We´ve had an adventurous week that is for sure. And experienced a miracle. We were in our priesthood mtg we hold every tuesday night with the bishop and leaders of the ward. As we were sitting there talking about the work in the area we heard a knock on the door... Unusual for a tuesday night around 9 30 in a chapel. The elders q. pres went to the door and opened it. In walked two young men from Peru. (you could totally tell they were peruvians they all look a bit different than argentines.) Honestly as the one started talking i felt the spirit. He started to explain that he had just moved to mendoza a week ago, and that he felt really alone. His mom was a member living in chile, and since he had basically moved here alone he wanted to find the chapel. He said he´d been searching and searching for the missionaries or the chapel, and that he was finally at peace to find it. Then he paused and said... ´´ive been living with my girlfriend in chile so i couldn´t get baptised, i knew it wasn´t right but i had no choice because i had no money to afford my own home. I know this church is true without a doubt in my mind, i moved here to be good with god, to repent, and to be baptised.´´ FAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! It was crazy! The whole room was just in awe. I didn´t know what to say, and finally i was said ´´can you come to the chapel tomorrow for a lesson´´ haha. Really amazing. We´ve taught him everyday this week, but really i wouldn´t call it teaching. He knows everything, he´s read the BOM. Sunday he was the star of the show in priesthood, answering all the questions. He played professional soccer in chile but the club never paid him because they were so corrupt. He moved here and wants to try out for tomba next year. In the mean time we´ve found him a job with one of the members, he´s trying to get out of his 3 bedroom house he is living in right now with...........22 other peruvians. yeah 22.. Count your blessings back home. He´s set to be baptised saturday, and is hoping he can save enough money for transportation and a legal marriage for his gf. So amazing. the lord is truely working miracles through us.
We finally got the deal closed on the new pench and moved in saturday. Its like a million dollar mansion compaired to our old pench haha. The toilet actually works, there is no gas leak, theres even hot water :). We get about 120 dollars a month here. Equals around 400 pesos. We shop for ourselves at the local kioskos, and shopping places. They don´t eat dinner here. Weird right?? We eat a small breakfast usually ceral or an egg or something. Then they just have a huge´normously´large lunch! We eat lunch with the members about 5 times a week. They just eat and eat and eat! Then sleep from 2-5 or 6 But that lasts the rest of the day. The living here is different. The houses are very very close together basically just one big block of brick all put together. Pretty neat. I´m going to try and send some pictures. Im so pumped about nay coming to ARGENTINA!! I heard Rosario is beautiful! We´ll be able to send mail back and forth cheap cheap cheap :) I find out tonight if i´m staying in trapiche or going. Or if i´ll be with chesley or not. Kinda trippin out. I hope i don´t move because we just unpakced everything in the new pench! Plus we found it and did all the work to get a nice place. We want to enjoy the fruit of our labor :) Anyways i think thats about it. Don´t have too much time to write today, keep strong. Live like you believe!!!!!!! Simple as that. Oh one last thing. We listened to a live broadcast of elder bednar adressing the argentine people. He gave a powerful fireside, we all left uplifted. We took Carmen with us, all she does is talk about you mom. All she wants to do is meet you haha. She says your beautiful, and is always asking to see our family picture over and over haha. Anyways Love you!!!!!!
Elder Campbell
Monday, November 30, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
November 16, 2009
(On a side note here....Mom did send him an email....stayed up until 2am writing it!!!)
No email from the family this week kinda disappointing! I got the opportunity to step into the waters of baptism this week. I can´t explain how cool it was... One experience i´ll never forget. I told you the story of Miguel Casanova 2 weeks ago. The man we were led to find in Campo Papa (the really dangerous area we aren´t supposed to enter). He was baptized Saturday and asked me to baptize him. It was only 15 days since we had found him. How prepared by the lord he was! The whole experience with Miguel i´ll never forget. They are a very humble family, that live in even more of a humble circumstance. They live in a little ruin with a tin roof and dirt floors. Me and Chesley bought them a new copy of the bible in spanish and a BOM for him. They almost passed out when they saw it. It was like 2 diamonds to them. I was really worried about saying the prayer right and everything but the second i stepped in the water i was so relaxed and it just felt so right! In the dirtiest of dirty estansuela water Miguel came out clean and a new. ( really the water was so gross you couldn´t even see the bottom of the font, to think we´ve been drinking that. no wonder chesley was so deathly ill. haha.) Transfers are the 25th, so we´ll see if i get a new comp and if i stay in Trapiche or not. Kinda nervous about that! I sure had a lot of questions about some personal stuff last week that i didn´t get answered you´ll have to give me an update i was waiting all week to find out about scott, and especially andrew, and also if PJ came out ok. Its starting to get really hot here. The siesta has increased another hour because of how hot it is outside. Even the kids get out of school mid day then go back at night. We however, work through it :) Not the funnest, and like no one is outside to talk to and no one wants to open their doors during those 4 hours! We got together with the zone today in our pench and ate some authentic Peruvian food. Our disrict leader is from Peru and cooked us up a delicious dish haha. I lost another kilo last week. In all 6 kilos now... i dunno what that equates to in LBS anymore. Anyways i hope all is good. Some elders got some packages this week without paying! I guess the guy at the post office was in a real good mood. Pres Lindahl is in Buenas Aires with Elder Bednar right now! Kinda cool! He´s giving a special address to the people of argentina this week via satillite. The members are real excited, some members in our ward actually went through a session in the santigo temple with him. OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh, another weird crazy cool coincedence. Ask Mike if he remembers an old companion of his Elder Garcia. We found a guy and started talking to him, turns out he´s a member and served in Bajia Blanca. Then to my crazy shock said he was companions with an Elder Nielsen in Bajia Blanca,and described Mike perfectly!!!!!! Same years too, crazy small world. Mike will have to email me! He was asking so many questions about mike, but how crazy. The opposite end of the earth and i find someone that knows my family. Crazy crazy! Anyways i suppose i´ll get going. I´m going to send a picture of the baptism, and me in my whites :) Love you all very much, stay safe and email me even if your in Disneyland.... im more important than Mickey Mouse..... :) Bye!
ElderCampbell
No email from the family this week kinda disappointing! I got the opportunity to step into the waters of baptism this week. I can´t explain how cool it was... One experience i´ll never forget. I told you the story of Miguel Casanova 2 weeks ago. The man we were led to find in Campo Papa (the really dangerous area we aren´t supposed to enter). He was baptized Saturday and asked me to baptize him. It was only 15 days since we had found him. How prepared by the lord he was! The whole experience with Miguel i´ll never forget. They are a very humble family, that live in even more of a humble circumstance. They live in a little ruin with a tin roof and dirt floors. Me and Chesley bought them a new copy of the bible in spanish and a BOM for him. They almost passed out when they saw it. It was like 2 diamonds to them. I was really worried about saying the prayer right and everything but the second i stepped in the water i was so relaxed and it just felt so right! In the dirtiest of dirty estansuela water Miguel came out clean and a new. ( really the water was so gross you couldn´t even see the bottom of the font, to think we´ve been drinking that. no wonder chesley was so deathly ill. haha.) Transfers are the 25th, so we´ll see if i get a new comp and if i stay in Trapiche or not. Kinda nervous about that! I sure had a lot of questions about some personal stuff last week that i didn´t get answered you´ll have to give me an update i was waiting all week to find out about scott, and especially andrew, and also if PJ came out ok. Its starting to get really hot here. The siesta has increased another hour because of how hot it is outside. Even the kids get out of school mid day then go back at night. We however, work through it :) Not the funnest, and like no one is outside to talk to and no one wants to open their doors during those 4 hours! We got together with the zone today in our pench and ate some authentic Peruvian food. Our disrict leader is from Peru and cooked us up a delicious dish haha. I lost another kilo last week. In all 6 kilos now... i dunno what that equates to in LBS anymore. Anyways i hope all is good. Some elders got some packages this week without paying! I guess the guy at the post office was in a real good mood. Pres Lindahl is in Buenas Aires with Elder Bednar right now! Kinda cool! He´s giving a special address to the people of argentina this week via satillite. The members are real excited, some members in our ward actually went through a session in the santigo temple with him. OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh, another weird crazy cool coincedence. Ask Mike if he remembers an old companion of his Elder Garcia. We found a guy and started talking to him, turns out he´s a member and served in Bajia Blanca. Then to my crazy shock said he was companions with an Elder Nielsen in Bajia Blanca,and described Mike perfectly!!!!!! Same years too, crazy small world. Mike will have to email me! He was asking so many questions about mike, but how crazy. The opposite end of the earth and i find someone that knows my family. Crazy crazy! Anyways i suppose i´ll get going. I´m going to send a picture of the baptism, and me in my whites :) Love you all very much, stay safe and email me even if your in Disneyland.... im more important than Mickey Mouse..... :) Bye!
ElderCampbell
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Pictures of Elder Campbell
Just ballin´and striking a pose.
Forever live TOMBA. C.D.G.C.A.T stands for Club Deportivo Godoy Cruz Antonio Tomba (Antonio Tomba is the owner of the club)
Anyone seen WALL-E? This has to be what they copied for all of that stuff on the show. This is the shopping center in our area. Its nothing short of huge, but its not just all one huge stores it has a mini strip mall inside. This is where we email from usually!
Ballin!
Picture of the birthday goodies.
Pictures of Carmen
The most beautiful chapel in all the land. We live a block away from this one. At the top of the hills overlooking all of Mendoza
Elder Chesley using his ninja skills to clean the mirror above the font.
Cleaning the font before Carmens baptism!
THE BEST PICTURE EVER, forgive Carmen for not smiling its a latin thing :)
Me and Carmen on my 20th! She gave us goodies and as always this vanilla cake thing thats pretty bomb :)
Pictures from Mendoza
This is a house of a member family. Pretty humble yeah? They have a family of 4.
Our favorite stray :) she wanders into our house frequently, she fits through those bars poor dog. Shes one of 50 billion and 60 strays in Mendoza.
Mmmmmmm want a lil pork for dindin?!?!?!
The beautiful Andes, our mountains take the cake but they are beautiful.
Halloween Party Chesley and I organized for the ward
November 9, 2009
We had one crazy busy week this week but very good, very successful. I got to see a miracle friday, as Carmen was baptised. Every baptism i´ve decided is nothing short of a miracle. To think that a month ago Carmen was just living her life when two young men in white shirts came up to her outside of the grocery store and told her they had a message that would change her life. The rest is history. She´s a great woman. Seriously mom she reminds me so much of you it´s crazy. Carmen is the mother of 3 boys and 1 7 yr old girl. The family isn´t really receptive yet but Carmen was prepared by the lord months before we found her. She´s really funny, has a quirky sense of humour and really is the glue that holds her family together. She was really nervous to get baptised and we had to postpone her baptism a week but as friday came closer she was more sure and more sure this is what god wanted for her in her life. We have been searching for new investigators to teach and are really encouraged with two others we´re teaching. Miguel and Miguel haha. Two different guys same name. I can´t believe the first transfer is getting close to being over. We have transfers the 24th. Kinda scary to think i could be getting a companion that doesn´t speak any english. My spanish is really really improved the past 2 weeks but i still struggle with a lot (can´t expect to be fluent in 5 weeks here). I can´t tell you how much i appreciate Pres Lindahl. We had our interview a bit back and he just randomly looked at me and said he felt a promting he needed to call dad, i was like... whhhhattt.. it was completely random but i trust him. He´s a very smart man. And i know he´s had an apostle lay hands on his head to give him his calling straight from god.
TOMBA won yesterday 3-1. Made for a nice day, everyone was real friendly :) We can´t watch the games but we know when they score, the streets go crazy and everyone runs outside just yelling haha. I love getting the sports updates, keep them coming! I was hoping you hadn´t sent packages yet cause i really really need some dr schols insoles. They don´t have insoles here its aweful my feet are in pretty bad shape i just limp around everywhere haha but it´s ok all in the work of the lord. I can definately make it till you can send some. Another great thing to have would be plastic baggies (ziplock) cause they don´t have them here and preserving food is difficult haha. Maybe some chapstick too. That for the future! If you can´t get it out for a while that is ok. I´m doing just fine! We have ANOTHER BAPTISM Saturday! (me and chesley are tearing it up) actually i take that back the lord is tearing it up! Just using us to do it, how blessed am i to get to see these miracles!? So scary to hear about PJ..... i was trippin! I´m glad he is ok. Sounds just like those guys to be doin what they were doin haha. I laughed when you told me about dad and his jalepenios. So dad... haha. Anyways i love you all very much and give you a charge to read your patriartrical blessings this week. Remember the scripture in John 15. We´re not his servants, he´s called us friends. And he´s laid down his life for his friends. You haven´t chosen him but he´s chosen you to carry his name. A lot of responsibility with that, but even more blessings. Walk in his light! Love you alll. Can i get Nancy´s email? Let her know he money helped me buy the new spanish bible the church just released. I´m forever greatful!
TOMBA won yesterday 3-1. Made for a nice day, everyone was real friendly :) We can´t watch the games but we know when they score, the streets go crazy and everyone runs outside just yelling haha. I love getting the sports updates, keep them coming! I was hoping you hadn´t sent packages yet cause i really really need some dr schols insoles. They don´t have insoles here its aweful my feet are in pretty bad shape i just limp around everywhere haha but it´s ok all in the work of the lord. I can definately make it till you can send some. Another great thing to have would be plastic baggies (ziplock) cause they don´t have them here and preserving food is difficult haha. Maybe some chapstick too. That for the future! If you can´t get it out for a while that is ok. I´m doing just fine! We have ANOTHER BAPTISM Saturday! (me and chesley are tearing it up) actually i take that back the lord is tearing it up! Just using us to do it, how blessed am i to get to see these miracles!? So scary to hear about PJ..... i was trippin! I´m glad he is ok. Sounds just like those guys to be doin what they were doin haha. I laughed when you told me about dad and his jalepenios. So dad... haha. Anyways i love you all very much and give you a charge to read your patriartrical blessings this week. Remember the scripture in John 15. We´re not his servants, he´s called us friends. And he´s laid down his life for his friends. You haven´t chosen him but he´s chosen you to carry his name. A lot of responsibility with that, but even more blessings. Walk in his light! Love you alll. Can i get Nancy´s email? Let her know he money helped me buy the new spanish bible the church just released. I´m forever greatful!
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Monday November 2, 2009
Hola familia!!
So first of all i thought i´d copy and paste a bit of my email to Katie about a few very spiritual experiences i had this week. I don´t think i´ll soon forget this week for as long as i live and past it!
Soooooo basically we´ve had the craziest week ever. A lot of ups and lots of downs but it ended up really good. We were supposed to have a baptism friday so we went to our investigators house the day before to let her know about the program and who was speaking and all of that and she like freaked out... And just like got really scared and backed out of the baptism the night before. We left with the most terrible feeling. Like honestly i have come to love this lady like my own family and it just hurt so bad. We came back the next day and had the most spiritual experience of my entire mission. I can´t even tell you what we said but by the end we were just all crying and the feelings in that room were amazing. She told us she doesn´t want to live another day in her life without the spirit she felt and she´s going to be baptized this friday now for sure. So amazing.. Then the other day we were walking through our area we´re living in (a different area than the area we´re working in) because we didn´t have any appointments. We were just talking to people in the street and what not when we looked up and saw we were on the boarder of the most dangerous neighborhoods in all of Argentina. It´s called Campo Papa, it´s been shut off from missionary work for years because of how bad it is in there. A few years ago they shot down a police helicopter from inside, and another gang in there stole the steeple from our chaple when it was being built and it´s just sitting on top of his house haha. Anyways yeah we´ve been told not to go in no matter what, but for some reason we both had a very strong impression that we needed to go knock a door in there. So we went in two streets, the feeling was kinda scary but strangely enough we just felt like nothing could hurt us. The poverty in there... i can´t even describe, i´ve never seen anything like i saw in there. We got to the house we felt like we needed to knock on and they opened the door smiling ear to ear. The woman was the President of the relief society in the branch in campo papa, who has a husband who isn´t a member and 3 kids. She said ´´the angels are here miguel, the angels are here´´. Miguel is her husband. We entered in and her husband walked in the room and looked a bit shocked to see us. He got teared up and told us he prayed for 3 hours last night for a sign from god if the church was true. And we showed up on his porch the next morning. It´d been years since missionaries had been in the area. I just get chills writing about it.. this work is led!! I can´t explain the feelings that we felt! We taught him the first lesson in the chapel yesterday after church, and we´re going to teach him all the lessons this week. They won´t let us go back to their house because they told us they don´t want us kidnapped haha, so we´re going to be teaching him in the chapel everyday after work. He´s set to be baptised the 14th :)
I just wanted to let you all know how this work really is led! Amazing, how we´ve just seen miracle after miracle this week. I´m so blessed to be a part of it! It´s been a very very hard week, but those few experiences make it all worth it! So about the packages. I´d really love a few different things namely socks, PEANUT BUTTER!, more garments, maybe ties or whatever else you think. Now the secret with the packages is this. Don´t mark the actual amount you paid. They kind of know the worth of things but in all reality the men charging don´t know how much garments cost, or other things in the states. You don´t have to list everythin in the box if you can get away with hiding the stuff in other packages. Maybe a cereal box par´se, dump some cereal out and put some socks in there. Make sure the package doesn´t look tampered with, use some double sided tape and close it back up and mark that its just a box of cereal that cost you 3.50 or something. Get creative! Haha, i need my pin number for my card so i can´t buy you TOMBA jerseys. What sizes?? Blue or white?? Just to let you all know TOMBA is life here. We don´t even dare to knock doors when their playing. We´d be facing death, i´m not exaggerating that. Death. They´re nuts about futbol.. completely nuts. They´ve lost 2 weeks in a row which makes tracting in the streets difficult cause everyone is just pissed off cause TOMBA can´t win. Haha, oh man so funny these peoples. We threw a Halloween part y for the barrio on the 31st it was fun, i´ll send some pictures next week. We´ve got the baptism friday (it´s going to happen this time), and a lot of lessons with miguel, but other than that nothing so we´ll be out ´´opening the mouth´´ to people in the street. (which happens to be my least favorite thing to do) I love the Lindahl´s with all my heart. President is an amazing man, they truely are wonderful people. Their like our parents here. I´ll actually be leaving the same transfer they do and they said they want to go site seeing after we´re done together, and take the same flight home. Cool right?? Haha, you´ll have to see if the family can come down and join. It´ll be cold in july though :(, that´s still 20 months away and the furthest thing in my mind so we´ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Anyways things are good here. Carmin baked like 4 cakes for me and Chesley for our birthdays! They sung me happy birthday in spanish and we ate the little argentine cakes with pepsi for our birthdays! Chesley turned 21 on the 30th. Kinda cool right?? Anyways I love you all very much! Can you get that pin number to me asap?? Thankyou :) Scripture for today is......... 3 Nephi 13:31-33.
Moroni 8:3
Love
Elder Carson Campbell
So first of all i thought i´d copy and paste a bit of my email to Katie about a few very spiritual experiences i had this week. I don´t think i´ll soon forget this week for as long as i live and past it!
Soooooo basically we´ve had the craziest week ever. A lot of ups and lots of downs but it ended up really good. We were supposed to have a baptism friday so we went to our investigators house the day before to let her know about the program and who was speaking and all of that and she like freaked out... And just like got really scared and backed out of the baptism the night before. We left with the most terrible feeling. Like honestly i have come to love this lady like my own family and it just hurt so bad. We came back the next day and had the most spiritual experience of my entire mission. I can´t even tell you what we said but by the end we were just all crying and the feelings in that room were amazing. She told us she doesn´t want to live another day in her life without the spirit she felt and she´s going to be baptized this friday now for sure. So amazing.. Then the other day we were walking through our area we´re living in (a different area than the area we´re working in) because we didn´t have any appointments. We were just talking to people in the street and what not when we looked up and saw we were on the boarder of the most dangerous neighborhoods in all of Argentina. It´s called Campo Papa, it´s been shut off from missionary work for years because of how bad it is in there. A few years ago they shot down a police helicopter from inside, and another gang in there stole the steeple from our chaple when it was being built and it´s just sitting on top of his house haha. Anyways yeah we´ve been told not to go in no matter what, but for some reason we both had a very strong impression that we needed to go knock a door in there. So we went in two streets, the feeling was kinda scary but strangely enough we just felt like nothing could hurt us. The poverty in there... i can´t even describe, i´ve never seen anything like i saw in there. We got to the house we felt like we needed to knock on and they opened the door smiling ear to ear. The woman was the President of the relief society in the branch in campo papa, who has a husband who isn´t a member and 3 kids. She said ´´the angels are here miguel, the angels are here´´. Miguel is her husband. We entered in and her husband walked in the room and looked a bit shocked to see us. He got teared up and told us he prayed for 3 hours last night for a sign from god if the church was true. And we showed up on his porch the next morning. It´d been years since missionaries had been in the area. I just get chills writing about it.. this work is led!! I can´t explain the feelings that we felt! We taught him the first lesson in the chapel yesterday after church, and we´re going to teach him all the lessons this week. They won´t let us go back to their house because they told us they don´t want us kidnapped haha, so we´re going to be teaching him in the chapel everyday after work. He´s set to be baptised the 14th :)
I just wanted to let you all know how this work really is led! Amazing, how we´ve just seen miracle after miracle this week. I´m so blessed to be a part of it! It´s been a very very hard week, but those few experiences make it all worth it! So about the packages. I´d really love a few different things namely socks, PEANUT BUTTER!, more garments, maybe ties or whatever else you think. Now the secret with the packages is this. Don´t mark the actual amount you paid. They kind of know the worth of things but in all reality the men charging don´t know how much garments cost, or other things in the states. You don´t have to list everythin in the box if you can get away with hiding the stuff in other packages. Maybe a cereal box par´se, dump some cereal out and put some socks in there. Make sure the package doesn´t look tampered with, use some double sided tape and close it back up and mark that its just a box of cereal that cost you 3.50 or something. Get creative! Haha, i need my pin number for my card so i can´t buy you TOMBA jerseys. What sizes?? Blue or white?? Just to let you all know TOMBA is life here. We don´t even dare to knock doors when their playing. We´d be facing death, i´m not exaggerating that. Death. They´re nuts about futbol.. completely nuts. They´ve lost 2 weeks in a row which makes tracting in the streets difficult cause everyone is just pissed off cause TOMBA can´t win. Haha, oh man so funny these peoples. We threw a Halloween part y for the barrio on the 31st it was fun, i´ll send some pictures next week. We´ve got the baptism friday (it´s going to happen this time), and a lot of lessons with miguel, but other than that nothing so we´ll be out ´´opening the mouth´´ to people in the street. (which happens to be my least favorite thing to do) I love the Lindahl´s with all my heart. President is an amazing man, they truely are wonderful people. Their like our parents here. I´ll actually be leaving the same transfer they do and they said they want to go site seeing after we´re done together, and take the same flight home. Cool right?? Haha, you´ll have to see if the family can come down and join. It´ll be cold in july though :(, that´s still 20 months away and the furthest thing in my mind so we´ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Anyways things are good here. Carmin baked like 4 cakes for me and Chesley for our birthdays! They sung me happy birthday in spanish and we ate the little argentine cakes with pepsi for our birthdays! Chesley turned 21 on the 30th. Kinda cool right?? Anyways I love you all very much! Can you get that pin number to me asap?? Thankyou :) Scripture for today is......... 3 Nephi 13:31-33.
Moroni 8:3
Love
Elder Carson Campbell
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