Janaury 31, 2016 Melton (whole city again)

Hi everybody!

Well as the subject implies, this was a crazy week! It started about
an hour after I emailed last week. I got a call from President
Maxwell. He said that Elder Babneau (my former companion, and my then
current District Leader and flatmate) was being emergency transferred.
He then told me that Elder Ching, who was Elder Babneau's companion,
would join Elder Seifert and I, and the area of Melton would be one
area again. Elder Ching is a brand new missionary. Less than a month
in the field. He is from Hong Kong. So this means I am training two
missionaries at the same time... and then President asked me to be the
new District Leader... AAAAH!! What?!  "um... President are you sure?"
So yeah I am now a district leader and training two missionaries, and
I still don't even know how to train one! So this week has been pretty
stressful to say the least. Mostly because the area is so big now.
That is a blessing and a curse. We have heaps and heaps of
investigators which is so awesome. But we have to figure out who is
keen and see them because we don't have enough time for everyone!
Melton needs two companionship's. President said this wont be
permanent, just for this transfer.

For those of you keeping track, I have now served in Melton South,
Melton North, all of Melton, Melton South again, and now all of Melton
again. Yep. Most of the missionaries here call our mission the AMM
(Australia Melbourne Mission), but I call it the AMM (Australia MELTON
Mission).

MIRACLE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The number one miracle for this week is
that Riel, Joseph, and Samuel were baptized. One of the Priests in the
ward baptized them, and I confirmed them. It was amazing. Riel doesn't
smile very much, but when he does, it makes everyone smile. And when
he came out of the water, his smile was so big I almost laughed. It is
pretty amazing the Spirit you can feel at a baptism.

Miracle number 2 is our two golden investigators!! They are named
Akuei (Uh-quee) and Flora. They are from Sudan, and they are
sisters-in-law. They are so golden! They ask questions like, "how can
we know what the truth is? Every church says they have the truth." and
Flora said, "The Bible isn't enough. Everybody gets something
different out of the Bible. How can that be all?" They have been so
prepared. And they are now preparing for baptism on Feb 20.

Miracle number 3 comes from the Boyd family that I have talked about
before. One of the girls is named Jade. She is 14 I think. She has
been the one sitting in all of the lessons, coming to church, and even
going to young women. We learned that she has actually been pushing
her family to go! Well she told us yesterday that she wants to be
baptized!! We didn't even ask her first! She says she feels something
every time she is at church and every time we teach. We are so happy.
Jade being baptized will be the first step for this family.

Anyway, That's mostly all for this week. Man that was a lot of stuff
though! So much emotion in this week and it was all good emotion. I am
loving life in the Australia Melton Mission!

Love yous all!
Elder Calvin Chappell

 (I'd like to know which super hero he is trying to be...?)

January 24, 2016 Melton South

G'day everyone! I would like to begin with a shout out to a certain
human person. That certain human person is a female. She has hair on
her head of the red color. She has freckles on her nose. Her eyes
are.... actually nobody really knows what color her eyes are. Green
maybe? This certain red haired freckle nosed rainbow eyed female human
person is turning 13 years old today. Are there any guesses as to whom
I am speaking of?

It's Amy Jane Chappell!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love you sis! You are now officially a teenager. Which means, watch
out Mom and Dad. Here comes the attitude. Or as they say it here,
add-itch-you-d.

So this week has been incredible! The Melton ward chapel is being
extended. The renovations will last about a year. By the time it is
done it will be big enough to fit three wards! So as a last hoorah for
the old chapel, we had a ward party that was a potluck dinner. A
potluck dinner with a bunch of Samoans and Tongans means it is a REAL
POTLUCK DINNER. They had a hungi, which is when they dig a hole in the
ground and fill it with rocks and use that as a natural oven. They
smoked three whole pigs in that. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
Anyway, we invited everyone and heaps of our investigators came!

Riel, Joseph, and Samuel are doing really well. They are now really
good friends with the young men in the ward, which was a struggle for
a while. They are excited for their baptism. And so am I!!!!

The other family that we are working with all the time is the Boyd
family. I don't know how much I have told yous about them but the mom
is a less active and the rest of the family is not members. Single mom
with 5 daughters. They are from New Zealand and they are awesome. The
mom is super keen to have lessons and come to church and everything,
but the girls have been not so keen. But this week that all changed!
The third daughter, Jade (13), went to a young womens activity, and
loved it. So then she went with her mom to the ward party. So then she
and the second daughter Amber (17) came to church with their mom! It
was so awesome! We really care about this family and want them to be
happy so this meant a lot to us. Still working on that oldest daughter
Shay! She will come around sometime.

Elder Seifert and I are having heaps of fun. The work is going really
well. We have been able to go out with members almost every day. I am
loving it!

Well, Bye everyone! TTYNW.
(talk to you next week.)
ILYA (I love yous all)
WLTMFGS (write letters to me for goodness sake)

Elder Calvin Chappell


Pictures: Me and Elder Seifert looking skux, Us with a cute little
girl in our ward named Annabella. It is also her birthday today! Us
with Riel, Joseph, and Samuel.

January 17, 2016 Melton South

Hey everyone! How has your week been?

I have been happy. Elder Seifert and I are getting along really well
and we are having much success. We have had to push Niko's baptism
back because we can never meet with him! But Rel, Joseph, and Samuel
are still on for the 30th and it will be awesome! I can't wait!

So some random stories this week. We were tracting down in Bacchus
Marsh and we knocked on the first door of the street. A woman opened
the door and proceeded to talk our ears off about some sort of issue
with orphans and child abuse. She was very upset. Eventually she took
a breath and we were able to speak so I told her about the Family
Proclamation and gave her one. She read it over then all of the sudden
she was very friendly to us. As we talked more we found out that this
woman believes that she is a prophet... hmm.. She is also a psychic
and is willing to read our minds if we go somewhere with a table that
she can lay out her cards. I really wanted to see that but I thought,
mm better not. She is keen to learn though and anybody who is keen
will be taught! Whether they believe in the Norse gods (oh did I
forget to mention that part?) or not.

The next door we knocked, the guy straight away let us in and said,
lets hear what you've got to say! Turns out, this bloke has spent the
last 4 months in a mental hospital because he did something crazy. He
claims the spirit took over his body and forced him to do whatever it
was that he did. Because of this, he also believes he is a
prophet...hmm... But he is keen to learn so he shall be taught!

Sometimes the elect come in different packages than we expect.

Our new way of teaching people is by singing. I am not the greatest
singer but Elder Seifert is really good so we just take the hymnbook
and my primary children's songbook (shout out to my Auntie Jennie who
gave me that song book) and we sing duets to people! At first I was
uncomfortable with it but now I have realized just how much the Spirit
testifies through music.

Well as the grizzled vet I am, (six months in) the mission is not what I expected
in lots of ways, but it is in others.. Mostly I just didn't know what
to expect! Yes I have definitely learned a lot and grown heaps. I
actually know how to share my testimony instead of just saying a joke,
a cool story, an analogy, and the same things everyone else says. That
is probably the biggest difference. I am disappointed a little bit
with how much the missionaries aren't who I thought missionaries
were... This mission has a lot of disobedience and the worst part is
how everyone is so focused on leadership. But don't let me get you down, 

there are plenty of amazing missionaries here too.

Hey I thought about our family FHE's as well this week. I actually introduced
the m&m throwing to a family in our ward! They loved it and I had some
good memories. I was 100% accurate btw. They were amazed at my
mouth-eye coordination.

Well that's about all for this week. Sorry that's not much but I hope
you enjoyed it anyway! Love you all!

Elder Calvin Chappell

pictures:

A sweet as double rainbow, and my new favorite Do Not Knock sign. I
appreciate when people are clever like this, so I always knock and
tell them that. They don't always appreciate that though..

January 10, 2016 Melton South

Australian Elder Chappell)

"Good morning starshine! The earth says hello!"

How is everyone? I am doing really well!

So for the transfer
news....................................................................................................
I'm staying in Melton! I am really happy about that because we have
been working really hard at building up this area and now we have some
baptisms lined up!  I am enjoying training. It has been hard at times but now we are
really seeing amazing miracles! We have been leading the mission in
New Investigators so that has been really fun. Finding new
investigators is so fun and makes me so happy. We have heaps of people
to teach! So it is impossible to be unhappy when the work is going
well and it is going so well.

Elder Deng got transferred so that is sad. I love that guy.

So for the investigators, Rel, Joseph, and Samuel are 3 boys that we
have been teaching for ages. They are 15, 13, and 12. They are
Sudanese. There are heaps of Sudanese people in our area. So anyway,
these boys have been wanting to be baptized but they just didn't
really understand the Restoration or have any testimony of the Book of
Mormon. They just thought that every church is true. But recently we
had a lesson with them that we just talked all about that, then they
prayed about it and all three of them now have strong testimonies!
They will be baptized on the 30th! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!

Niko is still coming to church but still too busy to meet. But he is
doing really well.

So to explain the subject line of this email, we met this guy named
Bruce. He is an Aussie with a thick accent. Once he introduces himself
as Bruce, immediately my thoughts go to Finding Nemo. So he is talking
and I am trying to listen but quotes are running through my head.
"Fish are friends, not food." and the like. Then, the conversation
turns to family. We talk about how families can be forever, and he
says, "Well, I never knew my father." ...gasp... He is the human
version of Bruce!!!!! It was pretty crackup.

Ooh a funny thing happened to me yesterday! We were having lunch at a
member's home after church, and they are Tongan, which means HEAPS of
food. And this particular brother really wanted us to eat everything
he had prepared, which was enough for maybe twenty people. Not and
exaggeration. So I was doing my best. It was delicious. I love Tongan
food. But my companion is a little guy and he can't eat much, and I
don't eat all that much myself. This brother keeps saying, "More
Elders. More." He literally kept piling food on our plates! Anyway,
without going into too much detail, in order to please this member I
stuffed myself so much that I had to go and vomit. Then I had to go
back and eat more. The things you do to gain a relationship with the
ward.

We have had many miracles this week! I am sorry I can't type them all
up though! If I could ask for prayers for a woman named Akuei, that
would be great. (Pronounced uh-quee)

I love yous all!

Next week.

May the force be with you.

Elder Chappell

Australia Melton Mission

Pictures:  The sun rise this morning, and me and da boys

January 3, 2016 Melton South

How are you all doing? Everything is awesome here in Australia. It's
cooled down a bit so it is bearable! Transfers are coming up! Next
week we'll have the news of who is going/staying. I am fairly sure I
am staying because I'm training Elder Seifert and people almost never
get moved during the two transfers of training, but you never know!
Cause Elder Sifuentes left me halfway through my training!

So how was New Years? Here in the land down unda New Years is the big
fireworks holiday. Because they don't have the Fourth of July! So
there were heaps of fireworks going off all night. We didn't really do
anything special... just slept. Haha sometimes sleeping is the best
form of celebration!

MIRACLE TIME!!!!!

So this miracle really made me happy. Way back in September, when I
first got to Melton, Elder Sifuentes and I found a man named Sulu. He
is a member but hasn't gone to church in years. He invited us in and
listened to us, then told us he wanted us to teach his wife!
(non-member) We were super excited. But that was way back in
September! So we tried and tried to set an appointment with them and
no luck. They were just too busy! But every time we were in that area,
(at least every other day) we knocked on their door. They have never
been available. Then just this last Tuesday, 4 months later, we were
in that area and our plans fell through. So we decided we would just
go knock on Sulu's door. Guess what? They were both home! She invited
us in and we taught her the Restoration. She loved it! She is a Muslim
but she has always been confused about religion. She listened and had
good questions and the Spirit was so strong! She was shocked when we
gave her the Book of Mormon. "for free?? Really? Thank you so much!
Wow. I will treasure this." After the lesson Elder Seifert and I
walked out of the house, then looked at each other and just started
laughing and hugging each other. That's the third time on my mission so
far that I have felt that good after a lesson and that is the best
feeling ever! I live for those moments.

So in our area we have a little town called Bacchus Marsh. It is
beautiful! When you drive in, it's on a road called the Avenue of
Honor. It has all of these massive trees lining it on either side.
Each tree is in honor of a WWII vet from the area. It is so beautiful.
My pictures don't do it justice, but I'll send them anyway.

This other picture is for my little cousin Lilly Allen! Lilly, you
asked me to send any pictures of cute animals, and I thought this
little bird was pretty cute, so I hope you enjoy that. When I can
finally take a picture of a Kanga and when I finally see a Koala I
will send those for you too!

I love you all and miss you! Happy New Year!
Elder Chappell (Aussie)