A Letter from Elder Albrechtson

I thought it would be interesting to hear about a week from Calvin's companion. 

 (He gives a little more detail than Calvin does.)

Dear Family and Friends,

Well the beginning of these letters are always the same so we can  just get straight into the miracles we witnessed

 this week!

The first four weeks of this transfer were some of the hardest weeks of my mission. Elder Chappell and I hit the 

pavement everyday and worked all day. We did multiple types of finding and nothing seemed to be happening. 

As a mission we have been asked to study Alma 17-27 in preparation for a visit from Elder Gifford Nielsen of the 

70 and Pacific Area Presidency this week. We have been reading about the sons of Mosiah and their missionary

 efforts and the trials and afflictions they went through. It was obviously not as bad for us, but it was a very

 difficult start and not what we expected to this transfer. Up to Wednesday of this past week we really hadn't 

taught any lessons, actually we hadn't taught any investigators. It was getting discouraging. Then the thought 

came to both Elder Chappell and I that we needed to fast. So on Wednesday night we opened a fast to have 

greater faith and to see more success in this area. Miracles happened.

Thursday morning we had to drop our car off at the dealership to get the engine looked at (it was overheating). 

That put us on foot the whole day, but miracles occurred. We have met with this man before that we prayerfully 

chose off of a potential investigators form in our area book. His name is Kevin, and this is a miracle and a mission 

dream come true. Kevin was raised as a JW but is no longer practicing with them. On Thursday we went by and 

had a really good chat with him at his door and he mentioned that his wife had mentioned that they should 

"maybe come along" to our church. So we set up a time to come on Saturday and for them to start investigating 

the church. More from them in a second.

Thursday evening we had an appointment at 7 with a part member family, we had expected to get the car back

 but never did until Friday, so we had to bus it to the appointment. The only problem was we had the address 

but no idea where in this suburb it was. We knew a general direction so we caught a bus over there at 6:40 and 

got off on a stop that we felt was right. As we began walking we were saying prayers in our hearts to find it 

and low and behold we walked straight to this appointment and got there at 6:57. God works miracles 

according to faith. It was cool, and they unexpectedly fed us and we taught a lesson and they gave us a 

ride home. It was a miracle. Thursday was just the start of everything.

Friday was a glorious day, i returned to the land of Point Cook on exchanges with a fellow valley resident

 in Elder Eskelson. We had a great day working in Point Cook. We found and taught a new investigator for

 them and set him on date for Feb 18th! He was pretty keen. That night the bishops son was getting baptized

 and they invited us because they had invited some non members and less actives. One was a very apparent

 non member, Jared. I started talking to him and learned he is a LA and his wife, Anna, is a non-member and

 even better they live in our area! So i asked if we could come around and they agreed and are feeding us 

tomorrow and we are going to start teaching them. The wife, who is a non-member seemed really interested

 to have us come back. Miracles on Exchanges.

Now Saturday was our most miraculous day. We literally spent all day teaching people. We haven't done 

anything even close to this all transfer. We first taught a man i GQ'd at the station. He is interested to keep 

meeting with us too! Then after we rushed to Kevins house to teach their family. There we met his wife Stella 

and son Tristan. They are amazing. We taught the restoration and the spirit was amazing. When we taught

 about Joseph Smith and prophets Stella didn't agree that we need prophets in this day. We explained more

 about how times are difficult and different from Moses' time and we don't know how it happened but she

 started believing in prophets right there. And then she was teaching her husband about how it makes sense

 and trying to help him understand it too. It was just a really cool lesson. They are solid and are excited to 

have us back next week. We plan on extending baptism to them too! Teaching JW's was one of my dreams! 

Pray for them! We spent more of that day teaching new people and seeing miracles!

Sunday we taught even more people. We taught the man Uli. He is amazing. He came to church and then had 

us over for lunch yesterday and cooked us his man sized Sausage rolls. They were amazing and the lesson was

 great. We are working to overcome his concern with Joseph Smith. So far it is going really good. We built a 

solid relationship with him, he now texts us with updates about the NFL and NBA so that is a bonus too! Sunday

 night a member also invited a friend over for dinner and a lesson and we are now teaching her too! Just 

miracles galore and people are coming out of the woodwork's! Testimony building week.

If I had to sum up this week i would say it was one of the best ones of my mission. From Monday to Thursday

 we taught zero lessons and fro Thursday to Sunday we taught more than 10. The power of fasting, faith and 

works is real. My testimony of fasting has grown so much. To be honest, i never have really had that experience

 were i was fasting for a specific purpose and i saw miracles from it. Obviously fasting was a big part of my early

 life when i was born, but this was an experience for myself. It was amazing. I can now say with full purpose of

 heart that fasting truly does bring miracles! It was a great week! I don't have any other words to say than that

 it was amazing. I love this time of my mission. We have a great week lined up already. Lots of appointments 

with these people and a mission conference with Elder Nielsen of the 70, with a special MLC with him too. I love

 the work of Salvation. It is the Lords work and He is at the head of it. He runs it. This is His work! And I just 

can't get enough of it!

Love

Elder Albrechtsen

January 29, 2017 Werribee

Good morning. So remember last email I was talking about a family? Kevin, Stella, and Tristan? Well it turns out his name is Gavin, not Kevin... So that was embarrassing. But Guess what? They are awesome!! Gavin and Stella came to church, and all three are reading the Book of Mormon and really praying to know if it is true. They all said that as soon as they know it's true, they will be baptized. So pray for them to receive their answers!

This week has been really good. Much finding, much teaching. I love that we are teaching people now! So far, no one progressing too much, but I am sure it will happen soon!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMY JANE CHAPPELL!!!!!!!!! I can't believe you are 14 years old. I still think of you as 12. But I hope you enjoyed your birthday!

So this week Elder S. Gifford Nielson of the Seventy came to our mission and we had a zone conference with him, and then a special MLC with him. It was amazing and inspiring. Elder Albrechtsen and I have been super inspired and we are making some awesome changes in our work, especially our studies. I love studying in the morning. I am sure none of you back home believe that, but all throughout my mission I have loved studying the scriptures, and now I am finally loving studying the Preach My Gospel! It is amazing. I am learning so much more than I have from it before because I am really delving into it, not just staying on the surface. 

Fun story, yesterday was Sunday, and Islanders love to have big meals on Sunday, and love to invite the Elders to them. So we had a lunch and a dinner. Our lunch pushed it back to 3 o'clock, which was bad cause we had dinner at 5. So we had two Tongan feeds right within 3 hours. Without going into too many juicy details, halfway through the second meal, the first one decided it didn't want to stay in my belly, so I got up and went to the bathroom and did what I had only done once before in my mission, and threw it all up into the toilet. But this was really a blessing in disguise because I could then eat heaps while my companion was dying! Ha! Blessings. 

Well, that was basically the week. It was great. 

I love you all!

Elder Chappell

Elder Chappell, Elder Albrechtson, and Elder and Sister Gifford Nielsen

Pictures from last fall

Thanks to SIster Vidmar, and Facebook, I have new (old) photos of Calvin.  Most of them are from MLC- Mission Leader Conferences, a few are from transfers.  Most have Calvin pulling funny faces.  All of them make me miss my boy even more.

January 22, 2017 Werribee

G'day everybody! 

I apologize for the lame emails the last few weeks. It is kind of funny when your P-days are just as stressful and busy as your proselyting days. But today we gave ourselves time to email! 

Happy birthday to my favorite sister!  Wow I can't believe Amy will be 14. That's Crazy. Isn't she 9 now? Weird, I guess that must mean I'm getting older too.

So this whole transfer, we have been really struggling to find people to teach, or just to teach anyone in general! We were really getting pretty discouraged, but we gained some strength from the story of the Sons of Mosiah who had so much success in their missions. The scripture says that "they had given themselves to much fasting and prayer". We knew we had given ourselves to much prayer, but we decided that we needed to give ourselves to much fasting as well. So we chose Thursday as our day to fast. We fasted with some mighty prayer and some real intent, and what do ya know? God actually means what He says! From Thursday to Sunday, we taught 10 investigator lessons, where as we have spent entire weeks teaching only 2! So that was a huge miracle. 

I would love to tell you about every single one of those people, but for now, I will just tell you about Kevin and his family. So we met Kevin a few weeks ago and we have seen him a few times. He is about 50 something and he was raised as a Jehovah's witness. He hasn't gone to church in a long time though. So anyway, on Thursday was the first time we got to actually sit down and have a lesson with him! He invited us straight in and we sat down and he, his wife Stella, and his 15 year old son Tristan talked with us. Stella had so many questions!!!!!! She just kept shooting them off at us, but they were sincere questions. She has been in many churches and has never found one she totally agrees with. They are all really willing to genuinely search to know if this is true. They want to have a weekly lesson, and they are going to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it is true. We are so excited to see as they receive their answers and decide to change.

Yeah this was one of the coolest weeks of my mission. So at the Australian Open, We didn't have tickets in to see the big name players, but we did get to go into one of the smaller arenas (still pretty massive) and watch an Aussie. The Aussies are super supportive of their country. So we watched two Aussies. We only got to see women’s matches, but that's ok, they were still awesome. I attached one picture that shows how incredibly athletic they are!  I want to get into tennis now.  We also had some visitors to our flat this week.  We’ve caught four now, but there are still more hiding someplace.

The scripture that really inspired me this week is 2 Nephi 27:23

"For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith."

Truth. 

I love you all!

Elder Chappell. 

January 15, 2017 Werribee

Hi Everybody,

So the reason I am emailing so early is because there's been a worldwide changed in the missionary P-day 

schedule! It now starts at 8 instead of 10, still finishing at 6 pm. I think it will be officially announced in a 

couple weeks but President Vidmar told us already. So that's awesome!

Yeah I am super happy now. It is funny, now the work is so slow! We are working super hard and doing 

everything we can to find teach and baptize and now we don't have anyone to teach! But I know the miracles 

come after the trial of faith, so it must be coming soon!

I love hearing about the jazz. We actually have an investigator who loves the NBA and knows almost as 

much about it as me and Elder Albrechtsen do. But not as much. But he keeps us updated too.

Love you all!

Elder Chappell

January 8, 2017 Werribee

Good Morning everybody! 

Sorry this will be a short one, but my week was great! I am really loving it. It has been super super hot, and we have no air con, so we are dying, but today is cooler so all good :) We have just been finding new people to teach, and actually had some awesome success!

MIRACLE TIME!!! So the Melton Elders in our zone texted us a referral one day, and we went to visit them right away. Turns out this guy gave them the wrong address, but we talked to the Lady there anyway!. She is Burmese, but then moved to Thailand, and then Australia. (that is a very common thing to find). Her name is Moonah. She was super nice, but her English wasn't the best and communication was difficult. (Burmese people speak a language called Karen pronounced like Kuh-Ren, which brings my "Languages of people I've taught" list up to 36) So we set an appointment and left. We came back for the appointment a few days later and we got to sit and teach her and her daughter, while the Father and Brother were in and out. The Daughter is named Amy but she spells it Aimi. She speaks both languages perfectly so she really helped the communication. They are awesome! We taught the Restoration and they loved it! They go to a Karen church just close to our flat, and so we will have to try to convince them to come check out our church sometime. But they totally accepted everything we said. We are going to get some Karen pamphlets and copies of the Book of Mormon for them. We really feel like they have potential!

We are also teaching lot's of part member families, and we aren't yet sure who is progressing and who isn't so we will keep you updated!

Also, President Vidmar gave me and my companion permission to go to the Australian Open on our next P-Day, so we may or may not email next week. I am super excited!

Anyway, Love you all!

Elder Chappell

January 3, 2017 Werribee

Since the last two p-days have fallen on national holidays Elder Chappell hasn’t written to us, which is so sad for this mom.  But I just found this note from a sister in his ward a few transfers ago, back in September.  It was a sweet note that describes Calvin very well.  We are so thankful that he is living and loving his mission well.  He is a good example of Christ!

Enjoy,

Cassie

Hello Sis Chappell, My name is Sis Stafford from Victoria where your son is currently serving his mission.   I had the great privilege of having Elder Chappell and his companion Elder Van Wagoner in my home for dinner tonight (back in September) and I wanted to thank you for the sacrifice of having your son so far from home and walking among strangers.  This is the fourth time that I have had your son come for a meal and each time I feel more uplifted and whole.   He and Elder Van Wagoner are such a dynamic companionship.   Their pairing is truly inspired.  They get on so well and make you feel so at ease and like you're the most important person in the world.  Elder Chappell is much more comfortable and animated with his new companion or maybe it's that he is feeling more settled, I cannot say, but this can be a very difficult area to serve but he is serving with spirit, dedication and enthusiasm.   I can see that he is destined to become one of my special missionaries.   One who has touched my heart in a very special and rewarding way.   He has also had an impact on my eldest son who was living here with me again until just recently.  My son turned 38 at the end of August and has been inactive since 1996. But since your son came he has begun reading his scriptures again and although he hasn't yet returned to Church he has acknowledged to several of his friends that he is a member of the Church.  The first night Elder Chappell came with Elder Jeremiah, my son came out of his room and sat with us during dinner instead of eating on his own in his room.   He is much loved by all of us in Primary and by our own very outspoken but treasured librarian, Sis Miller.   Your son is very special and bears his Priesthood with diligence, dedication and humility.  Be assured that he is walking in the Savior's footsteps and he and his companion are wonderful in their commitment to the work.  This mother's heart is thankful for your love and sacrifice.  I'm not sure where Elder Chappell is now as there has been another transfer since Christmas and I am still away, but I certainly still miss him and think of him often.   He's a very special young man. I named him and Elder Van Wagoner 'the dynamic duo', they were such a hardworking and powerful companionship.  I wish you all a very Happy New Year and happiness always.