Monday, January 1, 2018

Merry christmas and Happy new Year

It's been such a good week!
As I was sitting in both of our sacrament meetings this week I had a feeling of overwhelming gratitude come over me. With the spirit of Christmas being in the air I missed home and spending the holidays with family and friends but as I sat in church I felt extremely grateful for the opportunity I had to be a missionary. As I was thinking about this feeling that I had I realized that I have been so blessed. I'm grateful I am healthy enough to be back out serving a mission and to be sharing the joy that this season brings. I'm grateful that I've been healthy enough to be here again and experience all of the amazingness that comes from serving a mission and watching the spirit work with people in their lives. It has really been a huge blessing. I never thought that I would actually be able to come back out and I haven't been as grateful as I should have for it but I hope that you all know that I love being a missionary. I truly do and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I'm sad that I only have 3 months left and I'll be home in no time but coming back out was one of the best things that I could have done for myself and for those around me and who I serve with.

There was a lot of things going on this week that made it a really fun week. On Tuesday we had interviews with President Walker and I seriously just love that man with all my heart. He is so inspired and so uplifting. I wish that there were more people in this world like him. He asked me how my family was doing and after I responded and we talked for a bit he told me to tell you guys to look for the Blessings that are coming to you from my service as a missionary. He told me that is one of the promises that Heavenly Fathers gives to his servants. Our families are blessed as we focus on our missions and I know that there are blessings coming to you guys but you have to look for them. I hope that you can take some time to ponder on what those blessings are.
Thursday we had zone conference. The theme for this zone conference was our year in review and all the things that we have focused on as a mission this last year. It was amazing. So many things change in such a short amount of time here. I left that zone conference feeling more inspired to work hard and look for the Lord's hand in my daily life and work. It was so good!
Friday Miguel our investigator from Sandy Valley who is getting baptized on January 13th invited us to their family Christmas party. We drove to Sandy Valley on Friday night and went. It was so much fun! That family has really become like family to me and it is such a amazing experience to be able to teach Miguel. I am so excited for his baptism. He has two daughters on missions right now and that really jumpstarted his desire to learn more about the gospel. It is amazing the things that the Lord will help us accomplish when we are willing to let him help us!
Sunday was Christmas Eve! We only had sacrament  meeting in both of our wards so we only have 2 hours of church! It was awesome! There were Christmas programs in each of the wards and they were so cute. We spent most of the day visiting members and sharing a Christmas message. We shared two different videos depending on the family. Why we need a Savior or Wise men still seek him. It was aweso e and people were really open to have us come over. We also had dinner with the Cates Family! They are from Washington and big Seahawks fans so that was fun!
Monday was Christmas! I loved being able to talk to the family and to Bre! It was an awesome Christmas present! We spent the rest of the day basically eating food with different members. It was great. People are so nice! We literally had 4 different dinners and we played games with some families. It was a really good day! I loved It!
The videos we shared! (Watch them)
Why We Need a Savior https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2015-12-1000-why-we-need-a-savior--a-christmas-message-about-our-savior-jesus-christ-asaviorisborn?lang=eng
Wise Men Still Seek Him
I'm grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ and the love that he has for each of us. True happiness and peace can only be found through living the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that to be true because I try everyday to live it. There is nothing in the Lord that will ever be able to compare to the love of our Heavenly Father. He loves us so much and he expects us to let him love us. Choose him and I promise you will never ever regret it.
This is the truth. We all seek truth and I know that it is through Christ that we can find it. I love you all so much! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 
Love, Sister Camilleri

lamest email iv'e ever sent

Hello Family and Friends!
Sister Fitzsimonds and I had a really good week! The highlight from our week was for sure Saturday! We had two Christmas parties and a baptism to take one of our investigators too! Three of our investigators were able to come to our Christmas party in the Mountains Edge Ward Ward! It was a really cute breakfast party and we were able to get pictures with Santa! After the morning Christmas party we went with one of our investigators to a baptism! John is set to get baptized on January 16th and he really enjoyed the baptism. I think that it really helped him understand the commitment that he was making. We were really grateful for that. We had another Christmas party in the evening for our other ward and we were able to get on of the less active in our ward and his little son to come! It was a miracle because he has been in the ward for 5 years and has never stepped foot inside the building. We were really grateful that he came! Our recent convert Josh was also able to be there and that we awesome! Later Saturday night we went to Sister Fitzsimonds old area to go to a baptism for another person that she was teaching! That was awesome and a really great experience! Yesterday we were able to go to Sandy Valley for church and for a lesson with Miguel! He is getting baptized on January 6th! It was awesome to be down there and to feel of their testimonies that burn really strongly. I love it down there and am really looking forward to Miguels baptism!
I am excited to be able to talk with my family on Monday! I cannot wait! I hope that everyone is doing well! Hopefully each of you can take some time to share the love of this season and to remember Christ! I love you all! 
Sister Camilleri 

its feeling like christmas

Hello Family and Friends!
It is finally starting to feel like christmas and I am so happy about that! Sister Fitzsimonds and I had a really awesome week this week! There are so many highlights that I can share this week!
We were finally able to set a baptismal date for one of our investigators Miguel! He is from Sandy Valley which is the branch that we serve in. His step daughter just left on on mission about 2 months ago and when she left he decided that he wanted to start taking the lessons. When we first met with him, he was eager to learn about the gospel but he wasnt really sure about baptism. We had a lesson with him this week about the temple and how his family can be together forever if he participates in the saving ordinances that are necessary for our salvation. We asked him to be baptized on January 13th and he said yes! We were so excited for him! I really hope that I dont get transferred before his baptism. That would be so sad. His family is all really excited for him. It is going to be so awesome. Miguels lesson taught me a lot about the importance of the temple. I am so grateful for the temple! The peace and comfort that we can feel there is like nothing else. Even walking on the grounds makes you feel good.
We have been teaching two kids for the last couple of weeks and it has been so awesome. We have been a little weary about teaching them because their parents have been really nice but havent officially said that they were okay with us teaching them. This week we had a miracle happen with them! We were able to start teaching one of their moms! It was really awesome and she was really prepared to meet what us. It was really cool and the kids came to church as well! It was a really awesome week.
Today in my personal study i was reading in Alma 7. It was a really good study for me about Christ and his sacrifice for us. You guys should read it! My favorite scripture today was Alma 7: 15
Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism.
I love how it talks about how we can lay aside our sins and everything that gets in our way and just come unto christ. I love this gospel so much! I hope that you guys are feeling the christmas spirit! If you dont read it from the bible or book of mormon!

love you all! 
Sister Camilleri


Saturday, December 9, 2017

first week of Christmas

This week was a really good week for us! It was a busy week because we had a baptism in our area and they are always just so stressful because you want everything to go perfectly but we made it through our baptism for Josh and it turned our great! Our stake President was able to be there and he doesn't get to go to them very often! It was awesome! Josh was really nervous about getting baptized but he was really excited as well! The spirit that filled that room was undeniable though. He was able to be confirmed the next day on Sunday and it was really awesome to see how much everyone around him just took him in like they had known him for years. The gospel really does make a difference in our lives! I am so grateful for it!
On Saturday as well I was able to go back to my last area that I served in and speak at a baptismal service for one of the people that I was able to teach there! It was so awesome to be able to go back. I didn't feel like I did very well in speaking because I was really nervous but it turned out to be good and I am grateful that I was able to go back! It was such a privilege to speak at her baptism! I just love her so much! We were also able to watch the Christmas broadcast last night with someone who is taking the lessons and that was really good! I am doing so good though! This work is worth it! Some of the people we were teaching decided that they didn't want to take the lessons any more and it was so sad. People just don't realize how much they need the gospel in their lives! The work is good and being a missionary is the best!

Funny Story of the Week
We drove in a tesla to one of our baptisms and my companion got really carsick because it was so smooth and it felt like a rollercoaster in the back seat. It was funny in hindsight but we felt so carsick for the rest of the day.

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Thanksgiving

Family!
I hope that your thanksgiving were really good and that you are so much food that you had to roll around everywhere! Surprisingly enough I didn't have a ton of food to eat but I for sure ate the perfect amount. We had thanksgiving lunch with a couple that we are teaching and their kids! That was really awesome. We were so grateful that they invited us over to eat! We played some games with them and got to know them a bit more! We were really grateful for that experience! Our dinner that a family had invited us over for got the stomach flu and had to cancel so last minute another family invited us over! It was incredibly awkward for the first little bit but once we got settled it was great. We played a game with them as well and just really enjoyed the day! Now that we are in the Christmas season it is going to be great to talk to people about Christ. I just want it to feel like the holiday season! Hopefully it will soon!
Our work continued to progress this week and we have been busy teaching people! It has been really awesome! We are starting to teach more people about the commandments and it is always stand out to me when we start teaching these lessons and commandments how much the commandments are coming from a place of love and how much Heavenly Father wants to bless us. Every single thing that he asks us to do have so many awesome opportunities to grow and to be blessed. I love teaching the commandments because it gives me another chance to rededicate myself to what I have told Heavenly Father I would do. Helping people grow and overcome through the atonement of Jesus Christ is my favorite thing. It's hard to do most of the time because people have agency but those moments where someone progresses or the lightbulb goes off in their and they stop denying what they are feeling are 100% worth it. There truly is nothing better! I hope that everyone will be able to make this holiday season awesome! 



Monday, November 20, 2017

fruits of our labor

Hello Family and friends!
This week was a really good week! We were able to really be able to see the fruits of our labors this week and that has been a huge miracle! We were able to find 7 new people to teach this week! that is really awesome for our area because most of the time we have a hard time finding 1! They seriously have been coming out of nowhere!  It has been really awesome to see all the people that are truly reaching heavenward and how much they are willing to talk to us about the things that are happening in their lives. Im pretty sure that it just comes from the mantle that we hold because seriously people are telling us their entire life story. It is so cool. I love being able to hear other peoples stories and to be able to help them through testifying of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This week as we were tracting we were able to find three new investigators! That was such a miracle! Usually knocking doors isnt the most sucessful thing but this time it was! They are two teenage girls and they are seriously so anxious to hear more about the gospel it is so awesome. I think it is really cool that these girls are literally craving to hear more about Christ and how they are really children of God. It just made me think a little bit about how that is the type of attitude that we are should have. I want to build a relationship with my Heavenly Father and my Savior because I know that I am a child of God and that Christ sacrified for me. Having that knowledge is a huge blessing in my life and it truly has helped me to be able to make smart choices and to recognize that their is more to this life than just living. We seriously could be getting so much out of this life through the gospel and through knowing that we are Gods children and that Christ suffered specifically for me. I know that Heavenly Father really does love us all and that Christ really does love each of us and wants to help us.
This week we had another opportunity to go to the temple with some of our mission. As we were there I started to think about the things that are the most important. The things of this world do not matter to God. He doesnt care how much money we have or how nice our clothes are. He cares about if we feel loved, if we are happy and if we know our purpose. We are so important to Heavenly Father and he will lead us to where we need to be if we are willing to be lead. Anyway this week was a really good week! I am so grateful for this gospel!
I love you all!
Sister Camilleri

Monday, November 6, 2017

Awesome week

Hello Family and Friends!
These weeks are just flying by! I cannot believe that it is already November. Weirdly enough though this week went by fast but I can't even remember all that has happened. There is always just so much everyday! It was an awesome week though that was literally FILLED with so many miracles! God is so good!
We were able to go to the temple on Halloween night and that was awesome. Our entire mission (160 missionaries)  was at the temple that night and it was such a privilege to be able to be in the temple and to feel of the peace and love that always comes from God. It made me think about how the things of the world are not lasting but the things of God last for eternity. If we really think about all the vastly important things are things that last forever. The way that we love others and our families on earth will be taken with us into the eternities. I know that the things of God are what we need to be focusing our life around and that when we do that everything will work out.
The work has really progressed within this last week and that has been such a blessing. We were able to teach a man that has had the lessons before but took time away from the church. One day he was driving and he saw two elders on the street. He talked with them for a bit and the elders told us to go visit him! We were able to meet and have a lesson with him on Saturday. It was so cool because he already knows the church is true but he just wants to have a better life. The spirit really does lead us missionaries to be in the right place in the right time.
We were able to go to Sandy Valley this week and we had such an awesome day there! We had an experience in Sandy Valley that really just testified to me that the gospel is so essential for our life. We were giving a church tour to a new investigator in Sandy Valley and it was going really well. We totally thought that he believed in Christ but when we sat down to have a lesson about the Plan of Salvation we were totally blindsided. He started talking about how he didn't believe in God and how he thinks the only reason that we are on earth is to have fun and then we just died. My mouth literally fell open and I was so shocked. Lol it actually turned out to be a really awesome lesson filled with powerful testimony from Sister Fitzsimonds and I. After the lesson I just really felt so grateful that I know that God knew me before this life, he knows me now and that if I choose him and follow him than I will be able to live with him again. Guys, Heavenly Father knows you (Alma 18:32) and he wants us to be able to feel of his love and for us to have all the blessings that he has for us. That's why we came to earth; to get a body and to learn, grow and receive the blessings that God has for us. He has so much in store and planned for us. We can have access to it all through living the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for the Plan of Salvation!
I love you all!
Sister Camilleri