Now Christmas can begin!!

Merry Christmas to all my family and friends!

I Love being a missionary here in Gainsville!                          

 Mom and Dad sent me snow on Saturday, so now it can finally be Christmas.  Sister Blatter and I listen to Christmas music nothing like Christmas music to get you into the spirit. It still is weird that it's Christmas time.

But any way...

I got the packages!! :) I love the 12 days of Christmas, and I especially love all the pictures on them. It has only been 5 months but everyone looks so much older... :/

I opened up the ten hugs and kisses today. They sent pictures of them hugging and kissing each other. I thought it was a super cute idea!! :)

I have used everything I have opened up so far! :) I have even been good and have not opened up the wrapped presents. Though I showed my companion my really good guessing skills.

After I proved I could tell what was in a wrapped package she told me I was not allowed to touch her presents.

We have been sharing some of the treats with the other sisters that are close by. People just keep giving us treats. I'm going to get fat!!

!

THANKS FOR THE SNOW!!! :)

I made some up on saturday night then put it in the freezer. Then on Sunday morning I took it to our ward mission meeting. There is an RM who just got home from chile and he was just shocked.

He kept asking, how did your parents send you snow!!?!? It was hilarious.I even took it over to the bishops house that evening and stumped all of them as well. They think it's so neat.

Now it can be Christmas, I have snow. 

p.s. how did you know what outfit I was wearing when I got the package?? :)

This week we found 4 new investigators! :)

On Monday night we were walking around an apartment complex and met 3 13 yr. old boys. We talked to them about how they can get rid of the feelings that sin brings into their lives, and they were really excited about that. We taught them to pray and challenged them to pray every night this week. We went back last night to have another lesson. Only one of them was able to meet, but his sister listened in on the lesson too! He said he only missed two days and one of them was because he fell asleep praying. He said that when he woke up at 4 he prayed and then went back to sleep.

His sister was shocked that he had been praying every night. She said that this past week he has changed. That he has become nicer and kinder. Just because of praying!! :)

She continued to tell us that he has anger problems and usually has to take medicine for it, but this week he didn't need the medicine! :)

We might get two new gators tonight! We have two referrals we are going to contact, maybe their hearts will be softened  because of the Christmas season and will want to learn more!

We have had the opportunity to take advantage of the Christmas season and have gone caroling. It was really fun and you could just watch as peoples hearts would soften a little by the Christmas music. 

We are even going caroling for christmas eve and probably a bit on Christmas too! :)

I am so excited!!

Well not much more to report on.

Just had an interview with the president. He is wonderful. I had a question that I was praying about and couldn't seem to get an answer to, so I asked Heavenly Father to tell president what the answer was. I told President my question and he knew the exact answer!! Heavenly Father does hear and answers prayers!!

Our president is so wonderful, he works so hard to help each one of us and I am so grateful for that!

Well I hope ya'll are having the best Christmas week ever!

Love ya soo much!

Love,

Sister Chambers

Humility

Dear family and friends!

This weeks title comes from a less active.

We visit their family once every so often, we noticed that she had a post it note with humility written a crossed it. We liked the idea, so to work on our humility me and my companion write each other post it notes with Humility written on the top and then on the bottom the reason why we need to be humble.

So this past week....

I will begin with monday.

After p-day the Elders forgot to give us the keys to the car, which is a problem because we don't live in the area we work in. So we walked  to a less actives house then came back to wait for the Elders to bike back. 

When we got to the apartment complex we were not sure what to do but we wanted to fulfill our purpose as missionaries so we both prayed really hard that Heavenly Father would put someone in our path that we could help. Well Just like Matthew 7:7-8 says Ask and ye shall receive!

We did! A guy walking his dog asked us for a cigarette. We told him that we don't smoke, then he asked us if we were sisters. We explained that we were missionaries then he said yeah I know, I was raised a mormon. 

This was my face :O

Any who we talked to him and had a lesson with him for a while. The conversation ended with him saying that he would come to church if he didn't have to work.

Tuesday...

There is a sister in a ward next to ours, she has been sick a bunch recently. Because of this they  have not been able to do as much work as they would like to. So on Tuesday we decided to help them out. (After getting permission) we went over and Sister Blatter went out with the non sick companion while I stayed with the other sister while she rested. 

Now she is feeling better and they have some people to visit and teach! :)

On wednesday we went service tracting. We were lead to a lady, she didn't want us to serve her. She did, however, want us to serve her neighbor across the way. So we did.

Turns out that she has been to our ward a ton! Her son is a member but she is not, nor does she want to be, but she is 96 and very sweet. 

Thursday!! We had our Mission Christmas Partaaay! (I mean devotional)

I'm sure most of ya'll saw the video that I posted of our Zone's talent. 

Things like that just keep happening to me here. You sing one song then bam, everyone wants you to sing more. And also I got a ton more friend requests after that. I guess they just think I am cool or something. :) (I probably could use a humility sticker right now)

It was great to see all the missionaries in one place together. Can you imagine a cultural hall filled with nearly 300 missionaries! Because it takes us 2 hours to get to jacksonville the party and travel time was our whole day. Also many sister missionaries came up to me and told me they read my blog before coming out, I'M A LEGEND!!!! (tally up another humility sticker!)

Friday....

I think I had the after the christmas party bug... just kidding, but I was tired.

We planned for our week and then set out on the grand adventure of inviting tons and tons of people to the ward christmas party.

Saturday.

We went to go caroling at the mall, but found out we had to get that approved by the general manager. So we went across the street to the hospital. Unfortunately we could't walk around without an escort so we just sang at the entrance for a while. Later we had our ward christmas party where I sang o little town of Bethlehem. It went well. (humility sticker?)

The party was awesome, people dressed up in biblical garb and they had tons of easy ups covered in fabric, each one was a different thing (I can't find the word I am searching for). One was  bread, another fruit, and my favorite was the pastries one! :)

Sunday Funday!

We went to church, like usual.

We also ate a members home, who made me sing a solo. I think this is going to become a trend....

Some humor highlights for this week.

We took cookies to a less active for her birthday (she is the one with the humility post it notes) Any who she was not feeling well and nothing sounded very appetizing for dinner, except cake.

Her little 2 yr. old boy keep asking her if he could have a cookie, she replied,

"No you can't have cookies before dinner, we are having cake for dinner."

She looked at her husband and said,

"Is that ok, we are the parents, and hey it's carrot cake, there are vegetables in it!"

Oh how I love them! :)

Any who there is my week! We are still excited for the baptism coming up on the 28th! :)

This upcoming week we are planning on caroling, a lot!

Tonight, Friday and Saturday, Christmas eve, and Christmas. I'm going to have very strong vocal cords after this! :)

Well I sure do love ya'll! :) 

have a Cheery week!

Love,

Sister Chambers

That is not important....

So on Saturday we were out knocking doors, ya know the usual for a missionary. 

Any who we knocked on one mans door, when he opened it we began talking about the restoration of Christ's church.

 He then said, "oh we are not from here" (in a russian esk accent, maybe arabic?)

 I said, "oh where are you from?"

He replied, "that is not important."

all while gesturing his hand in a stop motion that slowly descended to his side. 

Yeah we promptly left, incase some other countries spies were worried about our where abouts. 

This week we engaged in a (friendly) competition with the Elders in our zone. 

It worked off a point system. 

New gator=1

Gator with a baptism date=3

So we were really motivated to not only find people but set more baptism dates. 

Unfortunately the Elders won, but that is ok because we really are all on the same team! ;) 

And next time we will crush them. 

We found one new investigator on Saturday night and were able to set a baptism date for Dec 29, She is 20 though and so we will be handing her over to the YSA sisters tonight. We were texting her yesterday to keep constant contact with her. We asked about her praying and she said it went well. We also asked her about her book of Mormon reading. She told us she read it, we asked her how she felt about it. She said that when she read it she felt really different but good. We were so excited! We asked her what she thought that meant?

She replied, "that the Book of Mormon is true!"

AAHHAHAHAHH Soo SOoo SOooOo  Exciting! :) 

Can't wait for tonight's appointment.

So Last night we had a really awesome night as well.

We went to a lesson with a gator named Dylan. He is 23..ish... Well about a year ago he had investigated the church because his girlfriend (now fiancé) is a member. We are not exactly sure why he stopped but that is besides the point. A little while back the fiancé  went to our bishop to ask him if he could marry them in the cultural hall. He said yes and asked her about the guy she was marrying and then asked her if it would  be alright for the missionaries to come by and talk with him. She agreed and then BAM we began teaching him again. 

We had two lessons and were approaching our 3rd. We were not really sure what we were supposed to teach him. Seeing as he has previously been taught.. the first lesson we got to know him and talked about how if they build their marriage on christ it will not fail.

He told us he just really wanted to know more about the teachings of the church, so the next lesson we taught the doctrine of Christ. He really seemed to enjoy that lesson and the spirit was so strong there. We were asking him some questions and he said something to the effect that he believes that it is true. The way he said it though was kind of tricky and we were not sure if that is what he really had said. 

Any who we were just praying so hard trying to figure out what he needs. We both received different answers so we just kept praying. We eventually just decided that the spirit would have to lead us. That we would just have to be confident that we knew the material enough to do an impromptu lesson. So we showed up said a prayer, and just began following the spirit. 

We asked him some questions and then I just felt like I needed to ask him if he believed that it was true. 

He said, "yes."

I think our faces were a little shocked. Not because we didn't think he did believe or that he could believe. 

So he is going to be baptized on the 28th of December!!! 

YEAH!

He could be baptized earlier but he wants to finish the Book of Mormon before he is baptized, that means he has to read 26 pages a day! What conviction he has.

Recently I have been trying to do the commitments I leave with my investigators but something is telling me I don't have the time that is needed to do that one.

We also had the Festival of the Nativity on Sunday.

It was really awesome to walk around and see different Nativity sets. We were able to meet one of our investigators there along with her husband who is a less active member. 

We are seeing soooo many miracles right now at this wonderful season of the Year! 

Also we called one of our investigators on Thursday. Last week we had a church tour with her. We ended the tour in the chapel and just sat there for a moment. She said that it felt so different in the room, peaceful and calm. 

We knew what that was!

I believe I have written you about her before but any way we got a hold of her on Thursday to see if we could visit her. She was busy but she said that she will be coming to Church on Sunday. She said that room was very different and she had to feel that feeling again. 

Oh she is so wonderful. Also the Bishop was able to meet her at the church tour. He is very excited for her and feels like she will be baptized soon. Maybe we will have another baptism this year! :) 

This week on Thursday we have a Mission Christmas party and I am so excited to see some old companions and friends. 

It does not really feel like Christmas without snow, but I like that because then I don't miss home too much! :) 

I love all ya'll!!! Bunches and Bunches! 

Hope your week is merry and bright! 

Love,

Sister Chambers

ps thanksgiving Florida style

Happy Cajun Thanksgivingkah!

So Cajun Thanksgivingkah, that is what we decided to call Thursday.

Cajun because we had deep fried cajun Turkey.

Thanksgiving, because it was Thanksgiving.

And kah because it happened to also be the first day of Hanukah. 

We had a great day! Our ward mission leader invited us to the biggest thanksgiving celebration that I ever did see. 

It was kind of funny because there was a good chunk of people that I am most likely related to there. Ya see there is a man by the name of John Anderson (he is also a former 70!) He was born in Bothwell Utah and he says that my great great grandfather was probably his grandfathers brother. So basically I just was having thanksgiving with the fam!

Approximately 100 people were there. 

We ate tons and tons of food and received a huge amount of left overs. 

They had a petting zoo, a hay ride, the golf ball game, bean bag toss, fire pit and even a BOUNCE HOUSE.

While everyone else went on the hayride me and sister Blatter went and bounced in the bounce house, it was the most physical fun that I have had on my mission I believe. We even planned on wearing tights that day to help avoid any embarrassment. 

Oh also people have been inviting us like crazy to come and eat there left overs. I think I will be eating turkey for another week...

Any who... back to missionary work...

I believe I told ya'll about the 3 investigators that we found on Monday!! Well one of them showed up for a church tour on Saturday and the other two came to church on Sunday!! There is actually a family in our ward that lives close by and they are super awesome and I think that they will be great fellow shippers. 

Also our 14 yr. old investigator was able to make it to a baptism on Saturday. An 8 yr old boy in our ward was baptized and we really wanted her to be there because he would receive the gift of the Holy Ghost right after the baptism. She is baptist and so we have been talking to her about the importance of receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost.

She has not been reading the book of mormon Recently and has been very frustrating. She tells us that she feels the spirit at baptisms and that she really wants to know but she just does not want to do the work to find out the truth. 

We have been fasting and praying about how we can help her and if we need to drop her right now so she can have some time to find out for herself. 

I told Heavenly Father this morning that I was going to drop her and if that was not what he wanted then he would have to intervene. WELL... this morning we got a surprise text from her saying that she is going to be doing some work and research to find out and that she wants to meet with us on Saturday at 3. 

I'm praying so hard that she is ready to be baptized. I hope that she will be able to be baptized while I am here. I am thinking this might be my last 6 weeks in this area. 

Oh also one day this week I just felt like we should stop by and see one of the active members in our area, I was not sure why but we stopped by real quick and talked to them for a moment. Near the end of our visit I felt prompted to just ask about some random furniture that was in a pile down the road by one of the houses. The father told us that a family down the street was kind of going through a rough time, that their house was getting repossessed and that they were living in an old run down home across the street. He then said well maybe you should go and give them a visit and say that I sent ya. So we did.

We began talking to the lady he referred us to and she was very nice, then her husband quickly came to the door. He told us that he was a member, was raised in the church and was looking for  a church to go to here. So we gave them our card, invited them to church on Sunday. Unfortunately they were not able to make it but we have a meeting with them tonight. Hopefully the wife will be interested in learning more about the religion and he husband can help her learn!!

God blesses everyone! All we have to do is keep the commandments and he will bless us greatly!! I have learned a very big lesson this past week about trials. I learned that there really are two types of trials in our lives. Those that come from disobedience, and those that come because Heavenly Father sees that we are strong enough to bare them and that they will help build us up and bring us closer to him. 

I might even venture to say that he blesses us with trials to increase our strength. 

This week I guess Heavenly Father thought I was strong enough to bare a new trial. 

One thought that came to my mind was were is my foundation? Is it build upon Christ? (Helaman 5:12)

How do I know that I have a sure foundation?

Well you know me being the Sheldon that I am (big bang theory for all ya'll who didn't catch the reference) started thinking a little scientifically. 

Well we can know we have a sure foundation if we test it. 

I feel like this trial was a test of my foundation, to help me analyze what my foundation is built upon and to even allow me to build it stronger. 

Well I survived my trial and indeed was able to come closer to my Heavenly Father and Savior as I relied upon them to help me through it.

Now I can testify with even more power that I know there is no trial too big, no problem too difficult, and no circumstance that our savior can not reach us in. He is always there to help us NO MATTER WHAT! 

Heavenly Father loves us so much and wants us to live with him again. He wants that more than anything. (moses 1:39)

Also we were at dinner one night and the patriarch of the family said the closing prayer, in which he said "Father help us to return home safely," before I just thought that that meant to return to that place we eat and sleep in safety, but I now realize that could also mean that we return to live with our Heavenly Father in our Heavenly Home again, in safety. 

My life has changed so much, or rather my perspective has changed so much, and definitely for the better. I love being a missionary. I know I say that every week, but I mean it every week and I only have so many weeks that I can say that. 

This is a wonderful experience.

Before I close this e-mail I just wanted to remind you all to look up Elder Ballard's talk from this past conference. He asked ALL of us to bring someone unto the gospel before Christmas. WELL... clocks a ticking.

Just because ya'll live in Utah does not make you exempt! There are still our brothers and sisters there that need our help! Don't just be a good example, INVITE them to learn more and grow closer to Christ and our Heavenly Father. Invite the missionary spirit into your lives and I know that you will see great miracles and blessings! And this I testify of in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Love ya'll!

Rock hard, rock on!!

Love,

Sister Chambers