Updates on our friend William Shears Campbell | Page 2 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Sorry, I’m a bit late with this weeks email. It sat in my inbox for a couple of days. 

Hello beautiful people,

Keep emailing me. I love to hear about what’s happening in the lives of you all back home.

So this week was pretty cool! Although, it has become sort of a grind here at the MTC, I’ve learned so much. I’m so excited to get out in the field. Only one more week.

Tuesday – This was last Tuesday. We went to the temple, which was great. It was my second time through. Then we went to do laundry, and sat in the laundry room for a couple hours emailing home. Then we went to a devotional by one of the members of the quorum of the seventy. Afterward we had a district discussion about it.

Wednesday – We finally got to teach our morning TRC, Samson. He is a large and tough poly guy that was in the military and is currently a cop. He has a great knowledge of the bible and is excited to learn about Jesus’s church. Then in the afternoon, we taught Austin again(our other TRC). He is continuing to progress well. In the evening we were able to teach Chase about the restoration. I feel like he took it well and was looking to find out more.

Thursday – We taught Chase again in the morning about the Plan of Salvation. The rest of the day was business as usual, until the evening. Our district was asked to run the Magical MTC Tour. My companion and I were “Starters”. Basically I had to give the crowd a welcome blurb introducing myself and my companion, giving them da rules, and telling them a bit about the MTC. It got tiring after a while, but it was a fun experience.

Friday – We taught our TRCs again. Austin committed to baptism, and Samson committed to read the Book Of Mormon. Even though these investigators may not be real, these teaching experiences are still powerful, and I feel more prepoared for the field by doing then.

Saturday – Today was the last day with our TRCs. Samson read a good ways into the Book Of Mormon, and also committed to baptism. Austin is still working to be ready for baptism. In class we had to teach this investigator named Lionel (not Richie) as a class. He had a lot of bad stuff happen to him, and didn’t believe in God . We were able to get him to listen to us by showing him that we really cared about him. In the evening this Elder from the Ukraine came in our room and bore his testimony in English. While the language he used was simple, the spirit was so strong in that room, it was crazy.

Sunday – My companion and I had to bless the sacrament. It reminded me of back home and my ward. I hope they’re doing well without me. In the evening, Elder M. Russel Ballard(another member of the 12 apostles) came and spoke in the gym…. unfortunately we decided to go to T3(before we knew where he was speaking), so we had to watch the live feed. It was still cool to hear his talk. After that we got the chance to see Meet the Mormons 2. I’ve seen the first one before but never the second one. He first family in the second one lives in Las Vegas, so that was pretty cool.

Monday – We got our new TRC’s. The morning one was this old man named John. He was in the navy and had a lot of family members pass away. He had been introduced to the church before and had lots of questions for us. The afternoon TRC did not show up, sadly. In the evening we did another class teach where we taught a man named Trey. He had been meeting with the missionaries for a while and had read the Book Of Mormon, but wouldn’t be baptized. We had to find out what was holding him back.

So to answer some questions I recieved, here are descriptions of the elders in my district(names removed for privacy reasons).

Companion Shears Campbell (Elder J.) – He’s my companion. He’s from Southern Utah, which is an hour north of lake powell. He’s half Navajo, and has a huge testimony. He also has the same birthday as Paul McCartney !

Elder D. – He’s half of the other companionship in our residency. He is extremely obedient, and keeps us doing the right thing(not that we’re ever close to doing the wrong thing).

Elder W. – He’s the other half of the other companionship in our residency. If you want to know what he looks like, just look at thdd person next to you, because he has a generic face, and he reminds everyone of everyone. He is also the definition of 3 Nephi 11: 37 “….become as a Little Child ….”, in a good way. He’s very humble, and is willing to love everyone.

Elder Jt. – He’s from Tennessee and has a thick accent. He was baptized at age 13, so he’s a convert like me. He’s about 22, and is referred to as the old man, or the grandpa of our district. He is always focused on loving the people in the mission.

Elder B. – He’s from Missouri. He always is the one to step on on an invisible soap box and start preaching the gospel to the world. He kinda looks like, and talks like a college professor. He has a huge testimony of this gospel, and is not afraid to share it.

Elder S. – He’s from Colorado, and is the closest thing in our district to a troublemaker. He’s a good kid though. He has an obvious love for the gospel.

Elder P. – He is very mysterious. He is quiet, unless he’s being sassy or nonchalantly impressing us with the famous people he’s met. He also has a strong testimony that is amazing when he bears it.

Elder M. – He has a was-flat-top, plays basketball, and is from Southern Utah. He is very friendly and is never hesitant to give anyone a high five or a fist bump.

Elder Pr. – He’s a ginger from Normal City, Normal County, Illinois. He also attended Normal High School. He is pretty quiet. He also loves corn like I love The Beatles. He’s humble and has a strong testimony. Oh yeah, and he’s also a cannibal(because he’s had ginger ale, haha).

Elder Wg. – He’s a trooper. He’s been through a lot. He went to a Catholic High School as a Mormon. He’s from Ohio, and he hates the Beatles song “Do You Want To Know A Secret ” due to his friend back home playing it all the time on guitar. He is going to make a great missionary out in the field due to his strong testimony in the gospel, and urge to share it.

Elder N. – He has the best first name in the world. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to disclose it, but it starts with a D and ends with a D. He’s super scrawny, but some how has more gains than me. He is very vocal about his love for the gospel, despite his small size.

Apparently I’m the shortest person in our zone, which is something I learned this week.

Anyway that’s it for the week. I love you all and I hope you all are well

Until next P Day,

William Shears Campbell

Hey everyone,

 

I’ve been traveling on a boat, in a plane, in a car, on a bike, in a bus, on a train.  Except I haven’t been on a boat, because I’m not near any water, and my bike helmet and stuff got lost in the mail or something, so I haven’t been on that either.

 

Anyway, I’m out in the field now.  It’s been quite the learning experience. 

 

So the reason I got sick last week was due to black mold in my residency building.  It got a couple of Elders, and I happened to be one.  Please reply telling me your favorite song from the White Album in order to counter the evil powers of the black mold.  Anyway, jokes aside, it got me in like every functioning part of thr face(eyes, ears, nose, and mouth).  It rotated among those 4 until it left.  I lost my voice on Tuesday and didn’t get it fully back until Saturday.  Now I’m at like 98%, so hooray!

 

Monday:  It was basically P Day, with our morning class taking the place of our temple visit, and our evening class taking the place of the devotional.  In our last class, we went out and had to teach random people in the halls about certain gospel principles.  Was a pretty good experience.  After that we all got together as a district and hung out in the residency.

 

Tuesday:  We got up at like 5:30 and said our goodbyes, then we headed off to the airport.  We finally arrived in Billings and had lunch in the mission home.  We had an orientation class that like everyone fell asleep in.  Then we had dinner and got our assignments.  I got put in the Wyoming East area in a city called Sheridan.  I cover 3 wards and one is the Young Single Adult(YSA) ward, which is supposedly a fun ward to serve in. 

 

Wrdnesday:  So we got up early in the morning, had breakfast, then went to the temple. Then after that we had lunch and then had more orientation classes.  Then we all went to Golden Corral for dinner.  Since I was going to Wyoming or Billings, I got to leave at 4:00 that evening.  Everyone else had to stay another night at the mission home.  I got to Sheridan at like 7 and met my companion.  He plays like every sport and is good at all of them, so he says.  That night we went to teach a lesson with the sisters to an investigator.  He loves meeting us and really wants to know that the gospel is true. 

 

Thursday:  My first full day in the field.  We went to get my companiom’s hair cut by this one member. Thursdays are service days so we went and helped out at the salvation army and at a food bank. Then we went to a YSA activity.

 

Friday:  We mainly went around to check up on less active members.  We had dinner at a members house.  It was this couple with like 5 younger children.  The kids were all at Grandma’s house except for the baby.  We had waffles and orange juice.  When my companion went to pour the orange juice, the handle on the pitcher gave, and all the orange juice spilled.  It was actually a pretty funny experience.  Because the handle had been weakened from the kids playing with the pitcher, they were surprised that it didn’t end up happening to one of the kids.  After that, we went to go visit this older lady who has been a member for about a year.

 

Saturday:  We went out on exchanges in the evening with these elders from the city over.  It was interesting to experience a smaller and less active area.  We got to go read the Book of Mormon with this older guy.  We read 2 Nephi 16.

 

Sunday:  It was my first Sunday in a legit capel in like 3 weeks.  Since we covered 3 wards, I went to 3 sacrament meetings and I said one of the prayers in 2 of them.  Afterwards we had dinner at the house of the lady that cut my companion’s hair on Thursday.  We had ribs.

 

That’s all for now.  I wish you all the best in the upcoming week. 

 

With love From Me To You , 

 

William Shears Campbell.

Hey Everyone,

So last week you guys were the only ones to get my weekly. I send you guys a separate version that removes more personal info since this is going on the world wide web. I typed my emails up on Sunday night since P Day was gonna be busy. I think the problem was that I named the two emails the same exact thing, and since I did your’s second, it saved over the other one. So from now on I’m putting BB at the end of this subject line to prevent that. This week I got both Week 5 and Week 6 out to everyone, so it’s all good.

Anyway…

This is now my third week in the feild

So this week…

Monday: We went to the Caves again with some of the YSA kids(I say kids a bit ironically I suppose since YSA members are Young Single Adults. That’s actually what YSA stands for. So I’m kinda saying “young single adult kids”. I just realized that and thought it was kinda funny) again. We left earlier this time to go a bit deeper. Allegedly there’s a waterfall at the end, but it’s been hard finding the route to that point. We got pretty close this week(we think), but we had to turn back since we ran out of time. If we go again, we’d probably end up making it.

Tuesday: We had a lesson with this younger couple. The guy is a less active member, and the girl is a non member. They came to church this last Sunday, and they plan to come again.

Wednesday: We worked on planning the baptism for Saturday. I was able to make the programs. We then ran into a scheduling conflict with the Relief society in the Sisters’ ward, but we got it solved finally at like 9:00 at night. We were going to have another lesson with this investigator who’s on date for baptism on the 20th, but he ended up being a bit busy that night and couldn’t meet with us.

Thursday: Thursday was service day so we helped out at the salvation army by pairing up shoes. Then we helped at the food bank by shucking corn, and moving a fridge into the building. The fridge was a little too tall to fit in the door way, so me and the owner’s son had to do some intense unscrewing of the wheels on one side of the fridge so it could be lowered a bit, and then screwing the wheels back on. It was pretty darn intense. Almost like defusing a bomb, except there wasn’t really any danger, and we weren’t timed.

Friday: We helped collect food for the food bank for pretty much the whole morning. Later we printed out the programs for the baptism on the next day. It took forever to figure out how to format it for printing since the printing software was confusing. The computers at the church had no basic Microsoft Office programs, so I had to make it in Google docs. I ended up just exporting the Google doc as a PDF since printing on Acrobat is less confusing. Finally they all got printed. We closed everything up and were about to leave the church when I realized I had left the Relief society president’s number on the program. I typed it there on Wednesday so my companion could see it after the sisters texted it to us so we could fix the scheduling problem, and I forgot to erase it. So we reprinted the programs. Then we had a lesson with the lady I found last week. She is absorbing so much, it’s exciting. Then we had dinner at this member’s house, and while there we found out about a change in the program. So after the dinner we had to run to the church and print the programs a third time…

Saturday: It was the baptism!!! It was great! My companion baptized him. It was such a great experience! I’m so glad we went through all the work to put it together, because it was great. Also my programs looked pretty cool. Baptisms are just super spiritual. I’m glad I’ve got to experience a convert baptism only 3 weeks in the feild. I’m so happy for his decision.

Sunday: We went to church. In the evening we went to Gillette for exchanges tomorrow with the Zone leaders.

I love you all and I hope you all had a wonderful week.

Peace and Love,
William Shears Campbell