Thanks Mexico...

Hey fam!  Long time no see!  I hope all is well there in the good old USA!  This week was kind of blah... My poor companion got sick again!  Apparently she got bronchitis and salmonella but I don't buy it... we went to the doctors to check it out and he looked at her for 2 seconds and said she had 2 serious sicknesses and then charged us 200 pesos.. okay.  That seems right.  I am pretty convinced that she just had the flu.  But because of this she had to rest... so I had to rest too.. This week was very boring and a little stressful because we couldn't work.  We did splits with some of the YW in the ward but it is not the same.  My poor comp, in her first 2 weeks she got sick sick sick sick.  Poor girl.  Thanks, Mexico.  It is super funny though because she has been having some serious culture shock, Mexico is not being very nice to my companion.  Well, we also kind of had a baptism this week!  Laura, she is super awesome young woman in the ward and she and I became really good friends.  I didn't teach her at all but I was just as excited that she was going to be baptized!  She is super great!! Also I just love the members in our ward they are so great and our bishop is one of my favorite people ever.  And on Sunday he gave me and my companion YW's medallions, from the members of the ward!  How sweet is that?? I think I will treasure this one more than the one that I had to earn to get my driver's license!  Life is good here!  I hope you are all happy and healthy!  

I love you all! 

Hermana Chandler 

I'm a Missionary Mommy!

My first moment with my daughter!

Well family, who would have thought that I would be the first of all of you to be a mom?  Nobody right?  I've got my new companion and let me tell you, it is so great!  She is super awesome and we get along so well!  I am loving it!  It is really fun to be the senior companion!  I am sure that it is going to get harder but I really think that I am up for the challenge!  It is really cool to see all the progress!  I am really loving it.  We went up to Xalapa last Tuesday and we get to see all the hermanas and then we had a weird ceremony thing where the trainers line up on one side and the newbies line up on the other and one by one we get our new companions! Cool right?  Ah!! What a stressful situation!  But really I am so happy!  This is so great.  I think I was so done with being trained that I didn't even care that I have to train!  This is awesome. My companion and I are working and meeting new people everyday and setting baptismal dates with them and I really think that we are going to have a lot of success.  Her name is Hermana Daza and she is from Columbia!  She is 20 years old, and she understands English so it is really helpful, she is helping me a lot with my spanish!  It is super great because all the American hermanas have Latina companions.  

So something awesome about Martinez is that it is known for its delicious oranges.  And let me tell you, they are probably the most delicious things I have ever tasted!  Agh!  And every time we go to a house the people always give us oranges!  Always!! So we seriously have a month supply of oranges in our apartment, they are wonderful but I think eating oranges every single day might be bad for my teeth.  Oh well!  They are yummy!  But yeah, life is good and I am doing well here!  I love you all and hope you are all safe!  Be good! 

Hermana Chandler

Mi nueva compañera y yo

My companion made me dinner... and it's happy to see me!

My gringas!

Walking, walking and More Walking

The Nacho Libre Bike!

 Hello my darlings!  

How I miss all of you!  You are all so wonderful!  This week I have had some interesting experiences.  The mission is something amazing, I am experiencing things that I would never ever experience in the the life of a normal person.  Being a missionary is super awesome!  My legs are going to be so freaking buff when I get home.  I can't even tell you how much time we spend walking, uphill, downhill.  In the blistering heat!  But it is all good, I know that there are people ready to hear and accept the Gospel.  All we can do is keep looking, right?  

This week was the last week of my training and lemme tell you, I feel like the time just flew by but then I think about it and realize I have been here forever!  Today are changes, and my companion is going to serve in Xalapa with her next hija (daughter) and I am going to recieve my new hija (daughter) and we are going to baptize like crazy here in Martinez de la Torre.  We went on exchanges the other day with the sister training leaders and  it was so great, and one of them told me something that president Lopez said something super awesome. He said, "se que la hermana chandler esta lista para entrenar!  que padre!!" (Sister Chandler is ready to train!) I felt so super awesome to know that he has such confidence in me! Ah! 

The chicken murder

Anyway, something cool that happened this week is that I saw a chicken murdered.  I will definitely be adding some pictures.  Cool right?? This lady grabs it and just starts hacking away at its neck then hung it up by the feet and just let the blood drain!  Agh! So cool but so gross!! Poor chicken.  I sure hope it was at least delicious so it didn't die in vain!  

But yeah, tomorrow I am going to Xalapa to get my daughter and I get to see all the gringas!! Agh!! I am so excited!  The sister training leaders were here and I was talking to one of them and said how much I missed the other Americanas and she was like, do you want to call them?? YES!  It was the best thing ever to talk to them! I realized they all feel the same way as me.  I am so grateful to know that there is some one else struggling to get used to Mexico too. It takes effort to get used to Mexico... la verdad si.  But I love it here in Martinez the people in the ward are so cool.  And I am so excited to work with them for longer.  They are so awesome!  Life is good, the church is true.  I love you all!! Bye!! 

Hermana Chandler

A family that I love!

Another family that I love!

Guerrita!!

Alright famfam.  I would be lying hard core if I told you that this week was easy.  This week definitely was tough!  We found around 14 new investigators who are not going to progress, awesome.  We were waiting for I think about 8 people in the chapel and none of them showed... Geez.  It was terrible.  But it is all good. The church is true and the people have their agency.  It is all good.   Three of the 14 investigators were.... Oh geez what a mess.  This crazy old lady contacted us in the street and invited us over to talk about the gospel!  And we were thinking wow how awesome, this lady is totally going to be baptized!! So we show up the next day to only to realize that these people only wanted to prove to us how wrong we are!  These 2 old ladies and this 9 year old girl were trying to argue with us and having us read stuff out of the bible, it was some story from Daniel about a tree and a dream.. I really have no clue what the point was but they were crazy, then out of curiousity we asked them why they didn't donate blood.  Well apparently it is an abomination, because of something to do with Cain and Abel.  Yeah, I didn't get it.  It was something about not consuming or eating the blood of our own kind.  And then we were talking about how if someone was dying and they needed blood they couldn't do anything about it!  And then I said, well... If you think about it, Jesus gave his blood for us and we are supposed to follow his example!  Okay that example was a little extreme but I got my point across.  This poor little nine year old girl needs some friends because she was hard and mean and only wanted to prove us wrong.  Gosh,  they talked at us for probably 2 hours until we said okay. Cool we are going to end in a prayer and the crazy old lady offered the prayer and said please bless these señoritas that they will be illuminated and learn the truth... Oh heavens you guys. THe church is so true.  That is the only thing they proved to me. 

Oh well.. This week wasn't all terrible.  I was invited to a birthday party with this legit Mariachi band!! Mexicans know how to party!  That's about it!! I love you all!

PS Guerra means white.  And I always always always get called guerra in the street!  "Hey guerra!"  It is not offensive but I always feel a little insulted! 

¡Ay Chihuahuas!

Well my dears, I realize that my letter last week may have been vague and perhaps a little troublesome.  But don't you worry.  I am just fine here in Mexico. Although I have days where I wake up thinking, "What the crud am I doing here??" Those moments pass and I am happy to be serving the Lord.  This week I had my first real baptism.  I feel like this baptism was my first because I actually helped a lot in her conversion.  She is so great and she only needed 3 weeks to prepare.  She was one of those people that was definitely ready to hear the Gospel.  Her name is Mairel and she is 21 years old.  She was baptized yesterday and it was honestly one of the best moments of my life because I just love her.  And to see someone you care about make this covenant with the Lord is one of the most increible things!!  I was so happy for her!  

Aside from the baptism, this week was a little rough, we had to quit on most of our investigators, which was sad but it is okay because we are starting fresh!  We have been trying to find and teach more people but it is tough!  I guess people just don't want their salvation or something!!  Geez!  

We were walking down the street and there were some JW with their little stand about the end of the world and I was scared that we were going to have a little missionary show down. But then a weird thought popped into my mind, Napoleon Dynamite.  When Uncle Rico says that all they need to be legit is a name tag.  He was so right.  The name tag is what sets us apart.  We are legit, missionary work is so cool!  At times I totally forget that I am a missionary because it is weird!  But its all good.  Mish life is just life times a thousand. Life is good and I hope that everything is going well for you!  

baptism de Mairel Esteban campos!

The suit was gigantic on her!

Love you all! Hermana Chandler

No clever title this week

Okay, so life is nuts.  The wedding fell through and we are not going to be baptizing Omar. But we do have 2 other baptisms coming up!!  Hooray!! This week was crazy.  I really don't even know how to sum it all up. Well, I learned that there are shady things in everything.  We had been working through this Hermano in the ward to help us get people married, but he kept asking us for more and more money and we couldn't figure out why. He was asking for a ton of money and this last week finally I felt like this was messed up and asked somebody about it. It turns out that he had been ripping of missionaries (who do not have money). He was asking for money to bribe the people at the offices and then he was pocketing most of the money!  I was super bummed to find this out but really glad that we caught him because that is so not okay!  Like really?  Bribing, blackmail, robbing... wow.  It was messed up!  On the other hand we taught this guy who was totally fried.  It was weird he was asking us super weird questions and was just a weird fellow.  I really don't even know how to describe all the weird stuff that went down this week.  Oh well, life is good.  I am still prepping myself to be a trainer, and I can see that my Spanish is getting better because my English is getting worse.  I am a woman with out a language.  This letter is really scatter brained, sorry!  I love you all!  Be good!

Hermana Chandler 

Agency: A blessing for everyone but missionaries

Well family.  This week flew by!!  The mish has to be the weirdest but most wonderful thing ever.  At times it still doesn't feel real.  I assume that you are wondering about the subject of this email.  But I feel like all of you RMs will understand this.  We have this couple that we have been working with for forever.  She is a member and he is not.  His baptism is set for the 16th and they have been progressing really well.  Until... we went over to their house the other day to give a lesson and out of the blue this girl says that she doesn't want to get married, she doesn't want anything to do with the church and she doesn't believe in God because so many bad things have happened to her... wow.  So yeah.  Not a big fan of agency right now.  If they don't get married he doesn't get baptized.  Wow, thanks Satan.  Satan is one major jerk. Oh well that was my bummer of the week.  

On to the good stuff, we had baptism #5!!  Yay!  Angel Andradi Mauricio.  He is our miracle.  He is an old investigator who was not baptized because he lived with his girlfriend, they broke up and he decided that he wanted to be baptized! Cool,right?  He is so awesome.  60 years old and just as nice as can be! I am so happy!  It was marvelous!  

We met a new family that we are totally going to baptize because the story is legit, we found a phone on the sidewalk and returned it to them, they turned out the be the coolest people ever!  They invited us over on Sunday to visit with them and it turned out that they invited us over for a birthday party!! It was so awesome.  I am so excited to teach them.  

We had a visit from a member of the 70 and it was super cool.  We took a horrible two hour bus ride to Tezuitlan on the windiest roads I've ever been on.  Thank heavens for motion sickness pills because everyone was super sick.  But it was great.  It got me super pumped for the work!  

Okay, almost done.  Time for a funny story.  We were walking down the street and there was this little old lady carrying a ton of stuff so Hermana Manzueta went to offer to help. While Hermana Manzueta was walking and talking she walked right into a pole! Some reward for trying to serve your fellow man!  It was great, I felt bad but I was laughing so hard!!  Okay, that is my week!  I love you all!! 

Hermana Chandler