Week 48

No email from Ashlyn Campbell this week. They were required to stay in their apartments Monday and Tuesday due to carnival, and then Wednesday she had zone conference. We got to speak to her for about 30 min today, but that was it. No pictures. No email. We will wait for next Tuesday to hear more. She did share that she had a speaking assignment in her zone conference yesterday and that it went amazingly well. I'm so proud of her and grateful she's having so many incredible experiences with the Spirit! Until next week! Oh ya, today marks 11 months to the day that she left on her mission. Time is flying! 

Week 47

WOHOOOOO ANOTHER INCREDIBLE CRAZY FILLED SPIRIT FILLED WEEK! Okay from day one i have always loved the tree of life and this week i got ot study it again!!!!! and this timesomething else caught my eye. As lehi begins his dream he sees a man in a white manto... not sure what the translation is but he begins to follow him through the dark and dreary desert. That is us. As we learn about the gospel we begin to follow christ through this dark world. But just like lehi if we only follow we begin to be scarred and we fall. But we learn from Lehi, he beganto pray,pleading for help and thats when he received help and that is when we receive help as well.When we act. When we pray, read, go to chruch, as we do little things are lives begin to change and although we are walking in a darkening world,we begin to be strengthened through the atonement of jesus christ. The only one capable of savingus.  SORRY NOT MUCH TIME TODAY BUT I LOVE YOU ALL AND HAVE AN INCREDIBLE WEEK!!!!  Hermana Campbell

Week 46 - Woohoo God is Good

OH THIS WEEK WAS SO FUN. Okay so first of all i am so bad with directions. I would literally get lost going anywhere but was hilarious is here where the directions are, go up a little and then to your right and you should see this big building and then its a little more up, I CAN FIND IT. me and hna oswald got to go and explore a little more of quito this week to meet more of the hermanas and oh my was it fun not getting lost. Kidding we did get lost a lot but we know spanish and as missionaries you learn to talk to anyone and everyone and that definitely helped us find the other hermanas. But Quito is CRAZY AND BIG. But that took a big chunk out of every morning this week and my companion has been struggling a bit with her health and some days it kept us inside but this week i can truly testify that as we do what the Savior asks of us HE WILL COMPLETE HIS PROMISE. HE WILL PICK UP OUR SLACK. This was probably the most craziest part of my mission. We were all over the place running around quito visiting hermanas in the morning and visiting when we could, doing our studies, calling people and being told no, the normal missionary life. But we stayed obedient, we stayed happy and calm, and we continued to have faith in Jesus Christ. Now why did i just confuse you all with my week schedule? Because i think this is every day for every one. Rarely do we actually have a week where everything goes how we planned. But yet God is working with us and helping us complete with what we need to get done. This week we were able to see miracles left and right and ill give a brief explanation of a few down below: We had contacted a lady and her daughter about 2 weeks ago and we scheduled a day we could go visit them. she ended up sending us a message saying she couldnt and scheduled it for a day this week. We called her to confirm and she gave us the direction of the street Atalhualpa and i have a black door... now that street is SO LONG but i had prayed asking heavenly father to bless us with someone knew to teach so what did we do? started walking down that road knocking on all the black doors, to no luck we knocked on a green door and a lady opened her window and we ended up teaching her about the restauration of the gospel and the book of mormon and as we were finishing she goes... you know what, you should go visit my neighbor, her husband just passed away and she could use this. so we went to her neighbors and knocked on her door, not even realizing it was a black door... and out walks the ladies daughter and they allowed us to go inside and teach them about the plan of salvation. Now we thought her husband passed away but sunday we passed by and found her husband too!!!! what a miracle.and a testimony of the love God has for each of us to answer our prayers in every moment. otro milagro: a cute single mom has been preparing for her baptism and wanted to wait until her mom from the coast was coming to visit to be baptized. Her mom has met with missionaries before but has never accepted the gospel fully, anyway her mom got here and she surprised her mom with the news of her baptism. The day of her baptism she walked in with the saddest face. Her mom had the plainest face and wouldnt really talk to us. We walked into the bathroom to get her changed and she just broke down crying. She thought her mom would be happy for her and her decision. It was such a cool oportunity as me and my companion were able to promise her that as she came up from the water, she would feel free of those thoughts and problems and feel so incredibly happy. As she walked down from the font after she was baptized she looked at us and said.. hermanas, you didnt tell me to plug my nose!!! we laughed and gave her a hug and just saw the biggest smile on her face. Her mom by the end had realized how important this was to her and calmed her emotions a little and was able to come to church the next day with her daughter and support her in that incredible decision she made.  un otro: as i sat in church this sunday me and my companion watched the room fill up. It was so incredible to watch people for the first time walk into the church, for the first time in a long time enter, and to see families walk in complete, not just the mom, not just the kids but complete families. One of those families has been visiting with missionaries for years and the wife is a member and 2 of the kids, but the father is a bit funny. he loves meeting with the missionaries but it is so hard to get him to act. But as we visited them after church, he told us he has made a promise with God that he will give the church a shot this month of february. He then goes on to talk about his new friends and how hes gonna go camp with them at the temple (the church building) this weekend.  These moments this week made me want to cry, because i know with all of my heart that Heavenly Father hears our prayers, he listens to us when we are happy, sad, discouraged, you name it. He wants to help us he wants to bless us, we just have to not complain and go with the flow having faith in God. This week i studied in 1 nefi 4 when sariah complains and is frustrated with lehi for being a visionary man and sending her kids back to jerusalem to be killed. The response that Lehi gives her is the best ever. What i took from it was that that was not a commandment from man. It was a commandment from God. How many times to we doubt our ward leaders or doubt the prophet or the idea of the 5 year old to make cookies and send it to someone? A lot. I know i have. but what i was doing, was doubting God. He speaks through his servants, which is all of us!!!! Every good thing comes from God. As we can realize that the things we have been asked to do in this life comes from god, we wont have the desire to complain. We will have the desire to act.  My challenge for all of you this week is to act. Act on every thought you have. If it will help uplift someone, help spread joy, help build the kingdom of God, STOP DOUBTING AND COMPLAINING JUST GO AND DO. We are all called to be servants of God on this earth so act like it! We all have such great potential that we will only reach if we act!!!  I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND HAVE SUCH A GREAT WEEK FE EN DIOS INCLUYE FE EN SU TIEMPO HERMANA CAMPBELL

Week 45

Week 45 February 4, 2020 Okay i really am struggling to remember what happened this week. But what i do know is it was such a great week!!!! I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE MISSION!!!!! OH but like every missionary says and a lot have said it this week, not everything is sunshine and rainbows. We do have our rough days and this week i had a few of those. but whats so incredible is those things dont stay with us. As we serve the Lord and give Him our all He helps us overcome whatever we are going through. We saw so many miracles this week and we continue to see them as we continue working the work of the Lord. But sometimes we get stressed. To the point its hard to sleep and thats normal. sometimes. not for everybody but for me its a sometimes. I just got done talking to my father about this but sometimes we forget why we do things. We think it all depends on us. We think we have to do everything and if we dont we are horrible and not completing our purpose. Actually thats not how it works. this work is not ours. this is the work of the Lord. We are literally only instruments in his hands. We are in charge of opening our mouths, walking up to people, initiating the conversation but Heavenly Father is in charge of the other things. AS we begin he takes over. He completes what we cant do. OH wow god is good, as i was reading today about the spirit it really hit me that every story in the book of mormon where they have an encounter with angels or are hit really hard with the spirit they are exhausted or lose there strength and then i read in moses 1:10' i believe and it mentions that man is nothing. rough right? well not really, man is nothing but man with God is everything. Our bodies as humans can not handle the power of the spirit, but as we have God by our side lifting us up we have everything and we can handle everything that comes our way. so there is no need to be stressed because everything that happens, if we are working, is how god wants it to be. another thought this week from my studies, in DyC 6 it mentions that Christ is the Light and satan is the darkness. It mentions that the darkness does not comprehend the light. well i thought a little more into that. As we continue to become more like christ, we have more of the light of christ in our countenance, idk, and as we become closer to Christ, satan tries harder, why? because the closer we become to Christ the harder it is for satan to comprehend us and our weaknesses. We become the light of Christ and the darkness does not understand the light. My invitation for each and every one of you this week is to brighten your light! Make it harder for the adversary to enter into your heart. Fight always and continue to do the little things that make us unconditionally happy!!!! I am praying for you guys always and love each and every one of you!!!!! CONTINUE TO BE THE LIGHT IN THIS DARK WORLD!!!!!! FE EN DIOS INCLUYE FE EN SU TIEMPO HERMANA CAMPBELL

Week 44 - Elder Holland Read my Soul

Once again this week flew. I swear i was just in this cyber sitting in this chair typing with a keyboard that doesnt have aspace bar that works the best. so just hold on and have fun unscrambling my email. BUT ahhhhhhhh ELDER HOLLAND CAME TO THE GRANDMISSION ECUADOR QUITO NORTE. AND MAY I JUST SAY I DIDNT WANT HIM TO STOP TALKING. and the phrase i would love to share with you all today is one line that hitme so hard. and it is this I DID NOT COME THIS FAR TO ONLY COME THIS FAR. how many of us have said the sentence. "nope, not today, i just cant" because i sure have whether its working out,reading a book, doing chores, homework, lo que sea. and that sentence has entered into my head a lot duringthe mission. *someone walking in front of us *my thoughts " do i talk to her or do i not? shes walking fast if i walk slower then i wont catch up to her.... she probably doesnt even want to listen..." now i will share a story with you all. this happened a few weeks ago, we were walking and there was a lady with her two kids, she was actually walking slow and in my head i was like contact her.... or walk faster please... satan won that time and we decided to cross the road so we could "get to our destination" as we began to cross,guess who crossed as well, Good thing God is merciful. I then looked at my companion and was like alright lets contact her, and my companion replied with "i dont want to" well guess what we did, we started a conversation with her and she invited us inside her home and we were able to share a message with not just her but her wholefamily. Okay now going back to the beginning. How many miracle situations like that have we missed in life because "i dont want to"? Well everybody i think we should take a moment and think about what this returnedmissionary said to elder holland "i did not come this far to only come this far" when we let our thoughts override the spirit we are settling with what we are in the moment. But sorry to break it to ya,we are not here on this earth to be fine with where we are at. now dont take that the wrong way, each and every one of you are in anincredible place in your life and you are all doing great! BUT YOU CAN BE SO MUCH MORE!!!!!!! Its a process. it has to be because we are continually progressing, andif we arent progressing, then we are degressing. i dont think thats a word. but its fine. i think you get the point. We chose our destiny, we chose whether we will live in a state of unconditional happiness or if we are goingto live in eternity looking back and saying to ourselves "i couldve done more" We are on this earth to improve daily. to be better in every situation and to be disciplesof Christ our whole lives. Not for a day or for 1.5 years or for 2 years. We are chosen to be disciples of Christ for eternity. As elder Holland said to us "We want you forever" We are chosen for the eternity not for a minute. and we are not chosen randomly we are chosen by our LOVING FATHER IN HEAVEN WHO KNOWS OUR POTENTIAL. YOU ALL HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO BE GODS AND GODDESSES SO PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT SETTLE TO BE LESS. REACH YOUR POTENTIAL, END EVERYDAY WITH A SMILEON YOUR FACE KNOWING YOU ARE WHO YOU CAN BE AND WHO GOD WANTS YOU TO BE. I could say more and i want to replay that day so all of you can hear it but i just want you all to know that i know with all of my heart that you are a child of God. That you have a spirit that is just so incredibly special and important to our Father in Heaven. He knows you and He knows what you are going through and He will lift you up.But you have to ask. You are and can become so much. But its not a cheap experience "Salvation is not a cheap experience" But it is worth it and you are on the right path to reach it. Never give up, Never feel like you are not enough becuase i am here to tell you, God doesnt want perfect, He wants YOU. So go to work, be His disciple and make Him even more proud of you. You are incredible and I love you with all of my heart and pray for you always. Have such an amazing week and i know ahhhhhh I JUST WISH I COULD SCREAM IT TO EVERYBODY but I know that this Church is the Church of Jesus Christ. This church was restored by Joseph Smith, a joven that had one question but had a desire. and I promise you all that you too can recieve an answer to any one of your prayers if you do as he did, and pray with all your heart might mind and strength.  HAVE SUCH AN AMAZING WEEK WOHOOO THIS LIFE IS THE BEST LIFE  I did not come this far, to only come this far.  Hermana Campbell