January 29, 2013

Good morning dear mother!

I am here in Oceanside with Elder George and we now are responsible for the Carlsbad young Single Adults Ward. I know that at one time you had a calling with them (or were you with the not-so-young single adults?) and so I was wondering what your thoughts are on that.

We had dinner last night with a nice young couple. As we ate with them a furry rodent ran up to elder George and tried to run up his pant leg. Brother Monahan grabbed the creature and said, "This is Doug, our weasel". I had to restrain my instinct to call for Harry to bring his BB gun! I am devastated to hear that we are down to 7 ladies in the coop. :(

Good heavens, it has been two weeks since I have told you how I am. I am doing well. I love being a missionary. My new companion told me that I am getting a little too serious sometimes. I thought that was funny until he told me about what I have been saying in my sleep... I don't have any idea what I dream about any more, because it feels like I close my eyes and the alarm goes off and I just have to go again, but he said that one night he was up and I rolled over and said "What specific goals are you going to set for that?" in a very serious voice. I try to still have fun, but I suppose sub-consciously I am too serious. Life is good. 

We have a few baptisms coming up in February; Sean Fenner in the YSA ward is set for the 16, Justin and Noelle Wood in Oceanside 1st ward are on for the 23, and Angela and Jeremy will follow close behind, and John Truehipt is making progress. 

My Spanish has been improving a lot, I can now pray in Spanish, do a door approach in Spanish and talk to people on the streets about the Gospel or about food (tortilla, salsa, guacamole, etc...) We have been teaching the 4 amigos the past two weeks. We talked to them on the street and gave them a Book of Mormon and they read some and took notes and when we followed up with them they wanted to read with us and then keep reading with us. They are really funny. We went to pick them up for church with the scoutmaster, but when we walked up to the door, they said one was sick, another grounded and the third was at his dad's house, and the spokesperson said that he would go ask his mom, then he was gone for a long time and we couldn't find him after that. 

At church on Sunday Elder George and I gave talks (Bishop asked us to during the opening song) We spoke on the Holy Ghost, I went a little long, like 10 minutes. Also, Elder George is from Alpine, Utah and is a really happy and fun missionary, it is good to be his companion! 

Harrison, thank you for your little insert in Mom's email, I miss you too buddy! Get that weasel! Did you get the goats? Good job scoring a goal! Can you run 2 miles in a row? Live long and prosper.

I was really excited when I got your forwarded email from brother Mortensen, we will find those Mongolians :)

I am so so happy to be a missionary, even if I take it seriously, I am so happy!! I know that prayer is essential for conversion, so if you want to know something, just think about it, see if it makes sense then make a decision, and ask heavenly Father, then act on it! I know that this church is true, because the Holy Ghost has confirmed it to me each time I have asked. 

There are no dumb questions.

Love, Elder Chandler

January 15, 2013

Hello!

The Newport Beach temple is wonderful, I am glad you got to go there last week! Sister Hall must have talked with Elder Snow and Elder Bradley! They are very obedient and hard-working missionaries.

There are a lot of chickens around here in Oceanside. There are also 2 gangs that hang out around here: the Pasoles and los Central. They are both nice to us. 

Important: next week I will not be sending an email, because Elder Hammar and I are going to go with President Cook and pick up the new arriving missionaries from the MTC, so I will be busy!

This week has been absolutely fantastic. We have found 3 new families as investigators and connected with 4 families wanting to come back to the church as well as 2 other people who want to learn about the gospel. We are very busy.

In John chapter 4 Christ talks about having meat that the disciples knew not of. That food was the bread of Life. He did not even want to eat what they brought because He was too consumed with sharing His gospel. We want to be more like the Savior and as we worked hard this week we missed a couple dinners without even realizing it, because we were so involved in the work. As we did so the Lord blessed us. He is persistent and will NEVER leave us alone. This is His work. As we sacrificed He blessed us with His Spirit and the gifts of finding and teaching. The Lord does not just leave it up to us. Dad said in his email today that the Lord is bound to be with us. This is His work and He needs us to give everything that we are to Him so that He can work through us. I love it!

I used to have a really bad problem of not trusting that God would answer my prayers in high school. I prayed to have the best race of my life many times, but the answer I wanted only came once, so I started thinking that He doesn't listen or want what is best for me. I stopped having really sincere prayers because I did not understand His glorious Plan of Salvation. The conversion process needs to happen each day and it starts with faith. We can grow closer to God and have more faith when we understand Him better. I have come to ever so gradually come to know Him better and see His hand in my life and in this work.

My growth is comparatively enormous to what it was in high school, but relatively minute to what it needs to be and what it can become. I have prayed on my mission to not have a sore throat in the morning, or to have energy, knowing that whatsoever I ask for in His name that is according to His will it shall be granted unto me. The blessings have followed and my faith has been strengthened. 

I attached some pictures in a few other emails, so I hope you enjoy them, I sure enjoyed putting my birthday presents on my fingers!! Thank you for being a good example to me and thank you for the music, yes I did get it yesterday! 

I am worried that I will not appreciate this closeness to the spirit that I have during my mission after I return and am released, so I am taking every advantage to learn and grow and spread the good Word. I had a wonderful confirmation this morning from the Holy Spirit that the Book of Mormon is true. I know that it is and I pray that we all may live as it suggests and as God commands. He has a great plan for us. 

Love, Elder Chandler

January 8, 2013

Dear Mom,

 

Thank you for your email, it brightens my day to hear how everyone is doing. Thanks for the addresses and advice on having charity. I think you are right that a lot of my attitude is dependent on my expectation of different types of people. President Cook says that the choice to accept the gospel should occur in the heart of the mearer and not in the mind of the missionary, so I need to make sure to love everyone more and more like Christ does and give each person I see a fair chance to accept His message.

 

This week was pretty good. My companion and I presented a training to the missionaries in our zone and already we have seen miracles happen as they focus on finding those who will receive them and giving everyone a fair chance to accept the message. I am starting to feel like I am part of the area, but not like Laguna yet, which makes sense.

 

We started teaching a woman this week, and this is borderline CrazyRadar, but she is 72 and single and lives in an apartment filled with 40 years of clutter and old things (I seem to have a knack at finding old ladies like this) and we helper her get a little more organized and taught her about the Book of Mormon. She loves Jesus and is very catholic. One thing I was super grateful for was the help of the spirit to let us know what we should give to her to do. We asked her to read 3 Nephi 11 which talks about the Savior. The I had just happened to grab a pass-along card on the way out the door and it just happened to be the one about the Book of Mormon and just happened to have the picture showing Christ's visitation to the Nephites. So that is her bookmark now.

 

Some others we are teaching:

RE: A man who is pretty freshly out of jail and wants to learn about and obey god's commandments.

 

DE: A man who feel away from the church as a teenager and his wife and kids are not members. The 9 year old daughter woke up one morning a few weeks ago and told her daddy that she wanted to go to church.

 

CW: A recovering alcoholic who was baptized 5 years ago and needs the spirit in her life and to pray and build a true relationship with heavenly Father.

 

TP: One of my favorites, a 10 year old girl who was baptized a month or 2 ago and lives with her legal gaurdians and they are just really nice and funny, so we share messages in the form of stories or games.

 

CC: She just got baptized in December and her family does not really like that. She is 18 and wants to serve a mission. She is speaking in stake conference the Sunday! We are helping her pray daily and develop a habit of reading consistently.

 

Those are a few of the people I am blessed to share the gospel with and to learn and grow from. It really strengthens me and my commitment to follow the Savior when I see these people making changes in their lives that bring happiness. I can talk until I am blue in the face about how good the gospel is, but what will change someone's life is when they apply it. Through observing this mighty change have I gained a true appreciation of the goodness of God. he has given us a way to live and have joy because He loves us.

 

We have been able to find lots of people who are prepared to receive the gospel as we are obedient and open our mouths as the scriptures say. that is a big focus of mine right now, just 'open your mouth", the Lord says, "and I shall fill it". I know that that is true. We have found lots of great people as we heed and trust this promise.

 

It is a little different when I apply this to a future part of my life (marriage) when all I need to do is be obedient and keep my mouth shut!! But that is not for a while.

 

The Lord loves us so much. Thank you for sharing the many blessing that you see in your life and I hope you know that you are a blessing in my life!

 

Have a great week

-Elder Chandler

 

January 1, 2013

Good morning and Happy New Years!

Good job on your talk mom! I think I must get my crying genes from you. What 2012 "Predictions" are you talking about? I don't remember... You can open it if you want I suppose!

This week has been fun. I have to confess something pretty bad though. I went on exchanges with an Elder Jones (related to Zchone Jones BTW) and he is a Spanish speaking missionary. There was nothing wrong with that, the problem began when we were teaching this man named Felipe and I felt so much charity for him even though I could only understand about half of what he was saying. I realized that I have so much more charity for people from other countries (ex. Mexico, Mongolia or Japan) than I do for people from America (like me). I really need to forsake that and see all people as God sees them. I am going to study Charity in Preach My Gospel this week and hopefully love white people more. 

I love being a missionary and serving here in Oceanside! Not much is new sooooooooooo

CrazyRadar time!:

Speedo: We knocked on the door of a woman who the bishop wanted us to visit, but it turns out she had moved a while ago. A man answered the door in a shirt and apparently nothing else. He taught us the gospel of Jesus Christ and told us about how this life only matters on how you help other people and be a good person and then he told us he doesn't care where we go after we die and that there is no God. I wish he would have softened his heart and listened to our message, but the blood flow needed to soften his heart was constricted by his 3-sizes too small speedo!

Scrooges [We ran into a couple varieties of these]:

- man walking his dog, we told asked him how his Christmas was and he looked at his dog and walked by, and then we asked if we could help him at all or if he knew anyone who could use a message of hope in their lives. He stopped and looked at us and said, "you can just keep walking boys! That is what would help me!"

- woman getting mail, we asked her if she got anything good that day (side-note: that is a bad question to begin with.) but she said nothing, just peered at us over her glasses. We decided for some reason to ask if she celebrates Christmas and she said "no" so we said, oh, okay, what do you celebrate? (another bad question) and she said "Solstice" and then we asked her what solstice was (worst question of all) and she huffed and stomped away. 

No love for Jesus!

Those are some of the fun happenings of missionary work. I am grateful to be here spreading the joy of Christ's love and His gospel. It has been restored to the earth. I am still awkward at asking people questions when they are walking their dogs and at their mailboxes, but all I really know is that this message is true and provides each of us a way to return again to live with our Father in heaven. Every person on this world has said 'yes' to the gospel once before (before they came to this earth) so they all know that it is true. I love Jesus, and I want to help everyone else remember that they do too!

-Elder Chandler

PS Oh I just want to clarify a couple things on the CrazyRadar (can you put this on the blog?)

The speedo guy basically taught us the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ, he just didn't realize it.

Also when we contacted the Solstice Scrooge, I was on exchanges with an assistant to the President, so even those missionaries aren't perfect! 

PPPPS. Sorry, one last thought. It would be WAY more effective to send out 35-40 year old men and women to be missionaries, but the Lord trusts His youth and us young, inexperienced and immature servants to do His work so that each of us can become converted to His gospel. It sets the foundation for the rest of our lives and spreads the message that literally anyone can come to know Christ, even selfish, prideful 18-22 year olds. Anyways, I think that God has a great plan and I am glad I know about it and glad I am part of it (This should probably be on the blog too, so that people can see why God sends out such a seemingly ridiculous demographic as His force and army to spread His gospel :)