I'm finally going to bury a companion... We've got 3 people with pretty solid baptismal dates and we're working with another 2 who have kind of fluffy baptismal dates. But it's aight. This last week has been insane. I've just been so unbelievably tired. I can't remember the last time that I woke up and could hardly walk because I'm so tired. I can't see straight or stand up straight. I guess that means we're working hard? We're working our tails off down here.

I wrote on a lot of those photos right? I thought almost all of them were captioned... Luckily I'll remember enough for the first few weeks that I'm home to be able to caption those that aren't. Wow, so you finally got your trunky papers? Mine luckily won't be here until about 3 weeks before I get home. Still gives me time. SO yesterday in church, they passed around a meal calendar for us. First time in my entire mission. People just love spanish missionaries. It's way funny. This one lady signed up 3 weeks in a row. She thinks we're awesome. It's way funny. THe ward takes pretty good care of us down here. It's a lot different than some of my other areas. The families here seem to actually like one another. They talk to eachother and know what's going on with everyone else. It's how a ward family SHOULD be.

Soooo, what else is there? I'm sure there's something else to tell you, but I don't remember. Doing laundry at a laundromat is actually pretty fun. 2nd time doing it since the MTC(does that even count as a laundromat?) Who knows. Umm, well, I think the GMC Terrain is cooler than the traverse. But I don't nkow how many people it seats. But it looks a lot cooler. And sounds cooler. Terrain. Say it with me. But in a manly voice.

Well, I htink that's about all I got so far. My area is awesome. The church is true. The story of David and Goliath is sweet (check out David's pump up speech to Goliath right before he sinks a rock into his forehead. 1 Samuel 17. Legit)

Love ya mucho

Elder Campbell

28 Feb 2011

2011-03-02T16:23:00.001-08:00

SO, my new address is

1153 Hodges Ferry Rd.

Portsmouth, VA 23701

Our apartment is super girly because sisters opened it up and the ward was SUPER STOKED to have them, so they really helped them girly it up! They left us a ton of sticky notes all over with little notes of encouragement. It's pretty funny. I'm with Elder Spencer Allen from Orem, UT. He goes home in 6 weeeks. But we have a goal to baptize 5 people before he goes home. We have 3 people set with baptismal dates, adn we're going to set 2 today I think. SHould be really sweet. I've been able to see a few of the people that I saw when I was in VA beach before. Like my very first baptism, Jose Manuel Ruiz. We stopped by them last night and when I walked in, he didn't really remember me, but his dad Gilasio immediately goes "Hey! Elder Campbell!" and then Jose comes up and goes "Is it really you?" it was way funny. I guess they were going a little bit less active, so we're going to help them reactivate themselves completely. There's a little bit of drama going on between the VA Beach branch and our ward out here, because the VA beach branch used to cover both VA Beach stake and Chesapeake stake. But since we are now open out here, the members who live in Chesapeake area are suupposed to come out here, but the branch president in VA Beach just keeps giving callings to the members here to try to keep them there. Even after he was told by the stake president to release all Chesapeake members from their callings. So it's kind of interesting.

But it's going really good here. We're seeing some good success. We had an investigator at church yesterday and she loved it. We had to go into Relief Society to translate for her, because there's no sisters in the ward who can translate. But it was funny.

July 10-15? Well, I haven't really been able to make a ton of plans for after my mission, so as far as I know, I should be able to attend. And after I get home, you can totally all come with me to visit Virginia! That would be SWEET!

No snow here, but we've had lots of rain lately. And wind. I forgot about the weather being right on the ocean!

Well, I think I'm alright for now. I'm going to buy a new pillow today, because the ones here are junk and I can't sleep at night.

Dad- How's the new job? Anything fun or exciting?

Love you all. Have a great week.

Elder Campbell

22 Feb 2011 Scratch that last post title!

2011-03-02T16:09:00.000-08:00

OK, I got a little excited and moved up Elder Campbell's coming home date by a couple weeks. The correct time is 16 weeks from today.

FYI- My exit date is on June 28th. So, Anywho.

That's awesome that Bailey loves the book of mormon! Me too!

Things are picking up here in Charlottesville. WE have one lady set for baptism and she came to church on sunday and LOVED it. We don't really know how to help her though. SHe's way tough. Her name is blanca. We've also got this family that we're starting to work with. THey're cousins of this recent convert family. Way sweet people. Turns out that the dad called in for a book of mormon like, 8 years ago in Arizona, but themissionaries just knocked on his door and handed him the book and left. Weird. But they're AWESOME!

My camera arrived and I almost haven't put it down since! Oh, before I forget...

I'm getting transferred on Thursday. Down to Chesapeake. Deep Creek. We're going to be in a group, but it's gonna be SWEET! I covered that area when I served in VA Beach, so I pretty much already know my way around. Don't know my address yet, but I'll know next week :) My companion is going to be Elder Allen, who goes home in 6 weeks! haha He's going to trunk me out so much!

So are you going to go to England? Only $1,000 on the spot!? Not a bad deal...

Haha

So who's molly's fiancee? I'm so lost on this whole thing I have no idea what's happening.

So cool story, last week we were on bikes for 3 days, and we saw so many miracles. We were at this corner of a street waiting to cross, and this recently returned missionary rides up to us and says "Where are you going?" we told him we were going to knock, and he says "Can I come with you?" so we asked where he served and he says "In LA..." and we were like "HECK YEAH YOU CAN KNOCK WITH US!" It was sick! Then we ran into like, 3 people we had been trying to contact forever. It was just awesome. In other news, my trainee from back in Chesterfield, well he's down in VA Beach right now. He got in a huge fight with this member family, and so they called Pres. Perry and told him they weren't coming back to church until he got transferred out. Ridiculous, right? I couldn't believe him!

Well, everything is going good, next time you hear from me, I'll be in Chesapeake. So. Love you all a ton.

Elder Campbell

PS- What's Jackie Barden's address? I want to write her back, but I lost her address...

14 Feb 2011 13 weeks and counting!!

2011-02-16T09:30:00.000-08:00

Not much of a letter today due to his companion's computer problems, but, here it is...

So how's the job? Hopefully it's going great and you're loving it.

So, what HAVE I taught you since I've been on my mission? I was just thinking the other day, "I haven't born a lot of testimony or what not on my misson to my family." We'll see though.

Well, I'm going to give the rest of my time to Elder Wiles because his computer locked him out, but we set someone for baptism last week and then we had a miracle referral as well. He's a 17 year old named cristian and he's AWESOME! He does community service on his own and he asked us to come visit him! He's legit!

Anywho, love you alll and hope you're doing well.

7 Feb 2011

2011-02-07T09:30:00.001-08:00

Apparently theres a ton of opposition in our entire mission, but our mission president said that it's also throughout the entire church. He told one of my district members about a prophecy of Pres. Hinckley about how there would be opposition like we've never before seen, and there would then be no more lukewarm members of the church, and then we'd experience unprecedented growth. Or something like that. But it just seems that everyone is getting slammed lately. The sisters in my district have been sick for a whole week. They didn't go out once last week. Poor sisters. They're way awesome, and they were still trying their hardest to work even though they could barely leave their beds.
Congrats on the job finally! I knew it would all work out. It wasn't when you wanted it, but it came when you needed it! That's way cool! I totaly forgot that it was superbowl sunday yesterday. I had to be reminded like, 7 times. I guess that's cool the packers won. Brett Favre is probably crying still.
   I talked to Pres. about this area, and he was like "Elder, I think this is one of the hardest areas in the entire mission. But I appreciate your attitude about it." So we talked about what needed to happen, and I think they might be sending in sisters next transfer. Which I wouldn't mind at all. But in good news, we just set up an appt with a less active who is reactivating herself and her 11 year old daughter wants to get baptized. She only needs like, 2 or 3 lessons and then she's good to get baptized. ANd her mom wants her to get baptized. So we're praying that we can make that happen. And we've got a few investigators who are actually interested. Things are slowly slowly slowly looking up. WE've got zone conference in Richmond tomorrow, and today my companion and I are going to the family history center. He wants to do all his work because his family is converts but they're all less active, so we're going today to see what we can come up with. The consultant there is opening it up just for us :)
   Well, I still want to thank you for sending me the quad. I have only put it down when it is absolutely necessary. And that BYU shirt is the most comfortable thing I have ever worked out in. THanks a ton.
    Well, I love you all and I'm grateful for all that you do. I almost had a mind meltdown yesterday. I forgot that after February comes march, and so I said to my comp "General conference is next month" and then I started freaking out. It was horrible. Everyone keeps reminding me that I've only got 4 months left!
HINT: Don't talk to a missionary about how much time he has left when it's under 8 months. It will just make him sad and upset.
   Well, have a great week :)
   Elder Campbell
Revelation Chap. 315 I know thy ^aworks, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

16 So then because thou art ^alukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will ^bspue thee out of my mouth

31 Jan 2011

2011-02-01T20:32:00.000-08:00

Soo. Testimony on chastity. Well, I was studying through DC 76 the other day, and it starts talking about those that will get into the celestial kingdom right? It says that they will be those who entered into and stayed faithful to the new and everlasting covenant (marriage). And then all of a sudden it popped into my head. When people don't live the law of chastity, they just end up shacking up with each other and fornicating. That is a sacred power that is only supposed to be shared between married people. ANd so by doing that, a lot of people will live together and do that stuff but never get married. And THAT'S the problem. THe lack of marriage. God want's us to be able to return to him, and marriage is a requirement. But if we're just taking the benefits of marriage without actual marriage, we can't get back to Him. So by giving us the law of chastity, it's protecting us and helping us return to Him in the celestial kingdom. Pretty cool, right?
So yeah, thats my testimony of the law of chastity. Anywho.
   So I was in Richmond all last week at leadership training. It blew my MIND! IT was the coolest 4 days I've ever had on my mission. I learned SOOOOOO much. It was so cool to just get personal training by Pres. Perry and be able to practice it all. We did a lot of roleplays and we had this really cool training on listening by a professional communication expert. Like, she goes into businesses and trains the employees how to listen and communicate, and then she'll go to the business mergers and help everyone communicate so that they can make a good deal. It was SICK. I'm an expert listener now. I'm so excited on missionary work now. It's way awesome. Also, the lady Maria that I was always telling you about when I was in Chesterfield, well we visited her on Thursday and I got to set her for baptism again and she's DETERMINED to get baptized. And she wants me to come down and do the confirmation. It was so cool. I accidentally gave her my personal study book of mormon that was all marked up and had all my notes and stuff in it. I was way sad.
In other news, actually, that's about it. Not too much to tell you. Missionary work is great, but Charlottesville is really really really tough. Like, I think this is the hardest area I've ever worked in my mission. I need some advice. If you only had 3 areas that were loaded with hispanics and others were interspersed throughout the city, what would you do to find them but also not get burned out from going to the same 3 places every single day? I feel like I'm getting sooooo burned out because we don't have many investigators and we have to always go to the exact same places to find people and it's super discouraging. So what should I do? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
So yeah, I'm turning 21 on Wednesday, and Elder Taylor in my district turns 21 tomorrow.   It's pretty cool. Elder Wiles said he's taking me out to lunch on Wednesday. Should be pretty fun. I can't believe I'm actually going to be 21. I guess it's a good thing that I'm out here as a missionary, otherwise I'd probably do something STUPID on my birthday :) hahah

Well, I love you all very much.
      Elder Campbell

24 Jan 2011

2011-01-24T21:03:00.001-08:00

So I got my quad. Thank you so much. I almost haven't put it down since I got it. It's so cool to be able to flip through page after page and just learn what God wants and has for us. I made a sweet box for it out of a priority mail box, so now it looks real nice too :) haha
   Soooo, tomorrow I'm going to richmond for 4 days for leadership training. It's pretty much 4 straight days where all the district leaders, zone leaders, trainers, and a few others who Pres. Perry invites all get together and listen to him and the APs train and teach us on what we're not doing right and what we need to do better. It involves a lot of roleplays and stretch breaks, cause we're sitting in the chapel from 10 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon. So it should be way fun. My companion isn't exactly happy because he has to stay with Elder Beckman for the 4 days, and Elder Beckman has a reputation in the mission for being the ultimate 1 up-er. And it's true. But I told him "it'll be fun if you make it that way."
    So we had a miracle find on Sunday night. All our plans had fallen through and we were like "What do we need to do!?" And then I thought about this guy that Elder Agustin and I found back in the first week of december who we never talked to again. So we drive over there and knock on his door and he's like "oh hey, come on in." So we sat down with him and talked for like an hour, and then he goes "So my wife and I have always wondered.   What happens to us after we die?" He said that they'll lay there at night and she'll ask him what's after this life. So we set up another appointment. Well, we taught him first and then we set up another appointment. It was SWEET! We're struggling sooo much with new investigators. We can't find ANY! And when we do, they never keep their return appointment.
In other news, actually thats all the news. Umm, don't really know what else to tell you. Same old same old. The district is doing good. The hermanas were supposed to have a baptism yesterday but the guy just didn't show up. But he called them yesterday and said "I stilll want to get baptized." So we have hope. THey're so legit.
   Well, I hope you're all great and have a wonderful week. May all your wishes come true.

PS- I just gained a testimony of the Law of Chastity this week. Pretty sweet. I'll tell you the story if you want.
      Elder Campbell

18 Jan 2011

2011-01-20T20:02:00.001-08:00

Hello everybody. How are you all this week?

So, this week has been... good? I guess. It hasn't been bad by any means. Just, good. We're still struggling with investigators, but we've seen a little bit of success in the member referrals department. My district is doing great, not thanks to me, but because they're all just such great missionaries. Our car is filthy, not thanks to me. The elder who had it before me was in that car for 11 months, and he wasn't the cleanest of elders. THere are stains all over the seat and floors, so it's pretty gross.

Good news, we have 5 people again in the apartment. It's much more of a party when it's 5. And the greenie that the zone leaders are step training is actually on his way to Brazil. He's waiting for his visa, so he's just stopped off in Virginia in the meantime. So I've learned a little bit of portugese from him. Just a little bit though. In other good news, Elder Wiles and I found 2 lunchboxes and 4 ice packs in teh apartment, so we're going to start bringing dinner along with us, because I've gotta start losing weight or I'm hosed! Lets just say it's not so good...

Mallory- It's funny you share that story of Michael with me. We've been studying light a lot lately and how other people can notice it, and I was just telling my mission president about how i Didn't quite understand light, and then I read that email from you. That's why the other people came to him. Because he has light and they noticed it. By living the gospel and being obedient, we gain more light, and other people notice it. that's what they notice in him. I just thought that was pretty cool.

So we played basketball for 3 hours yesterday, and 4 of the missionaries there had played ball in college. So it was way intense. Don't worry, I didnt' get hurt. But I definitely haven't played that hard in my entire mission. It was wayyyyyyy fun though. We have district meeting tomorrow, so that should be exciting. I love district meetings. The spirit is always so strong there.

Ok, so I found a scripture that I think applies to all of us.

2 Corinthians 9:6

Read it. Study it. Pray about it. Apply it.

Sound good? Good.

Well, I love you all, hope you have a great week

Elder Campbell

10 Jan 2011

2011-01-10T09:21:00.000-08:00

Note from mom: Some weeks I want to spank him for his lack of anything to say to us! But last weeks letter makes up for todays! Totally changed my spiritual perspective last week, and I hope, forever!

Hey hello howdy.
So yeah, I got my suit cleaned. I still need to get the other shipped off to Missionary Mall. But P-Day is so short sometimes! haha
     So we got transfer calls last night. Elder Agustin was originally told that he was going to Virginia Beach with my son, Elder Andrade-Estrada. As soon as he got off the phone, I go "Dude, both of you are illegal. Who's going to drive?" To which he replied "I don't know." So then like, 45 minutes later, the AP calls again and says "Elder Campbell, I'm going to take a mulligan with that call I made to elder Agustin." And I told him "I know, I know." So then he got told that he's going to Nags Head, North Carolina to work in a zebra companionship! He's going to learn so much english! I'm so stoked for him! My last 2 companions have gone to Nags Head! Weird, right? I'm staying here, I'm getting Elder Wiles, who was already here as well. He's so cool though, one of my favorite missionaries, and he's my missionary brother, both trained by Elder Gleave. Weird, right? So yeah, that's the exciting news. Not much else from over here. It's freezing cold, but we just got a new ward mission leader, so that's sweet! He's way pumped to get to work! And Sis. Vazquez in my district is training and also Elder Taylor! So we're going to have 2 greenies in the district! It's great! Well, I think that's about all I got for this week. Don't know what else to really say.
Oh, the lady that you added on facebook came up to me at church and sneak attacked me. She grabbed my backpack and goes "Elder Campbell, your mom facebooked me last week." I just kind of stared blankly at her, because I totally forgot that you told me about doing that, and she goes "I'm from Reno, born and raised. I graduated from Wooster." I was like, "Oh yeah, my mom told me about that!" and she says "If you ever need anything, I got your back." What was her name? I totally forgot!
   Thank you so much for hooking me up with the recipe for arroz con leche and what not. I'm going to make some this week.

   Umm, well, I love you all a ton and think you're the greatest. Have a great week, and I'll talk to you soon
       Elder Campbell

3 Jan 2011

2011-01-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

Hey hey hey, how's everyone doing?

So, this last week has been super hard, but it's all looking better. I've been thinking alot lately about these last 5 weeks here in Charlottesville. They've been I think some of the hardest of my mission. We've been talking to everyone we can and we've been trying to work hard and effectively, and on top of that, I've been taking care of my district and planning meetings. I've been way busy and I was thinking "What do I have to show for all that time? We don't have any investigators, we don't have any progressings, and we are still at square 1?" It seemed like this transfer was just a waste up until now.

I went on an exchange with Elder Barson the other day, one of the zone leaders, and we got to talking about the area, and I told him "I just keep thinking about a quote from Pres. Perry at mission conference, and it's what keeps me going everyday. Pres. Perry said 'Sometimes the Lord just wants you in Liberty Jail." I had been thinking a lot about what was going wrong and why. I felt like I was a failure. I felt like I was just working for nothing. I felt like I was in LIberty Jail. But then this morning, I had the prompting to study section 121 of Doctrine and Covenants. I was thinking, "Ok, the Lord had a purpose in putting Joseph Smith in here, to give him some of the greatest doctrine we have in the church. So why has the Lord put me in here?" and as I was reading, it seemed that all my troubles and cares just disappeared. I got to verse 29, and I was absolutely blown away.

All thrones and dominions, principalities and powers, shall be revealed and set forth upon all who have endured valiantly for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I thought to myself "Wow, what a promise!!! Everything that God has ever done, and everything He ever will do, will be revealed and set forth upon those who endure VALIANTLY for the gospel of Jesus Christ." And then I continued reading and picked up on something new in verse 39

We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.

That little tidbit in there, 'as they suppose' really caught my attention. I realized that I, as a district leader, don't really have any authority. I have no real power in and of myself. Others may see it as that, but I have no power to act upon anything by myself. My call and the power that I have to effect any good work inside this office comes directly from the Lord. He is the one who really effects the work and makes things happen, I am just the vehicle through whcih he works. So all my worries about my district, how to help them, that will all be taken care of by the Lord. Then, it came back to me. My pride. My pride is what keeps me from using the priesthood to it's full potential. My pride and imagination, that I have some authority, just a little bit, keeps me from being all that the Lord wants me to be, and in the long run is keeping from my district help and blessings from Heaven. I don't really feel that I've exercised unrighteous dominion since I've become a district leader, but I know now that I have to constantly guard myself from that. It isn't just at the beginning. It's throughout my entire tenure in a leadership position.

So all of this combined, I got to thinking "What is my purpose in coming here to Charlottesville? What have I learned since I got here?" And I got my answer.

Since I came back to Charlottesville, I've found a faith in the Lord that I never knew that I had before. I've been praying more than I ever have in my entire life, and they are more sincer prayers than I knew I could offer. I've felt the Spirit more and been able to recognize His influence in my life, and I've felt the love of God in ways I never have before. I've learned to see the answers to my prayers, and to recognize that those answers only come from one source. I've gained a testimony of prayer and that the Lord answers prayers when He needs to, not when we ask Him to. He's always there for us wehn we humbly seek Him. And that's the key right there. Back to humility. I've had a few experiences in the past few weeks that have really humbled me, from Elder Barson asking me if I needed a blessing when I was too prideful to ask for one, to one of the sisters in my district comitting me to share the gospel with english people on their doorsteps, no matter how scary that 72 year old grandma who answers the door may be to me. I've truly seen the gospel at work in my life, and I know that it's through the gospel that I've been able to keep going, in spite of all the trials and difficulties we've been seeing lately. I'm thankful for a loving Heavenly Father who is mindful of what I need and knows exactly how to teach us in the way that's best going to grab our attention. I'm thankful for zone leaders who are in tune with the spirit to teach me to my needs and help change my mission. And I'm thankful for parents who raised me right and set me on the right course for the rest of my life.

Hope you all have a great week, and I love you all a ton.

Elder Campbell

Skyler can make tortilla's!

2010-12-27T20:00:00.000-08:00

27 Dec 2010

2010-12-27T19:53:00.001-08:00

Hey, yeah, it was great talking to you all on Saturday. Can't believe how fast time goes by. Seems like just a few weeks ago that I was talking to you all on Mother's day. And now it's 7 months later! So it snowed like crazy on Saturday and all through the night, but oddly enough, it didn't stick to the streets. So we got put on lockdown in the morning and then at about 12:30 we were like "Ok, this is a joke, lets go work." But there was a total blessing in it. The Waynesboro Sisters had a baptism set up for Sunday, and when I called them on Sunday morning, everyone else had church cancelled, but when I called them they go "no, it's not really snowing here. We're still good for church and the baptism." So their guy got baptized and then right after the baptism, it started dumping up there. It was way sweet.

As for BYU info, I think I'm allowed to do that during my email time, so if you want to send me the link or whatnot, I can get that filled out. I don't think I took 24 credit hours. I think I only did like, 20 or something like that. Or maybe I did 24. I'm not sure at all. And I don't even remember the classes that I took. How sad is that? It's only been 1 year and the missionary veil has descended over me completely! haha

Oh, with the missionary mall stuff, I'll send it in and worry about that, but I don't know where to send it to! I don't have teh address or anything, so if you could send me that, I'd appreciate it. Actually, I can call sis. Henrie here and ask her to look it up for me. That would be easier. And one more thing. I lost the recipes that you sent me for Arroz Con leche and tres leches. Could you hook me up again? Thanks.

Love you mucho grande

Elder Campbell

PS- The MP3 player is SWEET! I've been listening to conference talks for 2 days straight now!

20 Dec 2010

2010-12-27T19:52:00.001-08:00

Sooooo. This week. WEll, we got snowed in on thursday, so that sucked. ANd then yesterday, I got a combo of food poisoning/flu, so I was down for the count. I missed the christmas program at church, but that's alright. At least I'm still alive, right? Man, I can't believe Ryan Christensen is home, and Amanda Miller also! That's so nuts! I saw her in the MTC! It's insane! Oh, and in response to your last question last week mom, I am planning at just meeting you at the airport in Reno when I go home. I think it would be SWEET to just walk down the hall and you're all just standing there! That would be sweet, right?

SO we had our first district meeting on Wednesday and it went REALLY well. The 2 sisters in our district trained and did a WONDERFUL job. They've been seeing a lot of miracles lately, which is really cool. They're tearing it up right now. Our district has 9 people set for baptism! How sweet is that? I've got some of the best missionaries in the mission in my district! They make my job so easy!

SO we had a baptism on Saturday. Carlos Escobar. He's 18 and from Guatemala. He's actually from QuetzalTenango, where Andy Glenn is serving right now. And then funny story, I went on exchanges with our zone leaders on Tuesday, and I met Alex Stodmeister's trainer on his mission. Small world, right? Umm, what else is there in the news?

So as I'm sure you're all aware, I'm going to call on Saturday. Surprise surprise, right? haha I think I'll call at like, 3 our time? I don't know if that works for everyone else? ANd yes, we have a christmas eve dinner. You remember the family that I always told you about when I was here last time, the Aguilar? WEll, they invited us over for Christmas Eve and they're going to cook a whole pig for us. Just gonna slap it on the table and let us at it with some tortillas. Should be pretty fun.

Tomorrow we've got mission conference. I'm kind of excited. Last year they did a slide show of the pictures of ALL the missionaries in the mission on their first day. But I don't think they're going to this time. Too bad.

WEll, I don't think I have anything else to tell you. Hope you all have a great week.

Love you all,

Elder Campbell

13 Dec 2010

2010-12-13T08:17:00.001-08:00

First off, no. People hardly feed us here anymore. And the problem is that our apartment is on the complete opposite side of town than the one we work in. So once we leave during the day, we don't come back to the apartment. We usually do breakfast and lunch at home, and then if we're lucky we'll have a dinner appointment. But we have only had one dinner appointment since we got here. Since we're in a spanish group, we don't get set up with appointments with the english members, and the hispanic members never feed us anymore either. So it's kind of tough. But we're making do. Loading up at lunch and then trying to keep it small at dinner. And I don't know what it is, I think it's because I've started lifting weights a lot in the morning, but at like, 3 oclock, I get WAY hungry! It's crazy. Like, I haven't felt like that since I hit puberty. It sucks.

That's way sweet about the boston story. Sounds like God has a plan in mind. He always does. Speaking of plans, the sisters in Waynesboro had a way sweet story this week. They've got this 17 year old named Cesar set for baptism. He lives with a recent convert up there. So he's having a way tough time because his family is NOT supportive. Then they found this guy last week named Eleazar and he's WAY solid. He absolutely LOVES what they're teaching him. SO they were talking with Cesar yesterday, and it turns out that Eleazar is the brother of Cesar's Mom's boyfriend. How crazy is that? They're like, surrounding the whole family with mormons! That whole family is going to get baptized! hahaha

So tomorrow I go on exchanges with the Zone leaders. They're having me work their area because I'm afraid of doing English work. I get way panicky when I talk to english people. I don't know if I told you about last week when I went with two of them to go find this less active recent convert. Turns out she works in a gynecologist office. So we just charge right into the office and the secretary goes "She'll be right out to see you. You can take a seat." SO we sit down in this gyno office for like, 15 minutes, and all these women are looking at us like "What are you doing here?" And I'm thinking "The gross thing is, I know EXACTLY what you're all doing here!" It was super awkward!

So we've visited a few people who I was teaching when I was here, Elder Agustin knows all of them. They all remember me, but the majority of them aren't interested. Kinda sad, but they weren't really that solid when I was here before, so. No biggie. I've had a few members come up to me and say "Elder Campbell, welcome back!" before they even announced that I h ad returned. SO that was pretty cool.

And speaking of losing suit jackets. I lost one of the pairs of pants to my blue suit. I actually lost that pair about a year ago. Not sure if I told you. And I'm going to need to use the warranty on my suit, because I ripped one of the pairs of pants. Right in the crotch. Don't know how. But it's way embarrassing. So if you could let me know what I need to do to get those sent back in and a new pair sent out, I'd love it.

Well, I think that's all I got for this week. Hope you're loving life. I sure am.

Talk to you all in like, 2 weeks or something. I hope I remember our phone number...

Elder Campbell

29 Nov 2010

2010-11-29T12:28:00.000-08:00

Note from Mom:
There was not letter the week before, just a short note to let us know he's alive and well- Zone P-day left not enough time to write. So this letter is the most recent.

In other news. Transfer calls last night. Elder Flores is getting zebra'd to Nags Head, North Carolina. He's not happy at all. He feels like he's going because he can't be trusted with spanish work. Which isn't true at all, he's a great elder, so that's why they put him there. They know he can take care of it on his own. Me on the other hand.... I'm going back to Charlottesville with Elder Agustin. he's from Puebla, Mexico and he doesn't speak english at all. How cool is that? I'm going to be District Leader of 2 other companionships. That should be fun. I don't know what the Lord was thinking calling me as taht. I have no idea what he was thinking. But he knows how it'll help me. This is nothing like district leader in the MTC. This actualy matters! haha

So I heard about the Boise State vs. UNR fracaso! hahaha poor Elder Lusk. My former DL in VA Beach plays Outside Strong Linebacker for Boise. He was the number one tackler in Utah before he went on his mission, but he got injured this year or pulled a muscle or something, so he red shirted from what I hear. Bet he's way upset. We actually ended up having 2 thanksgivings. We went with an english family down in Hopewell for lunch. They live in the middle of nowhere. Like, you-could-kill-someone-and-hide-a-body-and-no-one-would-ever-find-it nowhere. But it was way good. Then we had a dinner with some members from our ward on Fort Lee (He's a health inspector in the army) and they're both from Dominican Republic. She added me recently on Facebook. They're way sweet. Just got sealed in the temple. It was a way good dinner. Fried Yucca is AWESOME!

That's crazy about the money. The secret service gets involved with that? Like, The same secret service that protects our lovely and noble president? From what I hear, he's gonna need some protection soon, the way things are going in the real world!

Anyway, I hope you're all doing well. keep on keepin on. Don't let the devil grab ya by your underpants (I heard that or something like it recently. Wasn't quite sure what it was supposed to mean. But I liked it!)

Elder Campbell

PS- The Oreos and the sing-a-ma-jig were a huge hit. I named it Sally.

15 November 2010

2010-11-15T21:48:00.001-08:00

No way!? Kristen C on a mission!? That's awesome! Missions are the BEST! Yeah, Sister Henrie called me to tell me about the connection story! haha how weird is that!? Sis. Henrie also told me that she wanted to show me the picture of the new Hermana missionary coming in, Hna. Sinclair, because I quote "She's absolutely gorgeous! Hey, who knows, maybe you'll meet a sister here and end up getting married!" hahahahaha I was like "Woahhhhhhhhhh..."

BTW, which Hna. were you saying is the cute one, because I don't think I had any pictures of Hna. Law on there. Tell me what picture it was and what they were wearing and I'll be able to tell you who it is.

Sounds like a party in the house! Just like my apartment! Its way fun over there. Elder Graham is a crack up, and me and Elder Bigler just have the weirdest conversations. It's great.

So, thsi week. What's new. Umm, We found these 2 sweet families that we're going to set for baptism. That's exciting. Gilberto moved back to connecticuit, but the missionaries are going to head over there and baptize him. Too bad we couldn't do it here, but The Lord has his plan in everything!

Pres. Perry is going to be training us on planning and what not, so our planning is going to be a lot better. He talked about how missionaries here just always put a "1" as the goal if they don't have anything set up, like "1 investigator baptized and confirmed", and they say it's as an act of faith, but Pres. Perry was like "if you don't have something set up, and you put 1, you're just setting yourself up for failure." So they way he's going to have us planning is giong to change the way we work. Like, they always say that goals should be meaningful, but because of how we've been planning and whatnot, they're just a number to me and I have'nt cared if I reach them or not. SO it'll be interesting. Umm, I don't need any more garments. I'm good with the ones I have. Just the scarf. And no, I don't have the tree. I had to leave it down in VA Beach when I got transferred, but I can ask Elder ZObrist to bring it up tomorrow when they come for leadership training. Also, We're getting texting on our phones. Weird, right? Hahaha

Anyway, Love you all and Hope you have a great week. My english is horrible now. I'm speaking like a mexican who just came from Tijuana. It's way bad.

Elder Campbell

8 November 2010

2010-11-15T21:46:00.001-08:00

So yeah, Ruben got baptized last night and I confirmed him. it was a way good baptism. Everything went well, but there weren't a ton of people there. I also baptized Synthia Luna on Saturday and then yesterday I also confirmed her. And the coolest part of that? We had Elder Gerard of the 70 and also russell Osgulthorpe, the geeral President of the Sunday School, in our sacrament meeting, so they both sat in on the confirmation and it was AWESOME! I sat down and was just like "Woah, that spirit was incredible!" So it was pretty sweet.

Umm, we had some bad news about Gilberto. he hasn't come to church for the past 2 weeks, and he hadn't been as excited this week about learning or anything, but he wouldn't tell us what was wrong and we couldn't figure it out, and we talked to his fellowshipper yesterday and he said that Gilberto told him he didn't want to get baptized anymroe. But we'll get him back. he's not too far gone to the point where he's gone forever, we justneed to get him stoked again. But if you could throw in some prayers for him that would be well appreciated. I guess the whold Chesterfield zone saw a lot of opposition this past week, lots of people dropping baptismal dates and the missionaries have seen a lot of opposition in the work this week. But I know why. At our zone meeting, we talked about how many baptisms we could acheive this month, and the zone total was at 47. We were all way fired up and ready to go work, and Satan knew we were going to get a ton in the fonts, so he really stepped up his game. like, 8 missionaries went home last week for a variety of reasons. So the adversary is really trying out here in Virginia, but it doesn't matter.

If you could send me one scarf and honestly, maybe my temple pants because I don't have white pants for baptisms. I don't know what size my temple pants are, hopefully they're like, 38, because I could barely squeeze into Elder Flores' 36 on Saturday. But those 2 things would be good, and I think I've got the rest covered. There's a blanket that I've been using, it's pretty small, but I sleep right next to the heater and i think my body temperature has been increasing even more lately, because the house is at like, 65 degrees and I'm still sweating. It's ridiculous. So I don't know. I've still got 2 pairs of thermals here, so I think I'm covered.

Get that woman baptized! She just said the key words! Get her in the water!

Well I think that's all the cool news for this week. Hope you're all doing well and that you have a great week. Love you mucho grande

Elder Campbell

1 Nov 2010

2010-11-01T09:23:00.000-07:00

Soooo, I think the coolest thing this week was when we sat down on Tuesday with Gilberto. We had left him Alma 32 to read, and so we sit down and I go "So how did the reading go?" and he just looked at me and there was something different in his eyes, like, he just looked like a different person right then. SO he looks at me and he goes "It went really well. It teaches exactly what faith is. Faith is something that you can't see, but you can feel, and you know its right." So then I asked him "So what do you feel about the gospel that we've been teaching you? Do you feel that it's right?" And he goes "well, I want to get baptized. I just know that this is the way that God wants me to follow." We were like "YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" It was amazing! He just had the conversion in his eyes, and he was explaining to us about how it makes sense that Joseph Smith restored the gospel and everything. It was great. And he wants to get baptized in a river, so we asked Pres. Perry if it's ok, he's still waiting to get back to us.

So yesterday at church, in PEC we were talking about these 3 primary kids that are getting baptized next saturday, all three of them 8 yrs old. One of the kid's dad is not a member, so they were talking about who was going to baptize her and then they go "well, we're going to have to ask her mom who she wants." So I'm walking through the hall after church and the girls mom comes up to me and says "I want you to baptize my daughter." I like, didn't know what to say at first, but then I was just like "Yeah, of course! I'd be happy to!" I mean, I have never said more than "Hola, como esta?" to this sister, so I don't know why she wants me to baptize her daughter, but I'm really excited.

Then we've got Ruben getting baptized this Sunday, so that's exciting. He passes his baptismal interview with flying colors. So things are going good here.

Yeah, I got the letters and I got the package. My new companion is SWEET, he's from Anaheim. We get along really well and we work well together. And one of the best parts- he LOVES the lakers like I LOVE the lakers! So we always end up talking about the lakers like, every day. We went to Buffalo Wild Wings (as I'm sure you saw) and we were just surrounded by TVs with ESPN, so we were both just flooded with updates and it was crazy! Lebron looks weird in a Heat Jersey!

We've found some good people to teach, but we've lost contact with a lot of the ones we were teaching just a little bit ago, so we're working on getting back in contact with them. But things are going good here. I'm rolling around in a 2010 Subaru Impreza AWD. It's way nice. Tiptronic transmission, MP3/CD deck. Handles like a rally car. Lets just say I'm in love on my mission. Shhhh, don't tell Pres. Chalice (Spelling?)!!! My apartment is nice, it's 3 stories. One of the english elders we live with is a CLEAN FREAK! Before we even have the chance to clean up our kitchen stuff, he's already in there scrubbing and sweeping, it's way weird.

The other english elder we live with got a $100 bill in the mail, and he said "I want to go party it up with this thing. Lets all go to lunch, I'm buying!" So we're going to Chilis today. We're also going on exchanges with our english district leader, so Elder Flores and I are pretty much going to be flying solo today, because the english elders didn't even take high school spanish.

Umm, in other news, we were the judges for the chili cook off at the harvest party. Hispanics don't make very good chili.

?Que Mas Hay? Umm, I think that's about it. I hope everything is going well back home and that you're all in good hands. Tell Gma and Gpa squared that I love them all and miss them. Take care y vayan con Dios

Elder Campbell

25 Oct 2010

2010-11-01T09:22:00.000-07:00

Well howdy everyone! So first off, my new address is 4839 Whetstone Rd. Richmond, VA 23234. It's in the same apartment complex as before, but it's just up the road. So, this week. WEll, I got put with Elder Flores, as I'm sure you know. He's a stud. Him and Elder Schults were working with this guy Ruben to get him baptized, so we're working on him now. he's progressing well, but he just kind of disappears and his phone gets cut off and then he never returns our phone calls. Right before I got here, he sent this txt that said (translated)- "i desire with fervor the holy spirit, given by Father God to Nephi and Lehi. Baptize me tomorrow, brother Elder. Amen" It was way weird, but he's way legit and wants to get baptized. Then we've got this other guy named Gilberto. He's a member referral, and he LOVES what we're teaching him. He didn't quite get it until we were talking one day and he brought up Malachi 3:4-5 and said that for a church to be true, it had to have been visited by Malachi, so i went over DyC 110 and then I went back with Acts I think, where it talks about baptisms for the dead. he was like "I've never even heard a church talk about that, and it's in the bible. your church does that? that's AWESOME!" Then he told us he wants to get baptized in a river when he does get baptized. So that was pretty cool.

So the weather here has been really nice. Not too cold, but not hot at all. It's great. Oh man, I totally forgot that Bishop Welton was now the bishop. that's nuts. thats way cool though.

So last tuesday, I had to take Elder Schults to the mission home on his last day. That sucked. I was crying like a little girl. it was way traumatic. Like, I'm not supposed to be there for another 8 months and it was like the 6th sense, where you can see the dead people right? Because there were like, 10 missionaries there and none of them were smiling. It was like seeing dead people walking around. Sister Perry invited us to go in, and I was like "No! I'm not going in there! Its not my time yet!" So why are you going down to California? My companion is from Anaheim. His dad is mexican, and his mom is samoan. It's an interesting combo.

oh, speaking of combos. So there was this Hna. In the mtc with me in the district above me named sister brady. She came out here 6 weeks before me and I've served with her for the last 3ish transfers. So in her final transfer, she gets zebra'd to Waynesboro with two WEIRD sister missionaries. hahahaha and we found out before she did! We were worried she was going to hang herself! But apart from that, everything is going good here.

on thursday, we were leaving from soccer and there was this lady stopped in the church parking lot, so we stopped and asked how we could help her, and we saw that a part of the wheel well had gotten really sharp and gouged her tire and taken the tread completely off down to the steel. So I started grabbing stuff out of the back of our car and changing the tire. And you want to know where I learned how to change a tire? Mutual when I was 14! I always thought I was never going to need to learn that, but look at that!? Now, she's way stoked on the missionaries and she wanted to go visit Mormon.org and learn all about us and what not. So if you could say Thanks to Bro. Feldman for organizing that activity all those years ago, i'd appreciate it. yeah, isn't it crazy that Kevin will be home in like, 4 months!? And I've only got 8! Oh my goodness, I remember like it was yesterday when I was in the beach going "Man, I've got 16 months left! HOLY COW!" Yeah, how's that for a warped perspective?

Well, my fingers are tired and feel really weird. I've been having a really hard time sitting still lately, and my hands always feel like the muscles are getting really taut. I don't know, it's weird.

Anyway, love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Elder Campbell

18 Oct 2010

2010-10-18T18:11:00.000-07:00

Hey hey hey

So we got transfer calls last night. My greenie is going to..................... Virginia Beach!!!! How sweet is that!? He's kind of depressed, because he didn't get to baptize anyone here, but I'm pumping him up, because it's SWEET! They're combining me and the other companionship, so I get to step train Elder Flores. They've got someone on tap to get baptized next week, so that'll be exciting. Other than that, I dont' think there's really any big news lately. Just same old same old. We hit 20 lessons for the first time since I left Virginia Beach, so that was way nice!

Umm, foot amputation doesn't sound fun. I dont' know what I would do if I got home and my wife was just like "What's up?" with her foot missing. So is he going to get a prosthetic or what?

That's way cool that Michael got a signing bonus and did so well on his aptitude tests. So does the military have like, it's own newspapers or waht? I don't get it. And I didn't know that Kurt moved to California. That's interesting. Well.

I really don't know what else to write you. Umm, this week was really uneventful. It just kind of hit me last night that I only have 6 transfers left. It's nuts! Isn't that crazy!? That's only 8 months? ANd this next transfer really goes all the way up to December 6th. So then it's only like, 3 more weeks until I talk to you again. Oh man. It's just the MTC all over again! hahaha

SO we had 2 families in our ward get sealed on Saturday, that was awesome!

Ummmmmmm, what else is there. There's this book to my right right now that is titled "Naked in Dangerous places". I think it's this picture of this guy running through a pit full of snakes or something. Interesting. Well, I've got everything I need, I hope you're all well and safe. Love you all and hope you have a great week.

Elder Campbell

11 Oct 2010

2010-10-11T18:13:00.001-07:00

So yes, I got all the boxes, my triple and bible, the candies, I heard about John, I accidentally lost the absentee ballot request, I think that was everything.

Yes, I'm still working my tail off. The missionary next to me goes home next Tuesday and he has like, 9 emails in his inbox that say "8 days, 11.36 hours!!!!!!!!!!!" or something like that. Then the lady next to me is watching a youtube video on training cockatiels to talk. Oh the things that you see at the library. Soooo, in other newssss.....

Transfers are coming up next week and I have absolutely NO idea what's going on. It's crazy. I think my companion is going and I have no idea who I'm going to get, they have to move a lot of people, because 4 spanish elders are going home, and then 2 more have been in their areas for 9 months, so that's 6 that have to get moved, and we're only getting 2 more elders. So it's gonna be INSANE! But in good news, we had a ton of investigator lessons last week. Ok, it was really only like, 9, but that's up a lot more from what it was the last week. And most of them wanted return appointments. I've been learning a ton lately and I had my interview with Pres. Perry on Saturday and it was awesome, so I think things are looking up here, they should be getting better at least. We haven't been knocking as many doors, which is good, and we've been teaching more lessons. So now we just need to keep stepping it up. I think the weight gain has just about leveled off. I'm at like, 217, which isn't too bad, considering that this other spanish elder has gained 48 pounds n his mission. It's ridiculous. As long as I dont' hit that much, I'll be alright.

So this one guy yesterday starts telling us- "I cant do an appointment tomorrow because I have a doctors appointment tomorrow. I've got this skin tag on my testicles and they've gotta see what they can do for me. I had one on my toe, so I cut it off and it started bleeding EVERYWHERE! I mean everywhere. And it hurt like a mother! So they don't want to take this one off because it's in a bad location." Don't you just love how open hispanics are?

Umm, so do you all remember that one conference when we just started watching family videos from like, 17 years ago? So the other day we were teaching this less active lesson to a lady we just found who's brother died the week before, and I started talking about that day and the happiness it brought me and how much I remember that, and then I started talking about the atonement, and I honestly don't think I've ever been able to look into someone's eyes like that and see the Spirit working so hard on them. The spirit just filled the whole room and I started crying and she was crying and it was incredible and the feeling was just indescribable.

Well, I think that's it for this week. I'm going to get that card of pictures sent off today, I promise. I've got a ton to get to you. So.

Anyway, Love you all. Hope you have a great week. D&C 61:33 I think. Something along the lines of "I the Lord have not abandoned you and am aways with you." Or something like that. It's way cool.

Elder Campbell

4 Oct 2010

2010-10-04T17:06:00.000-07:00

Soooo, whats up with you all? This week went by WAY fast, because I was looking forward to conference the entire week. We've had some really good lessons this week, but still nothing in the way of progressors or people actually getting baptized. But patience. I've been learning a TON this past week about how to teach people and what not, so we're putting a lot of things into practice. Oh man, HOW SWEET WAS CONFERENCE!??? Can I get a "greatest session EVARRRRRRRRRR!!!!" from the crowd? Yeah, I think so!

Priesthood session was SWEEET! Pres. Uchtdorf's smackdown on pride was the COOLEST! And Pres. Monson is just a powerhouse lately! It's awesome. I loved Elder Holland's shoutout to the members. This church really does have the greatest members ever. And aren't we so blessed to have a living prophet today? Man, there's a lot to be thankful for.

So, in other news, my companion and I got ahold of some of those exploding poppers that you throw and they go "BANG!" and we've been devising ways to scare the crap out of eachother. I've found that his most vulnerable time is right after he's coming out of the bathroom, but I just put one in the running track of the mirrors, so when he closes it, hes in for a surprise. Shhh, don't tell him! Finding hasn't really been that successful lately, and it seems like we can't get ANYONE to church, but the Lord has a plan. I just need to be patient.

So on Saturday, we had apartment inspections, and we made lunch for the office staff after the inspection: I made tortillas and my companion made carne con chile. They loved it. It was awesome. ANd today we have zone pday and we're playing volleyball and watching the awesome Joseph Smith movie. It should be sdweet. So it's gettiing way cold here in Virginia. It's like, 52 degrees as of time of wrting this, sorry, my english sucks. I should probably go back to school after the mission and take some basic english classes again. Lets just say Juliann shouldn't ask for me to sub her class when they're going over englsihs stuff.

Oh, so the office staff. Sister Henrie, the secretary, she keeps me updated on the UNR scores and whatnot. I think she's from Idaho, but she has a UNR sweatshirt, so me and her get along just fine :)

As for blankets, I'll be fine. I had to buy one down in Virginia Beach, but I couldn't bring it up here to richmond with me, so my companion is letting me borrow one of his blankets. But I think he's leaving this transfer, so I might be making another trip to wal mart....

Thank you for the pictures. They were awesome. I was thinking "Where did she take those from?" I almost didn't recognize nevada! Sad day, huh?

Well, I hope everything is goikng well for you. Have a wonderful week and I love you all mucho grande

Elder Campbell

27 Sept 2010

2010-09-27T20:33:00.001-07:00

So yeah, this week was pretty good. We didn't teach a ton of lessons. People just aren't showing up for their return appointments. But we've got a few that we're still working on right now. Maria is doing good. She jsut hasn't been able to come to church. We're hoping that we can get her to at least one session of general conference. We have two others set, Samuel and Isaura, so we're trying to get them to WANT to come to church. They only let us teach them once a week, so it's really hard and gives satan a lot of time to creep in and do some damage. But alls well in zion. Conference is coming up this weekend and I'm SOOOOO excited. I absolutely LVOE conference. Priesthood session is going to kick butt! I can't believe that it was six months ago that I watched conference in Virginia Beach. That was a funny saturday session. I'll have to tell you about that when I get back. So this week we did a lot of knocking without much success. We've decided to close this one HUGE apartment complex for awhile because we haven't had a single person pan out from there, and we were investing like, 3 hours a day in there, so we figured we'd rather spend our time elsewhere.

Umm, man, I can't believe it's been a whole week since I emailed you last. What's new? So, I'm guessing no one knows anything about John, Juli's old neighbor? umm, man, I honestly don't even know what to tell you. Same old same old. Knocking doors, spreading the gospel. Well, I heard about UNR beating BYU. Isn't that something? How's our defense doing this year? And has anyone heard anything about Luke Babbitt? Hows he doing up in Portland? In other news, I have a canker sore the size of Cuba on my lower lip and it SUCKS! Also, Elder Zobrist, my companion from Virginia Beach, got an offer from one of the less actives for an eternal marriage. She's the one that I think is on my facebook friends. Oh man, way crazy story. I'll definitely have to share that one when I get back too. I'm going to have way too many stories when I get back. Two years of stories is a lot! I hope you all like to sit down for story time for 8 hours a day. haha. Soo, what's new on that side of the country? I heard something about this law that Obama was trying to pass in where they'd give papers to illegals that want to go to college. To put it simply, my companion is loving Obama right now if they get it passed. I'm kind of indifferent. Oh, I also got sworn at by this little colombiano kid last night at a baptism. He then proceeded to make a very obscene gesture involving his hand and his crotch. He's 2 years old. Hispanic kids....

Well, I hope you have a great week. Love you all and I'm going to try to send off my memory card to you today. I've got like, 5 months of pictures on there. I'm still waiting for a picture of Reno and the family. None of my companions know what you all loook like, and I'm not going to lie, neither do I really! hahaha

Love you all. The gospel is true. Keep on truckin.

Elder Campbell

20 Sept 2010

2010-09-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

So this week. Wow. Well, lets just say we did a TON of knocking and had a TON of appointments fall through. But we now have 3 people set for baptism. So taht's cool. Like, the first time I've had people set since like, May. It's crazy. So as for killing the zone. We were all in a spanish zone that covered the entire mission, and then the english elders were in their zones. We worked with the english zones, but were in ours. But then they killed our zone and put us all in the english zones that we're geographically located in. So our zone leaders were just ousted and Elder Wheatley got sent zebra in North Carolina. It's getting crazy around here. I can't believe I only have 9 months left.

SO with the journal, I don't think it will be that big of a problem. When I write, I get super lazy and a lot of times don't even write, plus I figure that I couls just transcribe it or get some voice recognition stuff and it can copy it for me. I don't even know what's going on in the technology world. So who knows, maybe they're making software just for that kind of thing!?

SO paul married them huh? Could you send me his address. I never had it and I want to write him and Jim. It's been like, 7 months since I wrote them. And what happened to Kurt and Austin? I know, it'll probably be better to ask Paul and Jim about that, but I haven't heard anything about that.

Umm, in good news, Maria is doing reallywell. she hasn't been able to come to church yet, but she came to this activity that we had on Saturday. And she LOVED it. SHe already refers to it as "Our church" like she's already a member and everything. And she's totally set on getting baptized. She just needs to come to church. SO we're praying real hard for that and we're going to teach her about fasting and prayer. She's WAY legit though. She LOVES to pray and read the book of mormon.

In other good news, I'm still alive? Tha'ts good, right?

SOrry, I'm feeling super lazy today. I don't know why I just don't have the ganas to think about what happened this last week. We had a mission conference with paul sybrowsky of the 2nd quorum of the 70. He tore some missionaries apart. I'll have to recount that in person.

And hey, I was just thinking the other day. Does anyone know anything about Juli's old neighbor John? How's he doing, if anyone knows? I just for some reason got the impression a couple days ago that I needed to ask you all.

So, umm, I get to talk to you all in like, 12 weeks exactly? Or something. That's cool. ANd general conference is in 2 weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

that's exciting.

Well I love you all. Hope everythig is good with you. Keep on keepin on. Lifes a garden, dig it.

Elder Campbell

13 Sept 2010

2010-09-16T09:02:00.001-07:00

Well hello everyone. What a week here in Richmond. Sounds like things are going pretty well over on your side of the country. Well, it seems like the scriptures are always right. The Lord has his own timetable for blessings, we just have to trust in him to see them fulfilled. Congrats on the baby(plural or what?). I hope Juliann is having a blast student teaching, I have a blast ?teaching? kids on the streets. We always play soccer or ride bikes or scooters with them. It's way sweet. We're like best friends with this gang of kids in this super ghetto part of the city, they're like, 7 years old and we're planning on baptizing all of them. hahaha Tell Michael I say congrats on the test. That's way impressive. Way cool.

So yes, I got all the scriptures. They're awesome. Thank you so much. We also just got a couch on Friday. It's wayyyyy sweet. My bishop is the best. So we didnt' have a ton of like, successes this week, but it definitely wasn't a b ad week. Yesterday I had this way cool experience. We had an appointment fall through, so I told my comp that I felt we needed to go knock in the back of this apartment complex, and he goes "We always knock there, we never knock up here." I just go "I feel like that's where we need to go." SO we start walking and we started contacting on the way and as we're walking past this building, I just got this WAY QUICK thought to go knock the doors. I almost said "No, we need to keep going" but decided to go do it. So we knock the doors and nobody answers, so we move upstairs, and as soon as we go up the stairs, this guy walks out and I saw him and just got this HUGE impression "Talk to him." So we did and he's way stoked. The missionaries visited him back in Honduras like, 7 years ago and he loved it, but he hasn't talked to them since then. So we're way excited with him. Then we found this way cool family who we invited to be baptized in the 1st lesson and they were like "we'll have to think about it, but keep visiting us and we'll see how we feel." So things are going pretty good. We had a sleepover at the other elder's apartment last night and we were up all night telling scary stories adn the rest of the elders were all freaking out and couldn't sleep, and then Elder Schults goes to check the door and it was open, so he started FREAKING OUT thinking "Oh man, the spirit told me to go check the door, that means that something bad is going to happen!" it was hilarious. Umm, what else is there. WE've got mission conference tomorrow. First one not as a spanish zone. We're all still going to sit together thought. Paul Sybrowski is coming to talk to us, it should be WAY sweet.

Umm, well I dont really think there's much more to tell this week. Thank you for the garmetns, I'll let you know when they get here. You're all the best. I love you very much and I hope everything is going wonderfully for you. Trust in the Lord and he'll take care of you. Joshua 1:9 has become one of my favorites. Thanks for being the best family I could have asked for.

Cuidense

Elder Campbell

7 Sept 2010

2010-09-16T08:59:00.001-07:00

Wow, the girls sure do look different! All 4 of em! That's great though.

So, this week. well, let me just put it into perspective for you. This lady maria's husband was getting taught by the missionaries over a year ago. He didn't get baptized and he was way lazy and would steal Maria's money and leave her for days at a time, so she finally kicked him out. Well her friend is a less active named Hna. Pico. Hna. Pico has been praying for like, 2 years that Maria could get taught by the missionaries and baptized. Well last tuesday, wouldn't you know it that we're walking through this trailer park, and we meet maria. We teach her a little bit on her front porch and she loved it. We said a prayer and she started crying. So we set up a return appointment for Friday and on Friday, we stop by and this Hna. Pico is there, and it was the first time we met Hna. Pico. So we go inside and sit down and start teaching Maria and she absolutely LOVES it. She's talking about how she read 1 Nefi 8 and how it was way cool, but she didn't understand it completely. So we start talking about the plan of salvation and how it applies, and then we go "Maria, will you get baptized on October 9th?" and she goes "Yeah, I think so." So we went over again last night and she was like "Ever since you came by the first day, I haven't gotten sad. Everything has been better. Everything in life is going good." And she's way excited to learn more. We're going over tonight to teach the restoration, and I'm WAY excited. She's just SO prepared, it's amazing. I just hope she can get work off on sunday's because she works in housekeeping in a hotel, and they always have to work sundays :( So maybe some extra prayers could definitely help?

And then last wednesday, this one lady cancelled on us, so we're driving away and on the highway we see this car stalled down. So we stop and run out into the middle of the road and start pushing the car, and I look in the rear view mirror and see this one less active hermana. So we push her into the gas station and she jumps out of the car and runs over to give me a hug and then just goes "Elders, you're my angels!" So then the next night she had a lesson with the other elders and one of her friends in her house, and she started bearing her testimony and the other elder said it was the most powerful testimony he's ever heard in a less active. She was like "I haen't been to church in 10 years, and I know I haven't been a faithful member. But Eva, this is something I want for you. To have the happiness that I have now. I'm coming back to church, and I'm never leaving again." It was WAY solid! Things are going really well here.

The only bad news we received was on Thursday. They're killing our zone. There will no longer be a Pembroke zone made up of only spanish elders. They're disbanding us and putting us in the english zones in where we work. It's way depressing. Our mission president said "We're graduating the spanish elders." And then with transfers, Elder Wheatley, who was just called as zone leader 2 transfers ago, got exiled into zebra in Nags Head, North Carolina. He's way depressed. He's going to be donig a ton of english work. It's way sad. So I may never see him again in the mission. Elder Schults, the other zone leader, is training.

But yesterday we got to go to a baseball game! The Richmond Flying Squirrels. They're the affiliate team of the San Fran Giants. It was way cool. One of the Mission Presidency counselors didn't like that we were there, but we had permission from the APs, so. Whatev.

Umm, what else? Oh, we got this one less active back to church, and we're going to baptize his girlfriend. SHe had a baptismal date like, 8 months ago, but stopped coming to church because of the baby or something, but they came on sunday, so that was way cool. Also, my companion accidentally called their baby retarded. That was a mistake. hahaha, but she is WAY fat. LIke, she's freaking HUGE!

Haven't gotten the garments yet, but yeah the bible is SWEET and the new BOM is awesome. Thank you very much. I swear that should be the end of the requests for a little bit. Except maybe if you could throw in some mini cassettes for a voice recorder when you send me the next package. I record my journal now, but I can never ever find cassettes to buy. But thank you in advance.

Elder Andrade is doing good. He's still really impatient with the mail system here, but he's getting like, 2 letters a week. He's still in the whole shock phase about suddenly leaving everything, so I hear a lot of complaints about that, but he's doing relaly well. He's a stud and he teaches like he's been here for like, 6 months already. Just needs some refining and he'll be PERFECT! :)

Well, love you all. Hope everything is going great. Eat your vegetables. Be safe. Talk to you in like, 3 months! hahaha

Elder Campbell

30 Aug 2010

2010-08-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

Hey hey hey. This week was WAY up and down. As for the MP3, I think english talks would be better. I hate the voices of the translators :) And yeah, if you could get some motab, awesome. If not, don't worry too much. I know that lisa and Cole have/had a ton, maybe they could hook you up with some cds while you're up there or something?
So yeah, this week. The weekdays were really brutal. We were out tracting all day long and not getting any success. Just a few lessons here and there, nothing really great. Then on Friday we had a lesson set up with this one guy and we walk in and him and his buddy are drunk and his buddy sits down and starts trying to pull a Zeezrom on us and make us cross our words, but it didn't work. I wanted to punch him in the face though(and then I speedily repented). So we were just really burned out and at the end of our ropes. I was just really deflated. Then on saturday, we actually sat down and taught 7 lessons and got really close to setting this one guy for baptism. It was sweet. Really good day. We were running around we were so busy we didn't have enough time to do everything. SO that really helped out. We're just trying to get every day like taht! haha
Things are starting to look up, we had a person at church yesterday. We found him like, 5 weeks ago but he was just like "I'll call you and I'll come visit you someday" which is what every hispanic says when they're not interested. Well then this week we're driving out of his apartment complex and he comes sprinting out of his house and pounds on the car window and goes "I lost your phone number, I'm coming to church this sunday." so we give him our number and lo and behold, he showed up! It was sweet! So this next week is looking up real nice. The lady we were excited about was margarita. We haven't taught her in almost 4 weeks, but we got ahold of her and we've got a lesson set up for tonight. I haven't heard anything about Teo unfortunately, but I think this accident might speed up their return to Nicaragua. He's going to be out of work for a few months at least, and she doesn't get paid that much, so they're going to be real strapped for money. So we'll see. Umm, what else is there to say. That would be awesome if Uncle Steven came back to church. Wouldn't that be something? And Ashley was in the chapel with him? Isn't that interesting!? Man, the Lord works in mysterious ways, we just have to wait to see the end of His plan. Well I think that's everything. Thanks for the scriptures and what not. Love you all and hope you're all doing awesome. The church is true. Keep on keepin on.

Elder Campbell

23 Aug 2010

2010-08-23T15:43:00.000-07:00

How's everyone doing!? Well, this week has been kind of tough. We've been finding a ton of poeple, but it seems that they all drop us after 1 appointment. Like, we have a good appointment, and then we just can never ever get ahold of them anymore. And then we teach some people and then all of a sudden, they turn super stubborn and hard of heart and don't want to listen anymore. It sucks, but we keep on working and trying.

SO about the bible. I appreciate it. But is there any way that I could get the medium hard cover one. Not the soft one, but not the hard one? Both the hard and soft cover weigh a TON and I already have a cover that would fit the medium one. SOrry to be picky. Also, I just realized that I'm down to 7 pairs of garments. I don't nkow where they all went. I was just looking through my bags the other day, and I only have 7 pairs of garments. It sucks. And 2 of them are rippping. (That means he's working hard!) So maybe a few pairs of garments? SOrry for the needs. And whatever happened to the Book of Mormon? Did it ever get to Virginia Beach or is it still backordered? Just wondering, I was thinking the other day that I never heard anything about it.

So, where to start. Well, we got to use a member's computer last night to go on and surf the new mormon.org and it is SWEET! Our president has been talking about it nonstop how it's going to become the greatest finding tool in all the church for missionary work and I can totally see that. It's not going to be huge for spanish work, but for english work or people that actually have computers, it will be SWEET! We watched some videos and read some stuff. It's way cool. A lot cooler than when I got out of th e MTC.

Soo, man, I don't even remember this week. I went on exchanges back up to Henrico and I had to go on an exchange on my exchange. SO that was weird. But we taught this CRAZY lady who just can't get over the law in Arizona, and we're still seeing a ton of repercussions from that. Me being white, people just LOVE to talk about all the "racismo" and stuff going on here. It's just hilarious, but it gives me an opportunity to practice my patience :)

Man, I don't remember if there's anything to tell you or not. Like, I really can't remember. I've been jump-roping for my morning exercise, but still waiting to see any results in weight-loss, due to the fact that the slim fast diet was a complete failure! haha I just hate having something tell me I can't eat! I can too!

I'm also pretty sure that I met the twin of Oscar from the office. maybe just a little blacker. He was way sweet and I taught him a mini first lesson and asked if he thought that could be true and he goes "yeah, I think, based on my readings of the bible, that that is pretty much how God would do it." So I asked if we could come back and he goes "Maybe in the future, I'm just reading generally right now, trying to study up on a few religions". So you know what I did? I gave him a mormon.org card. BAM! Insta-baptism! Well, we'll see. But what else, umm, I hit 14 months in 2 days. Weird, right? This last month has gone by kind of slow. They were flying by, and they've kind of slowed down. But after this next transfer, only 1 more elder in the spanish zone is older than me on the mission, so taht will be way weird.

So do you remember when you asked me what college I was going to? Well, could you send me a pamphlet on BYU or something? I also heard that Fresno and UNR and Boise jumped ships to Mountain West. That's cool! And Utah went Pac 10 or something? What is the world coming to!? Well, I don't know if there's anything else exciting to tell you today. I think that's about all the news I got.

Anyway, I love you all. Have a good week. Take care.

Elder Cmapbell
(Must be the modern spelling of our name, huh?)

16 Aug 2010

2010-08-18T21:15:00.000-07:00

So this week was sweet! We've done a ton of finding and we've found some really sweeet people. We had I think the best zone conference of my mission on Saturday. The First Presidency and the Twelve are making this huge push to change how we teach people, and its AWESOME! They haven't really 'changed' anything, but they're focusing on some principles of PMG that really change everything when we teach. The big focus now is on making 'inspired questions' and then listening to diagnose needs. Pres. Perry related it to a medic. If someone's sick, you don't just start tossing medicine at them. You do some tests, you find the wound and you apply the appropriate medicine. Its like in the gospel, you find the need, and apply the appropriate part of the gospel to fix it. And they're also focusing on teaching "PURE DOCTRINE" instead of teching the application and hoping that it works. They've also made a bunch of changes to how we work. LIke before, baptismal candidates had to live word of wisdom and law of chastity for 2 weeks prior to getting baptized, but now, we as the missionaries have to feel that they have committed to live these and keep them after baptism. We also simplified the way we do numbers and pres. perry said that "PMG and the scriptures are everything that we need. Everything else is fluff, so we're cutting it out." He also said that we can now have I-Pod's in the mission as long as they have Gen. Conference talks, appropriate music and what not. So maybe you could load my MP3 player with some general conference sessions and some Motab and hymns and send it to me? That would be sweet. Like, as many as you can. But no rush.

So the weather has kind of cooled down, it's been really cloudy lately, so not QUITE as hot, but still freaking hot! We're finally getting to know the area, so that's nice. Umm, what else? OH, all my recent converts are still doing good! Grizselda, the one that moved back to New Mexico, well she's trying to convert her sister. She reads the book of mormon to her grandma and her sister and they both love it. It's awesome! Also, Teo, my first baptism, he had a bad accident at work on Friday. Some guy above him in the building frame was cutting with a circular saw and the saw dug in and fell on Teo, but hit him on his left arm. It cut straight through the bone and all the muscle and tendon and everything, almost took his arm straight off. But he's doing better now, still in the hospital and drugged up, but he's doing good. SO maybe some prayers for him!?
List of things I need- A new bible. I gave mine to a recent convert in Henrico. Medium-hard cover would be best. Umm, maybe some vitamins? And that's it. :) Thank you!

Well, I hope you have a great week, love you all.

Elder Campbell

Aug 9, 2010

2010-08-09T14:42:00.001-07:00

So this week was interesting. We were told when we got here that our purpose was to work with the less actives in the ward and find new people. So we started doing that, and then the other companionships started getting mad at us because apparently they "were already working with some of the less actives" so then we had this "meeting" with the three of us and we had to set boundaries and limits on people and it was just ridiculous. then our progress record yesterday in church was nothing but less actives because we don't have investigators yet, and the High Councilman and the Bishop were worried about that, so they called the mission president and then I got a call from one of the AP's (the one I don't like) and he chewed me out for giving off the impression that I was there for something other than missionary work or something so I had to go and straighten that out with the bishop and High Councilman and it was way stupid. But it's good now. We found some sweet new people to teach last week, one of them is a really cool lady named Margarita and she told us that she wants her 4 year old son to be a missionary like us. We're way excited for her. Yeah, we're in a super ghetto area. The south side of Richmond is where all the crazy stuff goes down. Like, we live in a really nice area, but we go to the GHETTO parts. I told you about La Mancha. Dead Guatemalans turn up in there all the time. It's full of morenos and they start prowling around at about 6:30ish and they always rob the poor guatemalans. And a lot of times at night, the Guaties are drunk, so they don't understand even more and then they get jumped or something. It's way crazy. But we avoid all the bad places from about 5:45 onward. Don't worry about that. And yeah, the ward is taking care of us. We ate with a family yesterday and they just pulled a bunch of Silverware out of their drawer and gave it to us, then the mission office found a microwave and vacuum for us. I was sleeping on these little couch cushions for the first 3 nights, it was terrible! hahaha but it's way better now. The high councilman that called the mission president came over last night with a 12 piece set of un-opened steel pots and pans. Apparently an old wedding present that they never used, so he figured we could use it. I think it was also kind of a peace offering for the phone call from the AP. hahaha.

SO yeah, my companion is legit. It's frustrating at times, but I have to remember that he didn't go to the MTC like I did, so he's missing out on 9 weeks of training from the best of the best, ya know? SO I try to be really patient with him and help him when he does something wrong, try to help him not to make mistakes. It's way hard to know when to step in so he doesn't make a mistake and know when to just let it happen so that he can learn from the experience. Kind of like being a real parent, right!? haha But he's way sweet and he really loves being a missionary. He's dealing a lot with the first few weeks of home sickness, and I can tell that it was definitely revelation that we were put together because he's going through the exact same thing that I went through. Like, exactly. So I can offer him some advice on what I did and help him through it. It's a lot of pressure though! But it's really making me step up and make decisions like I hated to before!

Can I please have a mariachi at my wedding!? Please please please please! Elder Andrade and I did this street contact the other day that we had to pray afterwards. The spirit was so far gone it was terrible. We're talking to this lady on her porch and this like, 18 year old mexican girl comes outside and sits on the porch. Lets just say I never thought I'd see that much of a woman's chest outside of an adult theater. There are somethings about the hispanic culture that are still just echoes of Sodom and Gomorrah! haha

No, I haven't bought slacks or anything yet, we live really close to the house, so I'm holding off on getting any new clothes yet because I can just go and change right after church. And sorry to say, but I lost my watch. But it was also already broken. It was barely holding together, and when I finally lost it, I just bought a 12$ one at wal mart. Sorry. I was hoping that one would last me through my entire mission. But it's looking like I might actually be able to make it through this month on my MSF card. Elder Andrade Estrada and I don't eat out AT ALL!

Yeah, we're pretty close to the mission office, like, 6 miles away or something. We're there like, 3 times a week and I'm on the phone with Sis. Henrie just about everyday. I get to see Pres. Perry a lot, which is sweet. He's way awesome. The mission is going to have a lot of success under him. His spirit is way great but it's completely different than Pres. Millburn's, which I think is funny.

Well anyway, I love you all and I can't believe I'm about to hit 14 months. General Conference is right around the corner! have a good week!

Elder Campbell

August 2, 2010

2010-08-02T21:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, so my address is 5514 Gristmill Rd, Richmond or chesterfield, I don't know and I don't nkow what the zip is. SOrry. (note from mom- It is Richmond and the zip is 23234)

So my companion is Elder Andrade-Estrada. He was born in Michoacan, Mexico, but he's lived here for about 8 years. he's a stud. The only hard thing is that he didn't go to the mtc, so I'm pretty much training him from the very beginning. Absolutely no experience. He went out with the missionaries before, but it's still way different now that he's an elder. So there have been a few frustrating moments, but I just always have to remember that he didn't get any training like I did, so I'm trying to be very patient. But the area I'm in is SUPER GHETTO. Like, there's this place called "La Mancha" which means the stain, and I'm pretty sure its because of the blood in the place. It's way hardcore. Then there's just a ton of apartments LOADED with hispanics, its awesome. I'm serving in a ward, but there's a TON of less actives, like, over 3/4 of the ward. That's the whole reason they put us in here, to work with reactivation. And I'm really sorrry to do this 2 weeks in a row, but My companion's computer isn't working, so I'm going to let him use mine now. Sorry. I love you all. Have a great week. Talk to you soon.
Ok, well we worked it all out. SO, like I was saying. We got into the apartment on Thursday and it was completely empty. Not a single thing in there. But we took an extra bed from the zone leaders and some couch cushions and we set Elder Andrade up in the bed and I posted up on the couch cushions for a few nights. We have a total of 2 forks, 2 knives and 2 spoons, we didn't have plates or bowls or cups for the first few days and no lamps, but that's ok, because apparently we live in one of the few apartment complexes in virginia where they actually put lights on the celing, or in the apartment period. It's weird. SO our apartment is still completely bare and sad, but that's ok. There are a TON of hispanics here it's INSANE! Like, i'm pretty sure there are more hispanics here than there are white people!

Umm, I don't really know what else to say. Hope everything goes well for you this week!? We could really use some prayers for finding more people and getting investigators if you could spare some.
SO my trainer officially died last tuesday. He's back home and doing who knows what. Has yet to email me. What a chump.

Ok, well I love you all. Buh bye

July 12

2010-07-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

Yes, the cards were perfect. I'm just about to finish up my last set of ones from the MTC, so I'll be breaking into them soon :)

So sounds like everyone has been real busy lately! That's real good to hear. I'm not the only one! SOrry to hear about the babies, that doesn't seem like any fun. So I don't even know who this sister chapman is, but she was there as long as I was in the beach! That's good. I miss the beach a ton. I would go back in an instant. I like henrico here, but when I've spent a quarter of my mission in the beach and that's where I've had all my baptisms, i just really miss it. But it's ok. So today my old ZL is back in town visiting and we're going out to lunch with him. His name is now Jordan Bishop, that's going to be real weird. He's been going all around virginia visiting his places for like a week now, so he's stopping off here today. It's going to be weird to see him. Elder Nelson and I have a bet about what he's going to be wearing. I say khaki shorts, flip flops and a hollister t-shirt. It's pretty much a guarantee.

So yesterday we ended up teaching gospel principles and it was on the sacrament. It went SO good. Elder Nelson and I split it up and it went GREAT! The spirit was SO strong and people were crying and everyone's eyes were just GLUED to us, it was awesome. Then I translated sacrament meeting into english for a few white people that were there. We also went to a farewell on Saturday for elder Otto Leon. Yeah, he's gong to be Elder Lion. Isn't that sweet? He's gonig to Charlotte, NC because of the "questionable immigration" thing. But we tried to visit them yesterday and his mom just sent us home with a giant bag fulll of food it was great. She says "come visit me more often, I've always got food just sitting here for you in the refrigerator" so we might take her up on that offer.

So last night we all did a slumber party in the english elder's room. I tried to do a somersault bounce transfer flip onto Elder Gomez's bed, but just ended up landing on Elder Nelson's stomach. It was awesome.

That trip doesn't sound like a lot of fun. To Logan I mean. Don't worry though, when I get married, it'll probably be in the bogota, Colombia temple. HAHAHAHAHAHA is there even a temple down there? I need to start making plans now! I've only got 11 months left! Can you believe that? Elder Nelson has 3. It's weird. He's way trunky, but acts like he's not. It's funny.

Anyway, hope everyone has a wonderful week. Love you all, best of wishes, lovey dovey stuff, talk to you next week.

Elder Campbell

July 26

2010-07-28T12:29:00.000-07:00

Note from mom- Skyler was soooo excited that he couldn't even spell his name right at the end of the letter !

Ok, so transfer calls last night. It's been my dream since day 1 of the mission to train. SO I'm in the bathroom, and I look at the phone, and it says Pres. Perry so I pick up and he's like "Elder Campbell, you're training!" So I'm super stoked and I get outside and I tell everyone and then the English elders tell me that it was a joke and they called. Turns out it was true. So I was super depressed last night and at like, 9:45, the phone rings again. And it says Pres. Perry on it. So I'm super confused adn I pick it up and Pres. Perry starts talking, for real this time. And he goes "Elder Campbell, since the day I met you, I just knew that I needed to have you training. So will you accept that?" I said of course and he goes "I guess I should tell you the interesting part. You'll be going to Chesterfield and opening up a new area. We're still looking for an apartment for you. We're not sure you'll have one by thursday, but we have faith." So yeah. I'm going to Chesterfield on Thursday and I'm getting a greenie :) I'm super stoked, but WAY nervous at the same time. This is somebody's life getting put into my hands. Is this how it feels when you have a child!? SO I don't know my address yet, but I will next week, so just all mail to the mission office for a little bit :) hahaha it's crazy. Yeah sorry I don't have much time, I'm using the Hermanas computer right now because for some reason I can't get on any other one in the library. Anyway, I'll talk to you next week. Love you all

Elder Cambell

July 19

2010-07-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

Well hello from the opposite end of the country. It's really humid and hot.

We' haven't found a ton of new people, but we're finding a few. The two people that I was really excited about 2 weeks ago, well, one dropped us, and the other one has just disappeared off the face of the map! But it's ok, life is good and it goes on! We went and visited the kid who's going to NC on Wednesday. I was so excited for him. He was showing us all the stuff he got for his mission. He was showing us all his ties, his suitcases, his shoes, his first aid kit, his laundry hamper y todo. it was way sweet. He's going to be such a good elder.

I can only imagine how las vegas feels right now! I was just thinking the other day, "I don't remember what dry heat feels like!" When I get back to Nevada, my whole body is just going to dry out and my skin is just going to crack and shrivel up and die. That'll suck.

Bishop Woodman? That doesn't sound familiar... Does he live right across from the stake center!? If he does, we went over and did and FHE with them one night. I hardly even talked, so I don't know how he could like me so much. Oh man, I can't believe Adam and Morgan are home already! That's insane! Thats way cool. Tell Morgan I'm learning a little bit of portugese so I can talk to some brazilians here. Portugese is way sweet.

And yeah, I can't believe that I'll be home in 11 months. So crazy. Like, the mission actually ends! It's weird. There's actually life after the mish.

But thanks for everything. Love you all. HOpe you have a great week.

Elder Campbell

July 7, 2010

2010-07-07T09:42:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. Glad to hear the 4th of July went well. Ours was VERY hot, and since we have to wear our suits to church, I had to walk around in my wool suit in 92 degree humid weather for 2 hours, but it's OK, it'll make for a great story when I get back :)

Man, that's so crazy that Adam and Morgan are going to finish the mish. It's weird to think that other people are going to be leaving before I get back. The ward will definitely look different when I get back!

Well, we've still got some really great people, particularly Ada and Pablo. They've been investigating for a year and want to get baptized, but they're both still married in Mexico, and they have to get divorced there first. Which is next to impossible. But luckily, the Lord specializes in impossible :) We're really praying for a miracle with those two, I don't know how much longer we can keep them pumped up and running on what they've got. Ada does missionary work all the time and studies Preach my Gospel, so she's awesome.

Then we found this guy Santos the other day. We set up an appointment with him and he goes, "meet me right here on this same street corner." We didn't think he was going to show, but he did, and I got the distinct impression to set him for baptism next appointment. he understands really well, and he reads and committed to come to church, so he's way prepared. Then we met this Guatemalan named Gerver. He seemed kind of fluffy at first, but showed up for his return appointment. We're talking to him and he's like "I want to change. I read the pamphlet you gave me, and I want to change. I want to be better." So we're in the process of committing him for baptism and his twin brother walks out of the house to where we were and the spirit just completely changed. it was super weird. So we backed out of setting him right then, and I think we're going to try tomorrow. So we're really excited about them. The area is Huge again, but it's different the layout. All the places we work in here are relatively close, so that's nice. we only really work in about 5 apartment complexes, there's no trailers here, so we know where everyone is. The only problem is that we talk to so m any people everyday, we're starting to run into the same people. So they're either there for a reason or it's just a coincidence. ha ha, yeah, right!

And yeah, we met Pres. Perry on Friday. He was dropping names left and right. "I was in a meeting with Pres. Uchtdorf, Pres. Eyring, Elders Packer, Ballard, Nelson, Oaks, Bednar, Hales...." and the list goes on and on. he was only baptized 30 years ago, but he was already a 70. Bet the missionary who baptized him was super pleased with that find! ha ha

He's making a few changes to the mission. MY PDAY IS NOW ON MONDAY we also now only have interviews and zone conferences quarterly, so that's going to be weird. In August, we're having a 3 day training camp for this new curriculum that the brethren are putting out for missionaries, 8 simplified lessons or something like that, but only trainers, district leaders and zone leaders get to go. I know it's wrong, but I hope I get to be in one of those positions :) hhahaha Other than that, everything here this week h as been extremely hot and humid, and pretty good. I'm starting a diet today, so I'll keep you posted on the results. Maybe my pants will start fitting again! I hope.

Anyway, love you all, you're the best, none of my companions know what you all look like, my trainer Elder Gleave is officially dead to me because I won't see him again on the mission, I hope you all have a great week, talk to you later.

Elder Campbell

Kickin it city life in Richmond since 2010

June 30, 2010

2010-06-30T08:33:00.001-07:00

I think Henrico and Richmond both work for my address, because I've gotten everything you've sent me so far, so it's all good. We're technically outside of Richmond city limits, but I've gotten things with richmond on them, so they both work :)

Yeah, the weather has been BRUTAL here this past week. in the 100's with TONS of humidity. It's really bad. ANd elder nelson and I have to find all new investigators because the one's that Elder Wheatley and Dulanto left us don't answer the phone or the door, so we're pretty much only sitting on 3 investigators, and we're lucky if we can visit them more than once a week. SO we're outside tracting all day in the scorching heat, but it's ok, my wife will just be hotter when I get back :) hahaha

Well, I think it's safe to say that being an idiot can now be classified as a hereditary gene. Seems to run well with some people :)

I didn't know that Uncle Steven made fudge. Since when does he do that?

I told Jim and Paul and all them like, 4 months ago that I'd try to write them all like, once a month, and I havent' since then. I just hate writing letters so much. it takes so long. But I'll drop them a line today. See what's going on. That's a bummer with Grandpa. DO they think he's going to be able to get it back?

SO yesterday Pres. Perry officially took over in the VRM. Pres. Millburn bounced and a new reign has started. Nothing has changed yet, but we have mission conference in 2 days, so I'll get to meet him then. It should be pretty cool.

I've been hearing a ton about the world cup lately. We stopped by to visit this less active on Monday and we were about to leave and he goes "Hey, do you want a drink?" So we said sure and he tells us to sit down so we do, then as we stand to get going he says "Hey, sit down and watch the game." He turns the game on and it's Brazil versus Chile. Right then, this other less active from Brazil walks in for the game, and we figured "Well, these two are impossible to get ahold of, and we've got them both right here. Let's teach em!" So we ended up watching about 12 minutes of the game. We had a few members absent from church because of the Mexico/Argentina game. Mexico got wiped off the map!!!

But other than that, there's not much exciting going on. Just talking to a ton of people and tryingn to spread the gospel. In the past week, I've met 2 egyptians, 1 afghanny(I don't know how to spell in english now), a few pakistanis and a few indians(like, curry and stuff) oh, and our ward mission leaders son was living in New York and knows Elder Davis, he has a picture with him. Thought that was sweet.

Anyway, hope everything is going well with you all. You're always in my prayers. If you need anything, write it down and I'll try to take care of it in 1 year! haha

Love you all

Elder Campbell

June 23, 2010

2010-06-23T08:51:00.000-07:00

SO yeah, Henrico is sweet. It's wayyyyyy different than Virginia Beach. The biggest problem with getting shotgunned is that neither one of you knows the area, so we get lost quite a bit, even with my gps, but we're getting to know the area. The branch is sweet, they really want to work and help with missionary work, so I'm really excited about that. It's definitely interesting being with Elder Nelson again, but I like to think my 7 1/2 months in the beach was preparing me for this, so I'm pretty optimistic :) It's weird living with English elders again. all that time in the beach and I got used to just living 2 to an apartment and being able to spread out wherever, but not anymore :) One of them I live with is kind of a weirdy, but I'm also back with Elder Gomez, the english elder I lived with in Charlottesville. It's way weird!

SO yeah, there are lots of hispanics here. The only problem is that the Hermanas here are REALLY good, so we've already knocked into like, 4 of their investigators hahaha but that's ok. They're killing it up here.

I haven't gotten the CDs yet, I'll pick them up from the office today. Thank you so much! I don't know what things your talking about from Dad, so I'm going to say no....

So what was Dad doing to cut his fingers? I learned in the MTC the week before I left, "Do you want the spirit to be with you? Then don't do anything stupid!" That phrase was running through my head the entire time yesterday when ELder Nelson and I were at Buffalo Wild Wings to do the blazin' challenge. Before you start, y ou have to sign a waver that says "If you die, we're not responsible". I was thinking "What would PRes. Millburn think?" SO the challenge is 12 wings in 6 minutes, and they're really hot. They're REALLY spicy, but they also are hot physically, and that was the worst part. I think I ended up swalling about 2 whole wings because I only had like, 6 seconds left or something. SO I won and I got the T-Shirt. It was brutal. My lips were purple for like, 3 hours after that. Elder Nelson didn't get it and he was really mad yesterday. But it's ok.

So yeah, 1 year. Isn't that crazy. I still remember like it was yesterday going to Swensens and then driving to the airport. It seems like just last month that I was in the MTC and you think "Man, we're here forever, we're NEVER actually going to get to the mission field!" It's really trippy. But I've had lots of fun so far.

Man, when I heard dad applied for a job in Charlottesville, the first thing I thought was "Oh man, I gotta tell Pres. He can't transfer me up to Harrisonbburg!" But everything is all safe. Sorry I gotta go, I gotta email Jaime and Fernando still and President. But thank you for everything. I love you all and miss you(a little bit) and I'll talk to you next week!

Elder Campbell

June 16

2010-06-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

So I got transferred last night! Ok, I actually just got the call last night at midnight. I'm getting shotgunned up to North Richmond, the area is called Henrico. And guess who my companion is!? Elder NELSON! Hahaha what are the odds!? But we'll be rolling around in a grey Mazda 3 in the rich part of Richmond, so that's cool right? I don't have the address right now, so safer bet is to send everything to the mission office for this week and I'll geti it all figured out next weeek. So Elder Zobrist is training, isn't that sweet!? He's way nervous, but he'll be great. Pres. Perry gets in today or tomorrow, and the new reign begins. These transfers were crazy! Elder Gleave got released from Zone Leader, whereas before, they were ZL until they died. Elder Wheatley took his place, and they shotgunned a ton of other areas in the english sector. Man, I don't know, it's crazy. The president change is going to be WEIRD! Umm, among other news, I have a big task for you today dad!

Here's Jaime's info, I need you to look up what ward or stake or whatever that he would be in, and I need you to find the number of the missionaries there, and I NEED you to call them. No one has gotten in contact with him and he needs the missionaries.

so here it is

Jaime Medina Ortega

60 Jane st

Patterson, New Jersey

973-224-9581

Please please please do whatever it takes to get that to the missionaries.

Other than that, I think everything is going good here. We went and played basketball today at 5:30 am. Elder ZObrist and I stayed up until 2:30 talking about life and stuff, so I'm dead tired. We are going to make carne asada today, see how that goes. So marsela got a new job right as we found her a house, and the job requires her to work on Sundays. SO yesterday we went over there and were talking with her about putting God first and the blessings that you can get from that, and she said "I'm not going to work on Sunday. I'm going to church." I was amazed. She's pretty much a dry mormon. It's great.

Dad, you mentioned something about a hump day package. I have 1 request. Some CD's of Jesus Adrian Romero. As many as you can do. That would be awesome. Other than that, whatever.
I hate packing, but I'm excited to go to Henrico. Poor Elder Gleave. He was born one transfer in Richmond So. then went up to charlottesville, up to harrisonburg, bak to charlottesville, back to harrisonburg, back to Richmond So. and now up to Waynesboro, which he used to cover when he was in Charlottesville. Poor guy. Elder Washburn is headed up to Harrisonburg to fill Elder Nelson's spot. These transfers were crazy.

Anyway, I love you all, don't have a lot of time, I have to email Jaime, Grizselda, Fernando and PRes, but I hope you're all doing great, hope the sisters learn to drive (good luck with that), and I'll talk to you next week. I'll also see you in in 56 weeks or so! hahaha isn't that insane!?

June 9, 2010

2010-06-10T20:03:00.001-07:00

Haha, it seems that we're both just getting shorter and shorter on the letters :) NOt much this week. Jaime got baptized on THursday and it went REALLLY well. He was super excited and the spirit was just amazing. His son Carlos got to baptize him, so that was also a really really good experience. And Carlos and Shannon just got baptized about 2 months ago, so they won't have to wait long to be able to go through the temple with him. Ins't that great!? I was just thinking on that the other day. I had a part in helping a child of God open the doors to the celestial kingdom. Now he's in New Jersey and he wants to get his daughter baptized. Then it will just keep moving on through the entire family. It's the same with Teo. We sent a referral of his daughter to the missionaries down in Honduras. Isn't it amazing how the Lord works through people to spread the Gospel? I was just thinking of the very few things that I do and how big of an impact it has on the lives of the rest of the people. Alma 37:7 By small and simple means does the Lord bring to pass his great and eternal designs. Or something like that. But you get the point!? So now the grandson of Jaime refuses to go to church unless he has his "future missionary" nametag on. It's hilarious. And sorry I didn't get the pictures of Fernando and Grizselda sent off last week. I'll try to get some sent off soon, but it might be until next week, but I'll definitely send some photos. Grizselda gave us a call yesterday when we were at mission conference, so we put Hna. Law on the phone and it was so sweet to see her face light up talking to Grizselda. This really is just the best work on the planet. Nothing else can make anyone as happy as this.

So transfers are looming and we still don't know what's going on. I think I'm going, but who knows. One of the members here predited that I was going to be in the beach for 1 year. It's completely possible. Elder Wheatley has been in Henrico since October 8th of 09, so who knows. He gave a really powerful testimony yesterday at mission conference and it was amazing to see how he's changed since the MTC, more so in just the past 3 months since he "got the call to mature" as he put it. He used to look like a little 14 year old, but he actually looks like a missionary now. It's incredible. I was just wondering how I'm changing and what the Lord thinks of the progress I've made. It's really humbling to think about that. Is the Lord happy with where I'm at? How much more does He expect of me and what is he planning to throw at me to push me in the direction that I need to be? I think so far the mission has been a great experience and I've still got a ways to go. But yesterday at Mission conference, I got really humbled and saw my defects and what I need to do, and I think I've got a pretty good idea now. But don't be surprised if you don't recognize me when I get home :) haha

Alright, well I think that's all for this week. Hope everything goes good for you all this week. Love you all and I'll see you in 54 weeks! hahahaha

Elder Campbell

PS to 2 June 2010

2010-06-02T12:33:00.001-07:00

And No, I didn't get transferred. Transfers are on the 17th, so I'll let you know on the 16th. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be getting moved to chesapeake, but we'll see.

June 2, 2010

2010-06-02T12:09:00.000-07:00

Hey hey hey

So my email address is skyler.campbell@myldsmail, they switched over the mail servers about a month and a half ago and just remade everyone's email addresses, but all my stuff from the old one gets forwarded. Sorry I don't answer questions. I just go.
But yeah, there are stupid missionaries everywhere. I'll definitely have to tell you some stories when I get back (Elder Clayton, Elder Goates, Elder Lovelady, Elder Reynolds, the list goes on :) haha. Man, I don't know how some missionaries get away with some stuff. Like, I've heard some really crazy stories about what some elders do on their missions. It just amazes me! Sounds like the girls gave you the run around. You're getting the cat shaved? Wow, I'll definitely need some pics!
Oh, so the big huge news of the week. Jaime, the peruvian who was atheist 1 1/2 months ago, is getting baptized tomorrow. he passed his baptismal interview yesterday with flying colors. I got to sit in on it to translate, and his answers were the best I could have ever imagined! So yeah, we're really excitd abotu him. His son Carlos is going to do the baptism, and he only got baptized about 1 1/2 months ago! Isn't that sweet? And then this guy Roberto who we met the same day Teo got baptized has a baptismal date. Teo actually found him and invited him to church the same day he got confirmed, and when we popped the question he said "If you don't know how to swim, you've got to throw yourself in the water." We're not sure what exactly that means, but he's got a date for the 20th of June, so we're way excited! I think that's about it for this week. Not much exciting happened. Just went by like a blur and I really don't remember almost anything. Sorry. But we went to Wal Mart today and met like, 4 or 5 members, it was weird. And I'm going to send home a few pictures today, just 1 or 2 I think. But yeah. So yeah, that's all for this week. Sorry it's super short. I'll try harder next week :) Love you all. Have a great week.

Elder Campbell

PS- Can you believe I only have 12 months and 3 weeks left!? WHAT THE FREAK!?

Some pictures.Finally!

2010-05-26T12:12:00.000-07:00

Making Tortillas in Vbeach

The C'ville gang

May 26, 2010

2010-05-26T11:52:00.000-07:00

Oh man, this week was SUPER sweet! Elder Zobrist and I started to fill the font and when we came back at 6 o'clock, it was coming out at 130 degrees. So we were dumping cold water in the font with coolers we found for like, 10 minutes and Elder Zobrist goes "It's good." So we leave it and we're getting other stuff ready. So it's 15 minutes til 7 and the service starts at 7, so I call Grizselda and say "Can we help with anything?" and she goes "Umm, we decided not to come. We got scared." I go "Wait, what? You're just not coming?" and she says "Yeah, we just aren't going to come. Sorry." Well I'm FREAKING out and my heart was in my throat and I was about to cry and she starts laughing and goes "I'm just kidding, we just overslept on our nap, we'll be there soon." I was just speechless and I go "I was about to go lay down in traffic right there!" Oh man, it was the worst phone call I have ever received, even though it was a lie. But they showed up and we got pictures and then we started. So remember that 130* water? Well apparently Elder Zobrist isn't good at estimating how water cools down, so Fernando starts to get in the font and goes "Woah, that's WAY too hot!" So we're dumping more water in for about 15 mintues and then just said "You gotta suck it up man!" So they both got baptized and it was sweet. Then Elder Zobrist confirmed Fernando and then I confirmed Grizselda. Oh man, it was the COOLEST thing EVER! I had NEVER felt anything like that! I had absolutely no idea what to say, and the words were just coming out of my mouth before I could even think about them. But when I said "Recibe el espiritu santo" as soon as I finished the last "o", I could just feel the spirit jsut go WHOOSH right through my body down my arms and into her. It was incredible. I just imagine it as him just sitting there waiting to be able to make the move, and then just jumping at it, not even wasting any time. Oh man, it was amazing. I really wish you could have seen it, absolutely incredible. He was crying, she was crying, their kids were screaming. It was great. And now we're working to get Jaime baptized on the 3rd of June before he leaves to New Jersey on the 4th. He wants to get baptized so bad it's hilarious. And you know the best part? He was atheist two months ago! hahahahaha and now we got him! It's great! We're still working on finding Marsela a house so she can get baptized because she really wants to still. So that's what we're dealing with. And Dionisio is kind of jumping back on board, so we'll see what happens with him. Oh man, things are just going CRAZY around here. And yeah, I've almost been out for oen whole year!? Isn't taht insane! It just amazes me how fast these 11 months have gone by. I just thought "All those missionaries are liars, it can't go by that fast." Well, they were right.

But yeah, that's the big news for now. I'm just still super excited about Fernando and Grizselda, the only thing is taht I don't get to do the new member lessons with either of them. Oh, and their interveiw on Saturday, oh man, real bad. So Grizselda goes in for hers and then 35 minutes later comes out and Elder Frampton gives me the thumbs up. Then Fernando and he's in there for like, 40 minutes and he comes out and waves for Grizselda to come in. Elder Zobrsit and I are like "What the freak? That can't be good!" So we wait another 30 minutes and we're like "Oh my goodness, this is the worst thing EVER!" and they come out and Elder Frampton goes "I just felt like I needed to talk to them about the plan of salvation and temples and what not. It was all good." It was crazy. WE also got to play football on Saturday. Jaime's son and daughter in law just got baptized about a month ago and they invited us to go to a ward picnic with them, so we went to hang out with Jaime. Well they all go "Who want's to play football?" And jaime goes "Let's play!" because he doesn't know its football. SO we play and I almost lit a few people up, football instincts coming back from Freshman year, but we were playing flag football, so I couldn't tackle anyone, but it was crazy fun but my quads have never hurt so bad in my entire life. I almost couldn't walk the next day.

SO yeah, I got my spanish PMG last night and I broke it in today during studies, I was super excited. Thank you so much. I started carrying my PME with me in my backpack and it was gettting destroyed, so I was going to need a new one eventually. The tortilla making continues and we're getting better. Our latest undertaking is making pupusas, which are from El Salvador. They're way good, but they're a little challenging, but we're getting better.

I'll definitely point out all the people in the pictures when I get home. Can you believe only 13 montsh remain? That's insane! And Pres. Millburn bounces next transfer! That's whats crazy! But the thing I can't believe is that I've been in VA beach for 7 months now. that's a LONG TIEM!

Anyway, I think that's all I got for thsi week. Talk to you soon. Love you all.

Elder Campbell

May 19

2010-05-19T09:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, before I forget, would you be able to send me my english PMG back as well? That would be nice. Maybe some more vitamins too? haha

Oh man, sounds like a good week you've all had. Us too! Last Thursday, we went over to visit Fernando and Griszelda and we had a killer lesson. We just bombarded them with everything we had to get them to feel the spirit. The thing is, the hermanas were going really slow with them, but she's leaving on the 28th to albuquerque or whatever, and he's getting deployed the 5th of June for 6 months. So we fasted with them and had them make their decision and tell us on Friday. I thought I was going to be really worried to make that phone call on Friday, but I was really calm and just felt really good. So I called her and she says "we got our answer. We're going to do it." So they're getting baptized on the 23rd and confirmed the same day. We were freaking out! Elder Zobrist and I had never hugged before that. It was insane. I didn't sleep at all that night I was so excited. But yeah, how great is that!? They're way excited, and we're freaking out. The only problem was that we had to go over the baptismal interview questions with them. The interview asks about Law of chastity, word of wisdom and tithing. He knew a little about the other two, but hadn't been committed to live them, so that was a big deal, and then hadn't heard a thing about tithing. That was hard. But luckily, I always remembered that story that you told me mom, about how the member in the ward brought over a ton of food for you when you paid your tithing. I've used that story everytime on the mish so far and it hasn't failed. Like the stripling warriors said "We never doubted that our mothers knew." So thanks for giving me a strong testimony of tithing from the beginning! So Fernando said he's going to do it and they're getting baptized.

Other than that, not too much this week. We've been just living on top of the world because last wednesday we bought a tortilla presss and we've been eating like hispanics everyday. making tortillas and beans and rice and chicken. We're going to move over into fish tacos and maybe some beef one day. Quien sabe. But Marsela taught us how to make really good tortillas yesterday, I got some pictures, so I'm excited to put my new skills to use. We're also going to learn how to make pupusas tomorrow, so that'll be really exciting.

So what's the news on this new law in Arizona? We heard about it but we're still in the dark on the repercussions. SO some news would be sweet. Yeah, can you believe Adam Tew is coiming back in July? That's crazy how fast that went! Mines going to go even faster! hahaha

And we don't even know if I'm going to open Chesapeake. WE dont' have any news on that, Pres. doesn't really keep us informed on anything that hes doing, but it's definitely going to be opened soon, but I don't know if I would open it or Elder Zobrist. Who knows. I think it would be really good for me because it would force me to take decisions, which I've never liked or been good at doing, so that would be good.

I'll be sure to send some pictures today I think. The card is doing alright, but I lost a ton since that last card mishap. But I'll definitely get some sent off now. I was jsut thinking about that the other day. I still don't have a picture of the fam, or of Reno! hahaha

That's cool about your team health challenge. I want to eat healthier, but when Pres. Millburn said we HAVE to accept food from people when they offer it, my chances of losing weight here just went down to -20%. So I might be a little bigger when I get back. We'll see. But the food is really good at least, so I'll be fat and happy, right!? Anywho, I think that's all I got for this week. My letters h ave been getting progressively shorter since the MTC, but it just feels like I have less to write each week, on account of I can't remember what happened in the last 3 days. But yeah.

Have a good week. Love you all.

Elder Campbell

May 12

2010-05-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

So yeah, don't really know what's new to telly ou that I didnt' tell you on Sunday. Except now I don't think Dionisio is getting baptized. We went over on Monday night and he just started bringing up all these things again about him "falling" after his baptism and why should he get baptized if he's just going to fall and how that's like making a mockery of God and then told us that if his doctor's appointment goes well, he's going back to Mexico to be with all his women(if you had seen this guy, you'd know he doesn't have that many
women) and if it goes bad, he's going back to his pueblo to get smashed beyond belief and "enjoy" the little bit of life that he has left. So that's the biggest news of the week. Also, we need to start looking for a new place to live for Marsela. She decided she is going to move out so that they can both get baptized. Also had interviews on Monday, and we talked with Pres. Millburn about opening Chesapeake to spanish elders and how we would need to just send in 2 missionaries right off the bat instead of going in slowly and he said "Ok. Let's do it." So I will probably be the one opening up chesapeake next transfer or the transfer after. So that would be cool right? I'd be pretty worried, but it'd be sweet.So yeah, who knows. We're just trying to get Marsela and Isidro, Griszelda and Fernando and Jaime all baptized in this transfer, so we could definitely use some power packed prayers for that. Other than that I don't really know what to tell you. Hoep everything is going good for you. And sorry I forgot to tell you happy mother's Day. Can you believe that I'll only have 6
months left next time I hear from you and then next mother's day I'll have about 1 1/2 months! Crazy! So who is the third guy cardboard cutout in the picture? I recognize Brendan and Andy, but that's it. But that's sweet. I know Jim and Paul wer going to try to get a cardboard cutout of me to sit on their couch, maybe I need to tell them about that....
But anyway, I'll talk to you next week. Love you all very much.

Skyler

May 5

2010-05-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

Moms thoughts-

I got to talk to Skyler for Mothers day and I didn't even cry! He sounded so happy and excited about what he's doing that I couldn't feel sorry for myself! His mission is going by amazingly fast and while I'm anxious, to a point, to have him home, I want him to have this experience forever! He loves the people he's there to teach and has become a more wonderful man than he was when he left.; We are so proud of Skyler and his testimony and ability to share that with others.

April 28, 2010

2010-05-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

So Marcela, the lady that has a baptismal date, shes doing really good. We tried to set her boyfriend about two weeks ago and he said that he needed about a year to get baptized. Well he came to church on sunday and had to wait around for an extra hour for his ride to get out of a meeting. But we went over on Monday, and started talking about the Holy Ghost and repentance. He looks at us and Elder Zobrist goes "Isidro, are these blessings that you want?" And he looks and goes "I really liked church. I have never felt that good. I know I'm in the right path right now. You're going to have a new member of your church. And a new miembra. I know I said a year to get baptized. 2 months, 1 month, whatever it takes, I'm geting baptized. I want it!" Yeah, that's a direct quote! Not even kidding! It was SO amazing! I have never seen a conversion like that! I was just so blown away! And then Marcela told us that her fellowshippers had told them they were going to need to get married, and she was kind of nervous about that. First of all, she got married in Mexico in the Catholic church, but her husband left her with their 4 kids. Then secondly, she is nervous about marrying Isidro becasue he used to be a drug addict and alcoholic and used to beat her every day, so she doesnt' exactly trust him, but we told them we'd talk more about it the next time. So yesterday, Elder Gleave and Elder Wiles(his greenie) came down and Elder Zobrist and Elder WIles went to see them. They started talking about the marriage again and Marcela said she had a dream where she was back with her husband in Mexico and she's just really confused. Isidro said "I know she'll marry me eventually, but even if she doesn't, it'll really hurt me, but I'll move out if I have to so we can get baptized. Nothing will stop me from being baptized." How amazing is that? This guy has only been to church once and he is already more converted than me! hahaha I'm so excited for them. They're amazing and just seeing how much the Lord was preparing them to hear this message is just such a huge testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel. It's funny how we found them too. The Lord really wanted us to find them. We were knocking in this trailer park, our first day
there, and we find this trailer with a mexican flag. We knock the door and nobody answers, so we leave a card, and as Elder Zobrist is coming down the stairs, he slips and goes flying into the house and almost knocks it down. Elder Zobrist doesn't just slip though. He's in really good shape and has really good balance, but his legs just went flying out from underneath him. After he almost took the trailer down, Marcela opens thedoor and we start talking to her, and she was SUPER excited to get Finding Faith in Christ. So the Spirit even goes to desperate measures to make sure these people get found. So that's the big news for this week. I translated on Sunday again for Pres. Thomas and I was sweating bullets. He would say the sentence and I
would translate it afterwards, and he was saying sentences that were like 30 seconds long and using huge words and I'm just thinking "Are you kidding me?" I also got to drive a 2010 Subaru Impreza with Tiptronic shifting all day yesterday(the zone leaders have that car) so that was way fun. Didn't have that much pick up, but it handled REAL nice :) Also, theres this family in the branch, the Carters. They're white and they were in Norfolk 1st but they transferred to the branch to help out because they both served spanish missions. They're amazing and everyone loves them. Well Sis. Carter was about to pop she was so pregnant, and she went into labor on Sunday. Well on Monday morning we received some bad news that the baby died in delivery. So if you could just keep them in your prayers, it would really help. They're wonderful people and they're really sacrificing to come down to the branch and help out. That's a lot of engagements and stuff going on this summer. Crazy how the world goes on when you're on a mission. So I just realized that this next week, I hit 6 months in Virginia Beach. So crazy to think that 1/4 of my mission has been here. And I'm almost at the half way point! Can you believe it? 1 year is creeping up on me really fast! I've only got 10 more weeks until I hit a y ear! Oh man, thats' insane! But thats how it goes! The weather here has been alright, keeping just at the point where we have to keep our suits on instead of slacks, and the wool is killling me, but I'll manage. I'm going to try to send some stuff back, like my thermal garments, because they'll just take up space until next winter. But I do have a favor to ask. Don't know if it's possible, so if not don't worry about it. But if there's a way to get a new spanish Preach my Gospel and a nice spanish triple combination (the harder cover one) for relatively cheap, that would be awesome :) If not, don't worry about it, I can last. Other han that, I think I"m good for right now. Hope everything is good on your end. Love ya all. Talk to you in a week and a half.

2010-04-28T08:38:00.001-07:00

Hey hey hey. Ok, so HUGE news!

So Marcela, the lady that has a baptismal date, shes doing really good. We tried to set her boyfriend about two weeks ago and he said that he needed about a year to get baptized. Well he came to church on sunday and had to wait around for an extra hour for his ride to get out of a meeting. But we went over on Monday, and started talking about the Holy Ghost and repentance. He looks at us and Elder Zobrist goes "Isidro, are these blessings that you want?" And he looks and goes "I really liked church. I have never felt that good. I know I'm in the right path right now. You're going to have a new member of your church. And a new miembra. I know I said a year to get baptized. 2 months, 1 month, whatever it takes, I'm geting baptized. I want it!" Yeah, that's a direct quote! Not even kidding! It was SO amazing! I have never seen a conversion like that! I was just so blown away! And then Marcela told us that her fellowshippers had told them they were going to need to get married, and she was kind of nervous about that. First of all, she got married in Mexico in the Catholic church, but her husband left her with their 4 kids. Then secondly, she is nervous about marrying Isidro becasue he used to be a drug addict and alcoholic and used to beat her every day, so she doesnt' exactly trust him, but we told them we'd talk more about it the next time.

So yesterday, Elder Gleave and Elder Wiles(his greenie) came down and Elder Zobrist and Elder WIles went to see them. They started talking about the marriage again and Marcela said she had a dream where she was back with her husband in Mexico and she's just really confused. Isidro said "I know she'll marry me eventually, but even if she doesn't, it'll really hurt me, but I'll move out if I have to so we can get baptized. Nothing will stop me from being baptized." How amazing is that? This guy has only been to church once and he is already more converted than me! hahaha I'm so excited for them. They're amazing and just seeing how much the Lord was preparing them to hear this message is just such a huge testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel. It's funny how we found them too. The Lord really wanted us to find them. We were knocking in this trailer park, our first day there, and we find this trailer with a mexican flag. We knock the door and nobody answers, so we leave a card, and as Elder Zobrist is coming down the stairs, he slips and goes flying into the house and almost knocks it down. Elder Zobrist doesn't just slip though. He's in really good shape and has really good balance, but his legs just went flying out from underneath him. After he almost took the trailer down, Marcela opens thedoor and we start talking to her, and she was SUPER excited to get Finding Faith in Christ. So the Spirit even goes to desperate measures to make sure these people get found.

So that's the big news for this week. I translated on Sunday again for Pres. Thomas and I was sweating bullets. He would say the sentence and I would translate it afterwards, and he was saying sentences that were like 30 seconds long and using huge words and I'm just thinking "Are you kidding me?" I also got to drive a 2010 Subaru Impreza with Tiptronic shifting all day yesterday(the zone leaders have that car) so that was way fun. Didn't have that much pick up, but it handled REAL nice :)

Also, theres this family in the branch, the Carters. They're white and they were in Norfolk 1st but they transferred to the branch to help out because they both served spanish missions. They're amazing and everyone loves them. Well Sis. Carter was about to pop she was so pregnant, and she went into labor on Sunday. Well on Monday morning we received some bad news that the baby died in delivery. So if you could just keep them in your prayers, it would really help. They're wonderful people and they're really sacrificing to come down to the branch and help out.

That's a lot of engagements and stuff going on this summer. Crazy how the world goes on when you're on a mission. So I just realized that this next week, I hit 6 months in Virginia Beach. So crazy to think that 1/4 of my mission has been here. And I'm almost at the half way point! Can you believe it? 1 year is creeping up on me really fast! I've only got 10 more weeks until I hit a y ear! Oh man, thats' insane! But thats how it goes!

The weather here has been alright, keeping just at the point where we have to keep our suits on instead of slacks, and the wool is killling me, but I'll manage. I'm going to try to send some stuff back, like my thermal garments, because they'll just take up space until next winter. But I do have a favor to ask. Don't know if it's possible, so if not don't worry about it. But if there's a way to get a new spanish Preach my Gospel and a nice spanish triple combination (the harder cover one) for relatively cheap, that would be awesome :) If not, don't worry about it, I can last. Other than that, I think I"m good for right now. Hope everything is good on your end. Love ya all. Talk to you in a week and a half.

April 21, 2010

2010-04-28T08:36:00.000-07:00

Hey, so everything is alright this week. Sorry abotu the $140. We were at Teo's house on Thursday night, adn we parked in the visitor's spot, so I thought we would be alright. But when we come out, the car was gone! I was freaking out! So we called the towing company, and they said yep, they towed it. So we got a ride with Teo over to the towing lot and they made us wait for about 50 minutes to open the gate, and then I asked them why they towed it when it was in a visitor spot. They told me "you've gotta have a visitor pass and be in a visitor spot." It's so stupid! So it was $135 to get it out, and they don't take card and it has to be exact cash, so they ended up screwing me out of an extra 5 dollars. I was so mad. But yeah, that was why. Sorry about that.

Last week was just wow. I can't really say that I've ever seen so much opposition in the mission. We had everything lined up perfectly for 10 people to come to church on Sunday, and just everything that you can imagine that could have gone wrong pretty much went wrong. Only 1 person came to church. Then after church, Elder Zobrist went up to say hi to one of the recent converts and they guy just turned around and said "You need to be more humble. I was talking with another member and we agreed you're too prideful. You don't do anything out of love, you only do things because you're obligated too." adn then walked away. Well, Elder Zobrist didn't take that hit too well. Then Jenry, the 19 year old, dumped us also on Sunday. Just told us he didn't want to do anything anymore. It was brutal. SO yeah, last week was really tough. Then on monday morning, the phone didn't go off at 6:20 like it should have, so we ended up sleeping in until 7:30 on accident. Just seemed like it couldn't get any worse.

But on the bright side, we're still alive, we have the gospel, what else really matters, right? I've started reading Preach my Gospel like a chapter book as opposed to just opening it adn studying something, and it's really really good! I never realized how much is actually in taht book! Can you imagine, not a single word in that book is wasted! Every SINGLE word was divinely inspired. As the apostles said of it "Written in heaven, published on Earth."

So at English class last night, we were talking to one of our investigators and we're walking to the car and he turns to Elder Zobrist and says "Why don't you go buy yourself a drink.' Elder Zobrist thought the guy was handing him like, 2 bucks, but we get in the car and we turn on the light, and its a $100!!!! This guy doesn't even have work right now, but he's dropping 100s for us to buy a drink! Needless to say, we're going to return it and teach him how to pay fast offerings and tithing with it. But yeah, that was exciting! I took a few pictures with the 100 just to prove it! Also, last p-day I was going through my old letters and I found your christmas letter mom. Turns out that I actually never opened it :) haha sorry. So I opened it, and guess what I found! My memory card! hahhahaha sorry.

SOrry to hear about the job search dad. I know i'm not exactly in the same position, but I have started to realize what Pres. Hinckley said when he said "The gospel is true. What else matters?" Keep it up, God's got something for you. We just have to expect it on His time.

Ok, so Elder Zobrist adn I have had this question for a long time, but we dont' haev access to wikipedia, so I'm gonna need some help. Did George Lucas start Star Wars with Star Wars IV: A New Hope, or was it just Star Wars and then he went back and changed them to I-VI. just wondering. So some information would be good. Thank you very much.

Well, I believe that is it for now. If I think of anything else, I'll probably forget it by next week. Anywho, thanks for the letters, love, prayers and support. Talk to you all in like, 18 days or something.

Love, SKyler

April 14, 2010

2010-04-28T08:32:00.000-07:00

Hey hey hey from this side of the country. So no, I didn't feel the earthquake, but I don't doubt it. It seems that there's another one every couple of days now. The weather was heating up, but it seems to have dropped back down a little bit, which is nice. Glad to hear everything is going good with you all back home. Dad, sorrry about the lack of success in the job department. The Lord is just preparing you for when you really really need it! Remember, he doesn't forget those who don't forget him (1 nefi 21:16 or something "I have engraven thee on the palms of my hands. Thine walls are forever before me"). Just keep looking and taking care of the things that need to be taken care of. Pres. Millburn is even throwing in some prayers for you, so that's gotta add some extra swing up there, right? hahaha

Yeah, I'm so burned out on school as well. And I'm not even going to be back for another 15 months! Crazy, right? I'm super proud of her for sticking it out and pulling to the end! Who was that apostle that said that the Lord will bless us in the last 5% of our 100% effort?

Glad to hear the little girls are doing well. I have so many pictures of them all over in all my books. I just learned this week that I was saying twins wrong in spanish. Apparently gemelas( hem-el-as) is identical twins whereas mezillas( me-siy-as) is fraternal or whatever twins, the kind that bailey and reg are. Just a fun fact.

Man, grandma and grandpa are going to end their 3rd mission that fast huh? Isn't it crazy to think of how fast it goes by!? 3x in the service of our Lord. Isn't that great!? And Elder Slack has officially departed! That's way cool! What part of spain is he going to again? He's going to talk with a funny accent when he gets back! haha

Oh man, Pres. Dyer would be a great young men's president! That's way sweet!

We're not teaching anyone new right now, still the same people, and they're all way sweet. Elder Ghelfy from Mexico and I went on exchanges on Friday adn it was so cool speaking spanish the entire day. We visited Marcela and Isidro and things with them weren't going too well, but Isidro started crying and told us he wanted to change really bad, so we told him the gospel was the way. We went back yesterday and tried to set a baptismal date for him, but he said he'd need at least one year to make sure he's making the right decision, but Marcela said she's down with getting baptized as soon as possible, so we're really excited with her. She's so awesome. Her face just lights up when we come to the door, but we really need to get some member presents so it's not just us that help her to feel that way. Elder Zobrist and I have been failing with member presents lately, so that's one of our big focuses these coming weeks. We've got a correlation with our branch president today, so we're going to present our massive plan to get the entire branch moving and working again por medio de un plan misional. SO we'll see how that goes.

Dionicio is doing alright. He told us the earliest he'd get baptized is May 24th, becasue he has to wait til may 12th, the day of his saint, to see if mujer will marry him or not. I don't get it, but it really doesn't make any sense anyway. But whatever. We're going to keep teaching him and help him see why he should get baptized de todos modos.

Jenry has pretty much fallen off the map. He barely has time to ever see us, and we can only go over to his house 1 day a week now. He doesn't really like talking to us on the phone, and he works sometimes on saturday's so he can't come to church on Sunday's, and we just don't really know what to do anymore. Suggestions maybe? I just don't want to lose him when he's THIS CLOSE to being the happiest he's ever been in his entire life!

So I started the Book of Mormon over again in English this time, adn I just started realizing how many examples there are of family teaching in there. In 1 Nefi 4 I think it is, Sariah is complaining to Lehi because she thinks that their sons are dead, but Lehi just responds with his testimony and his faith that he knows God will make everything work out. How sweet of an example is that? It even says "in that manner of language did my father comfort Sariah." Then, in Chap. 8 in teh tree of life, Lehi eats the fruit and immediately wants his family to eat it too. So he turns around and calls out to them and is leading them to the tree. As melchizedek priesthood holders, we have the duty to call and guide the family towards the tree of life. Isn't that such a great and wonderful responsibility? It's funny the subtle ways in which the Lord teaches us great lessons for everyone.

Alright, well I gotta go now, got a few other emails to write. Stay strong, keep moving forward, and never give up. Love you all.

-Skyler

7 April 2010

2010-04-07T09:18:00.000-07:00

Wow what a week. Conference was sweet. It went by way way way fast. I don't even remember what happened much since last wednesday. All I know is that we set this lady Marcela for baptism. We went to follow up with her reading on Friday and we didnt' have a plan for a whole lesson with her, so we got in and we said a prayer and she got her book of mormon and we started talking. I just started getting this really strong impression to start directing the conversation towards baptism, and I looked at Elder Zobrist and I could just tell he was getting the same one. So we starte talking about how baptism by proper authority is a commandment of God, and after about 20 minutes, we just asked "Marcela, will you prepare yourself to get baptized the 8th of May?" and she just says 'Yes, I will." We were really excited and this lady is SO prepared. The first time we came over and taught her she said she felt sooo good and wanted to feel that more often, and she absolutely loves when we come over, her face lights up and she jsut gets so excited. We're going to bring 2 recent converts Gilasio and Martina over there on Friday. They got baptized in July of last year adn their testimonies are stronger than most of the members in teh branch. It's amazing. So wer're really excited about that lesson on Friday. Dionicio isn't doing so good. He doesn't want to talk to us anymore and won't pick up his phone, and when we call his neice, he jsut has her talk to us. So we don't know what's going on, he got up and bore his testimony 2 weeks ago and now won't even talk to us. It's really weird. So I don't know with him. Jenry is doing good, but he's working so much taht we can never see him. I think he's starting to lose his momentum a little bit, becasue we really haven't gotten him any lessons with members. That's our bad. But we're going to get him a member lesson on Saturday. He's SO close, I just am praying sooo hard that he doesnt' fall off. Mauro is doing good. He's progressing a little bit. He came to priesthood session on Saturday and we went over and visited him on Sunday, adn he asked us about the priesthood. This was one of the things that he didnt' get before, but we spent about an hour talking about authority and the importance of authority in baptism and everything, and I think he started to understand it a little more. He's going really slowly, but he's going. Our big focus this week is to see our investigators more and not tract so much. It's tough, but I know it'll have big blessings. Our area is so huge and we don't have that many miles, adn none of our investigators live that close to the others, so we usually can't see them all as often as we'd like, but we're really trying.

The weather here has been absolutely brutal. It got up to 92 yesterday, I was dying. MOst of the trailers don't have air conditioning, so it was hotter inside than it was outside. It was insane. I got SO dehydrated.but we bought some gatorade mix, so we've been making that everyday to take with us.

The thing we're most excited about though this week is what Elder ZObrist and I learned in personal study. It was crazy. We both studied the same topic in PMG but in different sections. We've realized that we've been trying to take over too many responsibilities of the branch, when God has already given us this perfect organization to work with. Why should we try to reinvent it? So we're correlating with the Branch President tomorrow to make sure we can get the fire burning underneath a few members and help them step up and WORK! hahaha So I also have a challenge for you two this week or next. But the challenge is that within the next 2 weeks, you get the missionaries to bring an investigator over to the house and you have a lesson there. Do you think you can do it? I've seen the importance of members in the work, and I've got two of the best sitting back home! So lets get some people baptized, right? I want you to let me know how it went when it happens and see if it's not a great thing!

But yeah, that's my week in a nutshell. Pretty sweet right? Yeah, I got the easter box adn we've devoured the candy inside. The camera is working perfectly. I'm going to start taking pictures of the places that we tract so that you can get a feel for VA beach as well! But, the next time you send a box, whenever it may be, instead of candy, would you be able to send some useful food? Like, wheaties fuel cereal or something healthy and good like that? Kellogs Special K with fruit and yogurt is also a favorite over here :) It's just that we get so much candy from all the other people that send us stuff, but we could use good healthy food so much more. Just a thought :) hahahaha
Love ya, Skyler

March31, 2010

2010-03-31T09:29:00.000-07:00

Hey hey hey, how's everybody doing?! Hope you're having a good week. Things have been going good here. The weather is getting nice. We've been in short sleeve shirts a few times which has been really really sweet! We got freaking DUMPED on with rain a few days ago, that was brutal. But everything has been going well. Money got reloaded today, so we're finally going shopping at WAL MART where we can actually afford to buy stuff! Thank goodness. Man, I don't remember what I told you all about last week and what has happened since then, but if I tell you something again, sorry.

Dionicio is doing good. He's trying real hard to stop smoking, but it's really hard for him when everyone at his work smokes on their breaks. He's really opened up to us and is a lot more friendly, so thats a nice change. Us and the Hermanas put on a movie night at the church on Monday night. We watched The Testaments on a giant screen and had a giant dinner there and Dionicio brought 3 buddies. It was great. He also got up to bear his testimony on Sunday and it was better than some of the member's! haha Jenry is doing good. He still needs to come to church 2 more times before he can get baptized, and on Friday he's moving to this place that is WAY far away from any member and he doesn't have a car, so that's going to be real tough. But he's progressing really well and reading the Book of Mormon and everything so we're really excited about him. Mauro is just Mauro. He says the book of mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was called of God, but he doesn't get that there is ONE true church and the whole authority thing just goes completely over his head, but we're now on good terms with his wife, so maybe she'll be the key? I just dont' know anymore, but we're still trying. We've been finding a lot of old investigators lately, and not because we were using the area book. We just tract into them and they're usually willing to hear about the gospel again. We found this guy Jairo who had a baptismal date 2 years ago but had some really bad experiences with some member at church and just stopped going, but we're working with him and he still has a testimony! It's awesome! So we're really excited about him too!
So can you believe it's finally april tomorrow? I don't know why, but march just seemed to go by really slow. General Conference this weekend, and I'm way excited! Funny story, we actually had an investigator who just raises every doubt he can think of, and he asked us how a church that professes to put such a big emphasis on families can send children away from their familes for 2 years and only let them talk to their family every six months! hahahaha I was laughing SO hard! Worst doubt ever, so we squashed that one.
Man, what else has happened. One of the recent converts of about 7 months has gotten all offended because his buddies in the branch didn't have time to sit down and hang out with him one day, and then the buddy of his cornered Elder Zobrist in the kitchen at the church and made him explain what's wrong with the other guy. It was really bad. We're still waiting to see the repercussions of that, but oh well.
So do you remember Elder Wheatley from the MTC? The really little guy in my room who was having a hard time with spanish. Well he's training now! yeah, he's training a native peruvian. I was so jealous. But I think they did it to get him some more responsibility so he would stop screwing around and get to work. He said it's pretty much like he's getting trained all over again, but this time by his greenie. I quote "My greenie is a really good trainer!" So that's the big news on transfers I guess. Umm, what else. I dont' think there is anything else. That seems like all for this week.

Love you all and I'll talk to you next week.

-Skyler

March 17, 2010

2010-03-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

Wow, that sounds like the poor little kitty had quite the adventure. As for the pictures, I figured that was going to happen. I tried to get a few of them printed at Wal-Mart, but the same thing happened. That really sucks, because that was about 200 pictures on there :( I think it's the camera, because it was a re-furb camera, so I think there might be something wrong with it. Who knows.

I'm serving with the two greatest sisters in the world here in VA Beach. Hna. Barney and Hna. Law are freaking awesome, and it must be a utah thing to say "Love your guts" because Hna. Barney always says that. I don't get it. And yeah the Wanlass' hooked it up with another package. They sure know how to feed my addiction to sour patch kids! hahaha Of course I'll send them a thank you card.

Haven't had any baptisms since the 28th with Teo, but we're really trying with Dionisio. He's doing a lot better, and we thought we were going to get him baptized this saturday, but he had some problems with his baptismal interview. The biggest thing is Palabra de Sabaduria. He's having a REALLY tough time quitting smoking. Please keep him in your prayers and if you could even put his name on the prayer roll that would be great. He really wants to get baptized and receive the Holy Ghost, but he's been smoking for 40+ years and just after the first day of not smoking he was almost at a breakdown point, so he's really fighting here.

Jenry is doing great. He found work, but it's work thats usually not on Sunday, so that's really good news! he loves church and he is just super awesome. We also had a FHE with the Garcia family (family near the end of the pictures on my card with us and the sisters) and Mauro Rivera. His family was going to come, but they weren't feeling good. But we watched Together Forever and he ate it up! He said "This is waht my family needs" so we're super stoked on him.

Speaking of pictures, could you possibly hook me up with a picture of downtown Reno? I'm really getting sick of all the green here, I just need to see some desert landscape por fin. That would be awesome.

Oh the spanish is coming along GREAT! The cards are good, but they're really basic words that I already know about 65% or more of, so I bought this giant 30000 word vocab book which is pretty good. But the spanish is real good. I got to translate stake conference for 2 hours on friday and I LOVED IT! It was so awesome! I hadn't been worked like that in forever! And everyone said I did a really good job and it pretty much all made sense, so that was really exciting. Yeah, Elder Zobrist and I get along pretty well still. Nothing bad enough to complain about :) Things with Pres. Pinargote have started to look up a little bit, but it's still a trial. PEC is more like "Judge Pinargote says what you can and can't do" but we're trying to get the script changed to "Judge Pinargote listens and helps us move the branch forward". It's a work in progress, but the new writers this season are supposed to be most excellent from what I hear :) hahaha

man, I can't believe Curtis is going to Spain! What part again? And Danny Hubert going to Bulgaria!? Interesting. And by the way, when IS mother's day? I dont' even know, I'm so lost as to the whole order of holidays and what day they're actually on. It's weird. But yeah, love you all. Hope you're doing great. I'll be sending home a package soon, so you have something to look forward to. Talk to you next week on my 9 month anniversary! Can you believe it? 9 months? Only 15 left, that's almost 1 year! Oh my gosh, it's going by so fast! Where does all the time go? One day I'll be back home and I'll be like "ummmm. Wut?" Man, it's crazy!

Love you all

Skyler

March 10, 2010

2010-03-10T09:26:00.000-08:00

Yes, Elder Zobrist got his pack of letters and I wish you could have seen his face light up when I handed him this giant yellow envelope with his name on it! He was SOOO excited, he ran inside and tore it open and was so excited about it. Thanks a ton for hooking it up. As for Matt Simpson, I don't know if I know him. Should it ring a bell?

I think every missionary gets really attached to their first area, especially when they spend so long in it. I can only imagine how it would be to spend the first 1/3rd of my mission in charlottesville and then have to leave! It sucked leaving Charlottesville after just 3 months! But it's ok, the work goes on!

Speaking of work, that's great to hear about the job interview on Dad's part. Glad Mike O could put a few of his skills to use! That's awesome! Sorry to hear about Juliann and Mike (editors note: job issues, not personal) That's pretty rough. But man, the Lord sure is giving them plenty of opportunities to stay strong and faithful! I know it's easy to say that when it's not happening to you, but everything will be alright. I wish we had 15 year old's coming to church altogether. We have almost NO youth in the branch, so it's really tough on a few of the kids in high school. Their parents don't speak english at all, so it's impossible for them to transfer to an english ward or what not.

As for our investigators, we have Jenry. He is AMAZING! He reads everything we tell him, he understands it and he wants to change, he wants to come to church every week and he's come to 2 activities. He's awesome. He's got a date for the 10th of April and he's progressing real nicely. We're working on getting him a phone so we can get daily contact with him, but it's tough, but the Lord will provide. And you know what the best part is with him? He's 19! And we're already talking about him going on a mission! I'm so excited, that would seriously be the highlight of my mission if I can get this guy to go on a mission! I'm really really excited about him and please please please pray for him to get baptized!

We also have this guy Mauro Rivera, who has a family! And he's got a date for April 3rd, but I'm not sure he completely understands it yet, but we're working with him and he reads and he comes to church and he just randomly showed up with his whole family at Teo's baptism last Sunday, so he's way sweet! But that's about it for solids right now, but we just found a trailer park of about 200 hispanics yesterday, the only problem is that it's about 15 or so miles from the church, so that's going to be tough to get people there, but the Lord will provide a way.

The coolest thing was, we went and saw Teo and Mercedes on Thursday after his baptism. Mercedes got baptized 5 years ago in Nicaragua, but none of her kids did. Well she told us on Thursday that 2 of her kids got baptized without her knowing, and that now Teo's son in Honduras is going to our church there! Isn't that great! They're going to be an eternal family! And I got to help with that! That is the greatest feeling EVER, to know that I had a part in helping this family be together forever, to always be able to be with eachother. I can't even describe to you what it feels like, but I think Dad might be able to describe it a little bit.

Well, I think that's all I've got for this week. I'm going to be sending my winter gear home soon so I have some more space for all my stuff. But that's all.

Love you all, hope you have a wonderful week.

SKyler

Mar. 3, 2010

2010-03-03T10:14:00.000-08:00

That's way cool about Calvin! It's funny how interested teenagers can be in the gospel when they don't know what they're missing! So Bro. Chatterley is not the YMs president anymore? That's interesting, who are they going to call? He was only in for like, 2 years right? That seems way short for a YM president! I can't believe that sisters have been in the ward for 6 months! That's crazy! can you believe I'm now coming up on 9 months? Ahhh, I'm freaking out! I don't know about the whurch as a whole moving missionaries into the homes of members, but it is definitely a lot more common than I thought before the mission. But just last transfer, 3 out of the 7 spanish companionships were living in their own apartments, and all of them have enough space for 2 companionships, so....

SO big news, we married and baptized Teo on Sunday. I did the baptism and it went off without a hitch. It was great. One of the members who served in Chile lit me up about moving the baptism, but whatever. It went great and there were a TON of people there. And then on Monday, we set 2 more people for baptism, and one of them has a whole family, so we're really trying to work with him to get his whole family in on it, because that would be HUGE! And then on Monday night, we went over to Dionicio's house and talked to him and he told us he wants to move his baptismal date up, but he doesnt' know when and he wouldn't let us fix a date sooner, but he's going to call us. So that was really sweet! But things have really been going well here, me and Elder Zobrist are getting along really great and we're working hard and seeing miracles left and right! We went over to visit the Pres. last night and I straight up told him "We feel like the elders and you have been fighting for way too long. We want to change that and we need your help." And then he told us that he needed someone to translate for him at the hospital today, so we're going with him to BRT(in mission terms, that means Build a Relationship of Trust) so that we can get him working with us instead of against us, so we've got some really good things rolling now, and we're going to keep it up! So yeah, things are really going great here, thank you to everyone for your prayers and faith, it really is having an effect on the work in this part of the Lord's vineyard.

Yes, the card works fine! Thank you! I need to send my other one home. I didn't know that you had sent the other one back in the envelope for christmas, so I probably threw it out! Sorry! My bad. But yeah, I got the package and Elder Zobrist tore it open and goes "FLASH CARDS! YES!!!!!!!!!!" hahaha he was wayyyyy stoked. I let him open it up since he hasn't gotten any mail in over a month, and I let him tear into the SUPER noisy bag of Sun Chips, which we're probably not going to recycle anyway, even though that's the whole purpose! haha So maybe if you could send him a letter or something, that would be great?

But yeah, I think that's all for this letter. If there's anymore news, I'll let you know. Oh actually, this is a long shot, but the zone leaders always listen to what Elder Lusk says because he's the best missionary in the mission, but he put my name on the chopping block for Zone Leader next transfer, which would be crazy but highly unlikely, but just in case you get a call about me having a heart attack, you now know why :) haha have a wonderful week, and go save some souls!

- Love you all

Skyler

Feb 24, 2010

2010-02-24T08:19:00.000-08:00

So how's everyone doing this week? Sounds like things are picking up a little bit. A job interview in Georgia? That would be a trip! And a forestry division job in Carlin? The armpit of AMerica? Fun fun!

So yeah, the weather has calmed down and we're just getting wind and we got pounded with rain two days ago, but other than that it's been alright. So big news.... I know we're not supposed to go for numbers and what not, but this last week was awesome. WE were working really hard, and we ended up getting 34 lessons, the highest in the zone. And we had 9 people at church. And this one Hno. gave us 5 referrals, and when we went over there, there were 3 more people in the house, so we got 8 new investigators from one lesson! Things have really been picking up. WE got 26 new investigators last week, and 13 of those were from 2 lessons, so teh blessings were really just pouring in last week, and they haven't stopped! I was starting to wonder if I'd ever see a miracle on my mission, and I've seen about 10 in the past week! So the work of the Lord is going strong down here. Just proof that he really guides us in ways that we cant imagine.Two months ago, Elder Lusk and Elder Zobrist talked to some guy up in NEwport news and sent us the referral. Elder Darbro and I taught him and he got really fluffy, so we left him and haven't been back since. WEll Elder Zobrist and I were in the area yesterday, and I just got the thought to go see him, so we go over there, but no one was hoem. We waited about 3 minutes and a van pulls up and this guy I'd never seen gets out. He looks at Elder Zobrist and says "You look like my brother. Identical. He's also a Mormon. He got baptized threee years ago in Honduras and just went to the temple in Guatemala 4 months ago." And Elder Zobrist asked "Have you seen a change in your brother since he got baptized?" and the guy just went off about how much of a better person his brother is. So he's coming to church on Sunday, and we're going to teach him. Also, the baptism of Teo got moved to Sunday, but he's still good to go and super stoked. He passed his baptismal interview, which almost didnt' go down, but I'll have to tell ;you that story some other time.
That's sweet Darren got his call! What part of Brazil? I can't believe so many people are going to be going on their missions now! IT's so crazy! Can you believe I've been out 8 months now? it's so crazy to think about! It really is going by a lot faster than I thought it would, but it's not like that's a surprise or anythign!
Thank you for the purple pens, I'm sure I'll like them. And the memory card. I need to send you mine becuase I have about 3 1/2 months worth of photos on it. And I'd freak if I lost those. SO thank you for the card. So I don't think there's much more exciting news to tell you. Other than I made Arroz con Leche the other night and it was really good. Yeah, who knew I could cook like a mexican? haha
Anyway, love ya all, but not enough to come home. only 16 months left until I get to see your mugs again! ahaha miss ya, hope you're all doing great!

-Skyler, or to everyone else, Elder Campbell

Feb 17

2010-02-22T19:26:00.000-08:00

So yeah, we set Teo for the 27th and he's getting married at 6:30 and then dunked at 7:00 that same night! And he wants me to dunk him. So I'm really excited and really nervous, because all the planning responsibility just fell on me with a lot of other junk and bad news at Church that I didn't think I'd have to deal with for a LONG time. But the Lord always provides the strength. I didn't think I was ready to be senior companion, I thought my spanish wasn't good enough and I didn't know how to work yet, but sure enough, the Lord has provided. My spanish has been amazing lately, I can understand even the most difficult people now. It's amazing how much the spirit blesses us when we really need it. The whole gift of the interpretation of tongues is alive and kicking in Va Beach! So Elder Zobrist is awesome. His first day here, we found 7 new investigators, and we haven't stopped. On Sunday we set another baptismal date for the 17th of April, but we'll get him sooner than that. This guy has been coming to church for the past 3 months and loves reading the book of mormon and gospel principles book and the liahona, so we finally got a date set with him, so we're way way excited. And we've got this whole thing planned, "Project Pinargote" to show the president that we're working and try to get him to help us out and help out the branch as much as possible. We realized that we're in his area, and we're supposed to serve him, so we're going to give that a shot and see how it turns out. It can't get any worse at this point, so things can only get better, right? That's what we'er hoping.

Sorry to hear about the babies, that's no fun. I'll be praying for them.

So how did Dad damage his LCL? And what is the LCL? I know it's like the ACL, but that's all. Anyway, sorry to hear about that too. So an update on soccer teams. I've apparently become an addict of the team Cruz Azul, so, yeah. Who knows. I don't even know where the addiction came from. It jsut appeared suddenly, but I swear it's not my fault. It's a disease, and I can stop when I want to. So some info on Cruz Azul would be awesome.

So how's everything else going back home? Anything exciting? I can't believe the Saints won the superbowl. That's so crazy. Since when did they get good? And I just saw this morning in the gym that the winter olympics started. THat's depressing. But luckily hispanics don't watch the olympics, so I won't hear much of that anymore! haha

So wow, I don't know much else to write about. I think that's all I've got for right now.

Don't worry about missing valentines' day, i'm a missionary, I don't have valentines. It's actually prohibited in the white handbook. No, just kidding, but I totally forgot it was valentine's day until I showed up to church and the YSA elders were all wearing pink ties and one of them said "Where is your pink for Valentine's day?" And the only thought I had was "How depressing it must be to be a YSA elder." But yeah, that's all for now. If I need anything else, I'll let you know next week, I hope.

- Show quoted text -

Feb. 10, 2010

2010-02-10T21:05:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm pretty sure I told you about the only baptism I've had. That's what I told molly about. Yeah, we're getting slammed with snow right now, but we'll see if it sticks. Just in companion study, the heavens opened and just started DUMPING snow on us! It was crazy. But it's not sticking to the roads, so that's good.

So the big news of the week is, well, there's two things. First off is, we have another baptism set! Teo Mencias. He's from Honduras and he's living with this less active member named Mercedes. So we talked about them getting married and baptized, and he agreed. So we have a wedding to plan in a week, I don't even know what to do! And then we're thinking the 21st or the 27th for his baptism! We wanted to do it the 20th, but the branch is goign to the temple, if there's even a branch left at that point! The president is sure working hard to make sure that happens bien pronto!

The next big news is! Duh duh duh duh, duh duh duh duh duh duh duh!!!!!!!!!! Transfers came in last night. Any guesses? Well, I'm staying in VA Beach. Edler Darbro is going back up to his birthplace of Henrico (North Side of Richmond) with Elder Hernandez and Elder Wheatley. The weird thing is, I'm going Sr. companion now. How scary is that? 7 months out and I'm senior? That's about the time of an english missionary! I've never heard of a spanish missionary going senior that fast, so I'm freaking out! But I'm getting Elder Zobrist. He's Elder Lusk's greenie from 2 transfers ago(Elder Lusk beign the elder that baptizes every other week), so he knows what he's doing and he has a really good work ethic, so that'll be nice. So we'll see how that goes, but I could definitely use some prayers now! The plus side is, I get to drive now! I'm so excited!? hahaha

Thank you for the oatmeal. It's pretty good, but I always forget that I have it because a bagel and smoothie has been my everyday thing for the past 3 months! So I just make the smoothie and bagel, and then I realize that I have the oatmeal!

So last Friday Elder Darbro got really sick. We ate with this less active, and he gave us this soup with meatballs in it, and the insides were completely raw. And he got really really sick. So we stayed inside all Friday and it was SO boring! Sunday, we had 7 investigators in church, but when it came time for PEC, nobody even cared. They looked at the sisters paper which had like, 6 Less actives on it and a few investigators, and everyone goes "Oh, elders, you need to get to work, look at your competition!" so I just looked at them and said calmly, "I don't care, we're all on the same team, aren't we?" and everyone goes "well, yeah, but, we were just making a joke, it's not like it matters or anything". Im way sick of the people only caring about numbers here. it's really getting old. And then the President pretty much called us liars in PEC, so I almost got in a fight with him, and the members afterwards told me they wished I would have socked him. haha, can you imagine if that woud have happened?

ALright, well, I can't think of much else to tell you. I think that's about it. If I think of anything else, I'll write it down to email you next week. HOep you're all good. Love you

- Skyler

Feb. 3, 2010

2010-02-10T21:04:00.000-08:00

Hey, so how's everyone doing? Yeah, I had a pretty sweet birthday. I got the package on Monday and then yesterday we were listening to those CD's all day. We went out to Chili's for lunch, then we went to an appointemnt in this trailer park with this guy we found last week. Turns out he gave us the wrong address and doesn't have a phone, but when we knocked on the door, this lady opened nad we talked a little bit in english, but then I started talking to her in spanish and it turns out she is from Brazil. Elder Darbro knows a few sentences in Portugues and she thought that was totally awesome, so we're going back to teach her tomorrow. It was way sweet. Then we helped this Recent Convert of 7 months translate her massive stack of papers for her divorce from her husband in Texas. She wanted to know what EVERYTHING said. It was crazy! But then we went to English class and played this hilarious game to get everyone to act out command words, then we played soccer, and the Hermanas brought Root Beer floats and had everyone sing happy birthday to me. It was hilarious. SO yeah, pretty good birthday. ANd today, we're going to Nauticus, it's this battle ship museum in Downtown Norfolk. So it should be pretty good.

I hated biking so much. I lilke just riding, but not on clunky mountain bikes in full suits with flat back tires. The back tire wouldn't hold air for anything, so it was flat most of the week until I could find some patches. We logged about 200 miles I would say, and we saw some really awesome parts of the cities. So that was sweet.
The verb book that mallory sent is good, but I bought almost the exact same one in the MTC :/ Hahaha, I was like "Awesome! Now I have two!" I've been studying out of it everyday for spanish study! :)
SOrry, I got a ton of Birthday emails, so I don't have a ton of time to respond. But I hope everyone is having a great time and enjoying the freezing weather! THings should start looking up soon, and I've only got about 16 months left! How crazy is that! And yes, I'll probably want my Futon when I get back. And we'll see about college. I gotta keep my marriage options open, right? hahahaha anyway, I'll talk to ya'll next week. Adios mi familia

SKyler

January 27th, 2010

2010-02-10T21:01:00.000-08:00

Hey hey hey

Wow, what a week. So we had zone conference last week like you know. THen we got home on Wednesday night and the ZL's called us to tell say "There's a huge mile shortage in the mission. A lot of the english companionships have gone over their miles, so you need to start budgeting miles at whatever cost, and it's mandatory that you come in 20 miles under your total alotment." So because English elders can't budget miles adn Elder Lusk wouldn't split miles with us to go up to Richmond, we've been on bikes since Thursday and for the rest of the month. I wouldn't mind bikes if we had an area the size of the english missionaries, but when we cover a 5 city area, it starts to suck. On sunday we did a 25 mile round trip from teh church to an appointment with a progressing investigator in Chesapeake. It was a good appointment, but it was the only one we were able to get all of sunday because of the distance. And so I was kind of mad and to top it off, one of the english zone leaders said "That's all you did with your entire day?" Oh man I was fuming! I almost wanted to yell "It's because your stupid elders don't know how to budget miles that we have to be put on bikes for 2 weeks!" I was way mad. It's just been crazy here. Since the sisters came, pretty much none of the members want to invite us over for appointments or come with us because they all want to have the sisters over and go with them to appointments, so that's been super frustrating as well. Don't get me wrong, I think the sisters are great! They're awesome, but the effects of having them here with the members just sucks.
Anyway. So that's been my week. Nothing much more to report. Biking sucks and is ineffective. Our investigators are all failing with their committments. The branch president is just offending more people, so we don't even have enough active families in the ward to start a Member Lesson Series, and the counselors and president always just say it's a lack of faith on the member's parts. It's just super frustrating. Sorry for all the complaining in this letter, I just really need to vent a little bit.
But how's everything going back in the homefront?
Oh, funny story, I just found out that one of the elders in Virginia Beach is from Elko. Elder SHelley, he graduated with Paige Ellefson. Small world, huh? I thought it was interesting the questions that Elder Kikuchi had the elders in Vegas ask. I thought it was especialy interesting that he says to ask if they have time, whereas in PMG it specifically says don't ask if they have time. I want to try out those questions and see what happens. Also, with the rearranging the morning schedule, he wrote an article about that in the August Liahona, something like "Para que los cielos se abran". It talks about going to a quiet place every morning and saying your prayers in voz alta to have exactly what you said, a "sacred grove" experience. I've started doing that since I got here to Virginia Beach. WHile I haven't had any marvelous experiences from it, I think it is just a nice time to get away from everything and just pray. But I think every mission should institute that as a part of the morning activitiy, the only problem is lack of space in the apartments.
Elder Hernandez was telling me last week about all the guys that have proposed to the sisters up in Richmond. Apparently the Hermanas get a proposal on average about once every 3 weeks to a month. Haha, how crazy is that? One of the best things about the hermanas is that they're SO good at showing love to the investigators, bt they really need to be careful about how they do it. Most of the hispanic guys see a cute white girl that speaks spanish as a chance to get some papers if you know what I mean.
Ok, well that's all for this week I guess. If you need anything from me, well that's too bad. Cause I'm STILL HERE! hahaha Os quiero mucho y espero que tengais una semana fabulosa y que todo os salga bien! No, I don't actually use vosotros with anybody, but I think it's fun and funny! haha

- Your favorite Elder

2010-02-10T20:54:00.000-08:00

Hey hey hey

So this week, WOW! I went on exchanges with Elder Lusk, the bestmissionary in the mission. He's up in Newport NEws, and he usually baptizes about every other week, but usually with 2-3 people each time. SO I got to do exchanges with him on Friday, and it blew my mind! We were teaching some investigators who weren't really progressing, and I didn't know what to do. I shared the first vision, and they said they didn't feel the holy ghost at all. THey then said it was because they were dead to the things of God. I was super
stumped. I was like, "Well ok, that sucks." But elder Lusk said "Well then the thing you need to do is get baptized, but first comes faith and repentance." That simple little phrase has completely changed my entire mission. I look at teaching an entirely different way now. It's crazy. We hadn't had a progressing investigator since I got here, but we do now, and we have 4 people we want to set for baptisms this week! It's so awesome! So that is the biggest thing I've learned so far, is to TALK about baptism with the investigators!
IT seems so simple, but so many people try to hide it until the end, and then the investigators get all freaked out and panic and drop. So yeah, that was exciting, thought I'd share that. yeah, we have a lot of investigators, but we've been cycling through them, becasue Elder Lusk was telling us "You can't be wasting
tons of time on people. Within the first few appointments, you have to decide whether they're going to get baptized, or if they're just taking time away from someone else." And it's completely true. YOu still have to be patient with them, but you can't take a TON of time with them.
The shoes are perfect now, feel WONDERFUL! And they're waterproof, which is great! No more blisters, and I loook GOOD! Also, update with Elder Romney- He came out of the coma, and he's
up and moving now, with the aid of crutches. We saw him yesterday in zone conference and he's doing great. HE has such a great attitude about what happened, becasue he said that since it happened, a lot of the investigators have been progressing a lot more, and even a few less actives have started coming back to church. So he's got a great attitude and an even greater testimony now. I can't believe my little girls are all growing up now! Walking and talking! It's crazy! Be sure you're recording a ton of them, I want to catch up on all 2 years when I get home!
Dad- Glad to hear your talk went well. It really is amazing to think that we can have a member of the Godhead with us. I found something interesting in the introduction of the Book of Mormon not too long ago. It pretty much declares that when we receive an answer about the Book of Mormon, it comes through all three members of the Godhead. The message is so important, that all 3 of them are working together to help us know and learn about it. Isn't that amazing?
Other than that, I'm doing super down here. My toothbrush is working wonders, and i love it! So thank you again for that.
Love you all (Les quiero much)

Skyler

Jan 13, 2010

2010-01-19T11:55:00.000-08:00

Yes, I got the shoes. They're great. I have to break them in, I got two blisters from them on my heels, but after they're broken in, they'll be alright. They look dang good! And about the Jordans (shoes). We were helping a less active move and he pulled out this butt ugly shirt and says to Elder Darbro "Here, I'm not going to wear this." and gives it to him. Then he turns around and pulls out teh box of Jordans adn looks at me adn says "These should fit pretty well." and hands them to me. I said "Hermano, I can't take these!" and he just said "I don't want them, so take them!" so I did! haha Sweet right?

Man, the weeks are going by so fast and blurring all together. I can't remember what I told you about last week and what is new this week. We found 11 new investigators last week, but about 4 of them have skipped on their appointments and we can't get ahold of them. The other 7 we either have had only one appointment with or have not had another appointment with. This area is so big that it's impossible to see everyone everyday, let alone 2 times a week, so we're trying to keep everyone going with phone calls, but the hispanics always buy pay as you go phones, so if they run out of 'go', there's no way to get ahold of them, and we can't risk just driving to their house and have them not there for our miles limit, so it's REALLY difficult. We're trying here, but we're kind of stalling out. But a few of the gators (investigators) are WAY sweet. This one lady Nery is from the Dominican Republic but speaks almost perfect english which is why we didn't talk to her at first, but then I heard her speak spanish and she LOVES the missionaries! She talked to them all the time down in the Dominican Republic, but never about the gospel. Interesting. Another one, Teo, is from Mexico. He's sweet. We found him living with some other investigators, and all of his questions and doubts led exactly through the first lesson. It was amazing! And when I shared the first vision, he was actually taken aback by the spirit. He was kind of scared, but we told him what it was, and he was super stoked. But he didn't show up to church on Sunday, he works a ton, and does't have a phone, entonces (I think this is like "therefore" he adds spanish words sometimes so I add the translation) its way tough to get ahold of him.

The zone leaders came down on Monday and we all went to eat at this restaurant owned by some members. It's a bar and grill, and we went in and the waitress was showing WAY too much skin in both directions, so we kept our heads buried firmly on the plates. It was way awkward. But then Elder Gleave and I went to eat with los Mendo (a church member?), and I was way stuffed, and Elder Gleaev looked like he was going to vomit, so it was awkward. Then I gave Hno. Mendo a blessing in spanish. First time ever giving a blessing, an it was in spanish. It was so nerve wracking. But then we went to this spanish tienda to find a newspaper with an article that I'm translating for you and I'm going to send it to you. I'm really mad. You'll see why. But then we went over to the Garcia's and they fed us a HUGE meal and it was crazy. SO that day was insane, I almost gave up eating food forever. But they liked what I had done with the area book so much that they asked me to give a training on Area Books at zone conference next week. SO yeah.

And with the i-phone. By the time I get done, the i-phone will be even sweeter, so that's what I'm gunning for. I'll keep praying though :) The prayers of a missionary have some extra umph behind them, ya know? hahaha

Oh yeah, the elders that got in the accident last week. Elder Romney. All of his organs that belong in his stomach got pushed up into his chest, he's still in a coma, and they're not sure if he's going to live. So if you could put him and his family on the prayer roll, that would be fantastic!

I guess that's all for this week. I always think of something to tell you right as soon as I log off, but oh well.

As always, love you, hope everything is good with you all. Miss you, but I'll see you in 17 1/2 months. Isn't that crazy!? It is for me! Man it's going fast!

Love ya,

Skyler

Jan 6 2010 letter

2010-01-06T12:46:00.000-08:00

Hey, so this week has been a lot better. The president still sucks, but that's life. (clarification; the U.S. pres) The big news this weeek is ( duh duh duh duh, duh duh duh duh duh duh DUHHHHHHHH) WE GOT HERMANAS down here! How sweet is that? I'm so excited! They're soooo cool! And the members LOVE them! (I"m not kidding, one of the members shrieked and yelled "That's the best gift you could have given me for the new year!) So we're pretty much obsolete now! haha not really, but the members REALLY REALLY REALLY love them! It's crazy. Elder Darbro had some bad experiences with the hermanas back in Henrico, so it always seems like he's trying to turn me against them, but I don't care. I think they're awesome! We've been finding a lot of new investigators lately. I think we've gotten 7 since Thursday. While that's not a TON, they're impossible to find in this area in the wintertime. SO 7 is pretty dang good.

Ok, so some Ecco's would be AWESOME! That lace up one sounds perfect. I'm a size 10.5 I'm pretty sure, so we'll see how that goes.
Oh, so we also built a cave in the house. We hung some blankets from the ceiling and moved the couch underneath them, beccause we were sick of our study area being 60 degrees. Now, we can get the study area up to about 74! It's awesome! We woke up on Sunday, and it was 44 degrees in the house. It's been absolutely freezing here lately, it's miserable to walk around outside for 2 hours in 30* weather, but oh well, that's how life goes!
We had english class last night, it went pretty well. We had about 8 people show up, and Olivia, our investigator who we passed off to the hermanas, came and brought her kids. I went and played some ball with the kids while Elder Darbro was teaching, and then we all went and played some futbol(saying soccer just sounds so weird). It was sweet, but I'm way tired, so naturally we're going to play volleyboll with the English district today for P-Day. SO that should be fun.

Well, I don't really know what else to write this week. SOrry I'm so boring. It's all just blending together now. I can't believe it's already 2010! How crazy is that!? Man, first full year of missionary work! Should be exciting!
oH ALSO, dang capslock, if you ever find some Pentel RSVP pens in all purple (cap, barrel, everything is in all dark purple), could you please send me like, 4 cases of those things. I gave my last 3 away to some members because they LOVED the pens, so now I'm using these pens that I hate and I can't find anymore of those Purple RSVP pens ANYWHERE! SO yeah, that would be awesome.
As for birthday present, I figured it out. Don't get me anything this year or next or for christmas this year, but when you come to pick me up, bring me an i-phone. That seems fair, right? haha yeah, anyway! hahahha

Love you all, miss you. Hope you're all doing great.

Love Skyler

Dec 30 letter

2010-01-06T12:44:00.000-08:00

So that backscratcher is amazing! I use it EVERY morning! It's awesome! The toothbrush is great, and I absolutely LOVE both of the ties! The sweats are super comfy. Everything is great. Hope you enjoyed your christmas. Time since then has gone by fast, but not soo good. On Saturday we went to some investigators Olga and Teofilo. She reads the book of mormon everyday and is so ready to get baptized, would totally do it in an instant. He on teh other hand is not so interested, but they're not married either which is a problem. So we went over there and we were just straight up with them. We told them they need to get married to enjoy the blessings God wants to give them. And we were super bold and looked at Teo and said "Do you love Olga?" he said yes. Then we go "Then why won't you marry her?" and he just went on this 10 minute spree of bull crap excuses. SO they said they'd pray about it, and then on Sunday he called us and said "We got an answer, thanks to God. We want to talk to you tomorrow at 5." So we were super excited and we go up there, and they're not there. So we call them and he says "We're washing our clothes." So we can't see them Monday. yesterday, we call him and he just flat out says "I don't want to get married." So now we have to go chat with Olga about it and see what she is willing to do, because he's just completely holding her b ack and it's ridiculous. Then last night at English class, I was teaching again, and this gringa lady came in with her husband who is from Mexico. She's been taking spanish for the last year, adn she thinks she knows everything, so she was trying to correct me on everything. She was quizzing me on what we've gone over, and when I told her we hadn't done the silent e (drive, hide, die) she goes "Shame on you! They need to know that!" and it was super annoying, so I finally just told her "You know what, we speak with hispanics every day. We learned in 2 months what it's taken you a year to learn. We've seen what works, and we know what they're going to use in work and in daily life. That's what we're going over. They don't need to know why there's a silent e on drive right now. Maybe later." and just started ignoring her. It was driving me insane. I wanted to strangle her. Then we were talking afterwards and she dropped the f-bomb in the chapel and I was SUPER mad! I justa grabbed my stuff and left. I was so done with her.

On the bright side, Jose Manuel got baptized on Sunday. It was sweet! Unfortunately the water was freezing, because the water heater in our chapel is retarded! AAnd his dad had to do it twice because he said en el nombre del padre, del hijo y del espiritu santo, he left out the y before hijo. Pobre Jose. Oh well. So now I got my first one under my belt. Excited. I got the program.
So our Branch President is an idiot. I was talking to him about this less active lady in a wheelchair who wants to go to temple prep class and get her records transferred here, adn he says "if she wants to talk to me, she can come to the chapel and set up a meeting. The help of the church is for those who are 100% active." I was sooooo mad. I hate that man so much. My first sunday here, we had 70+ people in sacrament. Now, we're lucky if we can get 30. Everyone I talk to says that he's the reason they left. He just offends everyone in the branch. It sucks!
So yeah, there's my vent session for the day. Now that that's over.
So transfers got here yesterday. I'm staying here, so is Elder Darbro. Elder Landry, the english elder here, is going up to Newport 3rd with Elder Beckman. Yeah, he's going to be Alex Beckman's companion. Crazy, right? I thought that was pretty funny.
Anyway, not much new to say here. I got most of that out on Friday.
Ok, well I think that's it. Until next week. Love you all. It was great to hear your voices. Hope everything is going well. See you in 18 months!

Love SKyler

Christmas 2009

2009-12-27T10:36:00.000-08:00

Sorry- No letter this last week as we got to talk to Skyler on Christmas day! He was very upbeat and sounded so grown-up. Of course as soon as I heard his voice, I burst into tears! I was doing fine until then. He and his dad spoke in spanish to one another, and you should have seen the smile on dads face. Bailey chattered and Reagan kissed the phone. Mallory and Juliann did fine until they talked to hem before it was time to hang up, then they both cried. By the time I got back on, he was on the verge of tears. Guess we should have been braver! He really thinks that the 18 mos he has left won't be enough to do all he needs to do to be a fantastic missionary, but we all know that every day he works he's doing his best and that's all our Heavenly Father asks. We're very proud!

Dec 16

2009-12-21T19:25:00.000-08:00

Hey, sorry about this week. This pday sucks. We had mission conference yesterday, it was really good. Then I went with elder Gleave on exchanges last night. Elder Darbro and I went to top gun planning this morning. It was crazy intense. Then we had to get the oil changed on the car and wait over 1 hour for the oil to get changed. Now I have to use an express computer for 15 minutes to type, so this is going to be super short.

Yes, I did get the christmas package, thank you so much. The Garmin was a huge help in getting up to Richmond. THe other one was good, but it only holds a 1 hour charge and the streets here are so close together and that GPS just wasn't exact enough, so thank you soo soo much. I haven't gotten the garments yet, but they should come soon. Everything is going good; Elder Darbro and I have started applying some things that we weren't doing before and we're really excited to see the results! Hopefully we'll be able to get things rolling in Va Beach before the Sisters get their next transfer! haha seriously though! But yeah, I'm thinking I'm going to call at 2 my time, so 11 for you, right? Yeah. Ok, gotta go. Love you all very much. Talk to you in one week!

Love Skyler

Dec 9

2009-12-21T19:22:00.000-08:00

Wow, so I typed you a huge 20 minute letter, and it got deleted!

Ok, so. Thanks for the thermals. Those will come in handy. The apartment usually is at 52ish degrees when we wake up because the heater doesn't work properly. And with the GPS. I don't want to spend a ton of your money. But eyah, like the cheap Garmin model would be fantastic!
So have I even ever met this Mary Matthews? It sounds really familiar. Does she have black hair? Cause if she does, I think I know her. There was this girl named Mary in my institute class, and when we had that "Night on the town" thing at the YSA, she was my assigned date. That would be funny if it was her! haha
We have 1 baptism set for the 27th, and he's super solid. He's only 9, and his parents are recent converts of 6 months, so I'm not so sure how much that counts, but eyah. We have this family who is super sweeet. Carlos and Ana. They're from Honduras. Elder Darbro and Ghelfy found tehm about 3 weeks before I got here, but when they didn't come to church the first time, Elder Ghelfy dropped them. But we had this appointment with them last night, but they called us about 2 hours before and said "Sorry, I just got called into work. But I read and prayed abotu the Book of Mormon last night. I'm going to do it again tonight to see if I get an answer." SO we're really really excited about them.
Elder Gleave caem down for exchanges yesterday. He was so excited. I was so excited to see him again! He looked so happy and was so energetic! It was so good to see him like that again. He was super unenergetic and kind of depressed when they sent him up to Harrisonburg again. But he loves being zone leader and he's good at it!
SO we're going to top gun on the 16th. I'm really excited this time. The only problem is that we have to be up in richmond on the 15th at 10AM for Mission conference, so we have to be out of our area for 5 days! It sucks! I'm so mad! 5 whole days without any spanish work in this area! It's really not good, but oh well. But I'm excited for Top Gun because I got in a bad habit of just taking myself completely out of lessons in Charlottesville because I couldn't stand working with one of my companions, and unfortunately that habit has carried down here, so I need to get out of that habit :(
That's crazy about the weather in Reno, especially so early in the season. It's pretty cold here, mostly due to the wind. So mallory's scarf has really come in handy!
Anyway, I still have to email president for my weekly letter. I forgot last week. Uh oh! So yeah. Until nextweek. Love you all. Thanks for your prayers, letters and support.

Skyler

Dec 2

2009-12-21T19:13:00.000-08:00

Hey hey hey. And about the bad areas. Yes, Norfolk is where those two elders got shot a few years back, but we HAVE to go in there. It's a huge chunk of our area and there are a bunch of hispanics in there. We're trying to be smart and avoid the super bad areas, but sometimes there's no other option. So we'll be safe adn smart, but please keep praying for us.

As for thanksgiving, probably the worst thanksgiving I've ever had. We got a text last wednesday night from a number we didn't recognize. It just said "John Jones is stuck in nutty putty caves in Utah. Pray for him." and that was it. So we had no idea what was going on. Then we do weekly planning on THursday and afterwards, I figure I'll call Elder Washburn in C-Ville to see if it was Hno. Jones up there. SO I call him and ask whats going on, and he pauses and says "He died." I thought he was just playing a cruel joke, so we decided to call the number of the text. Turns out it was the old Zone Leader Elder Morris who was friends with Bro. and Sis. Jones from before his mission. They went to Utah to see his homecoming and on Tuesday night Bro. Jones went caving with some friends. He decided to walk into this one room and had to suck in his chest to get through this crack. Well he ended up getting stuck and couldn't get out. He was in there for over 24 hours and he ended up dying. Elder Morris told us that and we couldn't believe it. He was only 27 years old with a wife and a 1 year old daughter. I was so devestated. Elder Darbro and I just sat on the couch for about 30 minutes crying. It was terrible. Then in my interview with president on Saturday, I found out taht they can't retrieve the body, so they're closing down the cave and just leaving him in there. It's really terrible. I was so depressed about that. That man deserves so much better than that. He seriously changed my mission. He was one of the greatest people I've ever met. I really miss him, but I got some comfort in the fact that he's kickin so much butt on the other side right now. He's saving so many people over there it's insane.
But yeah, that's pretty much the most of the news for this past week. Sorry that's really depressing. But that was our week last week.
Mom- Glad to hear your thanksgiving was good. So I get to call on Christmas whenever I want to. I think I'll call at around 2 my time, so that's 11 bac k home, right? Don't hold me on that, I might change my mind, but I'll definitely let you know.
Dad- So how's everything going? Always fun to get your letters. Glad you had some time to finally go out shooting! And don't worry, we're not taking advantage of any of the members. They are the ones who set up the dinners with us, and we can't say "Oh no, we don't want to come over to eat with you." can we? So they talk to us in church on sunday and set up the appts usually.
Mallory- Your addiction to Twilight is terrifying. 3rd time you've read the book this month? That's scary! I'm glad you liked the movie though. How many times have you gone to see new moon? If you say more than twice, I'm going to cry for you! ANd yes, the scarf is working out great. Elder Darbro is jealous of it. And yes, some baked goods would be wonderful. But no pressure or anything. I bought a whole pie this week, so that'll last me for awhile.
Juli- How's everything going? You should just about be out of school for the winter, right? That's so sweet, you're almost done! Can you believe that? Hows work going?
Anyway, I think that's all for this week. I know, not very long, but I dont' remember really anything except for Thanksgiving day. But yeah. Hope everything is good and I love you all.

Love Skyler

Nov 17, 2009

2009-11-25T11:15:00.000-08:00

Hey hey hey

So sorry I forgot to tell you last week, but PDay got moved to tuesday this week for some reason, so I wasn't expecting a letter from you mom, so it's ok. I'll just have one BIG long one to read next week! haha
Dad-Yeah, the bear was really crazy! It was freaking hilarious though! I'll put the memory card in the mail and you can see all my pictures, all the way back to like, Sept. 17th I think. And yeah, when we go to Henrico or some other apartment, we just end up sleeping on the floor or couch. I've been on floor both times. Last time (last Tuesday) I was on floor, elder washburn and elder Nelson as well and then Elder Lusk was on the couch and elder Pasker (his greenie) was on the recliner. I know, how crazy is it that missionaries have a recliner in their apartment!? And it's only Elder Wheatley and Elder Hernandez in that apartment! Thats ridiculous! But yeah, thats how it works up here in VA. And Brother Bear in spanish was AWESOME!!!! I think I might have a new favorite disney movie (besides Nightmare Before Christmas of course!) And also, Phil Collins did the music for that movie, and he redid his songs in spanish for the spanish version! It was sick! I think you'd really like it dad!
Mom- Sorry for the lack of info about P-Day being moved! It's ok though, I just get to type a longer email this week! maybe haha! So have you gone out with the missionaries yet? Oh man that's gonna be so sweet! SO how's work going, gearing up for the holidays! It's going to be like, your 2nd year straight working there right? That's insane! I've never had a job for longer than 8 months! hahaha
Mallory- Thank you SO much for the scarf and cookies! I opened the package last night and immediately put on the scarf and wore it around all last night. It was like, 72 degrees in the apartment, but I didn't care. That thing is SWEET! all the other elders in the apartment are so jealous of it cause they all have little wussy not awesome scarves! And the cookies are AMAZING! oh my gosh they're SO good! I had to hide them cause I don't want the others to know how good they are! But yeah, thank you sooo much!
But this week has definitely been interesting. We're supposed to be teaching a minimum of 20 lessons a week, which really shouldn't be too hard, but it's actually really tough to get that consistently. We had 2 lessons last week by P-Day, which was really bad. But by Sunday night we were up to 18, which isn't too bad. But we've been trying to be a lot more effective and teach more lessons consistently, but yesterday was not a good day for that, but I think I changed a kid's life yesterday! haha We helped Lulu move some furniture and I found 2 rupees from India in there and she told me to keep it, so I put it in my pocket. We end up going to Kroger(a grocery store here) and we run into Sis. Sanchez, so we help her carry her groceries out to the car cause she's prego. So we're talking to her and her kid, and she asks him if he wants to go on a mission someday and he says "I'm going to India to be a missionary!" SO I was like, "Oh, hey, I can help with that dream!" and I pulled out the Rupees and gave it to him. So our ongoing joke since yesterday is that he's going to get his call to India when he's reporting out he'll tell the story about the day the missionaries gave him Indian money! But then I started to get mad. We went over to maricela's house and I only wanted to spend like, 20-30 minutes there, but Elder Nelson and Washburn decided to spend 2 HOURS there!!! I was so mad! And then when we FINALLY left we went over to Rosi and Elder Washburn makes a joke and says "Elder Nelson only has 340 days until he's getting married!" (cause he leaves in 340 days!) and he got super ofendido and upset and it was just super awkward and then Elder Nelson got mad at me for saying a prayer to share a message and then end with a prayer, so it was just super crazy and contentious last night and ridiculous. And then we had to clean like CRAZY today because last week the crisis decided to rearrange the whole house so they moved their beds into their study room, our beds into where theirs used to be and their study room into the living room where we were sleeping. So our room is practically one giant gay bed(i'm not even kidding, there's about 2 inches between each bed) and it was absolutely filthy and cluttered and just ridiculous. So we had to clean forever this morning! But yeah, hopefully that's behind us and we can start getting to teaching lessons again, because we met our daily lesson goal on Thursday, the first time that had ever happened on my mission, and I was SUPER STOKED!

So funny story, we were at Maricela's last Friday adn I needed the other elders to get up off the couch really fast, so I yelled "Levantaos" which means "Get up" but it's in a conjugation that they really only use in the bible and in spain, and I didn't even think about what I said, it just came out like that, and Maricela just looked at me and the other elders jumped up and looked all strange and surprised and then we all just started laughing and it was really hilarious. Then on Saturday, America got baptized. She's the daughter of Juan and Lulu. And the baptism was amazing! All done in spanish and I understood everything and it was sweet! But Elder Nelson was in the bathroom before, the one with the lever to fill up the font. Elder Washburn and I are standing outside and we end up reading something and not noticing the mujer walking around the building. Well, we didn't notice her walk into the bathroom behind us until she shreaks (kind of) and comes out and says to us "I thought there were only two of you. Is he going to be awhile?" and it was super awkward and hilarious! But Juan didn't do the baptism. I don't know what it is with Hispanics, but they think that Missionaries and Bishops have special powers. The bishop did the baptism, but luckily Juan confirmed her, and the Spirit was just like BAM! in the room! It was so crazy. And then the next day, Roselyn finally got blessed, but once again, Juan had the Bishop do it. But it was funny, we asked Juan last Monday who was going to do the blessing, and he just sat there for a little bit, then said "the bishop. And all the old people." We asked why and he says "Because old people know a lot of stuff." Well, we couldn't argue with him about his baby's blessing, so we just said Ok and that was that! but yeah, it was an interesting weekend. I translated all of Elder's Quorum again, and the guy that taught is CRAZY smart and has a vocabulary the size of Texas and maybe Louisiana. He's a REALLY good teacher, but its' impossible to translate for him! But it was super good parctice. The primary program was also that day and Hermano Jones translated and a bunch of times when the kids would just yell something into the Microphone, he would just pause and say "no sE" or "ni idea" and all the hispanics are laughing out loud and the white people don't get it. It made me love being a spanish speaking missionary even more. But on Saturday, I talked with Hno. Jones about improving my spanish (because he talks sooooooo good in spanish) and he told me about this little exercise where you put a pen in your mouth sideways and hold your tongue underneath it and talk in spanish. It sounds stupid and idiotic, but it strengthens your tongue in the way you use it for spanish, so I tried it and my tongue is still sore! It was crazy! SO I think I'm going to keep doing that. And then he also told me about a game he and his companion played in Ecuador where any time one of them spoke english, they had to buy the other a candy or something. Now, things are a little more expensive here in VA than in Ecuador, so we upped it to every 5 times. I was the first loser. But we've barely spoken any english at all over the past 3 days. It's crazy. I feel like it's already helped sooo much. I'm trying to convince Elder Nelson to only talk to us in spanish even during planning, but he didn't like that idea. Oh well.
Anyway, I think that's about all for this week. Love you all and miss you. Hope you have a great day. Can't wait to hear from you next week. Adios

Nov 25, 2009

2009-11-25T11:12:00.000-08:00

Hey there.
Wow what a week. Virginia Beach is awesome! I spent all of Wednesday packing and then Elder Washburn and I went to say goodbye to Pancho and Juan and Lulu. Thursday, we were supposed to be in Richmond by 9:40 for the transfer meeting, but that didn't happen. The guy who was going to give us a ride caled us at 9:00 and said he couldn't make it, so we threw everything in the van and hauled down to richmond in the remnant of a hurricane :) it was pretty sweet! But we got down there and I talked with Elder Gleave and Bishop and Elder Bishop had been telling all of the members here about me and how they could expect great things out of me, so I have to live up to the reputation he started for me now! haha But the drive down here from Richmond was like, 3 hours, but we got here and I met Elder Darbro and we went back to the apartment which is right down the streeet from the Library. My new address is 4633 Soho Court. Virginia Beach, VA 23455. It's a really nice apartment, and only me and Elder Darbro are living in it, so it's nice to be able to take a 10 minute shower if I want! So our area here is huge! I mean biggest area in the entire mission! We cover 4 cities here- Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, and then we also have suffolk in our area and we even have part of North Carolina in here. It's insane. But we only end up going to the 4 cities. We've been spending a lot of time in Norfolk to find investigators, because we need a lot of new investigators. But norfolk is GHETTO! I mean straight up morenosville! It's SO GHETTO! But its sweet! We were walking through this apartment complex yesterday and we asked this black guy if he knew if any of his neighbors were hispanic and he ignored us for a little bit, but we asked again and he just said "You better get out of here before something bad happens to you." It was sweet. But yeah, we spend a lot of time in Norfolk. There are hispanics dispersed throughout the entire area, so we use a TON of miles everyday, but we haven't gotten any new investigators since I've been here. But that'll change fast. This area is about to explode! I know it!

So we were involved in an accident on Friday on the freeway. The cars in front of us slammed on their brakes so we had to brake abruptly, and we come to a stop and we just hear SCREEEEAACHHHHCH behind us and I say 'OH FREAK!" and elder Darbro just says "HOLD ON!" and the mujer behind us slams into us. We were alright, but there was a ton of paperwork to fill out because it's a church vehicle, so that sucked. But yeah, now I've been involved in knocking out a bear with a car and getting rear ended on my mission! I told you this mission was going to be sweet!
Dad, you're going to love this. On Thursday when I got here, the first thing Elder Darbro asks me is "How many talks have you given in spanish before?" So I had to prepare a 15 minute talk in 2 days to give on Sunday in Sacrament. And I got it done. It was so nerve wracking. I was ready to vomit up on the stand, but I got it done and everyone was amazed that I only have 5 months out on the mission. The members here are really nice and yes, they feed us plenty. The branch president's wife asked us on Sunday if we had an appointment for thanksgiving and Elder Darbro told her no, so she just goes "Now you do. Be at our house at 7." So yeah, we're having a mexican thanksgiving.
We get hooked up so much in this area. The branch president owns a hair cut place, so they cut our hair every 3 weeks. This less active lady works at these dry cleaners across the street, so she dry cleans our suits and even repairs them for free. THe members feed us a ton. Every Sunday afternoon, monday afternoon and evening, Thursday lunch and Saturday dinnner we have fixed appointments with members, and then investigators give us stuff all the time. SO yeah, we get taken care of. It's awesome.

I do need a huge favor though. We're navigating the biggest area in the mission with a map right now, because the elder before me took his GPS with him. So we're very limited in where we can go and we've gotten lost a ton this last week. So if you could get the GPS out to me ASAP that would be a life saver. Like, you don't even know! SO yeah, as soon as you could do that, the better. Thanks.
So, what's new with the family this week? Any good news, bad news? On the flipside, Elder Darbro and I have already been planning our seperate trips to spain to find wives after the mission, so that's nice. I actually have it all figured out already, but you'll have to wait 19 months to hear about it. Maybe actually only like 16 or something, but still. SO yeah, that was definitely an effective use of our 45 minutes of freetime after nightly planning. Anyway.
Mom- Could you tell the feldmans I'm really sorry I haven't written them back? I got their letter a long time ago but I accidentally threw it out, so I don't have their address. So I would really appreciate that. How's the calling going still? Have you gone out with the sisters? I can't wait til you do, you're going to LOVE IT! The sisters have some magical power that the Elders don't or something, I don't know. People just seem to do what sister missionaries tell them to do! It's crazy! Elder Ghelfy, the spanish elder here before me, is a convert. He was telling us his conversion story and he said "The sister missionary just pulled out a calendar and told me I was being baptized on this date. She didn't even give me a choice. And I did it. I don't know why." So yeah, I hve a feeling the sisters in Reno are going to be getting some people wet, if you know what I mean!
Ok, well I think that's about all. I don't really know what else to write about this week.
Oh, actually, I DO! Dad, there's this Hermana here named Sis. Lagos here from Chile and she's from Santiago, and she left Santiago in 1978 or 79 I think. I just thought that was pretty cool. She's wayyyyyyy old and talks a TON but she's really sweet. And I had some lady from Peru tell me that I talked like a German because my pronunciation is really strong I guess. I didn't know what to make of that, but whatever. Then this Catracha (Hondurian) told me that Campbell is a name (apellido) in Nicaragua and Honduras. I thought that was weird. SO hey, we might have some central american family members! How sweet would that be? hhahaha yeah right
But now I've met people from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Chile, Brazil, Peru and Argentina. It's like I'm touring the world in Virginia, right? Just thought that was pretty sweet. But yeah, that's all now.
SO if you could please remember the GPS, that would be fantastic. Love you all. Have a great week. Talk to you in 30 days! Can you believe Christmas is only 30 days away? Thats crazy!

Skyler
PS- I'm going back to Top Gun on teh 19th of December. Lucky me! NOT! haha

2009-11-25T11:04:00.000-08:00

Hey hey hey

So sorry I forgot to tell you last week, but PDay got moved to tuesday this week for some reason, so I wasn't expecting a letter from you mom, so it's ok. I'll just have one BIG long one to read next week! haha
Dad-Yeah, the bear was really crazy! It was freaking hilarious though! I'll put the memory card in the mail and you can see all my pictures, all the way back to like, Sept. 17th I think. And yeah, when we go to Henrico or some other apartment, we just end up sleeping on the floor or couch. I've been on floor both times. Last time (last Tuesday) I was on floor, elder washburn and elder Nelson as well and then Elder Lusk was on the couch and elder Pasker (his greenie) was on the recliner. I know, how crazy is it that missionaries have a recliner in their apartment!? And it's only Elder Wheatley and Elder Hernandez in that apartment! Thats ridiculous! But yeah, thats how it works up here in VA. And Brother Bear in spanish was AWESOME!!!! I think I might have a new favorite disney movie (besides Nightmare Before Christmas of course!) And also, Phil Collins did the music for that movie, and he redid his songs in spanish for the spanish version! It was sick! I think you'd really like it dad!
Mom- Sorry for the lack of info about P-Day being moved! It's ok though, I just get to type a longer email this week! maybe haha! So have you gone out with the missionaries yet? Oh man that's gonna be so sweet! SO how's work going, gearing up for the holidays! It's going to be like, your 2nd year straight working there right? That's insane! I've never had a job for longer than 8 months! hahaha

Mallory- Thank you SO much for the scarf and cookies! I opened the package last night and immediately put on the scarf and wore it around all last night. It was like, 72 degrees in the apartment, but I didn't care. That thing is SWEET! all the other elders in the apartment are so jealous of it cause they all have little wussy not awesome scarves! And the cookies are AMAZING! oh my gosh they're SO good! I had to hide them cause I don't want the others to know how good they are! But yeah, thank you sooo much!
But this week has definitely been interesting. We're supposed to be teaching a minimum of 20 lessons a week, which really shouldn't be too hard, but it's actually really tough to get that consistently. We had 2 lessons last week by P-Day, which was really bad. But by Sunday night we were up to 18, which isn't too bad. But we've been trying to be a lot more effective and teach more lessons consistently, but yesterday was not a good day for that, but I think I changed a kid's life yesterday! haha We helped Lulu move some furniture and I found 2 rupees from India in there and she told me to keep it, so I put it in my pocket. We end up going to Kroger(a grocery store here) and we run into Sis. Sanchez, so we help her carry her groceries out to the car cause she's prego. So we're talking to her and her kid, and she asks him if he wants to go on a mission someday and he says "I'm going to India to be a missionary!" SO I was like, "Oh, hey, I can help with that dream!" and I pulled out the Rupees and gave it to him. So our ongoing joke since yesterday is that he's going to get his call to India when he's reporting out he'll tell the story about the day the missionaries gave him Indian money! But then I started to get mad. We went over to maricela's house and I only wanted to spend like, 20-30 minutes there, but Elder Nelson and Washburn decided to spend 2 HOURS there!!! I was so mad! And then when we FINALLY left we went over to Rosi and Elder Washburn makes a joke and says "Elder Nelson only has 340 days until he's getting married!" (cause he leaves in 340 days!) and he got super ofendido and upset and it was just super awkward and then Elder Nelson got mad at me for saying a prayer to share a message and then end with a prayer, so it was just super crazy and contentious last night and ridiculous. And then we had to clean like CRAZY today because last week the crisis decided to rearrange the whole house so they moved their beds into their study room, our beds into where theirs used to be and their study room into the living room where we were sleeping. So our room is practically one giant gay bed(i'm not even kidding, there's about 2 inches between each bed) and it was absolutely filthy and cluttered and just ridiculous. So we had to clean forever this morning! But yeah, hopefully that's behind us and we can start getting to teaching lessons again, because we met our daily lesson goal on Thursday, the first time that had ever happened on my mission, and I was SUPER STOKED!
So funny story, we were at Maricela's last Friday adn I needed the other elders to get up off the couch really fast, so I yelled "Levantaos" which means "Get up" but it's in a conjugation that they really only use in the bible and in spain, and I didn't even think about what I said, it just came out like that, and Maricela just looked at me and the other elders jumped up and looked all strange and surprised and then we all just started laughing and it was really hilarious. Then on Saturday, America got baptized. She's the daughter of Juan and Lulu. And the baptism was amazing! All done in spanish and I understood everything and it was sweet! But Elder Nelson was in the bathroom before, the one with the lever to fill up the font. Elder Washburn and I are standing outside and we end up reading something and not noticing the mujer walking around the building. Well, we didn't notice her walk into the bathroom behind us until she shreaks (kind of) and comes out and says to us "I thought there were only two of you. Is he going to be awhile?" and it was super awkward and hilarious! But Juan didn't do the baptism. I don't know what it is with Hispanics, but they think that Missionaries and Bishops have special powers. The bishop did the baptism, but luckily Juan confirmed her, and the Spirit was just like BAM! in the room! It was so crazy. And then the next day, Roselyn finally got blessed, but once again, Juan had the Bishop do it. But it was funny, we asked Juan last Monday who was going to do the blessing, and he just sat there for a little bit, then said "the bishop. And all the old people." We asked why and he says "Because old people know a lot of stuff." Well, we couldn't argue with him about his baby's blessing, so we just said Ok and that was that! but yeah, it was an interesting weekend. I translated all of Elder's Quorum again, and the guy that taught is CRAZY smart and has a vocabulary the size of Texas and maybe Louisiana. He's a REALLY good teacher, but its' impossible to translate for him! But it was super good parctice. The primary program was also that day and Hermano Jones translated and a bunch of times when the kids would just yell something into the Microphone, he would just pause and say "no sE" or "ni idea" and all the hispanics are laughing out loud and the white people don't get it. It made me love being a spanish speaking missionary even more. But on Saturday, I talked with Hno. Jones about improving my spanish (because he talks sooooooo good in spanish) and he told me about this little exercise where you put a pen in your mouth sideways and hold your tongue underneath it and talk in spanish. It sounds stupid and idiotic, but it strengthens your tongue in the way you use it for spanish, so I tried it and my tongue is still sore! It was crazy! SO I think I'm going to keep doing that. And then he also told me about a game he and his companion played in Ecuador where any time one of them spoke english, they had to buy the other a candy or something. Now, things are a little more expensive here in VA than in Ecuador, so we upped it to every 5 times. I was the first loser. But we've barely spoken any english at all over the past 3 days. It's crazy. I feel like it's already helped sooo much. I'm trying to convince Elder Nelson to only talk to us in spanish even during planning, but he didn't like that idea. Oh well.
Anyway, I think that's about all for this week. Love you all and miss you. Hope you have a great day. Can't wait to hear from you next week. Adios

Nov. 4, 2009

2009-11-06T10:34:00.000-08:00

Hey, so this week is kind of weird. Last week on P-Day after I emailed you, we went hiking on Humpback Rocks off of Blueridge Parkway (you should really look this place up, it's INCREDIBLE!) and we went
to this waterfall after. So on the way back, all of a sudden the elder driving slams on the brakes and I feel this big thud. Someone shouts "Was that a bear?" Yeah. We hit a bear. A black bear ran out from the woods and hit the van. So we get out and we start getting a little closer to the bear (don't worry, like 50 feet away) and it doesnt look like it's breathing. So we start to get a little closer adn we're like "That thing is dead, it's not getting up." As soon as I took 2 pictures, the things head lifts up and I turn around and spring towards the van and jump in the open trunk and see the bear running off into the woods and it was ridiculous! I haven't run that fast since High School! It was crazy! But everything is alright and we're all fine, don't worry. But yeah, that was last p-day.
Last Saturday, the Crisis had a baptism and we had 2 people show up. Maricela came and enjoyed it, but she was scared by how hard Elder Gomez dunked the lady under the water. Then we had crazy Cristiano
Jose come. This guy is an illegal from Honduras, but he talks and acts like a mexican. He told us that he was an illegal in Mexico and the migre there pick on central americans, so he learned to talk and act like a chilango (someone from DF or district federal in Mexico City) and when the migre came on teh bus down there, they asked if anyone was from central america and he said "No, I'm from the state of Mexico" and just started naming off cities there, so they let him pass. He's crazy. On Sunday, Rosi and her husband Joel came to church and Joel told us he's going to try to get work off on sundays so he can keep coming! Then we went over to Juan and Lulu's and they had taken a pizza out of the oven, so they start handing us slices and I say "Ya comI" which means I already ate and she just replied "No te preguntamos" which is We're not asking you! Monday we didn't do anything really, we raked Rosi's yard as a surprise and also this old lady Dorothy's yard. She's so lonely its really sad. She lives with her 53 year old son who's got some mental disorder and she just sits inside all day with her 14 cats so she was so excited to have us come over and she cooked us dinner and wanted to just sit and chat forever and I felt so bad when we had to leave!
Then yesterday we came down to Richmond for zone conference and we went to Wendy's before conference and as we walk in, this construction worker walks in and I go up to order and he jumps in front of me and says "Put all these guys in suits on my bill." So we're like what the heck? and he tells us his son served in Fiji and he loves missionaries and wanted to take care of us. So taht was pretty sweet. Then zone conference was awesome. It was pretty much a 3 hour rundown of what we're not doing and what we could be doing better and how we could be doing it, but I absolutely loved it! It was awesome! Then we spent the night in Henrico and got up at 5:30 this morning which SUCKED! but yeah, we have zone p-day today and we're gonna play soccer and watch Brother Bear in spanish! Should be pretty fun! So yeah, that's my week.
I got the package from the Wanlass's and I'll be sure to write them a thank you note. Also, if you could just tell everyone on the blog that if I don't write them back, I'm really sorry. I'm super busy, especially on P-Days lately, so I don't have much time to write letters anymore! Which is a bummer, but it happens.
All I know is this transfer only has 15 days left! It's going by INSANELY fast! So yeah, the spanish is coming along great. The accent is good, and I've just given up on trying to help Elder Washburn. But it's ok.
Ok, well I think that's it for this week, until I remember something when I walk out the door :) haha But until next week. Love you all. miss you. Still not enough to come home though!

Wed. last and today!

2009-10-21T21:40:00.000-07:00

Oct 14
Thank you so much for sending Martin the issue of the Ensign. He's going to love it. Dad mentioned something about getting him a subscription, but he's going to be getting transferred prisons soon and we dont' know where, so don't worry about that. But thank you so much! Yeah, we've been super busy this week. Elder Washburn has stepped off his pedestal a little, but he's still hard to live with. He's gotten in the habit lately of making up ridiculously specific scenarios to tell you so that he's never wrong. He just talks and talks adn says so much stuff that you just give up and he says "See, I told you so." So it's pretty tough, but its definitely a nice time to work on building my patience, right? haha Luckily Elder Nelson hasnt' gone too crazy with stress yet, but there's still time. He almost had a stroke the other day. We have a mission conference in Richmond tomorrow and we needed to find a ride down there and a ride back up, and he was FREAKING out about it going psycho! But everything is alright now and it's all taken care of. But there's a 70 coming to the conference, I dont' remember who, but we might have to do some one-on-one 5 minute role plays about the Restoration or the Plan of Salvation! How scary is that? I dont' know how to do those in English anymore? But it should be a fun time! Except for the fact that we have to be at the chapel at 7 am! We're donig this special choir thing, so we have to be there extra early! Oh well.

So we now have 6 elders in an apartment meant for 4. It's not working out too well, especially since our hot water has been out for the last week! I'm really sick of taking cold showers. And I mean COLD! Like, Lake Tahoe type stuff. The guy who owns the apartment is a member and he's tried abotu 4 times this week to fix it, but no luck so far. He's getting super frustrated and we're just getting sick of showering :)
But one of the elders in the apartment is Elder Jacob Justice. Not kidding. Superhero?? But he's the nephew of the Martin's from Washoe Valley Ward. Weird coincidence right? haha just thought that was kind of wacky!
So Santiago, the awesome investigator that we found that came to 2 conference sessions, we committed him to baptism. We were talking and we asked "se preperarA para ser bautizado?" which means will you prepare yourself to be baptized? and he just replies "Si, estA bien." And his biggest concern was that there wouldn't be a chapel down in Chiappas, Mexico when he goes back in 2 years. How cool? His biggest concern is that he'll go inactive. I love that man! He's so awesome. So yeah, his baptism date is Oct. 31st. We're still working with Ana because she hasn't been able to come to church and we're starting to worry that she'll just lose the desire. And she's been getting a lot harder to get ahold of lately, so we think she's already starting to lose steam! It's tough, but we're really really trying! But Rosi is doing awesome. She's just all sorts of sweet. We're going to set her sometime this next week I think. And then on Monday we found this lady Marizela and we came back on Tuesday to teach the Restoration and relate it to families. So we're doing that adn we invite her to church adn she says "Maybe, I dont' know." So we talk a little more and teach more of the lesson and near the end she asks what time cbhurch is at and we tell her and she just says "Voy a ir" which means "I'm going to go. It was super sweet. So we have another appointment with her on Friday. But we think she's got some pretty good potential.
So yeah, we've been super busy and getting busier. We're doing a lot of finding because we've been dropping a lot of useless investigators. I know that sounds harsh, but yeah, they're useless right now. So we need to find more to fill our teaching pool. So we do a LOT of finding now. But it's ok. We're outside walking around and it's nice.
Last night Juan Manuel and his wife invited us over for their nephews 9th birthday and made molay again. That is such a heavy meal. I wasn't feeling good at all all night. And as if stuffing us with tons of food isn't bad enough, then they fed all of us a massive piece of chocolate cake and a massive piece of flan. It was ridiculous. So all my attempts at losing weight and keeping healthy, right out the window. haha
But the reason we don't have many member dinner appointments is that Pres. Millburn banned the use of pass-around sheets for us to use because he said people feel obligated to feed us then. Which I personally feel they should, but I'm not the president. So then nobody offers to feed us and we end up going through our MSF funds way fast because we have to buy a ton more food. So yeah, that's the problem. We're supposed to have a member dinner everynight, but that doesn't happen if they dont' offer. So there you have it. Feed the missionaries! It means a ton to them, you have no idea!!!!

Oct 21
Ok, so yeah, I bought a winter coat at JCPenney. It's a big heavy duty wool pea-coat and it was only 70$, so I figured I'd jump on it because it has been getting REALLY cold here already. On Sunday, the high was 43*. Yeah, really cold.
So, this week was really not a great week. We started off in Richmond with Mission Conference(well, half of the mission) and Elder Kenneth B. Johnson of the 70 came. He was so amazing! It was absolutely incredible. But the entire thing made me think of how much stuff I could be doing better. So taht's what we've been trying to do lately. But it was amazing what he said- "I do what I do because I know the source of my calling." How cool is that? It really made me think about my calling and what I need to be doing to improve it. Unfortunately, that also made Elder Nelson go into overdrive mode on the "Let's be a perfect companionship" thing. So that's been kind of frustrating. And then on Monday Santiago, the guy that we thought was super awesome, dropped us. So no more baptism for him. Oh well. I was really upset and bummed out about that. But whatever. The Lord has a plan for him, and it doesn't involve me right now, so I've begun to focus on other things. Yesterday the Zone Leaders came up from Richmond for exchanges. I was with Elder Bishop and Elder Washburn. We were in this trailer park to knock some doors, and we look up from the car and there's just this kid with his pants pulled down pooping on a tree. In plain view. Not trying to hide at all. It was freaking hilarious! The kid's mom comes running over all embarrassed and this black lady next to us just had this shocked look on her face. hahahaha, oh man I was dying! Yeah, it was great. But then everything else fell through yesterday except Maricela, she's still sweet. She didnt' make it to church, but we're working hard on her. We know she's got some super potential. We just gotta do it right. And then we didn't have anything to do last night and we were right next to the apartment, so we get back to the apartment at 8:50. If you dont' have an appointment, you have to be back to the apartment at 9 pm sharp. So we get back and Elder Nelson is with the other zone leader and he has the keys to the apartment and the english elders aren't home yet, so we hang out outside for a bit. Edler Washburn starts freaking out at about 9:15 saying "Elders!!! We can't just sit here. We need to to get an appointment or something! We cant jsut sit in front of the house! This isn't what they had in mind when they said be back at the apartment at 9!" and he's freaking out and Elder Bishop and I tell him we can't go out to just talk to people so we can be out later and so he gets all mad and says he's going to go talk to the hispanics across the street (who by the way get violent when they're drunk, which is always) and so he just starts walking. And Elder Bishop and I can't see him and we have no idea where he is and so we start to walk over there and he is in the middle of the street and says "you could just bring the car you know." So Elder Bishop says "You could not just walk away from your companions and be disobedient!!!". Elder Washburn didn't like that one bit. So it was definitely an interesting night.

But yeah, that's really all that happened this week. We've got the Harrisonburg elders coming down on Friday for a district meeting and exchanges, and then on Nov. 3 and 4 we have zone conference and zone p-day which should be sweet.
Can you believe I hit 4 months out in 3 days? That's crazy! This past month went by SOOO fast. I can't believe it's almost november already! Thats' ridiculous. But yeah, that's my crazy schpiel for the week! haha
Oh, I also met the wife of the branch president up in Harrisonburg. Apparently Robbie Lund married one of her companions from her mission. Small world huh? I'm getting all sorts of connections here!
Ok, well I hope that's everything. Like always, I forget something everytime, but if I do, I'll let you know. OH, thermal garments! I just need those sometime, not any hurry right now. But just something to think about. But yeah, THAT should be it now. Haha. I love you all. Miss you. Have a good week.

2009-10-12T08:53:00.000-07:00

University of VA in Charlottesville. Thomas Jefferson designed this rotunda.

Our apartment complex in C'ville

Heading to Virginia

2009-10-12T08:42:00.000-07:00

Leaving for the field... Man I look good at 4 in the morning!

Elder Nelson and some guy in a red shirt

Elder Gleave

Our newest investigator. (Mom wants it!!)

Pictures

2009-10-12T08:34:00.000-07:00

My offical name tag for the next 2 years!

Not me anymore!!

Workin' the call center. Or, "Welcome to McDonalds. May I take your order please?"

Week 15 (and still counting)

2009-10-07T15:08:00.000-07:00

Wow, that week just flew by! Here's this week's letter from our wonderful son/missionary

Hey hey hey everyone. Another p-day already! This one is crazy. Our world got rocked yesterday! Transfers! We were all freaking out cause none of us want to leave because we've just started getting the awesome investigators just pouring out at us. But we got the transfer sheet last night and Elder Gleave is headed up to Harrisonburg. He was kind of upset because he hasn't left this side of Virginia in 10 months adn they're only sending him to H-Burg to turn that area around because the 3 elders up there right now only did 2 investigator lessons last week. Only 2! What were they doing? So he's going up there to whip the area into shape adn get the ball rolling again. Poor guy. Elder Nelson is now district leader and is keeping me and elder Washburn is coming up from Richmond to be with us. Weird, I know. I'm still freaking out, but we'll see how everything works out. Elder Washburn is just really intense now since being with the Zone Leaders, so we're hoping he doesnt scare away our investigators. Elder Nelson, oh man, it'll be interesting. He takes everything wayyyyyy to hard. He over reacts and goes into crisis mode at the smallest thing, so we'll see how he handles 2 greenies AND being DL. But that's the biggest news of the week here! Oh, and yes, Elder Gleave did date Whitney at BYU. I got in the elevator at the library and said "Elder Gleave, did you ever date a girl at BYU named Whitney Young?" and his face just goes blank and he says "I don't want to talk about it." HAHAHAHAHAHA how funny is that? That's so wacky. Gahh so this past week has been intense. So many investigators, so little time! Conference was AWESOME though, right? Elder Hales' talk was INCREDIBLE! and Elder Holland, oh man! The english elders we live with had an investigator who has problems with the BoM at that session and Elder Holland just went off, and the guy got up and left shortly after. I dont' know if he was upset or overwhelmed or what, but that talk was amazing! Also, Pres. Eyring at Priesthood was freaking ridiculous! I loved it! Conference went by wayyyy too fast though. I wish there were more sessions! Haha, I bet you never thought you'd hear that coming from me did you? I was so excited to go to conference here, I was like a little school girl!
Thats' awezsome you got to see so many church sites! Jealous! Sounds like you are having(had?) a wonderful time up there! Lots of sites and fun! We had some fun yesterday. Elder Gleave and I met this one hispanic guy walking in this trailer park, he's wearing snakeskin boots and matching belt, pinstripe suit, shirt undone halfway, a black stetson adn some shades and he's got a plastic bag with what looks like a bottle of Rum, but definitely some type of alcohol. So Elder Gleave starts talking to him and he just says "Cowboys. Cowboys." SO we're like "You like cowboys? Like, the football team or the people on horses? to which he replies "horses. Horses. horses. horseeees. I live in Austin. TEXas. Austin. Yo soy vacation. De Austin." His name was Samuel and I don't think i've ever met anyone as trashed as he was! It was insane! But funny. So man, we've got Ana set for baptism but she still hasn't been able to come to church. We're getting ready to set Rosi, Melicia, Pancho, Erica adn Santiago. How nuts is that? we're going to be shooting for 6 investigators set for a baptismal date soon! That's insane! But keep on praying for it, we need the blessings to get these people some time off work! So my spanish this week has been nuts. I feel like I haven't progressed as much as I would like to, but I've been making more and more phone calls in spanish, but I still have to give the phone to Elder Gleave or Nelson a veces because I can't understand the hispanics over the phone. But I haven't said anything embarrassing like "Jesus Christ suffered for my fishes" in awhile. So taht's good. Oh man, what else is there to tell this week!? This week went by too fast that I feel like I already told you about everything in my LAST letter.
Soooo, wow, I don't know what else to write. Pretty much transfers was the only really exciting thing this week. It was crazy. Um, I guess that's all. I think.
I always think of something else to write after I get off e-mail but I can't think of anything right now. But can you believe that my first transfer out of the MTC is already over? That's insane. Everyone says the first one goes by so slow and then they speed up after that, but mine went by SOOO fast! It's crazy. Hopefully they don't slow down to a crawl! That would be terrible! But when the language becomes more natural, I have a feeling they'll start going pretty fast. Man that was a fast 6 weeks. OH also, Martin, the guy in the jail, is doing really really really awesome. He's reading the BoM everyday and praying and has really good questions to ask us everytime we stop by. I told him about conference and he said he would have liked to go, but since he's in jail, yeah, you can see how that wouldn't work. He's doing so good and he's SO awesome. We would set him for baptism right now, but he's not getting out for another 19 months, so it wouldn't work :( oh well maybe in 19 months right?
So ok, that's all for this week. I'll talk to you all next week, even though it'll seem like 2 or 3 days! Love you all.