Good week

This has been a really good week. I don't really remember all that much, but I'll try to go with the highlights. I also don't have all that much time left to write, so I'll do my best to keep it short and sweet.

On Monday we started off the week with the Zone leaders living in our trailer for a little while, making it a little difficult to get around inside. But it was good. And within about a month or two, we're going to need to be moving out. It looks like we'll move next to the Bishop's house, so that'll be good. Then on Tuesday, every missionary in our zone gathered up in Beeville for a Blitz: Where we all get together, divide up the city, and storm it for a day. See who we can find, who we can talk to, and help the missionaries in that area out a little to get things done. It really helps with finding, and the sisters in Beeville found over 30 new investigators this week. Hopefully they can keep working with all of them, and find out quickly who is less interested than the others.

If you can't tell in this picture, the moon is making a rainbow.  Lots of picturesque sunsets and moons out here.

On Friday of this week we had a zone conference in Corpus Christi, during which a man came down from Salt Lake and installed what's called a Tiwi box in every car. It's just a little box that reminds you if you're going over the speed limit, if you're seatbelt's off, and things like that. Apparrently it's supposed to help us to stay safer while we drive, so that's good. We also received some amazing training by President Maluenda about faith.

Faith is such an amazing thing. We show our faith by our works, and without our works, we don't really have faith. I'm hoping to study more on the topic during the next transfer.

Funny thing happened this week: We were able to use washing a woman's car to get in and talk to her!

Here was the conversation: Hi! How're you doing today? Not super great. My back's killing me, I broke it a few years ago. Oh, wow. That sounds terrible. Can We help you with anything? who are you? We're missionaries. What do you do? We teach people about Jesus Christ and do service for people. Can you wash my car? Of course.

Then we washed her car. Yup.

We taught her after that too. There's more than one way to do missionary work!

Washed her car, then taught her about baptism.  Pretty fun!

I love you all! Have a great week!

Love Elder Chamberlain   

Bowling for P-Day.  Best decision of the day.

Elder Jones is jacked!

Una semana muy loco!

This week has been CRAZY! (for all you who don't speak Spanish) But it's been really amazing at the same time, and I've been able to see many miracles from it as well.

As I talked about last week, we still didn't know transfers. And that stayed the same until about 10:45 that night. Elder Larsen found out that he was leaving, but didn't know where, and I found out that I stayed in George West, with Elder Jones, hailing from Virginia, as my new companion! We got super antsy waiting for the call and trying to think of what to do, so that's why the strange pictures. Elder Larsen is now in Edinburg as a Zone Leader, which he didn't find out about until Tuesday morning. I also found out that I'm driving. Pretty stressful experience, but I'll manage. (everything is just so far apart here!)

We got a little antsy waiting for the call on transfer night...

Elder Jones and I have decided that we are going to spend most of our time this transfer working through the members. Instead of working all the time to find new investigators, we are going to work on finding the less-active members here and working with them. Helping them to come back to church, and to help them realize that enduring to the end isn't just a one-and-done deal. We've found some very nice people so far, and many of them have invited us to come back and continue meeting with them. We'll probably end up teaching them as though they were normal investigators, find out how we can help them, and what their major questions or concerns are, and help them to re-kindle that fire that they had when they were first baptized. It's going to be a lot of work getting it going, but we should have lots of success. And there are LOTS of less active members here. Probably close to twice as many active members in the ward, if not more. So if we can help the ward to grow this way, it'll be just as good if not better than baptisms.

Many miracles took place this week. One of which being with a family we're working with named the Morin family. We've been having a hard time getting to meet with them, since they're like a typical young family, whose attention is divided among all four kids and their activities (Stupid sports! Interfering with the gospel!) but we were able to meet with their family on Wednesday this week. We told them about church and a ward activity on Saturday, and they said that they'd try to make it. Saturday came, and we hadn't been able to meet with them again, and we tried to see if they were at home. They weren't but their daughter texted us and told us that they were in Beeville doing some shopping, and that if we wanted to meet there, we could! Lucky us, there was a party going on at the church! We were able to introduce their daughter and one of her brothers to a whole bunch of the members, and they know where the church is now. They've also felt the spirit inside, and they told us they wanted to keep coming to church. They weren't able to make it yesterday, but we'll keep working with them. Just that small church tour is a really big step in the right direction.

I love you all! Have a great week! And don't forget to smile. 

Love, Elder Chamberlain

My first time at a Taqueria! (El Charro)

Three Day, and lack of transfer calls

This week has been very strange. It's been really good, and extremely fun, but at the same time very different.  It's technically the first day of the new transfer, and I still have no idea what's going to happen. We haven't recieved the transfer call yet, so we might be staying and we might be leaving. We'll probably get the call at 2:00, ten minutes after we run out of email time. And if one of us is leaving, we'll have to be ready to head out by five in the morning tomorrow. Fun fun fun!

This week has also been very different with the schedule of things. Elder Larsen had to go down to McAllen for a three day training meeting, lead by the President, so I was going to be in charge of the area from Tuesday to Thursday. Elder Davis came, and we worked together in the area on Tuesday, but that night he got a call for the APs saying that he was going to have a son! He's going to be a trainer this transfer, and there's a special meeting for the new trainers that happened in McAllen on Wednesday. So on Wednesday, Elder Davis went to McAllen, and I worked in Kingsville for the day with Elder Felix, who I lived with in Alice. Elder Davis and I worked together for a little while on Thursday, but then got a call from the Zone Leaders saying we needed to come and pick up Elder Larsen since the training was over. On Friday Elder Larsen and I started an impromptu service project for one of the members in our area who needed some help in her yard, so we didn't get to proselyte that day as well. Then, Saturday a missionary in another area had to go to the hospital because the tendon in his finger got separated from the bone. And Elder Larsen drove him, so I worked in Robstown for the day. Sunday was the only day that we had to proselyte together in our area in over a week! It's been crazy. But I don't think there's been more than ten days on my mission that haven't been crazy!

I've been talking to Elder Larsen about the training that he went to last week, and he's told me a lot. President Maluenda is a very inspired man, and one of the things that he talked most about this time was studying your patriarchal blessing. He encourages everyone in the mission to always have a copy with them, and to study it very often. I don't know how often he studies his, but he's got it memorized. It's such an amazing tool that can help give us guidance in any situation of our lives that we're in. Studying it has brought so many blessings to my life!

I love you all! And always remember that God loves you, and so do I!

Love, Elder Chamberlain

Una carta corta

Sorry, this might be a pretty short email. This week is going to be somewhat stressful, I fear. It'll be amazing, though! We weren't able to email yesterday because it was a holiday, and the library in our area was closed.

The reason these next few days may be a little bit stressful is because Elder Larsen isn't here. He's the senior companion, so he drives, which has put me on a small handicap. Since I don't really ever navigate our area, I don't really know it as well as I should even though I've been here almost three months. He's in McAllen for the next three days for a training meeting with President Maluenda and all the other mission leaders. And I'm here with Elder Davis. He's really a cool guy, from California, and we'll have a great three days. But for now, I'm worried about being in George West. Without a Senior companion. And a bunch of investigators. And a recent convert. And less active members. And I'm the only one who knows anything about it all! YIKES!

We did have a really cool experience this last week, though. We've been teaching a woman named Nicole for a few weeks, although she hasn't come to church yet. But she and her family seem really interested in the gospel, and want to keep learning. They really seem to know that it's helping them. But at some point last week she got anti-d by someone she knows. They just put some doubts that she hadn't thought about, that just distracted a little bit and had the potential to make her want to drop us. They weren't really big things, just things like "but Mormons don't believe the Bible!" or "Mormons are a Cult!" that aren't true at all. So when we got to her house, we didn't know what we were going to say, but when she said those things, I gave it about 5 seconds thought, and realized the Articles of Faith would be perfect for that situation. The thought wasn't mine, though. It had to have been the spirit telling me about that. But it doesn't stop there.

When I had that thought, I happened to have in my shirt pocket, mixed in with a bunch of other pass-along cards that I carry, 1 articles of faith card. And I'd been carrying that card around since before I left Alice. We didn't have any in George West, so there's no way I could have had one form there. I'd been carrying that card around with me for almost three months so that I could give it to Nicole in that one moment, so we could help her to understand our beliefs. It's so amazing to know that the Lord has a perfect plan for each of us, and that he really knows exactly what we will need at one time or another in out lives. Whether experiences, or something in our car, or whatever. It's fantastic. But I've gone on about that for too long.

Other than that, it was for the most part a normal week. Still amazing, and every day brings new challenges. But I love it out here. I hope that you are all loving it wherever you are.

Love, Elder Chamberlain

Service at a member's house 

Brother Baird's son went to Chucky-Cheezes. I got the cape

Elder Larsen and I by the Three River's Bulldog-school mascot

Febrero! (February!)

This past week has been kind of a blur. Everything's just moving really fast. But that just seems normal with mission life.

We started off the month and the week with a zone activity! We all decided to get together and play soccer, which we almost never do because our zone is ginormous. Really fun, though. Completely destroyed our miles for the month, but it was really good. (during the month, rather than restrict the amount of money used on gas the mission puts a limit on the miles we're permitted to put on our car.) Apparently this is the first time in at least five months that the entire zone has gotten together for any kind of activity on p-day. We had lots of fun with it, though. Also, Elder Larsen found out that his sister is engaged. And they're planning on getting married in May. Exactly 6 weeks before he gets home. so just a warning to the family-Don't let anything massive like that change before I get back! (Elder Larsen's family also moved a year into his mission. Don't even think about it!)

Wednesday was probably the first day that I've had my entire mission that didn't have any sort of meeting, or service activity, or random stuff that's happened, or anything like that. Just a full day of working. It was weird. Good, but weird. Just super different.

The warmest I've ever seen it in February.

Then, on Thursday, we decided to go to a town we'd never been to called Oakville. Wanted to see if there was anything there. There wasn't. They had one street. And an old fire truck. And some broken down buildings. An old police car. A church. And about 20 county roads, which means that there are 20 houses about a mile or more away from the city. We got a picture with the fire truck, though! The whole town reminds me of the one in cars, Radiator Springs. They even had a broken down pick-up that looks like Mator.

We visited a one-street town called Oakville. Reminded me of Radiator Springs. They had a firetruck, a jail, and an old police car. That's about it.

Then on Saturday, we had zone meeting. I don't think I'll ever have another one like that again.

First: it was at a member's house, which they'd never have happen till now. Then the zone leaders gave a training on fear, and the story of when King Noah was tied to a tree and burned. We then wrote our fears on ties, tied King Noah (a minion) to a Christmas tree with the ties, and then did what every boy loves most. We burned the tree. It was pretty cool. I'd send more pictures if there was room on the email, but needless to say our fears are completely gone. Along with King Noah. And the tree. Took about 30 seconds for the whole thing to go up in flames.

Zone meeting was epic this month.

Then, after that, the zone leaders decided to put on a rodeo with a possum they found under their house. Really, though, we just released it into a field and tried to herd it away from the church. Pretty fun, and random, too. It was good, though.

Run, possum, run!

This week has been pretty eventful looking back, but in the moment it all just zooms past. It's really nice to take a little time every week to just document what's been going on. Helps me to keep track of all the blessings I've found, and to keep those memories at the front of my mind. Journals are good for that. So if you're not keeping one, start now!

And, always remember, that Christmas trees burn very quickly in February. Don't try it inside, kids.

I love all of you! Hope hat you have a great week!

Love, Elder Chamberlain.

Last week's pictures

Elder Green and I went on exchanges. we wanted to ride the dog, but it was just plastic.

We found a machete outside someone's house and couldn't resist!

I got stung by this one. Felt like a wasp.

No pictures este semana! Lo siento!

Yeah, this week I can't send any pictures. As of right now, at least. We're at the library that the Zone Leaders use, and the computer models here are super old, and I can't figure out how to get the camera to work. So sorry 'bout that. First World problems.

This was a good week for working hard! We didn't really have a ton of time, cause we had some kind of meeting almost every day. But we were somehow able to pull through and meet almost every one of our goals for this week, even though we didn't work more than half what we usually are able to. It's really cool what can happen when you and the Lord have the same thing in mind. We worked our hardest with what we had, and it worked out! A really great testimony builder.

Max was confirmed this week! We do baptism and confirmation a little different here in South Texas, because there's aparrently been a few people in the past that show up to the baptism Saturday, the confirmation Sunday, and then never step foot in the church again. So the bishop in our ward prefers that we have the baptism after church, on Sunday, so that there will be a lot more people able to attend the service, and then have the confirmation the next week. A little different, but it all works out. Max is really cool. He continues to feed us most of the time we're able to go over. Which is great as a missionary! And the confirmation yesterday was amazing. It's such a great feeling when you're able to see the fruits of your labors. Not something that always happens when you're a missionary. A lot of times, we just plant seeds and hope that they grow for someone else to take care of someday. D&C 18 tells it all. But I ramble.

On Saturday the Sisters in our district got kicked out of their apartment. Not really, they just needed to move to a different building in the complex so they could remodel it. But we spent most of the day helping them move. A lot of crap accumulates over the space of many years of missionaries living in the same apartment. and some of that crap apparently could be needed for some odd reason of some random thing happens. So most of it will be moving into the new apartment with the Sisters. I'm probably the same way, though, so I can't really judge.

We also had interviews with the mission President this week. He's really smart. REALLY. Spiritual giant, that man is. He knew exactly what it was I needed to hear after about 20 seconds of asking questions. Yup. He's cool.

Other than those three things, our week wasn't super extraordinary. But I learned a lot. I love how much I'm able to learn out here, and I've only been here for less than five months! 24 isn't going to be enough. I won't dwell on that. I've still got tons of time.

It's great out here. Keep working hard at whatever you're doing. And always remember that the Lord is looking out for us. No matter what is going on in our life, as long as you put him first, whatever happens will be a part of his plan, and it will be whatever will help us to grow the most. I'm learning that more than ever here on the mission.

I love you all!

-Elder Chamberlain

Photogenic week

My week can basically be summed up in four or five photos:

Chickens!

This was a fun week, and started with us catching the chickens last Monday. 

Catching chickens

(Tuesday nothing happened, and Wednesday we helped build the Scott's house.)

Bowl of Menudo!

On Thursday, we went over to Max's house and he fed us dinner. He fed us pasta, and we were able to teach him about the last few commandments. He's so cool. (most of the rest of the week revolved around him.) And he agreed to be baptized on Sunday! (Yesterday!)

On Friday we went back with the zone leaders and had his baptismal interview. But not before he fed us again! This time it was a Mexican dish called Menudo. What is shown in the remains of the bowl are the hooves of the pig. Also, there's cow stomach in there, but there wasn't any left in the bowl when I took the picture. It tastes pretty alright, but the experience can be summed up in the words of Elder Green, one of the Zone Leaders: "To make Menudo taste good, you need to put in as much as possible of whatever else is on the table. Lemon juice, onions, whatever. And then, just eat it fast and don't think about how what you're eating could be eating you."

Bowl of Menudo

Octopus!

Just thought I'd throw that in there. We ate octopus and it tastes like shrimp.

Octopus tastes like shrimp.

Elder Robbins!

For those who don't know, the picture at the top is of Lynn G. Robbins, from the presidency of the Seventy. He lives one street over from our house in Utah. He and Elder Oaks came to McAllen and had a conference with the entire mission. It was AWESOME! And I got a shout out for being his home teacher! It was really good, and I learned a lot about receiving revelation, procrastination, and "to be" lists. It was really good.

My friend and neighbor, Elder Lynn G. Robbins

Max!!!!!!!!!!

Not much needs to be said. The picture says it all, pretty much. He's so cool. I'm still euphoric about it. Happened yesterday.

Max got baptized!   Sunday, January 25, 2015.

Basically, the week was amazing! It's the kind of week that you can only have when you're a missionary. If you've got the possibility of going on a mission in your lifetime, you should do it. It's the most gratifying experience in the world. And I think I've said this before, but a mission is a "you had to be there" experience. Do it.

I love you all. Please continue writing, and I will do my best to respond. And thank you for your prayers. They really mean a lot to me. I love hearing about the experiences you're having a lot more than I enjoy writing about mine (keeping a journal is hard! But dont' worry, I'm doing it.)

Have a fantastic week! Con mucho amor,

Elder Chamberlain.

Super busy but amazing week!

This was a super busy week. It was amazing, though!

We got a new greenie in our district. It's so weird to think that I was as stressed out as she is just three months ago! I already feel like I know all there is to being a missionary. At times, at least. Other times, I'm just willing to sit back and watch Elder Larsen work his magic in the lessons, cause I feel like I have no idea how to do it. But either way, it's insane how much you grow and change over just a short period of time, especially when you've got goals and the Lord is involved.

DQ Blizzards on Friday

We got a new car! We had to drive down to McAllen on Thursday to get it, so we lost most of the work day. But on the way back up, we got permission to stop by one of Elder Larsen's recent converts, from when he was in Harlingen. She'll be able to go through the temple in about three months, and Elder Larsen might be able to get permission to go with her, since he was involved in her teaching process. Just wait! In one year, I'm going to be going through the temple with Max!

Max is still doing great. He came to church yesterday, and we're almost done teaching him everything he needs to know. He's getting really excited for baptism, and our current goal with him is the first of February. The Zone Leaders are really pressuring us to bump that up a week, though, cause we're still short of our zone goal for the month of January. We're not sure if that's what's best for Max, but we might just have to follow their council. So don't be too surprised if next week's email has pictures from a baptism!

Even though we lost a few work days this week, due to meetings and such, we were able to find some cool people to teach. One of the problems here is just actually getting around to the second lesson, though. Most of the people here work in the oil industry, and their work schedules are pretty hectic sometimes. That makes it hard to find a specific time to meet with people. Like they told us in the CCM, we'll be teaching a lot more first lessons than anything else! But it's good. I need the practice. And we met a family last night that seemed really interested. The whole family is really cool, and the Mom, who we were teaching along with her kids, received a spiritual confirmation during her prayer that our church is true! She's super cool, and we could totally baptize their whole family. It's pretty awesome. But I'll try not to get cocky or anything like that.

Elder Larsen is so dead. He hit his Sister Mark on Saturday! He's soooo dead. But not really. He's still working super hard. Besides, he's still got 6 months left! Plenty of time to live and make a difference in the grand mission of Texas, McAllen. And I've still got plenty of time to learn from him. It's good, too, cause I've still got tons to learn.

Elder Larsen's face when he realized he's a sister! He hit his sister mark (18 months) on Saturday!

Texas is awesome. If you've never been here, you should come sometime. And if you have, you should come again.

I love you all. Have an excellent week, and I hope to hear from you all!

Con Amor,

Elder Chamberlain

Great week!

Well, this was a good week. Good, long, and I'll probably still miss everything that happened because so much did happen. But here it goes.

Tuesday! Elder Nichols (our dying zone leader) and I went on an exchange in the evening and were able to get a baptismal date with one of mine and Elder Larsen's investigators! His name's Max, and I'll go into more detail about him later in this message. But basically, he's a boss and is going to be baptized on February 1st (Happy Birthday Hannah!), if not sooner.

The Zone Leaders, asleep in the back  

Wednesday! We met a woman named Tilly, who we will hopefully be able to talk to again this week. She's Catholic and wasn't super interested in changing religions (or so she thinks) but she said that her granddaughter might be interested, so we could come back again. She's super nice, though. We also ate dinner with one of the part member families in the area. I found out that Chicken-Fried Chicken tastes almost exactly like Chicken Taco Pie. Or at least it does when made at the George West Steakhouse.

Thursday! Had a Zone Meeting in the morning, and another lesson with Max in the afternoon. We introduced him to the Book of Mormon, and he said that he would do his best to read it.

Friday! In the evening, we found a man named Corando. He's super cool, and currently goes to the Pentecostal church in Three Rivers. He's had a lot of crazy stuff going on in his life, and about 15 years ago he started looking for God. He's been getting prepared for more than 15 years to hear the gospel, and we'll keep working with him. Not really got a ton to talk about on him, but we will next week!

HATS!  We got them from Corando, our new investigator

Saturday! Had another lesson with Max about the Plan of Salvation. And we got him to commit to coming to stake conference, which we had yesterday.

Sunday! Max came to stake conference! He's such a stud, and he told us that he really wants to learn more about the church. He was expressing a lot of doubt before, but now he looks amazing! And the first thing that he did when he got home from the stake conference was look up one of the scriptures that was talked about in the Book of Mormon! (1 Nephi 5:5) He'll be coming to a family night that we're having tonight. Also, we were able to find a family of 6! They're a little strange, but we'll be teaching them this week. I don't remember any of their names!

That's essentially my week in a nutshell. Not a ton of emotion was put into this email, sorry bout that. But that's what happened.

Now, how it happened: I really don't know. Apparently this is the most success that George West has ever had in one week, and we've never had anyone in this area that's been really close to being baptized. Max is going to be the first person, and this area's been open almost a year! I'm so excited!

Also, we got transfer calls today, and I get to stay here for one more transfer with Elder Larsen!

It's been a great week, and I need to go! Time goes so fast, especially when writing!

Love you all! Don't forget to write!

-Elder Chamberlain

Teetertotters/seesaws still exist in Texas! (EVERYTHING is legal here!)

New Year!

The weeks just keep getting faster and faster, and I don't think it'll ever stop! It's a little ridiculous. But it's all good. And this was a really good week!

On Wednesday night we got to watch Frozen! Every year the Mission President lets us watch a movie on New Years Eve, and we watched the animated hit from 2013 starring Adele Dazeem as the queen Elsa. (If you don't know about Adele Dazeem, click here to see John Travolta's introduction of Idina Menzel at the March 2014 Academy Awards.) It felt really different watching it out here than at home, but it was really fun. We also had a party as a Zone. I got a Mr. Potato Head. We didn't finish the movie until almost 9, so we had to spend the night at the Zone Leaders' house. The floor isn't very comfortable, in case you were wondering. Also, the Zone Leaders are staying with us right now again. So it's pretty crowded at the Trailer.

This is how we got pumped up for Frozen!

We had a miracle this week!  On Friday night I decided that I was going to fast, because we hadn't been having very much success finding people in our area. so with that thought in mind, we worked super hard on Saturday and had a pretty good day. We were able to talk to Miguel again and have a short lesson with him, and also a really nice man named Max. But we were unable to find anyone new to talk to. Nobody was interested. All our plans kept falling through, so we  decided to knock on a door of a former investigator in the area. She'd apparently been taught the first lesson, but was never at home any of the other times that the missionaries went by. So we knocked on the door, and met Tony, Hannah (his girlfriend) and Jason (his uncle). Tony had talked to the Sister Missionaries almost 15 years ago, when he was 7, and they'd made such an impression on him that he remembers them still. He told us he wanted to hear what we had to say, then Jason and Hannah walked in. We were able to sit down with them and have a lesson on the Restoration of the Gospel. It was amazing to see how they were all prepared to hear about it, and to want to learn more! We're planning on going back to teach them the next time Tony's off work later this week. The Lord has been preparing them for the last 15 years! It's insane!

I'm out of time, but I want to thank you all for your support and love for me. It's amazing out here, and going by way too fast! Make sure you make this year count! Make good plans for it. I love you all!

Love, Elder Chamberlain

Lion statues we saw in George West