Letter 12-10-2013

random bullets this week:

- We spent a lot of time playing dodgeball this pday with brother Ajer and the zone. It was a lot of fun.

- There's about 18 inches of accumulation on the ground now, and it's been in the teens during the days. It's definitely winter/Christmas in Utah!

- I really love Christmas and all the decorations in everyones houses

- We moved into a new apartment this morning. It's so nice! (thank you Bishop Olsen!) the address is:

6088 Shirl St.

Taylorsville, UT 84123

- Feel free to send letters or Christmas cards or whatever.

- We picked up Steve's Girlfriend, Shelly, as a new investigator. She's awesome. She's native american and Steve is really supportive of her learning more. What a story!

- Berry and Keelin are both progressing smoothly and learning a ton. Still working for the 28th. We're meeting with them tonight with our local marriage specialist.

- Personal study insights are good, but I'm waiting until I can verbalize them better before I throw them into thoughts again. If people want me to keep doing thoughts, anyways.

- Numbers are down a bit, but we're learning to cope with struggles and be better missionaries

- Therefore, mission life is better than ever.

Elder Chandler

Elder Sighting 12-04-2013

Email: "Here is the picture I took at our correlation meeting tonight. Steve Johnson (Ward Mission Leader)"

Letter 12-03-2013

I woke up this morning to about three inches of snow, and since then we've just about doubled how much is stuck on the ground. Christmas and winter are on their way again! (The members in our area are all so so nice. So many people concerned and wanting to drive us around everywhere. That includes having members at lessons so we take it when we can get it.)

In our companionship we've had a lot of fun with these last couple days. It's been in the mid-to-high forties, so perfect suit coat weather to just go out and have a blast. Thanksgiving was full of a lot of generous members. We ate quite a bit... but not as much as our roommates who ate at a Polynesian's house and brought home half of a pig. haha.

As per the tradition started last year we had a mission "Beat the President" 5k fun run in the morning. We didn't time how fast we ran it but I came in third place, so that was fun. (President was 32nd or so, so he wasn't -too- far behind) My legs were very sore the next day though, and I kind of lost my appetite for all the dinners.

We had set up to have one, two-hour dinner appointment (that's all our mission allowed), and afterwards planned to proselyte by setting up to go to members homes who had inactive or nonmember family and teach a brief lesson with the Mormon Message "the Spirit of Thanksgiving". It's always nice to try everyone's pies, too.

Our district as of yesterday just hit an on-record high for the amount of people we've had on date before, so we're very excited!!! It's looking to be a "white Christmas"! Pretty much every companionship is looking to hit mission vision and baptize twice this month. Exciting for sure.

--Elder Chandler

Elder Sighting 11-28-2013

Text: "Your sons have serious style!"

Elder Sighting 11-26-2013

Just home from getting groceries, a member texted this picture.

Letter 11-26-2013

Transfers are coming up tomorrow - Elder Mintey and I are staying again for a third go at things here in the Bennion East Stake! We're really excited and because of all the work we've done with members we know we'll be able to see a lot of success in the next six weeks.

Berry and Keelin are both super awesome. They caught a bad sickness over the weekend though, and weren't able to come to church on Sunday. They've both been reading the pamphlets and the Book of Mormon we gave to them though and know that everything that is taught is good. They're going to be baptized in December.

We had a mission temple trip on Thursday over to the Jordan River temple. That was awesome as always. Nice to jump out of our little area for a while (and out of the "world") to experience what goes on in the temple. Thursday also continues to be anti-mormon day... so many apostates show up on Thursdays to give us grief. The end of one was, "so what you're saying is, you've rationalized yourself out of feeling the spirit?" "yes."...................some people :|

More funny things... a little more than a week ago we helped this very drunk guy, Steve, unbend his fender after he ran it into a pole and his front tire exploded. We went by his apartment two days later, and after a while answered the door in boxers and slammed the door on us. On Thursday as we were talking with an apostate lady (who happened to be the door next to Steve), Steve randomly came out and asked us all if we wanted some chicken he had just unthawed cuz he wasn't going to be able to eat it all. The next day we saw Steve again and he gave us three referrals, including his native american girlfriend who seems pretty interested and a couple new move ins who have potential.

So yes things are still going good,

Elder Chandler

Elder Sighting 11-25-2013

Email from a Ward Mission Leader in Bennion:  "Elder Chandler and Elder Mintey with their bikes and 4 Calling Birds as part of our filming for our ward party. We assigned each organization one of the phrases from the 12 days of Christmas. The ward mission invited our full time Elders to participate and have fun with us. Unfortunately Elder Mintey had his bike stolen last Saturday. We just received word that these two fine Elders will be remain here in our ward for another 6 weeks. Steve (Johnson)"

Then this report from Grandpa Lewis about spending time with this gentleman the night before: "We had our  annual cabin planning meeting this evening with Wendy’s family, including Bonnie and Steve.  The Elders have eaten at their place at least a couple of times  since last reported and done other things also with them.  I am not quite sure of the meaning in giving the Elders the Calling Birds role.  Bonnie just called as we were traveling home and reported that the Elders had just texted them the message that they had just survived the transfers and would be in their ward for 6 more weeks.  I think this made everyone excited and happy."

Elder Sighting--

A text from a member in Utah who solicited help with Christmas Lights.

Letter 11-19-2013

Weeks are turning more and more into huge roller coasters. At the beginning of my mission, weeks were like Bulgy the Whale. Slow, small, but excited to be on the ride. Now it's like riding the Titan or something. Fast all of the time, tons of helixs and twists and ups and downs!

Example: Eric was going to be baptized on Saturday! We've been working with him for the whole time we've been in the area! All was great, until Saturday morning when he woke up with shingles, he was on doctors orders to not get out of bed, and isn't looking so hot to be baptized this Saturday either. ?!?

Example 2: Barry and Keelin are a couple that have been living together for a very long time. We found them on one of our first days in the area after street contacting a random old lady who said there was a couple living next to her we could try and stop by. Yesterday, we were finally able to have a sit-down discussion about life and they're very interested to learn more tomorrow about how to help their spirituality. And they're willing to be baptized.

Example 3: Christopher Senn comes from a really rough background. Really rough. Even though he's only 12 he's had experiences no -adult- should ever have. Consequently he has some behavior issues. Since we started working with him 3 months ago he has improved in so many leaps and bounds it is awesome! He has a goal to be baptized on December 14th, and he knows what he has to do to get there. He takes one day at a time and is able to put a check each day on his baptism calendar to show that he is making changes that will constitute a "great check in the land" (Alma 15:17).

Oh and we've officially decided Thursdays are "returned missionary anti-mormon" days. They seem to come out of their caves and attack us for some reason on Thursdays. We've also had a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses tracting out our area recently. I feel sorry for them... they always choose the streets that are "former stake pres -> bishop -> former bishop -> stake pres -> former mission pres". haha lucky us and our maps that give us insight into every single home in our areas.

Thank you for all your support!

Elder Chandler

Letter 11-12-2013

That's kind of a cool title this time around... 11/12/13.

This week has been an INSANE flurry of craziness. A week where you know you're doing the right things because things go so bad, then so good, and on and on. Thursday felt like a day and a half. We've found a ton of people to teach though so things are awesome!

On Sunday, Catherine and Eric came to church... but during the opening Catherine passed out into Eric's lap. It was pretty scary, so we moved her over to the couch and had one of the members of the ward that's a nurse come out and help us. She felt so strongly that Eric should be there for sacrament though that she wouldn't go until they had passed the sacrament (which is awesome since he had to be there to be baptized on Saturday). After they both had the sacrament, we carried her in a chair to a car, rode to her apartment, carried her up the stairs to her apartment, and then layed her down. We gave her a blessing and the nurse took care of the other stuff that has to happen, and bishop came. She's still recovering but they're so set on Eric being baptized it's amazing.

Also on Sunday, we had two lessons scheduled at the same time so for the first time on my mission I went on splits! It was so productive. I went with one of our ward mission leaders and taught the first lesson to a 20 year old, Kady, that the ward set up. It was really a powerful presentation. We focused the discussion (if that makes sense, since we still taught the first lesson) on past experiences feeling the Spirit, what it means when you feel the Spirit, and then recognizing the Spirit during the First Vision. It was so powerful, she told us that she knew the church was true! So she'll be baptized coming up as well.

The district also held 5 out of our 6 for this month. It's seriously a miracle what's happening as we focus on our silver bullets as derived from the mission president's handbook and Alma 26:22: faithfulness, obedience, and diligence.

Oh and it was funny to see that family history video with all of the cousins in it right next to Elder Nelson!! 

--Elder Chandler

Elder Sighting 11-01-2013

Text from a Sister Goodman. She said that they took the Elders to eat and then to the Church to play dodge ball. It sure is fun to see a peek into Ryan's pdays.

Letter 11-05-2013

We got our first real sticky snow of this year last night! Every day that there's snow on the ground makes me happy. snow snow snow

We had Elder Arnold of the Seventy speak in our mission on Thursday. It was really inspiring. He talked a lot about where our mission is, and where we are going. We have six missionaries online now doing an hour of facebook contacting a day. Basically they go and teach "finding lessons" where they invite people to write down every single non-member they know (pulling out phone contacts or facebook is ok), then star the ones that 1) are in the missionaries' area; and 2) that they feel inspired they should contact. The missionaries then contact people in their area or facebook contact those outside of their area. Yes, that means they teach people all around the country/world over facebook! I think it's pretty cool anyways. This is just for the Elders covering YSA areas for now in our mission.

Halloween in our mission isn't really any different than any other day. We found a couple potentials, contacted referrals, etc. But we do get a lot of candy while "tracting" :) As a result of Elder Arnold's talk, there seems to be a renewed energy in the mission to get things done. Everyone's faith is high, and where faith is miracles follow, which we're seeing daily.

--Elder Chandler

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We've run into a ton of apostate members lately (not that we don't run into them pretty much every day anyways here in Utah...). More than usual. So it's made me think a lot about how basic and important the knowledge given by the Holy Ghost is in our lives. Almost all of them leave because of "when they are learned they think they are wise".

In one specific case, a returned-missionary-gone-inactive told us that in order to find out the truth we have to "set aside our testimony of the Book of Mormon and look at the other facts for a while". And so I wondered for a while: Is there ever worth in doing that? Could you glean some facets of information that you wouldn't be able to otherwise?

To a mormon-gone-atheist the answer is yes, but to those of us who have felt and recognized the Spirit, there is no need to ever do so. We cannot deny that the Holy Ghost has touched each of our lives, and these experiences serve as a foundation for our testimonies (Matthew 17). This source of knowledge need not be questioned as a "false source of information", for each of us who have felt the influence of the Holy Ghost knows that the knowledge gained therefrom is not to be cast aside.

So just to finish up the story part, we stopped talking to this guy when I told him anti-mormon material was biased. He told me I was biased, to which I agreed. But he then told us that he had no bias, so in order to keep from laughing out loud in front of him Elder Mintey and I said goodbye and left. To have come away with a knowledge, though, that I will never deny, was worth the whole 15 minutes.

Letter 10-29-2013

This week has been so nice!

The temperature has been perfect, the sun has shone, and the kindness of our members was great.

 We're finishing up a really hard month for the mission. October has been rough, so we're really looking forward to a few new months in November and December. We had a slew of trainings between DL training, District meetings, and zone interviews. "The Lord chasteneth whom he loveth", I guess. Our district has really stepped it up in the last week though and added a lot of new people on date. Miracles have happened and will continue to happen as we are faithful, obedient, and diligent!

In our companionship we've had the opportunity to keep working with Chris Senn. Today we finished teaching him all the lessons... we're just a temple square trip and a baptismal interview away from him being all ready.

In any case Utah is great as always!
--Elder Chandler

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thought: the book of Ether

I just think it's interesting that in the book of Ether you find all of the characteristics of a typical epic. There are characters that take on a more-than-man role (the brother of Jared), the setting is in a huge worldwide area, and supernatural things interact with the humans a lot. Even the antagonists (Coriantumr, Shiz) take on a sort of grandeur.

Could Joseph Smith cram all of the characteristics of an epic into a very small book himself? Much more likely Moroni wrote and Joseph translated. The Book of Mormon is true! :)

Elder Sighting 10-24-2013

We got this text from a member in Utah who said that she called Ryan and Elder Mintey in to talk to her daughter and son in law who had just dropped their son off at the MTC that afternoon.  She said, "Come tell these parents exactly what he is doing tonight."

Elder Sighting 10-24-2013

Elder Sighting 10-21-2013

Email to Ryan's Grandpa and Grandma from Wendy's brother in law Steve.

Hi Bob and Wendy,

We were able to enjoy dinner with Elder Chandler and Elder Mintey last Wednesday. Today I got to speak in Sacrament meeting with them.  They are super enthused and full of the spirit. I look forward to working more with them as they were not involved in transfers this week. I know the Savior loves us because He placed these dear and very prepared Elders in our midst to teach our friends and neighbors. We love them and thank their parents and family for shaping their lives and testimonies.

Steve

Letter 10-22-2013

I can't believe how much the church has grown in Bentonville in the last year and a half or so. 65% growth in the last 9 years is insane! The saints are moving back nearer to Jackson county... :) To think I'm going home to a very different ward/stake then I left from is a little weird.

That's also a great stake presidency - I went to Mr. Mac in Tville earlier today and the guy at the counter said that Stu had just come in for a post-mission suit about a month earlier. Apparently he knows now-President Barney really well, ha. He gave me $10 off the $30 tie I got too while Elder Mintey picked up his winter shoes. It was also funny because I was able to see just how big the soles on my Rockports used to be compared to the wear on them now. They'll last me another winter though for sure.

The weather has been perfect lately. We've gone through some rough spots with investigators though. Something was said (we're not sure exactly what) that Katherine and Eric misinterpreted, and so now they're "taking time to think". :( We're still working with two boys named Jordan and Derek. Their step-brother Nestor was baptized right before we got in the area. They're funny kids. Derek reminds me of Jamison a bit in personality, ha.

The picture is Jordan on the back of Elder Mintey's bike.

Lately the wards have been doing a lot of work to set up appointments for us. Their work is starting to show fruits as well - hopefully we should have some more people to teach come into next week!

-- Elder Chandler
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thought: to expect miracles in missionary work

As we've read through the Book of Mormon as a mission, one pattern I've noticed is just how many promises there are made to the missionaries of our day: the last days.

One of my favorites so far was in our reading yesterday, Mormon 8:23-25 In these verses it tells us that we, the missionaries of the last days, have the prayers of six dispensations of the most faithful people to live on earth speeding us along. We have the faith and power of those who have moved mountains, caused earthquakes, and evaded the fiery furnace helping us out. The Lord will remember the covenant He made with them: to bring forth the Book of Mormon and the true gospel to all the world.

Moroni's following words on miracles run in this vein - they are here to help us in our divine mission now. Never forget that we are not alone in this work!

Elder Sighting 10-16-2013

Got this text from a nice 801 number--

"Just met your son-- he is amazing!!!!"

Letter 10-15-2013

This week was transfers - Our whole district is staying which is nice. A new set of elders is moving in with us into our apartment though. So no more separate showers :(

We've been picking up some momentum lately as a district (and zone). We've found a lot of people that are willing to work with us, but haven't been able to get them to commit to much of anything, including a baptism date, so we're going to have a nice district meeting this next week on that topic.

Chris' parents feel he isn't ready to be baptized on the 26th so we have to push the date back to the 8th because he has problems sitting in sacrament quietly... :\ We were able to meet with Eric again though and set a date for the 2nd of November so hopefully that runs forward this time as well. He and Catherine seem really set on it this time.

Utah missions are awesome!

--Elder Chandler

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thought: What should I do (again)

We've made a sheet that we hand out at dinner appointments now based on the "what shall we do" pattern for missionary work in the scriptures. This is something that might be fun for family home evenings!

We want to help make missionary work for members as easy as possible. We're going to flip to some different scriptures. As we read them, there's a pattern we will be able to pick out.

Acts 2:37; Helaman 5:40; Alma 32:5; Alma 22:15; John 6:28; Mark 10:17; Acts 9:6

What is the pattern?

Each is a huge missionary experience in the scriptures. Be it the Pentecost, the conversion of the Lamanites pre-Christ; Zoramites; king Lamoni's father; feeding the 5000, the young wealthy ruler, or Paul, the phrase "what should I do" always comes before a large missionary experience in the scriptures. People might not ask us the question exactly, but might also ask us by telling us all of their problems or asking questions of the soul.

In any case, when someone asks us "what should I do" that's the time to set up a time and a place to meet with the missionaries. If it works in the scriptures, it will work in real life. So what we need as missionaries is all the members to make friends and have meaningful interactions with everyone they can, and then listen for when they ask (and they will) "what should I do". Set that appointment and contact your ward mission leader about it!(...exclamation point!)

Letter 10-08-2013

General Conference always makes for a really great week! We watched it at a lot of different recent converts houses - we had nonmembers lined up to go to all of them as well, but they all fell through. Hopefully we'll catch them again some other time. Still, the talks were great. I really liked Brother Dube's talk on looking forward and not back. Elder Bednar's was also very insightful. I love how the church runs financially (as opposed to another large bureaucracy, I hear...). It's so simple. Elder Uchtdorf gave a great talk during the priesthood session... and the list goes on.

 

Chris is still shooting for October 26th and is great. His parents are getting a little uneasy, but they're active so we're going to have them pray like we have and get the same spiritual confirmation.

 

We played golf this morning and did dodgeball right afterwards. There's a picture so you can tell me how bad my golf swing is, how bent my wrists are, etc.

 

-Elder Chandler

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thought: Elder Uchtdorf

 

I think he's a master at getting people to shift the way they "see" things. His talk in priesthood session was a great example, but his talk on Saturday was great also. Some of the things in his kit:

1) pithy, quotable phrases

2) positive/negative statements

3) the phrase (roughly), "see it this way"

4) He speaks your point of view first so you know he understands the situation, and -then- explains his point of view

I want to apply some of this in teaching so I can get investigators to have the paradigm shifts that Elder Uchtdorf has all of us loving his talks!