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