February 22, 2016 – BEcome Calm

Oh Hey! Another week in the lovely land of the worst roads ever. Seriously. As it warms up giant holes are starting to form everywhere. This place will forever be remembered as the worst roads with the best people (: Well, In addition to my friends at home.

So this week was my hardest week here and my favorite week here so far! Being with a human, the same human, for 24 hours a day 7 days a week is not a walk in the park. Especially when you have so much in common. On top of all of the other challenges and so many people not following commitment I have had to remind myself many times this week that we are only given things in life that we are able to handle. There is a quote about how many times God does not calm the stormy sea, but he calms the heart of the sailor. My testimony grew immensely on that principle this week. In no means did God take away the slightest bit of what was going on around me, but as I prayed and thought about what I could change, and then changed it, I felt less like I was drowning and more calm. I felt so happy in the same place that I once felt so frustrated. I am learning more and more that happiness is a state of mind. We can be happy no matter where we are or what circumstances might overcome us. My challenge to you this week Is when life gets hard remember to focus on what you can change in your life to make it better and then to do so! Become calm in your heart rather than trying to change all of the circumstances you can't! Many times, even though it will take a lot of pride swallowing, the answer will be to act out of love. 

The Area is doing well! I decided to try out what my president said: to remember that God has more people prepared than I think. Wow! It totally worked. We did all we could this week to get members to lessons and the blessings were seen. To be honest, I had no idea why we even brought members to lessons, but one of my goals coming out was to be a missionary that worked with members. It is hard for me to have a passion for something I do not understand the principle behind so I prayed and asked to be able to understand why members being present in lessons are so important. And my testimony grew like wildfire about them this week! 

I am so thankful that I was put in Morgantown. I have met people here that have opened doors in my mind I didn't even know existed. I love this work so much! 

Because our area is so big we get to drive a lot. In between houses it is so peaceful to just listen to music and drive and think about each investigator we are going to see. I love going on drives so this is SUCH a tender mercy! 

​See you next Monday! I will have been here in WV for a whole month! Lucky me. This place is so quirky...it fits me well (: ​

 --
Sister Justina Campbell
West Virginia Charleston Mission

This is a rock that I pass by all of the time so we finally stopped to take a picture (:

So this is sister Lund! She is like grandma and makes me miss my grandmas a lot less (:

This is a member we went out with! She was in the ward visiting so we picked her up for a lesson.

 

February 16, 2016 – BEcome A Church Attender Who Seeks Revelation

I love you and my life and my mission (:

This week I finally came to understand, or at least gain more knowledge, on the importance of revelation through church attendance. It was actually through a ​ friend (Jesse) that I learned this. She said that she thought it was most important because it is right after we have just been cleansed by the sacrament and are then very worthy of the Holy Ghost’s presence. How cool! I never made this connection. It is hard, very hard to get friends to come to church here, but I am convinced that the more I learn about the simple truths of the subject the better I will understand how to better help them understand its importance in their lives.

​My challenge to you this week is to gain an understanding of how church can mean so much more to us when we go with a question in mind. I know that when we do this our experience at church is enhanced. ​ ​

My trainer and I get along well. She teaches me so much and I would be so lost without her. I prayed for a trainer who would be a hard worker long before I set foot in West Virginia and I know that prayer has been answered. Companions are not always easy, but the benefits highly outweigh the small costs.

​She told me the other night that she loved me because I was patient. HAHA if you didn't think a mission was good for me, now you know. I don't think I have ever been told I was patient before in my life (because I wasn't all that patient, but I am learning that it is an essential quality(:

Some questions I answered this week: I thought I would share! I encourage you to ask yourself the same question (obviously the 1st one)

Who you want to become: Well, I want to become someone who is converted to teaching repentance and baptizing converts. I have been thinking about what will happen after this mission and life (the millennium and so on) and I have decided that the tasks only get larger and encompass a different set of God’s beloved children. No matter what I do in life I hope to be doing God’s work and will for me. Christ is our ultimate example and this is all he did essentially so I can't begin to think my path is much different. (thank goodness, I love this work.) In the next 17 months I want to have a better understanding of what a true servant of the Lord is so that I can continue to serve him in other capacities. I can do this by just focusing on each day as it comes and truly learning from the experiences he gives me as I teach repentance and baptize those who are converted.

What you intend to accomplish as the Lord's missionary: I intend to give as many people the chance to hear about God, his love, and his Son that I possibly can. Of course I have other traits I want to acquire, but I know that if I make this my biggest accomplishment all of my other goals and hopes will come.

​Well, time is up! I am so sorry the blog is going to be so short this week! We will get there with this whole technology thing. I looked back in my journal and among learning how much I have grown, I have also learned that my handwriting has gotten progressively worse, along with my ability to put together a cute outfit! Ah mission life (: I love it!

Shout out to the Hills for my Vday Card and mom for the package and Grandma and Grandpa for the card! I love getting letters and pics from home! I miss you all dearly.

Love Sister Campbell (:
--
Sister Justina Campbell
West Virginia Charleston Mission

The cliché' MTC picture (:

So fun to see Claudia in the MTC!

My favorite picture so far!

At one point they wouldn't let us go out in our cars, so we just bundled up and went walking to where we needed to go!

Jesse our friend (: She is so great!

With sisters from my zone in the MTC

February 8, 2016 – BEcome A Bearer of Your Testimony

Hello!

So this week was awesome! It has been super sunny for most of the time. We had Zone meeting and I got to meet some cool people! I also forgot to mention that a sister serving in a neighboring area is Kiah Browns old roommate. How random right? Haha so the roads in WV are not exactly straight or very safe. There are lots of pot holes EVERYWHERE. Sister Cutler and I were driving home and all of a sudden we hit a HOLE. in the road. WE wondered if the car was okay, but were on a road called 4H camp road and it isn't the most inviting so we didn't stop. Later on we stopped at a gas station to see if everything was okay and well hahha both the passenger hub caps were gone. The next morning we woke up and the front right tire was flat. needless to say we spent a lot of time at Goodyear with a friendly man named Jason. WE have this dinky spare tire and two hub caps off until new ones are ordered in. We went back to look in this giant hole for our hub caps but we don't know where they are. I think someone may have just taken them.

A miracle from this week (there are too many to count) came in the form of Jesse. She called us on the phone late the other night and told us that she had bumped into Mormon. org. She started talking to a woman on there from salt lake and then later on the phone. She was calling us because the woman encouraged her to call the missionaries in her area and set up a time to meet and discuss more about the gospel. She is great and we taught her all about the Restoration. Her face lit up like we had just given a 4 year old candy when we handed her her very own copy of the BOM. Are we this happy when we pick up the BOM each time we read? I hope so! The testament of Christ that is contained in this book is just that good. Because of the spirit she has felt, the faith she is beginning to build in Christ, and her want to change to be more like Christ she is on her way to accepting the gospel. It is so cool to see that her goal is the temple and to live with her family for forever! She is something else!

Well, This week I would challenge each of you to BEcome a bearer of your testimony. Whatever you believe about Christ, about God, about what they are teaching you..share it. Share it as much as you can with whoever you can. It will change who you are and how you view your life. Jesse actually ran into Mormon. org because she saw a post on FB about something someone else had posted about their beliefs. Because they bore a simple truth, they helped someone come closer to Christ. Do we do the same? Do we bear testimony of what we know to be true? Each night my companion and I tell each other 1. An "I love you today..because..and 2. My testimony grew today because.. WOW. Can I tell you how incredible it is to share with the person I spend my time with two personal things? And to see our relationship flourish because of it! I BEG OF YOU please do this. If you are married, take 5 minutes to get off your phone or out of your book and do this with your spouse as you are laying in bed. Or do it as you are preparing for bed. Do it while you are in the car or eating, just DO IT. If you are not married, find a roommate, a sibling, a friend, a parent, and do this simple, but powerful activity. Getting to bear my testimony and think about someone else before I go to bed is the most incredible way to end my day! I have not once fallen asleep feeling discouraged about my day because I have just focused on the first commandment: love god. and the second: love one another. I can tell you it will bless your life and your relationship with god, yourself, and the person you share it with!

As I get to bear my testimony each night about something god has taught me, it becomes natural. It becomes less scary and more incredible. I would love an email next week about how implementing this into your life has helped you(:

Now about my companion:

Sister Cutler is incredible! She has been out 3 transfers and has been in Mo Town the entire time! So after she is done training me (3 months) she will have spent almost half her mission here. Her first name is Megan. Haha, she takes such good care of me! We have so many laughs. We both are very hard workers and love to have gospel conversations (: The one hard thing is that she moves even quicker than I do! If you can imagine someone that moves quicker than me(: She gives me a run for my money and she teaches me so many things. We work SO well together. The one problem we have is sharing time haha we both are really good at holding a conversation(: But it is cool because when we do well at sharing time, we are such a powerful companionship! We are bold and persistent. Between the both of us, we find a lot of miracles from being persistent and not giving up. Yesterday we went to a house with two doors. We could tell people were home so sister Cutler knocked twice. She asked if she should knock a third time, I said yeah sure! No one answered. When we were walking down the stairs to go back to the car I looked at the other door and said, eh lets try that one too. We knocked and then sis Cutler didn't move for like 40 seconds. A man finally heard/saw us and came to the door! He was so nice and we have a return appointment with him next week.

I love you! Thank you for the support!

--

Sister Justina Campbell

West Virginia Charleston Mission

In the MTC with my companion, Sister Huntington

I love getting mail! Packages and letters received while

in the MTC. 

 

In WV on transfer day - Sister Huntington and I with our new companions (Sister Cutler)

February 1, 2016 – BEcome Faithful - BEcome Christ’s Friend

Not sure how we missed an email from last week, but we did -
She is currently serving in Morgantown, WV and her address is:

Sister Justina Campbell
112 Wedgewood Drive, APT 8
Morgantown, WV 26505

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

Hello! How are you all?

Getting here was a crazy adventure! My leg and head are both okay! I have a nasty bruise, hopefully the pics upload, and I haven't had any problems with my head. It was fun to be able to stay in Roanoke and then the next day we got to go to a cultural center!! Woohoo! It was awesome and I am a nerd about that stuff and so is sister Ward, a sister from the MTC that came out with me, so we had a blast! 

For transfers they had this huge train of cars and small moving vans that were very well organized. I had already traveled around 4 hours the first day so I was hoping for something closer to Charleston, buuut ...I am serving in the Morgantown 1st ward! So It was a long day full of driving. The roads are very windy and I get suuper car sick because of it, but I am learning to deal with it(: Another challenge is that here there is much more smoke in the air and I don't do well with smells, so I have really learned to get over that ha. It is not a student ward, but it is great! It is amazing to me how spread out the ward is. Our area is huge. My Bishop is from Pingree. His parents live there still. Will you ask grandma and grandpa if they know any Hoskin? Thomas: One of Ryans friends from Grantsville, something Williams, serves here, he is the AP! One of my favorite member's name is Sister Lund. We went to have lunch at her house Saturday. She lives in the prettiest place and we got to take treats to all of her inactive/nonmember neighbors and meet them. She taught us how to make a gourmet version of a pizza roll! My companion is Sister Cutler from San Diego! She is great! She loves to exercise, she is good at talking, and she is a hard worker. She is clean, and is always on time. I hit the jackpot! She gives great advice and has helped me improve so much. She has a great voice and always encourages me to sing, which I didn't like at first, but I am getting more comfortable with it. 

My address is: 112 Wedgewood Drive (make sure you put drive. They have a drive, ave, street, and lane for every word here. it's crazy) APT 8 26501.

Letter AND packages come here. They take forever if they go to the mission office so please just send them here. It doesn't take long at all to receive them. (: So woohoo!

My last week in the MTC I focused on becoming faithful. I studied a lot about faith and specifically faith in the atonement. What I discovered is that faith and trust are closely aligned with Trust. A teacher did an exercise where we put all of the feelings, emotions, and what not into a figurative box and she asked us to give it to Christ. She invited us in return, to ask for all of that empty space to be filled with his love. This helped me finally understand the idea of what Christ's Atonement can do for me. I challenge all of you to become more faithful in Christ's atonement. This Sunday, ponder what that really means to you and how you can become more TRUSTING in his forgiving power.

This week I have been focusing on becoming Christ's friend. I have put most of my personal study into the sections in PMG where it talks about the power and authority of a missionary's calling. One of the study scriptures is John 15. READ THIS AND THEN STUDY THIS AND THEN RECORD WHAT YOU LEARNED. This chapter is incredible and it talks all about the relationship we can have with him if we keep the commandments, specifically loving as he did. I have always known Christ, but because of the spiritual experiences I have had lately, I am coming to know of him. It is a very different relationship, but one that means even more to me. 

I won't beat around the bush. Missionary life is HARD. But hard is not impossible with Christ; it would be alone. I probably would have been back home already if it weren't for him. I love the work and I know that even though it is not easy, it is where I need to be. I have always said that I wanted to change the world and I feel like I get to do that here. Sure, there are so many discouraging things about each day, but I know that if nothing else I am helping the Lord to soften the hearts of his children one small step at a time. Some of the hardest things have been watching people I love not keep commitments or when someone tells me that they already have enough or that their relationship with Christ is solid.
Leaving behind calling my mom each day, being with my family, and Thomas, has been so hard. But the Lord is incredible and is blessing each of the relationships I thought I was putting on hold more than I could have ever imagined. And the cool thing is, he is blessing them spiritually rather than temporally. I have never felt more temporally alone, but I feel more spiritually connected. With sacrifice comes great blessings. 

I love you all! I am so happy to talk with you! I couldn't get pictures to work :( Next week I promise!
--
Sister Justina Campbell
West Virginia Charleston Mission