Happy Anniversary, Elder Chandler! 46 Wonderful years together!

Happy Anniversary, Elder Chandler!  46 wonderful years spent in the service of our Heavenly Father. Thirty years of starting and raising a family and now 16 years alone again.  Where does time go!   It all began on a beautiful summer morning in the Idaho Falls Temple.  The sun was brightly shinning, the birds were merrily singing, with that little brook flowing gently downstream as two hearts became one.  I have loved this man for many years as he has treasured me, as his one and only bride of so many years ago.  Now we find ourselves still in the service of our God, serving an incredible mission in Lesotho Africa. So grateful to celebrate another year together as an Eternal couple, sealed together in the “House of the Lord” on August 4, 1970.

 

Now on with the show… featuring our lives the past two months.

Can you make a pumpkin pie in Lesotho, Africa?  The answer is YES!  That pumpkin those lovely people at the village gave us, I cooked and froze 5 pints for pie, because Elder Chandler loves pumpkin pie made by me (of course)!  It tasted delicious and, yes, he is spoiled, but you already knew that!

Elder Chandler spent a little time these past couple of months doing some service to a widow sister.  Most of her light fixtures had been broken for years and so no light in the bathrooms and bedrooms. Her main toilet leaked so much it couldn’t be used.  We spent several different days working at fixing her broken fixtures and her toilet, which proved to be a difficult one for Elder Chandler, but he finally got it working again.  The toilet was too old and no parts would work that you could buy at the store.  He did it though!  He is my Hero!!

Our Balm of Gilead was true to form again this month. I have taken a paragraph out of a letter I sent home in June. “WOW!  This time we probably had 20 little ones racing at the Bakkie when we pulled up!  Screaming at the tops of their little lungs, so excited to see us!  They could hardly wait for us to get our doors open!  They all wanted hugs, kisses, It was so heartwarming after a rough week!  I think we had 20 little ones and 8 teens last night.  The missionaries forgot and I think it was a good thing.  I do not know where they would have sat.  We talked about the scriptures being a gift from Heavenly Father, even the Book of Mormon.  We showed the video of Moroni hiding the plates, the Prophet Joseph's story and first vision, and then how Angel Moroni came and talked to the Prophet to show him where the plates were buried.  The kids loved it and asked many questions at the end.  I gave three of the teens Book of Mormons.  Moses was there and he was showing them all about the book.  He is 15 and has been a member for several years.  It was just a fabulous night, with a powerful Spirit of love and truth!!  How we love Sister MaPalesa and these wonderful little black children!  I am so thankful for Friday nights!” We continue to have a growing number of teens in attendance.  It is so crowded, but we love it every time.  The teens adore MaPalesa and what she does for them.  We are all learning so much together and the love we feel there just washes away anything hard we have had to do during the week! 

Every day is different and crazy busy in the life of a missionary.  Our life is so enjoyable testifying of the Savior and His Restored Gospel upon the earth.  We love it more than words can describe.  The children here are absolutely the best thing on mission.  They love us and we love them.  We get sooo many hugs!  No matter where we go we have become friends with the children!  They laugh and wave even when we are driving.  Because we miss our grandchildren so much at home, it is so comforting to feel their little arms around us. 

We had the neighbors over to eat Sunday dinner two weeks in a row.  There are five youth in their early twenties to late twenties at the Pastors home next door.  Three of them are from South Korea and two of them are from Thailand.  They are on some kind of missionary type program where they go to college and witness of the Savior to others.  They are such wonderful youth and we enjoy the little time we have with them.  Matsiu, and Bridget came to eat with us too and they enjoyed trying to learn each other’s languages!  After church Bridget and Matsiu went teaching with us to two families preparing to go to the temple.  Then we dashed home and cooked our chicken pot pies.  One of the Korean boys ate sooo much I thought he would be sick!!  It was amazing to watch actually.  Then after dessert they asked if we believed in Jesus Christ!  I had just finished this awesome Power Point on the Savior and hadn't even taught it in anyone's home yet, so out it came!  It was a wonderful experience to share about the Savior, his Atonement and His Resurrection for us. We shared with them how much we love Jesus Christ and that He is the very Foundation of our beliefs and Church.  Then the three girls came and spent three different mornings learning to cook “Grandma” style.  We had so much fun together as you can see in the pictures.  We also helped them improve their English.  One day after one of our Sunday meals the girls knocked on our door and asked if we had time to teach them about Mormon’s.  That is the first time in my life that has ever happened to me!  It was so fun to share our beliefs.  We sent them home with reading material and English assignments to improve their English.  The last day of cooking they taught us (by assignment) about the “Plan of Salvation” from the booklet they had been studying.  It was such a sweet experience.  The two Thai girls are going back home today.  We will truly miss them.  The respect and love they show to “Grandpa and Grandma” was very special!  Their culture respects the Elderly (not that we are old or anything) and it sure feels nice to be respected.

We had the blessing of going to a different village with the same couple we talked about last blog to get the father’s documentation this time.  It was the most beautiful drive.  We cannot wait to go there this summer when it is green.  Traveling with this family and their two children is always delight!  Bopello sings and hums much of the time while we are traveling.  When we reach the village many people were out with broken & bent buckets and a couple of old shovels trying to fill in holes in the road so it is not so harsh traveling on.  We snapped a few pictures with them and then asked them if we could help.  So for the next 45 minutes we got to shovel their little buckets full and a old wheelbarrow.  We laughed and laughed and they were so friendly and kind.  We had to wait for the chief lady to get home to have her sign the papers, so we just kept shoveling and laughing.  When the chief came we walked up to her home with her. She had already heard that the white’s were helping. News must travel fast in a village.  She told the Mphete family how nice that was for us to help.  Then as we were leaving a lady came out and handed us a jar of canned peaches as her thank you to us for helping!  We were so touched. What another fun experience in the mission field.

So many days are so busy and a little crazy, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Teaching is incredible here.  I cannot even explain the wonderful experiences we are having teaching these people.  The spirit is powerful everywhere we teach, it seems. One Friday we had the most spiritual lesson we have had since being on mission.  It was with the two Sisters we took to the temple last month!  Wow!  Is all I can say!  We just come home so full of the Spirit every day and so very tired too.  I think that is as it should be.

"I love to see the temple. I'm going there someday; to feel the Holy Spirit, to listen and to pray. For the temple is a house of God, a place of love and beauty. I'll prepare myself while I am young; this is my sacred duty."

I love the words of this song and have since the moment I first sang it!  Our experiences in the temple have been so varied over our 46 years of marriage. I am happy, comforted, feel peace, joy, contentment and love like no other place on earth!  Oh how we love our trips to the temple.  We went to Leribe’s Church service last Sunday. It was Leribe Branch conference and Elder Chandler is a Counsel man for the District and was speaking.  It was such a spiritual conference and our little meeting house was packed!  President Makura's leadership in the Branch is making such a difference here and he is like a sponge learning and applying the handbook and all its teaching!  (Of, course, Elder Chandler is doing a wonderful job of training President Makura.  That is part of being a MLS missionary). Oh what joy it is to serve a mission and see such wonderful changes in the lives of God's sons and daughters.

I was blessed to teach Primary again this week, because they do not have a Primary President yet!  Our District Primary President was there, but wanted me to teach instead of her.  I had prepared just in case she didn't have something.  One part of the lesson about the Savior and what he has done for us is truly amazing.  Every time we have given this particular lesson the Spirit is so strong.  One little 11-year-old boy came up to me after Primary and said, "Sister Chandler, I felt like crying today.  I have never felt like that before."  I was able to explain to this wonderful child that the feeling he felt was the spirit of the Holy Ghost bearing testimony to his heart that what he was taught was true!  Jesus Christ is his Savior and Redeemer and He loves him so very much.  I was so grateful after this young boy came up to me that the District Primary President had asked me to teach.  I understood completely that Heavenly Father was going to teach this little boy that day and that lesson needed to be given.

The next day we left for our trip to the temple with President and Sister Makura. The experience there was so comforting. We loved every minute of it.  We listen to President and Sister Makura talk and talk in the back seat in their native tongue to each other like the best friends they are.  It warms our hearts to see how close they are.  Then at the temple we spent two days doing everything: baptisms, initiatory, endowments & sealings!  In the sealing room, having those beautiful black hands acting as proxy for our family members was a tender experience. We even did a sealing session with Johanne Sutherland's family names (She is a good friend from our ward when we were raising our family. She and her husband are serving a mission in the Johannesburg temple). An elderly black woman with the most beautiful blue eyes and her grand daughter joined us.  Needless to say those two days were the absolute best!  You just can not get any better on a mission than strengthening your Branch President and his wife in the Temple of the Lord!  Whee!

We love you all and hope your experiences at home are as wonderful as ours are here in the mission field.  Prepare and plan for your mission “when you have aged a year or two”.  It is an incredible experience and you are God’s hands here upon the earth wherever you are!-

Saying good-bye to our wonderful President and Sister Zackrison

Words cannot express our love and appreciation for this wonderful couple

Our new Mission Family.  President and Sister Thompson and their daughter Nicole

Picture time already only a few days into the mission

Elder and Sister Woolston, Elder and Sister Roberts, Elder and Sister Chandler, President and Sister Thompson

Elder Woodland, Elder North & Tpeiso

On the right is our little convert from the EMT College

Just a few of our 13 baptisms the past two months

Elder Matlanyane and Elder Khophoce still waiting for their visa's to serve in the Botswana Mission

Mission Goodbye dinner for President and Sister Zackrison

Our beautiful Matsiu

Matsiu and Bridget helping Elder Chandler enjoy his pumpkin pie

Brother Mphete's grandfathers home

Brother Mphete's village working to repair holes in the roads.  They carry the dirt buckets and their heads

The work crew!

Even Mothers with babies helping that day!

Sister and Elder Chandler helping fill the buckets

They thought it was great that we just kept filling their buckets!

A kind thank you of a jar of peaches for our service to their village.

Children at MaPalesa's playing games on the IPad before FHE

We love teaching in the villages of Leribe with the Elders

Our temple trip in July with the Makura family

A fun dinner for the neighbors

Three South Koreans and two from Thailand with Matsiu and Bridget

Cooking lessons and FUN with these wonderful neighbor girls

Who ended up with the most on them?  You decide!

So happy to be cooking in Grandma's kitchen

A lesson on the "Plan of Salvation"

Their turn to teach in their very best English

Saying good-bye to Sibongile Magumela as she leaves to serve her mission in England

The Journey Continues to be Amazing!!

What an amazing journey a mission is.  No two days are the same!  Every day you wake up and just know it will be an exciting day and different from any other day you have had on mission!  The experiences we are having, would never happen in any other place, than on a mission.  We wake up every day grateful for another day to share our love of our Savior Jesus Christ and his mission.  Sharing the “Plan of Salvation” with the people of Lesotho is like eating hot apple pie mounded with two scoops of ice cream. And we get to do this day in and day out!  It is a fabulous experience and we will be eternally grateful.

Our mission seems to be focusing around a few main events.  One is teaching and preparing others to go to the temple.  Everything in the Church leads to the temple, so to be an instrument in the hands of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ in helping others to obtain that goal is a rich blessing indeed.  Right now we are teaching 5 families and 3 older single sisters in preparation for their temple experience.  Since we last blogged we have been able to take Elder Matlanyane and Sister Magumela to the temple in preparation for them to leave on their missions.   Then a couple of weeks ago we took President and Sister Mukura and their family from Leribe.  This week we went with Sister Tsimane and Sister Segoete from the Masionokeng Branch.

Each experience is wonderful and unique with these delightful people as we share with them their first experience in the temple. I want to tell you about our experience with the Makura family.  They have two girls, 14 and 8, who had never been out of Lesotho, so what an experience they had!  Just to stay in Patron Housing (similar to a hotel) was a wonderful experience for them. They were in awe at the beauty of the temple grounds and skipped and sang everywhere they went.  It was so delightful to spend those three days with the girls. They had never eaten at restaurants and were so excited to order from the menu. Then tasting milkshakes for the first time was beyond their little taste buds wildest dreams.  Their eyes were as big around as saucers.  Just going up and down on the escalators in the mall was such an exciting experience for them.  However, those girls were quick studys and went up and down many times.  We all take these simple things so much for granted, but to them it might just be the only experience they have in their lifetime away from their little country home. However, the next day at the Temple was absolutely the best. President Makura was so ready to go to the temple.  (Sister Makura had been to the temple a couple of years ago had been patiently waiting for President Makura to go with her).  The experience in the sealing room is just so hard to write in a blog.  We saw three families sealed, two families were from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.  One family had 4 living children and 3 children that had passed and all were sealed for eternity.  President Makura was proxy for one of the sons who had passed away. Then it was the Makura family’s turn to be sealed for time and all eternity! Oh the joys and happiness of serving a mission. 

The 2^nd thing we have settled into on our mission is teaching at both the EMT college and at an orphanage young adults.  We teach a morals class.  The Spirit is powerful as we share together experiences of life and learn from the “For Strength of Youth” pamphlet.  One week we were in Johannesberg and I guess the class missed us, because when we walked through the door, they burst into cheering and yelling and clapping that we were there. We just melted and wanted to cry. They have such love for us as we do for them and the spirit is strong each week!  One Tuesday was Entertainment and Media discussion. Elder Chandler and I had the part to teach about Pornography.  The Spirit was so strong and they felt it. They asked many questions and some were in tears about being able to be forgiven of past sins.  It was an amazing class. 

The first time at the orphanage sponsored by the Apostolic Church, we had over 100 youth that came.  We taught the “Plan of Salvation” and so many had questions.  The ages varied so much that the director is dividing them up.  We are teaching 18 years and above now in one class.  I hope we are able to start teaching on a different evening the other younger teens.  They too would love to learn the same guidelines of safe passage through this dark world that the older young adults are learning. The Reverend is so grateful we are there to teach. He talks to the youth in their language to help them understand what we have just taught.  It is a teamwork effort.

All work and no play makes Tommy a dull boy, so we went to Bloemfontein to see the BYU Young Ambassadors sing and dance!  It was incredible and we enjoyed our trip immensely! Such talent and entertainment (sad we had to be in Africa to see them perform for the first time, when we live 30 minutes away from BYU.)

One Friday we were on our way to Bloemfontein for a Zone conference with President and Sister Zackrison, when the phone rang.  A sister asked me to please prepare the activity for the next day’s Relief Society activity. Yikes!  (But nothing getting up early in the morning couldn’t plan for, right?) We did the "Hold to the Rod" with blindfolds and tempters (Elders).  Only one sister let go.  Such a wonderful sport to show how Satan promises, but doesn't actually give you all he promises.  She ended up with a little strip of fabric, an apron, a couple of pieces of mixed matching jewelry, and orange soda that was mostly salt and water etc.  You get the picture.  The sisters were giggling and laughing so hard hanging on to the rod so tightly (PVC pipe) and trying not to listen to the tempters and the sister that let go (she too was trying to get them to let go)!  Then after, we played 4 different games about "The Tree of Life" going to the scriptures, matching answers to pictures.  The word strips in the balloons they had to pop with their darts (they had never throw darts before) and then match to the paper.  One room they had to pop their balloons however they could and inside was and instruction to draw a certain part of the "Tree of Life" story.  Now that was funny!  Watching these bigger ladies trying to sit down hard to pop a balloon or step down hard was hilarious!  It was just a fun day. 

One day we went with a family (preparing for the temple) to their village to get documentation for her to get a birth certificate.  We were only going to be gone for a couple of hours, but it turned out to be an all-day trip.  It was fun traveling through endless villages and finding out the road to her village had been washed away in the rains, so a new trail lead to their village.  We finally wound around and around until we found the right trail.  Only to find out that the chief of the village had just passed away and he had no replacement yet.  Some people near the chiefs home suggested we go to a different village to get a letter and an official stamp, so we stumbled around in a few other villages only to find, the chief had left the village that day and the office was closed.  What is amazing in that all day trip were the two little ones that were with us, a three year old and 6 month old.  They were happy all day.  The three year old sang “Welcome, Welcome Sabbath Morning” & “I am a Child of God” in English (about the only English he knows) and several other songs for almost an hour.  It was such a peaceful experience to enjoy two small children for such a long day. You will see the humble circumstances of her family by the pictures. They are going to the temple in September or October to be sealed as a family.

We still have water that goes off about once a week, which is usually the day I have chosen to do laundry!  The traffic is still the very hardest part of our mission.  It is too hard to explain the complexity of the traffic and the taxi’s here.  Let’s just say, it is hard to stay happy and positive when you are out in traffic.  We are beginning to think that there are many traffic suggestions, but not many rules, because no one follows the law!  It is a man eat man world in traffic anywhere in Lesotho!  It is the one thing we will not miss when we go home.

Our lovely granddaughter Monica has completed her mission in Florida and is home now.  Our grandson Jacob received his mission call to Spain and leaves in August.  He is off to college for a quick summer term and then leaves two weeks after his sister Megan gets home from her mission in Peru.  It is indeed a privilege to be serving a mission at the same time 4 of our grandchildren are or were serving.  Our grandson Mason is serving in Spain right now too. 

We love our mission and are so grateful for this blessing of being here.  We love you all.  Keep up the good work at home!

Mphethe Family

Sister Mphethe and her family still in the village.  Grandma is 89 years old.

Lesotho inventive tongue for a truck bed

Sister Mphethe's Aunt in her lovely garden

Sister Mphethe's Uncle with his old Massey

Solar power for their electricity

The darling Mphethe children.  Bophelo the singer of "Welcome Welcome Sabbath Morning"

Elder Vanwinkle and Elder MaSinga teaching the "Plan of Salvation" in the orphanage.

The youth at the orphanage studying the "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet

Youth answering questions.

Gerald has looked his entire life for the true Gospel upon the earth! He finally found it!

Gerald's wonderful non-member family supporting his baptism.

Elders teaching all these people in Gerald's village.

Relief Society "Hold to the Rod" activity day!

The gigglely sisters "Holding to the Rod"

This is how Lesotho Sister's teamwork looks!

Someone caught us drawing the story of the "Iron Rod"

Anyone for dart throwing!

Scriptures are being translated into the Sesotho language.  Matt Jorgenson, thank you!

The Makara family is one of our favorite new convert families to have over to dinner!

Remember MaLucy and the pig project.  FHE at MaLucy's.

Sister Segoete and Sister Tsimane at the Johannesburg temple.

Esther, Bernice, and Sister Chandler in front of the temple.

The Makura children at the temple.

Makura family in the waiting room of the temple.  Such happiness and joy!

What an amazing day at the temple for us and the Makura family!