Totally America-ed so hard this week.

AGH!  America.  The land I call my home.  This week we celebrated the Fourth of July!  My compañera y yo.  It was epic. We very proudly wore our red white and blue and we were so excited to tell our district leader, who also is American.  But he forgot!!! Agh.  I was appalled.  How could he forget the best nation on the planet?  Oh well. It was great.  This week we met our new president.  HE IS AWESOME.  Seriously he is the best.  He is so great and he just gave us all the loving we needed after we didn't have any for so long.  We had a multizone activity.  He was calling people out from the congregation to just hug them and love them and tell them he loved them.  And he called me out and then he had his wife hug me.  They really are so funny.  I just love them.  I am really excited for all the changes that we will be having.  

Also this week is transfers and I have to say goodbye to my little gringa... I am sad.  She is so great and I just love her guts.  They are closing our area and I am going over to another area of Xalapa.  This week was full of changes.  But I am happy and healthy and getting rained on.  I hope you all America-ed really well this week as well.  I love you all.  Be good. And be Mormon. 

Hermana Chandler 

Elder Dunn's birthday party 

Hermana Menlove and I with our cat.

My zone on our last day as a zone

If you want to know what craziness is... go to Mexico during the World Cup

Well family, I'd be lying if I told you we didn't dominate this week, because we did.  We missionaried so hard.  The life of the mission is awesome.  I am so happy to be here in the Mission Mexico Xalapa!  This week we raised the bar and we found a ton of new people to teach!  It is awesome!  We have been working really hard to find new people to prove to all the doubters that 2 gringas together in Mexico can do work! We can!  It really is so much fun to be with Hermana Menlove, she is great.  We have a blast and our district is super fun too.

This week we made an interesting discovery. There are these flowers here called florryfundios, and they are super cool flowers that hang from trees and are all sorts of different colors.  They smell SO good.  Like magic, in a flower. La verdad. And every time we passed by one of these trees we would pluck a flower and take it with us, joyfully sniffing along the way.  Well lo and behold, we went to eat with one of the members in the ward and she told us that the flowers are toxic. These flowers are intoxicating! They make you high! So we had been marching around Xalapa getting high off of flowers. I thought it was a spiritual high but apparently not. We learned our lesson.  Now we are a little less crazily happy going from lesson to lesson. 

That is only one of the great things that have gone down here in Xalapa.  This place is really cool, there is definitely a spirit of unity during the World Cup.  I think everyone and their dog, and their dog's dog, are wearing their Mexico jersey today!  Mexico, during the World Cup is the coolest thing ever.  For real. I don't even like futbol pero tengo ganas a verlo.  It is so funny seeing everyone going crazy.  It makes missionary work hard because no one wants to open the door.  (knock knock) "ESTAMOS OCUPADOS!!"  Okay.. geez.  

Also, this week, I had something happen to me that has never happened in my life.  I was serenaded in the street.  Yes. It is true.  This old man came and chatted with us for a bit.  He seemed really concerned that two gringas were roaming around Mexico.  So he starts singing this song that some man wrote about his Norte Americana.  It was great.  And then to top it off he gave us both pocket bibles, white pocket bibles. If we didn't look like testigos de jehova (Jehovah's Witnesses) we sure do now! People always think that we are Testigos de Jehova.... I think it is the umbrellas.  Speaking of Jehovah's Witness, we made a friend that is a JW, we chatted for a while and then he told us that if any one ever tried to mess with us he would mess them up.  That's right.  We are making all sorts of friends of faith.  It is so funny.  He is a great guy.  He would be such a good Mormon. He just needs to see that.  We have a couple of investigators like that.  They would seriously be such good Mormons... but they are Catholic... Always.  But whatever I guess.  

I just want to say I just think you are all swell and that you should all invite someone over to listen to the missionaries.  Missionaries are kind of cool sometimes. I love you all and I hope this week is so awesome. Tambien escritura de la semana.  Moroni 8:3 (read it) 

Hermana Chandler 

P.S. I TOTALLY HIT A MILESTONE. I FINISHED THE BOOK OF MORMON IN SPANISH!!!! WOOHOOOO  ALSO I STARTED AGAIN.  THIS BOOK IS EPIC AND SO TRUE.  READ IT! 

i'll send pictures next week.. this computer is weird. 

Vendid a Christopher

So life in the mission just keeps going.  We are working away and just partying it up here in Xalapa.  This week was really hot.  I don't have a whole lot of new stuff going on but I do have a funny story that I believe Christopher would appreciate.  So we were sitting in Sacrament meeting and we were next to one of the members who brought her two year old named Christopher to church.  We started the sacrament song and we sang ''Venid a Cristo." When we were in the chorus singing, ''Venid a Cristo...FER''  her little boy was singing along with all his might singing VENID A CRISTOPHER! It was the best thing ever.  He sang with all his confidence. It was the cutest, funniest thing I have ever seen.  Life is great!  I really like my compañera, we get along really great and we have a lot of fun!  Don't have a ton of time!  I love you all be good! 

​Translation....​

​Venid a Cristo - Come Unto Christ​                Venid a Cristopher​ Coming Christopher

Hermana Chandler

Raindrops keep falling on my head.. and in my shoes... and in my window... and in EVERYWHERE

Okay.  First of all I would like to apologize for the lack of information in my last letter, may have left a little something to be desired. (Note from Emily's sister: Her last letter was only 3 sentences long, not even blog worthy!) Well here I am in little ol Xalapa. And Xalapa has got a few things to offer that Martinez doesn't have, rain, lots of food (that is kind of gross.. aka fish), hills, and crazy people.  

Well, lots of crazy people.  We found some guy who supposedly is a member but he said he doesn't remember how long ago or what day he was baptized because to him time doesn't exist.  Only God exists.  So we started questioning him, who it was that baptized him, if he could remember the elder's name.  And he said God himself came down from the heavens and baptized him.. okay.  Byee!  That guy was crazy.  Then we found these two young men who we are teaching with their mom and their mom is trying to marry us off saying that they can and will only marry gringas. Then when we tried to give them away to our district leader our district leader said, "Eh its okay, just keep teaching them." So we are teaching who we so lovingly call ''the gringa hunters," awesome. Then we met Jaime.  Mohawk pony tail, wooden gages, no teeth.  He is awesome.  You can barely understand him but we are going to baptize him.  The people here are super funny but not very sociable.  

Another thing that Xalapa has to offer that no other place has to offer are surprise visits from President Lopez!!  He came to our ward this last sunday and I just think that was the best thing ever.  It was the first time I had seen him since he got released and I miss him to death. You can tell he is really sad that he is not with us.  I just love him and Hermana Lopez.  No one can ever replace him! But in about 20 days we are going to get our new president!! Woop!  President Greer from Arizona!  I am really excited for him to get here.  They are going to be great! 

Also, I made a discovery, I would be super fisherman.  We were walking when I heard Hermana Menlove scream, "OH NO!  HERMANA!" And I looked over and she had dropped her badge down a rain gutter.  And it was super far away so we took the other half of her magnet badge and tied to to string and went fishing.  Haha I just love my new companion.  It is so much to fun to have another gringa.  But yeah I believe that is about it.  My district is great.  I have a nice ward and area but my house is really really small.  I guess that is okay except for the bathroom.  It is a closet.  Por ejemplo, it is so small that you have to sit side saddle on the toilet... mission life.  Wow.  Okay well I hope this letter was better than last week.  I love you all!! Be good!

Hermana Chandler!

The Big 2 0

Happy Birthday to me!  From the mission.  Well, my early birthday present is a new area and I am now living and serving the Lord in the motherland of XALAPA!!  I am so happy to be here, seriously!  And you know what? I am compañeras with another American. Hermana Menlove!! She is super great and I am really excited.  A little nervous, but I know that it is going to be super awesome. I am really so happy to be here in Xalapa with Hermana Menlove!  She too is half daughter of my mom so we are kind of sisters.

Last night at nine they told me that I had to be at the bus stop at 7 in the morning on Monday!! And my ward had a birthday party planned for me for tonight but I don't get to go.... But asi es la vida... I didn't get to say goodbye to anybody and it broke my heart.  But I guess it's okay, I am not sure that this birthday will feel any different than any other day on the mission.  I am really pleased with the changes and I know that we are going to have a lot of success.  

Yesterday we had a baptism and it was the best thing ever.  We baptized a girl named Fani. She is 17, almost 18, and she seriously became one of my favorite people in the world.  I just love her and to see her take this step seriously made me so happy. The fact that I was apart of something so amazing is just freaking awesome!  But just like every other baptism there were difficulties.  The font was full of super dirty water.. there were FISH swimming around in the water.  It was seriously so so gross.   And the water wasn't draining so we had to get in there with buckets and dump the water ourselves. So I kicked off my shoes and went to work scrubbing it clean and taking out all the water. I am proud to say that that water was super crystal clear.. de nada.   It was such a great day!  I couldn't have asked for a better last day in Martinez de la Torre.  And I am now ready for my new adventures here in Xalapa! 

I love you lots! 

Hermana Chandler

Bueno!

Me with my fat little dog named Chandler 

Welp.  Life just keeps going as fast as ever.  I am still kicking away here in Martinez de la Torre!  But maybe not for long!  Changes are this next week and I am thinking it might be my time!! This week has been super awesome.  We are just working away trying to keep all our investigators happy!  We found so many new people this week and they are all just great.  We found this new family and they are just as cool as investigators can get!  I am seriously so excited for them!  They always try and speak english with me and always ask me what things mean.  At times I feel like they are children who just say exactly what they hear.. por ejemplo, what does ·"%&=( mean?  Agh!! No!  Don't say that!! That is super bad!  They always always ask me about swear words.  It just kills me.  Geez! 

But yeah things are just as crazy as every in the life of Hermana Charley Limon.. Yep.  That one is new, I have heard a huge array of nicknames but one that I have never heard is Charley.  We were with some of our investigators and I walk in and she goes ''Ah Charley!  Take a seat!!''  Charley?  Who the heck is that??  ... Oh well!! I love my investigators, seriously these people are just crazily wonderful!  

To top off one wonderful week, we had a surprise baptism.  One of our investigators showed up to the church in all white and told us that she wanted to get baptized that day! Well okay!  Vamos!  It was super awesome because seriously this girl is really interesting.. her sister is a recent convert who has just blossomed in the church and Valeria (our baptism) told us she was atheist she didn't want anything to do with God, the church, mormons.. etc.  but nonetheless she was always there when we went to see her sister.  And she kept going to church so finally we asked her if she wanted to get baptized and bam!  There you go!  She is super interesting.. after her baptism we were looking for her and she just disappeared.  My district leader came over to me and said, "Hermana you have got to see your investigator".. so we go out side and she is lying on the lawn in the corner face down.. just chilling there.  I just love her, in all her weirdness.. I guess that is what the mission is about.  You definitely learn to love people with all their weirdnesses.  And trust me.. you meet some really weird people in the mission.. But it is great and I am happy!  I love you all!   Be safe! 

Hermana Chandler

La autoridad. 

My comp and me with our favorite investigator EDNA!

Super FRESA. Bautismo de Valeria

Mision Mexico Xalapa la primera del Señor!!

Well family, the one and only Mother's Day of my mission has come and gone and it was lovely to see all of you healthy and happy! This week was lovely!  We've been finding new awesome people and I am content here in Martinez de la Torre.  But changes are coming up and I am out of here!! (hopefully..)  

Yesterday was marvelous!  We went to church had a typical hysterical day trying to get our investigators to the church.  They, upon getting there, found out that we did not have baptismal clothing.. cool.  So we scrambled around like mad men searching for clothing.  One little boy even gave us the shirt off his back so that we could have clothing for our little baptism. Then we found out that there was no water in the chapel and we were running around trying to figure everything out and wow... So after all that craziness we baptized 2 people.  Vianey and her son Daniel.  It was the coolest, happiest thing of my life.  I have worked with Vianey since day one here in Martinez!  She used to be a bartender, prostitute, and gambler hardcore.  But it was so incredible to see this change in her and her desire to change and keep getting better.  I am super happy!  Then after that we went and ate lunch and after that I chatted it up with the fam!  YES.  That was so lovely.  It is great here and I am happy to be a missionary.  My compañera and I get along really well and we are having a lot of success!  I love you all! Be good!

Hermana Chandler