Chandler's Mission

Hello ladies and gentlemen,  Happy Pday. First things first, my Pday has changed backed to Monday, like normal people. I wasn't really of fan of Saturday Pdays for a few reasons and our president gave Elder Chinchilla and I permission to change it. Anyway, this week has been pretty good. Tuesday and Wednesday we had multizone conferences and then leader's counsel that went waayyyy later than expected. For this leaders' counsel they invited all the district leaders from the mission too, so when the meeting lasted until 6:00pm, all the Elders from areas far away (like La Esperanza, for example) had to stay the night in the city. It was fun to see some friends and my old companion. The rest of this week was pretty typical, office work followed by missionary work. We've had to drop a lot of investigators these last couple weeks, either because they have asked us to stop visiting or because they haven't been progressing or keeping commitments, so we've b...

Hello my faithful followers, I don't have much to write about this week. Due to a gnarly illness that took hold upon my feeble, mortal vessel, I spent many, many hours within the confines of our house, usually asleep upon a mediocre mattress. Occasionally we went to the office, where I slept on the bed we have in the infirmary while Elder Chinchilla did his office work. It was very fun. Eventually, they carted me off to the hospital to get some tests run to figure out what I had. It wasn't Dengue or Chikungunya like the medical assistant thought, but instead a gnarly intestinal infection. Sooooooo now I'm taking lots of medications and being  very  careful with what I eat. To spice up this email, here's a few fun quotes from my sick days: Elder Merrifield (my zone leader): Be careful with that stuff, Elder Jensen. Gatorade is a gateway drug, ya know [in English] Me: No, Elder, I'm not going to overdose on Acetaminophen Elder Chinchilla: C...

Hey guys! I don't have too much to write about this week, but it's been good nonetheless. We had another round of transfers this last week, which means a lot of running around for the secretaries. The weeks of transfers is usually like 3 days of running around followed by 4 days of working hard in the area to make up for the fact that you haven't visited investigators in half a week. But it's been great! We put up a baptismal date with one of our investigators, Henry, for the end of February! We met him last week, and since our last visit he has been reading a lot of the Book of Mormon and had a lot of questions for us when we visited again last Thursday! We talked a lot about the Restoration with him and his (very-evangelical) mother and it was a powerful lesson! At the end he was saying that he would really like to know if our message was true, and if so, would want to join the Church. So we're going to be swinging by his house tomorrow morning to show him ...

  Shaving cream fight with Elder Chinchilla (that  technically  he started)   The boys of the coolest district in the Honduras Comayagüela Mission   The coolest zone on the temple grounds. Because the temple is in my zone! That's still so cool to me Leaf bug in my apartment Hello my devoted fans and followers, a pleasure to address you all once more. I open this correspondence with unfortunate, yet expected news. I'm gaining weight. As such, Elder Chinchilla and I have committed to stop spending so much of our money in restaurants. Instead, we are now relying on our collective cooking skill to survive the winter together. If we could just get our hands on a crock pot, I'm sure we'd do just fine. But seriously, we've had some fun cooking experiences this week, I'll send some pictures of when my stir-fry skills saved the day (even though we didn't have any noodles or rice to go along with it. Oh well.) This week has been really ...

Hey guys! I've had a busy week but it's been great! This last week we had a few multizone conferences, so there's been a lot of work to do for the secretaries! But everything went smoothly and as planned so it was really fun! It's fun as a secretary because you get to attend every conference or training meeting and get to know pretty much all the missionaries! I'm super grateful for this assignment! Anyway, on a more serious note, I just want to let everyone know the mission isn't always easy, and it isn't always super fun. A couple weeks ago I was having a pretty hard time, but this week has definitely been a lot better. It's interesting to note the Lord's hand in every situation, good and bad. He gives us trials so that we can learn, grow, and progress. He loves us and only wants what's best for us, and we make the choice of how we're going to respond to our situations. As the new Come, Follow Me manual says, we're responsibl...

photo:  The Office at Denny's after we found out the Aviation Museum was closed for the day Happy New Year everyone! I haven't written you since last year! Didn't have too many exciting things happen this week, we did a lot of paperwork, found some new investigators that could be really positive, and taught some lessons. So, to make up for a boring week, we'll talk about some new year's resolutions. With each new year, many people make resolutions. This year will be a bit special, as it will be the only full calendar year where I will be on my mission. So all my goals are mission-related. Hope you weren't expecting anything different. The thing about the mission is that it's a wonderful opportunity to grow and develop your faith, your testimony, and any number of Christlike attributes, and that's what I'm focusing on this year. First, I've set the goal to develop the attributes of diligence and hope. Diligence to use the time I...

My first baptism! Our mission president, grilling like a boss Just some office missionaries, hanging out at the mission home on Christmas Eve Hey guys! Hope everyone had a merry Christmas! We had a pretty fun week! I had my first baptism! It was a really neat experience and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I've had to help Hermano Jorge get closer to his Savior! He truly has changed a lot since the first time the missionaries met him and we were so happy with his decision to get baptized! I'll send another email with pictures! Also we had a Christmas Eve lunch with the President and his family! He grilled ribs! It was awesome. We also spent some time playing a few games, it was nice to have a little bit of time to enjoy the Christmas season with other missionaries and our president. Stay tuned for pictures! The rest of Christmas Eve was a pretty ordinary day for us, we worked in the office like usual, had lunch with president, then visited some ...