You've gotta love Africa

You've gotta love Africa
Elder Chambers and Elder Kivaya in Oda

Going to Save the World

Going to Save the World
Elder Donovan Chambers

Monday, September 27, 2010

27 September 2010

howdy everyone. First of all I got the birthday package you guys sent. Thank you soooo much. It's probably my favorite birthday present I've ever gotten. I was glad to see the pictures, everyone is looking fresh. The letters were all interesting. Just about the last thing I opened was the tortillas, and I just about squealed with glee. I ate them with the mexican rice yesterday. You guys are best. I love you so much. Tell everyone thanks for me. Things this week were a bit tough. On tuesday after district meeting we went on splits with the APs. That was cool, we had a sweet lesson with some cool new investigators and they committed to be baptized. Then on Wednesday I had the flu and we slept most of the day, only going out in the evening. On thursday I had a headache all day, but we got a ton of work done. Friday my tire got a huge puncture so we walked all day and had a lot of appointments fail us. Saturday we had a good baptism for Jeremina and five people from the rest of the district. On sunday we had quite a few dissapointments. None of the people having a baptismal date came to church. We had a new investigator come and a small girl who's been coming for a month or so. That was everyone that came to church. We did get our first member referral since I came to the area though. So that was nice. But the fact that it was our first in a month gives you an idea of the member involvement in the ward. Love, Elder Chambers

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

20 September 2010

Hey everyone, thanks for the birthday wishes. I hope you guys are doing fine at home. This week Elder Maloni and I did a lot of work. And too much of it was in the rain. It started on wednesday when we were beaten severely by buckets of rain as we rode from one side of our area to see a guy who on the saturday before disappointed us for an appointment, on sunday disappointed us by not coming to church, and on monday and tuesday told us to wait and see him til his appointment on wednesday. Well on wednesday when we came, through the storm, to see him he told us: that it's raining, that he just got home from work, and that he was eating dinner (a bowl of rice that he could have finished in 5 minutes), and that on saturday he would meet us by all means. Well we went back home having learned a valuable lesson about riding our bicycles in the mud when we saw the state of our shirts. The backs were completely black with dirt. So we had to scrub that night. On friday and saturday it also rained so we again got soaked, but we walked so only our trousers and shoes had to be scrubbed and not our shirts. I'll let you guess for yourselves what that guy told us on saturday night. Sunday we had a pretty good day at church. The usual mixture of disappointments and miracles in getting investigators to sacrament meeting. We had a new family come who seem pretty cool. Hopefully we'll meet them again tonight. On my birthday we should have a baptism for one girl, Jeremina, who's really great. She's been investigating the church for awhile and is way brilliant. Well I love you guys so much I hope to see you all safe and sound once again. Love, Elder Chambers

Monday, September 13, 2010

13 September 2010

Hey everyone. We had a great week here in the area. Alajo is quite different from my other areas. We have spent almost every day the exact same way. Going out and teaching a bunch of lessons. Elder Maloni and I are really learning patience trying to teach some of these people. Elder Maloni especially is learning. It's hard to help people read the Book of Mormon or the tracts when they read at a first grade level. For sure the number one difficulty in this mission is literacy. I'm going to make sure all my kids can read before they're 4 years old and make sure they read every week. People here go to school and learn to read and then never read their whole lives. Sometimes it's depressing. On saturday we had a baptism in the morning. We had to fill the font ourselves and we started like an hour and a half late. I'm always embarrassed to be late, but people here don't pay attention to time at all. Our candidate, Cecilia, and 3 others were all baptized and then confirmed sunday. On Sunday a few of the people we've been struggling to get to come to church came and more than a few continued to not come. We'll have to drop them and start focusing on getting good new people. It's always sad to see people who have a witness from the spirit to totally fail to act, but that's something you see a lot here. People just let little unimportant things get in the way of their salvation. I've really learned to always put God first in my life from seeing so many people just reject the blessings he has in store for them if they'd just exercise their faith. Anyway the other news in the apartment is Elder Maughn is out and Elder Maganda from Uganda is in. Elder Maughn wanted to go home, but I think he decided to stay at the last minute so I think he's now in a new area. I hope he manages to last because I think not going on a mission would be the worst decision he could make in his life. He'd regret it for the rest of his life. I really believe that for a guy in the church the worst things you could do would 1. not be married in the temple and 2. decide not to serve a full-time mission. Well I love you guys a ton. I'm really enjoying my new companion and new area, but missionary work is still as hard as ever and still as sweet. Love, Elder Chambers

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

6 September 2010

Hey everybody. Sorry you guys didn't get an email last week. The internet wasn't really working so I got to read your emails and write my own email, but I couldn't send or save the email that I wrote. So sorry about that. Anyway last week the big news that happened was that Elder Nielsen was called as a trainer and we had a mission tour. So we went to Accra on Wednesday and attended the mission tour and stayed over night so that Elder Nielsen could attend Trainers Council. The mission tour was really good. We all prepared talks on obedience to prepare for it. And the main speaker, a seventy from Cote D'Ivoire whose name I can't remember, gave a talk about satan's great plan of misery. He went through the scriptures and showed us some of satan's many methods and strategies to cause our misery. Ok now to this week. On tuesday we found out what transfers would be. I'd be going to the Alajo ward in Accra. And Elder Nielsen would be staying in Asamankese with his greenie. So then on tuesday night we had Rosetta's baptism. Elder Nielsen was the baptist and it was a little funny because of how scared Rosetta was of the water. She was brave though and everything went smooth. During the time after the mission tour on wednesday and at trainer's council thursday, I spent going on splits with the elders in Jamestown. It was way different from Asamankese. Anyway we finally made it back home thursday night. Then I packed up all my stuff. Which was pretty easy because I'm having less and less stuff it seems like every time I pack. Wednesday the Terrys came and picked us up and took us to the mission home. My new companion is Elder Maloni from zimbabwe. He seems pretty cool. He's funny and relaxed and I think we'll have a good transfer together. I'll be his second companion so he's still fresh. We cover half the Alajo ward. The other elders in the apartment cover the other half. They're Elder Nwachuku from Nigeria. He's our district leader and just got a new trainee, Elder Maughn from Utah. Elder Maughn is having a hard time being away from home, but I'm sure he'll get to love the work soon enough. Our area is somehow struggling. It'll be an upward battle this month to achieve the goal they set. Last night in weekly planning we went through every person in the area book and in the end we ended up with only 22 people left in the teaching pool and most of them seem pretty unserious/weak/flaky so we'll need to do a lot of good finding this week or we won't have much success in October either. Well that's how things are in my part of the world. I love you guys too much. Let me know what's up with you. Love, Bradford