Sunday, February 28, 2016

February 28, 2016 Melton

Jaide was baptized last Saturday! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! It was beautiful. I
felt nervous to perform the ordinance but when it happened I didn't
even have to think. I just did it and it was perfect. The Spirit
helped me with that. She is so
awesome. She is only 14 and she already says she can't wait to serve a
mission. Her whole family is coming around too. Her mom, (sister Boyd,
less active member) is giving up drinking, coming to church every
week. Trevor, her mom's partner is now asking heaps of questions. He
is the man. Her older sisters Amber and Shaydie have not been very
excited before, but they loved the baptism and also had heaps of
questions! Also the younger sisters Rhayne (rain) and Skylah are
begging their mom to be baptized. Skylah is too young but Rhayne is 8!
We will see. I have this vision of going with all of them to their
family sealing in the temple in a year. It can totally happen.

This week was crazy!! Transfers happened. Elder Seifert has gone to
the strange land of Tasmania. Fa Seifert!! (fa means goodbye in
Samoan.) We now have two new Filipinos, Elder Olan and Elder
Prestousa. And I am comps with Elder Ching.  We love being
companions. He actually knows Wayne from the 3rd ward! They went to a
youth conference in Hong Kong together! Ask him about Alan Ching. See
if he remembers. We are both 18 and so that is good. A lot of
missionaries kind of look down on the 18 year olds so I am glad I have
a young comp with me.

 We had a special broadcast Stake Conference with Elder Quentin L. 
Cook, Elder Kevin W. Pearson, and a couple others. It was awesome.

There was a lot more that happened, but in short, We were running
around, in and out of our area to help other Elders, and had almost no
time for proselyting. So that was stressful and hard. But this week is
going to be gun as.

I don't know if I use the slang a whole lot in my emails, I can see
that I use a little bit, but I have really picked it up. I still have
a Yankee accent mostly, but some Aussies have said I don't sound
American at all, so that was awesome. I am really starting to sound
Aussie (mixed with New Zealand).

Live long and prosper.

Elder Calvin Chappell

Photos: Baptism, baptism, and a random cool picture with me and my
former zone leader elder Ferris.




Sunday, February 21, 2016

February 21, 2016 Melton

Hello world.

Transfers happened. I am staying here! The Australia Melton Mission!!!
Wooooot! That's what I really wanted. Elder Seifert is being
transferred to Tazzy! (Tasmania) I am kind of jealous, but I love
Melton so all good.

Shout out to Sister Spackman going to New York speaking Spanish! Watch
out New York. A small package full of a whole heap of attitude is
coming your way. You'll be a great missionary Kathryn!

So I guess none of my emails sent last week... Sorry! I promise I sent
them! I don't know what happened. Hopefully I can resend some.

We are super excited for this week! Jade is going to be baptized on
Saturday! Oh yeah, the date got changed back to the 27th. We are going
to get two more Elders in Melton. Elder Olan (another Filipino) and a
new missionary. We don't know who yet. Exciting! This area is one
where people are trained all the time. It also seems to be an area for
Filipinos....

The miracle this week is a couple named Jose and Elise. Jose is from
El Salvador. Spanish and Spanish accents and anything Spanish is
unheard of in this side of the world, so that is strangely
refreshing. For those of you missionaries serving in Spanish places,
that's probably funny to you. (Elder Eddy, Sister Beutler, Elder
Clift. I'm talking to yous). But anyway, We saw Jose on the street,
talked to him, and got his address. We came to his house the next day,
they opened the door, greeted us happily, and listened to our message
with heaps of soul searching questions. We taught the Restoration and
they said, "wow. That makes so much sense." Since then, they have read
half of 1 Nephi together! We love them so much and they are so
prepared!


Well sorry for the short email today. Here's some sunrise pictures
from our pre-transfer early morning zone hike. This time the sisters
slept in so we had some good old fashioned man fun. Which means
running around pretending to be zombies or guys with guns. It doesn't
get much better than that.

Elder Chappell is out. PEACE.


Oops never mind, I forgot my camera.. Pictures will come next week. Sorry!

Sunday, February 14, 2016

February 14, 2016 Melton

I don't know why this didn't send last week...

Happy Valentines day! I forgot that that was today, cause... Well it
really doesn't matter to a missionary. But it was actually yesterday
for me. Today is the 15th here! Which means it is my 7 month mark!
What in the world?? Where did the last month go? Far out.

Oh btw, Hopper's Crossing is the name of a suburb over here. I am not
actually in it but I'm there all the time for district meetings and
what not. I thought it was a funny name. (hopper means Kangaroo if you
didn't know)

This week was awesome! We had zone conference and I always love that.
Transfers are coming up! On the 23rd!

So the big news this week is.... Jade changed her baptism to this week
instead of next week! That wouldn't be a big deal really except that
means that I will for sure be here for it! This is the last Saturday
of the Transfer so we will all be here! We are so excited. The family
is doing so well. They are seeing Jade's light and the sisters are so
much more interested than before, and even the man of the house,
Trevor! He is a massive man that looks like a beast but he's really
super nice and kind. He is from the Cook Islands, a tiny little group
of islands in the pacific. He is Sister Boyd's partner. We are hoping
they will get married soon. But we are so happy to be teaching this
whole family now!

MIRACLE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So we have this new way of finding people.
It is called "talk to every Filipino and ask for their Filipino
friends". People from the Philippines are just super nice and love the
missionaries, so we just try to find them. Anyway, we had been growing
our Filipino teaching pool, and we asked for their Filipino friends,
and we were referred to a friend named Chona. They knew which street
she lived on, but not which house, so we just decide to tract the
street! Well, we met Chona, and she was cool, but the miracle was
someone else! Her name is Victoria. She is an Aussie. Single mom with
3 little kids. Basically she is golden. When we mentioned families
being together forever she was touched and felt that she should listen
to us. So we told her a simple Plan of Salvation and set a return
appointment. She is super awesome. We haven't had a sit down lesson
with her yet but she is great. She read the pamphlet cover to cover
(which nobody does). And she prayed about it! She felt a peaceful
feeling when she prayed.
Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
We are happy.

Happy Valentines day everybody! Eat heaps of lollies!

Elder Chappell

Sunday, February 7, 2016

February 7, 2016 Melton

Goooooood evening sweet world!

This week was pretty good! We set a baptism date with Jade! The 27th
of February. She asked me to baptize her! I am super excited. We love
this family. She is an amazing singer but she is super shy, but she is
going to sing a solo of I know that my Redeemer lives at her baptism!
It will be awesome.

Elder Seifert and Elder Ching are doing awesome. We have a blast together.

Ooh funny story! Today the Jehovah's Witnesses came to our door! The
best part was the reaction of the guy when he saw us. "oh...
Mormons... hmm... ok" He then proceeded to give us a memorized speech
using his ipad as a guide. The poor guy. He was so nervous. Reminded
me of myself at my first door. They wouldn't accept our pamphlets :(

We have really been struggling to find new investigators! It is hard,
but we will find them. The field is white already to harvest so I know
it will happen soon!

So the explanation for the subject line is that this week I was able
to try two meats that were new to me! Octopus and Horse. Octopus I
guess is pretty common in the world, but not for me! It was all right.
Really chewy. Horse is very common to eat in Tonga. So a Tongan member
fed us, I had no idea what it was, but it was great! So I asked, what
is this meat? Yep. It was Horse. Now one of my most favorite! They
also eat dog, but I haven't been able to try that yet.

Sorry for the short email, but not that much happened this week!

Love you all!

Elder Chappell