Week 72... Lake Butler

Hey Y’all!!

This week was an awesome week! It was full of a bunch of unexpected service opportunities!! Wooo!! One of the reasons I love Lake Butler so much is that we get ourselves into the most random situations. It's so awesome!!

So we were trying to visit a less active and we walk up and her brother is standing outside and I suppose the less active lady wasn't letting anyone inside or talking to anyone for like..2-3 weeks. So the brother asked us if we could catch her bunnies and chickens that had escaped. Well, we did. I am so pro at catching chickens now. I wish I had a video.. It was pretty comical. But we did it!! We fed all her bunnies and chickens and it was just a lovely time. Later in the week she got admitted into the hospital and we got to clean her house!!! We found a frog in the pond. Sister D dared me to kiss
it. So I did!! It. Was. Nasty. I sanitized my lips about 4 times after that.  No, it didn't turn into a prince. But that's because I'm a missionary. If I wasn't .... It definitely would've been a prince. So that was toadally awesome. Hahaha. Get it?

ANYWHO.

We helped this lady jump her car!! That was neat! She also said we could come back and teach her about the restored gospel! That was even neater!!

So we are teaching this lady who floors me with how elect she is every time we go over there. She is so awesome!! She is black! Which would be awesome if we could baptize her because we have 0 black people in our Ward. Well, except for Clarence. But he is blind and doesn't know he's the only black person. Haha. Lake Butler is still stuck in the 1960s where segregation is still a thing. I want our church to be the first segregated church in Lake Butler!!! Anywho, I love her. She loves what we have to teach her and the spirit is always so thick when we teach her!! I love teaching people!!!

OH… THE D FAMILY FINALLY CAME TO CHURCH. That was the best day ever. It was so awesome to see all 4 of the boys with a Book of Mormon in their hands sitting in church. Oh my heart can't even handle the happiness I wanted to shout for joy and do a happy dance when they walked in. They had a good time!! They said it was similar to meetings they had been to but this church was so much more welcoming and family friendly! Reason #8492 I love the church. So that was a huge miracle!

Elder Zwick and Elder Hemmingway came to our mission to train us on
our iPad usage. We are the very first mission in the whole world to have this training. They are rebooting the Facebook thing and it will take a while for the trainings to go out so I won't be on Facebook as a missionary any longer. I will be home by the time it is good to go. I love Elder Zwick so much. I had some really special experiences with the spirit that day. Elder Zwick has such a powerful testimony and the love he has for the savior and for all of us just radiates off of him. I am SO blessed to be in this mission where all of these exciting things are happening with social media and iPads and technology and yeah! So very, very blessed. The trainings were very uplifting. I felt so close to my Heavenly Father and my Savior during them and I could feel the trust they had for me.. And it was just amazing. It strengthened my testimony of the Savior about tenfold. :)

That's about all I can remember this week... It was a very uplifting week!! Many miracles happened and we were in the right place at the right time. I LOVE when that happens!!! God is so good. :)

My next P-day is a Tuesday because of transfers. My last transfer. I can't even believe how fast time has gone. Anywho, I love y’all to the moon and back. Thanks for everything. :)

Love Sister Chamberlain :)

P.s. Me smooching a nasty, slimy frog.
And me and my MTC companion Sister W. I love her!

 

Week 71... Lake Butler

Hello everyone!! :)

This week was a wonderful week!! I was able to receive A LOT of answers to my prayers that I have been praying for FOREVER. So God is really good and I am super happy!!!

Tuesday was fun!!  We are helping the best people in the world build a shed!! David and Bobby :) they are awesome!!! They are investigating the church and David seems to be coming along. We just need his wife Bobby to come too!! That was awesome!

On Tuesday we also went to a self-defense class that the Relief Society had! That was awesome! I learned some basic things that will help me escape all the bad guys!! We practiced and it was fun because I felt like I was in an improv show. It was terrifying and hilarious!!  Yay!!

We are having a family history class on Saturday at the public library and we are inviting everyone we see. It's awesome because everyone we meet and invite have been SUPER excited to find their families!! Yay for family history!!! Yay for the spirit of Elijah!! So we should have a good turnout. :)

Also, we had an amazing zone conference this week!!! It answered alllll of my questions!! Then the sad realization hits that that was my last zone conference. Words cannot even describe how ... Sobering that was for me. But THAT’S OKAY!!! I was able to bear a "departing missionary testimony" which was... Crazy. It made me realize how truly I love my mission. Like, I thought I had an understanding of how much my mission has meant to me... Until I had to sit on that stand and give my testimony. It was the last place I wanted to be! But THAT’S STILL OKAY, I’LL BE OKAY. I just never want to go home. There. I said it. Florida somehow, somewhere stole my heart. I love the people here so much!!!

Anywho, emotional soap opera over.

I met a lot of interesting people this week!! We are working with talking with everyone about the gospel!! That's been fun and it's placed us in a lot of super awkward situations! Which is the best!!!?? We knocked on a lot of car doors and pulled off to the side of the road a lot of times and I just love… LOOOOOVE being a missionary. I love being able to share the message of the restoration with these people. I love teaching them restored truths like God still loves us!!! Evidence of that love is the Book of Mormon!! God has called a prophet in these times!! Jesus Christ’s church has been restored to the earth! This calling is truly the greatest. I get to help Heavenly Fathers children… My brothers and sisters return back home to him. I love it. I eat, drink, and breathe being His missionary. During zone conference a comment that was made was "the most important moment in their life up to that point is when you see them" holy cow. Let that sink in for a bit. Giving them a chance to learn about the restored gospel is priceless. Because they are priceless!! BAH!!! I love being a missionary!!!!

Okay, missionary love soap opera over :)

I learned the neatest thing this week via my scriptures!!! I was studying in the Book of Mormon in Moroni chapter 10 where it says:

32 Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

33 And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot.

So. I have always been afraid of the word clean. And pure. And "holy, without spot" because I never believed that I could be that. I have so many weaknesses and I make mistakes and fall short every single day. But I read this scripture and all the sudden I understood.. Like.. Everything! I don't need to be afraid of the word clean because I can be clean through Jesus Christ. I can be pure. By following the gospel of Jesus Christ ... We become perfected and sanctified. By having faith in Jesus Christ, repenting daily, keeping covenants and taking the sacrament every week we are blessed with the companionship of the Holy Ghost which purifies us. SO NEAT!! I love the gospel so much. I have learned that that (living the gospel of Jesus Christ) is where true happiness comes from. We can be happy from circumstance or the Things we have to how many friends we have to how much we weigh or if we win the lottery or how beautiful the weather is!! But true, lasting, inner happiness and peace comes from living the gospel. That is what I have experienced this week. True happiness!! I have never felt so joyful in my life!! I don't know why it took me 20 years to figure it out.. But I’m so thankful that Heavenly Father let me. So I can have the rest of my life to work towards returning home to Him. :)

Yay for the gospel!!!!! Yay for change! Yay for new starts, clean slates, and big smiles!  YES!  That's all I have time for folks!!

I love y’all so much. Thank you for all your prayers and letters and nice thoughts and mental hugs and what not. Y’all are the best. Thanks for sticking with me!!

Love, love, love, Sister Chamberlain :)

Week 70... Lake Butler

Greetings from the land of Lake Butler!

Hello, hello, hello!!!

T'was another magical week in the land of Lake Butler!!! :D

I love Lake Butler so much I could cry! But ain't nobody got time for tears.

Anywho…

So... This week!!  We had a Tradeoff!!! Snap, I love tradeoffs!! We went over to the W’s! The W’s are my southern grandparents. I love them SO MUCH. It's scary! We teach "Big Rusty" and try to convince him to come back to church. Sometimes it's successful… Sometimes it's not. I love them!

OH MIRACLE!!

So... We were knocking doors using this l’il survey President Craig gave us for door approaches and we knock into this lady whose name is Isabelle and we start giving her the survey ! At first it seemed like she was way too involved in her church to ever think about converting buuuut then we asked her if she thought the Bible was the word of God or just a history book! Welllll, she just exploded with questions of the soul like "where did I come from and what is the purpose of life?! Why are there so many corrupt churches?! There should just be one church!!"

After our jaws hit the floor we taught her the restoration and she's all ""I feel this sensation in my chest... What is that? I feel so good"

And we said "Isabelle!!! That's the spirit telling you these things are true!!!!"

Then she started crying with gratitude. Whoa. So powerful!! The spirit is so real and does testify to people that this church is true!!!  I love it! I love being a missionary!!! It just makes me SO HAPPY!! Sunshine lollipops and rainbows!! :)

No more time to tell you my other amazing miracles!! Sorry! Stay tuned!!!

Love you all :)

Love Sister Chamberlain

Week 69... Lake Butler

It's finally February!

Hello everyone!!! :)

It's finally February! I love February!! It's the best!

So this week was pretty awesome!! On Tuesday we went and tried to visit this ancient woman who had gone inactive since she married her husband. And we ended up talking to her husband for a long time!! He was really.. Southern and called us Yankees. That's not the first time I’ve been called that. Haha apparently that's a thing? Northerners are called Yankees. People still use the confederate flag down here. Haha. It's different!!! I love the culture though. I love it SO much. So this old man was probably 1000 years old and he asked us if he we wanted some "greens". Well, we said sure, not really understanding what "greens" were. (Green crayons?) and so he hobbled out to his back yard to his giant garden and started filling grocery bag after grocery bag of these "greens" they ended up being collard greens and he gave us SO MUCH. It was really nice of him. He was really funny.. He just made Yankee jokes at us the whole time. Example:

Mr. V - Do you know what these are?

Me- "uhh... Weeds..."

Mr V- of course you don't know what these are ... Cause you are a
YANKEE HEHEHE"

Mr V - you Yankees don't know how to cook.. Weeds.. Pff

It was pretty comical. That said. I love these southern people more than I've ever loved anybody in my whole life. Haha. They are so...  Authentic. Genuine. Real. Humble. Courteous! Southern hospitality is a thing. That was awesome!!!

SOOO GUESS WHO GOT BAPTIZED?!

Thomas!!!!! That was definitely the best day of my life!!!!

It was such a spiritual experience. He was so elect and it was amazing to see the spirit change him. After he got baptized he was bearing his testimony about the Savior and he just broke down in tears in so much gratitude. It was so humbling to me to see that I had helped him come unto Christ. Being a missionary truly is thee best thing I've ever done with my life. I was so proud of him!!! The spirit was so strong and I am SO thankful that the priesthood has been restored to earth again so that we can be baptized. It's the greatest blessing! He got the gift of the Holy Ghost soon after and that was just as touching.

We finally taught the D family!! Well, we taught the mom. And it was probably the most spiritual restoration lesson I've ever taught. It was SO powerful. Teaching the restoration is my favorite. It was so sweet, we told her there was a prophet on the earth today because God loves us just as much as he loved the people in the Old Testament and he hasn't left us alone to figure out things for our self and she was SO excited!! She started crying and the spirit was so powerful. She said we could come back and teach her 4 boys and husband. God is so good!!!! I love the restoration!! I am so thankful for a loving Heavenly Father who saw fit to give us the fullness of the gospel so we could enjoy the blessings of the Book of Mormon and the temple. :) We are working on setting a baptism date with them this coming up week! Please, please, please, pray for them!!!

What else happened... Hm... Uhh... I got the flu!! Again. That was... Super lame. I feel like I'm dying. My body is like.. Shutting down. Haha. Yay for the enabling power of the atonement!!!

What else happened...

Oh! MLC (mission leadership council) happened! That was amazing!!! There was an incredible training given on humility and I realized how prideful I am!! Yay for repentance!! Haha. But really... I am so thankful for the opportunity to become better every single day. And the fact that I don't have to live with my weaknesses forever is enough to make me do the happy dance every moment of my life. Humility is choosing to be okay with being yourself by not thinking about yourself and just using the talents God has given you to serve others!!! So good. The church is true. The sky is blue and I love all of YOU!

Haha!! I love being a missionary!!! Weeee!!! :D 
Love, Sister Chamberlain   :)

Hooray for New Members

Weeds d.b.a. Collard greens!