November 29, 2015 Melton

Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood moooooooooooorning sweet world!
How is everybody?

So guess what? I am staying in Melton! Woot! I am super pumped for
Mary's baptism. I am very very thankful I get to stay.  All three of us are staying. 

They almost never leave three-somes. 

So this week was crazy! But before I get into that, HAPPY BIRTHDAY
TYLER!!!!!!! (3 days ago) 9 years old (and 3 days). Crazy crazy! I
hope you had an awesome day. And I hope the theme of your party was
super heroes.

I enjoyed a great Thanksgiving dinner and I hope you all did too! I
have so much to be thankful for and Thanksgiving helps me remember
that.

So here's a super awesome quote I heard recently. When somebody told
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland that they were "broken" and there was no hope
for them, he responded with this, "God loves to work with broken
things. He uses broken clouds to make the rain, broken ground to take
the seeds, broken seeds to grow the plants, broken grains to make the
bread, broken bread to feed the Spirit, and broken hearts to come unto
Christ." (paraphrased) I think that quote speaks for itself. That
gives me so much comfort. We have weaknesses so that we can grow.
Ether 12:27

So today is the last P day of the transfer and the tradition in this
zone is to watch the sunrise from the top of a mountain in the You
Yangs park. That was way fun! But when coming back, I, along with some
other Elders went off of the path for a "shortcut". I have always been
taught to not do that. But come on, I had to. It's so much fun! Anyway
we did end up losing our way, losing the path, and wandering through
bush for about 30 minutes. In all honesty, nothing bad happened and we
found the path eventually, but the principle is the same. It
(obviously) made me think of Kevin W. Pearson's talk, "Stay on the
Path". If you haven't read that one, read it. It's great.

So crazy story! Elder Babneau was in the hospital overnight Friday
night! He had an abscess that had to be cut out. They don't allow
visitors after 8 p.m., so they kicked me and Elder Deng out! It was
crazy. He was all by himself with no companion! We didn't know what to
do so we called our mission President. He said it's ok because it has
to happen but we got him first thing in the morning! He is all good
now. But that was an interesting night!

We had Stake Conference and that was awesome. Elder Dudfield of the
seventy was there. They announced that the Melton Chapel, which is way
too small for the ward, will be renovated and it will become a stake
center that can hold 3 wards. That was awesome. I am way excited. It
will be finished in a year so I might be able to come back and see it
depending on where I am serving. But it is just really cool cause it
shows how much the church is growing here. I love it.

Well here's some pictures! the You Yangs mountain view.

And our budget decorations.

I love you all! Have a great week and be excellent to each other.

Elder Chappell

November 22, 2015 Melton

Happy Thanksgiving soon to everyone back in the land where they
actually celebrate thanksgiving! Don't worry, there's an awesome
member who is going to feed us turkey and potatoes and pie on that
day!

So transfers are next week so next email you will hear if I am going
or staying, but if I am going, I won't know where until Wednesday. I
really hope I am staying because Mary will be baptized on the 5th of
December. I don't want to miss that! But I will go where the Lord
calls me willingly.

This week has been fun. We have focused a lot on part member families.
I intend to do that throughout my mission. We have gone through and
contacted every single part member family in the ward and most are
very willing to talk with us. The next transfer here could have like 5
baptisms. The field is white already to harvest!

It was really cool this last week because I was able to go on
exchanges with Elder Albrechtsen who I met in the MTC. He is the man
and we will probably go to school together after the mish.

So some of the best Aussie food is meat pies. Mom, you need to figure
out how to make them, because hose are incredible. You would bless the
lives of everyone around you if you made them. I buy a bag of freezer
meat pies every week and eat them constantly.

One of the biggest temptations for me is movies. The world is going
crazy about the new star wars movie. I can't tell you how many members
have tried to show us the trailers for it. I can't tell you how hard
it is to say no. AAAAh! One family we are teaching, actually Mary's
family, her brother is a huge Marvel fan. As am I. temptations. I just
want to talk about it for ages, but I can't.

Well, I hope yous are getting snow! If so, I am jealous! It is
starting to get very very hot. Maybe I'll be transferred to Tazzy
where it's much cooler... hmm.. Anyway, if there is snow, I wanna see
pictures!

Love you all.
Bye!
Elder Chappell

November 15, 2015 Melton

Hey everyone! Another week down, I actually just hit my 4 month mark. That's strange. I feel like I'm really at my 4 week mark. But that's ok, I still have 20 months to make the most of.

Melton is the bomb. We will be having a baptism on December 5th! (it would be earlier but she is going on a camp this week and it's stake conference next week). Her name is Mary and I think I have talked about her before. If not, she is 11 and her family is all members. They have been coming back to activity because of her. She has been begging her mom to let her be baptized. Her mom thinks she is ready
now so it's gonna happen on the 5th! We should also be having many more baptisms. We have so many people that are really close to making that step. I am excited for December.

So we are making a video as a zone for Christmas. The theme of the video is Toy Story and the Book of Mormon. So we have to relate them to each other. It's gonna be way fun. I'll make sure to send a copy of it home if I ever get one.

So because there is no Thanksgiving here, the Christmas decorations start going up right after Halloween. I have mentioned to a few members that I love Christmas decorations and I have received 3 bags of them. Our flat is gonna be jolly.

Transfers are coming in just a couple more weeks. I can't believe how fast this transfer has been. I am going to miss this threesome! We have a lot of fun together but we still know how to be missionaries.
It is a good balance. It's amazing how we are all so different, like, SO different. But we can still be great friends and a great companionship. The Lord truly knows us and knows what's best for us.  So we don't know 100% but it's about 99% chance that one of us will leave and they will split Melton again. Well, there are less and less missionaries in this mission. Heaps are going home in the next few transfers so they might not split Melton, but they never keep a threesome for more than a transfer. One of us will go. 

Shout out to the other Elder Chappell. My ponderize scripture this week is one that he showed me ages ago. James 1:19 "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and
slow to wrath." 

I am the only one of the three of us who drives. Well, both of them can, but I am the designated driver. We have to follow that rule strictly. I kinda wish I wasn't the driver though.

So there is this family that lives right next door to a flat that used to be where missionaries lived. Nobody stays there anymore but this family has lived next to missionaries for ages. So they know a little bit about the church. Anyway, we have gotten pretty close to this family. The mother, Sam is finally reading the Book of Mormon! She is very firm in the fact that she doesn't want to be converted, so we
have to teach her in a sneaky way. We managed to offer a Book of Mormon without offending. She has finally started reading it. I am excited to hear what she thinks. Her oldest child is named Alex and he is 11. He is autistic. For whatever reason he likes me a lot and he loves it when we come by so he can show me his creations. He is a GENIOUS. This kid designs and creates amazing things! He has a 3D printer so he designs helicopters and boats and heaps o random things then he creates them. I will attatch a picture with me and the skull he made for me. (why a skull? who knows.) But it's pretty awesome. He is going to make Thor's hammer for me. I know. It's too good to be true. I am gonna miss so many people when I eventually get transferred!

Anyway, I love you all!
I am gonna come back sounding like Bruce from Finding Nemo! Know why? Cause I'm now in the habit of  saying "Good on ya Mate"

See ya!
Elder Chappell

Pictures: That is the Redback spider in our garage. Very dangerous. We feed it other bugs we find. We would kill it, but they don't move anywhere once they make their webs so we know it won't move. The eggs won't hach either because there is no male to fertilize them. So no worries!

November 8, 2015 Melton

Hey everyone! How are yous?

This week had lots of ups and downs. It is really fun to serve with Elder Babneau and Elder Deng. We are having a blast together. I am learning some Chinese from Elder Deng and some Samoan and Tongan from the ward, and I learned heaps of Tagalog from Elder Sifuentes last transfer so I am just gonna come home fluent in every language. Samoan and Tongan are actually fairly easy to pick up.

So the two Melton areas have combined so now we have so many investigators! We have 7 investigators that have a baptismal date. That sounds super awesome right? Well in all honesty it's just really hard because none of them are really progressing. It has been hard this week especially because every appointment has fallen through. I still have high hopes for so many of these people though. Niko should be getting baptized soon… Should be. We have one investigator named Mary who is really solid. She is on for the 21st! I am really excited for that!

It is starting to get crazy hot, although we did have one day that we were rained in for the afternoon. It was crazy. Woot.  There’s a lady in the ward who likes to cook American food for us. She is actually from New Zealand. She just loves American food and she loves me because I love her cooking. So she brings over baked goods all the time and reserved us for Thanksgiving! That's the way you make the members here like you. Eat their food and ask for more. Haha they love it. I don't mind it either. 

I am getting pumped for Christmas! Who is with me? It is never too early to start celebrating. I just wonder if it is too early to bring out the ugly Christmas ties...

I am proud to announce that so far I have maintained my weight. That is saying something when serving in this mission. With all of the islander feeds we get, everybody gains weight like mad. Honestly, when
we don't have a scheduled dinner, we just call a member of our ward (normally our ward mission leader Dougie) and they buy us KFC. KFC is huge here. It's all about KFC and macca's. I guess also Hungry Jack's
(burger king). But yeah we have KFC like three times a week at least...I honestly don't know how I haven't gained weight...

Well this was kind of a short one... Sorry there wasn't much that happened this week! But I'm sure next week will be gun.

Love yous!
Cheers bro yozah g'day mate good on ya shucks churr catch ya

-Elder Chappell

November 1, 2015 Melton

Hello Americans!

There is one sister in our ward that is American, and as funny as it sounds, it is really refreshing to hear that accent again. So there's more transfer news!!

Some Elder somewhere had to be emergency transferred for some reason and somehow we got involved in the domino effect. Elder Valenciano who is in the other companionship in our flat is being transferred into the city, and Elder Deng is going to join our companionship! Threesome again! I am really excited because we both love Elder Deng! This also means we get to do language study again. And now Melton is going to be just one area. So now I have all of my old investigators from last transfer and these ones! It's really awesome. I was already missing my old investigators. Also, Elder Albrechtson is being transferred into my district! You probably are thinking, who in the world is that? He was in the MTC with me. I love that guy! We are pretty tight. So I am really excited about the rest of this transfer.

Happy Halloween! Halloween is really lame here. Like, everybody knows about it, but nobody does anything about it. We went to a member's house for dinner, Julian and Kirby (recent converts, super awesome young couple), and they had a grand total of one person coming to trick-or-treat. My companion and I had decided beforehand that Julian and Kirby had to learn a little of what Halloween is supposed to be. So we bought some pumpkins to carve! Except they don't have real pumpkins here so we bought butternut pumpkins and carved them! They had never done that before. Crazy right?? But we had a good time.

So we are teaching heaps of people that are right on the edge of being baptized. They just need to learn a little more or resolve random concerns. Please everybody pray for Chol. Chol is a 21 year old Sudanese man. He is awesome. He is a baller. He is actually being recruited by American schools. He loves everything we have taught and he is eating up the Book of Mormon. But he doesn't feel like he is getting an answer from God that it is true. He totally has. He says he just feels good in an unexplainable way when he reads it. But just pray to help him recognize his answers. He is the man though.

So one of my zone leaders, Elder Ferris (the man) thinks that I look like JFK. I don't see it, but hey, I'll take it! Anyway, he looks exactly like he could be a secret service agent, so naturally, we took
pictures. Please. Enjoy (there is a less active Tongan family that owns a place called Phresh Cuts in Melton. So we get free cuts! It's actually getting a little long I think. I am gonna get it cut next week probably. I like it a lot shorter than I used to.)

Love

Elder Calvin Chappell