Mastery of Thought

(It was wonderful talking to our missionary on Christmas. I'll attach the picture we took off of Skype for those who haven't seen it on Facebook.)

Mother and Father,

   This week was about as slow as molasses. Shortly after talking to you, we had Christmas dinner, and midway through I got very nauseous and almost threw up in the middle of the Newton's home. (Thank goodness he didn't do that!) So, I went and laid down for the rest of Christmas. The members of the ward were very kind. We received a variety of gifts. (Which shall remain nameless, I guess. I want to know what they gave them!!)

   On Saturday we had our stake president's breakfast. This one was different in that we had a dodgeball tournament. President Richards doesn't like that we aren't allowed to do stuff together so he used his executive power to make it happen. Anywho, it was a lot of fun, and we had the challenge of senior companions versus junior companions, we tied six games to six. I was still feeling sick but I knew Elder Johnson wanted to go so we made it work. (I'm glad he "manned up" and did it. Sounds fun!)

    Brother Jacobs and I discussed mastery of thought this week at my counseling session. His challenge to me has been to create a journal of my negative thoughts and my reactions to them. He guarantees me that I will see a pattern to them. Those are the negative and incorrect thought patterns that cause the psychological side of anxiety. As we identify them, we will work on modifying and correcting them. (Sounds like something we should all do!)

   I will comment again on how slow this week was. The missionary handbook tells us that holidays are the best times for finding people, but the neighborhoods get so quiet and sleepy that it is hard to get motivated to go out and find anyone who is left. We did have one incredible miracle, however. We were driving to deliver an ornament to a relief society sister who is unknown, (whatever that means??!!) when I saw a guy putting stuff in some big trash bins. I told Elder Johnson we should stop and see if he needed help. I went up and asked him what he was doing and he said something like, "I'm remodeling my basement, do you guys want to see it?" What followed was an awesome experience of us working on installing doors while discussing our faith. His pastor was there helping, and he was the nicest guy. We're supposed to meet up with his pastor for burgers in Longmont pretty soon. His family even made us Papa Murphy's pizza, which we ate with them for lunch. He works for Google, and he told me to ask BJ if he had ever worked using the "trigger" for developing third-party apps for Google, and that he was the one who invented it. He said that Lucid is a big deal at Google and they like it a lot. (Any comment, BJ??)

    I got the Mito2Max package. Thank you! Taking these should turn me into  superhuman or something. One I am excited about is one that Sister Hendrix gave me. It's a multivitamin made for people with anxiety. (Sure hope it helps! If so, I better get a bottle!) I will send a picture of the specs.

  It was great seeing you on Christmas!

Love,

Elder Andrew Campbell