December 20, 2016 A Note to Riley

Dear Riley and Rachael, 

Congratulations on your marriage! I am truly happy for you. 

As I am here in Australia, and people ask me about my family, I tell them that my brother is getting married! I also explain to them that his fiancé is a longtime friend of mine, not to mention our neighbor. Without fail, everybody reacts the same way. They make a surprised face and say, "Really?" Then they cautiously ask me how I feel about it. I find that reaction pretty funny. But I always respond by telling them that I am actually really excited about it! I think I am pretty lucky to have one of my best friends become my Sister-in-Law.

Rachael, you are awesome. I am so happy that you are the one to be with Riley. He certainly doesn't deserve a great girl like you, but hey, we always knew he would marry up. You've basically been a part of the Chappell family for quite a while, but now it is official, so I officially welcome you to the crew, and you are officially my sister (in-law)! I will never call you Sister Chappell though. That's weird. 

Riley, I am not gonna lie, I am pretty sad that you got married this quickly! I was secretly hoping that we could still have some time as just bros, playing sports and board games all day, eating meals at midnight, watching movies, being dorks, listening to rock'n'roll and singing way too loudly along with it, and the like. So yeah, I am pretty bummed that that phase of our lives is over, but I knew it would happen eventually. Now that you are getting married, I can't really talk about girls with you anymore, but let's be honest. The only girl you have ever even admitted to having a crush on is the one you just married! So taking that into consideration, Riley, of all of your girlfriends, I am glad you chose Rachael! I approve this decision. Riley, you are such an awesome brother. You know how much I have always looked up to you, and that hasn't changed at all. I am proud of you and happy for you. 

I hope this time has been just awesome for the two of you! I don't know at what point of the festivities you are reading this, but I am sure that whenever it is, you are probably sick and tired of all of the stuff going on and your fake smiles are plastered to your faces permanently. I am not envious of that, but I am sure you can push through. Enduring to the end is an important gospel principle. 

Good luck on being newlyweds, I wouldn't know anything about it, but everyone says that's a fun time of life, so enjoy that! 

Congratulations, I love you both and wish you all the best. (And while you are reading this out loud, say hi to all of my adoring fans in attendance for me)

Thank you, 

Elder Calvin Chappell

December 19, 2016 Werribee

Merry Christmas everybody!

    I only have a really short time to write this email, so I thought that's basically all I wanted
to say! I hope you all enjoy your time with friends and family, and I hope you remember
the reason for the season. Sing the Christmas Hymns, and really think about the words.
I will be thinking of all of you this week! 

I love you, 

Elder Chappell

December 11, 2016 Werribee

Good morning starshine! The Earth says Hello! 

I will start by wishing my Mother a happy birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!  I love you! I was thinking about you on your birthday. I miss you! I hope you had a great birthday.

This week was quite eventful. Tuesday was MLC. I love MLC. I love President and Sister Vidmar. They are so amazing. So that meeting was good. I love to see all of the other Zone Leaders and the Sister Training Leaders. They are all like my best friends in the mission. They are so great. So we learned a lot of great stuff from that meeting, but I don't have the time or the motivation to write it all up. Basically, work hard. When you are doing the Lord's work, it is not about you, so do everything you can. Even when it is hard. Especially when it is hard. That is when you grow the most. 

Wednesday was normal, but I did an exchange with the Samoan elders. (we have a Samoan ward and a Tongan ward in our zone, so I get to learn a lot) I am at the point where I can have a very basic introduction conversation with Samoan people and throw in a few jokes at good times to impress them with my Samoan knowledge, then just pretend like I understand them the rest of the time. It is pretty fun. I got three dinners that night. This is why I have gained weight on the mission. The Samoan ward is Melton 2nd ward. If you remember, I started my mission in the Melton Ward and was there for 6-7 months. Back then it was just one ward. So it was full of Samoans. Now there's an english ward and a Samoan ward. So that was why I got chubby. Everyday, 2 dinners. KFC 5 times a week. This exchange brought back some good memories.

Thursday was our mission Christmas party. It was awesome. I got my Christmas package!  I open it because I expected it would be individually wrapped items inside... I am sorry. Don't worry, I pulled out the stockings for my companions, found the Christmas decorations, and then closed it back up and wrapped it. The surprise is gone now but I will still have it to open for Christmas. Thank you so much! My companions also thanked you a lot. They really appreciated it. 

 We had a mini Olympics, and our zone totally lost. But that is ok. I am not really that competitive anyway ;) There was a talent show, and an awesome devotional with heaps of musical numbers. We also had time to just play sports so I was back and forth between rugby and ultimate frisbee! That was awesome. 

Over the last two weeks I think I have received maybe 20 letters from friends and the family. Thank you! They are awesome! I got Riley's wedding invitation too. It looks awesome!

Friday was Temple day! I love going to the temple. It had been a long time, and it was much needed. I really loved being in there. That helped my week. 

After that it was normal. Kiana and Jeremy are so solid. They come to church every week, they love the Book of Mormon and they are planning out the baptism. Kiana and Anisa's son Sebastian have asked me to baptize them. And Jeremy asked Elder Togia to baptize him. So that is going to be awesome. I can't wait!

Love you all! 

Elder Calvin Chappell

December 4, 2016 Werribee

Good Morning Everybody! This week was cool.

Miracle time!!!

So we will be having 3 people baptized on Christmas Eve! Sebastian, Kiana, and Jeremy. So Sebastian isn't a convert baptism because he is 8, but his Mom just joined the church so he is basically a convert. But Anyway, Yeah Jeremy is a family friend of Anisa and has been coming to church for a few weeks. He is 16, and he is a baker. He probably makes the best cheesecake in the world. Just sayin'.

We had a split Sunday today. We are covering the Werribee ward and the Geelong ward during this weird transition time so we went to one Sacrament meeting, then rushed over to the other one which was a little less than half an hour away. So that was fun.  (Did you catch the movie quote?)

This week is gonna be crazy. We have a zone P-day today (laser tag), then MLC (mission leadership council) tomorrow, then nothing wednesday, then a mission wide Christmas Party thursday, then zone temple day friday, then back to normal. Woot fun!

So normally I would have a lot of Christmas stuff up, but my too companions are named Elder Grinch and Elder Scrooge, so we don't even have a tree😞 That's ok I will get one this week.

Everybody go to Mormon.org and do the 25 days of Christmas! It is not too late! Yes that means you. 

See ya! 

Elder Calvin Chappell

November 27, 2016 Werribee

Good morfternoon everybody! Even after all this time in Australia, it is still weird for me to think that the people I am emailing are receiving it a day before I send it. I always wanted to have time control super powers, and in a way I kind of do right now. Well, my words do anyway. 

This week was crazy! So one of the missionaries in our zone had to go home for a surgery, and so President Vidmar had to move some people around. Long story short, we now are in a trio (again), and we are covering 2.5 areas. So the new addition to the companionship is Elder Tawha! (the 'wh' is pronounced like and 'f', so it is like Tafa) He is from New Zealand, and he is the man. He is going to be finishing his mission on the 14th of December, so this won't be for too long. 

With all these transfers, nobody was left in the Geelong area in our zone, which was Elder Tawha's area, so now the three of us are covering both areas. A few of the days, we couldn't leave one area unattended, so we did some exchanges and they went to Geelong while I stayed in Werribee and went with a few different Elders. It was a bit crazy. 

Thanksgiving was just any other day, I actually didn't realize it was thanksgiving until the evening. So I drew a turkey in my planner, and that was my celebration! Woot! 

Happy Birthday Tyler!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't believe you are 10 years old. You were 8 when I left! How dare you get older without me there. I hope you had a great day, and I hope Superguy smashed everybody else.

MIRACLE TIME!!!!!!  Remember Anisa? She got baptized a few weeks ago. Well she has a family friend named Jeremy, who was at the baptism. Since then, he has been to church three times and was present at one lesson with Anisa, and he approached me in church yesterday and said he wants to be baptized! Woooooot!🎶🎹🎸🎷🎵📢📣🔔🎻🎼🎤🎛🎙🎆🎉🎊  There is no date yet. Kiana will be baptized on Christmas Eve though! I forgot to mention that. She is Laura’s daughter, and she wants to be baptized with Anisa's son Sebastian, who is 8 years old. So that will be the 24^th.

So that was my week!

I love you all and will see you in the future!

Be excellent to eachother.

Elder Chappell

November 20, 2016 Werribee

Good morning America! This week has been different!

We had a mini mission! So if you don't know what that means, that is when youth from the wards in our stake choose to come with the missionaries and basically be missionaries for a couple of days. So we did that! It was organized by some other missionaries in our zone and we didn't know about it until the day before. So that was fun because we were on exchanges during the day of the mini mission! I was with Elder Meyer. And not only did we get one mini missionary, but we got 2! One of them was an RM who just really wanted to join for the experience, so we were a nice barber shop quartet for a day or two. We got so much work done and found heaps of new people to teach! So that was awesome! 

So we had two lessons with Kiana this week, and she is awesome! Her baptism will be on Christmas Eve! So she will receive the gift of the Holy Ghost on Christmas day. Best Christmas gift ever!🎅

It has been SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO hot the last two days. Man. I can't stand it! It's like, the temperature is pretty hot, but somehow it feels like 10000 times hotter. It is like that feeling when your car has been cooking in the sun for hours and you climb in and immediately start sweating. It is like that all day long. ALL DAY LONG. They say it's a hole in the ozone that causes it, but I don't know if that is scientifically supported or not. Either way, It is really hot. And we don't have air conditioner in our flat, and the one in our car fails. 😓🤒😲😵👿👺💣💥🌡☀🌞🔥🔆🔅

Other than that, pretty good week, some ups some downs, but all in all, Pretty great!

Have a great week!

Elder Calvin Chappell

November 15, 2016 Werribee

Hello people,

A lot happened this week.  Anisa got baptized!  Yay, wohoo.  It was one of the more interesting baptisms I’ve been to because we were combining with a baptism from the sisters in our zone.  And it turned out that the husband/father of their two baptisms decided he wasn’t going to allow them to be baptized.  They were going to have faith and move forward anyway until the bishop reminded them that she needed her spouse’s consent before she could be baptized.  So instead of three baptisms that day it was just Anisa.

Anisa is just a great missionary.  She invited a bunch of friends and her family to the baptism.  She has this friend Justin who came.   He is so excited about the church.  He has been looking for a church and knows that this is the one for him!  But he isn’t in our area, but we referred him to those missionaries and that should go really well.  I’ve never heard someone say things like that before.  I’ve read about them in the Ensign, but never in real life.  I am so excited! 

The other great thing that came from the baptism is Anisa’s best friend- Laura, who is a member, was less active for a long time, but has been coming back and has been really strong.  Laura has three children who haven’t been baptized and a husband who is not a member and they have been coming to church every week!  Now, after the baptism, two of the kids have been coming to church and the baptism, and one of them has decided that she wants to be baptized.  She is slightly Autistic, but really high functioning.  She is really shy, but likes to talk with us.  Things are really looking up for that family.

Transfer news came!  Elder Fetuli left, and now it is just Elder Togia and me. Yesterday was transfer day.  It was crazy, lots of driving!  Our flat will be a lot quieter now, and we will have a lot more food around- Elder Fetuli ate everything!

That’s all I got for today.  Oh, when I was getting my hair cut at a member’s house they told me that the Jazz are 5^th in the west right now!!  Yeah!  Ok, I think that’s all.  Have a great week.  See ya!

Elder Calvin Chappell

Pictures: Anisa’s baptism.  And our P-day trip to the Twelve Apostles national park.  It is beautiful.  There used to be twelve rock stacks, but now there are only 6 I think.

November 6, 2016 Werribee

Well hello there world! 

I apologize in advance for this email because it will probably be really boring. Know why? Cause this week was really boring! 

So Monday we had a zone P-day with two zones, and it was pretty fun. We went to a massive park and played every sport ever. They have a basketball hoop that is about 8 feet tall and super reinforced. So basically it is made for dunking. And I have still got it! I won the dunk competition with my signature bounce off the ground and backboard 360 one handed self alley-oop tomahawk dunk.

Tuesday was MLC! I love MLC so much. So that was great. That took all day, then on Wednesday we had the meeting with trainers and trainees which took all day. Then Thursday we had ZOne conference with three zones which took all day. Then Friday was mostly normal, with an exchange and Baptismal interview. Then Saturday our zone had two baptisms that we prepared everything for, then Sunday we had church and then SMCM with the Stake President and Mission President. 

So that was our week! Pretty dang exciting eh? 

See you all later! 

Elder Chappell

Here's the view of the city from somewhere in our zone.

October 30, 2016 Werribee

Hello again! I feel like I was emailing you yesterday. This week was pretty dang fast. Like Muhammad Ali turning off the light in his bedroom and hitting the pillow before the room got dark fast. 

We had two exchanges this week, so I was all over the zone. I spent a day in Point Cook, and a day in Melton. With those plus meetings, there wasn't too much time for me working in my area. The time we had in our area was good. We are focusing on getting to know all of the members. So we are just going the the ward list by area and visiting everyone! There is bound to be a golden less active or part member family. We haven't found 'em yet, but we will. 

Anisa is awesome. She is doing really well. Also she has 3 kids, and the oldest is 8. His name is Sebastian, and he loves to learn about God! We are going to invite him to be baptized along with Anisa. We would have done so earlier, but the problem was the ex-husband, Sebastian's father. He didn't want his kids being "brainwashed to believe in God". So we were respectful of that and didn't try anything that could offend. But then Anisa told us that she talked with her ex-husband and somehow his heart has been softened and he thinks it would be good for his kids to have faith. MIRACLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! So we will see if he can be baptized on the 12th. 

So this coming week is gonna be crazy. Today is a zone P-day with our zone and one other. Tomorrow is MLC (the monthly meeting with all the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders and President), Wednesday is a meeting for all the New missionaries and trainers to see how they are doing after a month, thursday will be a Zone Conference, Friday should be normal, Saturday will be 5 baptisms in our zone (wooooo!), and then Sunday will be Normal. Oh btw, this last weekend was our stake conference and we got a new Stake Presidency, so that was cool. President Vidmar was there, and Elder O. Vincent Halleck from the Seventy-Pacific Area President. Plus an Area seventy who we see all the time named Elder Dudfield. That was an awesome meeting. 

Love you all!

Elder Chappell

October 23, 2016 Werribee

Hi World! 

This week was pretty awesome. The best thing was our golden investigator!!

So last week I mentioned an investigator named Anisa right? Well in the last week we have discovered that she is about as golden as they come. She has been led to the church by miracle after miracle. Now she is set to be baptized on November 12. 

So I'll tell you a short version of one of her many miracles. She is a very faithful person and has always believed in God. A few years ago she had a strange experience where a random old woman spoke to her and asked her if she believed in miracles. She said yes, and the woman told her she needed to look for something, but she couldn't pronounce the word, so she wrote it down. 

Melchizidek. 

Anisa thought that was really strange, but she searched a bit for it, and found nothing, then kind of forgot about it after a while. Then fast forward a few years, and her good friend invited her to attend her church (our church). So she went, and while she was there, she felt the Spirit really strongly and began to cry a lot. After the meeting, her friend suggested that she get a  blessing. Anisa accepted and they ran to the Elders. (this is the Elders right before I came). They gave her a blessing, and the Elder doing it felt that he should explain to her about the Melchizidek Priesthood, and he did. Of course, she made the connection and she knew this was what she was looking for.

Moral of the story, God is leading all of His children to come back to him. God works in mysterious ways. Sometimes, even through random old ladies. 

I love miracles!!

See you all!

Elder Chappell

October 16, 2016 Werribee

Hey everybody! This week was good. Elder Togia, Fetuli, and I get along really well. We are like brothers. We always mess with each other but it's all in good fun. Things are going well!

The Werribee ward is awesome. They love to do missionary work! They always bring friends to church. In fact, all of our investigators have come from Members inviting them! We don't have too many investigators right now, just a few, but we will get more. So who we have now...

Anisa: She is a good friend of a member who is returning to activity. She is a single Mum, and she loves the church. She wanted to get baptized before, then changed her mind just cause she wasn't sure, but she didn't really know anything about it then, just that she liked the people and the feeling there. So now we are teaching her and she will decide to be baptized again :) 

Ebony and Meegan: 12 year olds who are friends with the girls in the ward. They want to be baptized as well, just need parental permission!

There are some other assorted investigators, but those are the solid ones.

Other than that, we are just working like crazy to find new ones! So far there haven't been too many visible fruits of our efforts, but they always come. Get ready for miracles this week! 

So the Book Of Mormon musical is coming to Melbourne in a few months and apparantly it's a huge deal. So we are going to have a meeting this week with some seventies and people from the church headquarters about how to use this as a finding opportunity. I think that is awesome. I am excited!

That's all from this week, See ya!

Elder Chappell

October 9, 2016 Werribee

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey y'all. This week has been crazy! So I am with my two companions, Elder Togia, and Elder Fetuli. Elder Togia is Samoan and Elder Fetuli is Tongan. And I am American :) It is fun. Elder Togia and I had a day together first and we just get along great. We love to make fun of each other. In a good way of course :) and Elder Fetuli is great. He is a brand new missionary, straight from Tonga. We actually picked him up from the airport! That was the first time I had been there since I arrived in Australia! But I guess he was somehow on the wrong flight and nobody knew he was there until he eventually called his mom and said he had been waiting there for 3 hours, then she called the mission, and President Vidmar called his Assistants, and they called us and told us to go get him! So that was interesting being at the airport. But it didn't end there!

Last week we had MLC, and the Tasmania Zone Leaders always fly in for that. And for some reason, again the Assistants asked us to pick them up! (We are not even close to the Airport so that's weird, but yeah it happened.) MLC was awesome, and then we dropped them off at the airport again. So yep we are basically just the airport missionaries. That was fun! 

So with missionary meetings plus general conference, plus exchanges, I got to spend a grand total of one night in my own flat! The flat is small but good. It is super messy right now, because we have my stuff and Elder Fetuli's stuff out. Yeah we haven't even had time to unpack yet! How fun! But it will be great. 

The Werribee ward sounds great. I met a few of the members watching conference, so that was good. They missionaries here have been having a lot of success here recently, so I hope it just keeps going!

I don't know any of our investigators yet so I will update you later. I don't know if any of you remember, but earlier in my mission when I was in this Zone, we would hike a mini mountain every transfer as kind of a tradition. So this week we started it back up! That was fun again :) 

So that was basically our week! It was busy, and not really with the work, mostly with driving and meetings, so next week will be better :)

See you! 

Elder Chappell

October 2, 2016 Shepparton

Well hello everybody! This week was pretty exciting so I will just jump to the interesting stuff and skip the day to day.

Jana got baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wooooooooooo! 

So funny story, We were going to baptize her on Friday the 30 of September, but then she was sick, so we made it Saturday Oct 1. Then she called us on Friday night, and said she wanted to marry Neal right before the baptism. So... We organized a marriage and a baptism and they both happened Saturday! She was married at 4 and baptized at 5. It was awesome. The wedding was very much a small and simple wedding, but it was beautiful. The baptism was also small and simple, but that is was she wanted so it worked out well. 

So after the baptism we all went to an all you can eat Chinese place, (excellent choice), then we got a call from the AP's... Transfer news! So I am getting transferred! I am going to Werribee, so back down into the suburbs of Melbourne. It is actually the same zone as my first area. I am still a zone leader, and I will be with Elder Togia. (the 'g' is pronounced like and 'ng'). I don't know him too well, but I have met him a couple of times and he seems like an awesome guy.  So I am not totally sure where he is from. He is definitely Polynesian. I think he grew up in Brisbane though.   But here is the big kicker! We are going to be in a threesome with a brand new missionary! So we are team training! My 4th son! Yeah! I am excited. 

Oh the other couple we are working with is Adrian and Rebecca. They are doing great. They didn't come to church because they didn't account for the daylight savings time change. Oh yeah that happened yesterday.

I am really sad to leave Shepparton though. I love this area. I am also sad to leave Elder Van Wagoner, we became great friends in our short time serving together. But I am sure we will love our new companions and all will be well. This was the perfect way to end my time in Shepparton!

I love this work! It feels so good to see people like Jana change their lives. 

See you all later!

Elder Chappell

Here's the baptism. One good picture and one weird selfie

Here's Steakasaurus and a soccer cow. (I don't have a name for him.) Goodbye Shepparton!

September 25, 2016 Shepparton

Hello world. This week was awesome! I really really enjoyed it. 

I'll cut to the chase (whatever that means). This week we did heaps of finding. We decided that we are working with some promising investigators, but most of who we are teaching are not really progressing. So we need more people to teach! So we went searching for them. 

I don't always tract, but when I do, I prefer to find people to teach. That was our thing this week. We were tracting like we meant it! We chose this long street called Waranga drive, and tracted that for more than 2 full days of tracting. So in the bush, an average count of new contacts per companionship per week is maybe 3. We got 18 this week!! Woot! Some of them are really really solid. One is named Kalvin!! Obviously, he misspells his own name every time he uses it and asks all of us to misspell it along with him, so that's why I used a K. But other than that, he is a top gent. I love Kalvin. Also there was an Italian lady named Lisa. They are gonna be so awesome!

So I am excited for the coming weeks. The only problem is that this is the last week of the transfer, so I could be transferred. I have been here for 3 transfers, so it's definitely possible. I hope I stay though!

MIRACLE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So remember Jana?

She moved out, is living with members, and called us saying she wants to be baptized this Friday. 

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So we will be planning that and baptizing her this week! Except she is sick right now, and might have to postpone if she doesn't get better, so please pray for her!

Last week we went with some members to a wild life preserve.  It was really awesome.  I learned that kangaroos are actually really dangerous.  They punch, and have sharp claws, and have sharp teeth.  

They also lean back on their tail and kick with both their legs.  I also learned that Koalas are soft like a stuffed animal, but they are pretty boring.  A sloth would be more interesting than a koala.  We also saw wombats, Tasmanian devils, cockatoos, Imus, dingoes, (krickey a dingo!) And we saw a snake called a Southern Death Adder.  I am sure that is just come kind of animal classification, but it really should be called Life Subtract-or.

This week I learned that when you work as hard as you should be, actively seeking for the work to be done then miracles start to happen!  I am just really happy.  It was an awesome week.  It is so good to just feel like a missionary always.   

So that was my week!

Quick shout out to two of my best friends getting married! Congrats Riley and Rachael on your engagement! 

I love you all!  Have a great week!

Elder Calvin Chappell

September 18, 2016 Shepparton

Good morfterneveninight everyone! 

This week was good. We worked really hard on the zone meeting, which happened on Friday. It went so well. We got permission to use the internet to make presentations and it was awesome. We just tried to make the meeting really interactive and engaging. We did it convention workshop style and had lots of really cool hands on activities for the missionaries to learn more missionary skills. It was fun and I really hope they liked it! 

Adrian and Rebecca and their kids came to church this week, so that was awesome! Jana also came, and she is doing better. She still wants to be baptized, just not sure when. But she is awesome. 

Church was fun. Every week we teach the youth Sunday School class, and we fill in for others who need help. But this week we basically ran the church. I blessed the Sacrament, my companion played the organ, then during the second and third hours, we had to go on splits with some of the young men so that we could teach the youth, the primary, the high priests group, and another primary class. That was fun. (I'll tell ya, teaching a bunch of fathers about how to have a successful home is a funny experience when you're 19 years old and have never had a home of your own.) I love being in a branch!

The work has been crawling along these last few weeks, but it is about to start picking back up. I can feel it! 

Today we went to a wildlife park with a family in the branch. Kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, emus, dingoes, wombats, Tasmanian devils, and other fun stuff. That was cool! Here's some pictures.  (Sorry, the computer is too slow...pictures to come next week.)

Love you all!

Elder Chappell