Week 24... JAX Beaches

Hey y'all!!!

So this week was thuper duper!!!

We didn't teach much but we did a lot of service! Which is the
greatest! Cause service is the greatest!!

The P******'s moved out this week and we helped them get all packed up!
I'm going to miss them a lot. They were wonderful people and provided
me with many laughs and fun times! It was sad to see them go, but it's
great they found such a nice place to live. They deserve it! We called
up the elders quorum and asked them to come help. Which they did. Good
heavens, if you need help moving call up the Mormons. We are pro at
getting stuff packed and moved in a short time.

Let's see... What else happened.. My days just blend together. It's
crazy to think another week has gone by. OH. So Tuesday I had a trade
off with the lovely sister L*****! It was pretty awesome to see
another area and to work with another sister. I learned a lot from her
and overcame some things that had me troubled. I have a testimony of
sister training leaders!! They are inspired! So that was lovely. :)

Remember that man named R***** we contacted last week?? Yeah... Well
.... We had brain flatulence and didn't get his apartment number.
*face~palm* so we've knocked every door around his car and WE CANT FIND
HIM. He is much too good at this hide n seek game... Olly olly oxen
free R***** .... Pray that we will find him!!!

So we decided since it was a nice day to go contacting on the
boardwalk by the beach. Any excuse I have to see the beach I take it.
I may not be able to go on it... But I can certainly stare at it. Now
all awkwardness of half-naked people everywhere aside, I really
enjoyed it!! :D everyone we talked to were really nice and they
actually talked to us!!

This is significant... You see, NOBODY TALKS TO US. Ok. So some people
do but it's usually "oh we have already have Jesus". But these people
actually talked to us and had a religious discussion!! We talked to a
man named R***. Now R*** is your average Jo Schmo. Nothing ever good
has ever happened to him but nothing necessarily bad has happened
either. He has never gone to church. Never married. He said he doesn't
know if he has ever been happy before. He also wants to know what the
purpose of this life is..., annnnnd cue plan of salvation pamphlet!!
Haha it was so cool!! I got to do the one thing that makes me the
happiest out here. I stared him in the face and told him he was a
child of God and that our Heavenly Father loved him and knew him
personally. I love seeing the light turn on in their heads.. Or that
little glimmer of hope that flashes across their eyes that maybe they
are something so much more than they feel to be. He really appreciated
it and said it made his day. Missionary work is glorious!!! :)

On Saturday we got to do service at Fort Caroline! That was a lot of
fun! We picked up trash whilst hiking through a swamp. Super cool,
eh? I thought so. It's starting to get warmer and that means the bugs
are coming out.. The gnats around the swamp were evvvvverywhere.
Including in my clothes. And probably my mouth. Haha. Yay for
Florida!! But seriously. I love it so much here. Too much. *twitch* so
there was one point one of the members sent us to find the elders who
were probably off seeing which elder could catch an alligator or
something and we were walking across this bridge doo dah that was
really close to the water. Sister W******* and I decided to cross
first and we sorta made it sink in to the water... (Sounds like I need
to lay off the fried chicken eh?) well. My blessed companion decided
to pull a "three ninjas" move and run across the planks. Well she did
it perfectly until the last second where her feet gloriously slipped
from under her and she smacked down in the gross, algae, bacteria
filled water. It was probably the most graceful fall I've ever seen.
Bless her heart, I love her to death. She has a pretty cool bruise
from it and didn't get eaten by a swamp creature. So that was nice. :)

So it's the week before transfers!!! I cannot even believe it's
already been a full transfer!! Aaaah! Well, I'm fairly sure that I
won't be training this transfer because we haven't gotten a training
call yet. . . Yet..... Honestly the thought of training makes we want
to pee. But I think it would be awesome. So I'm anxiously ... (And
patiently) waiting for that opportunity. We are fairly certain that
one of us is moving though. We've been together 6 months! If we stay
together another transfer I will have been with her for almost half
my mission!!! Crrraaaazzyyy!!!! We have a lot of fun though. So it's
good :) if I get moved though... Ohhh how the flood gates will be
opened. I get attached too easily apparently. They will seriously have
to rip me away from this ward. But where ever The Lord needs me.. I'll
be happy to follow :)

Today for Pday we played baseball until elder W*** broke the bat..
(Awkward) And then we played ultimate frisbee!! I FREAKING LOVE THAT
GAME. It felt really nice to break a sweat and run around and yeah!!!
Good times. Good times on the mish.

So that's basically all I have for y'all this week!!!! For some reason
I really love bananas all the sudden. I wasn't too big of a fan... But
I had a really good banana the other day and now I can't stop eating
them... It's hazardous. Anywhoohoo!! I gots to run! (And by run I mean
go take a nap...bahaha) But I love you all! Have a fantastic week!!!
Don't forget to pray! Keep smiling!! Yeah! K bye.

Love, Sister Chamberlain :)))

Week 23... JAX Beaches

Hey y'all!!

Can you even believe it is St. Patrick’s day? March? Already? WHAT?!

Well this week was lovely!  I'll try to make this email as exciting as possible..

*cue dramatic music*

In a world...

Where missionaries go 2 by 2 teaching eternal truths..
Where doors are slammed..
Where elect investigators know not where to find the truth..

2 sister missionaries combat the forces of beach bums and 

Baptists in hopes of bringing salvation to their fellow Floridians..

Their efforts will not only change JAX Beach forever... It will change
the woooooorrrlllddd...

*scene of sister Joseph and I walking dramatically from an explosion*

THE END.

Sooo.. Yeah.

Let's see.. What actually happened this week.. Hmm..

-This lady called us and said she wanted to learn more about the
Mormon church! We were so excited!!! We rush over there to find out we
had helped her with her groceries a couple dates earlier. She is very
very Jewish. But super nice!!! She considers herself an "old babe"
hahaha.. She then told her life story which took two hours and sent us
on our way!! It was so random and funny! The people here are so weird!
But so awesome!!

-The P*****'s (less active family we found) are moving to Oxford
Florida this week. Which is super depressing because I want to keep
them foreeeevvverrrrr. But they found a really good deal on a house
and as far as I'm concerned.. Houses are better than crappy mold
infested apartments? Yes? Anywhoohoo.. I'm going to miss them a lot.
But we helped them pack up some stuff and they took us out to eat
Mexican!!! I don't know if y'all know... But I loooove Mexican food.
Like, future husband watch out. You got some competition. .
I digress..

So that was fun!

-this week we have been working our little missionary bums off to try
and find people to teach. I feel so incredibly awkward when I do door
approaches. Not like the shy awkward.. Like the try and share the
gospel awkward where you have a huge grin on your face and they look
at you like you just came out of a nut house. And you sit there and
laugh awkwardly. That kind of awkward. All of you that know me well...
I'm sure you can imagine this. ITS AWESOME.

-N****** still hasn't contacted us. I'm trying to ignore the fact of
how much that stinks.

-So the miracle of the week is super great!!! We were tracting. Trying
to find people to teach.. As we do. And we came across a man who was
washing his super nice sports car! We started chatting with him and I
asked him if he had any cool experiences where God had answered one of
his prayers and he told us about a dream he had about a year ago where
he was with a bunch of really confused people and Christ was there but
nobody knew it was Him except for himself. He said that Christ had a
long white robe on and his brightness exceeded the brightness of the
sun and he was standing in the air.. Sounds familiar eh?? Maybe... The
first vision? Sweet right!!!! So we gave him a restoration pamphlet
and showed him a picture of Christ visiting the Americas with a white
robe and he was very very excited to read the Book of Mormon and learn
more!! Miracles happen! We've been praying for this for a long while
so it was awesome. His name is R*****. He is supes cool.

-We were street contacting and we ran across some gangstas... Some
homies in the hood.. Yo? And it was really embarrassing how white I
was. Haha. I tried so hard to relate with them!!! But I think I just
came across as an awkward white Mormon girl. Which I am. Soo... I
don't blame them. Haha. That said!!! They took a card from us!! Woo! I
guess previously the elders had talked to them and they didn't take a
card or anything. Sometimes it just takes a sister to do the job ;)

-on Saturday we went and had dinner with the L***'s! They are this
really cool family in our ward! They are known for feeding the
missionaries weird food (cow tongue, frog legs, etc) sooo I was kinda
really excited!! Well we got there and dinner was normal (and quite
delicious might I add) and they asked us if we wanted to try these
special neon green olives!
I like olives!
I like neon green!

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

.... everything....

I'm really not sure how to describe the taste of this.. Thing.. This
food from satan.

If you can imagine taking a soggy dirty sock.. Liquefying it.. And
mixing it with the tears of small children. . . That is only a sliver
of the horror that is contained in that little olive.
Neon green olives = death. That said, they are being sold at your
local costco. Check it out. You WONT be disappointed. ;)

And thennnn!! They asked us if we had ever had Scorpion ice cream!!

My first initial thought was... Mmmm ice cream. I love ice cream...
Hahaha. It's really sad how gullible I can be sometimes. Luckily they
did warn us about the effects of this one. The scorpion pepper is the
hottest world in the world. (Yes, hotter than the ghost pepper) and
bro Lynn thought it would be a super great idea to mix it with ice
cream! He is so brilliant!! The ice cream was fantastic! You stick it
in your mouth and you think "mmmm vanilla, cold, this isn't too bad"
and about 3 seconds later the burn kicks in. When I say the burn kicks
in... I mean it's like somebody lit your mouth on fire. You can
feeeeel the heat spread across each individual taste bud and all the
sudden your sweating and coughing!! Doesn't that sound pleasant?! :D
But really it was sooo cool! ...errr.. Hot I mean. The presentation
was brilliant and it was delicious, try some. Sure you might have
ulcers and heart burn... But it's worth it. ;)

I just realized I've spent half this email talking about food. Some
things never change.

And that was basically my week!! Hooray!!!

Oh! (Sorry in advance for the over usage of caps... Buuuut...) 

THE SUN GOES DOWN AN HOUR LATER WHICH IS THE 

BEST THING THATS EVER HAPPENED TO ME BECAUSE 

NOW PEOPLE ACTUALLY TALK TO US AFTER 7.

The church is true.

Well.. I really have nothing else to say.

I end this off with a good ole Sister Chamberlain testimony/pep talk.
I'll do my best to control my caps. (Image of a bunch a bottle caps
running around)

This week I've learned why it's so important to have charity.
Everything in missionary work needs to motivated by love. Not to
impress the mission president, or get good numbers, or even to impress
yourself. This work is completely selfless. When your action are
motivated by charity.. Everything falls into place. Because "charity
never faileth" When you serve someone for the pure reason that you
love them, they will truly feel the love of God in their life. One of
my bestest friends I've met out here is this old, super bashful man
named Gary. We visit him on occasion and teach him the gospel. He
loves it when we come over and even calls us his little angels. I
never knew the impact we were having on him until this past week he so
tenderly told us thank you for being apart of his life because he
didn't think he had any friends! It's amazing what love can do to
change someone's life. Gary prayed with us for the first time last
time we met with him and it was beautiful!! Love changes people!
That's what this gospel is! Love! When people truly understand the
love that Christ and their Heavenly Father have for them.. They have a
desire to do the things they are supposed to to get back to them.

People don't care how much you know, unless they know how much you care.

Have a super peachy keen week y'all!!! I love you so much! :)

Love, Sister Chamberlain

*dramatically sends email*

 

Week 22... JAX Beaches

Hello everybody!!!

First off...
  
Sorry for the lame email last week.
You'll get over it. :D

So last p day I spent a wonderful day in st. Augustine with Sister
Nilsson!! (Cause she is the best). So if you don't know what st.
Augustine is... Google it. It's great. It's a suuuuper touristy town
but it also happens to be the oldest city in the USA. No biggie. I
have pictures that I will send.. Eventually. . .

So that was super duper fun and explains why my email was so short. I
was off doing important missionary p day stuff like.... Looking at
gift shops and eating ice cream. That stuff is important.

I digress.

So an update on alllllll of my many many investigators!!!!
*whips out super long list which rolls on the floor*

Natalie: Ohh... Natalie. Bless her little heart. We had a pretty
intense come to Jesus meeting her about keeping commitments and coming
to church and it was super great and she was super stoked to come to
church and we were so excited and Sunday rolls around aaaaaannd no
Natalie. *hits head against wall repeatedly*. So yeah, that was really
frustrating for me cause I have put all the loves and allll the
energies and all the time into her. And yeah. So I was pretty upset
all of sacrament meeting and was praying to Heavenly Father that I
would calm down and not punch someone in the face. . . And I tell you
what, Heavenly Father answers prayers. Even the ones that seem
ridiculous. Like... Not punching someone in the face cause your
investigator didn't show up for church. All of the testimony's where
totally inspired and aimed directly at me. It was so great and I was
calmed down and nobody was punched. I bore my testimony as well. And
when I say bore my testimony I really mean I sat up there and bawled
because of how amazing our Heavenly Father is. As far as Natalie is
concerned she won't answer our calls Annnnd yeah. It sorta kinda
sucks. A lot. But I still have hope for her. I have this thing where
I'm really stubborn and don't give up on people. She needs the gospel
and she knows she needs it. She just needs love and patience.

That was longer than I intended it to be. Apparently I had some
suppressed feelings.

Kris and Anna: so these two we tracted into and did a church swap and
The Lord is so great because GUESS WHO CAME TO CHURCH YESTERDAY. They
did. It was so great. I have been praying for the past month that they
would feel the spirit in church. I was so determined on showing them
the difference between the spirit and adrenaline. The opening song was
the spirit of God. There is no better song to invite the spirit in
than that one. My prayer was answered again. The spirit was sooo
strong in that meeting. The talks were beautiful and were exactly what
they needed to hear and the ward smothered them in love. It was so
great!! Heavenly Father prepared this beautiful sacrament meeting for
them! It was all him! I saw His hand in everything right down to the
little kid in front of us who was pulling faces at Kris and Anna.
After sacrament I asked them what they thought and they said it was
different. And then they left. Haha... But I don't even care because
Heavenly Father knows that is exactly what they needed whether they
show it or not. I know they felt the spirit. I could see the wheels in
their head turning. IT WAS SO STRESSFUL AND WONDERFUL ALL AT THE SAME
TIME.

Rachel: we tracted into Rachel and shared the restoration with her!!
She cried and we cried and the lesson was completely directed by the
spirit. It was so very very cool and even better she wants to learn
more!!! PRAISE THE HEAVENS!!!!!!

.... Then we found out she's not in our area and we have to give her
to the other sisters....
*cries*

But that's okay. As long as they find the gospel it doesn't matter.

In fact, sister Joseph and I are really quite good at finding people
for other missionaries to teach!! Just not ourselves... Haha. Oh well.
All is well.

And that is it!!!!! Woooohooo!!!!

-I had an interview with president! That was lovely! I am sure he
thinks I'm a spaz cause I sat there and made lame jokes the whole
time. But hey... Whatever. I love president Craig. He is the greatest
and I am blessed to have him as my mission president!!

-so the other day sister Joseph and I were driving on the freeway and
all the sudden a spider that looks dangerously like a brown recluse
..... Walks. Across. The. Dashboard.

Not cool spider, not cool.

We are screaming. She's screaming at me to squish it (riiiiiiight).
I'm screaming at her to not crash the car and kill us both and I'm
preeeetty sure I heard the spider screaming a lil too. It was intense.
We quickly pull over on the side of the freeway and bail out of the
car. And then some car pulls over and I'm thinking
"greeaaaaatt.....now we have to explain that the reason we are pulled
over on the freeway panicking was because there was a little spider in
our car" . A lady runs over and asks us what's wrong and we sheepishly
tell her and she says "OH NO!! We need to get rid of that thing!!!!
Tell the spider to not move I'll go get some Kleenex" whilest she ran
to her car to grab Kleenex sister Joseph and I are laughing at how
nice she was and of course our little spider friend decided to
DISAPPEAR. We had no choice but to set our car on fire and walk home.
Haha. Not really but the lady ran back and we said it disappeared and
so she shoved the tissues in the front of the dashboard where we
thought the spider had disappeared to and left. let me tell you....
Sister Joseph doesn't like spiders. I knew that if that spider were to
make a surprise appearance. It would be the end for Sister
Chamberlain. We would've crashed. Needless to say that car ride was
the scariest I've ever been on so far. ALL BECAUSE OF A LITTLE TURD
NUGGET SPIDER. We've seen the spider a couple more times since then. I
saw it in the crack of the door so I slammed the car door shut and
prayed that I killed it which I'm assuming I did because we haven't
seen it. Soooo yeah!! Heesh I ramble a lot.

-whilst tracting sis Joseph and I felt impressed to go knock on this
persons house. It was a really really nice old man!!! Who then decided
he would take our testimony's and TEAR THEM UP INTO LITTLE PIECES AND
LIGHT THEM ON FIRE WHILE WE WATCHED THEM BURNED AND HE HIGH FIVED
SATAN. K. Maybe not. But it sorta felt like that. Sister Joseph had
her first bible bash. In which I just sat there awkwardly and tried to
smooth the tension with my super lame, awkward jokes... Needless to
say it didn't work. As we were walking away sister Joseph started
crying which naturally made me start crying and I just don't
understand how people can be so rude. But I decided we should tell
stories on when we felt the spirit. Those tears of frustration and
hurt then turned to tears of joy and filled with the spirit. The
church is so true. Let me tell you. So. Freaking. True. Even if grumpy
old men don't think so.

-For district meeting they committed us all to give our 16 stones to
The Lord. Just like the brother of Jared did. Which means we have to
do 16 things or give up 16 things everyday for the next month in order
to become more focused, concentrated, and purified. And I will tell
you.... It is hard. Super hard. I have chosen 16 things that I think I
need to get rid of! Some of which includes things like 1) not playing
on my ukulele (which is sorta killing me). 2) doing the dishes every
night (be proud mom.. Be proud!!!) and not singing any music that
isn't churchy. Which is by far the hardest. There are others as well.
But all of this so we can be more focused and it is demonstrating to
The Lord that we will give our whole selves to him to become better
servants for him. It is also showing our love for him. Which for me is
the biggest thing I am doing this for. So it's very cool and I can
certainly tell you I have never worked harder in my life than this
past week. I am EXHAUSTED. But I feel invigorated. We went tracting
for 2 1/2 hours in the freezing cold rain three days in a row in order
to find people to teach. It was so miserable. But so awesome. So cold
but my determination to find someone kept me going. Granted, we didn't
find a single soul to teach and every door the people seemed to get
meaner and meaner. But it was awesome. And The Lord was definitely
with us. I have never in my life felt such a spirit of diligence and
hard work. At one point I thought to myself "who are you....." Haha.
It was awesome. It's amazing what The Lord can do with you when you
turn your life over to him.
The south is wonderful. So many people have such strong faith in Jesus
Christ... But they all have their own religion. Which is beyond
frustrating sometimes. There is an apostle who said once (I know my
credentials are stellar) "I served a mission in the South... It
sucked! I think we should burn the South and do baptisms for the
dead!" ( I think this was the apostle that also swore during general
conference over the pulpit?) although mildly inappropriate....
sometimes I feel this way. And other times I have so much love for
these people I could explode. It's all a big paradox. It makes no
sense!!!!!!


BUT I LOVE IT.
Life is boring when it makes sense anyways.

Okay. I'm going to conclude this extremely drawn out email by saying I
know that this is the true church. I know my savior lives and that
missionary work is the most important thing we can be doing right now.
Heavenly Father hears and answers are prayers. I know this!!! He loves
us so much! It's perfectly wonderful and although I hardly feel worthy
of his love I sure am glad that it is always there for me to lean on.
I love you all so much and words cannot even describe how much it
means to me that you are praying and supporting me out here!

Have a glorious week!!! Don't you quit smilin now. ;)

Love, Sister Chamberlain

I love tough things!
I am the first to do tough things!
I do tough things first!
I love being a missionary!
(Part of our mission motto)

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