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