Another week in Virginia

Gooooood Afternoon! :) 

Before I begin telling you about my week, shout out to the best human on the face of this planet (my sister) for being born today x amount of years ago :) I love you! 

Alright, so Monday was awesome :) we didn't do a THING and it was beautiful :) 

• Aside from the norm like emails, laundry, groceries, and writing a couple letters. 

• In the evening we went to dinner with a member and checked on potentials. 

• Meanwhile there was a massive storm occurring! Virginia + rain + thunder = the best summer storms I've ever seen! That's why God sent me here ;) to be able to enjoy those things :) It also makes up for the lack of sky over here. I miss my western night time sky. But it's fine :) It could be worse!! 

Tuesday was quite busy! 

• The morning began with district meeting which went super well; always does :)

• Lunch followed,

• Then we went to visit a sister in our ward who just got hip surgery! She is bedridden for a solid 2 weeks! I think I'd go insane. Actually, I know I'd go insane. She can hardly sit up, too so she has to lay down most of the time! I know. Poor thing right? She just ran way too much and busted her hip. She would run like 12 miles a day, and she always ran marathons. Not anymore! So we shared a message and kept her company for an hour :) After that we made brownies and a thank you card for the member who took us to the temple and lunch a couple weeks ago! 

• And then it was time for a lesson on preparing for the temple with a recent convert :) 

• when that was over, we went to dinner with A! :) She is DARLING! I love her so much! We learned that members of our ward have been inviting her to activities and such so that made us happy :) I'm telling you. Serving in a singles ward is one of the best things that's ever happened to me on my mission. These people are stellar. 

• The rest of the night we spent checking on potentials. 

On Wednesday we studied all morning, which was so good! 

• Sister Jones and I received a lot of inspiration as to how we can become better teachers and missionaries in general. I love the spirit :) 

• When that was over we did a little bit of cleaning up in the area book, and then we did some serious DEEP cleaning in our apartment. I kid you not we cleaned everything from the baseboards to the corners of the ceiling and everything in between. For like... 4 hours. With music (the uplifting, spiritual kind) blasting through the apartment. I was in love :) 

• Oh also, mom guess what? We've totally had reoccurring black mold throughout our apartment since I've been here. And everyone that's lived here for the past year has had health problems, but as soon as they're transferred they get better. But don't worry!! We called the maintenance guy for the 47th (that's a legitimate number) time and he came to paint over it :) hahah ohhhh the apartment :) There have been so many things about this apartment that have fallen apart and I have totally forgotten to mention them throughout the past 3 months!! I'll list some for you :) 

| ADVENTURES IN THE APARTMENT|
1. Our light switch in the bathroom didn't work, nor did the outlet for about 3 weeks, so we plugged a lamp in on the outside wall and stuck it in the bathroom :)
2. The carpet was disgusting and our 2 vacuums didn't work. So we got a new one about 2 months in and it's slightly better!
3. The sisters bathroom had black mold growing on their ceiling, so the maintenance guy took out the wall and put a new one in.
4. The black mold is back.
5. We have black mold inside our shower, but no worries. The instructions from our maintenance friend were to throw bleach on it and let it sit. He then told us it would come back though...
6. The air conditioning unit in the sister's room was leaking, so their carpet was wet and their room smelled like wet dog. They've been sleeping in the living room for 2 weeks :)

7. When we want a drink of water, we have to let it sit for 5 minutes so it isn't so foggy

Basically it's been an adventure!! And despite the grossness of the apartment, it's not necessarily awful. It's livable... For the most part... And we find joy in these things because it creates memories that we can laugh at later :) In fact, we laugh as they occur because it's hilariously ridiculous :) Nonetheless, we truly are grateful to have a roof over our heads, food in the kitchen, and a bed to sleep in :) Also, after the deep clean it was better :) 

• Dinner was with a member at a Peruvian restaurant which was pretty good! 

• Then we met another member at the church and went to check on potentials. It was a pretty quiet night when it came to potentials, but when it comes to the member we had with us, it was the opposite! :) haha which was perfect because we studied listening earlier in the day, which is exactly what she needed us to do :) it was fun! :)

• we were exhausted by the end of the night and slept super good :) 

Thursday morning I was not feeling well at all, 

• so after studies I took a nap for half an hour and that helped a little bit. 

• We then had to go to the mission office to take in our driving log. Elder Lowe is in charge of everything when it comes to the mission cars, and he asked if we wanted to see our driving record from the Tiwi! This thing is high tech. Elder Lowe can see when and where our car is at all times, including how long the car sits in one place! He can see where on the road we make a violation (according to the Tiwi), and the route in which we take wherever we go. If we ever lose our car we can just call elder Lowe and he can look it up :) too cool! My driving record was spotless so that was good :) 

• We did some area book mapping for a while and then went to dinner with a member! I learned so much from her while we shared a message on the spirit. I learn so much from everyone that we teach! 

• Our evening finished off with T! She is doing well :) I brought the Book of Mormon I made in college (where I wrote questions of the soul in the front and found the answers and marked/tabbed them) to show her how beneficial the book is in our lives today. She started going down the list of questions, answering them according to her knowledge, and then when she got to the question, "Does my infant need to be baptized?" She said, "oh I know this one! Absolutely!!" We just smiled and explained that we don't believe that's true. So we flipped to the answer in the Book of Mormon; Moroni 8:8-12 and even a couple verses after that, where it explains that baptism is for sinners. Repentance and baptism are for those who are accountable for their own sins, not for Adams transgression. It goes on to teach that little children are whole and not capable of committing sin, so if thy die before the age of accountability (8 yrs.) then they are golden :) 

• When we got home we found a note from the maintenance guy saying we had gotten our faucet replaced in our kitchen? Later the sisters explained that it started to gush out water and the kitchen flooded! hahaha remember everyone, adventures in the Aspen ;) 

On Friday I woke up feeling super sick, and felt like I was going to throw up all day. 

• Luckily it was weekly planning so we didn't have to go anywhere all afternoon! 

• In the evening we went to dinner with a member, but that made me more sick so we went home after so I could sleep for half an hour before we had a lesson. The enabling power of the atonement is so real. I had a prayer in my heart that I would be able to sleep off whatever bug I had, within that power nap, so that we could go teach our new investigators the message of the restored gospel! When I woke up I felt much better! 

• I could feel the Lords support as we went about the rest of that night, which was such a blessing because that lesson was so great!! When we got to their house, Dre opened the door and said with a big grin, "Oh hey, ya'll did come!!" :) he went and gathered his brother and friend (now a new investigator) to hear the message we had to share :) We asked if they had read from the Book of Mormon yet and Dre said, "Ya! I figured you gave me this for a reason, so I read a couple verses". Um, yeah! We totally did give you that for a reason! They all wanted us to text them a scripture every day, and then asked us to come back on Sunday to hear more. Two. Days. Later. 

• What if I stayed home that night?! What if I hadn't accessed the enabling power of the Atonement and just slept for the rest of the night?? Oh how good is Heavenly Father??! :) His hand is absolutely in our lives every single moment of every single day. I LOVE being a missionary :) Sister Jones was tickled :) It was so fun to experience that with her; she rocked it! She is doing so well :) 

• Sister Williams is one of the sisters we live with, and she woke up sick Saturday morning. It's gotta be the mold or something that's making us sick! Anyway, she stayed home all day so sister Jones and I took turns going on splits with Sister Kennedy, Sister William's companion, to cover the lessons they had set up. It was a good switch in routine, and gave Sister Jones more opportunities to teach! So that was awesome! :) I also think Heavenly Father needed us to be with them because all of our appointments for that day canceled. 

• I went out with her for the night and we went to dinner with a member, who lives with her brother, who has 4 kids ages 1, 5, 6, and 8 :) I wish we got our dinner conversation on video because we were crying laughing the whole time! 

Benson is the 5 year old, and he started talking about how he was married. He said he was 31 and his wife was 29. When asked what he liked about her, he said, "her cute little face!" :) hahah then we talked about ways we could be righteous. I asked if he was nice to his siblings and with the most straight face he said, "Yeah. But sometimes I want them dead". Everything that came out of this kids mouth was so funny because he's so little and we kept thinking, "Where did you come up with this?!" By the end of the night we were serenaded by little Benson singing "Let it Go". But not like a normal 5 year old would sing it; this kid had the riffs and level changes and everything! It was sooo cute :)

AND dinner itself was super good because we made our own pizzas, watermelon was the side (including yellow watermelon!), and for dessert we had a pazookie :) For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a chocolate chip cookie fresh out of the oven with vanilla ice cream on top. It's life-changing :) 

• After dinner we picked up a member and went to a lesson! But he wasn't home, 

• so we checked on a few others and they weren't home either! 

• Eventually it was time to head home, and then Sister Kennedy and I had a really cool spiritual experience. Earlier in the day we had taught N, one of her investigators. We taught about prayer and fasting. N is SO close to baptism but is, for lack of a better word, bipolar when it comes to commitment. We called him to tell him that he had a ride to church, but suddenly he didn't want to go anymore. Sister Kennedy, acting on the spirit, told him to kneel down, say a prayer, and open the Book of Mormon to a random scripture to see if it answers his question- should I go to church tomorrow? Bold, right? But even while she invited him to do that, I felt the spirit and knew that it wasn't her idea; it was Gods. He called us back to tell us the scripture he landed on- Alma 21:6 which talks about assembling ourselves together to worship God, and that its a righteous thing to do. If that's not an answer then I don't know what is! 

He still chose not to come, but we knew God had followed through and it was up to Nick to make the decision. Sometimes agency is frustrating haha Nonetheless, it was a good day :)

On Sunday we went to church, which is always good :) 

• The Relief Society- a women's organization, that happens to be the biggest one in the world, that teaches us how to become better wives, mothers, and daughters of God. As well as focusing helping on those in need- lesson was on happiness! It was such a good lesson!! I loved it :) 

• The rest of the day our appointments fell through so we just checked on potentials with a member all night! 

Sometimes the weeks are amazing, other times they are just alright, but that's life right? :)

 I'm grateful to be here!! I love my mission and my Father in Heaven :) I'm grateful for the love, support, emails, letters, pictures, and prayers on my behalf! My heart is continuously full :) 

Happy birthday to Erica, again :) And happy birthday to my Mama on Friday! :) I love you!! 

Love,
Sister Chandler