9.23.2019 "I Think You're Going To Save My Life"

Who else is in love with the new Book of Mormon Videos???

What a week of adventures! We got a puzzle with our faces on it of the picture of us holding mugs with our faces on it! Haha! Sister Martin is doing great! She had another yard sale this weekend! Quite fun!

We listened to the song "When You Believe" for 6 days straight! Good thing there was a few different versions of the songs we could go through! Can't believe we made it that long! Let me tell ya, when you believe something good can happen, it sure can happen!!! I heard a quote this week, " Everyone is already God's children, all we need to do is gather them to come back home!" :)

Yesterday was miraculous! Last night we were walking to a family's apartment. Before that we decided to park at the bottom of the hill, go visit a different family and we were on the verge of maybe not doing that, it was a matter of "Shouldn't we go visit Allan and Jenny before the Black family?"  Then we parked, visited that family, then asked ourselves "Should we walk all the way up this hill to get to the Blacks?" The answer was, we don't really want to, but we will to see more people!"  We saw 2 specific people on our walk! One we talked to and wasn't too interested, but the other really was! He was putting away his boat! He said, "Hold up for a second!".. he went and did something and said, "Let's talk for a bit, because I Think You're Going To Save My Life!" He walked away, I turned to Sister Cunningham and said, "We sure are"! and gave her a big grin! He sure wondered how we found him be cause he said he needs us! :) MIRACLE

We had a lesson with Brother Deadwyler and we talked about the Book of Mormon. He has met with the missionaries for a while now so he knows a lot. We decided to bear our testimonies of the Book of Mormon and of Jesus Christ! I love the Book of Mormon! It helps us find the key to true lasting happiness. Never in my life have I felt so much peace until I have followed the teachings of Jesus Christ, found in the Standard works. It has a power that cannot be described in words. The Fullness of His gospel is in the Book of Mormon. The restoration of His power, love and grace continues to become more and more real to us as we abide by the precepts in the Book of Mormon and from the Modern day prophets! The testimonies of Jesus Christ, modern and ancient, continue to press on my heart and continue to soften it as I let it.

We must read, study, feast on the book of Mormon in order to truly use the power it contains. As I have memorized verses, shared verses, and applied  them to my own life,  I remember Christ, I feel his spirit more often and I know more of what he needs me to do. In turn, I know what I need to do to become more Christ-like!

I love my Savior. He illuminates the world.

I add my testimony to the Apostles today, 
  "He instituted the sacrament as a reminder of His great and atoning sacrifice. He was arrested and condemned on spurious charges, convicted to satisfy a mob, and sentenced to die on Calvary's Cross. He gave his life to atone for the sins of all mankind. His was a great vicarious gift in behalf of all who would ever live upon the earth."
                                                       -The Living Christ

Always Love,

Sister Chaffin

Masoneck Harbor

Anaya and her mom Toy! :)💙

9.16.2019 "Enter Into My Rest"

Once upon a time Sister Martin, a non-member, talked to a group of missionaries in Walmart. She explain to them that she had a date for baptism one day and the missionaries for got about her. She desired for the missionaries to come back, but the sisters she was talking to did not cover her area. They said, " We will send the missionaries over in you area!" She said, "okay, I'll be waiting for them!"

After 3 weeks the elders in her area arrived at her door! She was very upset at this point because she had talked to the sisters at least 3 weeks prior to having the missionaries come over. She yelled at them, told them to not come back and shut the door. They were so confused because they had just gotten that referral a little over 24hrs before that moment in time. 

Thus we see we have some very confused Elders and an upset Woman who is understandably is not happy, due to the series of unfortunate events. 

A year goes by and some Sister missionaries sees her in Walmart, once again. The Sisters talk to the Elders. The Elders, because we have the Area split into 2 "areas"-- (half of which is their's and half is ours), so we have the ability to teach in their area, if needed! So about 6 weeks ago the Sister missionaries in this area got a referral for this woman and it was specified "Sisters missionaries only!" 

Sister Martin set up a time to meet and said, "if you can't meet at this time, you better not be coming back, because I am done, You guys don't care about me!"

Thursday rolls around, the Sister missionaries realize what they had done. They scheduled Sister Martin's lesson on Zone Conference day! in the middle of the Zone Conference meetings, When they realized this what a  sad day for The Sisters and Sister Martin! :(

Over these past 6 weeks, we have continued to go back, bring her cookies and then I showed up and brought a new face to this situation. And communication continued to go on and we finally got a time to sit down and talk with her! What a story!

Sum of the story she loves us now! She gave us bags of food, a mug with our face on it and a title to who we are on the mug as well. Mine was "Specially Calm". Then we helped her move some things for a yard sale and she gave us these mustache straws! She told us to send us a picture of us with the mugs and mustache straws.... so we did!..........and tune in next week for another personalized item!  (we are hoping it is a t-shirt with our faces on it of the picture of us with our personalized mugs with our face on it and the mustache straw!) 

Scripture of the day!

Alma 12:33,34 "But God did call on men, in the name of his Son, (this being the plan of redemption which was laid) saying: If ye will repent, and harden not your hearts, then will I have mercy upon you, through mine Only Begotten Son;

Therefore, whosoever repenteth, and hardeneth not his heart, he shall have claim on mercy through mine Only Begotten Son, unto a remission of his sins; and these shall enter into my rest."

Always Love,

Sister Chaffin

Exchanges with Sister Grover

A mug made for me 😂

Ravioli given to us by sister Martin, she gave us the mustache straw and made us our personalized mug!

Sunday

Long Story 

Sofia Bertoldo from Centreville!

William and Alex Bertoldo from Centreville

9.9.2019 Has The Day For Miracles Ceased?

Tuesday we had 6 lessons, 2 happened.

We met a little girl named Jacklin a week ago in the parking lot and Sister Cunnhingham is awesome and gives the kids stickers! So Jacklin wanted us to come to their house and visit them, so we did last Tuesday! We knocked on her door and we talked to her a little bit as her mom stood there. Her mom didn't speak much English so Jacklin was translating!  We asked if we could give Jacklin a children's Book of Mormon and she said yes! so we talked with Jacklin all the way to our car to get it and went back to her house and gave her mom a Spanish Book of Mormon! That was so cool! They accepted it so easily! we referred the Hermana missionaries over there to go talk to them! :) What a miracle children are and Sister C's idea of giving them stickers, inspired! We met with Brother Del Valley that night! What a powerful lesson it was! We Watched "The Savior Understands Me" video by Elder Holland! (If you haven't seen this video, it is a must watch! GO WATCH IT NOW!) We had some members join us and they helped out with brother Del Valley and Wanda so much! Wanda was actually feeling the spirit the most I think! She had been reading a good portion of the Book of Mormon as well, but hasn't been able to make it to a lot of lessons! We aren't exactly sure how willing brother Del Valley is, but Wanda is great and really felt it that night!

We taught a member family the 10 commandments (we are teaching their almost 8yr old so that she is ready for baptism!), Oh how much easier it is to teach people that already kind of know the commandments! Love the Hassel Family sooo much! :)

Wednesday:   We had a lesson with our friend Tyler who is a young single adult and he had so many questions about standards! He is so confused by the world! I am so grateful for the knowledge that I have grown up knowing to keep me on the right path!!

Thursday:   We had Zone Conference! Oh my goodness is President and Sister Caplin are inspired! I love them so much! They are such a blessing to this mission! I was able to see my only other companion left in the mission, Sister Topham. The Centreville sisters were also there and I had the blessing to know that my past areas are flourishing! The Bertoldos are doing great! I miss them but they are so strong and continue in such great ways with the gospel as their foundation! :)

We had a lesson with Brother Deadwyler that night! We weren't exactly planning on having that lesson because once again we had 3 of our lessons cancel.. :( but it was meant to happen, We were supposed to meet with Brother Deadwyler! He has so many things that run around in that head of his! He just needs to name some of those things "The Spirit!" :) He is so smart, (a little too smart for his own good) haha but he is on fire! He prayed such an earnest prayer that night, it was awesome! This is the lesson when I got the 70 mosquito bites from!

Saturday & Sunday there is so much within these 2 days! Sunday, yesterday we had an awesome lesson with our friends Colton, Benji, and Dakota! They are doing summer sales and heading back home this next week! We read Mosiah 18 and talk more about baptism and the importance of it! And those who desire to be baptized! They are going back home and being baptized! They are awesome and have had such good examples of friends that have helped them choose this path!

We found this referral that is Gold and we are seeing them again this week! They are so excited to learn more about God!

We had a lesson with the Black Family! The husband is not a member and the wife and daughter were just baptized! What a blessing it was that a member was able to come to that lesson! They had a daughter the same age as their daughter! The husband prayed at the end and said he would read the Book of Mormon and pray as a family! :) such miracles this week! 

Every day there are so many miracles before us!

Moroni 7:27 "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased because Christ hath ascended into heaven, and hath sat down on the right hand of God, to claim of the Father his rights of mercy which he hath upon the children of men?"

What do you think? Have they ceased?

"29 And because he hath done this, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you, Nay; neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men"

They have not.

Find miracles today!

Always Love,

Sister Chaffin

Add caption

Junk Mail

Forever Relying On GOD...FROG

Sister Cunnginham, Me , sister Topham and her trainee sister Kilinger.
(My 2 half daughters and granddaughter in the mission)

Colton, Banji and Dakota! We have been teaching them as they are here for summer sales! They are going back home to get baptized!

Catching Lizards in the apartments

U turns. Soo Virginian

Mosquito bites

Sky

9.2.19 "I Wanna Do What God Does."

Our week began with teaching a member family's daughter who will be baptized on the 5th. She is literally the sweetest girl ever!! We had 2 lessons with her this week and the first one we had to have on the porch. It was dark and we sat on these wooden chairs outside and the dad and 3 of the kids were out there. Little 4 or 5yr old Jacob H. was to my right. He was rocking back and forth on this little rocking chair. And we were asking about the biggest event in the Book of Mormon.. some of the kids said the atonement, he talked about Peter (which is in the bible). Then we started to talk a little bit more about how Jesus Christ came to the Americas. Randomly in a quite moment in the conversation he said, "I wanna do what God does!" The dad, sitting there near him said "so do I Jacob, so do I!" My mind was blown. I sat there a little shocked. This 4-5 yr old just gave me the answer to so many questions. Without even knowing. It was this nice summer night, talking about the Gospel and the beauty of it and he just randomly says that!! Love that kid sooo much! Then, later that week I read Alma 32:23... "And now, he imparteth his word by angels unto men, yea, not only men but women also. Now this is not all; little children do have words given unto them many times, which confound the wise and the learned."

Kids can teach us sooo soo very much. 

My next story is about a guy who sprayed us with water... Hahaha we were talking to this guy, he was atheist so we were talking and trying to help him understand where we are coming from. We asked if he had ever heard of the Book of Mormon, and he said "No." We explained to him that it has the answers to his questions. He had lots of questions like "why would God allow this much suffering happen in the world?", and things like that and we said, "we have the answer.." while he was talking (he was finishing up washing his car) he picked up the hose and accidentally pressed the sprayer and sprayed the both of us on the spot, in the middle of a parking lot... haha he just nonchalantly said sorry in the sentence he was in and kept talking.. haha sister Cunningham's book of Mormon got all wet and glasses, and I just stood there soaked. He didn't mean to do it, but it was funny. He ended up taking a Book of Mormon though!  And, he's gonna call us and let us know what he thinks!

Right before that conversation we had parked and i parked, sandwiched between 2 cars that were right on the line and I had about 4 inches to open my door to get out. There was this other guy standing on the corner that we needed to talk to! We both got out of the car, very carefully and went and talked to this guy. We gave him a card because he was heading somewhere and waiting for his ride. He seemed like a well-mannered person, then the car of his ride comes screeching in with really loud music and picked him up. They sounded like they were about to go party hard... and many other things that I won't go into detail. I prayed so hard that that card with a picture of Jesus card would go really far and affect some more people! 

That night we got home and found a millipede on our bedroom ceiling and about 4 other spiders! (What a time that was, trying to kill that thing and suck it up!... flying millipedes!!) "Welcome to Fort Belvoir Sister Chaffin where the bugs like to linger!"-Sister Cunningham

What a day! We went to bed early that night. So early that my alarm to write in my journal went off and woke us up from almost falling asleep! 

Missionary life is a bit crazy. Sister Cunningham and I were talking about this, it truly is the strangest thing! People think we are absolutely insane. We talked to some T-mobile guys that were pretty cool. They thought we were crazy. They said they have to knock a certain amount of door and be out a certain amount of hours. Glad we don't have to do that!  They still thought we were crazy for leaving our families and doing this not to get paid for it.  It is for serving and loving others and serving God! Alex, one of the T-Mobile guys said he has a friend in Utah and has heard a little bit about our faith. It truly was a miracle that we ran into them and talked to them! They were about our age and so we were really enthusiastic about what we were saying and talked so highly about how cool The Restoration is! Alex got a Book of Mormon and we got both of their numbers. We talked for about most of our dinner  and got a 15 minute dinner but that's okay. All that matters is that he got a Book of Mormon and they got to hear more about the restored Gospel!! :)

I have been studying a lot about Faith and what it is. My faith has grown so much because it.

Ether 12:4 "Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God."

I know that Jesus Christ lives. He cares. He wants us to trust him. By that trust and confidence in him we can yield to his will and transform our life and our nature to be more Christ-like and charitable. 

It really does give us hope. Who wouldn't want to live with hope?

I wanna do what God does too, little Jacob.

One day. One day, little one.

Always love,

Sister Chaffin 

Sister Caplin(mission pres. Wife) matched with everyone at interviews

Elephante

Drew this one night and gave it to pres. And sister Caplin

Lunch at the Army base

Besides not rising before putting it in the oven, it might have a bit too much flour...