A Brighter Day

Merry Christmas to everyone! Hope it was great. I certaintly had an amazing Christmas here being a missionary. So, as you probably guessed, not very many people wanted to talk to us this past week. But that was alright. We had a good time anyways as we strived to serve others. I got my new greenie Elder Gonzales on Thursday. He is pretty cool, haha. He is from Taylorsville, Utah. He used to be in a screamo band so that's pretty cool. And he plays violin as well so we have that in common. It's crazy that I'm training a new missionary though. We're basically trying to figure this all out together since I've only been in the area one transfer. So Friday and Saturday we went to the Obara's house and helped them drywall and on Saturday spent Christmas Eve with them and played some board games. Sunday, Christmas was great. For sacrament meeting they just had people go up and share their favorite Christmas experiences that they had. It was so awesome to hear that people's favorite or most memorable Christmas experiences were usually when they didn't have a lot or where people performed service for them. We sang Christmas hymns and it was great. After sacrament we met with Laura who is a recent convert from Omaha. Her family lives in Beatrice so she came to our branch. She was having a hard time because her family isn't too happy about her converting so we were able to brighten her day by talking about trials and how she is being an amazing example to her family. After we went to the Satterfields and had a Christmas dinner. It was really good. Brenda who is a recent convert and her son Wayland who also recently got baptized were there as well and we were all able to enjoy Christmas together. It was kind of a weird Christmas, but I liked it. I wasn't worried about what gifts I was getting or how much fun I was going to have. I was just a missionary and enjoyed spending time with people and getting to knkow who they are. President Kunz told us this would be the best Christmas ever and it certaintly was (not saying that I didn't miss the ones back home, haha). Oh, and yesterday I made bread for the first time. It's pretty good. Hopefully I'll send a picture of it soon so you all can see how awesome it is, haha.

So Spiritual thought of the week. So hopefully you all know this alreday, but Christ was not born on December 25th. He was actually born on April 6th. So why do we celebrate Christmas when we do? Well, originally Christmas was a pagan holiday that didn't even celebrate Christ, it celebrated the winter solstice when the days go from being shorter to longer. So what does this have to do with Christ? Well, if you think about it Christ made it so that if we would come unto Him that we would receive more and more light. When we follow Christ and keep our covenants, we continue to receive more and more light. And just as this life is hard sometimes and things may seem dark, we are promised that a brighter day will come. We just have to be patient sometimes. So let us strive to live our best and have the hope that a brighter day will come. I love you all and hope you had an amazing Christmas and have a Happy New Year.

Godspeed,
Elder Chandler Kendall

Merry Christmas Friends and Family! Well this past week has definitely been a week of adventure. I guess I'll start from the beginning (a very good place to start). So Wednesday President Kurl from the Mission Presidency came down to Beatrice to interview Jackie. It was a great interview and she passed with flying colors. Thursday we went up to Lincoln for a Christmas missionary conference. We did white elephant and had a couple of trainings. It was really good. We got to watch the Bible video from the Christmas Devotional. It was really good. I love some of the videos the church puts out and I'm excited for these. Haha, my white elephant was a little canvas with a drum set on it that said, "Music is what feelings sound like." Haha! So Friday was the branch Christmas party. It was so great. Sister Saterfield made it look really nice and a lot of people showed up. It was so much fun. Elder Bell and I performed a dance I choreographed to Michael Bulble's "Let it Snow". Haha it was great and people laughed, so mission accomplished. Well Saturday was Jackie's baptism. It was hillarious. Elder Bell didn't exactly explain very well what she should bring in terms of clothing and I didn't clarify. So we gave her the jumpsuite and she came out with it over her clothes. She had a bright orange shirt on so we tried to explain to her that she just needed to wear the jumpsuite when she yelled in front of everyone "I'm not taking my clothes off!" Haha, it was awkward, but funny. Anyways, luckily Sister Garman came to the rescue and took her to the bathroom to explain how it worked. Other than that the baptism was great. The branch has been so great about fellowshipping Jackie and she fits right in to the branch. Elder Bell baptized her and he brought her down hard, basically beat the sin out of her, that's how hard she got dunked. Sunday I was able to confirm her a member of the Church and give her the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It was really cool. Anyways it's been a crazy week and I can't even begin to say everything that's happened. The reason we're having P-day on Wednesday is because this is the last week of the transfer so they move P-day to Wednesday because today is when we get our calls. So this morning we got our transfer calls. Unfortunately Elder Bell is leaving me and going back to Omaha. He is training a new missionary. And guess what? I am also training a new missionary! I'm so excited! I heard it's the best ever. His name is Elder Gonzales but I won't meet him until tomorrow. They also made me district leader which I'm not too excited about at all. But what's a guy like me to do. I will miss Elder Bell a lot though. Luckily he only goes home about a month before I do so we'll have our whole missions together.

So spiritual thought of the week. Hmmm... ok the wise men. (This is totally on the spot so don't judge me). Why were the wise men "wise"? Well they were able to see the signs of the coming of the Lord. They knew what to expect and where He would be. Then they saught Him out. They brought Him gifts and bowed and worshipped Him. Pretty basic, but are we doing the same in our lives? We know that we are living in the last days and that Christ will come soon. He has given us His word and provided us with a way to follow Him. And the greatest gift we can give the Lord is our wills. In fact it's the only thing that we truely have that we can give to Him. So this Christmas let us remember to look for the signs of His coming, let us try to follow Him, and give Him the greatest gift we can give by striving every day to follow Him and keep our covenants that we have made. I love you all and hope that you have a very Merry Christmas!

Godspeed,
Elder Chandler Kendall

Chandler's Mission Address

11027 Martha Street

Omaha, Nebraska

68144-3107

For God so loved the world...

Feliz Navidad a todos (um... maybe that is correct Spanish?). Haha, anyways this past week was a good week. So Elder Bell and I are doing a lot of tracting whenever we don't have appointments, especially in the evenings. We started doing this thing, because a lot of people we talk to say they're kind of interested but then they are really not. So we have these "letters" that we give out to people who are kind of interested. In it is a letter from Elder Bell and I about who we are and what we do as missionaries with a link to our mormon.org page (by the way everyone should have a mormon.org page). We also have a Restoration pamphlet in there and a card with our phone number and when Sacrament meeting is. Then we'll get their numbers and tell them that we'll call back in a couple of days to see if they're interested, and if so then we make a return appointment. We just barely started doing this at the later half of last week, but we got a lot of potentials. Hopefully as we call them this week we can get some good investigators. We ate dinner twice this week with the Obara family. They are awesome. They have four kids, two boys and two girls, and they are from Connecticut. I walked in and they had Red Sox and Patriots cups for every plate on the table. It was pretty awesome. Also Sister Obara is half Irish so we had a good little talking. They are an awesome family, just like all the families in the branch here. Thursday I went up to Lincoln on an exchange with Elder Hadley who is a Zone Leader. Man, we worked our butts off. The cars were grounded because of the snow so we were walking everywhere, and I forgot to bring my boots up. Opps, haha. But he is an awesome Elder. He is very humble, and he has a speech impediment that makes it hard for him to say what he wants to say sometimes. But he doesn't let it slow him down and it was a great exchange. Jackie is still doing awesome. She's getting baptized this Saturday. We're so excited! The branch has been great at fellowshipping her and she even came over to the Obara's one day when we were having dinner. Yesterday I gave a talk on covenant's in Sacrament meeting. I thought it was pretty good, haha. But like always I learned a lot just by writing it. All in all it was a pretty good week.
So Christmas Spiritual thought of the week. So probably the most famous scripture ever, John 3:16, says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son." That is the message of Christmas! God loved us so much that He gave us His Son. If we ever want to question God's love, we can't, because He gave His perfect Son to us so that we could return to live with Him. So Christmas isn't about gifts. Sure it shows that we care about a person. But Heavenly Father gave us His most prized possession, His Son Jesus Christ. So what are we willing to give to those we love? Well... one of the most prized possessions we have is our time. People want to spend time with other people. Sometimes they just want to talk. Sometimes they just want to sit, and say nothing. Sometimes they want to get out and have an adventure. Other times they just need someone there to comfort them. We can use our time in so many ways to help others. So this Christmas let us strive to put away some of our time to be with those we care about, and especially those who need someone there by their side because they may be feeling a little lonely. Angels do exist, but sometimes Heavenly Father wants us to be the angels that people are praying for. So let us remember how much our Heavenly Father loves us and how we can show that love to others this Christmas season. I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week.

Godspeed,
Elder Chandler Kendall

The little Drummer Boy

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope everyone is having a great Christmas season and enjoying winter. It's relatively cold here. It's staying around 32 degrees in the day. We got some rain but haven't got any snow yet. Lincoln got a lot of rain on Saturday though. Anyways... so last week was a pretty good week. First of all I told you about Jackie, the young single mother we tracked into last week. Well... SHE'S GOLDEN! She went to church last Sunday and we've met with her everyday this week. She has so many questions, but she's accepted that it is true and she's being baptized on the 17th! She even came to church again. She already told her boyfriend that they would be living the law of chastity before we even taught it to her. And although we haven't taught her the Word of Wisdom yet, she already lives it! It was so crazy because when she first let us in she was really hesitent and quiet. But she's opened up a ton, and now we're all best friends. Haha, it's pretty crazy. We also have this other investigator Tina who found the church on mormon.org. It's kind of a long story but basically she chatted with the Sisters in the Trail Center to learn the gospel and get into the church. They didn't even know she lived in the same mission. So I hadn't met her yet because she had been sick so I got to meet her last Saturday. She is super awesome. She's about 50 years old and used to be a gypsie. She's been living with her boyfriend for 14 years and we taught her the law of chastity. So now she's going to get married on the 29th and she'll be baptized the 21st of January. There's awesome things going on here. There are also a lot of people going through really hard times who really look up to us. It's really hard because I've never really been through anything and I'm only 20 years old. But we try to help them the best that we can, even if it's just being there so that they have someone to talk to. Friday I was in Lincoln on an exchange while Elder Bell went to a leadership training up in Omaha. It was fun to meet some of the Elders serving up there and work that area for the day. I even met two people from Africa! All in all it was a great week.
So spiritual thought of the week. I guess since it's Christmas I'll give one about that. So one of my favorite Christmas songs is the Little Drummer Boy (especially the Josh Groban version). Anyways the message is that sometimes we feel like we have nothing to give to the Lord. Sometimes it feels like there are so many people better than us and that what we have to give is nothing compared to the things others are able to give. But it makes me think of the parable of the talents. We all have talents, whether it's five or three or one. In the parable the important part is not how many talents we start out with, but that we are trying our hardest to improve our talents and gain even more. Sometimes we have talents that we don't think we have, but when we strive to improve we gain even more. And that's the story of the Little Drummer Boy. Even though he did not have much in the way of wordly wealth, he still was able to play his drum for Christ because that was his talent. So let us during this Christmas season strive to share our talents with others. Everyone has some, whether it's music, dance, decorating, making things, baking treats, or the one we all have time. Sometimes the best thing you can share is your time. Everyone needs a friend, and everyone needs a friend who will listen and who will help. I love you all and hope you have a great week and a Merry Christmas.

Godspeed,
Edler Chandler Kendall