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 :)

December 26, 2012

Last Email of 2012 for Elder Chandler!

 

Hi mom,

I am glad we got to talk yesterday and that I caught you at home and got to see everyone's morning faces!

We talked about everything yesterday, so bye!

Love, Elder Chandler

 

Just kidding, I always have lots to say, anytime any day!

I think that the reason President Cook is so good and has been so successful is because he holds his missionaries accountable, sometimes he just calls missionaries during the day and asks them what they have done the past 3-4 hours to fulfill their purpose. He also lets missionaries stay in areas for a longer amount of time than usual. Most missionaries stay for 6 months in an area so by the end the ward knows and trusts them and the missionary really knows the area and the people and the social circles so he can become really effective.

 

President Cook also knows, and I know that the Gospel is simple and when I talked with Harrison yesterday I told him that. Jesus Christ is the source of forgiveness. He wants us to return home to live with Himself and our Father in heaven and be happy. He provided us a way to do so. That is why the last thing I said was "follow the commandments" It was half-silly, but instead of saying something like "be happy" or "don't worry about me" I know that if we just follow the commandments then we will be set. I love sharing this message to the wealthy, yet unhappy people of California!! (That is just a general statement, there are poor people here and there are happy people as well, don't sue me!)

 

The work is about to pick up here, we have some big plans :)

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

-Elder Chandler

December 18th, 2012

Surf's up in Oceanside!

How did you know I was transferred? And you aren't supposed to know I am a zone leader! To answer your questions I am serving in the Oceanside 1st ward with Elder Hammar from Rigby, ID and we are the zone leaders in the Carlsbad zone. We have the famous Oceanside pier in our area and we run there often in the mornings. It is a mission rule to run every morning by the way. 

I am glad you got to meet Kevin Clegg and get the camera card from him! He is a stud and a great ward missionary. I have a new card in the camera now, but if you send that other one back that would be great. I didn't have the chance to go through and censor the pictures, so I hope there wasn't any weird ones that people stole my camera and took without me knowing!

Yay, you got the Peace on Earth elf! That is from a lady who gets them every year and they are supposedly really valuable and she said to give them to our mothers. She had lunch with Russel Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio last week and is a really cool lady. i am glad that you got the package. I did get the stockings for me and Elder Hammar, thank you thank you! 

As a clarification that alligator was a conglomeration of pre-historic vittles that should have been buried 100 miles under the Bermuda triangle. We couldn't tell if it was alive, so we basically put on our gloves and big-boy pants and reached in and pulled it out piece by piece. First the heart, then the intestines then the thigh meat. It was just gross stuff.

It is snowing at home?! it is freezing here, I wore my sweater and long-sleeve shirts this week. It is literally 60 degrees in the morning and I can see my breath! It got down to 57 yesterday and it was hard to leave the apartment. it is going to be a real culture shock to come home to Oregon. 

Highlights of the week:

I have to shave every day out of necessity, not solely out of obedience now. 

Ioannies was baptized on Saturday, but I didn't get to go, because it was too far away. We have a baptism here though this Saturday which should be great, I am really excited!

CrazyRadar(This will be my weekly column, similar to the police log, of choice individuals who we meet during the week that brought joy to our lives):

Shadrac- On our way to an appointment we stopped and talked to a mysterious man in a long trechcoat. We asked him what he was doing and he told us it was "beyond our realm of comprehension" but then he started explaining that he needed to go back in time and deflect a solar flare. Something to do with 12/12/2012 he just kept saying 12-12-12-12-12-12-12-20-12. I wish I could explain more clearly about the self-proclaimed Galactic Rescue Ranger, but most of his physics were beyond my realm of comprehension.

Jared- Between appointments we were walking and started talking to a man who was already involved in a conversation. With himself. he told us he was a little busy with his thoughts, but that God is happy with us. We tried to share a card with him, but then he got pretty mad and said he was looking for a place to relieve himself. Elder Hammar notified him of a gas station in the vicinity and he started calling us super mean names and that we don't have any right to tell him where to do his business, in fact "I prefer to [do it] outside gentlemen!!" I hope he made it.

Karate Kid- Tender mercy. We were just driving down Pacific Coast Highway and happened upon a young painter who stood up and ran behind this van and then started doing something which looked like dancing until he threw a few kicks in. He did a beautiful martial art demonstration for us and then got in the van and drove away before I could get my camera out. This all happened in about 8 seconds.

Guy- Really, his name is Guy. he was walking around one night with a big coat on and carrying some dark object, but we stopped and talked to him and he was super nice so we gave him a card and the next day he called in and requested a DVD so we took one to him, but he said he had sever bipolar, so it wasn't a good time to talk to him. He was a little crazy, but Guy is actually pretty cool.

Merry Christmas to all and I am looking forward to talking with you in 7 days! Good luck in the treacherous weather of the Northwest!

-Elder Chandler

December 11th, 2012

:)

My salutation today is a smile, because I am happy! 

I am impressed that even though you wrote me this email last night, you thought ahead and said good morning to me, because you knew I would be getting it this morning! 

Thank you for the email and good news from home. My news, as you know, is that I am headed to a new area this very day. The ward here has been so fun and people said they have spare rooms if I ever want to visit! I just might when it is 75 degrees in December!

My personal favorite experience of the week is hard to put a finger on. Elder Barton and I mentally and physically sprinted all week and were raring for more, but his new companion will just have to catch on quick.Any how, here are a few of my highlights(in no particular order):

-Ward Christmas party: Elder Barton and I cooked the hashbrowns and spilled a little oil. We did not think it was a big deal until Carter van der Linde, who is 6 jumped by us, landed in the oil, got some on his shoes and proceeded to run into the slick wood floor of the gym, make a sharp 90 degree cut to the left while his feet continued ahead and he landed on his rump. A little more wax on the floor please...

-Sunday: I accompanied the ward choir singing "Jesus Once of Humble Birth". It was nice to feel the spirit through music like that. I love teaching and testifying, but music really gets to me. 

Christmas caroling: A few times this week we went out with members of the ward or other missionaries to visit investigators, single people or just people who needed a cheering up to sing a few Christmas carols and read from Luke 2. That was really nice, and people liked it. 

Oh yeah, also during the Christmas party the young men and young women did a little act and I played the piano for them as they sang some fun songs. 

THE BIG ONE: We have a sweet, little, old sister who was baptized about 5 years ago. She loves missionaries! Now, that is all well and good, however, she is tight financially and is looking for a roommate. Well, what is the problem with that Elder Chandler? Her house was neck high in rubbish!!! Ward council has been discussing this problem for years: she needs help. Well That is what missionaries are for, so I told Elder Barton we need to do something about this. This sister has the most wobbly voice I have ever heard. I will call her after my mission just to listen to her voice, because it tickles me. 

We usually have a tough time getting elderly women to do what we want, but this time we had no mercy. We talked about bringing the spirit into her home, about getting money so she could experience the blessings of tithing, and being happy! She agreed to leave her home for a season while we went in to do some work. She warned us about the "alligator in the fridge" and I thought it was a rumor. Until I opened the fridge; there it was. 

We filled up the dumpster behind her house with newspapers from 1987 and canned food older than me. Once that was full we filled up the next dumpster with deteriorated pillows and warm meat juice. Elder Barton just about vomited a few times (haha)

She is still looking for a roommate, but she is very happy. As a goodbye gift I took her out to lunch yesterday and made her let me pay. She is truly a wonderful woman. 

I have to head down to Vista for transfer meeting and to practice a song that President Cook wants me to play for the meeting. 

That is not what is really important though, what IS really important is that we have God's church on the earth and the simple Gospel, which is the way for us to be happy. I know that it is true and real. A thought I have been pondering on this week is about vision. Well, vision and perspective. If I want to drive across the country I believe I could. However, all I can see at one time is the road ahead of me. If I crash in the middle, I will be stuck, and you never know what might be around the next corner that would deter you from forward progression. As we make decisions and goals in our life we must remember that ultimate goal that Father in heaven wants for us: to return to live with Him.

What I have been thinking about is that life is not all about what is happening right now. I was guilty in high school of being narrow-minded and absorbed in activities that were part of my vision, but I did not recognize the big picture. Only God really sees the big picture, but I have a strong testimony that if we just live the simple Gospel then we will be happy. As we do the right things and live the right way then there is nothing that can stop us from achieving our purpose in life. I love my Savior Jesus Christ. He is my elder brother and my friend. Please, please, please think about Him every day. 

Being a missionary is the bomb! Lovin' out loud is what it's all about :)

-Elder Chandler :):):):):):):):):)