Letter 05-21-2013

Hello all,

We had a great week this last week missionary work wise!

We hit the mission vision in every key indicator except for baptisms and confirmations. It's a great thing to be a part of! Chris came to church this week and had a great time - we also got to take he and his family up to temple square. They loved it. We also met a mom who wants her two daughters, 9 and 10, baptized. They've been coming to church actively for a while now, just not baptized yet. We're working with quite a few less actives - especially youth LA - who seem to be catching fire for the gospel and want to share it as well. We've had a couple bishopric changes, including one of our Ward Mission Leaders becoming a bishop. Things seem to all be falling in place very, very quickly. The Lord has plans for this valley!

~Elder Chandler

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thought: repentance

During our district meeting at the mission office (the steaks we had were yummy!), our companionship role played with President Moffat asking for referrals. He asked us to do it in the context of teaching Repentance, on the premise it's what we should be "crying" anyways. So we did, the role play went really really well, President couldn't stop thinking about it, and so on.

But it really got me thinking about repentance a lot. So I went to the Bible dictionary, where the first sentence really hit me:

"The Greek word of which this is the translation denotes a change of -mind-, i.e. a fresh -view- about God, about oneself, and about the world."

As I analyzed the passage more, I realized that the first definition of repentance is the definition of the noun repentance. The more common definition is stated in the second sentence, and is about the verb repent, or to "turn your will to God's".

I love the first definition, and it sounds a lot like a paradigm shift. I feel that this explains the true effect of sincere repentance, the verb - a continual shift of your view of the world, until that view is aligned with God's. I've felt the power of this idea since I've been on my mission, and at no other time have I had as many chances to repent, to gain a clearer view of the world, until now.

My study brought me to one last thing, a scripture, I wanted to share. Read it with the enthusiasm it deserves!!!!:

"For behold, this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort [repented], what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge!

In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter."

~2 Cor. 7:11

Oh, and I guess I should add--
M. Russell Ballard from the quorum of the twelve came and spoke to us on Friday. He gave a great talk on the statistics that the General Authorities have run on missionary work and that by far the most important thing in the conversion process is... us, the missionaries. And deeper than that, the enthusiasm and personable-ness we show in our work. Good to hear we shouldn't be robots :)

--Elder Chandler

Letter 05-14-2013

Dear people,

Things are pretty busy over here in Midvale. We actually just got our weekly email from president which told us that our district, Midvale District 2, is leading the mission so we get a bbq at president's house tomorrow. :) When Elder Ciavardini and I set our goal for six baptisms this transfer, we've really strived to try and do our part to obtain our goal so the Lord can fill in the rest, and it's been amazing to see the miracles happen not just in our area but in our whole district. (It also helps that the Spanish elders in our district have eight people on baptism date... little mexico over here)

The nine-year old boy, Chris, is really a star. Elder Ciavardini and Martell talked with his mom outside her house and set up a lesson. While he hasn't been to church yet still, he is developing such a great testimony. In our last lesson, talking about him needing to church, I asked him, "Chris, why do you want to come to church? Why do you want to be baptized? Why do you like our lessons?" He was silent for a while. Finally I told him, "I'm going to read your mind if that's alright... It's because it makes you feel happy!" He gave me a high five for reading his mind. Then we turned together to 2 Ne 2:25 and repeated "men are, that they might have joy" until he had it memorized. Ha. I love teaching kids. (He now tells me every day about how 2 Ne 2:25 runs through his head EVERYWHERE, from school to skateboarding to karate. hahaha)

I love teaching this much. It's seriously a blessing. Now if only they'd come to church... but they will.

--Elder Chandler

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thought: D&C 121:34-46

I said I would give this thought two weeks ago and still haven't, so here it is. Sorry family for having to hear it twice, both over phone and written now.

I had been thinking a lot lately on a couple of random topics, mostly questions posed by less actives that I wanted to answer for myself because they seemed to be leading to something fun:

1) Why would the Lord work through priesthood authority given to only a select few? Would a loving heavenly father not accept ordinances performed with good intentions as sufficient? Doesn't that kind of contradict the idea that the Lord wants all of us to be with him?

2) Why organized religion? Why is it not sufficient to just do your own thing, march to your own drummer, while still keeping the commandments?

3) How does leading a principled life effect leadership? Why does success follow those, not that do all the right things, but those who are the right things? How can I apply this? What principles should I deem most important to follow to begin to really lead a successful life?

So, yes, lots of random questions. They each would have a separate answer if you were to answer them individually - #2 is answered by talking about the need for continuing revelation from a prophet for instance - but I felt that there should be one answer, together. And so I turned to D&C 121. And loved it. And memorized the whole thing (starting from verse 34) (by that point I had read it over so many times it took a total of like... 25 minutes to memorize the 12 verses).

1) Hence many are called but few are chosen (proceeding verses explain why there is need for a select few "chosen")

2) Organizations led by men holding the powers of heaven can bring forth blessings that include everlasting dominions and such... which is kind of the point of our existence

3) By living principles of patience, humility, love unfeigned, kindness, pure knowledge, integrity, charity, faith, and virtue (some of these are a little different from the original text, but mean basically the same thing) we are able to gain the blessings stated, most especially that "[success], without compulsory means, will flow unto thee forever and ever".

I'd say more but there's too much... so maybe we can all look over it again together.

What fun ideas! And so the work of shifting my paradigms continues...

Letter 05-07-2013

Dear everyone,

This new area is insanely fun. It's good to actually be teaching again. I think I was getting a little antsy with the inability to have ANYONE to teach. But I think I'm sane again.

We've got a couple great investigators - a nine year old who's mom is being a great help, and a part member family with a couple kids. They're both joys to work with and really have desires to press forward with baptism. Which is always good :)

Training isn't as scary as I thought. It's not much different, especially since Elder Ciavardini (that's how you spell it!) is mature enough to handle the load he does. There's honestly not much to train him on. So we just go and work. Midvale is great, woo.

-Elder Chandler

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I have to skip thought again this week. With more people to email now it's harder to get the time to write everything I'd like to :( Gotta have some time to play dodgeball hehe