Sunday, January 20, 2013

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


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