Monday, March 10, 2014

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)

Sent from my iPad

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