Missionary For LIFE!

I have been going through the awkward post missionary stage of my life.
I feel like I have done pretty well so far, but here is a wonderful list of things that I am still battling...
Not introducing myself as Sister Chambers
Not calling my roommate my companion
Not calling my other roommates sisters
The approaching cold weather


Though I may not be a set apart Sister Missionary, my heart is the same. I always want to be looking for opportunities to serve others, and my Heavenly Father.

One of the opportunities I have recently noticed is the chance to be an online Missionary. Ya see I currently live in Provo... would it suffice to say that many members of  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints live here? Well it's true.

I have a hard time finding someone to invite to learn more from the missionaries, so I have turned to the internet. I have been posting things about how excited I am for the upcoming General Conference which happens tomorrow.

One thing about Facebook, and twitter these days is hashtags! If you have not discovered how these little gems work it's about time. When you hashtag something it becomes easier to track. When many people are using the same hashtag phrase then it may become "trending." This means that it shows up on the side bar of Facebook, making it way more visible for many other people.

So here is my challenge to everyone... ha yeah missionary habit to invite people to act.... but any who.... I CHALLENGE YOU (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!) TO POST SOMETHING FROM CONFERENCE! I encourage everyone to use the #LDS #LDSCONF #GENERALCONFERENCE #THEPROPHETSPEAKS or even the speakers names. If we all do this we can be a huge force for good on the internet.


Well I think that is all that I have to say... I think I just miss writing to be honest.

Love,
Afton Michelle

I'm not ready to be a returned Sister Missionary!

So for those who have been Faithful in following my blog you may have noticed that I have not posted recently, which of course should happen because my weekly letters get put on here... yeah about that.

So on June 27th 2014 I came home early from my mission.

I had been having hip pains and problems for the past 6 weeks, which had been a really humbling experience. I had been to doctors who couldn't tell me what was wrong or what had happened, and to be honest I was frustrated. I wanted more than anything to run from house to house and talk to everyone in our path, which is difficult when you are traveling the speed of a snail.

I went to Florida to preach the gospel, not to lay in a bed.

So that was it, I was promptly put on a plane to come home to get better.
The plan right now is to get back out there as soon as I can. And boy, are we doing nearly everything we can to get this fixed. Trips to the chiropractor 3 times a week, massages (my favorite), lots of new stretches, WATER, and more prayers than I ever imagined.

I'm so not ready to be a returned Sister Missionary.

I'm not ready to date,
or watch t.v.
I'm not ready to hear politics,
or see loved ones fall off the path.
I'm not ready to stop praying for investigators,
or to be alone by myself.
I'm not ready to listen to the radio,
or to realize everyone's lives continued while I was gone.
I'm not ready for pants,
or to pretend like I didn't get a bit of a southern drawl.

But I am ready to do Heavenly Fathers will.
I am ready to uplift others,
and to try and be my best self.
I am ready to learn more about who I am,
and where I need to be.

I am ready to see some miracles happen,
even if they are only the small and simple things.


So here I am. Not ready, but ready, all at the same time.

I love ya'll.
Wish me luck.

Love,
Sister (Afton Michelle) Chambers

Look before crossing the road or you might get hit by a fire truck

This week has been quite eventful. We have been so busy trying to see
every Less active or potential investigator to invite them out to the
Luau that took place on Saturday.
The Luau ended up being a hit!
We had a whole smoked pig (which the church still smells like...) and
lots of fun.
We were able to have two less actives join us and 3 investigators. One
of our investigators competed in a hula hoop contest and won!
After the Luau we took them on a tour of the church, and they seemed
to like it a lot and wanted to come the next day. Unfortunately they
had to cancel at the last second, but they may be more inclined to
come now because they are familiar with everything.
Oh and sorry I forgot to tell everyone that this was transfer week...
that's why I didn't send out my usual e-mail yesterday.
Any who, a few weeks ago we invited a guy and his sister out to church
with us, and they came and we were super excited. Well we went back
last week to invite them to the Luau. The Brother was not there but it
was perfect because we finally had time to talk to his sister and see
if she had any questions. She asked us a few questions and then she
got to the Book of Mormon and was asking a bit about what it was, she
said her brother had told her some things about it. So we asked her if
she wanted a copy of her own. She got so excited!!! So we gave it to
her. She told us that she was going to put off all other reading until
she finished the Book of Mormon. Yipee!
We will be seeing both of them on Thursday to finally go over the
restoration in full.
With trying to see so many less actives we have been able to have
lessons with a few less actives that it is usually hard for us to get
ahold of. It has been so neat to kind of watch peoples lives from a
distant and see the Lords hand in everything. I have learned that he
continually gives us MULTIPLE chances to accept to live the gospel
more fully in our lives. He opens the doors for these less actives
time and time again. Now whether they walk through the door or not
that is their choice and their agency. BUT it's always open.
God is so Good. He is always in the details of life. If you can't tell
why something is happening you just have to take a step back an see
the bigger picture, or get a little closer to notice a detail about
something.

Oh so here is a story for all of ya'll....
Yesterday we drove up to a potentials house and Sister Shumway almost
parked in front of a fire hydrant, but then I pointed it out to her
and she moved the car up more away from it. Right after she parked the
car a fire engine came bolting down the road. She looked at me and
said moving away from the fire hydrant was a very good idea. We got
out of the car and started to cross the street when we got honked at
by another fire engine making its way down the street. (It scared
Sister Shumway pretty badly) So 6 fire trucks later we were really
curious as to what was happening. They were over by a potential, two
investigators and a members house so we were really interested. We went
and found out it was different house that had caught on fire. Everyone
made it out safely and they quickly got the fire contained. Though it
was scary it was a good opportunity to meet some of the people in the
area. It seems like no one here knows their neighbors, until there is
a tragedy, then everyone comes out of the woodworks.

Online work!!!
It has been so grand to have the facebook events up and running each
week. I have been able to send missionaries to a few different people
and send out some more copies of the Book of Mormon. Yesterday I even
posted a post with a quote from President Monson and a non-member
shared the post on her wall. Ha it is so neat! The Lord is really
hastening the work. We just have to keep our eyes open for the
opportunities to share this wonderful message with those around us.

So I'm not being transferred. Actually all the Missionaries in our
ward are staying in our ward. There seems to be some big changes
basically everywhere else though. We have so many new people in
leadership positions. It's interesting to see how things pan out, who
goes where and who ends up with who.

Another weird story...
We went to a members house last Monday. She offered us an apple so we
took her up on the offer. As she closed the fridge door I noticed
something. On her fridge was a picture of LINDAY FULTON! A wedding
invite. In Florida. Well turns out that she married the members,
husbands, best friend... if that makes any sense.
So it was a weird moment when the world became a lot smaller than I
thought it was.


I'm not sure what else to inform ya'll on. I hope that everything is
going well for you and that your summer is not as sweltering as it is
here. But at least we get a few rain storms each week... well it
doesn't really help because it just makes everything really humid, but
oh well. We love the lightning storms they bring.

Love ya'll!
Love,

#discoverthebook

Dear family and fiends how all ya all doing

So this week launched our facebook campaign #discoverthebook which
many of you may have seen or heard about. Well it was super
successful. We were in the Deseret news, and Mormon.org did a write up
on us. We are starting to get peoples attention. BUT this week is part
two. Tomorrow is the event #searchthebook. We want everyone to post a
picture of them reading the Book of Mormon in their favorite reading
spot. Make it your profile picture for the week, so more people will
have the chance of seeing it! The other facebook missions are joining
with us and hopefully we will have 100,000 people invited to attend
this event, but we need your help. Please look up the event on
facebook and join it since I can't personally invite you on facebook
to do that!
But we have seen MIRACLES from it! Me and Sister Shumway have been
able to send out 3 copies of the Book of Mormon to people. One in
Ohio, one in Arizona, and another to North Carolina. People are
interested in reading it. Also a girl found me and we have been
teaching her a bit. She just started meeting with Elders but after a
lesson or two with us she had decided to be baptized!!!! This week she
is praying about when. Super excited. Too bad my mission president
won't let me go to Canada to see it :/ ha just kidding. :)
But with the online miracles comes some of the online crazies. One
lady told me that Joseph Smith was taken over by the angel Mormoni. I
had a good chuckle at that one.
Our investigators are kind of at stand stills right now. So we are
taking a big leap of faith and dropping those who are not progressing,
and trying to find people who will progress. We need to find those who
The Lord has prepared to learn about this right now, and just let the
seeds we have planted in others grow for a while.
We have been doing a lot of tracting and have met some very
interesting people. Most of them have been nice this week. One lady
even gave us some mimosas and peaches from her front yard. Mimosa
smells so wonderful! The south really does beat us when it comes to
lovely smelling flowers.
I gave my first training in district meeting. It  was on the Book of
Mormon. I have come to love that book soooo much more than I even
thought was possible. A lady this week asked us why we carry around
the Book of Mormon and not the bible. Well I realized a bible wouldn't
do us much good here any way because everyone already has one, and
they all interpret it differently. The Book of Mormon is so important
because it really does show us that we have the priesthood power in
our church. THE PRIESTHOOD it EVERYTHING! It's the most important part
of the religion. If it wasn't for that we would just be another church
without authority to perform saving ordinances.
So many people just go for socializing down here. Its pretty crazy.
Oh I don't know if I mentioned this but our President has asked that
we ask our friends and family back home to join us in praying and
asking Heavenly Father to help us achieve our goal of 1,000 baptisms
this year. We need a lot of help and a lot of faith that we will be
able to do this. Each missionary signed a banner with their name and
how many they say they want to baptize this year, I will send a
picture later.
We also attended Emma's baptism this week. She is already a member of
the ward, but we took our investigator and taught the restoration. It
was fantastic!
I'm not sure what else there is to share except pictures! :) have a great week!
Love,
Sister Chambers

This is going to be BIG

Well I will just jump right in I hope all ya all that is family

and friends are doing well

So this week our mission is launching a huge facebook event called
discover the book and I need everyones help! Join the group called to
share and invite ALL of your friends. Then Tomorrow at 11. we need
everyone to post a picture of themselves holding the Book of Mormon
open in front of your face. We are trying to share this all over the
world and need everyone we know on board. All 26 facebook missions are
helping us and we have even gotten a hold of some very famous Mormons.
I will send an attachment of my Picture I will use.
This week has been a test of faith, but still good none the less.
All of our investigators dropped us but one, and on tuesday our zone
leaders said that they prayed and they felt prompted that all of us
should commit to a baptism this month. Well we don't have many gators
so we know that this is going to be a miracle, and only by the power
of God will this happen. So each ward fasted for one day last week to
jump start the month, and then this week, everyday we are fasting from
a different thing like music, candy, mail, and other things.
Our mission is trying to expand its vision. As part of that our goal
is 1000 baptisms this year. So Our president has asked that we invite
all our families and friends to pray with us that we will be able to
find those 1000 people who The Lord is preparing to hear the gospel at
this time. It's pretty exciting, but we need all the help that we can
get!! :)

Lot of things in the works here, including a southern luau.
The other sisters started heading this project, but have gotten so
busy with facebook that it has kind of been handed over to me and my
comp. So we are putting on a luau!! It will be awesome, we are even
having a full sized pig there and hawaiin dancers. The young men are
performing the hawka, and its just going to be fantastic.

I also had a surprise tradeoff this week. The sister training leaders
forgot to tell us, but it was awesome none the less. It's good to kind
of get away.

We had presidents interviews on Friday and it was so good to sit down
and talk with the president and his wife. they are super sweet and I
know that they are my mission president for a reason.

I also want to hear from everyone what their favorite Book of Mormon
scripture is and why... EVERYONE has been slacking at this. PLEASE can
I hear them? :)

Well we have a very busy day today and we must be going. So I bid you adieu.

Love,
Sister Chambers

yellow flies and yucky guys

Dear family and friends 

I hope you have had a wonderful week here is my adventure for this past week

So I have discovered a new insect, Yellow flies. They are
horrible. They follow you around and bite you and are just not very
nice. We accidentally walked into a group of them and they stayed with
us all the way home, which was about a mile from where we ran into
them.
The yucky guys part come from the ward members. Saturday night there
was a relief society event, a pintrest party, and everyone had their
phones out showing me pictures of different guys they want me to
marry. I don't think I will have any problems finding a date when I get home.

Any who this week has been interesting. Actually pretty hard. We had 2
nearly 3 people drop us this week and our investigator who was
supposed to be baptized called it off. BUT good news is she is still
investigating, and now the ward wants to get more involved to help her
get to her baptism.
With all these tough things happening I realized that something
wonderful MUST be coming our way, or else our faith wouldn't need
testing right now. :)
But on the plus side...
It was fun to see all the pictures of graduation this week, congrats to ALEX!

Not too much happened this week that is note worthy. Oh we did go to a
priesthood training meeting on Saturday, and it was strange to be in a
sea of white shirts. But they fed us pancakes, with ice cream on top,
so it was totally worth it.

One thing we are focusing on is family history. There is a sister here
who had to go home early because of health problems but has been able
to come back out, any who she said that the only thing she could do to
stay in the missionary mindset and feeling was to do family History.
One thing that I didn't realize that we could do is upload stories and
photos of our ancestors. I know that we have some lying around
somewhere, we need to get them into the system so I can show others
where I come from :)
It's amazing how quickly Family History softens the hearts of all
those around us. It's like magic.

Well, running out of things to say. Hope ya'll have a great start to
your summer! Love ya!

Love,
Sister Chambers

Mango Mac n cheese

hello to all the people I know

So Yesterday I had some great Mango mac n cheese. I was kinda nervous
to try it, but now I am a big fan and will have to make ya'll some
when I get home! :) I also had dolphin, doesn't make me too happy...
but they said it was an ugly dolphin. ?

This week was good...

Highlights include:
Finding Wild Blackberries,
3 investigators at church,
Zone conference,
Chinchilla,
and 2 parties!

The 3 investigators that we had at church was such a miracle. One day
we were going to go pick up something from a member, who happened to
not be there, so we turned around and were walking back. Along the way
we met a man walking his dog. Well he had a giant tattoo on the back
of his leg with 4 nails making a cross, so I asked him about it. Turns
out he loves Jesus. Also turns out that he and his sister are church
shopping currently. We invited them to come to our church. He said
hmm, ya know what my sister was just saying the other day that we
should try a local church. :) We got his contact info and he and his
sister did come to church! They sat behind us, and then our gator with
a baptism date came in late and sat down next to us. After the
sacrament our bap gator turned around and freaked out. The sister was
her music teacher in Middle school, how neat! So we invited her to the
baptism, and I'm pretty sure they are coming. Church was pretty great
because it was a missionaries farewell, he is going to Australia
speaking mandarin, so the whole day was mission themed, and the gators
have a few questions to ask us so we are going back! :) Miracles do
happen!

Zone conference was wonderful! We focused on a talk entitled the
consecrated missionary. It was neat because I don't ever remember
reading it officially, but many things stood out to me like I had just
read them recently. The talk was very straight forward about how we
need to really do our best and be exactly obedient, why? Because we
love The Lord. This has stuck in my head whenever the natural man
tends to ask why we are doing something. Any who, I loved conference
and being able to hear from our leaders and get ideas about how to
better help our investigators. Our focus right now is GENEALOGY.
President feels like this will be a huge thing that we can do with
people so that they can feel the spirit of Elijah, and their hearts
can be softened so they will be open to receiving the gospel
themselves. Actually that is how our investigator decided to be
baptized. We taught the plan of salvation and told her about spirit
paradise and prison and how all our ancestors who where not baptized
wait there for us to be baptized for them. BUT in order to be baptized
for them we must be baptized ourselves. Well that is when she knew
that she had to be baptized, so that she could help her family. It
just makes me so happy.

Chinchilla! One of our new investigators has a chinchilla, and I got
to hold it! Man that thing was so soft! I was kind of nervous to hold
it because it just looks like a hybrid of a rat and a rabbit, but it
ended up being pretty friendly. Pictures to come.
But our new investigators love learning about the church. We taught
the plan of salvation and they just soaked it up like little sponges!
Hopefully they will be able to come to church this week.

Parties! We went to two of them this week. One with all the people who
live in our area of the ward, and the other with the young women. They
are selling lumpia, which is like egg rolls, for their camp
fundraiser. We went over with our gator to help make them. The young
women are so amazing. I'm grateful that I have spent more than half of
my mission in young womens with an investigator.

Oh also yesterday we had 2 less actives at church. One had her baby
blessed and the other is trying to come more regularly, which is just
blessed!

Well I feel like time between p-days is just getting shorter and
shorter. Didn't I just write ya'll last week. Time is flying by!

I love ya'll and hope that you are having a great Memorial Day!
Love,
Sister Chambers

The ABC's of being a Missionary

Dear family And friends

Many things happened this week and we will just begin with the ABC'S

A and B are for AppleBees!
This thursday was Sister Shumways 20th Birthday so we went out to
Applebees with our carpanionship. (I have decided it was a pretty
clever name for them.) When we got there one of the sisters gave us
both gifts. Mine was a key chain of a bee to always help me remember
that one time that I was stung by a dumb bee.

C is for CAKE!!
I think a week ago I sent you a picture of that pink and yellow cake I
made? Any who this week I made and ate a lot of cake, judge least ye
be judged. ;) I made Sister Shumway special pancakes made out of
funfetti cake mix. They were pretty tasty. Then with the left over mix
i made cup cakes.
Her favorite type of cake is Black Forest cake. It is chocolate cake
with cream cheese and cherry pie filling. I must admit though that I
am getting pretty great at making cakes. This one was really tasty. I
liked it because there was no frosting on top that would sit really
heavy in your stomach, so you just felt like you could keep eating it.
Then on Saturday we had a meal with a member and guess what they gave
us... cheese cake, which is still in the cake family. And she gave us
some to go. I think I am getting all caked out!

Besides that we had a very busy week this week.

Monday- We had a lesson with our Gator Betsy and brought a member
along with us. The member was stellar and just invited Betsy over to
her home for dinner with us on saturday and to watch Joseph Smith
Prophet of the restoration.

Tuesday- We had lessons with our little Rosie before she went to young
womens, and also we have another gator also named Betsy who came and
watched finding faith in christ with us at the church. Oh also we
walked 3 miles to a lesson from the church, and 3 miles back. It was
really hot and we were really tired.

Wednesday- Our ward mission leader came out with us for a lesson. The
lesson fell through so he went and walked around the neighborhood with
us. We introduced him to some of our investigators and were able to
have two lessons. One with Denise and one with Mike. We even scheduled
another lesson for this upcoming wednesday. We also introduced him to
Bill (the wwII vet) (oh and Dad I did shake his hand and say thanks
for all he has done for our freedom).

Thursday- We had a zone meeting, and it was pretty swell. I love those
meetings because it brings the spirit more into the work and I have
noticed that each time I really feel the spirit stronger it makes me
want to work harder and do more! :) Also this was Sister Shumways
birthday! We just ended the night with tracting and looking for more
people to teach.

Friday- I felt really really really sick when I woke up. We took the
carpanionship sisters to a meeting that they had, then we went to
another room to study and I fell asleep on the ground. Later we talked
to the Mission Presidents wife and it turned out I was just really,
really, really dehydrated. She made me drink 3 water bottles right in
front of her. That seemed to help a lot, but now everyone is on my
case about how much water I am drinking. We planned for our week and
then took off to tract. We were walking a street we usually walk on
and then I noticed that another street stems out from it. So we
decided to go down it. The first 2 houses were duds. The third house
we knocked on a man came to the door and then said that he was going
to get the lady of the house. When she came walking up she was
carrying a load of laundry and seemed a bit frustrated that someone
was at the door for her. She threw the basket down and then turned to
see who it was. Surprisingly we knew her and she knew us!! She is
actually pretty good friends with a member and a less active. We had
met her about a month ago at the hospital when we went to see our less
active and her new baby. So instantly perked up and invited us in. We
were able to share with her the message of the restoration and invited
her to be baptized and read the Book of Mormon. She said yes!! We are
meeting with her next friday and a member (her friend) might even host
it in her home!!! Oh God is Good! It's more then just good luck that
we knocked on her door.
After we realized that we had given her the last copy of the Book of
Mormon in my bag so we headed back to the car for more. On our return
back there were some people out smoking and drinking in their drive
way so we went up to talk to them. One man invited us to a bbq and to
the beach on Sunday. He also invited us to partake of items that are
against the word of wisdom. We declined. He then asked if we were nuns
and we told him we were missionaries and then he de-invited us to the
bbq. He said other interesting things that I may just need to save for
stories when I arrive home. The best way to put it was that he was way
drunk. Maybe when he sobers up he will find out card and check out the
website. I guess we can only hope.

We then continued down the street and saw one of our gators out
smoking with one of our potentials. She seemed to be having a rough
day. We went over and talked, and she had some great questions about
the plan of salvation. We taught the second lesson and found out that
she really does want to stop smoking. We told her about the power that
the Book of Mormon can really give her, a power that could even help
her overcome her weaknesses. She was pretty intrigued by that. I hope
she puts more effort into reading it!

Saturday- We helped said gator with a garage sale in the morning. She
then introduced us to some of her neighbors and it was the sweetest
thing because she introduced us as her sisters. I love her and I am so
sad that her house sold so she is moving in a month to wyoming. She
said that after our missions we have to come visit her, so we are
already mapping out a road trip!!! Maybe she will be baptized by then
and we can go to the temple with her soon after!! :) Please keep
praying that Denise will read the Book of Mormon!! :)

We had correlation with our ward mission leader who seemed to be very
impressed with the work me and sister Shumway are doing. Which is kind
of abnormal for him. He seems to look for your faults and point them
out. It's all in good work though because he wants to see us work like
a finely tuned machine. I was also flattered a bit when he told me he
is going to be really upset when I leave and that he will call
president craig and give him a piece of his mind if he decided to move
me. (also mind you he is a welch man and everything he says is in a
British accent, I'm getting pretty good at mimicking him)

Following our meeting we had dinner with the other sisters at Sister
Davelines along with our investigator Betsy. She really enjoyed
watching Joseph Smith: prophet of the restoration, though she seemed
to gain a lot of questions, like what where with the oxen in the
temples, and what where the swoopy  nosed creatures (the sun stones on
the temple)

Sunday- We went to the Fort Lauderdale Temple dedication! It was so
wonderful. Uchdorf spoke and he was pretty comical. He said that he
was so glad to see all the young people that were in attendance, and
that some of them were still awake. He said that it was ok that others
were sleeping because a church sleep is a healthy sleep, that they had
come there to find peace, and peace they found. One thing he said that
I really enjoyed was that things of the temple can not be explained,
they can only be felt. He gave the example of a boy asking his parents
how they knew they loved him, when they tried to explain their answers
the young boy was not pleased with the response. The parents then
asked him how he knew that he loved them, he said I feel it here, in
my heart.
I have learned that one of the biggest things of this gospel is not
necessarily knowing, or learning, but feeling. The Spirit will always
testify of truths, so all we have to do is become so in tune that we
will be able to hear him testifying to us.
We stopped by and saw Betsy and were able to read the first chapter of
the Book of Mormon with her. She is the sweetest little old lady that
you have ever met. Except for my grandmas of course.

But any who I have big news!!
On thursday I get to go to the Orlando Temple!!! YAY!
1 yr ago on the 3rd I received my own endowment.
1 yr ago on the 4th I opened my mission call.
Now I get to go back to the house of The Lord. It seemed like this
would never be a possibility for me on my mission because Orlando is
not within our mission boundaries. But now we can attend twice on our
missions, our half way mark, and right before we go home. It will be
so wonderful to see everyone from the MTC there with me. We were
unfortunate to not be able to go to the temple together when we were
at the MTC because the provo temple was closed for cleaning. But now
we get to go and I am sooooo excited!
Also next Mother's Day I get to talk to mi familia! Wahoo! Can't wait,
this is the best week ever!!!


So here are some requests of ya'll this week.
Pray for Betsy, Denise, and Jennifer to read the Book of Mormon.
Pray for Mike's heart to be opened.
And pray that Rosangela will pick a day to be  baptized this month.



Also I would like to hear your "Ah Ha" moments from the Book of
Mormon. Our mission Presidents wife has been asking for us to share
these with her for all of my mission and it has been really neat to
read some of them. But just this past week our mission President and
his wife had the opportunity to meet with Elder Holland and some other
Mission Presidents. Elder Holland said that we as a church need to be
having more "Ah Ha" moments with the Book of Mormon. These will come
as we truly search for knowledge from the Book of Mormon. So please
share your insights with me! They may just be inspiration that will
help me with my investigators.

Well I love all of ya'll!
I love ya little, I love ya big, I love you like a little pig. However
that much is...? :)

I hope you make this week just as awesome of a week as mine is looking
out to be!
Love,
Sister Chambers

Rigamortis

Dear family and friends

This week we have had to walk extra because we are out of miles. Moral
of the story if you drive 50-60 miles a day you are going to run out
very quickly of the 1100 allotted  miles. We have had many adventures
walking. One of our least favorite parts is that the blood rushes to
your fingers and then they swell up. 

A bit ago all 4 of us sisters in 

the car share were hopping into the car when they saw a snake. They
couldn't tell whether or not it was alive so they decided to poke it.
Then they lifted it up on a pen and when they did so it kept it's
shape because it was rigamortis (spelling?) So this week whenever
Sister Shumways fingers swell up she tells me they are rigamortis. Ha.

We also met this old guy. And I can say he is old because this
upcoming week he will be turning 90! Any who he has a very neat story,
turns out he was a Japanese prisoner of war during World War II.
During our first encounter he was not interested in hearing our
message or allowing us to help him, but being as we walk a lot he saw
us walking on saturday and invited us to a sprite. He asked if we
wanted a little one or a big one. Wanting to be conservative we said
that we only wanted a little one. He proceeded to pull out these itty
bitty cans of sprite. Then he said Oh I have a little beer to match
it! HA HA he reminded me a lot of Grandpa Chambers. Before we left he
gave us pictures of him when he entered the navy, then 70 years later
in the same location, and a picture of the ship that he was on when it
sunk and he became a P.O.W. Then we happened upon him last night as
well and this time he had prepared for us a big book filled with his
whole story. It is pretty neat to read his experience and see how he
continued to preserver even during really horrible circumstances. He
is still not interested in learning more about our church, but he may
have invited us to his birthday party.

Oh I am training to run a 5k! A bunch of us missionaries are going to
get shirts made up with a name tag and tie on the front with Mormon
missionaries on the back, along with mormon.org. We have heard from a
ward member that it is a great way to get media referrals! :) So
because we only have 1/2 an hour in the morning we have condensed our
nightly planning to be able to go out and run about a mile and half
before we go to sleep. I thought that I was exhausted when I got home
before, but now I am convinced that nothing can wake  me up at night!
I sleep not just like a rock, but like a boulder

Miracles are in abundance here though! A week or two ago we met a
little old lady who was walking her dog and found out that she had
been to one of our buildings in Orange Park to do family history
(because our building does not have a family history center, it has an
institute instead.) Any way... We told her that we would find someone
who would be able to teach her more about how to do her family history
on her own and she thought that sounded like a wonderful idea!! We
then remembered that we had a twig meeting set up this week just for
family history. We left a little invitation on her doorstep one day
because she was not home. We were not sure if she would turn up or not
so we were kind of playing it by ear. As the time drew nigh we were
nearly positive that she was not going because we had called her and
had not heard back from her. BUT then a little ray of hope came, the
other sisters in our ward called us and asked us if we knew a Betsy?
Oh we rushed to the church as fast as the regulated speed limit would
allow. (Yes, we are being exactly obedient and following the laws of
the land.) We had a great evening and learned more about how we can do
our family history. Then we decided to take her on a little tour to
the chapel. When we got there and turned on the light she said it was
a wonderful room and she enjoyed it a lot. We invited her to come and
visit our church, and then came a whole slew of questions. We were
able to give her a Book of Mormon and she said that she would think
about going to church on sunday because 12:30 was not too early for
her.
Unfortunately she didn't come on Sunday but we have an appointment
with her tonight at 8! and a member is coming! wahoo!

Oh also on Tuesday we met with one of our recent converts friends and
she ended up teaching us the restoration. Her family is from Cuba and
she then told us how there were two elders who would go over to their
home and her Dad would always get excited. She then told us that they
had a video about Joseph Smith and that her family watches it pretty
often. WOW! GOLDEN GATOR! So We were able to set a baptism date with
her for the 17th of May.
On Sunday we went to class with her, in young womens they talked about
the restoration of the priesthood and what that means for all of us.
She had some really good questions and then after the lesson she told
us that she wanted a priesthood blessing. So we got the elders and
they were able to give her a blessing, she loved it!
Later we found out that she has some concerns about being baptized so
this week we are going to try and really understand what would be
holding her back.

Our pool of investigators has grown a lot since we have been walking
which is super wonderful. Now we are just working to find out who is
really ready to work to find the truth. As we are walking around
everywhere people are really noticing us. People are waving and
smiling at us, which does not always happen as a missionary, but I
feel like we have become a staple in the community. :)
Just this week a lady brought us care packages. We are not sure who
she is, whether she is a member of another ward, a less active, or a
non-member completely. But she brought all 4 of us in our car share a
little package. It has sunscreen, aloe, a hand fan, sun glasses,
slippers, salt foot soak, shoe insoles, and little wash clothes. She
said that the spirit lead her to make these little packages for us and
then when she dropped them off she wouldn't tell anyone who she was
and said let not the left hand know what the right hand is doing.
Pretty neat if you ask me.

Sometimes it's fun to see life from my companions perspective, so here
it is... :)

"Bro Jenkins: "How do you recognize truth?"
YM: "if it feels right."
Mallory: "it felt right to eat a cupcake... But then I threw up..."

This week has been interesting... We have done a lot of tracting, we
are helping the other sisters find some investigators. We were
knocking this neighborhood and we got to this door and I knocked,
sister chambers looked at the house number funny, and then turned to
me and opened her mouth to tell me something, when the door opened....
And sister Patch stood there (her husband is in the mission
presidency) I got really embarrassed and said "sorry we accidentally
knocked on your door-" and sister chambers elbowed me in the ribs, and
said "we were just in the neighborhood and wanted to see how you were
doing!!" Sister Patch just laughed and invited us in for some water.
Ha ha ha. If you haven't figured it out yet... Missionaries are
compulsive liars. Ha ha ha in the best way possible though... :)
We have a really great ward mission leader here in mandarin. His name
is Dave Mathews (imagine my shock when I was looking at his friend
list and found out that he is friends with my mom... Weird... It is
like mission and home life is mixing that is weird... :) ) any way he
is hilarious. He used to be JW, so he knows too much about missionary
work. We were talking with him and he was trying to get us to look for
more refurals  and he was all like (he is a Welshman so imagine the
following in a British accent) "it isn't that hard! All you have to do
is get a copy of the news paper and look at the obituaries!! Automatic
refural for someone in distress!! Then you go to the rest of the
families effected... And BOOM automatic 5 families!!" He also told us
how you can access tax records to get peoples's information... No
worries I have no plans to use that method, people get angry enough
when we knock on their door. Ha ha ha needless to say the work here is
a lot different from St. Augustine!! Ha ha ha
A couple weeks ago we had been tracting with the other sisters and
were heading back to the the car. Sister Chambers got in the driver's
side and I walked around to the other side and right in front of my
door was a snake, it was black with a blue stripe down its back. I
just sat there watching it waiting for it to move when the other 2
sisters came up behind me and asked if it was dead.... We didn't know,
so we poked it with a stick, and it didn't move so we poked again...
Same result... So we picked it up with two sticks and and it retained
the same shape! Ew! So threw it into the Forrest. We got back in the
car. Sister chambers was just sitting there and was like "what took so
long?" Me: there was a snake,  her: how do you know it was dead? Me:
it was rigamortis  ha ha ha , later we had been walking for a couple
miles when sister chambers started walking like those older ladies
that go walking in groups in the morning  :) aka speed walking with
her hands up and arms swinging. I thought that either she was trying
to walk faster or burn more calories walking or something... So I
dicided to follow her example but I must have gotten more in to it....
Because she turned to me and asked what in the world I was doing. I
stopped and was all like, I don't know... What are you doing?? Her: I
am trying to stop my fingers swelling. I looked down at my fingers
that resembled sausages more so than usual, the I lifted the slowly to
eye level and declared "they are rigamortis!!" Ha ha ha "

I know our Father in Heaven is mindful of all of us! This week I had a
few rough days were I was frustrated with the car and mile
circumstance, but got would send me angels each time I needed a pick
me up. Sometimes he just send members driving down the road we are
walking on and they may honk and wave and it just cheers me up! or
sometimes they even pull over and talk to you for a moment. I love it!
Who needs angels in white robes when you have members who listen to
the spirit! :) There truly is angels among us.


I feel my desires changing... it's kind of strange. All I want to do
is think and talk about my investigators. In the past it would be easy
to talk about pop culture before the mission, music, movies, books,
t.v. shows, but now I really could care less. My favorite music is the
lamb of God, my favorite movie is Joseph Smith: prophet of the
restoration, my favorite book is the Book of Mormon, and my favorite
t.v. shows are the bible videos. Everyday really is one less day that
I have to spend out here doing The Lords will. That is a sad thought
to think about.

Pop quiz this week: Did Jesus Christ prophesy that Peter would deny
him 3 times or did he command him to deny him 3 times?

-Think about it though... Peter was with Jesus ALWAYS. But Jesus gave
Peter the keys, he would be the next in line, so it was important that
he was not killed or the church would not have a leader... pretty
interesting.

another thing to ponder: Matthew 16:15-19
What does peter mean? Footnote 18 a! :)

Also it is my duty to follow up with all of you... how is your reading
of preach my gospel coming? Remember that we were all asked by an
apostle of The Lord Jesus Christ to do so! ;)

Well I love all of you! SOOOO MUCH!
I hope that this week you can see miracles too!

Love,
Sister Chambers

This one time....

Dear family and friends

So Sister Shumway has experienced me at my tiredest this week, which
resulted in us lying in bed and me listing off a bunch of crazy
stories from my life, and each one began with this one time...

We have had a fantastic week, I was so tired because we have been
talking to so many people and have just been so busy!!

We have 3 new investigators this week!! Oh I love walking. It makes it
so easy to just go up to people and talk to them. I am loving it!
First few days my feet and my legs were sore, but now I think I'm
getting used to it.

So this one time.... we were walking in an area and looking for people
out and about that we could help. We were walking by this one house
when I felt the spirit tell me to go knock on it... I shrugged it
off... then it told me to go knock on it again... and I ignored it...
then the prompting came a third time. Me and sister Shumway were in
the middle of the road almost completely passed the house when I just
threw my hands in the air and said fine and began back to knock that
houses door. Just as we were about to knock we noticed that she had a
bunch of mulch bags in the front of her house. We told her that we
would love to help her and she said she didn't need help... well
needless to say she was very closed when we began our conversation.
After she declined our offer to serve her we began to teach her about
the Book of Mormon and read a scripture from it to her. We asked her
what she thought and she said that it would require some more
investigation. So we said here ya go, and gave her the book. At the
end of our conversation she not only accepted the Book of Mormon, but
she set up a time for us to come back the next day to help her mulch.
We brought a member and her 3 yr. old daughter and they were perfect
fellowship. We mulched in no time and then she let us teach her the
restoration when the task was completed.
Then last night she even came over to the members house to watch
Joseph Smith Prophet of the restoration. She has not yet read the
book, but says she really wants to.  She is taking it with her on her
vacation to Kentucky, so will everyone PLEASE pray that Denise will
read the Book of Mormon this week, that would be wonderful!!! :)

So this other time....
We met a lady name cynethia. We invited her to an event this saturday
but we couldn't find an invitation. She said that when we found one to
come back and give it to her. So the next day we did. She invited us
in and we began talking about our favorite things about Jesus Christ.
The conversation evolved to her telling us about all these dreams she
has been having about her family that has passed away coming to her
and trying to tell her something... WOW. She is pretty prepared. We
asked her if she wanted to learn more and she said of course... we
tried to set a time to come back. Well that resulted in this awkward
moment when she had sooo much faith that she wouldn't reschedule with
us because she knew we would come back at the right time... ha.

So this other time...
We were knocking doors when I realized that the door had 2 peep holes,
one normal height and one very low. I jokingly said to him, "that's a
small peep hole, is it for small people... ha ha ha" He didn't
laugh... it was awkward, and he wasn't interested. As we were walking
away my comp. said, "that awkward moment when his wife is a midget."
GAH! Don't tell me that!

So this one time I forgot sunscreen and got sunburned very very bad...
It peeled. BUT I think I am actually getting tan!?!?!?

So this one time I had a question. I looked at my companion and said
what do you say to Jesus when he sneezes?
you: bless you
Jesus: no, bless you...

So this one time a lady tried to bible bash... and it was really hard
to not bible bash. Seriously people just because it says in
revelations that nothing is to be added to this book, well I always
want to rebut with ...that same statement is written in Genesis, so
should we just throw away the whole bible? But I contained myself. She
asked some questions and we answered, and then she bore her testimony
to us, then we bore our testimony to her and read moroni 10:3-5 and
asked her to read it and compare it to the bible and find out if some
of the things she has heard are really in the Book of Mormon. She
accepted and took the book!! Man I know the Book of Mormon is true, it
seems that every time we read them something from it they accept the
invitation to read it!! :)

So this one time sister Lambson told us a joke...
Sis L: did you hear about that guy who got his whole left side cut off?
Everyone else: what?
Sis L: yeah he is all right now.
Everyone else: HA HA HA!


So this one time our new members brought not only one but two non
members to church. We talked to them and they want to learn more and
be baptized, so we are going to get their parents permission and begin
to teach them!! :)

GOD IS SOO GOOD!

This was one of the best weeks of my mission. I love being here and am
kind of sad that I am at my half way point because that means this is
going to end sooner rather then later... :( though don't get me wrong,
I still love all of ya'll! :)

Happy Easter week! It is going to be so great!!

Love ya'll!

Love,
Sister Chambers

Sharing is Caring

So it has been pretty interesting sharing our car this week... They
have to pick us up and drop us off... and the other sisters don't know
where anything is so basically I just feel like a chaffer. But in a
good way. I love being able to serve them and  help them learn the
area.
So there area is further away then ours so.... looks like we will be
looking into bikes today and seeing if any members could loan us some
bikes.... I think I'll have the best looking legs by the time I go
home.

We are really looking hard for new investigators to teach... which
means a ton of knocking on doors. But Sister Shumway (my new comp.) is
a champ! The first golden hour we had we were able to find a
potential. He is interested in learning about our views on life after
death. He had a ton of great questions but we didn't have enough time
to address all of them. He even gave us a referral for his roommate,
who we met the next day and he was pretty nice.

Oh Just a little shout out about my comp! She and my trainer were mtc
comps and I think she is just the most awesomest person ever. We
already are having a wonderful time laughing and telling stories and
working super hard. I feel like she pushes me to be a better
missionary in the best way possible. She is so sweet and caring and
just what I need right now!

I have decided that I want to improve myself... like a lot! So to be
able to do this I am picking a goal each day and working my hardest to
accomplish it... The first day was to hand out 10 cards to people... I
got 8! :) Second day was to be bold and tell someone that I know the
Book of Mormon can change their life! Did it, and the man even took a
Book of Mormon, though he was not exactly ready to meet with us... at
least he has the book! Today's goal is to make sure that those who I
talk to I make sure to mention the restoration!

When you come out on a mission you are so excited to share the gospel,
but it seems the longer you are out you begin to loose a little of
that zest. The new missionary in the ward is reminding me of what I
was like... Super bold and ready to tell everyone about the church.
Now I am a little hesitant and sometimes as I see people I let fear
rule and not my faith. So my overall goal for this transfer is to not
let fear make my decisions. So far I feel like I am improving!

Oh CONFERENCE!!!
If you loved conference raise your hand (I'm raising mine!!!!!!)

I loved Elder Hollands talk. It is so true, people not only want a God
who doesn't rock the boat, but they want a God who doesn't even row
it.
I have seen this so much here in the south... there are
non-denominational churches.... WHAT? It shows how people are just
making up things that they want and not really doing the Lords will
which will really make them happy.

I have been pondering on how if we were always only doing the things
that we would like it would be detrimental to us. I like to eat, if I
ate all the time I would be way over weight. I like to sleep, if I
slept all the time, I would be depressed. I like to watch t.v., If I
were to watch t.v. all the time I would be lethargic and I wouldn't be
doing my Heavenly Fathers will.
We really do have to fight against our natural man so that we can
become more like our Savior and return to live with our Heavenly
Father.

There were so many things that I loved, but what about you? What were
your favorite parts?
Oh I also like when Elder Ballard talked about the members studying
preach my gospel and then talking to their missionaries through
letters and e-mails about the things that they are learning and how
much power this would bring to all of us. Also I loved that he called
out everyone to invite people to learn from the missionaries 4 times a
year.... I wan't everyone to pay attention to the fact that he didn't
say everyone except those who live in Utah. Nonmembers do exists there
and its up to you to help them!!! So what's your game plan?

Just like I'm stepping up my game I challenge all of you to step up
yours and let's be tools in the Lords hands so that we can see the
miracles he is waiting to perform!

Well I love ya'll a ton!!

Have the bestest week ever!!

Love,
Sister Chambers

The things I have learned...

Hey Ya'll!
I'm staying here in Mandarin and getting a new companion!!!
I am also in a car share... :/ But I have stewardship over the car!! :)
We will probably all pitch in to get some bikes or something to get around.
I am excited to have another set of sisters in this ward. That makes 6
sisters 2 Elders. 1 crazy ward mission leader.
But as far as this week goes I would like to announce that this was
the best week of mail yet! Thanks to all those who participated.
Cute letters from my nephews, letters from friends, and sistas. LOVED IT!
HINT HINT

Now that we have that out of the way...
 This week we had two trade offs.
One day I went with sister Ashcraft. We stayed in our ward, but worked
in a different area. We met an awesome guy who is a Brazilian ju jitsu
fighter. He also teaches a family in our ward, so he already has built
in fellowship.

I also went to the Hendricks area with Sister Heckle and met some
pretty crazy people. It was neat to say the least.

My big Easter project is picking up momentum! In 17 days we will be
showing the Messiah and having a picture gallery of Jesus Christ. This
week a big sign is being made up, and an announcement is going in the
paper, so hopefully we draw a big crowd!

UM.... I can't think of what else we did.
The past days we have been heart attacking people we love as a way for
sister Toledo to say goodbye. She is going to Georgia.

On Sunday there was a cool fireside where they played memory with
pictures of people currently and when they were on their missions.
That was neat. Also all the youth got to open up fake mission calls.
It was fun to see them all get excited to go out and serve a mission.

Yesterday we met with two investigators. We invited both of them to
come to conference this week. The one from Colombia for some reason
thinks that Jesus will be speaking. She is sweet, but kind of crazy.
She always talks about her fear of the Devil, which is not my cup of
tea, but hey I don't drink tea.
Either way she want's to go to conference so I guess that is a win!

OH!!! MY IPAD got wiped clean... which means all the missionary apps
were removed and then my IPAD was all worldly... yuck. So today I got
a new one. And by new I mean used by a missionary who went home. He
left the pictures of his nephew on here though... we thought it was a
sisters Ipad because the screen saver was a little baby.


This week will be a busy week getting everyone squared away, and
figuring out how to share a car... I'm not really great at sharing,
and The Lord knew that so he is making me work on it. Hopefully I
learn something.

Though these past  2 transfers have been my hardest, I think i have
learned the most about myself, and also other really important lessons
that will help me in life.

1. I have learned how to care for others more, and try to really
understand why they do the things that they do.
2. Patience. Sometimes you have to just let people do the wrong
things, even when you know its wrong. It ends up being the best way
for them to learn.
3. Forgiveness. He is a fool who takes offense when none was meant. He
is an even bigger fool who takes offense when it was meant.
The greater sin is in not forgiving.
4. We have to have the downs to appreciate the ups. This was the
roughest companionship with some of the greatest rewards... Mike and
Nicol!!!
5. Prayer is the best remedy for anything!!!

My testimony is stronger now, and my relationship with my Heavenly
Father is stronger. I don't think I would have traded in these hard
times for anything... they have made me stronger.

Tough things don't last.... Tough people do!

Well there are going to be a lot of changes to get used to this
transfer. My new comp will be sister Shumway, from Cottonwood Heights.
We have a new District leader, zone leader, and assistant to the president.
And a lot of sisters loosing cars... :/

I'm excited. I just know this is going to be good!!!

I love ya'll!
Hope ya have a great conference weekend!


Love,
Sister Chambers

The Bilingual Baptism Part Dos !!!

Dear Family and Friends

Hooray Mike and Nicol are officially members of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints.
They were baptized on Saturday Morning and received the Gift of the
Holy Ghost on Sunday.

We put a ton of work and effort into the baptismal program and it went
splendidly.
First sister Jenkins gave a talk on baptism and the spanish Elders translated.
Then they were baptized.
Then the spanish Elders taught the restoration in english and spanish
while mike and nicol got ready.
Then Nicol bore her testimony in English, which we have been helping
her all week to put together.
Following that two youth from our ward, one that friended nicol and
one that friended mike bore their testimonies in Spanish for mike and
nicol.
Following that was sister Toledo and I's time to shine.
We gave a talk on the Holy Ghost, and I thought it went quiet well.
Following us there were many welcomings to the ward, and we concluded
with the song how great thou art.

Unfortunately the pictures of us and them ended up pretty not great,
but oh well, better then nothing! :)

Any who it has been a real miracle to work with these youth!!

My testimony about God's timing has really increased.

The Jimenez family moved to America about 6 months ago. They were
unable to locate the church building until Jan. 12 2014, which they
walked 7 miles to attend church.
Not only that but Jan. 12 2014 happened to be mine and sister Toledos
first Sunday in this ward.
Coincidence, I think not.

I know we were supposed to be here exactly when we were.

Sister Jenkins sent us a text yesterday that was very applicable to
this situation.
She was studying Bishop Causses talk from priesthood last October and
this is what it says...
The gathering of his elect from the four corners of the earth is
taking place not only by sending missionaries to faraway countries,
but also with the arrival of people from other areas into our own
cities and neighborhoods. Many, without knowing it, are being led by
The Lord to places where they can hear the gospel and come into His
fold. "It is very likely that the next person converted to the gospel
in your ward will be someone who does not come from your usual circle
of friends and acquaintances. You may note this by his or her
appearance, language, manner of dress, or color of skin. This person
may have grown up in another religion, with a different background or
a different lifestyle" (Ye are no more strangers)

All I could say was wow.

I am so blessed to be apart of this.

But guess what!
Another one of my investigators was baptized this week!
Emma from back in Gainesville was baptized on Wednesday. After working
with her for six months I was so glad to finally see that picture of
her all dressed in white! I love her.

Goodness, God is Good.

So besides all that crazy this week has been productive and fruitful.
We met another Columbian.Crazy. Guess I really am supposed to learn
spanish, Heavenly Father keeps putting these people in our path. She
is from the same city as our recent converts so we hope to get them
involved in teaching her. She has already began reading the Book of
Mormon and said we could come back on Friday.

The other sisters handed off an investigator to us because of rare
circumstances...

We found Donald, I think I told ya'll about him last week.
WELLLLL.... Donald came to church on Sunday. We were talking before
church started, and Donald became very persistent about me and him
getting married.
YUP MARRIED.
I told him I was too young, so he asked how old I was.
I responded with...21.
He said no that is not too young.
You can have me, I'm sure your Bishop could marry us.

Uh.. I looked around for someone to save me, but I was on my own. I
quickly excused myself and asked for the Elders to sit next to him.
Now the Elders are teaching Donald.

I just don't think that 64 yr old men are my type. Sorry Donald, I'm a
Missionary.

Another funny moment from this week was when sister Toledo told me she
thought your bosom was your bum.

Then I asked her... Well what did you think a burning in the bosom
was? A burning in the bum? If we felt it that way people might be
hopping up out of their seats at church.

Ha ha it brought us a good laugh.

Oh something else that is pretty neat happened this week.
A potential investigator invited us to a neighborhood bbq. That meant
we got to meet all the neighbors without knocking on their doors. Also
we have a return appointment tonight with one of them, and another is
headed to a party with us! Miracle!

And another miracle was when a member invited us over to his house to
teach his friend. That doesn't happen as often as we would like it to,
but the lesson went well and the friend committed to reading the Book
of Mormon and Praying about it. :)

Any who, this week I have been so busy. So busy that we have had to
eat meals on the run, so busy that I sleep sooooo good at night. I'm
always tired, but in the best possible way to be tired.

I have seen Gods hand in my life this week in a very big way, but I
know that he is apart of the small details. Ya know by the small and
simple things are great things brought to pass.... ya, it's true.


Well guess I should share with all of ya'll how my spanish is coming along....

Yo se que Dio es nuestro Padre Celestial,
Yo se que el Evangelio De Jesuchristo is verdadero,
Yo se que el libro de mormon es correcto,
yo se que Thomas S. Monson es un profeta de dios.
En El Nombre de JesuChristo, Amen.

I hope that you have a great St. Patricks day!!
and  Great week!!

Love,
Sister Chambers

The bilingual baptism!

We are getting so excited for our bilingual baptism this up coming
saturday!!! :)
Nicol, our investigator, said something so wonderful to us on
saturday. She said that she was so happy that her grandparents were
able to go to church, because if they didn't walk the 4 miles to
church (the first sunday we were in the ward) then they would not have
met us, and if they didn't meet us they wouldn't know us, and if they
didn't know us then they wouldn't have learned about the gospel, and
if they didn't learn about the gospel then they would be getting
baptized, and if they were not baptized then they wouldn't be with
God.
Wow! She is so amazing!! :) She is only 14 yrs old, yet she knows so
many wonderful things.
Her brother is a hoot as well...
Here is some of the things he has said...
(in spanish) when I get into college I'm going to tell all the
girls... (in english) I like your shoes. (in spanish) then they will
all go oooh =)
He also asked us if there were going to be alligators in the baptism font.
He is sad that he has to take off his necklace for his baptism because
he recently reached his year mark of wearing it.
Oh goodness I love working with the youth!
I realized that most of my mission I have spent my sundays in youth
classes and young womens.
In Gainesville our investigator Emma was 14 so we went with her, and
now we (sister Toledo) has to translate for mike and Nicol so we spend
our time in the youth class and young womens. It's fun, I really like
it!
We also got 2 new investigators this week!
One's name is Betsy. She was found by the YSA sisters, and has been
working with the other sisters in our ward for a little while now.
Unfortunately she got really offended yesterday in church by one of
the sisters and does not want to meet with them any more.
What happened is that one sister was currently busy talking to another
investigator when she came up and wanted all of her attention, and
didn't get it. Its tough being a missionary sometimes when people are
so soft hearted.
It really upset the other sister missionary.
Our other new investigators name is Donald.
So here is a cool story...
Sunday night we were at dinner with a member when we got a call from
the assistants to the president. Once we got out of the dinner we
called them back and found out that there was a man who had just
attended a baptism at the church, and he lived in our area. All the
info they had was his name, the street he lived on, and that he was
wearing a red coat.
So off we went. We ran to the church to see if he was still there, to
no avail. Then we decided to start knocking the doors on the street he
lived on. Luckily with some guidance he lived at the third house we
knocked on. BUT, he was not there. The people who answered the door
were very confused about how we knew him and why we were asking for
him. We told them that we were told to go visit him. The man was
obviously upset and it became apparent to me that Donald was MISSING.
The man as about to slam the door in my face when I told him that I
may have some information that may help him find him. That he was at
our building about an hour ago, and couldn't be too far if he was
traveling on foot. We got the mans number to contact him if we found
Donald and he left in his car and we left in ours. The man zoomed
ahead of us and was in such a hurry to get to the building that he
missed the older man walking on the side of the road in a red jacket.
Sister Toledo pointed him out to me and we parked the car lickedy
split. We walked to him, found out that it was in deed Donald and that
he was lost. That he didn't know where he was or how he was going to
make it back home. We got the gps from the car and put in his address
and walked him home.
He said that he liked it in our church and he felt good there. He also
said that he liked being with us and it made him feel good.
It was so touching to see him tear up as he told us some of the
troubles that he is currently facing and also how he knew God loved
him because he sent us to help him out in a time of need.  He even
said that he would like to be baptized himself! How exciting.
I'm so grateful to have been apart of such a miracle. The family was
so grateful that we were able to find him and bring him home safely. I
am mostly happy that he made it back to sleep in his own bed.
We plan on seeing him tomorrow night, and he is planning on being
baptized on April 12!


So ya know how I am so into service right now? yeah well this week it
finally warmed up enough to do some gardening! We helped out a lady on
saturday and guess what! I got a SUNBURN. Its actually like my first
real sunburn of my mission so I am not complaining much, but it still
is a little sore and looks funny because my tshirt sleeves were longer
then my sleeves of all my cute shirts. Hopefully it just fades soon.

Well I heard that Brother Jenkins made it to the home on Saturday!
Glad to hear it, unfortunately his wife told me my family was not in a
picture taking mood... :( they were going to e-mail them straight to
me... oh well. My companions family looked happy.

Well This week already looks like a busy busy week, finalizing baptism
fun and getting to know two new investigators better!

I hope all of you have a great week this week!
Don't forget to keep this little old missionary in your prayers! :)

I love ya!

Love,
Sister Chambers
Sent from my iPad

The miraculous month of March!

Dear Family and Friends

So this week we had a big surprise.
It turns out that The grandkids of the family who moved from Columbia
Are actually not members. They have been coming to church basically
since we have been here. So this week we began to teach them the
lessons. And the first lesson sister Toledo asked them to be baptized
on March 15 and both of them almost instantaneously said yes! 

They are so excited! We are so excited!
They only speak Spanish so far so mostly in the lesson sister Toledo
translates and teaches them. After the lesson we give them an English
lesson. It's been neat to watch them with  English. It's Also cool to
see myself picking up on some of the Spanish.
On Friday night we scheduled for them to go to a members home for
dinner and a lesson. Then we found out that I was staying in the area
and my companion sister Toledo was going to Hendrix while we were on a
trade-off.
Me and sister McCleary (YES my MTC companion is my sister training
leader!!! And we got to spend a whole day actually teaching together)
So any who Neither of us speak Spanish, luckily the host invited over a
family in the ward who speaks pretty good Spanish. We ended up
watching a movie in Spanish so they could understand.
It has been really neat to me is to be able to put aside the words and
focus on how the spirit feels in the lesson. Even though I don't
understand what's being said, I can always feel when the spirit is
there, and it is so strong.

Back to mine and sister McCleary's adventure. We began walking up to a
door, then I had a mini panic attack. In my head I thought we don't
know what are we doing...But then I remembered that we had already
been on a mission for 7 1/2 months and we knew what we were doing.
It was so cool to see how much she has grown over our mission and I
hope that she could see the progress in me as well. :)
We had a ton of fun together!

We have just been so busy! Every other day we spend 2 1/2 hours at the
food bank, and I just love that place so much. On the days we are not
at the food bank we help out the members by doing service for them. We
started a service calendar and basically every day of the month is
filled up with something. It is so great to serve, I know it brings
huge blessings.

We also recently got a referral from a less active member. She says
she works with a guy who is investigating the church. Well we found
out that he lives in our ward boundaries, though he is 30 and has
worked with The ysa elders. The less active member told us that he was
interested in attending our ward, so this week we got his number and
texted him asking him if he would be interested in meeting us. He said
that he would like to meet us this week,  So hopefully he will want to
take the lessons from us.  The less active member said that he is
going to be engaged soon to a member. She has told us that he believes
that the book of Mormon is true. We are so excited to meet him.

Also the ward members are doing a great job of sharing the gospel. One
member, Sister Kenny, has a really wonderful story. I'm not sure if i
shared recently.
AnyWho, it basically boils down to she shared some information about
the plan of salvation with a friend, the friend wanted to know more,
Sister Kenny said she would text her some scriptures. She then was
returning home and we were at the neighbors. We then gave her some
scriptures. She texted her friend the Scriptures. The following week
she brought her friend the book of Mormon and gave her a conference
talk. The  friend then text sister Kenny and Thanked her for the gift.
She told her that she was interested in learning more and would begin
reading the book of Mormon. So this week we are going to try to find
out where she lives so that we can visit her and find out if she would
like to learn about the lessons.

 Oh March is going to be just filled with miracles!!! I know it
already!!! Currently our ward has three more baptisms scheduled! That
means 7 baptisms by the end of the march and 7 more people closer to
living again we our father in heaven!!! :)

I love being a missionary! It's a great gig! I'm always going to be a
missionary! :)

Love,
Sister Chambers

Oops

wow I wrote a huge long email to all of you, and somehow it didn't send.:(
So now I am going to try and write another email quickly. On
Wednesday we got a new sister in our ward, sister Ashcraft. She is
wonderful. It was hard to say goodbye to Sister whiting but we know
that it's time for her to go home. She served 10 of her 18 months here
in this ward.
On Thursday not much must have happened because I can't remember anything big.
Friday was a very busy day full of service. First we went to the food
bank then we went to help clean autumn graves home, and off to help
sister toombs make treats for a baby shower. We also were able to go
to the baby shower for a less active member in our area.
On Saturday we had any opportunity to take some shoes to a new family
in our walk. They just moved from Columbia and are looking for work.
They don't speak very much English and so my companion is able to
translate church for them. This week we hope to begin teaching them
English, and we also found out that their granddaughter is not a
member, so hopefully we can teach her too.
Sunday was a busy day full of meetings.
Also our ward mission leader just retired this week and it's kind of
scary awsome because now he has more time to devote to his calling.
I have recently taken on the task of putting together an interfaith
5K.  It is going to take a lot of work, but it should be wonderful.
The entrance fee will be Canned food and all the proceeds will go to
the local food bank. There are many ducks to get in a line, but we
have some time to get everything straightened out!

Well I hope you all have a wonderful week this week!
Love ya!

Love,
Sister chambers
Sent from my iPad

Spiders stink!

This week I got bit by a spider! I don't know what type but it has
caused a bit of a problem. We had to keep a close eye on it for a few
days and I was in contact with the nurse to make sure I hadn't been
bitten by a brown recluse or a black widow. Luckily I wasn't bitten by
either of those two things.
Any way... It was a good week. On Thursday I went and worked with
another sister in a different area, which was interesting because they
had me give a training, and I had never done that before.
Friday and Saturday we basically spent the whole day doing service. We
made treats for the two baptisms. We also had a wonderful valentines
day activity... That's where you may have seen pictures of me.  

Desserts and live music performances, then dancing after, which we ran
into the kitchen and sang primary songs during. It turned out pretty
great. Though it did take me back to the days of setting up weddings
with mom.

But yes the ward had two baptisms this week! The first was bobby, he
is awesome, it was the most spiritual baptism I have ever been to. His
wife is a member and her dad flew out to baptize him. After the
baptism they stood in the font and cried a little bit. Everyone was
crying it was just so emotional.

Oh so yesterday we were able to find a food bank and we will be
working there for 2-3 days each week. We are so excited about this. It
was wonderful to be there and serving people. We even talked to a lady
who has some questions a out what we do and why! :) tender mercies!

Oh and me and my comp will be staying together in this area for the
next 6 weeks at least.
It should be good.

Oh I have read 2 really great talks this week by elder bednar and I
advise that everyone gives them a look.
Seek learning by faith...
And teach them to understand.

I'm learning a lot about learning. :)

Love y'all

Well hope ya have a great week.
Love, sister chambers

PS sister Chambers Address is

14701 Bartram park Blvd.apt # 413

Jacksonville, Florida 32258

Florida Jacksonville Mission
8663 Baypine Rd. Ste 102
Jacksonville, FL 32256

Lookie what I got!

Happy Valentines week 

This last week had its ups and downs. Like any other week.
So where to begin...
Monday was ok,
Tuesday we had a lesson with a lady... We taught her about the plan of
salvation! Everything went well until we got to the part about spirit
paradise and prison. She then told us that we were wrong. That we only
have one chance here on earth to figure it out and if we don't get it
then  it's too late. We asked her about those who didn't get a chance
here on earth to learn about Jesus... She said that there is
satellites and mission trips, that everyone would have a
chance...(hmmm I don't think she understands that not everyone has a
smart phone, or even radio for that matter.) well any who she kept
telling us that we were wrong, but I just bore my testimony that god
is a loving god who WANTS us to live with him again so he would
provide another chance, and then we promptly left.
That night our investigator cruzita was able to come to a movie night!
We watched the testaments and she loved it! She even felt the spirit
so much that she was crying at the end.
Wednesday...
WE GOT IPADS!!!
We had zone conference and spent most of our day learning how to use
them! It was pretty awesome.
Thursday was just a day.
Friday...
We figured out how to weekly plan on these things which took forever,
but it's all good.
We also had a lesson with cruzita. She is great but she jumps straight
head first into deep doctrine. Luckily she has her brother in law who
is a bishop in England to help her out on some of the tougher
subjects. Currently she is praying about tea and the word of wisdom.
She asked us if we could ask the people higher up to change the tea
part. (Funny thing is, that she doesn't even really like tea...?)
Saturday...
Fun filled day of looking for service in the community. Also had a
ward mission meeting like usual. We also got to go to a party. A
member thru the party to invite gators and less actives to
fellowship them with some of the members. It was awesome. I watched a
snake eat a rat, it was gross.
Also at the party I met one of my best friends from the pre mortal
life. Her name is hailey and she is 5. She instantly came up to me and
told me that she remembered me. She remembered that when she was a
baby we took a picture together..... I'm guessing that was in heaven.
She hung by me the whole night. She even came and said hi to me at
church yesterday.
Sunday...

Cruzita came to church again! :)
We had to go to young men's and young women's to translate for two of
our members who just recently moved from Columbia and speak no
English. I can not think fast enough to put three words together.
Luckily I have an iPad with Google translate! Copy and paste
scriptures was the name of the game while mi compa was able to get the
chit chat in between.
Ha funny moment.... The young man who she was translating for, mike,
kissed her on the cheek when we were leaving. She started laughing so
hard, she forgot it was a cultural thing that they do down in
Columbia.
Last night we were finally able to see a less active who we have been
trying to see since we got here. We had to take another sister with us
so that we could enter his home but we where able to have a nice visit
and get to know him a little bit better.

God is good.

One of the spiritual lessons that I am learning this week is to not
trust in the arm of flesh. As I have been going over the word of
wisdom, studying it so that we could teach our gator I have just re
realized some things.
It's crazy to look and compare what was happening in the world to when
Joseph smith received the revelation. Many people at he time didn't
know that smoking, drinking or chewing where bad for them, but over
time we have learned more about how bad they really are for us. We
don't know gods ways, because they are higher then our ways, but it is
always the right way, so we have to pray and ask him what is his way
so that we can know and follow it.

Any who enjoy this picture!

These tools are so wonderful. All of our paper work is now in them and
super easy to update.
It is our planner, area book, gospel library, and quick Mormon message
player. It has been so awesome already. Sunday we were actually able
to share a quick video with a man on a door step and set a return
appointment for tonight!
All of the missionaries have the same password to our iPads... DC
88:73... Look it up! :)
Also we can e-mail from them. This means that I can read your messages
when ever you send them to me, but I can only reply on Mondays :)

Until next week Love Sister Chambers

Miracles in Mandarin!

Ok, so it's really hard to open a new area, but luckily Heaven always sends help.

We have been running through all of our resources, referrals, less active members, members, knocking on doors but we hadn't found anyone who was really really interested yet.

I was getting kind of sick of reporting a whole bunch of zero's each week so I decided to look to Heaven for Help. Every single prayer we asked Heavenly Father to help us have a member present lesson on Friday. Then we hit the pavement running. Trying to meet people, find those who are wanting more in life, and trying to set up an appointment for Friday.

Then on Tuesday the Elders in our ward sent us a media referral. Basically someone can go to mormon.org and send the missionaries to a friend, or ask them to come see them. That info goes to Salt lake, which is sent to the mission office, then texted out to us missionaries. By the time we got it on Tuesday it was too late to contact, so we stopped by on Wednesday. She was not home unfortunately. But we left her a note and a picture of Jesus.

The next day we were in the area and decided to stop by and see if she was home. SHE WAS!! :)

My companion was a little worried that a member might have sent us there, and that she actually didn't want to meet with us, but we did not let fear impede our faith. 

We walked up to the door, knocked on it, heard some people talking inside, and then we heard the door unlock. Behind it was a shorter lady who looked happy to see us and promptly asked us to come in. We went in and were talking to her, finding out she was the person we were sent to when some people started talking to me.

I did't realize that she had her ipad up with skype on it. She told us that these were the people who had sent us to her. It was her sister and Brother in law, who live in ENGLAND! Yup we got a referral from England. Any who, they are both members. Apparently their sister wanted to know more and wants to be a member. They helped her find the address of the church, and even the time that church started, so last week she came to our meeting house at 11:30 promptly. Unfortunately last week was the stake/ regional conference that was televised from Orlando.

So she was kind of confused, she knew that we normally don't televise our meetings. She talked to a member, who said they would help her out, but didn't. So luckily her family members sent us to see her! :)

That night we had the first lesson with her and she loved it! She began reading the intro to the book of Mormon, and even scheduled another appointment for the following day... FRIDAY! We promptly texted a ward missionary, who hooked us up with a fellowshipper, a lady to come to the lesson with us!! PRAYERS ANSWERED!

We went on trade-offs and I was so lucky to stay in our area with sister Parmer. We went to the lesson, taught her about the plan of salvation and she just soaked it up! :) She kept her commitments and is even talking like a member.

She told Sister Daveline that this year our ward meets at 11:30 but next year we will meet at 9. She told us she would like to be baptized, she just wants to learn more first.

She came to all 3 hours of church and enjoyed it. The lesson in Relief Society was the plan of salvation which was perfect because she didn't feel so out of the loop. She is coming to a movie night on Tuesday, which we are watching the testament, and on Wednesday another member invited us over to watch the restoration. On Saturday our ward missionary who primarily works with us is throwing a twig party. Basically we are inviting a ton of people to fellowship so they don't feel lonely at church, and she invited our investigator :)

Our ward has not had baptisms in a few years, but just recently we are seeing a huge change. 2 weeks ago we had 2 baptisms. Next week we have 2, and soon we will have one set up with Cruzita! :) 

Any way this week I get an ipad. I know that this will help the work move along. There are studies that show investigators retained and baptized doubles with ipad. I think there are multiple reasons to this... that we have to tract them better... We have to be so specific with when and where we are meeting them and what we will be teaching and how we will keep constant contact, so they can't fall through the cracks. Also we can show mormon messages!!! :)

The spirit is so strong in those quick movies.

Sister Parmer shared a quick video at the end of our lesson the other day and it was just perfect!!

Well I hope all is well back at home!

I love ya'll so much! :)

p.s. It's so warm that today we had to use the a.c. not to rub it in or anything. ;)

Love,

Sister Chambers

IT'S ALMOST MY BIRTHDAY!

That may or may not be a hint ;)

And my address is

14701 Bartram park Blvd.

Jacksonville, Florida

32258

It has been so crazy moving here. Packed, and moved in a matter of days.

We are both new to the area and so we keep working hard and are trying to find some new investigators to teach. We have been able to see some Less actives, and we even have a lesson scheduled with a potential investigator.

The place that we live in is glorious, it is just so wonderful, I was a little scared I would end up in some scary place but this place is pretty new and it smells clean. :)

My companion is pretty awesome. Sister Toledo. She has been teaching me Spanish, and just the other day I taught the plan of salvation in Spanish!! it was to her, but she said I did pretty good! She says that in no time I will be fluent, ha I'm not sure about that but she likes teaching me, and I like learning.

She is really sweet and kind. She is basically the opposite of me.

I am loud, she is quiet.

She is gentle, I am not.

She is meek and humble, I'm pretty prideful.

So this is perfect, Heavenly Father gave me a companion to show me a good example.

Oh guess what!!! This morning we talked with president over the phone and he said in 3 weeks we will be getting Ipads!!! :) Which will be so splendid. Right now we don't really have access to computers, so this morning we are at a members home using her computers for a moment. She is so kind, and funny note... this is the place where I spent my first night on the mission. Sister Toledo spent her first night here as well. It brought back memories driving up here today.

OH which brings to remembrance a story. We are not the first second set of sisters to be here. The last set ended up in a car accident and then one of them went home. It is quite the story, and everyone here has told it to us a few times... not only where they in a car accident, but they rear ended another car, who then hit into the other sisters in the ward... and gave one a concussion.

So everyone keeps telling me to drive really safe. That is a ton of pressure. My companion does not have her license, so I always get to drive, and the car we have is a 2013 ford fusion in silver. I drive super duper careful!!!!!! But one of the best parts is that we don't have to share our car with anyone. The other sisters in our ward are the sister training leader coordinators. Basically they are the sister version of AP's. I feel intimidated at times, but they are really nice and helping me learn a ton of new things!

Well I don't have much else to say, don't have any real investigators to tell you about so... I hope you have a great day!!!

Love,

Sister Chambers