Week 48... Mandarin 1st Ward

Hello everybody!!  :))

My week was marvelous!!  A lot of great things happened but I don’t have a lot of time to write about all of them!!! Hooray!! :D

Well we ate dinner with a member and she invited her nonmember fiance and she failed to mention that her fiance wasn't a member. Awkward. We figured it out about half way through our dinner appointment and then we started to teach him! It was such a blessing! He says he is really thinking about being baptized. But only in Utah.. Haha. It's funny... Recent converts think of Utah as the Promised Land. They all want to go there. It's pretty funny. :)

David the investigator we met in the laundry room accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon and was pretty excited to read it!! We almost got him to come to church!! We might give him to the elders or the Y.S.A. because everything that comes out of his mouth is packed full of all the flirts. . . . Hopefully that's not the only reason we were able to give him a Book of Mormon. Haha

I'm continuing to teach people on Facebook!!! It's great!! I love it! I'm teaching my investigator in JAX beach! Natalie!! Hooray!! She is making wonderful progress!

I went on a tradeoff this week and experienced all of the miracles!!!! It was so great!! We marched around with a giant picture of Jesus and invited people to learn more about prophets and the restored gospel!! At first it was a l’il awkward because people would open the door see the picture of Jesus and say "I'm not interested" and shut the door. But did that discourage me? No! We trekked on. We came upon a door and a man answered and said, "hey! That's the senator!!" He laughed and invited us in. I was shocked! It is so rare that people actually let us in! Well, we started talking about how families can be together forever and he started telling us how he lost his when he was 6 1/2 and he started crying and the spirit was so strong!!! It was beautiful to be able to bear my testimony to him that families can be together forever. We invited him to read the Book of Mormon and he said he would and he is really excited to! It was such a miracle!!! All because that picture of Jesus! Yay!

We had a lot more experiences with the spirit softening people’s hearts. It's one of the coolest things to see. This particular instant his name was Tom!! At first he was really grumpy because he was making bullets.. But we read to him the part of the Title of Liberty and he loved it! And wanted to read the rest of the Book of Mormon! Wow!! So cool.

And then we were about to go home but the spirit inspired us to knock one more house and so we did and it turns out that this lady had taken the discussions 15 years ago and got scared off by anti! We cleared everything up and she said she wants to start taking the discussions!!! SO MANY MIRACLES!!! It's been amazing!!!! :)

It rained a lot this week and it was great because I felt super hard core biking in it. The end.

I ate ratatouille!! It was AWESOME.

And that was the majority of my week!! It was great!! Sister Carlson got her death papers.... Which is super sad. Next week is transfers which means P-day is on Tuesday. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be staying here for another transfer, which I'm okay with, I love it here! That'll make it 7 1/2 months in this area! Crazy!!

Well, I sure do love you lots!!! Thank you for everything!!

Remember that there is so much power in the Book of Mormon!!!! Read it every day and you will become ridiculously happy. Yep. It is as simple as that.  :)

Have a blessed week!
Love,

Sister Chamberlain :)

Week 47... Mandarin 1st Ward

Flu bugs and old people

Helllooooo everybody!!! :D

I hope y'all had a blessed week! My week was pretty decent!

On P-day last week we got to go to the museum down town!!! That was super fun!!! We took lots of pics. Which I shall send!

It seems as if Sister Carlson and I have been trading off getting sick. This week I got the flu. Really, really bad. It was awful and I don't recommend it to anyone. That quarantined me to our apartment for about 3 days which was THE WORST. I could barely stand.  Talk about a missionary nightmare. Sister Carlson is an angel and took very good care of me. The ward members also took really good care of me!!!! If you’re going to get sick.... Choose to get sick in the Mandarin 1st ward. They will take care of you. :) The APs asked if I wanted a blessing and of course I said yes. So they brought over their "mobile blessing machine" (that's what they called it... also known as the minivan they drive around) and they gave me a blessing!! It was really nice. :) I love the priesthood!!! Woo!   :)

The only good thing about getting sick is getting to spend a lot of time talking with your companion! Hooray for automatic companionship unity points!!!!

So even though I got sick a lot of really good things happened. :) I've been able to teach a lot of lessons on Facebook! Facebook is such a blessing! I love being a Facebook missionary. I'm currently teaching someone in Nigeria. Crazy, right? I love it.

We were able to teach one of our investigators about eternal marriage and the plan of salvation!! I love teaching that lesson. It's one of my favorites. She is LDS... She just doesn't know it yet. I love her and her husband so much!! They are going out if town for two weeks... Which stinks, a lot. But I'm praying that when they come back they will still be open!

We started teaching someone in the laundry room of our apartment. That was awesome!!' And when I was sick we got to teach him over text!! 1848478 POINTS FOR TECHNOLOGY!!!!!

We are visiting thee cutest old lady named Jean. She's about a million years old and very British. She reminds me of Golem off of LOTR... But Sister Carlson thinks I'm crazy. She is so nice!!! I love going to the old folks to help out. I just love old people, in general. Maybe that's why Heavenly Father sends all the old people to me.

One of our investigators decided to move back to Wisconsin! That was sad because I love her .... And I'll miss her dearly... But we will continue to teach her via Facebook!! And again!!! Let's give it up for FACEBOOK MISSIONARY WORK WOOOOHOOOHOOOO!!!!! I encourage all of you to look up Elder Bednar’s education week message on "sharing goodness" online. It's amazing!!!!

This week I've learned really how much missionary work makes me happy. Not just the being a missionary part. That's fun... But it's the WORK part. Being stuck in bed for a couple of days really help you appreciate the work you do as a missionary. There truly is no substitute! When I started feeling better and could go out and work I was ecstatic!!!! I almost cried!! Missionary work is truly beautiful! I'm thankful I get to do this. It has been the biggest blessing to me.

I know this church is true with my whole heart. I know that because it simply makes me happy. The feelings I get when I'm living the gospel to the fullest are unlike any other feelings this world can offer. Peace and joy! Sounds cliché until you start to live it and start to feel it... And then you get it. And then you start to realize that everything the prophets, your parents, your teachers and friends have been saying is true!! It’s so good. I love the gospel.

Well, that's all I got for you this week!! I hope y'all have a fantastic week full of many blessings and smiles. :) I love y'all!! :)

Love,

Sister Chamberlain :)

 

Week 46... Mandarin 1st Ward

Jesus pictures and spiders... 

 Hello everyone!!! :))

I hope everyone has had a wonderful week! A marvelous week! Superb even! :D

My week was ridiculously slow!!! Woohoo woo!!!! Yaaaah!!!

Yeah. Some weeks are like that. Sister Carlson was sick allllllll week. So I studied a lot!! Yay for studying! It was nice. Actually. I sorta went crazy cause I can only sit for so long. . .  By myself........

BUT ALL IS WELL!!!

The whole week was good. We had a lot of little miracles. LIKE! We finally contacted this woman we've been trying for a while who was interested in family history and that was awesome. She is really interested in finding out more about her ancestors. We go over there and we find out that all of her mom’s side (except her mom) is Mormon!!!! Whoa! Cool stuff. I could just see her ancestors on the other side rejoicing that we had found her so she could find them.

We also had zone conference this week!!! That was soo wonderful!! We talked all about becoming more Christ like missionaries and developing more Christ like attributes. I really enjoyed it! I loved seeing all the missionaries that I have served with! Seriously so much fun. Pictures to come!! My blessed companion bore her testimony cause it's her last one. *cries all the tears* and that was really good. I saw Sister Joseph which was awesome!! Because I love her immensely. So all in all, it was good! And then we had dinner with the wonderful Tara a new recent convert!!! I love her. I LOVE EVERYONE HERE. ..so... Much... Looove.. She fed us gumbo. It is the first time I've ever had gumbo. It. Was. Awesome.

Mandarin Zone August 2014

I will tell you what... Southern cookin... So. Good. I'll be cookin that for the rest of my life. (Granted, I'll probably be 400 lbs... BUT WHO EVEN CARES!!!!:D) I also had collard greens this week! They were.. Weird. But good!!!! And ... I had a dish called hoppin johns!!! That was awesome. And then... One of the members thought it would be funny to feed me a spoon full of ghost pepper juice.
....
.....

Yeah. I'm pretty sure I have 12 ulcers now. No biggie. My esophagus hardly exists!! ITS GREAT! It was actually pretty good until I put it in my mouth.


Uhh... What else happened.
OH. Let's talk about the bugs and the weather. So I've had a couple of incidents with spiders as I think I have mentioned in previous emails. Well, they continue to happen.

The other day I was cheerfully pouring myself a bowl of cheerios and I turn my face and 2 inches from my face was a spider dangling from the ceiling. DANGLING. It DESCENDED UPON ME LIKE A HAWK. I screamed uncontrollably and grabbed the closest thing I could find, which just so happened to be a frying pan.. I swung it around like a mad woman until I EXTERMINATED IT. ..then cried a lil cause I felt bad..

And then!
Last night.

I hear sister Carlson scream. (She does this often so I just assume she is having a moment) Well, I walk in and there is this burly spider chillin’ on our ceiling right above Sister Carlson’s beds. She thinks it's a good idea to sweep it off the ceiling onto the floor and then to kill it.

Yeah...

Well it was a good idea until she LAUNCHES THE SPIDER RIGHT AT ME. I'm standing there watching this spider being flung at me and my mission flashes before my eyes. It then hits the fan (to which I think I'm safe) but no.. The fan just added to the velocity of its flight and it soon made a landing RIGHT ON MY BODY. To which I start screaming and running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

After I gather my wits I quickly locate the little vermin and AND I KILL IT. No. Actually I put a cup over the top of it. Named it Charles and put it out on the counter as a pet. And trophy.  Those are my experiences with spiders this week!!! Wooo!!  They either hate me... Or really really love me.

The Facebook event where you post pictures of Christ went wonderful!!! If any of you haven't done it I strongly encourage you to!!! Thanks!  :) 

I follow him!

So the gospel makes me ridiculously happy. :)

I came out on my mission to spread hope to everyone. I came out here to save souls and to bring people unto Christ. Little did I know that I was going to gain all those things myself. The phrase "the most important person you convert on your mission is yourself" is true. My Heavenly a father has blessed me so much!! I love being a missionary.  :)

Thank you all for everything! Take care and have a blessed week! :)

Sister Chamberlain

with Sister Carlson

 Mandarin Zone Sisters

MTC Sister reunion

Week 45.. Mandarin 1st Ward

Hey everybody!!! :) 

Funerals and Miracles! 

Well, this week was. . . the most stressful week of my life.   The end. 

BUT IT'S OKAY BECAUSE I SURVIVED!!! IT'S OVER! IT'S DONE! I’M IN ONE PIECE. Barely..     

Alyssa and Sister Chamberlain

Planning funerals are stresssssfullll........ 

Regardless of all the stresses and the sad things... this week was full of miracles. I could focus on everything bad that happened this week. ... Buuuut lets be honest. That's pretty lame. Lets talk about some miracles. 

WWOOOOOOOOOO!!!! MIRACLES ARE FO REAL! 

SO. One day. We were teaching a Facebook lesson in the laundry room of our apartment complex (super classy i know) and this man walks in the laundry room and we start chatting and all the sudden he asks us to tell him what our church is all about! So we did!! It was one of those beautiful moments where the Lord just drops people right in front of your face. Such a tender mercy. 

Then! We were at the church waiting for Jackie’s funeral to start and for her family members to show up and this man walks in and I think it is somebody for the funeral! I go over there and introduce myself. His name was Eric! He came into the church because he had looked up the website familysearch.org and found out that his grandpa was LDS and he wanted to come to church at the same one his grandpa did. WHOA. So cool. he lives in Arlington so we referred him to the missionaries over there! 

AND THEN, On Saturday!! Our key indicators were pretty terrible. Like.. embarrassingly terrible. So I said to myself, "we are going to get 5 other lessons if it kills me!!" This was a mighty goal. It was Sunday night at like 6.. and I prayed my little heart and asked Heavenly Father to provide a way. I didn't let myself doubt!! Well, that night we had 7 lessons. The Lord led us to investigators we hadn't seen in weeks and we had wonderful lessons!! FAITH IS REAL!!! It is so real. It was so cool. Oh my goodness! The Lord is so good to us. So good!!! 

Also, we helped Dixie with her dementia assessment, from a lady from a nursing home. Which was ... informative. And really nice! I'm glad that Dixie will be taken care of :) 

Jackie's funeral was beautiful. The ward members really came together and helped us pull it off! They are truly amazing and I am so blessed to be serving in Mandarin. A lot of her family came and we had such a great service. The spirit was really strong and we shared talks on the plan of salvation and the atonement! I know it touched her family. It was such a good missionary experience! We are hoping the grandma will continue to take Alyssa to church. They are kinda a rough bunch but they have good hearts. Jackie's uncle was interested and impressed with the service. Apparently he had gone through an open house to a temple! So cool. Jackie's boyfriend is now one of the Spanish elders investigators.. he wants to start coming to church! It's so cool how the Lord takes a sad situation and make miracles come out of it! I love it. I am so grateful for Him and for His love for everybody!! 

I have seen the hand of the Lord so much this week. He has truly helped me have faith and the strength that I needed for this week. :) I love you all so much! Thank you for your emails and support :) Prayer is real!

 

THE CHURCH IS SO TRUE! :) 

Love, 

Sister Chamberlain :)

Amen!