Week 4: Food & Miracles

Oh, this week was too good. Started out with a member, who we did a little service for and last monday night, she said come over I have a few things from Costco to give you for helping me out... so we headed over there and she gave us 2 rotisserie Costco chickens, a whole variety pack box of chips, a half full box of cheese-itz and nature valley bars, cream cheese and apple pastries, 2 little bags of frozen rice and veggies, a huge thing of onion bread, a little box of cookies and I could go on, but I think that's about it! So knowing that we were not going to be able to eat 2 Rotisserie chickens even before it goes bad ( like the Blueberry muffins) we had to give it to someone who needed it more.... so we called up the Chinese Elders in our District who have 3 pairs of Elders in their ward and no one ever feeds them dinner and they literally said "Is this a joke?" because they had nooo food, and no good/healthy/substantial food in that case. So we gave them half of it. It was also a miracle for us cause it was the end of the month and we barley had money to get good food. Milk and apples are soo expensive here! :( There are a few fresh apples we got from that lady that gave us a huge amount of foood and they were delicious! :) Fav. snack --> Apples and Peanut butter. We also got a huge Costco Lasagna from another couple in our ward for a dinner they could do that night.. and a huge bowl of "pasta" and Meatballs hah it was basically spaghetti! So lots of random food this week. Not too much on the work, just finding and finding people! We Taught Elizabeth on Saturday with an awesome and beautiful lesson! Alex, who just came back from a family trip, who was just recently baptized, came home this week and we are now teaching his cute daughter! and hopefully soon his family, they are awesome and I absolutely love him!  We had a dinner with the GIlie's hes pretty cool. He recited the whole declaration, memorized, while doing a plank, right in front or us.... He also has a crazy love for Bach, Beethoven and classical music... he even gave us beethoven CD to listen to for a bit....... 9th Symphony, GO CHECK IT OUT ;) He has been to the craziest places in just a month. no one really knows exactly what his job is, or what he does, he barely can telll his wife!  Went on the nicest hike today and absolutely loved it! Hope everyone is having the greatest week!             LOVE YOU ALL! THE SPIRIT IS REAL! <3 :)             Sister Callista Chaffin

Week 3: Our Motives are Because We Love the World & the Lord!

Miracles:

On exchanges we had a lesson scheduled for a girl named Hanna, who wanted to know more about what we teach. So we called beforehand, to meet her outside of her house. We knocked on the door (thinking she wouldn't answer and we would go), but she answered! She said, "I'll be out in a minute", then she told her mom and dad, who came out and told us that they have their religion and they don't want us talking to her daughter. We tried explaining to them that we were just trying to help her daughter come closer to Jesus Christ, but they refused. Then they made her come out to say, "ya sorry guys, I can't meet with you anymore.." and that was it. Leaving, Sister Pugh felt devastated. Knowing that this happened alllll the time with Sister Kay and I, I knew that God still loved that Family, and the parents are doing the best that they can, it just wasn't the right time for them.... THEN a few hours later, we were driving in the car to another persons house and she calls up, apologizing for her parents!! and she wants to know more about the Gospel!! MAN WHAT A MIRACLE! Later, at church, on Sunday, Sister Pugh and her companion had Hanna at church! Also, a second girl walked into the church, wanting to learn more about our church, who would be in my Ward (congregation)! How cool is that, Miracles are awesome! There are many more miracles to talk about but this one is inspiring. Companion exchanges are pretty cool!  

Mathias is still scheduled for Baptism in October. We met with him and his friends on Saturday, that was a miracle! The 11 year old kids are actually understanding it more than Mathias is!

When it's time for us to find more people, we have checked every neighborhood for potential investigators in our area. It gets pretty redundant, and its hard to take up all this time for finding and teaching! Sometimes I just walk around for 10 mins before I'm supposed to be home, that accomplishes the job! Many miracles, but also a lot of down time of knocking on doors of, looking for potential people to teach. It seems that no one is home because they all are working and have busy lives and schedules. It's kind of crazy, when is a person here ever not busy??!

Spiritual thought for the week: 

Be patient and know that I am God. Be patient, knowing, if you listen, the Holy Ghost will tell you the things what to say! Always turn outward, never inward, especially during the hardest times.

SUCK IT UP & LOVE IT <3

Our Savior is our Example for Everything.

And LOVE is our motivation in all the things that we do. Ask yourself "why you are doing this?" then the answer to that question ask, "why?" If you do, it should go back to your family, other people or the Lord. Try it!

Sister Callista Chaffin

Sister Kay and I got tapioca shakes, I guess you could call it, there is tapioca in the bottom!!

Schmetterling-Butterfly

The houses very close to each other, re town houses. They are houses that are connected.... and every neighbor hood, that aren't huge Mansions with a bunch of land, are town houses, that is the Virginia way. They also have nooo street lights..

the fountain is where my apartment is..

A really odd flower is a flower from Rita and her garden. We went on exchanges and sister Pugh and I ( one of our sister training leaders) went and held her cut some of an over grown plant of a tree.. and at the end she gave the flower..  It's called a Jesus flower because the purple part represents the crown of thorns Jesus had, and he bore all of our sins, that's why it is purple. Going upon the middle the weird green/ orange things that have the poles on it, represent the 5 marks in Jesus Christ's body and the top three things is that he rose on the third day! And it represents the Godhead of Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost! The Garden lady, Rita also raises caterpillars to butter flies, the butterfly picture was the same day but some where completely different, it was kinda cool!

the car in a parking lot you can see the frog!! that is literally in the middle of a neighbor hood.

the pictures on the wall is my desk...

MOD PIZZA WAS IN THE CLIFTON WARDS AREA

 This is sister Pugh ( one of the sister training leaders), the person I went on exchanges with! It's where we switch companions, and I got to go to Clifton for a day and spend the night at another apartment!

This guys name is Jun, he is a recent convert of a year and is the ward mission leader for the Chinese branch. He wanted to take us out for dinner with his wife because he loves missionaries!!

Week 2: Moldy Muffins, Moldy Life ;)

Mini Blueberry muffins in a plastic box from the grocery store do not last a whole week in Virginia! (BTW I took a bite of a moldy muffin, looked at the box and realized what I had just done... spit it out and threw the rest of the box OUT!)

Neither does a missionary talking to 3 people, on 3 different days, taking over an hour each to tell you their problems and how they are so mad at the world..!!

Just kidding! It is all good! I love them all to death! The world just hasn't treated them good. Which is so sad. I hate to think how many people have been so mis-treated, forced, abused, and convinced to do things that they don't want to do through their own free will. It is just SAD!

All I want to do in the world is show people that God is ALL Loving

 - GOD IS LOVE - 

All the Good things in this world come from God. :) 

This week was quite fun, we like to keep ourselves motivated in some way if we get tired, because it is hard to get up in the morning, go running and study! We actually changed the schedule slightly so that we wake up, plan out our day, go running, take a shower and get ready, then for some reason we have an extra hour available in our morning schedule to do more study!

I've made a miracle book this week...

Miracle #1: Mathias is this cool kid, and we have been trying to meet with him more. We have a baptismal date for him and he invited all his friends to come hear the last lesson we taught! 

Miracle #2 One guy named Scott is VERY CHRISTIAN he knows wayy more than me, but, he'll be reading the Book of Mormon this week after talking to him for an hour at least!

Miracle #3 Sweet Elizabeth came to Church yesterday!

Miracle #4 After a Long Rant session that this guy had last night, we had 34 mins left in our workday and we went to go visit someone and God put this guy in our path that is very receptive to what we taught him and it was beautiful. Every disappointment comes with a greater blessing, when faithful! <3

THE BEST MIRACLE is that my thumb and wrist are just badly sprained! It's gotten a lot better! :) And the DR was cool! He loves the missionaries, and I think he'll be reading the Book of Mormon he had already! My hand being hurt is a BLESSING! :D

I love YA'LL so much!! 

Send mail to

5242 Lyngate, Ct 

Burke, VA 22015

Sister Callista Chaffin

Sister Kay is BOMB

Arabic book of Mormon

 Dragon fruit

 Front yard of flowers

                                                                                            Asian chip Isle in the Lotte (lo-tee) market!   

Week 1: Man Virginia is humid.

Curly thick hair, soft skin, Mosquito bites, beautiful greenery EVERY WHERE, and sweaty 24/7 ;)

Centreville I call Whoville because when you talk to someone, you never know if they are interested in talking with you. They are super sweet and nice or they just want to waste your time, talking for an hour about how you should change you religion, orrrrr, they are super interested in talking about religion just for them to tell you what about their religion is better than yours. Hahaha you really don't know. We've had at least four people straight up tell us that we should reconsider our religion. All we can do, at that point, is say "have a nice day" or "hasta la vista". Fun stuff, but not once did I rethink my religion. Let them Hate, but they don't know what they are missing out on.

Should I start out with the good news or the bad news? I’ll start with the bad since the good is AMAZING! :)

Two Thursdays ago, when I was still in the MTC, I was playing Volleyball. I loved playing volleyball with the friends I met there! I was in the back row, playing, and I was going forward and ran into someone and crashed and fell, good thing in was in sand! That day I felt like my hand just got bruised, and it felt fine... Then I set the ball the next day and my wrist shot a pain down my arm, sooooo that caused me to go in and get it checked out the next day, last Saturday. It wasn't ever too swollen. They x-rayed it and said they didn't see anything noticeably broken but there is a part in your thumb that is really hard to tell if it is broken, so that just said it was sprained and could be fractured, and gave me a brace to wear... The day we came to DC i had to go bus, to train, to tracts, and I had 2 huge 50lbs bags to carry... That didn't help at all... I got to Virginia and it wasn't great.. I’m gonna get it checked again this week. It is my left hand and I’m left handed!

The good news is that its amazing here!! there are so many different cultures and languages and ethnicity, its amazing!  Columbia,Spain, Somalia, Iraq, Egypt, Mexico, El savador, China, Korea, Canada, Manchester, Japan, all around South America,Ukraine, India.. they are from EVERYWHERE!! We are teaching a family from Egypt right now, I LOVE THEM TO DEATH!! Sam, the son is the one who translates to his parents and they absolutely love us!   We are teaching this sweet lady from El Savador named Elizabeth, she Is amazing! She's so service-oriented and loving towards others. We asked if she wanted to get baptized and she wants to, but just not now! We are also teaching this kid named Mathias, he is awesome and has loved hearing our message, he is willing to get baptized in October and almost made it to church today, but his mom is very skeptical about it.

I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and my Heavenly father is always looking over me and no one will ever convince me different, or make me rethink my religion.

Virginia is full of Dogs, they treat dogs better than each other. Half the time, no one knows their neighbors, speed bumps every where and street lamps no where. Lots and lots of different people and I LOVE IT!!!

Talk to ya'll next week!

          <3 ALWAYS LOVE

Last But Most Definitely Not Least

Oh how beautiful is this wonderful morning?!! 

Today is my only day that i have time to pack everything up and so I'm ready on Monday morning bright and early! We'll probably get up around 5... take a plane to Minneapolis with a lay over then to DC and I'll get to meet my mission president then the next day i get my first real companion!! 

This week was just about like last week, we had the same schedule if on class in the morning that's 3 hours long and another class in the afternoon that's 3 hours long. One of the hours in the afternoon class is teaching a person who is a real person learning about our church. And it's pretty cool getting actually teach a person like it will be in the DC! :) 

This week was quite interesting, getting new people in our zone ( a group of many small groups). every week there's more and more missionaries coming and every week there's some leaving. The culture and atmosphere is constantly changing here and you meet many new people it's way cool! I have love very person I've met really and got to talk to!!! But let me tell you the Elders (guys) get very immature at times but that's okay they will eventually learn, but I still love em.

This past Monday we did a service project of helping to clean the residence building we are living in! So my companion, Sister Gornichec and I got up at 6:15 cause it was at 6:25 and we were still half asleep and they told us we could cleaning the handrails for the stairs and wide down the trash cans and wipe down drinking fountains... we did the in the span of 45 mins.. came back to find another job to do cause we go till 7:45. They realize how sick and tired we looked and they said, "why don't you just go back to your room and lay down till you need to eat and go to class?" That was my favorite sentence to hear that morning! My golly did we go straight back to bed with our noses running and a tiny frog in out throat! Haha after 35 mins of a quick nap we woke up 5 mins before we had to leave and got breakfast and walked straight to class. Do I remember what happened in class that day? I hope so... cause I got extra sleep and I was happy. The funny thing is we even went to bed a little early that night.. But oh so grateful we were to the sweet custodians for letting us go lay down! :)

This week was fun, hard, yet so rewarding to finally understand how to teach others and how to teach them simply and slowly!! I hope you all can get a glimpse of the life I had here at the MTC! :) 

I know that we are always watched over by our loving Father of out spirits. I know that as we pray for the things we need in faith, knowing he can and will answer us, we will received blessing and tender mercies that we never could imagine! I am grateful that I have this opportunity to share the most important thing in the universe with those in DC in 2 days! We must always remember how important the role of the Holy Ghost is in our own lives and in those around us! 

Thank you all who love and support me! Love you guys and I hope all is We'll!

Doctrine & Covenants 78

13 "Behold, this is the preparation wherewith I prepare you, and the foundation, and the ensample which I give unto you, whereby you may accomplish the commandments which are given you;"

17 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye are little children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you;"

18 "And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along. The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the riches of eternity are yours.

19 "And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; "

Always L o v e,

Sister Callista Chaffin <3