Sister Amelia Page Campbell
Guatemala Guatemala City South Mission
Apartado Postal 340-A
01909 Guatemala City
Guatemala
You can email her at: amelia.campbell@myldsmail.net
Hi everyone,
This is my last P(ee)-day in the MTC, which is kind of sad. Next week I don't even get a P-day, so this is also the last time you'll be hearing from me for a while.
There's really not a lot to report on this week, since every day is just a cycle of eating, studying, praying, teaching, and sleeping. My one highlight from this week is that our super tough "investigator" Gabriel finally committed to baptism. I was so excited when he said yes that I went "EN SERIO???" and he laughed at me. BUT Hermana Canty and I were so happy that we skipped all the way back to class. The other unique thing about this week is that we got to go street contacting outside the CCM for half an hour on Thursday. We talked to real people! It was actually really hard and scary and I started crying because I felt like such a ninny, but we ended up placing a Book of Mormon with a really nice lady and overall it was a valuable experience (probably, even though it was horrible at the time). I guess I have to get used to that, because in a week, that's going to be my whole life all day, every day.
On Sunday, my district sang "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" (Yo Sé Que Vive Mi Señor) in sacrament meeting, and that was fun. I really love my district--elders are such goons, but also great. We're all really close and it's going to be hard when we all leave. But there will be other districts and zones and people that I will get to spend time with, so I take solace in that. Also on Sunday during our district meeting, we all told the stories of how we ended up coming on missions, and I got reeeeeeeeeal emotional during mine. I remembered talking to the MTC president my first day here, when I thought I needed to go home, and he told me that I was called to serve this mission from the foundation of this world--it's always been something I'm supposed to do. When he told me that in the moment, I was really annoyed because I just wanted to go home, but with time, I've come to understand what he means. Even if I have a single baptism on my mission, I will have least converted one person, and it'll be me (did any missionaries ever see that Jeffrey R. Holland devotional?).
OH and something I forgot to write last week: I've been having really vivid dreams since being on my mission (probably a result of eating too much pineapple--the pineapple here is SO GOOD and I eat probably an entire pineapple a day), and last week I had a particularly haunting one. It was the end of my mission, and I was having my final interview with my mission president. He asked me to take off my plaque (which I guess is wrong, because you don't take off your plaque until you get released, but just roll with it), and in my dream I was SO SAD and I didn't want to take it off. I kept telling him I couldn't go home, and I couldn't leave behind the people I had taught and baptized because I loved them so much. In my dream, there were faces and names of real people that I could see and hear, which is crazy because I haven't taught anyone yet. But I knew all these people, and they were my friends, and I was so sad I had to leave them. And then I woke up crying. I don't know if it means anything, but maybe I'll meet and teach some of those people in the next seventeen months? Who knows. Anyway, I guess it just helps me when I'm feeling inadequate to remember that I am supposed to be here and even if my Spanish sucks too much to convert anyone else, at least my testimony is stronger than it ever has been. Also, everyone read Jesus the Christ because it's so good.
AH lo siento, olvidé que mi maestra nos dijo que tenemos que escribir un parrafo a nuestras familias en español. Sé que ustedes no pueden entender esto, pero voy a escribir mi testimonio. Yo sé que Jesucristo es mi salvador, amigo, y hermano. Sé que él me ama y que él les ama a ustedes también. La obra misional no es fácil, pero testifico que este mensaje puede cambiar vidas, y yo quiero compartir la felicidad que me siento en mi vida con todas las personas del mundo. Yo sé que familias pueden ser eternas, y que el Libro de Mormón es verdadero. Yo digo estas cosas en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.
Sorry about that. Also, here's the address of the mission office, in case you want to write me once I'm in the field:
Sister Amelia Page Campbell
Guatemala Guatemala City South Mission
Apartado Postal 340-A
01909 Guatemala City
Guatemala
and for packages (which I don't recommend sending because they're so expensive, but just in case):
Sister Amelia Page Campbell
Guatemala Guatemala City South Mission
Ave. Reforma 8/60 Galerias Reforma
Torre 2 Nivel 6, 606 Zona 9
Guatemala
Love,
Hermana Campbell
