October 21, 2013

HI Mom!

 

Thank you for your email this week, the church is obsessed with President Uchtdorf's quote about doubting our doubts before we doubt our faith. It has a profound and simple message behind it. It is truth!

 

Well I am serving West of Santa Margarita and serving with a companion who was originally called to serve in a country North of where Elder Shiu is from. AKA Laguna Beach with Elder Hegland YAYY!!

 

Life is good here.

 

Sorry, gots to go! I left my camera in a member's car in Santa Margarita and I haven't gotten it back yet. They forgot to bring it to the Journeay's baptism on Saturday. Oh yeah, it was one of the sweetest baptisms of my mission and I got to give a talk!

 

Have a great week! -Elder Chandler

October 15th, 2013

Good morning Mom!

I am glad that you got the picture of Avery! We are going over there in half an hour to have a lesson with his mom. She is preparing to go through the temple. She was baptized one year and two days ago. I am sad to leave them, but I will let you know where I am getting transferred to on Monday. 

It has been fun to train Elder Donohue for 6 weeks with Elder Shiu! They are both good friends and I am glad that I will see Elder Shiu every week at mission choir! Yippee! 

I am pretty impressed with how well you typed your email this week from your phone. 

The Journeay's are getting baptized on Saturday and Brother Journeay asked that I speak at the baptism, so I will get to come back for that. 

I have some pictures to send you this week, so I will get on that!

Love Elder Chandler 

October 7th, 2013

Good morning Mom!

My new motto: "Work hard, pray hard, sleep hard." Thank you for closing your email in such a diligent fashion. I appreciate your expectations of me. I believe that if no one expects anything from people then they don't feel motivated to do anything. I am grateful for the knowledge that we have a heavenly Father who expects us and knows that we have the ability to prove ourselves worthy to return home. 

One of my favorite talks was brother McConkie, who you referenced in your email: he reminded us that "God speaks". I loved his exhortation to become personally converted and strengthen our personal testimonies of the gospel. For, when we are prepared then the Spirit can direct us in ways that we do not expect. 

Thank you for the package, I have been trying to eat better. I put your letter where you said to stay away from dairy and processed foods next to the creamy package of Dove chocolates that you sent me :-) I haven't eaten any chocolates.

Our investigators are happy and they are reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. I have been doing the same. This week I will especially work har, pray hard and sleep hard! I hope everyone will do the same!

Love, Elder Chandler

September 30, 2013

Good morning Mother!

This week has been very nice, just warm and sunny. Sorry to hear about the variant weather that Oregon is prone to! I cannot imagine a day that is not 70-75 degrees with sunshine all day, what is it like? 

I appreciated the update about the happenings of the Chandler clan; it sounds like a lot of the families here in Santa Margarita: Soccer, back-to-school night, driving, being busy, etc... everything except for "soggy"

Well enough about the weather. Last week we had a mission conference that I neglected to tell you about and this week we have zone training meeting, choir, follow-up trainer meeting, and next week a general authority is visiting for zone conferences and mission leadership council. Then the week after that is transfers. I really feel at home here and the work is going so well that I will probably get transferred. Ha. 

Back to last week's mission conference. There are two parts of it that I remember. None of it was really about the conference itself. First, I really did not want to be at the conference and I had a bad attitude because three of thecompanionships in the zone had to miss some of church for it, and it just felt like an excuse to get out of working on a highly productive Sunday afternoon. I just felt like the missionaries were not there to apply anything that they were about to learn, but they were just having a party. So then Elder and Sister Richards (the visiting general authority and his wife) spoke and talked to us. Elder Richards made a comment that I kept with me. He said that President Orgill had asked him and his wife to come speak because President Orgill wanted the entire mission to have experiences together where they could feel the spirit and be edified and instructed together. That made all the difference for me. It was more about the unifying spirit that the actual doctrine being expounded. I started taking notes after that and learned a lot.

Elder Richards also related a story of a missionary who served when Elder Richards was a mission president in Texas. The missionary got whitewashed (When both companions are new to the area) into an area and there was no food except a box of old corn flakes. That week it was Christmas. The Elders did not get to go shopping until after Christmas, so they just had those old cornflakes for Christmas. Elder Richards said that if they had just asked to take 20 minutes of their lunch time to go shop then he would have gladly allowed them to go get some food! It just so happened that last Sunday our gas tank had only 7 miles left until empty (poor planning on our part), and it is about a 20-25 mile drive up to the mission office where the conference was. We were going to have to buy gas on our way home, but that story inspired us to ask God for help that we wouldn't have to purchase gas on Sunday. We made it home! And we had enough gas to get us to the gas station the next morning! 

Another great experience this week was with Jaleh, who is our Iranian investigator. She loved the women's broadcast about covenants. She also invited her Jewish friend George to church and he came and believes that his search for the true Christian church has ended! 

Jaleh has been attracted to the church because of her daughter Nissa. Nissa is 12 and Jaleh wants Nissa to have structure and morals in her life. Jaleh and Nissa are close friends with the ward mission leader and his family. At first Jaleh loved the programs of the institution called "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints". She strove to understand the concepts intellectually and saw how these activities and programs really benefited the people who participated. before my mission this is how I saw the church for a long time. I though that it was great because it really did help people become better people to put it simply. As I have seen real changes in people's lives it has strengthened my testimony that this church has great guidelines and great structure. As I have seen people change their hearts and let the peace and joy of the gospel of Jesus Christ into their lives then it has given me a testimony of the reality and divinity of the truthfulness of the restored gospel. 

In the past few weeks Jaleh has experienced feeling the Spirit in her life. She has prayed and read the Book of Mormon (she reads the children's picture book :-) As she has done so the ideas and equations that she understood the gospel to be became real and brought joy to her heart. It was a classic example of how the spirit will speak to our minds AND our heart and the whisperings of the Spirit testify of truthfulness and they change our hearts. I think it talks about that is D&C 8 or something like that. So that is pretty neat, she is talking about who she wants to baptize her, so we are excited on that front as well. 

The Journay's are busy with the end of tax extension season and the wife wants to invite her co-workers to her baptism, so we have reset the date for October 19 (Elder Shiu's birthday!!) We also found another investigator who has agreed to get baptized on October 19. So that is 4 people coming up. Yup, looks like it's time for me to get transferred.

I hope the rain is enjoyable and that it adds variety to your lives. I will admit that I am jealous of the excited process of precipitation that you get to witness. I am in a figurative drought of weather excitement. Anyways, I want you to know how much I love and appreciate you Mom! Elder Shiu and I are headed up to the office in a little bit to get mail and I am excited to see what is there! My leg is doing much better. I will show you pictures after my mission.... in about 13 months, right? I think I still have a long time left, so be patient.


The following photos are from the Coleman family who fed the Elders last night and were kind enough to send us these photos:

September 26th, 2013

Happy Wednesday! 

Today was our temple trip day and we went to the Newport Beach temple. That is the only temple that the Irvine mission goes to now. I got a sweet email from Ben Barton with some pictures of him and Jackson hiking Timpanogous. That was really sweet. 

We will go pick up mail on Monday, so I am excited to get whatever you sent :) 

I am also glad that you got the little recording from Sister Coleman of Elder Shiu singing in sacrament, he is a good singer! We also have started mission choir, so he and I go to that and have a good time. Elder Hegland is there too, so I always sit with him and we sing Mongolian songs to warm up. 

Fun story of the week: Sunday night we went by the Nelson's, who are a part-member family and they have 2 little blonde girls. We went by around 7:30 and it was getting dark so it felt late (During the summer it is light until 9 and no one cares if we come by at 8:30, but when it gets dark sooner, for some reason it gets later sooner...). Anyways the non-member wife answered and said that it was a little late for them and they were putting the girls down for bed. At that moment the 2 year old girl ran out and pointed at Elder Shiu (pronounced El-der Shoe) and started yelling "Mister Shoo-ee, Mister Shoo-ee!!" We all couldn't help but laugh. So the mom changed from being mad to inviting us over for dinner. Thank you Mister Shoo-ey! 

The Journays are still golden and are set to be baptized on October 4 (hard to believe that it is almost October here in Orange county again) We taught them all of the commandments on Saturday and here is a little snap shot of how the lesson went down:

Journays: Well thank for being here Elders, what are going to learn today?

Us: We want to talk about some ways that we can be happier in this life through obedience to some commandments that God has given us.

Journays: great!

Us: We believe that Joseph Smith reveived a law of hea...

Journays: Oh! The Word of WIsdom?!

Us: Right, the Wor...

Journays: That is where you don't drink, smoke, do drugs adn stuff, right?

Us: That is right, and we can promise you that if you...

Journays: We need to throw away that 10 pound bag of coffee on our counter!

Us: ... Are you for real?...

So this pattern continued for the law of Tithing (He had questions about whether it on our net or gross), Chastity, Sabbath day, fasting, etc... It took about 2 minutes for each commandment and they pretty much just taught us. 

We are excited for them and they are too good to be true, except they are true!

I hope you all have a great week and the gospel is real. That has hit me pretty hard this week: That this is all real. I knew that it is true, but we will literally live again after we die and following the commandments WILL make us happier! 

Have a great week! Love- Elder Chandler

September 16, 2013

Hello Mom,

Thank you for your email! It is good to hear that you are out and after the ivy! I haven't cried in the library reading my email in a while, so thank you for that. This week was nice and everything is going well. The weather is cooling and the palm trees are green :)

We had a glorious ward picnic on Saturday to celebrate the Santa Margarita ward's 25th anniversary. There were all 6 of the Bishops who had served in this ward since 1988 (back when this was all farmland!) Then on Sunday each of them spoke for 5 minutes and it was a wonderful meeting. Lee was sustained to receive the Aaronic priesthood, but he went home to watch the football game after 2nd hour so we need to go explain that he didn't get the priesthood yet and needs to stay for all three hours next week. The Journay's were at church and they met about 30 people at the ward picnic. They would get baptized today if the Mission President didn't require 3 times church attendance before baptism. 

Elder Shiu and I gave a training to the zone on baptism on Thursday and it was good, the zone tripled the number of baptismal dates set this month! Yay! Life is good, if the weather would just chill a little more then the lack of working AC would be bearable, but everything else is good. My shingles have been medicated into submission and I feel on top of the world! 

Have a luvverly week!

Love, Elder Chandler

September 9, 2013

Good morning starshine, the earth says hello!

I often feel like I am in a dreamland and this is not reality, but I really like what I am doing right now so I do not ever want to wake up. I used to have dreams about flying and right now I feel like I am having a dream about flying. Life is good. 

I am here in Rancho Santa Margarita and would not rather be anywhere else in the world. unless God told me to go somewhere else, then that would be the place I would most like to go. 

Thank you mother for the notepads you sent in that last package, it was incredibly timely and I have been taking lots of notes about everything, because I don't feel the pressure of perfection like I used to when I only had little notebooks to write in and I didn't want to make any mistakes when I was writing, so I just took less notes. Now we do language learning activities and sketch out trainings and do all sorts of fun things with this new found freedom of paper and writing utensil!

The California, Irvine mission is starting a mission choir tomorrow and I will probably talk more about that later. The California, Irvine mission also established a service district of missionaries that focus their day-time proselyting hours on giving meaningful service to the people living here. President Orgill is really focusing on becoming a positive presence in the community.

Elder Shiu (my favorite Chinaman companion) and I are training a sharp new missionary from Lehi, Utah named Elder Donohue. This is quite a different experience, because now I need to filter more of my jaded comments so that he doesn't feel like the mission can be as difficult as it is sometimes. There are times of trial and slow days of searching for people to teach, but there are also unexpected tender mercies of the Lord.

On Wednesday evening, Elder Donohue's first full day in the mission field we stopped by a young couple that just moved in from Mission Viejo. They are not members, but they invited us in and asked us about what we do and they told us that they had grown up with a lot of friends who are members of the church. They want to become "eternally linked" in the "Mormon castle" and want to know how long it will take to "join the team". It was really a good feeling to be able to find some people that wanted to talk to us! 

Sometimes I feel like a real creeper because I don't feel awkward walking up to people and introducing myself and sharing a few sentences of restored truth and asking if they have 15 minutes to hear more about it. Even when it is 8:30 and dark outside. Elder Shiu is getting used to it and Elder Donohue is also learning, but they still think I am creepy. Does anyone have any advice on ways to approach people without seeming creepy? I really don't try to be creepy, but sometimes my companions feel like I am really creepy. 

Well that is about all I have to share this week, are there any questions that you want to know about the area, or missionary work? 

I am so excited for the missionaries leaving from our ward to go and serve. Including Brother Von DerLohe. I am sad I won't see him for a while. I am happy to know that he will live again. I know that the restored gospel that we share everyday has the power to enable people to overcome any trial that we face. I am grateful for this time that I have to be a missionary. I know that it's true!

Have a great week, 

Love Elder Chandler