Me Voy!!

Hey Everyone! 

Wow, there is so much to talk about this week.
First off, I got transferred!! I have to say, it was SO hard to leave
my first area, and leaving the people there was even harder. I said
goodbye to everyone Sunday and we ate lunch at our ward mission
leaders house. Then today I'm heading down to Madrid to catch a flight
to the Islands in a day or two. It has been an amazing experience
serving up in the north, and I am not sure if I will ever be the same
because of it. 

I am being transferred to the island of Tenerife, in the Canary
Islands! Some of the members showed me some pictures and it looks
pretty cool. It's the island where they filmed parts of the new Fast
and Furious movie. I'm really excited, and I'm ready to hit the ground
running. 

As for the week it has been a pretty eventful, but I have some cool
experiences that I want to share with you. So to start in out, a
couple weeks ago we were talking with a guy on the street about the
gospel and the Book of Mormon. We felt like we needed to talk to him,
but as we started talking with him he told us that he didn't believe
in God or the scriptures. When my companion kind of asked him how
come, he told us that he wouldn't believe anything he couldn't see.
These are always tough, but it was a cool experience to testify to him
that God does talk to and answer his children today. He then told us
that if he were going to believe, he would have to see at least a
miracle. "Un milagro, por lo menos" So we gave him with a Book of
Mormon and left. Then, flash forward to this week, and this same guy
stopped us on the street and told us that he was reading the Book we
gave him. I don't know how to describe it, but we could see such a
difference in him, and he said he wants to come to English class. He
told us he didn't want to meet with us yet, because he would have to
read more of the book first, but I am really excited for him. I know
that the Book of Mormon changes lives and I could begin to see that
even here. 

The scriptures are really such a great blessing for us. I was reading
in Mathew a lot this week, and there is a part that I love in chapter
14. It's where Christ and Peter walked on the water. Peter was walking
out to the Lord, and in verse 30 it says that "But when he saw the
wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried,
saying, Lord, save me." And it says in verse 31 that "immediately
Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him". I think that we all
have these moments of struggle and trails, but I know that if we call
out to our Lord, he will always lift us up. And that is something that
I have felt so much as I reach out for my savior. 

I love you all and hope you have an awesome week! 

-Elder Chandler

Sabbath Surprises

Buenas todos,

This week has been another great one! We have been progressing in the
area and the work has been moving forward! We have been having fun and
I love being a missionary. 

We have had some cool experiences this week with investigators, and it
has been really cool to see them change their lives just bit by bit.
We had a lesson with a man named Jose this last week and we were
really close to getting him to come to church with us! He knows these
things are true, and he is a great guy, but he doesn't feel like he is
ready to come to church yet. That is always hard for us, because it's
when investigators go to church that they can feel the spirit and it
is the spirit that changes their hearts and grows their faith in
Christ. 

We also had a cool experience at English class this week! When the
kids came last week, we taught them English for a while, and then they
asked us how our church is different from all the other Christian
churches. We really wanted to answer their question but we had to go
so we told them if they would come again the next week, we would
answer their question. So right when they got there this week, we were
able to share the message of the Restoration with them and it was
really cool to testify of this church and after challenge them to read
the Book of Mormon and pray to know that it is true. 

We have been working to get more people to come out, and Elder Bennet
has been armwrestling the jovenes to get them to come to English
class. And let's just say there should be a lot of people at English
class next week. Haha 

Something funny, I found that there is a red churiso (sausage) here
that makes a TON of grease after you cook it! And it you dump it into
a cup or something it looks just like wax. And so what I did, was I
bought a decorative candle holder and dumped the "wax" into it. Then I
put a wick in it and gave it to the Pontevedra Elders. Haha I told
them that it was a "study candle" and it really enhances your morning
studies if you get a good whiff of it ;). haha 

Then, on Wednesday we taught Luciano and Hector and hey we're both
good experiences. We had to drop Luciano because he loves to meet with
us, but doesn't really want to know that our church is true. He is big
into the Bible and teaches a Bible class every week, but would tell us
that he knows everything about the gospel already and was willing to
look for an answer if these things are true. But we shared the lesson
of the Joven Rico or the rich man, from the Bible with him and it was
a good experience even though it was hard to drop him. 

Then on Sunday 11 people came to church!! It was the greatest feeling
ever to see more people "coming back to the fold" and we are really
excited to work with the less actives this next week. 

I have learned that there really is such a difference in my life as I
try to keep the Sabbath day Holy. My whole week seems to go by so much
better, and I have felt a change in myself. 

There is a scripture in that I love in Leviticus 26: 2-12 that says: 

2 ¶Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord. 

3 ¶If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; 

4 Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield
her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 

12 And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. 

I hope you all have a great week! 

-Elder Chandler

View of Pontevedra from a companion exchange



A view of Villagarcia

Bonjour Surprises!

Hey Everyone!

This week has been really cool. This last week we have really been
trying to improve ourselves in every aspect. From Teaching, to
Finding, to Obedience, and we have been trying to apply things that we
learn from our leaders into our missionary efforts. It has been
amazing to see the blessings that come from just trying to improve and
grow.

We had English class again this week, and we have never had any
success from teaching English class before, because no one would come.
So we decided to see what we could do to improve, and we decided to
move places from the Hotel in Carill, to some tables out by the beach.
We were hoping this would making it easier for people to come, and
four people came! It was a great blessing to see the Lord helping us
out with that.

Then, on Wednesday we had a companion exchange and I was with Elder
Forseberg from Norway! It was a fun experience and we were able to
teach some cool lessons. We even got to teach Rum! Rum is one of our
investigators from Thailand who speaks very little Spanish. Haha it
has been a different experience, but we are here to teach whoever we
can. We got her the pamphlets in Thai, and we teach the lessons by
explaining things a couple of times, and pointing in her pamphlet to
what we want her to read, or what we are trying to say and it has been
a great experience. I liked what Martin said in his letter that "The
language of the Spirit is universal" because we have really seen that.

And right after we were finished teaching her, we had a cool street
contact. We stopped a family walking by, and we almost taught the
whole first lesson right there. They listened as we bore our
testimonies to them that we KNEW these things are true, and the father
thought about it for a minute and said the weren't interested. When we
asked them why not, he told us that he had seen too many people who
don't really live their religion to believe in a religion. And right
there I felt prompted to give him a Book of Mormon. The only thing,
was that as I looked in my bag I didn't have any! And as I started to
looked at my companion to ask him for one, he asked me if I had one! I
though "shoot what are we going to do?" And then the prompting came to
me again really strong, "give him a Book of Mormon". And right then I
looked done to my hand, and I had my copy that I had gotten from
Grandma and Grandpa Chandler. I had bought a cover for it, and had
burn some cool designs in the leather all over and had decked it out,
but I decided that if God wanted him to have a Book of Mormon, I would
give him mine. It was full of markings, and had my name all over it
but I grabbed some of my papers out of it I gave it to him anyway.

I felt so much power as I explained to him that this book really meant
a lot to me, but that we wanted him to have it, and the spirit was so
strong as we testified again of this Book.

Something our zone leaders have been pushing for this week is for us
to have more faith, and to pray for things we need in our areas. So we
have been putting our faith forward and praying really hard to have a
baptism here in Villagarcia. And this week Soledad, a less-active came
back to church and asked us if we would begin teaching her 8 year old
daughter so she could be baptized!! Sometimes I feel like we really
just need to ask the Lord with faith and he is waiting to bless us.

And then a member from Boiro who just moved here from Venezuela called
President Temis and wants to come to church! He just needs a ride!

We have just had SO many cool experiences this week, as we have done
everything we can to improve and so I want to encourage all of you to
try the same! I know through the Atonement we can become so much more
then what we were before and it has been changing my life little by
little "poco a poco".

I hope you all have an awesome week!

Con Cariño,
-Elder Chandler

Conferencia Generale

Hey everyone! Sorry, for the short letter again, but this week was
really good! First off, Conference was Awesome! Wow, it is amazing how
much more you get out of Conference as a missionary. You try to soak
everything in as fast as you can so you can share it with others and
it feels like drinking from a fire hose lol. But it was really good and
we are excited.

We have been working with the less actives again this week, and we had
some great lessons. They are awesome people, we just need to help them
have that desire to come back to the fold. We were also able to teach
some investigators this week, and we had some awesome lessons. We are
hoping and praying that with the spirit we can touch someone's life
and help them have that desire to change, and to come unto Christ. 

We also had some great street contacts this week, and I love talking
with the people because I know we have something that can bless their
lives. One man in particular we talked to this last week had really
been having a rough go. He lost his job, home, had no family, and he
felt like he couldn't find any help. He went to the Catholic Church he
had been going to for 40 something years, and the Priest just asked
him if he was Romanian. When he told him that he wasn't, the Priest
just told him to go beg. So when we found him, he was pretty upset and
told us he wasn't sure where to go or even if he wanted to keep on
living. I was almost in tears as we testified to him that there is
more, and God really does love us. That there is always hope in our
trails. We gave him our number, and the number of the Branch President
here, and I think it really helped him. He is a great guy, we will
just have to see if we can help him if he stays in Villagarcia. 

Then on Friday we had a movie activity at the church and it went
really well! We watched "Meet the Mormons" and everyone really liked
it. None of our investigators came, but it was really good for the
members to come out and have an activity. And because of it, we were
able to get in contact with Miguel again! We will have to see what we
can do with that. :) Great week! 

I hope you all have an amazing week! 

-Elder Chandler