Hello Friends and Family!
This week was a feast. We ate too much but also spiritually we had experiences that touched my heart. We met a woman that wanted to go to church for a while but she didnt know where the church was and had problems that didn't allow her to get there and she couldnt read the book of mormon because she was blind so when we talked to her she cried and cried and it touched my heart how much she missed reading the word of God and going to church. She needed it. It made me rethink of the importance of reading and going to church on Sunday. We will be taking her to church on Sunday! I wish you could of seen her smile. The book of mormon brings light into our lives, peace and joy. It doesnt matter what we are going though the words therein will penetrate our soul and comfort us. There is power in this book when we read to know it's true and ask God we will receive an answer. I love hearing the testimonies of the members here in Bolivia of how they knew the book was true. It strengthens my own. This pday was a productive one we got ready for all the rain we are receiving here we bought matching rainboots, funky umbrellas and also glasses. We are loosing our sight so next week Ill send pictures of all of that. The mountains are beautiful in our area! Love you all.
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So this weekend was Carnaval weekend here in Bolivia and we have to stay inside two days but its great because today I finally had enough time to wash all my clothes. I felt so accomplished and tired haha Lets see this weekend was also cambios but we didn´t have any! We are staying together at least one more cambio together! We're really excited because this area is the best I love it!
This weekend was the baptism of my pensionista's son. They are the cutest little kids and I love to see them because they remind me so much of my nephews. A miracle of the week was when on Saturday we were starving we walked by where bishop lives and he was just arriving and he gave us a slice of pizza each! I was so happy and grateful that God put him in our path. I love the members here and everyone we teach they're so nice and have such strong faith. They're a great example to me. Also, Fruit here is the best! My distrcit Abinadi took pics on our last zone meeting before cambios. These days we had to stay inside Ive spent it watching many pioneer movies and it made me think of how much people have sacrificed for this gospel to be restored and that today we may have in full access the book of mormon. This book is true and it changes lives. Here I have gained a greater testimony of its power as I study it each day, it strengthens my testimony that God lives and he loves me, it helps me understand who my Savior is and what he did for me and how I can partake of his grace everyday. I love this scripture; I would that ye should remember, that as much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day - Alma 38:5 Hey friends! So the greatest thing this week was that Lily and Pablito got baptized! It turned out really well. We had good asistencia and the talks were good! I mostly loved to see them in their white clothes like the song says... when the one youve come to love gets dressed in white. I loved their smiles and testimonies. I love to see the outcomes of the efforts and faith we put into the Lords work. I know this work is true that the gospel changes lives and it has changed mine it keeps doing it each day as I study my scritpures and see my faith grow.
I love training because HnaMendoza is the best haha she is not afraid to do anything and she teaches me so much by her example and good attitude. This week we also had a zone conference where we talked all about the atonement and repentance. This quote striked me '' Jesus died of a broken heart... in a similitude, we now offer ourselves- our own broken hearts- as a personal sacrifice. It's all that he requires of us a broken heart and contrite spirit and obedience to his commandments the rest he already did it. He can heal any broken heart I have seen it in the people we teach each day and in my own life. Keep getting closer to God Get to know him not just know of him Love you all, Hermana Campana Hola amigos
This pday we got to clean and rearrange our room! I love it! We cleared up the area by the windows and now there is more light in our room. We also had the chance to dress up as Cholitas from la paz because our home owner has the clothes and she wanted to dress us up We had so much fun this morning. And we also went bowling with the district. This week we walked a lot and met new people to teach but also had so much stress. Something great is that Lily and Pablito want to get baptized this weekend instead of next which is great but there are some minor things in the way we hope it all works out and this weekend they can enter the waters of baptism. This week put my patience to the test and faith but I love the challenges that help me be a better person. I love my compa Hna Mendoza she helps me a lot to not stress out. Well I felt the Lords hand this week when I had a hard day and as we listened to music a song came on that said '' you are not alone'' and talked about Jesus being there and it was such a personal comforting moment. I love that God is always aware and I love he lets me know. I love Moroni 8:25-26 It has been my scripture of the week to invite people to be baptized. Well take care amigos hasta la proxima Hermana Campana Hi friends and family!
First off in the pics you'll meet my novio Lucas my pensionistas son. He's so cute he calls me Hna Campanita and always wants to sit next to me during lunch haha Then a picture with Damar's cute puppies (I love dogs now...what the mission does to you haha) Then a pic infront of our chapel with our bestfriend Rosemary. We love this young woman we are teaching. Also our journey through the rocky river Anyways this week was a great one we met our goals and overcame the challenges when all of our citas fell through on Saturday. We got to meet with Scarlet a wonderful young woman and see her desires to know the plan of salvation is true since her mom passed away a month ago. I love when the Lord guides us to people who want to listen. I know that this Plan he has for us is true and I know without a doubt we will see those we love after this life. I know it as well as I know God lives and he loves us and wants us to find peace and joy in this life. I love being a missionary here and also training. I love it when Hna Mendoza has those moments she says I love being a missionary. If anything I just wanted her to love the mission. So life is great and even greater Gods ways and purposes. I heard something yesterday I loved They said you can count the seeds in an apple but you cannot count the apples that will come from one seed. I love this! Its true we plant seeds of the gospel in the hearts of the people and if they let it and nourish it they will grow into trees with many generations. Les amo se cuidan I love you all take care Hello friends!
This week was a great one as well. We got to visit the very top of our area close by the mouintains. Its called Villa Belen its reallly green and pretty and people live more humble. This last week it has rained almost each day Its so pretty I love it. We have a great young women we are teaching her name is Kiara and she is getting baptized the 21 of this month. I love this talk I read this week during personal studies https://www.lds.org/liahona/2010/11/faith-the-choice-is-yours?lang=eng&media=audio Its called ''Faith, the choice is yours'' What I loved about it the most was that it talked about Matthew 17:20 When Jesus is explaining to his disciples that if they had faith even as a grain of mustard they could move mountains. This talk says that yea maybe we wont see literal mountains be moved but we can see mountains of pain, doubt, sorrow, guilt be removed by our Savior Jesus Christ. I know this to be true. I know there is no way to feel true joy and peace than to have faith in Christ and to apply his doctrine into our lives. I have seen it in the people that we teach and in myself as I repent daily and prepare to take the sacrament. as I excercise my faith in Christ by knowing that all that happens is for my own good and that God will take care of everything. He is ever loving and just which means we must do our part so that the power of His sacrifice can pull us out of our hard times and lift us higher than we ever could on our own. Another great talk is ''Is it still wonderful to you? by Elder Causse from the May 2015 conference. This talk says that we must be alert to notice the little miracles each day, the Lords hand in our day and that way we receive spiritual strength. Stay strong my friends and family! Love you all, Hna Campana Hello my dear friends and family I hope you all had a beautiful christmas! I sure did because we got to contact singing and we got to learn how to make empanadas and other yummy christmas treats. Also most importantly we had a ''white Christmas'' with 3 baptisms. It was a beautiful day Friday when they got baptized. It was Pacifico the older man, Jorge the young man and a little girl the elders taught. Both men we taught were so prepared to be baptized they are truly converted and they were so nervous and happy for their baptisms. One of them even fasted. I love to see how the gospel changes people and inspires them to be better and I love to hear their testimonies at the end too. This christmas we also got to skype! It was great but so weird It felt so unreal haha but I am so grateful to see my family! I love them so much. And I got to show them what paneton is. Now you can all see its this fancy dandy bread with fruit!
This week no one was really home at least when it got close to Christmas but we got to go to the plaza and sing carols and contact. super fun evening with the zone. Then we got matching shirts sort of for christmas from my comps grandpa that lives in Hawaii. Really nice of him to send me something too! I am so grateful to spend Christmas on the mission and focus always on Jesus Christ and serving others. I love that this week we got to do more service and sing for the older people. Well take care! Hope you all have a fun week and great new year!! I sure will sleeping :) Hey everyone! So my comp and I are so excited for Christmas! This week on Friday we got to take our investigators and recent converts to the temple to see the lights and also to the mission home for an open house. I loved that it was fun but also it feels so good to be on the temple grounds. I cant wait till our zone has a temple day! I love Hermana Mitchell she always has creative ideas and it has been so fun to be working together. Everyday is a new adventure like for example this week in the spirit of Christmas we will try contacting caroling haha I'll let you know how that turns out but Im excited! We are also as a zone going to carol this Wednesday in the plaza! It'll be super cool and our goal is that our beautiful voices haha will get us some references. I love Christmas and I am glad that it can be very special here on the missh also. On Christmas day we get to skype our families! I cant even explain how I feel about that haha I am a bit scared but very excited! For the rest of the day we plan to visit families and share christmas videos with them. We have baptisms planned on the 23rd but its been so stressful with them this whole week so we are not sure if they will be able to be baptized or not but we'll see :) We finally got our Conference liahonas and they are the best! I loved this talk '' There is Power in the Book'' I mostly love the promises to the families that read it! https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/there-is-power-in-the-book?lang=eng Hey everyone so this week we had cambios and I love my new area truly I feel like I am somewhere else. There are cows! My new comp is also from my group her name is Hermana Mitchell and she is from San Diego Cali! I love her curly hair haha The weather here is a little more wet it rains almost everyday but I like it! And Recently I taught my comp to peel her apples haha she needs to be safe like my mom Hna Braathen taught me. We are also super excited for Christmas! we might decorate now that we have a few gifts to open. Hna Mitchells family sent her christmas packages that included gifts for me too haha aw so very sweet of them. Also this Friday we had a Zone conference and it was really great! We overviewed what we learned from E' Falabella and we also talked a lot about obedience and we also had a christmas devotional! Where we sang and President dressed up as Santa and gave us all gifts and I got a package from home!! Lots of mexican candy and tapatio! Im grateful for the way that God answers my prayers this week I was praying a lot to find families to teach and to help our contacts be interested in making an appointment and Sunday was such a miraculous day we found 7 new people and a new family to teach! They are a young couple and they are really interested! Also this Saturday we got to go back to our old area and be at Nargilas baptism she is truly my favorite person ever. I love her so much. Elder Fernandez baptized her and at the end she gave a beautiful testimony where we cried because you could feel the spirit so strong. So many things have happened this week. Sunday we had a Conference in the stake and Elder Balderrama came and gave a really good talk. I loved what he talked about the sabath day and how the sacrament meeting is really a meeting with Jesus Christ... How well do we prepare for that? I loved to think of sacrament that way. I also loved what he talked about families he talked about the roles of parents and children and it makes me excited to teach that to our families and for the future. Also today we visited Nargila and cooked with her for our pday and it was so fun really shes a really good friend. We gave her a frame with some pics of her baptism and a photo of Jesus Christ. But I also found out bad news my mom Hna Silva is going home early because she is sick. It broke my heart but I hope she can get better. I know God loves her so much for her sacrifice to be here. And well I hope you are all doing good too. Hola amigos! So yes there were cambios once more. But this time president called us because we are both leaving :( so our area is getting put together with the elders side so now instead of 4 missionaries its just the elders. Ah Im really going to miss the area and the people and the families especially our pensionista shes the best but God knows why he does all he does. These last few days we worked really hard but we managed 1 or 2 lessons a day but we had many oportunities to plant seeds and serve. We were led by the spirit always and were able to meet Nieves and help her get back to her pueblito. I feel good about the work we did here to get to know the members and get references. I love Bolivia so much. I love walking and talking to people on the street about the reason we celebrate Christmas. I have never felt as happy as I do right now. I know this church is true and that God is real. He lives. He loves us and wants us to return to Him. We also have a baptism this next Saturday Nargila! shes the best but we'll have to tell her that we're leaving and it breaks my heart to leave her this week because its her baptism week ah! But shell be okay. So yea Im going to Linde with Hna Mitchell!! She's so sweet and from my group. We met before the mission on a fb group and now we get to be together! Im excited to go to a new area where Ive heard so many good things! The only thing is that she is leaving the area after Jan because she'll have 4 cambios. Which means I know I'lll only have one cambio with her. Its so sad so many cambios but I trust God knows why. this week we also had an amazing conference with Elder Falabella from the 70 and it was truly one of the best talks I have heard. It was very motivating and he taught us the best way to teach the Atonement. Well something I loved was that he said that someone who has truly repented will have a sense of urgency to share with others the message of repentance. Its true and it helps me to think about this constantly. Also this week we were blessed with water!!! It rained soo much haha on Tuesday after the conference the rain and even hail caught up with us. We got drenched and it was really cold but it was a great time for a photo! I loved this scripture!! ''And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever.'' - Isaiah 32:17 WEll, I love you all! Take care write me New area: Linde, Zona Cobija, Cochabamba amigos!
This week was really cool. I mean we contacted a whole lot like usual but we found 10 new people to teach and usually that's really hard but Im happy we met that goal! Nargila is getting baptized the 10th!! she's the best and is so prepared I love her. I love to see little miracles each week like God helping me get through the day when I get sick or someone saying they want us to come by again. Oh yea yesterday we taught this woman named Feli and she was the first person that has an amazed expression when we talked about Joseph Smith and she has so many desires to come to church and bring all her kids so that they can learn from a young age to love God. She lives by the hill and thats really far from church but next sundaywe will pick her up! I love our area Colon. It has hills and city its awesome! But its cambios this next pday so we'll see if something happens. I dont want to leave but if I stay I have to stay till February so I dont know. God will decide what is best. This pday was our last one as a zone before cambios and Elder Smith is leaving so he wanted to have a waterballoon fight and have a barbecue. it was so much fun!! and we had yummy hot dogs :) I love the mission because not only do we see so many miracles each day but we make great friends. Im probably the happiest I've ever been so thank you for supporting me to come to the mission. I love you all. I loved this scripture that I read this morning. It touched my heart because its true all we do is to let the world know Christ. I am truly excited for Christmas and to be able to walk the streets that day and share the message of our Savior. I hope we can have Him in mind this season. He is the reason we celebrate. Sorry for the Christmas talk so early. im just excited. And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins 2 Nephi 25:26 Hermana Campana Area Colon Zona Universidad Hola amigos!
So this week we worked hard to go to Inca Chaca and we made it! So for today we went there and it was fun but the ride there and back each was 3 hours so we left like at 5am then got here just at 2pm. It was pretty much a hike with pretty landscapes and waterfalls haha but not much of a rest for pday ... But something super awesome is that God makes miracles happen. I got to go back to my old area for Valerias baptism a girl we were teaching when I was in trio! Ah I was so happy to see her and her family again and the ward too. I love making good friends here its the best. So Nargila our Brazilian young woman is progressing so much she came to church with us this Sunday!! wooo woo and she accepted a baptismal date for December! She is cute and sincere and said she feels good when she reads the book of mormon. I loved the class on Sunday that talked about faith and testimony from Howard hunters life. My favorite quote was '' Life's greatest achievement is to know God and know that he lives'' that struck me because to me I feel I have always had a sense of knowlesge of that but it made me realize how many people on this earth have no idea of who he really is. That he is literally their father. It made me really think about the effort that I put into letting everyone around me know that. hmm lets see what else ...oooh so funny thing that happened well everything has happened this cambio but while we were waiting for a trufi after our pension this past week my compi and I were both looking towards all of them to call the one we needed but I guess my compi called one of them without me noticing and she thought Isaw and walked after her but I didnt I was talking thinking she was still there and then I turn and she is GONE! I freaked out because we can never be apart from our companions haha so for a few seconds I didnt know what to do and turned all around to see if I saw her when I see a trufi stop a little forward and she sticks her head out hahah so I ran and got it but I bet to everyone we seemed weird its not the end of the world to leave a friend but for missionaries leaving a companion alone it is haha so we had a long laugh after that. oh yea and all week people told us about Donald Trump haha they were like did you hear did you know? ...ah yea we've heard haha Hasta la otra amigos, Hermana Campana Colon Zona Universidad Cochabamaba Hey everyone so this week was really cool! Our amazing Nargila is the best seriously she came to church two sundays now and is excited to get baptized!! Dec 10th! But its the week of cambios so we'll see if I get to be here for that haha
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Viridiana CampanaHi everyone, Archives
December 2017
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