12.9.2019 The Real Santa & Mrs. Virginia

Probably one of the most Miraculous and Joyful weeks on my mission:

A lot of it comes from President Caplin, Troy & Tabby, Rose, Donald & Danita, Courtney, Children such as Cali, Joshie, Anaya, and our new friends from Erithia (next to Ethiopia)!

I believe these miracles happened because of the faith of Sister Cunningham and myself. Our view and perspective shifted and we believed we could achieve anything, and find anyone! 

Like President Nelson has said in Oct. 2016, 

"The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.

“When the focus of our lives is on God’s plan of salvation … and Jesus Christ and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening—or not happening—in our lives. Joy comes from and because of Him. … For Latter-day Saints, Jesus Christ is joy!”

Honestly we did a lot more walking and tracting this week than usual, and it was hard, but because of our attitude and our gratitude of all things and people that we do have in our life, at the end of each day we had such a great miracle! 

We had Interviews on Thursday and President Caplin said something so inspiring! He said, "To keep finding...It's a lot easier than you think, your faith is higher than you know!"

We put ourselves down all that time, thinking, "Oh, I don't have enough faith for that!" Or "I can't do that!" When in reality you have already seen the benefits of the great amount of faith that you do have to make things happen! We all contain so much more hope than we think! We have, and believe in, the Savior, the Light, Life and Hope of the World!

I am so grateful for President for saying these inspired words, it has already altered my mission and the perspective I have of my life! I will forever remember the Faith he has always had in me!

To start things off, we had dinner with Troy and Tabby! We had Afghan Bistro! Basically, Lamb, rice, spinach "things", curry, pumpkin dumplings, chicken, eggplant, and a whole bunch of spices from Afghanistan. Troy said it's the closest food around here to actual Afghanistan food! (He's in the military so he's been over in Afghanistan!)

They are AMAZING! Troy read some of the Book of Mormon and had 20 questions, at least! All of them were really good!

Tabby, Mrs.Virginia and we got to go see her on the military base and we got to sit on Santa's knee and take a picture with him and our copy of the Book of Mormon!!

I am so grateful for all the things this week has taught me and am glad that I have grown from them!

Jordan B Peterson: "There's very many people who have not heard an encouraging word in their life, and it takes so little to encourage them, that it's rather tragic".

Smile at everyone you see and give them all a compliment this week!  

Give others the benefit of the doubt! Give YOURSELF the benefit of the doubt! Love God because He first loved you! Know that you have done great things and can do great things-- If you BELIEVE!

Always love,

Sister Chaffin

callista.chaffin@missionary.org

12.2.2019 La Paz

WOW! WHAT A BLESSING!

Last Monday some of our plans were not good there wasn't very many things we had in our schedule so I stared at the board of names and areas and picked 2 areas to be in! I said a little fervent prayer to be able to be in a place where we could find those prepared to hear the Gospel!

We went to the first place and knocked every door on the street! Almost everyone opened, but NO ONE was interested!

We went across town to another area that we had picked and just started knocking on some knew homes! We went about 5 houses down and we met Troy & Tabby!!! If we were one door up 30 seconds earlier we would not have met them! They just pulled up in their car while we were knocking on their neighbors door and I hollered, "Hello how are you doing?!" And BOOM! They invited us in and they are so interested!!! They took a Book of Mormon and wanted to read it! He is in the Air force and has seen so many terrible things! She has State Royalty (Mrs Virginia 2020) They are so humble and so funny! We are having Afghan Bistro with them tomorrow!

Thanksgiving day 

We had the greatest baptismal service! 7 people were baptized Thanksgiving! Thank you for all your prayers! Donald's wife was able to come and she is the sweetest person! She really clicked with some of the members!

4 Thanksgiving appointments! :

1st dinner: 

Member Families all gathered in one of the families home for Thanksgiving! (The picture with the whole plate of food was the 1st dinner!) 

2nd dinner 

We went knocking around and we knocked on this one lady's door and she said "I just came home from work and want to take a nap, come another time" we walked down the stairs to knock on another door! She opens her door again and invited us to come in for some dinner! Her name is Virginia and she is from Mozambique!! I was so full after this dinner! RIP my estomago!

After dinner we had some peanut butter bars and as we were sitting at a stoplight, I made eye contact with this guy and we (he and I) both rolled down our windows and we both shouted,  "HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!" .... I said "Hey that was my line!" I stood up out of the car and and offer him some peanut butter bars to his family! I sat back down and he asked where we are from, I was grabbing a Card and the Light turned green so I couldn't give it to him and we didn't even have a enough time to say where we were from and I threw the Card out and this man was going crazy to try to grab it with all the wind! 

On Sunday it was Donald's confirmation, it was amazing! We went and visited a family of a door we knocked on and shared the "Light the World" video and they LOVED it! We said a prayer and then I said "ome" ("pray") in Spanish and the little kid got sad that he didn't say one! Then he, (the 2 yr old named David), said a prayer, then walked around and gave "Paz" (peace) to everyone's hand!!!

It was the cutest thing in the world!

We went inside a drunk lady's house and she prayed the most beautiful prayer! She blessed us to be safe about 10 times! She told us, "I think I should probably read that book of Mormon!" Repentance is real!

Strive to give La Paz (Peace) to everyone! Especially those who may be out of it and drunk........ (kids don't try this at home! Be safe out there!)

Amor y paz es la respuesta!

-Sister Chaffin

callista.chaffin@missionary.org

11.25.2019 "The Spirit of God like a FIRE ball of pizza..."

A pretty eventful week in the books!

Started out with a dinner with the Pew and Black family! We thought it would be a great idea to bring a recently baptized Family, the Blacks, to a dinner with the Pews! The day of, sister Pew calls us and said "is it okay if we push dinner back just a little, my little boy smacked his chin on the ground and we are just getting out of Urgent Care from getting some stitches! We said "Yeah that's fine!" We get there waiting for them to get home from picking up the Black family! We finally get inside, not to mention what time it was... 

Sister Pew asks Brother Pew, "what did you do with the pizza?" 

Brother Pew - "it got cold, so I put it on BROIL in the oven..." 

*Sister Pew runs into the Kitchen, opens the oven door (Brother Pew running after her)"  

I looked in the kitchen seeing lights of orange and red...

and came to find brother Pew holding a ball of fire on a pizza box... Sister Pew tried to find an extinguisher, but the first one she found wouldn't come off the wall! Then they opened the back sliding door! The screen door was still closed so the box of pizza is starting to fall apart as they tried to throw it out the back door, cardboard and fire flying off, the oven mit was then on fire! The kids were running everywhere, crying! ‍♀️‍♂️They all came running to me while sister Cunningham was in the bathroom (at this point, she really didn't know what was happening because she was in the bathroom as all of this was occurring). They finally threw it out the back door, got another extinguisher and sprayed the fire out! So much smoke filled the house, the fire alarm went off for a while, I was fanning the house with one of the doors so the firetrucks wouldn't come!

What a night! Brother Pew then went and got some more pizza! From that day forward we all know not to put pizza boxes in the oven on broil! 

Pizza was great! The Company was even greater!

Zone Conference was amazing! We had a review of all the zone conferences with in the past 6 months and each companionship share their experiences!

We sang a lot of songs and heard a musical number from the Farci speaking Elders singing "Nearer my God to Thee" as the sang and played the guitar!! It was beautiful! We sang the EFY (Especially for Youth) medley! Then President Caplin was inspired to have us sing "The Spirit of God", like originally planned and I was to play that as everyone sang! Sister Caplin said I could play instead of her! Then she came over and played with me as a duet and we played around on in the song! I WAS PLAYING WITH A PROFESSIONAL PIANIST THAT TOURED EUROPE! She is amazing, the song was amazing and the spirit was even stronger! 

Our new friend Courtney read 17 chapters of the Book of Mormon before our first lesson! Our other new friend Chelle said the best prayer!

On Friday, Donald got permission from his wife to be baptized!! He had his interview and is set for his baptism For next Thursday!

Rose! Every thing has finally clicked with her!! She really has noticed the light around a certain member and she connected the dots and saw the difference in a man who is a righteous man of God holding his power and just a good man without his power and authority! She said "WOW!" For about 30 minutes! Her prayer was amazing after that! What a woman of faith!

Sister Haynie gave us some of her cinnamon and hibiscus juice she made--all natural! Hibiscus straight  from Jamaica!

What a great week doing the work of the Lord! I love my Savior and all the hope he offers!

Always Love,

Sister Chaffin 

callista.chaffin@missionary.org

11.18.2019 Endure On, Press On, Enjoy

Donald wants to be baptized on Thanksgiving and his wife says that she will write a letter saying she supports him!

Sister Rose is getting her glasses today (Which means she will most likely, knowing her, read most of the book of Mormon in the next week!! :) )

Sister Martin plans on coming back to church on the 24th! Once she comes to church she WILL want to be baptized in the following few weeks!

Our new friend Chelle believes, that by us coming and talking with her, that it is a sign from God that she needs to do something soon or prepare herself in some way!! TRUTH! She is so close to the spirit and so faithful!! ( Also a plus, her granddaughter's name is Cali ;) )

We found our miracle friend, Brother James, again! ( He kind of fell off the face of the earth, but by the grace of God we found him!)

Miracles continue to find their way!
I love the Lord with all my heart!

Always Love,
Sister Chaffin