Sunday, October 30, 2016

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

Sunday, October 23, 2016

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

Sunday, October 16, 2016

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

Sunday, October 9, 2016

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

Monday, October 3, 2016

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!