So Friday was kind of a rough day, had a lot of problems and a lot of things going on but it seemed like the Lord made it that way on purpose for what he had in store for me later that night. It was about 7 o clock and I got a call to my cell phone from the Zone Leaders in Valle de Uco (my old area). I thought it was kind of an odd call, and picked it up. Even more to my suprise was that it wasn´t an Elder on the other line, it was a super girly voice. She said, ´´ Elder Campbell this is Alejandra Salto, I hope you remember me! I just was calling you to tell you I´m getting baptised tomorrow, and I really want you to come!´´ I just got hit with the greatest feeling of happiness mixed with excitedness I can´t even explain. Alejandra Salto is a really neat story. She´s the daughter of a recently reactivated mom (when I was there we reactivated her in the church). She´s 13 years old her back is deformed as is her right leg that is half as long as her left. She is the sweetest little girl ever. She has such a good attitude about life and through all the painful bone stretching they put her through she always tried to put a smile on her face. She has a metal rod attached to the short leg, and once a month they adjust it like braces (it´s stretching her leg out, they think in 10 years it will get her leg to be normal sized), but imagine the pain.... attached straight to her femur. She just walks around with this little wooden crutch, some times i think the Lord subtly reminds us how thankful we should be for healthy bodies. She has always wanted to get baptised but her parents were really worried about he falling or getting hurt entering and leaving the makes hift font in Cordon. And she has always been a little bit embarrassed of her deformities, hence the worries of getting baptised. But my old companion Elder Mitchell kept working with them as we did when we were together and she finally got baptized yesterday. I had a smile on my face all day that couldn´t be wiped off. Even had one of the most dramatic satan involved events of my life happen directly afterwards that I´ll explain, but not even that could get me down. I got to go back and see all of those members I served as their 1st councilor, and got to see one of the biggest reasons the Lord sent me here, Paola Fredes and her amazing family again!!! As if the story doesnt get better, Damian, Paolas husband that we reactivated before she got baptized is now the ward mission leader and he is the one that baptized Alejandra. SOOOO COOL!!!! Everyone greeted me so excitingly, they had no idea i was coming. All of them remembered my name and had huge smiles, tons of hugs and happiness. It was great. So neat to go back in that little iron shed of a chapel and watch someone who is like a brother to me baptize a little girl that was so special to me. The Lord blessed me so greatly to get to see that. One of the happiest days of my entire mission, without a shadow of a doubt. We toured all of Valle de Uco that day, inspecting the penches and installing new CO2 detectors. The Packers and Elder Miller came with me. President Lindhal let us take the mission vehicle. I got some really cool pictures of the dramatic scenery, as well as some cool guys on horse back, and a bike race that we had to pull over as directed by the billions of police. So after the baptism we were all just feeling great and happy. We pulled out of Cordon with me, the packers, elder miller, and the elders quorum president (who had a bad ankle and needed a lift) to another little town named Tupungato to check the Elders CO2 detectors there and as we passed by a cop motioned to me to pull over. This couldn´t have been more than 10 minutes after leaving the baptism. He came up to the window slowly, looked in, and then told me to get out of the car. I felt really uneasy I knew the guy was up to no good, i had a really creeped out feeling. I also knew he had seen Hna. Packer in the passenger seat with her MacBook in her lap. He had me walk to the other side of the highway with him, and once out of earshot of the car started threatening me with some pretty bad language, that he was going to take me to jail. And that he knew the Brother in the car was an illegal Bolivian, and using some pretty bad names for Bolivians told me he was going to send him back to his country unless I had something really good for him. I don´t know where i got the nerve but i asked why the heck he pulled me over anyways, and really nervously told me because my lights weren´t on (it was 3 oclock in the day), and to shut up. Then told me to give him a thousand pesos or he was shipping me off. I had not even close to that, i tried to calm him down and ended up having to give him the 150 pesos I had on me of personal money and he let us go. It was pretty gut wrenching, i could just sense Satan using that man, he was just so not normal ya know?? But it all ended up fine, just another Argentine adventure!!! Haha. It´s just so corrupted here! Satan wasn´t to happy with that spiritual high we were on but there was nothing that could bring me down. It scared the crap outta me not going to lie, but nothing got us down! At the end of the trip on the way from Tupungato to Mendoza there is a HUGE Christ statue that looks over all of Valle de Uco. We made a pit stop and took some pretty cool pictures. I´ll attach some of them too.
I can´t believe Christmas is coming. The last two Hymns we sung at sacrament meeting were Christmas songs and for a second I was sooooo confused! Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my super jam packed email. Its a lot longer than normal! I love you all and am thinking and praying for ya. We´ll be talking here soon enough, pretty crazy to me. Doesnt seem long ago that I was in the pench in Trapiche talking to you all. Or about 6 months ago when I was still in Alvear. Time flies! Thanks for sending a package your amazing for that. I know it is expensive. I shouldn´t expect you to send another for the rest of my mission. Love ya!!
Carson
Campbell Turkey
Cooking with the Packers
Turkey...gobble, gobble
Table with the Boys
Turkey board
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