The future is as bright as your faith!

Finding the Spartans                                                                                                  May 23, 2016

Hey everyone!

Another great week, as usual, here in the Michigan Lansing Mission. We were blessed with almost perfect weather all week and great opportunities to testify and teach of the Savior and His gospel. Sounds like a good week to me!

Last Monday we went to Grand Rapids for their P-Day where we played football for about three hours and had a blast. What a great sport. It was great to be with so many amazing missionaries and a lot of my good friends. Then we drove to Kalamazoo to trade off, I was with Elder Dunn, from Cedar City, UT (poor guy).

We had a great day at WMU. We had a cool miracle. We prayed to be able to teach someone that we had just met, and we met a guy named Noe (No-ay) with whom we had an awesome lesson. He told us how he felt comfortable around us and was open with us. God answered our prayer because we acted in faith. Miracles happen because of faith and faith is a principle of action, so our actions determine if God will grant miracles, interesting thought.

We went to district meeting in Grand Rapids and then after coming back to E. Lansing we had a lesson with a new investigator from India named Akhil who's really cool. We're excited for him.

Another cool thing that happened this week is that while finding on campus we met MSU's top freshman QB recruit, Messiah DeWeaver. He is supposed to be pretty good but probably won't play for a little while, but he's a pretty big deal. We told a few members of the ward and they were jealous, he didn't show up for his appointment though. :/

We were driving up to Cheboygan (3.5 hours) on Saturday for a baptism and after we left I had a feeling like we shouldn't drive up there but I tried to ignore it and told myself that I'm just worrying for no reason. But the feeling persisted, so I brought it up to Elder Sauer and we thought about it for a while, then decided to go back home. When we turned around we both felt much better. It was interesting since we were doing a worthy cause, but we didn't want to test a prompting of danger. The Spirit really did protect us. It was a great experience.

We were able to spend a lot of time finding on campus this week and we are really hoping and praying it will lead to some success in our area. I learned recently a great lesson about looking to the future. In 3 Nephi 1:18 it says, "They began to fear because of their iniquity and their unbelief." It's no secret I come home soon and it's made me pretty nervous with all the unknown that it holds. This taught me a lot though. Fear is a result of a lack of faith and/or iniquity or wickedness. I know that I am being righteous and repenting as much as I can, so what it comes down to is not lacking in my faith in Heavenly Father and His plan for me but putting my trust in Him and going home with the right attitude of working hard and continuing in my conversion. Hopefully this is helpful to each of you as you look to the future. 

Remember, "The future is as bright as your faith." -President Thomas S. Monson.

Love,
Elder Chalmers

Sorry that I've been so bad at taking pictures lately... Here's a pic of the mission office and Elder Sauer, emailing.

Putting in the Miles                                                                                                   May 16, 2016

Hey everyone!

This week we spent a lot of time driving taking care of some mission needs. If I ever need to drive trucks, I've gotten a little bit of experience now. It was a good week though.

We went up to Traverse City for our blitz with them. I worked with Elder Bos and we had a great time doing some finding. It'd been a while since I had knocked on doors and I really enjoyed it and realized that you don't have as much time to be conversational as you do on campus. It made me aware of the need to really focus and rely on testifying and helping others to feel the Spirit which is the key. We also had a few great lessons.

Wednesday we had district meeting and following that we packed up the Petosky sisters' stuff in the trailer, drove to Petosky and unloaded them into their new fancy apartment then drove the 3.5 hours home. That was about our day.

Thursday we got to work in our area. We did some finding but campus is pretty sparse. We had some lessons though. There was one girl who wasn't too committed to meeting with us, but Elder Sauer did this cool thing where he invited her to experiment and try to meet with us for two weeks, which included meeting twice a week, reading and praying, and to see how it impacts her, and to then make a decision, it was really sweet!

I was at CMU on trade offs on Friday with Elder Mafile'o. We had a great day. I saw some of the people I knew while I was there. We had a few great lessons. One of the guys was totally willing to do whatever we asked him to and the other girl taught us about the Fall! She had just already believed it which was awesome! I love it at CMU. We also got to do some fun service.

Saturday we were in the car all day. We drove for about 8 hours. We went to a baptism in Big Rapids which was my first time back since I left last February. I got to see my buddy Larry who's still doing great. Then we drove to Petosky to give them a new car and take their old one back to Lansing. It was a long day but we had some good talks together. Life is great with Elder Sauer! We get along super well and work really well together. :)

This week I learned some great things in the Book of Mormon. One of the things I read this morning was in 3 Nephi 3:12. "Now behold, this Lachoneus, the governor, was a just man, and could not be frightened by the demands and the threatenings of a robber; therefore he did not hearken to the epistle of Giddianhi, the governor of the robbers, but he did cause that his people should cry unto the Lord for strength against the time that the robbers should come down against them." I love this because it shows how rather than relying on their own ability, or making a game plan right away, they first and foremost relied on the strength of the Lord. This is a pattern we can all follow in our life every day, by beginning each day with prayer and making it a frequent part of what we do. It will impact and change who we are.

I love you all!

Love,
Elder Chalmers