August 28, 2016 Shepparton

Good morning all y'all.

This week was a week! It was pretty good, pretty average! I am honestly trying really hard to think of what to include in this email. I am sure some stuff happened... but I can't remember anything important! Sorry this might be boring.

Ok for all of you that are still reading after that amazing eye-catching intro to an email, I will tell you about the week. Elder Van Wagoner was pretty sick these last few days, so on Saturday we did absolutely nothing. He wasn't feeling well at all so we called Sister Vidmar and asked what we should do and she just said stay in the flat. So we did. Yep. First sick day of my mission! It was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo boring. I don't like staying in the flat. But it was nice to relax a bit I suppose. He is feeling better now, don't worry :)

We saw Neal and Jana again. Jana (pronounced Yawnna) is all set for her baptism. It is still gonna be a while until then, but that's ok. She was also sick and couldn't make it to church this week. But she is doing great.

Adrian and Rebecca are still awesome. Rebecca couldn't come to church because she had to look after the sick kids. (Why is everybody sick???) But Adrian came, which is a big deal, because he worked in his tire shop in the morning, raced home and showered and changed, then came to sacrament meeting, then raced off to work again. He is so awesome. I am so happy about that. 

Elder Van Wagoner and I are getting along super well. I love serving with him. We probably shouldn't choose favorite companions but... we are awesome friends so this is awesome. 

Happy Birthday to Spencer Seth Chappell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in a day for me, two for you. You are the man. I hope you have a great birthday. 

As Zone leaders we just kind of do random stuff. For example this week we will have to drive up to Wagga Wagga (what a name for a city right?) and switch cars with them because theirs is struggling, then we will take theirs down to the office next week for MLC (mission leadership council). Then we will get a new car. So we do random stuff like that.  But our regular responsibilities are exchanging with the District Leaders and the new missionaries and training/helping/showing them how to missionary. (I just fake like I know what I am doing!)  It is fun. We also do all sorts of boring numbers accounting stuff. It is fun. But yeah that's it! 

For pictures this week, all I took a picture of is this awesome cow. I haven't come up with a clever name for it yet. What sayest thou? Like "motorcow" or "beef on Wheels"... I don't know.  I got it!!!!!!!!!! "Fast Food"

I love all of you! Elder Chappell is out. PEACE

August 21, 2016 Shepparton

Good morning everybody!

This week was great. I am loving serving with Elder Van Wagoner! I have liked all of my companions, but this is the first time that I've been like awesome friends with my comp! It is awesome. He likes to talk, I like to talk, so basically we are always talking while we are working! It is awesome.

So we decided we want to make our flat just a little bit nicer, so on last P-day we started to fix our crappy table and chairs. We went to Bunnings (basically home depot), and bought stuff to sand off the stain, and bought some new stain. We are gonna make it look so good! it is just kind of fun and satisfying having a project to work on, but we can only work on it during lunch time and on P-days, so it may take a while. When we finish I'll show you a picture though.

This week we set a date for Jana's baptism! Yay! We have been working with her for a long time. She will be getting married on the 10th of September, then baptized on the 24th. I am so happy for her! She will be such an awesome member. Then she can be a better influence on Neal until he can be baptized too. 

So this week was transfers! Elder Van Wagoner was transferred here a bit early just cause  it had to be that way, but the real transfer time is now. Heaps of our zone is being transferred! So we basically spent all of yesterday calling other zone leaders and coordinating with them how missionaries will be going to and from their areas. It was just a lot of organization. I love logistics. (not) But it is fun. So all good.

Church yesterday was awesome! you wanna know why? Because It was run by me and my companion! Just kidding it was awesome because it is the true church and it's always awesome. But yeah we both spoke in sacrament meeting, and Elder Van Wagoner played the organ for the hymns, plus a musical item on the piano. Then we taught the youth Sunday School class, then we taught the young men Priesthood class! So we taught during all three hours. This is the life of a missionary in a branch. It was fun! 

Anyway, that's my week, what's yours? 

See ya!

The only true and living Elder Chappell

August 14, 2016 Shepparton

Hello everybody! I hope you have all had a good week! My week has been pretty interesting! 

Elder Jeremia has been transferred. He is the new Assistant to the President. This is one week before the actual transfer time cause I guess special things happen to AP's? I don't really know how it works but yeah he is gone! My new companion is Elder Van Wagoner from Bountiful Utah. He is awesome. We actually flew into the mission at the same time! He is the man at piano and singing. Super friendly guy, very easy to get along with. He and I have already been friends since he was in our zone for the last two transfers, so I am really excited to be his companion! We also have a third this week because of the early transfer. His name is Elder Pou from Tahiti. He is the man, also super good at singing. This week will be really good. 

Random funny story. One night this week we locked ourselves out of our flat and had to try to break in and our next door neighbor has a really annoying dog that barks at everything that moves so that made the neighbor come and get mad at us. But we smooth talked our way out of it and she is our friend now. We will try to teach her sometime.

Elder Van Wagoner has only served in Aussie wards, never islander wards, so he hasn't experienced a fafaga (massive Samoan feed). So I decided to line up heaps of dinner appointments this week so he can experience that. We will have 10 dinners this week. and yes that means three days we will have a double feed. I love gluttony.

Congratulations Riley! Happy Birthday! I hope you adjust well and quickly.

So this week we couldn't do too much work cause my companion was packing, then we were driving, then driving some more, then my new companions were unpacking. So slow week. I hate slow. But that's ok. That's what patience is for! 

Remember "A" and "R"? They were a miracle a few weeks back. Well they came to church yesterday!!! I am so happy! They looked so awesome walking in with their twin babies dressed up in little suits and ties. I loved that. Everything is going well!

I love you all! Here's a couple of pictures of the rolling hills of Australia.

August 7, 2016 Shepparton

Hello everybody how are ya?

I'll start with a rare shout out. This is to my brother Elder Riley Chappell. He is going home this week! I have always looked up to him and even now in my missionary service sometimes I daydream about being companions with him and just baptizing nations like Alma and Amulek or the Sons of Mosiah. I miss you and love you Riley! Congrats on a successful mission, I am sure you helped so many people.

Anyway, back to the interesting stuff. This week has been pretty darn good. We had Mission Leadership conference on Tuesday, where we drive 3 hours down to Melbourne and have a meeting with President and Sister Vidmar plus the APs and all the ZLs and STLs. That is always really good. President Vidmar is such a great teacher. I love the way he uses stories. He always uses stories from the Olympics to make points. He has thousands of Olympic stories because he not only competed in them, but he has spent his life in them as a judge, a journalist, a coach, committee member, head of USA Olympic Gymnastic teams and so forth. He has never missed an Olympics since he was old enough to go. Until now. He has to sacrifice just like all of us do, so he won't be watching the Olympics or reading about them at all. That's so hard! I was feeling bad that I couldn't watch them but I'm pretty sure it's harder for him.

Anyway, then we drove back up to Shepp, and President followed us, because we had Zone Conference on Wednesday. Because our zone is so far apart, we had everyone come into Shepp, then stay the night, and then had Zone Meeting on Thursday to avoid unnecessary travel. So the first half of the week was all meetings. As good as those meeting were, I can't handle that much! I was getting really restless at the end. I am happy to now be done sitting and just working!

After all the meetings we had an awesome half week. On Friday we were walking down the street and I decided to sit next to a bloke at the bus stop. I could see that he was Sudanese, and from my experience, all the Sudanese in Australia are Christian, so I was excited to talk to him. His name was David and he seemed sort of interested. Anyway, I got his address and set an appointment for the next day. On the next day we went to see him and he let us straight in. We sat down and had a lesson on the Restoration with him and his brother Zach. They are 24 and 19. These guys are golden! They are really active in their church, but that's good cause that means they have faith in Jesus Christ! They understood the Restoration really well and asked heaps of questions. They will read and pray about the Book of Mormon and when they know it's true, they will be baptized on September 11. 

Another family we are working with is an Indian couple. Their names are Jinny and Shilpa. They are also Christian! Honestly they are the first people that I've met that are from India and Christian! The rest of them are either Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, or Atheist. So that's awesome. Kind of the same deal with them. Shilpa has been really searching already. After our first visit she read a few chapters in the BOM then read heaps from mormon.org. They are solid. 

Jana came to church again, their wedding is coming closer! Then she can just get baptized. All good. 

I love yous all, cheer on America in the Olympics, cause we always win.

Elder Calvin Chappell