The Baptist Bash‏ (week10)

So yesterday I went to my very first baptist church. So on wednesdays we have a Book of Mormon class where we read with investigators and help recent converts and less actives get more out of their reading. The elders have been teaching a 19 yr old and he has been coming to church and the book of mormon class very regularly. This wednesday he brought his little sister who is 13 yrs old. She has even come to church once. We talked to her after the class and asked her if she was going to church on Sunday. She said that she would come to our church if we went to church with her. 

So we did.

When we walked in everyone was looking at us, reading our name tags. They had a billion greeters and they held onto our hands for a long time very sincerely thanked us for being there and followed up with handing us pamphlets about their church. WEIRD, who gives pamphlets out about their church and beliefs... oh wait... ours does :) ha ha

So we go in to this great and spacious building and sit down next to our friend. They then had us stand up and sing, the music was really loud and they had an entire band stand up front. The music was not bad, but not super inviting to the spirit. We then sat down and they prayed, then we sang a ton more. They also passed out the offering tray and the pastor asked us to think about all the things Jesus gave to us this week and then give back to the Lord. We just sat there thinking... "hmm how does this go to the Lord when it goes in YOUR pocket?" After all Jesus wasn't paid, why should we be for the work we do for him? plus isn't that breaking the sabbath day? Any way then they had a guy give his testimony but it was really just a big long story about how he doesn't work on wall street any more. 

Overall it wasn't TOO bad, and it was actually pleasant because me and my companion realized how many people are searching for Jesus and Heavenly Father, and use to know more in their lives.  

After we went to bible study. We went with our friend so we ended up in a class of high school aged girls, similar to young women's. They read from 1st Timothy chapter one, and it was pretty good except the teacher kept talking about how we should really teach from the bible so that we are not teaching false doctrine, this was accompanied by looks in our direction.

We didn't say anything the whole time. We just read from our bibles(which were different then theirs) and listened to what they had to say.

After the class a lady (who happened to be the preachers wife) came up to me and began asking me tons of different questions. She was asking questions but apparently she really didn't want the answers because she wouldn't let me answer. It was so hard to keep my composure. She thinks its absurd that we don't believe in the trinity, yet couldn't answer my question about how Heavenly Father says this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased at Jesus's baptism if they were the same person. ????E?Eldskfjal;dksjf;lskdenlkn!L!LKJ:LK?

I don't understand! MAKES NO SENSE!

Also she never answered my question about why wouldn't we want more revelation from God? 

The words from 2nd Nephi chapter 29 (I believe, not quite a scriptorian yet) where it says something along the lines of A Bible! A Bible! We already have a bible and have no need for a bible. 

Any who me and my companion bore our testimonies and then they asked if they could pray ... basically pray for us.

So they asked for our first names. I said, "I go by Sister Chambers" She said no what is your first name, apparently she didn't hear me the first time, or I must have stuttered, so I said again, "I go by Sister Chambers" She paused then asked me why that was. I replied... "I am a representative of Jesus Christ, I'm not doing this for myself, this is not for my glory so I don't go by my first name."

The lady was shocked. So then she continued to pray for us, that we would be lead to the right, funny thing is that is a prayer that has already been answered! :)

Oh also in the prayer she addressed my companion by her first name and referred to me as "this lady" she wouldn't even recognize me as a disciple of Jesus Christ. That was probably the rudest thing that has happened to me so far. BUTTTTT... me and my companion wished them a lovely day and began to walk out of the building. They immediately rushed to the girl we were with and hugged her and  were talking to her, but then she left them and began walking with us. She  apologized to me for the preachers wife, which was sad that she felt like she had to do that because of her preachers wives behavior. Then she came to church with us :)

Any way!

We met a lovely lady this week who we will be having a lesson with on tomorrow. She opened up to us pretty quickly and began telling us all these stories about how so many of her family members have passed away recently, and how it's really hard and difficult for her to deal with. My companion gave her a picture of the Salt Lake temple and told her it is a place where we can feel closer to our family that has moved on, and how we can feel closer to God.

She seemed to have many questions about it but we had already talked to her for an hour so we told her we would talk about it at our meeting. I can't wait to go see her :)

Early on last week we went out to a small town that we can rarely go to because it takes SSSOOOO many miles to get there. We are now running kind of low on miles so we decided to walk around the town instead of driving, also this helps us have more visibility, and our mission president has asked us to spend more time out of our cars. 

So we walked, and walked and walked, and WALKED... 7 miles.

Then the next day we could NOT walk.

We ended up meeting a lady who we had a good hour long lesson with. She said she would love for us to come back so that she could convert us. THESE PEOPLE JUST DON'T GET IT!  I KNOW THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!!!

OH! 

LAST WEEK I SAW ALLIGATORS!!!

TONS!

I EVEN SAW ONE EAT A BIRD!!! 

IT WAS REAL LIFE!

CRAZY!

I can't show you pictures, however, because I left my camera and cord back at home :(

So I guess I should share some of the lessons that I have learned this week. 

I can't teach those who are not ready and will not harken unto the word. 

Also, investigators MUST understand the NEED for a RESTORATION vs a reformation. If they don't understand this one thing Nothing else will matter.

I don't know if I mentioned this recently but we learned about miracles and how miracles only come After you have done everything in your power! 

Sometimes other peoples agency is frustrating but it's really crucial to being on this Earth and stuff.

Well I guess in closing all good things come from God and this was a pretty good week so it must have come from God!

I have had a wonderful 2 months out on my mission so far and am excited to see what the next 16 of them bring! :)

I would love to hear more from all ya'll! most of ya'll are slacking on the e-mail and letter writing!

I hope all is well and ya'll can have some missionary experiences of your own! :)

Love ya'll!

Love,

Sister Chambers 

Trail Blaze ( week9)

So Me and my Companion (sister Atkinson) Trail Blaze a lot!

Trail Blazing: When one companion walks through a spider web and allows the other companion to walk through without walking into a spider web!

Basically I get the worst end of the deal, you see I'm a good 4 inches taller than sister Atkinson so even when she goes first I still get the tall ones that she misses. EVERYDAY you walk through a spider web, and then you become a really awesome ninja!

 I'm not sure what to write about this week!

We had two meetings this week. District meeting was on Tuesday (it's the smallest group of missionaries after a companionship.) Our district had 8 missionaries and now we have 12 missionaries including the zone leaders. On wednesday we had zone meeting, which is the next group of missionaries after district and there were about 40 missionaries there.

Our zone meeting was awesome!!

Any who, so if anyone is going to be baptized they have to have the desire to do so.

 this raises the question how can we help them develop the desire to be baptized...

We learned that as we teach of Jesus Christ their faith with increase. As their faith increases so will their desires to do God and Jesus will. As that happens they will be desirous to be baptized!

 AWEOSOME!

As we learn more about our Savior we become more desirous to do his will, and we realize that part of his will is to help other come unto him, so we do missionary work, and as we do missionary work we are blessed with more knowledge about our Savior. It's a perpetual cycle of wonderfulness!!!

I have realized that my mission is just preparation for the rest of my life. As my full time mission will come to an end one day I will begin my lifelong mission as a full time member missionary. I'm learning how to share the gospel so that I can do it in my everyday life and help build the Kingdom of Heaven!!

 I LOVE THIS GOSPEL!

Some pretty crazy things happened this week!

 We had a lesson this week with a guy we have been meeting with regularly now. His girlfriend and the mother of his two daughters is a member and he has been listening to us, but I think I have told you that before!

So we went over to their house to have dinner (love it when members feed us!) and have a powerhouse lesson. We planned to watch finding faith in christ and then talk about what the atonement meant to him personally. Before we could begin watching the movie his brother came over and was talking to us a little bit about his job and what not. Well our investigators walks in and his brother is in his chair and he starts to threaten him to get out of his chair. His brother doesn't listen to him like a normal little brother would so then he walks into his room and pulls out ... drum roll please... a pistol.

AAHHHAHHH.... Well lucky for us our investigator looks as tough as nails but is the biggest sweet heart you ever will meet. They joked around for a min. and then the brother finally moved and we began to watch a movie about Jesus Christ.

Then two days later we have another appointment with them (this was last night) So we are sitting down talking when their 5 year old girl heads to the kitchen to get something to eat. She sounds frightened a little bit and come back into the room to tell us there is a rat in the kitchen. YIKES... but we all thought she was joking or something so we send in the other sister. The next thing we hear is AAHHH it's swimming in the sink! At this point our investigator hops up and goes into the kitchen to find there is a field mouse, indeed swimming in their sink.

He gets the mouse out of the sink in a cup and puts a plate over it and proceeds to bring it in to show us... of course if you know me I'm wiggin out. Then he takes it and just lets it go outside on his front lawn. GROSS!

 SO I have decided that the children are pretty good at prayers here. I have two instances to support this one.

The first we were at a dinner appointment with members when they asked their 5 year old boy to say the prayer. In his prayer he thanked Heavenly Father for thunder, and lightning, jetts and fireworks. After we asked him if he liked those things and he gave us an adamant NO! in fact he hates them, but yet he is thankful for them...

Second we were at another dinner appointment and they asked their young son to bless the food, he then began to sing a protestant or methodist prayer. That was weird!

We met a girl on Saturday who is 19 and we had the whole first lesson, and she was asking really great questions! We talked to her for about an hour and a half and later committed her to be baptized in 4 weeks!!! :) in the very first lesson! AWESOME!

Love ya'll!

Love,

Sister Chambers

Southern Hospitality (week 8)

So this week has been pretty great but I have some items of business to get to!

1. P-day is tuesday because transfers are tomorrow.

2. You can send me letters now, I will be staying here another 6 weeks with my awesome companion!! :)

So Back to my week...

This week we were treated to many different and truly southern foods like...

Grits (not too bad with some sugar, like cream of wheat)

Corn Bread (YUM!)

Collard greens (yuck)

Fried okra

black eyed peas

fried green tomatoes

and...

ALLIGATOR!!!

Yup ladies and gentlemen I ate alligator. It's consistency was really chewy and it didn't taste much different then chicken, though I would not order it off a menu for a whole meal.

Now we didn't eat all this in one sitting. I think it was pretty interesting.

Another thing about the south is Mam and sir, everyone says it... "yes mam, no sir" so me and my companion are going to work on using it in our vocabulary more this week.

Funny stories so far...

so we go running in the mornings and one morning a guy on a bike almost ran me over, so I had to run in the grass. Remember how once I said that everyone and their dog has a dog? Well this became very evident when I stepped in something a dog leaves behind. 

Also that morning (or at least I think it was that morning) we were running when a football in the bush started running away. I was really surprised to see a football with legs and then it hit me that it was actually an armadillo.... they are weird.

Well I think I'm going to have a bad reputation here... One night we were eating at a members house, one of the little girls was telling me about a lizard with a blue tale. Someone already told us about those lizards, and we have even seen one! I got so excited and tried to recall what the lizard was called. I was also trying to beat my companion to the punch so out of my mouth popped the work SKANK ... I meant Skink... oh no... my companion tried to cover my mouth but it was too late, it was already out there. Luckily for me the youngest was 12 and everyone else thought it was pretty funny. I'm still dreading a phone call from the bishop or the mission president telling me that those words are not appropriate for our mission. :/ Woops!

Also I got asked if I was a nun... NOPE.

Well now on to the wonderful work...

We are teaching a guy named mike, his girlfriend was a less active... I think I mentioned him before. 

Any way...

After many prayers his girlfriend just got hired at the county health department, which is amazing because she can work more, make more, and doesn't have to  work on SUNDAYS!!! :) ( I never realized how much I appreciated things being closed on sundays until they weren't)

We were so excited for her, he was making fun of us for all being so excited though, he thought it was a coincidence, we knew better! :)

He is going to pray out loud this week. We have been meeting with him twice a week and is already understanding so much more! I really hope that he can realize how big of a blessing it would be for him to hold the priesthood.

Another miracle this week...

We got a referral to go and talk to an owner of a second hand store, so we did. We met with them and began talking, the lady told us her daughter had passed away two years ago and was still really having a rough time with that. She left us for a moment because she was embarassed to cry in front of us. During that time her husband confided that she has had suicidal thoughts but the only thing that has kept her from that is thinking God does not look lightly upon those who take their own lives. She came back, we talked some more, and gave her a plan of salvation pamplet along with a picture of the temple and told her we would love to talk to her some more about it. She said sure and gave us her phone number. Then she told us...
I almost joined your church a while ago...
 WHAT?!?! 

The only thing that held her back was smoking... me and my companion thought, "well if that's the only hang up that's no problem at all!" 

So hopefully this time God has really prepared her and she is ready to find the peace and happiness she is searching for in her life.

Ya know sometimes things are hard in life, or in missionary work, but Heavenly Father gives us trials so we can become stronger. I KNOW HE IS WATCHING OVER EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US!!

I hope that all of your weeks are going just splendid! :)

I love ya'll!

Love,

Sister Chambers