19 December 2011

So i dont have much time today, i spent most of my emailing time talking to the bank. somehow sports illustrated got my card number and tried to force me to buy a subscription. so we'll see how that goes....

this week was really good! matekel and i taught more lessons than we have ever taught in a week and we went to like 4 church christmas parties/concerts with our investigators.

chat decided she wanted to get baptized on new years eve instead of christmas eve.

we've got a couple christmas eve dinners we are going to and a couple christmas dinners as well.

i might not email next week, idk if the computer lab will be open....

here's my favorite quote of the week....
"what we have once enjoyed we can never lose. all that we love becomes a part of us."
-helen keller

lets be honest: its pretty cool she could say ANYTHING

check out this video: The Coat: A Story of Charity

i hope you all have a wonderful christmas! remember that we are all children of God. everyone is! we are all born into different circumstances and we all have our own faults. we all have PLENTY of them! dont judge ppl. LOVE them.

love you all!

elder donovan :)

Pictures

Elder Pomee and Elder Chambers

Gary's Baptism

Jumper Cables?

12 December 2011

uuuuuummmmmm, im trying to think of things that happened this past week.....

Chat is awesome! we've had 2 lessons with her so far. we'll have 2 more this week and then she wants to be baptized on christmas eve! so thats pretty cool!

I'm seriously struggling to think of what we did this week...
I asked elder matekel what we did, he said, "stuff". he is always so helpful!

We had stake conference this sunday, that was pretty cool. everyone that spoke, spoke about joy.

I recently started a study of the gospels. thats been pretty cool! im just going through them chronologically, so lots of flipping pages and looking at footnotes and stuff, but its been cool comparing the different accounts of Christs life.
(i started doing this study because I made it to Alma in the BoM and didnt want to keep going cause Alma is so dang long lol)

everyone should check out these videos http://lds.org/bible-videos?lang=eng  They are Awesome!

I'm not really looking forward to christmas without all of you. It wont be full of it's usual excitement. but im sure we'll have a good time here! we've got a couple little christmas parties coming up this week that should help us get the Christmas cheer :) and everyone is a little nicer to us now that its almost Christmas, so thats always good as well.

idk what else to write y'all :/

I love you :) and all of you are always in my prayers!

Here's a scripture to keep in mind:
"I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, ...and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions."
-Mosiah 24:14

Sorry this email was lame. i'll try to do better next week. i'll send some pictures to make up for it.

Love,
Elder Donovan Chambers :)

oh, okay, heres a story! we didnt have a car for a couple days, and i didnt have a bike helmet one morning, so we had to walk. not a big deal, except that we needed to go somewhere that was 8 miles away. so here's what we did: we went on a "faith walk" (i coined the term :) ). we said a prayer and said "we're gonna start walkin. if we could please get a ride that'd be awesome! if not, we're gonna be walkin for a long time. hopefully we'll meet someone along the way." and we set off! we walked for about 40 mins and then someone picked us up :) the end.

5 December 2011

Hey everybody! i miss you all! we had a pretty good week here :) its getting kinda cold, dipped below freezing a couple times.

the highlight of my week came when we were eating dinner with a member. it came time to leave and i was saying bye to everyone, and the little girl (probably 2 years old, her name is Paisley) ran up and gave my legs a big hug! and then a big kiss lol. it was pretty funny and really cute and made me miss Lily!

another highlight of the week: we recieved a refferal for a Philipeno lady named Chat. when we went over to meet her we found out that she was already taught by missionaries when she lived in the Phillipeans! she has already been to our ward in vegas 3 times and we have never met her, (we're only in that ward for sacrament meeting and then we leave right away, but still, you would think that someone would have told us she was there.) and she wants us to come over day so that we can finish the lessons, so that she can get baptized ASAP! so hopefully, if all goes as planned, by the next time i email we'll have finished all the lessons with her :) so that was pretty awesome! we have our first lesson schedualed with her tomorrow.

another highlight of the week: friday night we went to a chior concert at the stake center. there were about 8 chiors that performed. most were made up of mormons, but one of them was a baptist chior and it was awesome! it was cool to see some of the high-strung members loosen up a little bit and start standin up and clapping/dancing with the baptists. and the baptist minister had an awesome suit! it was black with purple trim. and his wife had GIANT hair lol. much cooler than the way our bishops dress!

well thats all ive got, I miss you!

-elder Chambers :)

28 November 2011

So I know you all are waiting with baited breath to hear if i hurt myself playing football. the answer is yes, but not too bad :P We played a game wednesday night and i ended up straining my hamstring pretty bad but i kept playing on it (and kept scoring touchdowns and getting interceptions with it :P) and then all wednesday night and thursday morning I had warm packs on it and was stretching so that i could play in the missionary turkey bowl! (because that is what we have been working for all transfer :P) by the time game time rolled around i was feeling pretty good! I was full of ibuprofen and IcyHot and and had my leg wrapped with like 4 Ace bandages :) We started playing. I got an interception the first play, my team scored a touchdown, and then i literally got 3 of the next 4 tackles (flags, we werent playing tackle, dont worry). aka i was on fire :P but then on a 4th and goal play i was blitzing the QB and totally, full on pulled my hamstring, so i had to lay on the sidelines for the rest of the games lol. so basically i stretched and iced and warmpacked my leg for like 8 hours so that i could play 6 plays lol. and in case your wondering, having a pulled hamstring makes it really hard to sit through 8 hours of church! but i'm hobbling around just fine. no serious injuries to anyone so its all good :)

We got our transfer calls. Elder Matekel and i are staying in the area and elder Christensen is going to a neighboring stake. I was kinda hoping i would get to leave but staying here with people i kinda know will make christmas better i guess. The holidays, so far, have been kinda lame without all y'all. I miss you guys.  Plus, the holidays make it really hard to get anything done missionary wise. everyone is out of town or way busy and no one has anytime to talk to us.

Funny story for the week: i was helping to make lunch at the English's house one day and my job was to cut the cucumber. so naturally i picked up the cucumber and started to pretend like it was a sword. long story short: i snuck up behind one of the kids and pretended like i was gonna hit her, she spun around and karate chopped the cucumber, the cucumber split in half and the half that i wasn't holding flew off, smacked a cabinet, and almost smacked Sister English in the head lol. we all laughed a lot and then i cleaned up my mess and peeled the two halves of the cucumber like i was supposed to lol.

Those are all the exciting stories i have from this past week, unfortunately all the people we are teaching didnt have very much time for us so we only saw a few of them. hopefully this week will be better teaching wise!

I love and miss you all, hope everyone one is doing well! I pray for you guys all the time!

-Elder Chambers :)

22 November 2011

So this past week was really good! the weather is way nice, partly cloudy, highs in the low 60's. and it was my turn to plan all week long! and so what did we do? we went out and had our best week of the transfer! (not bragging, but its true :P) we knocked probably 400-500 doors, talked to over 100 ppl about the church and found 5-6 solid people to start teaching! so alls good :)

Today is our p-day, so we're cookin up some fish someone caught and gave us for lunch and then playing some football :) AND THEN, we get to go teach this really cool lady named Natalia. We met her on saturday. She actually stopped us (that doesnt happen too often) and then asked us if we had anything she could study! we we're like "um yes! yes we do :)" and we ended up standing in her drive way for about 45 mins talking to her about the church! it was awesome! and now we get to teach her again tonight!pretty exciting stuff (at least we're pretty excited).

and then thursday we get he day off, which will be really nice! we are going to play football from about 7am-1pm and then we will crash at someones house, eat their food, and recover from all the exercise and gluttony :) cant wait :D

and then next monday is transfers! so we'll see what happens. probably elder matekel and i will stay here but i was wrong last time so i guess we'll see!

yall have a wonderful thanksgiving! watch some football for me!

Love,
Elder Donovan Chambers :)

PSA - 22 November 2011

**Public Service Announcement**

if you want a letter to get to me, please actually write "Elder Donovan CHAMBERS" on it. All mail goes through the mission office and the ladies that work there do not know who "my favorite missionary" or "that good looking elder" is. Just write my full name. Its for the best. otherwise my letter will get sent back to you and thats not what we want!

Also, per the request of the mission office, please do not write so much on the outsides of my envelopes. if you feel it necessary to include love songs lyrics and note about how good i look with your letters, please put those IN the envelope. again, not my rule but THE MANS (prez Black) rule.

thank you, have a wonderful day :)

Mission Tour

Back row, very middle.

14 November 2011

So on wednesday, elder matekel and i got a new companion, his name is elder christensen. he will probably only be here until transfers (just after thanksgiving) but its been fun having him. theres a lot more laughing now :)

we're still working on getting more lessons. last week we only had 5 (ideally we should get about 20). this week i get to take charge with planning, so hopefully that results with more lessons.

not much progress happened with our investigators this week. had a good lesson with jessica, shes still planning on getting baptized IF she gets that confirmation from the Holy Ghost that getting baptized is the right thing to do. We know she can get that answer. I think she probably already has, we just need to help her recognize it. but she came to church and shes still progressing :)

Bro Wood, as long as he gets his certification, will be able to get a new shift at work starting January 1st, and then he'll be able to come to church and get baptized :)

Yuki finally comes home Saturday!

All that is very exciting! and i am also excited for turkey bowl! more practice this afternoon :) i bought a doo-rag for the occasion :) thanks giving should be fun, it'll be like a day off which will be nice! although, its gonna be weird having thanks giving without any of you guys.

Funny story of the week: kinda bad, but we laughed after the fact: on sunday we had two potential investigators in our gospel principles class. lets just say they were both very loud and opinionated. and they ended up arguing and yelling at each other. the lesson was called "Our Savior, Jesus Christ". hmmmmm, lol. the teacher didnt know what to do, she just said "um, how about we just go back to reading scriptures and you two can finish your conversation after class" haha. it was pretty irreverent, but there was nothing we could do about it so we (the missionaries) just excused ourselves from the class and left the other members to fend for themselves.

Im working on only letting the good stuff linger in my brain and tuning out all the negative thoughts/ other ppls faults/ things i cant control. its a work in progress but its making life better :)

Hope all is well, love you :)

Elder Donovan

8 November 2011

Sup my ppl!? so this week has been better than last! for one, gary got baptized! it was awesome! his wife was crying her eyes out. also awesome :)

Elder Butler and I went on splits and it was one of the best days ive had so far. it was cold and pouring rain. and we didnt have a car. but we had fun! ive been out one transfer longer than elder butler. but we were in his area for the day. we were both excited to go on splits and both excited to go out and work and we stayed possitive all day and it was a lot of fun! we came home soaked to the bone, fingers numb, and laughing :)\

Chris dropped us this week :( idk what happened, elder matekel talked to him on the phone. but i was pretty bummed. chris was one of the few people that i have been here since the beginning for. and was my first investigator to drop us :/ thats probably something i'll get used to, but its pretty lame :(

Rai T is also having issues and im afraid shes gonna stop listening to our lessons soon too :/

We do have a couple new investigators tho! thats pretty exciting :) one im really excited about is this cool black lady named Zaren. Marks and i tracted into her probs about 6 weeks ago, but we were just barely finally able to get ahold of her again this past week! she tells it like it is and is really honest with us. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and shes gonna study and pray about it and then have a list of questions for us when we come back on sunday!

The fire alarm went off during Sacrament meeting on sunday, that was pretty exciting. what happened was the heater in some of the classrooms was freaking out and got really hot and actually set off one of the sprinklers. the fire trucks came and everyone evacuated, it was pretty exciting! and then everyone went home early. except for us, cause we had more meetings to go to.

Yesterday Elder Yamashita and his wife came to teach us. it was pretty good. we ended up sitting in the chapel for like 6 hours. i almost fell asleep. but i took some good notes so i can go back and look at what they taught us. One thing they focused on was that we need to focus on positive things, on whats going right. sis yamashita challenged us to make a list of 100 good things about our companions. i only have 22 so far, but im still workin on it.

its finally cooling down here :) i bought a sweater at DI for $3 :) and someone gave me a suit the other day :) i think were gonna go play boccee ball after lunch :) LOVE you all! Miss you all too. Be good. Stay safe. Say your prayers. Write me letters :P

love,
elder donovan :)

2 November 2011

Welp, lets see... its been an extra long week for us because monday we didnt get pday. p day is today because we got to go to the temple this morning :) it was awesome! gave me an extra dousing of drive and love and peace that i had been needing :) so that was this morning. more flag football later this afternoon :) a lesson with the woods tonight :) garys baptism tomorrow night :) and then splits with elder butler (he just came out, 25 yrs old, pretty cool, in my district, becoming on of my better friends out here) on friday :) so things are looking up out here :) last week was a little rough, just trying to get used to/ along with my companion. there were a couple time last week i think i actually gave myself headaches from dealing with him. BUT, i think its getting a little better, and i think i myself am getting better, so its all good!

weather finally cooled down :) we've got highs in the low 60's the rest of the week :) im still waiting for the cactus and dirt to change to beautiful shades of red and orange though :/ jk

had a good lesson with chris! my first GOOD lesson in a couple weeks :) its so much fun to teach people that dont know very much but are excited to learn!

Rai T is having some issues with some things and we havnt been able to meet with her in a couple weeks. right now her baptism is on hold, so, i guess pray for her :/

next week i'll be emailing on tuesday, so keep that in mind :) monday is our "church tour". some church leader is going to come and talk to us all day long. it sounds really boring to me, but everyone is excited for it, so we'll see. i think pretty much its always fun anytime we get to get together with a big group of missionaries.

heres your funny story: i wore an ugly brown suit jacket and a flat bottom tan 80's style tie to the ward halloween parties and only like 3 people laughed at me. I think everyone thought that i seriously thought that was in style. (not that i wouldnt normally wear that at home lol, but missionaries are supposed to be conservative, this was not lol). anyway, i thought it was kinda funny how most of the people were afraid to say anything about my outfit cause they thought i would be offended. even though i wore it specifically so that ppl would laugh at me.
(i realize this funny story is not as good as some of my other ones, but it's the best ive got :) )

Love you all!
Send me some letters :)
Find a quiet peaceful place and have some alone time for me! i miss alone time!

Elder Donovan :)

24 October 2011

lifes goin here in vegas. this week we have THREE chili cook-offs we get to attend so im psyched for that :) and then next week if all goes as planned we'll have two baptisms! so im equally psyched for that :P

elder matekel is from washington. wants to be an orthopedic surgeon. studied and THE Brigham Young University. Has 3 siblings, i think. him and i dont laugh nearly as much as Marks and i did, but thats alright, we'll also probably cause less trouble than Marks and i did lol.

We practiced for the Turkey Bowl today. Our team looks pretty good actually! (its flag, dont worry :P) we still have a few more weeks to practice, but we might be able to get ourselves a trophy here at the end of this transfer :)

I cant think of any funny stories for you. sorry, like i said, it was a less funny week.

Quote of the week:
"You can live life in two ways: as if everything is a miracle or as if nothing is"
                                                               -Albert Einstein
I'm doing my best to live like the first option.

Miss you all, but love you all more :)
Elder Chambers :)

24 October 2011

Hey everybody! This last week was great. Samuel said that he wanted to be baptized while I was still in Ghana. Since he's qualified we were very happy to have a baptismal service for him. I got to be the baptizer! That was great, it was a long time since I got to be the baptizer. Joe and Hannah are also doing great. They both came to church early yesterday. Man these last two years have been incredible. It'll be so strange to be back home. I'll miss a lot of things about being a missionary and about Ghana. Mostly I'll be missing all the great people and friends I've made. Hopefully one day I'll see them again. See you guys soon! I'm all packed up. Everything fits into the smaller suitcase and it's not even full! I love you guys.

 Love,
Elder Chambers

18 October 2011

hey everybody,
Elder Matekel needed a chance to email home so that means i get to try again :)

We've had a busy few days with getting Elder marks moved out and elder Matekel moved in. Today we dropped marks off at the mission office, went shopping, cleaned the apartment, and did a few other errands. It's been a long couple of days without a lot of actual missionary work going on so i'm ready to get back to that! I got a call from Gary this morning, he said that the dr told him that his foot was good to go and that hed be able to get baptized! so that'll be great! they are sad that elder marks wont be able to see it though.

Elder Marks and i got along really well, so at the moment im not having very much fun with Matekel, but im sure it'll get better :) hes from washington. has an older sister and 2 younger brothers. he ran track and cross country and swam in high school. he went to BYU before he came out and hes been out 18 months. He was a zone leader in reno. thats about all i know about him.

The other day elder marks and i went contacting at a bunch of garage sales and some =one gave me a really nice suit and someone else gave me a pretty beat up bike. next monday my project will be to see if i can get the bike working.

Highs of about 85 degrees for the next week or so. im getting kinda sick of that.

we might have to go to a training meeting on saturday for trainers. ive already been to it with marks but Matekel has never been so i might have to go to it again. we're gonna try to get out of it, cause our wards have a service project they want us to go to. but we'll see. i bet the AP's make us go.

I carved a pumpkin with Angel Moroni on it yesterday. its legit.

Funny story of the week: last night i put some IBC rootbeer in the freezer and then forgot about it. they exploded during the night lol. so there was shattered glass and there still is frozen root beer all over the fridge lol.

Spiritual Thought of the week:

Alma 37:37 (the Book of Mormon, for all you non mormon folk)="Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day."

This is something ive been working on : "when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God". I have found that it really helps to get me in the right mindset for the day if i just roll right out of bed and onto my knees and really focus on the things i am thankful for as I pray. Especially when im way tired and dont want to wake up in the morning, if I do this, and focus on all the things God has done for me, theres no way im not gonna get up and go to work!

Love you all :)
Miss some of you :P

Just kidding :D

Elder Donovan :)

17 October 2011

Here on the mission, the elder that trains you is called your father, however, my father left me for adoption because he is getting transfered to Reno. my step father will be Elder Matekal (ma-tea-kul). i thought he was from another country with a name like that, but he's not, hes just white.  I havent met him yet, so i'll tell you more about him next week.  Im pretty bummed marks is leaving, him and i got along really well, but im sure i'll get along just fine with matekal. hes been on his mission for awhile now, so he'll have lots to teach me.

 

the luau was kinda a fail. we had 400-450 ppl show up, which was good! but we didnt have enough food. and everyone left before the church tour. we had like 30 ppl go through the church tour. it was all due to poor planning, and elder marks and i saw it coming, but there was nothing we could do to help it. we just tried to make it the best possible.

 

ray-t is not baptized yet, but she will be soon. and hopefully gary and bro wood and jessica as well!

 

We just talked with a lady about the church for like hour, so now my time is done, but i'll talk to yall later. love ya!

17 October 2011

Hey everybody! Hope you guys are all doing great. I'm really nervous/excited to come home. This week we are going to be busy so I'm sure it will fly by.  Last week we really enjoyed a zone conference on Friday.  Everyone that gave instruction did a great job.

One of my recent converts in Alajo sent me a sweet african shirt, too.  We have a lot of really great investigators that we are working with.  I think we have about 40 in our area book at the moment.  We had people come to church on Sunday, but not the ones we were counting on most.  This week we will have the baptismal interviews for Joe and also Hannah Azumah (Comfort's older sister).  They are both doing great.  We are also going to talk to another of our investigators, Samuel Ampiah, who has  come to weeks in a row to see if he'd be ready to move his date up because he is progressing quickly.  He has even been getting 2 of all the pamphlets because he's been teaching his girlfriend.  This week we are going to be focusing on the people that have dates so that we will be able to make sure their interviews come through and they can be well prepared for the 29th.

See you guys soon!  Love ya.

Love,
Elder Chambers

10 October 2011 w/Photos

Weather lask week: 65, a little rainy/cloudy, much better than a few weeks ago!

Weather this week: back up to 80's

the week started off pretty lame. lots of canceled lessons. I went on splits with Elder Chamberlain one day. hes from westerville ohio, so we had fun :) we tracted out a whole neighborhood (abt 5 hours). got a few return appointments, handed out a few BoM's. we'll see if anything comes from that.

this saturday we are hoping to have a baptism for Ray-T but it might not happen cause we arent 100% sure if she has parental permission yet. so hopefully that'll go down on saturday. the luau/church tour is on friday, i'll fill yall in about how both those go next week.

Idk what i told yall about gary last week but he was having some issues and wasnt sure if he wanted us to continue to teach him. that was sunday. we went by on friday and he was in a much better mood! he wants us to restart the lessons with him and they are feeding us dinner tonight :)

today we went on a hike in the mountains (see attached pictures)(mama, feel free to put them on good ole facebook, thanks, i love you!)

it was awesome! there was snow and ice, and it was 45ish degrees and THERE WERE TREES! great :) i miss trees

funny story of the week: me and elder marks had a competition in one of our sacrament meetings to see who could cry first. you had to get a tear to actually rool down your cheek. i won :)

everyone talks to us a lot about politics. we dont know anything about whats going on so we just do a lot of nodding. and we always agree with whatever the person is telling us lol. we heard some guy was talking about mormons on tv and wasn't very nice. thats not cool.

While i was tracting with elder chamberlain, we had a lady tell us that we read a book of lies, that we are living in sin, and that if we died today we would go straight to hell. elder chamberlain is a spanish missionary. he says latinos are much nicer than white ppl lol

This is the last week of my first transfer! we find out what is happening on saturday. im sure i'll stay. so will elder marks, maybe. our area might get split, we'll see.

love you all!

elder donovan :)

10 October 2011

Hey everybody.  I love you guys a ton.  Hope you are all praying for me.  The week before last we were given some minors to work with by an old lady in our branch.  She normally always brings them to church. This week we worked to try to teach their families, but it was very difficult because out of all their parents none of them can read and only one can understand us well enough to teach him.  The member also struggles to understand english as well so she wasn't much help in translating.  I think that literacy has been the biggest thing hindering missionary work on my mission.  Elder Maloni and I have been teaching a great investigator named, Joe.  He is really humble and really has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon.  He is preparing to be baptized at the end of the month.  He is just worried about if he can manage to stop taking alcohol.  I'm confident for him.  He's really serious, but he's also hard to get a hold of for us to teach and encourage.  So you guys can be praying for him.  The Azumah family is doing great.  They were all at church sunday, and Hannah's still set for her baptism at the end of the month.  You can also be praying for the sister missionaries here.  They said that they need more prayers.  Love you guys.

Love,
Elder Chambers

3 October 2011

Ive been in vegas for a month now. not much happened this week. at least i cant remember anything right now. chris and jessica ended up canceling our lessons and gary is now having doubts about being baptized, and Brother wood still hasnt had anything change at work, so he still cant come to church.  it's a little frustrating but we're still workin just hoping something good will happen for us.  one of my friends from the MTC went home last week. we're not sure why but we're sad for him. People arent kidding when they say missions are a lot of work. but its a cool opportunity to focus all my energy on following Christ and serving people. I really enjoyed all of conference. We watched saturday morning with members, sat afternoon with a part member family, sun morning with matt and his member friends and then sun afternoon with some members (both me and elder marks accidentally fell asleep during this one lol).  it was all good and i actually took notes! haha, that was a new experience for me.

 

Today we went to a local park that had like 3 ponds and trees and grass, and a shady spot to lay down. it was way nice! made me miss ohio. no one has grass out here and there are barely any trees. mostly just grass and dirt. hopefully someday i'll get sent up north someday so i can enjoy some trees and grass again. today its about 90 degrees here but its gonna cool down this next week hopefully.

 

our luau might fail its scheduled for the 14th. we were just told that we might not be able to use the grass that night. all our food sign up sheets never got passed out (we gave them to our ward mission leaders, then they got lost somewhere), and the church tour still isnt planned because the guy from the stake that is helping us is focusing all on the party, even though the church tour is the most important part. anyway, all you ppl out there, make sure you are fulfilling your church callings and helping the missionaries instead of just being pains in the bum. <that was a public service announcement :)

 

seriously tho, be nice to people. look for opportunities to help them. get to know your neighbors. dont be grumpy. it'll make your life better

 

hopefully i have more exciting stories for you next week, love you all.

 

elder donovan :)

3 October 2011

Hey everybody! Hope you guys enjoyed conference.  I heard that Africa is getting 2 more temples!  That's awesome.  We had a baptism for Comfort Azumah age 17 on Saturday.  Her Dad performed the baptism. Her mom was the one that got baptized last week.  They are doing great.  Probably her older sister will be baptized the 29th.  On Sunday all the family came early dressed in their best.  Hannah (Comfort's older sister) came for the first time and really enjoyed it.  We'll be teaching her throughout the month so she can also be baptized.  I'm really enjoying being in this area. It seems like a really fruitful area.  There are plenty of prepared people for us to teach.  Almost every time we go out people we are passing call us over and we have lessons with them.  On Sunday we went to the Dansoman ward so I could interview one of the Sister's candidates.  While I was there they also had me explain to another investigator why breaking the law of chastity means that his baptism is being postponed.

This morning I finished the Book of Mormon another time.  I've read it more than I've read any other book, and I'm really grateful to my parents for that.  I know it's true and it's my favorite book.  I'm really happy to be able to work with Elder Maloni.  He likes to work hard everyday and cares a lot about our investigators.  I'm sure that these next few weeks will really make me miss my mission when I get home.  Everyday we are meeting people that I would just love to see be converted and living the gospel.

Love,
Elder Chambers

MTC Photos

26 September 2011

Im just gonna give a run down of the ppl we've been meeting with:

 

Gary (60's): had surgery on his foot but wants to get baptized as soon as he is medically able. We like to stop by and visit him and his wife. on saturday we cut down a tree for them (that was way fun!) and then they fed us breakfast. they are feeding us dinner tonight :)

 

Brother Wood (60): has been investigating the church for 10 years. after a great lesson with him on Tuesday he now is to the point where he wants to be baptized! he just needs to come to church 3 times and then we'll be able to set him up with a baptismal date! problem is he works every sunday, so we've been fasting and praying for him to get a chance to go to church! God willing, something will happen soon, he'll get off work, come to church, and be baptized soon after! him and Gary are good friends.

 

Ray-T (18): Ive never taught her, she is hoping to get baptized on October 15. Her mom doesnt want her to get baptized as is pretty anti-mormon. we'll see how that goes.

 

Jessica (28): She is getting married on Oct 22 and will hopefully be baptized on Oct 29. she came to church for the first time yesterday and said she really enjoyed it :)

 

Matt (20's): we had dinner cancel on us last week, so that person found a replacement to feed us (very nice of them). when we got to dinner the y had their non-member friend there! We ate dinner, chatted about biology (hes a biologist), and then we taught him a lesson after! hes a born again christian, and so they are usually pretty hard core and somewhat anti. but he listened to us and agreed to read the book of mormon and pray about it. we called him about 5 days after we taught him and he was already half way done with the BoM! so he's gonna finish (which is sweet!) and then hopefully we'll get to teach him again. His friends that fed us dinner are pretty excited!

 

Chris (late 30's): elementary school teacher, looked into the church before. he is really interested in raising his future children in the church! we're really excited about teaching him! He agreed to work towards baptism.

 

Chris's wife (30's): Chris wants her to join the church with him. We've only met her once. we dont think shes very interested. we're kinda worried that shes gonna mess things up for Chris

 

Yuki (60's): we've only talked to her on the phone for the past couple weeks, shes been pretty busy. Shes gonna be out of town this week, hopefully when she comes back she'll still want to talk to us! She doesnt understand a lot of the Doctrines and will be a work in progress for awhile i think

 

Carey (80's): This is the sick lady we were teaching. She passed away this week. It's nice to know she is not in pain any more.

 

 

Transfers are coming up in about 3 weeks and all these baptisms will hit probably in 4 or 5 weeks, so Elder M is really hoping he gets to stay here next transfer. Hes already been here for about 7 months so he's pretty worried hes gonna be moving.

 

we're planning an big Luau and church tour for october 14th. it might fail though because our ward leaders are slackers and keep failing on their commitments.

 

I dont think i broke any laws this week.

 

We say this kid riding his bike with his friend riding on his pegs. they were about 10 years old. Marks and I were joking about how that wasnt safe and then they crashed into the grass. We laughed a lot. they were ok.

 

In testimonies meeting (i call it testimonies meetings now, because there are usually more than one testimony in it) yesterday a 16 year old girl got up and bore her "testimony" about how she was thankful she went to the church activity because she got to watch Jimmy eat 12 hot dogs and she ate a whole package of mozzarella cheese. that was pretty funny, we had to try and control our laughter b/c, as missionaries, we're supposed to behave ourselves lol.

 

Anyone who wrote me a letter, i'll write you one back asap :)

 

The temperature here has been close to 100 all week. one day we hit 104. I'm missin fall weather and changing leaves and football! I heard both BYU and OSU won on saturday, but they both got stomped the week before. Im glad I have better/ more exciting things to worry about than my lame football teams.

 

Thanks for all the love and prayers (im assuming yall love and pray for me :P)

 

Love

Elder Donovan :)

26 September 2011

Hey everybody! Hope you guys are all doing great. I love you guys so much. I was able to get the cheesecake. It was delicious! Thanks for everything.

Anyway so the most exciting news is that on tuesday Pres. Judd called to tell me that I'm going on transfer on friday. He asked me to come and be the district leader in Mamponse. So that's where I am now and I guess where I'll stay until I go home. On Tuesday we had a lot of struggle to help Joel Gyan get to his baptism interview. He stays about a 35 min bike ride from the chapel. We were waiting for him at the chapel when he called us that he didn't have any transportation there. So we had to ride to his house and take him to the ward mission leader's house and borrow a bicycle so that the three of us could ride back to the chapel. So I'm hoping on Saturday everything went well with the baptism.

 This week I also had a lot of great experiences teaching with the Book of Mormon. On Wednesday Elder Sesay and I were tired and by 8:30 we were feeling ready to go home and have dinner. We decided to call our last appointment half hoping she'd cancel on us. When we called her the call was cut and when we tried to call back the phone was off. We decided to go ahead and see her anyway. When we got there she had had a pretty rough day and was feeling sick. We were inspired to share 2 Nephi 4:15-35 with her. She was reluctant at first, but as we read she really got into it and was cheered up by it a lot. I really felt the spirit strongly myself as I read vss. 27-29. They were really important to me. The second experience was the day I was leaving Teshie. We went to see a woman who we had taught for a long time, but we had to stop teaching her because she couldn't come to the church on Sundays. Since I was saying goodbye to her we told her we'd read Nephi's farewell from 2 Nephi 33. The scriptures really touched hey and she was a bit choked up by all the spirit. She told us that the other day her husband had said if she wants to start coming to the church it is ok. She promised that she'll start coming. She was so happy that day and said she was sorry that I'm going to miss here family's baptisms.

When I came here to Mamponse I was really encouraged by all the Elders in the apartment. My new/old companion is Elder Maloni (if you can remember he was my companion on my birthday last year in Alajo). I'm really excited to be back with him. He is a hard worker, and that seems true of Elder Succo and Elder Treu as well. They are both from Utah, and they are both new missionaries. Elder Succo is 3 months and is training Elder Treu who is 1 month. All of us are teaching mostly newer investigators. We had a baptism for one woman on Saturday. Her husband is a recent convert and as a priest he did a great job performing the baptism. Her name is Theresa Azumah. We had to fill the font for her twice. When we filled it on Friday night we forgot to close the drain and the water escaped. I love you guys and I'm excited to finish my mission strong. President Judd is always asking us to sprint to the finish.

Love you guys.
Love, Elder Chambers

19 September 2011

Everything is going well here! not a lot happened this week, but we're on the brink of greatness :) Im missin fall weather for sure. the high for today is about 95 degrees and the desert is not very exciting, but thats ok! we dont tract very much, maybe about 45 min a day, just to fill time in between lessons. hopefully soon we wont even have time to do that. We taught 14 lessons this past week and hopefully soon we'll be up to about 22. We missed a few of our investigators last week and we've got a couple new ones that hopefully start progressing. P-day has been pretty lame today so far. We tried to play football today (side note: today is the 1 year anniversary of me breaking my leg, woooops! dont worry, it was touch football today and i wrapped my ankle), but our zone isnt very athletic and no one knew what they were doing. and then like 45 mins into the game, the park got evacuated because of a bomb threat. LAME. so we havnt done anything too exciting. haircuts and shopping later probably. Im not very happy with BYU of Ohio State and im almost glad i dont get to watch them, because they are failing me hardcore. good thing is, i have much better and more important things to worry about! I hate shaving. Thanks to all of you who emailed me this week, you got more updates than everyone else lol. Sorry I dont have more to say, it was kinda a building week, this next week will hopefully be more exciting. All is well tho! i have no complaints and things are going quite swimmingly! I enjoy hearing what yall are up to. Funny story for the week: Me and Elder M went and helped this old lady in her yard by picking pears for her. after we picked about 65 lbs of pears we talked to her for awhile. actually, mostly we just listened to her talk and we just threw rocks at each other lol. we did that for about an hour and she didnt notice what we were doing until Elder M threw a pine cone that almost hit her lol. it was reeeeally funny and we laughed pretty hard. Anyways, love you all! thanks for the updates! keep them coming :) yall are in my prayers, be safe :) youre favorite missionary, elder donovan :)

19 September 2011

Hey everyone! I hope you guys are all doing great. Happy BIrthday to mom! I hope you guys were all nice to her. For us this week was very interesting and productive. There were no transfers in our district except for Elder Collings who received a new missionary to train. The new missionary in our apartment's name is Elder Beaufeaux from Arizona. This week we did a lot of teaching with two of our investigators who have baptismal dates for this saturday. We also went with our ward mission leader to find some more of the members houses and get some referrals. On sunday we had a couple of investigators that came to church for the first time. One of them, William Jappong, really is understanding everything we are teaching. He's had a hard time the past couple of years. He was investigating the church in a different town and was about to be baptized when a car hit him and shattered his arm. He moved to teshie and a couple weeks ago he saw us as we were going to a new place we hadn't been to search for a referral. He called us and we started teaching him again. A funny thing happened to me last week when we were on exchanges. I was in the other area with Elder Boadu when we stopped to see some members. Some of the kids there carried out their small 3-year-old sister and put her in my lap. Do you know what sweet 3-year-old kids do when they just wake up? They pee. And she peed all over my lap. They told me that means I'm going to have twin girls when I get married. If that's true then I guess it's worth it? I love you guys so much. Love, Elder Chambers

Pictures From Las Vegas

I found these photos on the mission blog

12 September 2011

first of all, i have been severely lacking on mail, and emails. so step it up :) anyone can write me, or email me, or even DearElder me. there are lots of options. so hit me up, i'll write you back :)

other than that im doing really well :) elder b left on friday, so now its just me and elder m. we're doin work! V got baptized on Wednesday, and we've got got 4 other ppl that are close. mostly we teach lessons and contact ppl we've already met. we do some tracting, but its usually only about an hour a day, mostly to fill time and rack up blessings ;) Someone called us on friday and said they knew an old lady that wanted to get baptized! so we were psyched! we ran home, changed into our nicest clothes to impress this woman and ran through a couple of scenarios for different lessons we could teach (we didnt want to mess this up). so we got to her house, we were pretty excited to teach her. and then we found at that she was completely bed ridden. and almost completely unresponsive. we were like uhhhhhhhh.... what are we supposed to do!?! she didnt even have enough energy to open her eyes or answer any of our questions. a few times we actually thought she was asleep. Its pretty sad, but we cant do much for her :/ i guess it was just a bad day for her, so we're gonna go back and try again, but we'll see.

today we went to and played tennis. it was pretty fun! its pretty much always sunny here so thats nice. (i think its about 90 degrees here today.) once we got to the tennis courts everything went down hill. im not very good at tennis, cause ive only play like 4 times, so i was trying to hit a ball that bounced close to my feet and i accidentally hit myself in the forehead with my racket lol. long story short, i cracked my head open and now i have 13 stitches in my forehead lol. it'll heal up fine, and i'll finally have that cool face scar ive always wanted! for right now im just telling ppl i got hit by a car lol.

on sundays we go to 3 sacrament meetings, and 3 correlation meetings. we actually end up at the church building from 8am until 5pm. its kinda dumb, but we need the members help with finding ppl, so thats what we've got to do! in our 3 wards combined, there were probably 800 members at church on sunday. and i know maybe 20 of them lol. thats ok, i'll keep learning em, and if all else fails, i can call anyone "brother" or "sister" and get away with it lol.

Anyway, thats about all thats up with me. my companions cool and so are the rest of the missionaries we work with. alls well in Vegas and it feels like ive been here for a lot longer than a week lol. if you want to know anything else, you'll have to send me an email/letter and tell me what your up to, and then i'll answer your questions :P

Love you all, Elder Donovan Chambers :)

ps that whole cracking my head open with a tennis racket was a lie. i have no stitches in my forehead. anyone who believed that i am that uncoordinated, SHAME ON YOU

6 September 2011

Hey yall, just keep sending that mail to the mission office address I gave you, they'll send it to me :) (you'd better be sending mail :P) got here yesterday. we woke up at 4am utah time to get to the airport, that was pretty awesome! they just piled us all up on a couple buses and we caravaned up to the airport. there were 19 of us missionaries on our flight, that was pretty cool! when we got of off of the plane in Las vegas, we met prez and sister black and the took us to their house for breakfast! then we went to the mission office for orientation. that was kinda awful! we were there from about 11-5 and the whole thing was watching safety videos and filling out forms. finally after all that we got our assignments and our companions. My new comp is Elder M. He's from British Columbia, been on his mission for a year, and has trained 3 other new missionaries. Elder B is also with us for this week before he heads off to England. Our area is the Tule Springs area and we're over 3 wards! from what I've heard, one of the wards really loves the missionaries and works with them a lot, and the other 2 don't really trust the elders too much. so we'll work on that. but everyone says that the members hook us up all the time. Someone will feed us dinner every night. Last night we ate with The E family, they are way cool and take care of the missionaries well. Our apartment is supposed to be a 4 man apartment but once B leaves at the end of the week, there will be only two of us there for the rest of the transfer. so we wave 2 bathrooms, 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and a big living room for just 2 of us :) and we have a mini van lol. we have a baptism on Wednesday for V. i haven't met her yet but she sounds way cool, shes 13 and is joining without her parents, but they are supporting her and Elder M says she has a great testimony. the goal for the mission is to get 1000 baptisms by the end of the year, right now we're at 580, so we've got some to do! anyways, so far so good! haven't had the chance to do too much work yet, but I'm sure by next week I'll have some fun stories about my failed attempts at teaching. Hope everyone is well! I was glad to hear that both BYU and OSU won their games on Saturday, that's always good! I'll get you some pictures soon. miss you all! love elder chambers :)

5 September 2011

How are you guys all doing? Things are nice enough here. This past week a lot things were happening in the community as the people of Teshie finished their festival. It is called the Homowo. You can google it. The main final event was on Saturday. Most of the town went to witness it and we had lessons fail. We went to the chapel and were able to watch them running through the street. It was interesting. We have been teaching a lot of people, but it has been difficult for them to come to church. Transfers are next week. I'm kind of hoping to go on transfer. I think that way I'll have to work harder and things will go easier, since that way I'll finish my mission in a ward were I don't have any friends. It's way too wierd that I'll be saying goodbye to my mission and to Ghana. Love you guys, hope you are all doing awesome. Good luck to Dono on his first day in Vegas! Love, Elder Chambers

30 August 2011

So far so good! We're all gearing up to leave on monday! pretty crazy! weve been teaching a lot! again, they are just people acting, but its still really cool to be teaching! someone told us that before this new system, missionaries taught about twice while here at the MTC, weve taught at least 20 times so far! I think most of us feel pretty ready to go out and teach real people! We taught Junichi, our shinto friend, a couple more times since my last email. He's awsome! and i think hes getting more and more interested. We've taught him most of the plan of salvation and the restoration, and he wants to know more about the BoM! Its pretty cool to experience because he has 0 christian backgroud. I wish he was actually a real person (lol, i know this sounds weird, but this is whats going on in my life lol, MTC makes you crazy i think). Speaking of going crazy in the MTC, we heard a rumor that there was an earthquake in DC? when things like that happen i would like details please lol. We're going to the temple today and we went last week as well! its a lot of fun to go as a missionary with a bunch of other missionaries. We have devotionals every tuesday and sunday, they are all really good but no big names yet, we're hoping for an apostle tonight lol. I havnt had to speak in church yet, and i think this week is testimony meeting, so i think i might have escaped :) Thank you all for the letters! they are the highlights of my day. it takes about 3 days to get a letter from ohio to here, so if you want to catch me in utah, today is probs the day to send that. if not you can look on facebook for my address in nevada, or DearElder works even when im in nevada i think. you might have to pay though, idk. All of you should know im typing this with a keyboard that has no letters on it, and since i normally cant type without looking at the keys its kinda tough lol. Ummmm, what else do i have to tell yall? We play sand volleyball everyday, they have ginger ale here, the missionaries in my district love 90's boy bands, all those are my favorite things! so lifes good :) Ive been reading about the last supper and the Garden of Gathsemene, Christ is AWSOME! I love teaching people about him b/c everyday i realize more and more how awsome he is!

new fav quote= "god gave us serenity to accept things we cant change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference." -idk who lol

love you all!
-elder donovan :)

29 August 2011

How is everybody? I hope you guys are all doing great. We had a nice week of work here in Teshie. Our bikes were broken so we did a bunch of walking this week. On thursday we went on companion exchanges. The district leader, Elder Collings, came with me into our area. Elder Sesay went with Elder Boadu in their area. Elder Sesay is doing a good job teaching me some extra patience. On saturday we had a tri-ward baptism for the district. 5 people were baptized including our candidate, Abigail, and our bishop's little boy. Mostly on sunday we had people come to church that aren't really progressing. They have different problems that are keeping them from baptism. It's good they still come to church so that they can have the spirit's guidance in working things out. I hope you guys are having fun as school starts. I hope Donovan is doing great. I'm sure the Provo MTC has got to be pretty strange. Love you guys so much. Take care.

Love,
Elder Chambers

23 August 2011

So far so good here at the mtc! Ive seen anthony and nathan and darby and so many other friends from my ward last year! a couple ppl have recognized me as the "guy from wyview that broke his leg last year" lol. IM EXHASTED! they keep us busy all the time, and we put all our energy into remembering scriptures and what things we want to teach who, and then we get to the lessons and our investigators want to talk about something completly different lol. Here at the mtc they have a new program with a lot more teaching opportunities. They bring in actors and members and our teachers all pretend to be ppl interested in the church. Which is pretty cool cause my companion Elder Larson and I have taught 4 or 5 lessons already! so far so good. we still arent teaching very well as a team, but i think it'll come. We tried taught a guy yesterday that wouldnt let us talk! His name was Junichi and he was this little bald asian man with round glasses and a ridiculous accent. I told him i was from Ohio and he got this big smile on his face and ask if I knew where Tleditle was. I said "no, im sorry i dont". He was pretty dissapointed and asked "are you sure?" and then spelled it out for me. T-o-l-e-d-o. haha, he used to work in toledo, but i guess he never learned how to pronounce it. anyway, he told us all about being Shinto and japanese culture and about his family and didnt leave us anytime to teach him! We'll see him again on thursday, so hopfully he's run out of things to say and we can teach a little. My companion is a good guy. Hes from idaho and is also going to the Vegas West Mission, along with 3 other elders in my district. The other missionaries in my district, 2 elders and 4 sisters are all going to the west indies! one of the elders went home this week (just to much stress from homesickness we think) so that was kinda sad. But our district is getting along really well! we do well teaching each other and really building up each others testimonies! My address will be the same until Sept 5, so if youre gonna send me something (which you all should) make sure it'll get here by then, or send it to the mission home address, which was the one i put on facebook first i think. Anyway, love you all! so does Christ! dont forget it! Elder Donovan Chambers

22 August 2011

I love you guys a ton. Wow the internet is extra super slow today so I'm just going to keep things brief today. On tuesday we had our first interviews with President Judd. They were nice. He's got that whole psychologist/religion teacher/bishop vibe going. We went through the temple recommend interview since mine expires at the end of the month. This whole week I wasn't having much of an appetite due to some sort of stomach bug. I'm feeling better now so no worries. But anyway it kept us from working the rest of tuesday. The rest of the week was pretty sweet. We mostly saw the people \we'd been teaching, and didn't do much finding. On Saturday we participated in the all africa service project day. Our ward went to clean up the police station's compound. I now have a huge blister from all the weeding I did. (Imagine Link from Zelda using his sword to cut all that grass) Sunday we had one of our investigators interviewed for baptism, Abigail Ofosu. She's 15 and will be baptized this Saturday. Well that's the week's basics. President Judd asked me to make sure I help Elder Sesay to sprint to the finish of his (and mine) mission. He's going the transfer after me. Chances are he'll train next next transfer. There are 42 companionships (excluding the ZLs) and 21 new elders coming. Love you all, Elder Chambers

15 August 2011

How is everyone doing? I'm sure you guys are all super excited for Donovan. I'm very excited. This week was pretty good for us. We had a mission tour with the new member of the area presidency, Elder Legrand Curtis. He has just come to Ghana last week. I think this is his first calling since joining the 1st quorum of the seventy. He and President Judd and their wives all spoke to us. It was a good meeting. The told us a lot of different things. Book of Mormon, being unified with your companion, and more. We were worried this week about trying to teach the people we thought could be committed to coming to church, but we were pretty disappointed on Sunday when none of them came. Well that's how it goes sometimes. This week we'll be looking to see if we should continue working with some of our investigators or spend time finding new ones. Once you start teaching someone you usually end up really liking the person, at least that's how it is with me. So it's hard to stop seeing them even if they've already decided to not follow through. You don't want to give up on them and at the same time you don't want to waste the time remaining on your mission. Nonetheless I'm looking forward to this next week. Good Luck to Donovan! Love everyone Elder Chambers

8 August 2011

Hey guys I hope you all enjoyed your vacation. Happy birthday to Donovan! By the way I got a package you guys sent, thank you so, so much. I love you guys a ton. This week we had our transfers. A lot of people were moved around, but Elder Sesay and I stayed together here in Teshie. We had a pretty good week. The best thing to happen was that two of the people we have been working with for like 6 weeks now, finally came to church on sunday. We were really happy they came. It was Mavis and her daughter Lawrensha. This week we also used the Book of Mormon a bit more in our lessons. It seemed to help some people. I'm looking forward to being here for the next transfer. Probably til the end of my mission. I love you guys and hope you have a great week. Love, Elder Chambers

25 July 2011

Hello, how's everybody doing. I'm doing great. We had a pretty nice week. Elder Sesay was sick monday and tuesday, but he's doing fine. We are working hard doing everything to try and help our investigators keep their commitments. It seems like these days we aren't able to find so many serious investigators. The weather has been nice and cool the last few weeks. It was 75 the other morning and it was like we were freezing to death. I'm going to die when I come home. This is the last week of transfers as well as the last week of July. It looks like we and the entire district are probably going to miss our goals this month. Next transfer should be interesting for the mission because about 12 missionaries are leaving, and because the MTC is closed no missionaries are coming. Then in September a huge number of missionaries are coming. There are around 60 companionships in the mission and in September we are getting 20+ missionaries. Well I'm loving teaching the gospel here. I love you guys. Love,

Elder Chambers

18 July 2011

How are you guys doing this week? This week we were doing more of the usual. We studied, taught, did finding, and visited members. I'm trying to finish reading all of the standard works before I finish my mission. I finished the old testament awhile ago and am reading through the new testament. Last night I finished Acts. For the Book of Mormon, I've finished a couple of times, but I'm planning to finish it once more. I'm just starting 2 Nephi. I'll read the Pearl of Great Price after the New Testament. For the Doctrine and Covenants I'm doing a thing with some of my MTC where we started at OD-2 and are going backwards 1 section a day. This morning I read section 100. We'll finish section 1 the day before we get home. It's crazy to think that I only have a 100 days left of my mission. I loved reading before my mission. Now after so many months with just the scriptures and preach my gospel to read I love reading the scriptures. (except not the Old Testament too much). By the way, Sis. Barney in the mission office called last week to ask me which airport I'd be flying to. She said she is going to make flight arrangements this week! It's hard not to get too trunky, but I'm doing my best to work hard. I've been improving my teaching and missionary skills for awhile now and I still have 3 and a half months to use them to the fullest. So I don't want to think about everything I have to do when I go home. Which will be a ton of things hopefully. I'd really hate to be home with nothing I have to do.

Anyway the week went by pretty smoothly. We are not having like anyone keep there commitments to come to church, so that's the only bummer. There was a baptism for the last person I taught with Elder Kanu before they divided the areas. His name is Michael Opoku, he's from Nigeria. He's pretty cool. Like everyone he knows here in Ghana is against him joining the church, but he really loves the book of mormon and knows the church is true. So he doesn't really seemed phased that he's getting kicked out of his house. Well I love you guys a lot. Miss you. Love, Elder Chambers

11 July 2011

How is everybody doing? This week Elder Sesay and I had some cool experiences. First of all on Tuesday evening while we were at the chapel for some meetings this guy just showed up and told us that he'd been thinking about joining the church for awhile and could we give him some more information on it. We were like, "No Problem!" And were able to start teaching him that night. Whenever we are proselyting I've been trying to focus on finding families that we can teach. I'm not really sure why I've been doing this, but it's just something I've been feeling like doing for awhile now. We started teaching a father with 3 small kids last week who seems like a pretty serious investigator. This last Saturday the sisters in ward 2 baptized 3 of the people that elder kanu and I had prepared before the transfer. Peter, who is a Nigerian footballer, and a mother and son, Elizbeth and Benard. The other highlight of the week was meeting our new mission president and wife, Elder and Sister Judd. They seem great and really excited to be here and working. They discussed a lot of things and it seemed like the zone conference was like being back in seminary class. They're different from the Smiths, and I know they are what the Lord wants for our mission. I love you guys so much. Love, Elder Chambers

4 July 2011

Hey everybody! I hope you guys are having a great fourth of july. And happy birthday to Lillian! I love you! On Tuesday as we were coming to district meeting I crashed my bike and broke some of the spokes. I'm fine but we spent most of the week walking because of the spokes. This was a pain since most of our appointments failed it seemed like we were just walking around half the week. We are still getting used to our new ward and new area. We have been finding new people to teach, but don't have too many that seem like they are ready to keep commitments. People here in Ghana can come to church any day of the week, except when you ask them to come sunday afternoon. There are a couple of member's family members that we are working with that we may prepare to be baptized at the end of this month. Mostly we are focusing on preparing to find people for the month of August. Our new mission president, President Judd, has arrived, and we'll get to meet him for the first time this Friday at a zone conference. Love you guys. Love, Elder Chambers

27 June 2011

Hey everyone, I hope you guys are doing great. This week we had transfers. My companionship was assigned to be the missionaries for the new Teshie 3rd ward. So once again we are pretty much starting over with no investigators to teach. My companion, Elder Kanu, was transferred back to Cantonments and Elder Sesay from Sierre Leone was brought to be with me to get the work started for teshie 3rd ward. Basically we did a lot of finding and scouting out the area. Our area seems really big and less densely populated compared to the other areas of teshie. The ward meets at noon for the moment, but they are looking to rent a building that will be in the ward boundaries so we won't have to share with wards 1 & 2. On Saturday we had a kind of join ward baptism. Celestina, Doris, and Nora were all baptized and are members of the new ward 3 and Angela was baptized for ward 1. Anthony was supposed be baptized but he traveled, so the sisters in ward 2 will take over the teaching with him. After the baptism there was a funeral at the church for a young woman in a family of recent converts. It was pretty sad to see how hard it was on the family. She was one year older than me and died in the hospital after getting sick. The family is in ward 1 so I didn't really know them. After the funeral they had a wedding at the church. Everyone there was a lot happier. So those were the highlights of the week. Love you guys. Love, Elder Chambers

20 June 2011

I hope you guys are all doing great. This week we were quite busy. We had a baptismal interview for Anthony and a woman named Celestina on sunday. Next month we are also planning for Anthony's wife, Magdalene to be baptized. We spent a lot of time tracking down some referrals we have been getting. The ward here is really good about doing their missionary work when it comes to referrals. Elder Kanu and I are getting along great and it seems like we should be able to have a lot of success in July. On sunday we had a combined ward conference with Teshie ward 1 and Teshie ward 2. This was so that the wards could be divided into three. We haven't had any word yet on how this will affect our assignments as far as proselyting areas go. Before there was a companionship in Teshie 1 and then a companionship of sisters and Elder Kanu and I in ward 2. Probably Elder Kanu and I will get assigned to Teshie 3. Transfers are this week but I'm guessing things will stay the same for me. For the district we'll probably get 1 or 2 changes. The weather is cooling down here and it's been raining a lot. Mostly it rains at night. I love you guys a bunch. Love, Elder Chambers

13 June 2011

Congratulations to Donovan! Las Vegas will be a great mission! It seemed like half my freshman ward was from Vegas so that's sweet!. Happy Father's day and birthday to Dad. This week seems like it went by super fast for us. I can't believe how fast my mission is going. First of all on Tuesday we had our last interviews with President Smith before he goes home at the end of the month. It was nice to talk to him for the last time. He said I was very "steady"--which he also said was a good thing. I also got the packages Mom sent. Thanks so much, we really enjoyed them. We also had our district meeting on tuesday and our district leader said we are doing a great job. Also it seems like the ward is getting used to us and is being helpful. On sunday we had a lot of rain and we had a lot of people at the church. We had investigators that came as well as a lot of visitors for a wedding and for a naming. Hopefully this week we will be able to get a lot of new investigators out of those. I love my mission. I love the work and I love Ghana. Also I love you home and you guys. Take care. Love, Elder Chambers

6 June 2011

Hey everybody! Happy Birthday Dad! and happy summer vacation to everyone! I hope you guys had a great week. Things are starting to get back to the usual in the proselyting. Meaning that now we are having some people to teach and we are not having to build everything from scratch. We just have to do the usual amount of finding and teaching. It's not been fun whitewashing the area, but Elder Kanu is a cool guy and we haven't had any big problems or discouragements. Just a ton of small ones... This week a lot of people were able to make it to church on sunday and it looks like if we work hard we'll be able to have a baptism at the end of the month for one couple, Anthony and Magdelane. From what I've been hearing is that all over the mission it seems like missionaries are struggling to have baptisms. One thing that I think is keeping the mission back is exact obedience. I'm sure when the new mission president come next month that will be one of his big focuses. Well I love you guys. I'm doing well. Enjoy the summer, and have a happy father's day. Love, Elder Chambers

30 May 2011

Hey everybody! We are really late today so I don't have much time to write. We went to the market at central Accra today so Elder Kanu could buy some stuffs. He got some luggage and clothes. Then it poured rain all afternoon and we were stuck in traffic all evening. We had some jollof rice at a members and just now got some small time at the cafe. I hope everything is going great for you guys. We had a pretty good week last week. A lot of failed appointments since all of our teaching pool are new investigators, but even though we were a bit tired it was a nice week overall. It looks like we will hopefully have some people prepared for baptism by the end of june, but it's still going to be a lot of work to get there. Teshie seems like it'll be a cool area and a good ward once we get used to everything and have some solid people to teach. Love you guys, Elder Chambers

23 May 2011

How's everybody? I hope you guys are getting ready for summer. This week it seemed like Elder Kanu and I had to go through a lot of hardship, but for some reason we were cheerful and hardworking throughout. On Tuesday after district meeting the office elders brought us some supposedly working bicycles. I say supposedly, because we spent almost the whole of tuesday and half of wednesday repairing mine. Which used up all of my money. Then since we had no records from the missionaries that left we started spending all of our time contacting and finding people to teach. Which means a lot of walking/biking in the sun and a lot of failed appointments. By the end of the week though we were able to increase our teaching pool from 0 to 18 so that's not so bad. On friday the APs came for a leadership training and were supposed to give our district leader the money to reimburse me for repairing the bike, but they said they'd do it the next time they came. I had no money, and I ate the last of my stew and rice for breakfast friday, so for friday, saturday, and sunday I borrowed flour from the other elders and mixed it with water and fried it to make unleavened bread. I also ate the instant mashed potatoes you guys sent. And drank water. Good thing today we got our subsistence... The last thing that happened was that on Sunday it poured rain in the morning so no one, members and investigators alike, came to church. And we got beat by the rain and mud on our shirts. We met a lot of people during the week that I'm excited to teach and help. I love you guys. Love, Elder Chambers

16 May 2011

I hope you guys are all doing great. First of all I got a package from you. Thanks so much! I've loved the candy and pictures and expect to love everything else in there before this week is over. Elder Haggard also loved the candy and I think he sent you a thank you letter. This last week I was with Elder Haggard throughout. It was a fun week doing finding and getting to know Elder Haggard. At the transfers we were left together in Alajo and Elder Hunsaker was transferred out of the apartment and Elder Mutuku was transferred in. Things are looking up in Alajo. We have a lot of cool investigators in the teaching pool and really focused people/families that are committed to baptism. Even the number of people that came to sacrament was improving this week. On saturday we went out early to learn how to prepare wa-kye from the young women's president. She even equipped us with the ingredients to try out ourselves. We were planning on doing that today. On sunday we had a good meeting with the Relief Society President that I think will better help the missionaries and the ward work together. We also had a really nice dinner with one of my recent converts, rice balls and groundnut soup, Elder Haggard's current favorite. This morning I woke up early and put my clothes in soap and water to soak before washing them. Next, I cleaned up all the kitchen and set up our brand new gas stove. Then I used all my remaining food to cook a delicious onion stew to eat with rice. Just as I was scooping out my rice onto my plate, the phone rings. President Smith, just calling to let me know I was being emergency transferred in 2 and a half hours to Teshie to white wash the area. So I have to first call some of my favorite people in Alajo to say goodbye. Then I take my clothes out of the water (unwashed) and eat my rice and stew. It was pretty easy for me to pack everything, I have a ton of space in my luggage. So then the APs come and pick me (and the rest of my stew) up to go to Teshie. When we get to Teshie I find that it is pretty much the whole district that got emergency transferred. Elder Collings (texas) came on Saturday to be the new district leader with a green missionary, Elder Malley (colorado) who is the only person who stayed in the apartment, and I and Elder Kanu (nigeria) arriving today. I find that they are cleaning the fridge so there is no where to put my stew. I find that my companion has zero left of his sub (he did bring along his own stew and rice). What I don't find is: any water (to wash or to drink), any gas (to cook with, oh and I just bought gas 3 days ago in Alajo), any bikes to ride (broken chain and a flat tire), any appointments, an updated area book, or any reason/story why the emergency transfer happened. I did find a map. Well I love you guys. I expect an interesting week and hope you guys have one too. I'm excited, this is likely my last area so I want to make it my best. Love, Elder Chambers

9 May 2011

Hey everybody. It was great talking to all of you on Mother's day (yesterday). It was nice to hear what you are all doing. A lot of things happened this week actually. First of all Elder Nielson and I were working hard finding people and teaching for commitment. We were blessed and found some really solid people and were able to extend a few baptismal dates as well. On Thursday night we also teamed up make no bake cookies. They tasted delicious, but were a bit expensive. On friday, Elder Nielson decided to call President Smith. He told him that he was falling in love with a girl in our ward and asked to be transferred. So that afternoon the APs came and picked him up and switched him with Elder Haggard who was at McCarthy Hills. So I'm with Elder Haggard now, since friday. He seems pretty cool and is liking his mission. He's from Oregon/Chicago and has been out since september last year. Anyway the real transfers are this wednesday so I don't know if he'll go somewhere else, or if I will, or what will happen. It seems like I'll probably be staying, though, since I can't really be showing Elder Haggard the whole area just tonight and tomorrow. On saturday we got stuck with the job of finding someone to come and pump out our septic tanks/cess pool. That was interesting. They filled the truck on Saturday and had to come back this morning to finish emptying the pit. They charged 250 ghana cedis. Sunday we had a nice day at church, some good lessons in the afternoon, and I got to talk to you guys! Love you so much. Love, Elder Chambers

2 May 2011

How's everybody doing? I hope you guys are all doing great. Happy birthday to Ellery! Hope you guys are getting ready for summer to come. On Saturday we had a baptism in the morning for Matilda and Barbara. We've been teaching them for a long time and it was good that they were finally able to be baptized this week. Other than that things were kind of tough this week. It's been hard trying to help new people to keep commitments. It seems like the work we are doing has been ineffective. Right now we don't have anyone progressing. So we'll be busy doing all the finding we can this week. On Sunday we had the opportunity of being able to watch conference at church. Unfortunately the power was out and the generator was broken so we started like an hour and a half late. I really liked the conference. We watched the saturday afternoon and I think the sunday morning sessions. It was a combined meeting we had with Tesano and Alajo wards. Too bad none of our investigators came to church on sunday. Well I love you guys a lot. This is the last week of transfer so we are going to work our hardest all week and see if anyone is transferred next week. Love, Elder Chambers

18 April 2011

Hey everybody, I hope you guys had a great week. Happy Birthday to Connor and Ellery! I hope you guys have a good easter this sunday. This week was pretty good for us here. On Thursday we had a trip to the temple and we were supposed to have interviews and training with president smith, but that got postponed to this week thursday. It was really great to be in the temple. Last Saturday we had a really nice baptism. Our companionship had two candidates, Karim and Comfort. Comfort is the daughter to Sis. Bernice who we baptized last month. Hopefully her sister will also be baptized in the next two weeks. Karim was also a really cool guy to teach. He moved into the ward after he'd already been taught some in a different ward. The challenge with him is just that he lives really far from the chapel so we only taught him after church. This coming week we are looking forward to the interviews with president and stake conference on sunday. I love you guys and hope you are having a great time. Love, Elder Chambers

11 April 2011

This week was another great one. I'm not sick and feeling totally better so don't worry about that. We are teaching a lot of cool investigators at the moment. One, Armah Owoo is really cool. He's 54 and a really educated guy. In the past he had really been searching for some truth, different religions, etc. When we contacted him we taught him about Joseph Smith and the Restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon. Since we gave him it he's been reading like non stop and has really been changing his life around so he can be baptized. Whenever we see him it's like he's the happiest man in the world just because he's learning the truth. We are also have some other people who have contacted us and are really enthusiastic. We had the baptismal interview for one man, Yaw Karim, who because he moved has been waiting to be baptized since november. He's been coming and coming to church, but he stays outside the boundaries so we've been working to get everything approved for his baptism saturday. And finally everything has come together for him. He's so excited. Last week the other difficulty we had was running out of subsistence, but don't worry we didn't starve or anything. Well elder nielsen was getting close though. We have a temple trip and zone interviews this week that I'm excited for. I love you guys. Hope you are doing great. Love, Elder Chambers

4 April 2011

How is everyone? I hope you guys enjoyed general conference. Well this week was transfers so that was the main thing that kept us busy. On tuesday Elder Asiedu left for the mission home, and we went round with Elder Hunsaker for the day. Then on Wednesday we had the transfer. So first of all I'm excited to be staying in Alajo for the next six weeks. They transferred Elder Moses to Teshie and he's back to being senior companion (he was one before coming to me). I hope he has a smooth transfer with his new companion. Elder Titus (from Nigeria) came to be our district leader and Elder Hunsaker's new companion. He has 12 weeks til he goes home. My new companion is Elder Nielsen from Highland Utah. He's been out like 9 months I think. The interesting thing is that we had the same trainer, Elder Ewudzie! Elder Ewudzie has now been home for about 5 days. I got to see him last wednesday at the mission home as he was waiting for his ride home. The rest of the district saw elder quinn leave for medina to be replaced by elder kalou from ivory coast and elder berry be the new ap. replacing him was elder chimoka from zimbabwe. The the rest of the week we had a lot of failed appointments, the usual blazing sun, and finding that make missionary work so fun. We actually had a great day of proselyting on saturday. Everything went smooth, according to plan, we had the spirit, and we had a free meal at night. Then on saturday night I was sick all night and sunday, too, I felt miserable. Sister Smith said it was probably malaria and since I started the medicine I feel a lot better and had a great night's sleep last night so I guess it probably was. Malaria just feels like getting the flu. You have a fever, stomach problems, body aches, and headache. Well I love you guys a lot. I'm doing great and praying you are too. I love serving as a missionary and I love alajo ward. Love, Elder Chambers

Here are two more pictures that I found of Bradford on Facebook. This one is Bradford and Elder Ewudzie. They were together in New Legon. Elder Ewudzie was Bradford's trainer and he goes home this week. On Facebook this was titled "divine companions". This one is Elder Chambers with Elder Owusu. I think this picture was take at the same time.

28 March 2011

This week was pretty hot for us. The sun was nearly burning me through my shirt. I hope you guys are doing great. This week was pretty nice for us. We did the usual teaching and finding. We had a baptism for Gideon and Bernice on Saturday and they were confirmed yesterday. The baptism was a little disappointing because the members didn't come much including the ward mission leader and auxiliary leaders. I'm grateful the Bishop came even if he was a little late. One of Elder Asiedu's and Elder Hunsaker's candidates also decided she wouldn't be baptized because of all the pressure her family was giving her to quit the church so that was also sad. This was Elder Asiedu's last week so he was the baptist for us. He'll be leaving tomorrow for the mission home. Transfers will be this week. I've spent 5 transfers here in Alajo and I have 5 transfers left before I go home. I'm not sure whether I'm hoping to go or stay. I'll really miss the people in this area if I go and it looks like we can have a lot of success in the next 6 weeks. If I stay though I'll be feeling like I've already contacted every person in the area. So I guess I'll be happy whatever happens. Or else sad whatever happens. In our district their will a least be some changes since Elder Asiedu is going home and Elder Berry is going to be the new AP. That means Elder Hunsaker will have a new companion and we'll all have a new zone leader and a new district leader. Well love you guys. Take care and stay cool. Love, Elder Chambers

21 March 2011

Hey everyone. How are you guys doing? I love you guys and hope you had a great week. For Elder Moses and I things went smoothly. We had a good week and worked hard. The sun was a bit too bright though. Our investigators are really progressing. A lot came to church and a lot have a baptismal date. Two were interviewed on Sunday, Bernice and Gideon. Bernice is a really nice lady who has separated from her husband and is raising five kids. When we contacted her last month she had been praying that God would help her to find a new church. I've really like teaching her. This morning Elder Moses and I went into Accra to the big market (Makola) to buy some new shirts. The last time I was there was with Elder Ewudzie back when I was in New Legon. By the way, Elder Ewudzie is going home next week. I bought three shirts for 10 cedis. Well I love you guys a lot. Hope you have a good week. Love, Elder Chambers