HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!
I love you all, here are some pictures from a branch picnic that the missionaries were all invited to today:
con mucho cariño,
Elder Stewart-Chester
Hey familia,
HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY! I love you all, here are some pictures from a branch picnic that the missionaries were all invited to today: con mucho cariño, Elder Stewart-Chester
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Hola querida familia!
It has been a crazy week! (At least weather wise) It was really heating up and then all of the sudden this week has been pretty chilly. We had a tornado touch down right outside of the city of Rockford. It ran for 20 miles! But luckly just in rural farmland areas. So that was fun! The sirens were going off that night with lots of hail and lightning, I'll send a picture. Some pretty great things have been happening this week! One highlight that I will share was meeting a woman named Maria Inez. We were out and about talking to everyone that we could, and got referred to knock on her door. The way that she responded to our message was definitely another one of those, "wow" moments on my mission of how prepared people are. She is a religious woman who has been seeking to come close to God all of her life. She has visited many different churches throughout the years but has never really found anything that she felt completely settled in. When we taught from the Book of Mormon and read passage about "other sheep" (John 10:14-16) Her eyes got a wide and she said, "I knew it! No one else at my church believes me, but I knew that there had to have been more prophets in the world than just those in the Bible." It was really impressive and we have already taught her twice! Pray that all goes well! Another hilarious experience happened later in the week when I was on exchanges with Elder Western. We met a man walking on the street on his way to the liquor store and offered to replace his beer with a burger from McDonnalds. We sat down and talked with him and the poor man had quite the story. The funny part is that I pulled out my pen to write our phone number down and he said totally serious, "Put away your pen, man. I've got a pen fettish whenever I see nice pens." Hahaha He was going to steal my pen after my companion had bought him a burger. We laughed about it. My title "Jambo" means hello in Swahili. I gave a baptismal interview to a lady yesterday who is from the African Congo. I had to have a translator in order to communicate. It just goes to show how many different cultures we come across here! It is so much fun. They are incredibly kind people! I love my mission more than words can describe! I love the people of Illinois. Los quiero mucho familia! Con amor, Elder Stewart-Chester So our investigator took us to a 12 story building in downtown Rockford that used to be the Rockford trust builing, his company is renovating it. Aparently, Al Capone used to use the building during the prohibition. It has huge vaults and secret tunnels and entrances. Intense! Here are a few others from our area:
Heyyy! You can all plan on me skyping in next week! I am excited to see you. My schedule will be pretty flexible so you can plan for anytime after 1PM your time. What time is your church? So that I can try to plan around that? Love you all! See you next week! *besitos* Elder Stewart-Chester 1 Our investigator from Honk Kong, Farren
2 The Brandeu family from Romania 3 The Dasilva family (Brazilian) 4 Making salsa ft. Elders Riggins and Elder Maughan 1 Thomas and Brother Schwartz
2 (Grandma) Betty, Mikyra, and Serenity at church! 3 The Korella family 4&5 Logan Judd, I gave him a tie and the Judd family Ayy
Familia How is everyone?? Wow! What an incredible week thus far! The mission is incredible, and Illinois is incredibly wet. We have received and incredible amount of rain recently. Hello humidity. SO. The biggest news of the day is that I am being transferred!!! (Well, I actually knew this two weeks ago but it is still the news of the day). That's right folks. Area number 5! *drum roll please* I will be headed up to Rockford! There is a Spanish branch up there in the city and my companion and I will be 'whitewashing' into the area. (It means that we are both brand new to the area). I could not be more excited. My new companion will be Elder Gubler. I picked him up from the airport about 6 weeks ago so he will be starting his second transfer with me as his trainer. In the mission we call it, 'whitewash district training'. Oh boy. It is going to be fun. It has been an interesting process in the whole selection of things this transfer. There are many changes happening throughout the mission. But I have to admit, the best part was sitting in an interview with President Griffin in his office looking at the transfer board and having him ask me, "Where would you like to go?" Hahaha. Don't worry, the Lord made the final decision. So pretty much my entire week has been the ups and downs and all around of transfer preparations. We are going to pick up the new missionaries in a few hours from the airport. And then I will officially be transferred tomorrow. Time is flying by incredibly fast! This week we also saw like 1.5 mil miracles in our area, which is pretty unusual figuring that our schedule was so tight. The best part was Sunday. We had 6 investigators at church and some of them I have been working with for along time. We also put Thomas on date to be baptized, so I am hoping that I will return to the area soon to see some of these people make promises with God. I am excited looking towards the future, there is much to do and things to accomplish! I am grateful to know that my Heavenly Father is mindful of me and my family. I feel very indebted to many different people in my life for the things which I have been blessed with, but ultimately, I know that there is a God in Heaven that provides all things for all people. I couldn't be happier! Know that I love you all! Que tengan una buena semana! Los quiero mucho! Elder Stewart-Chester 1&2&3 Our tire popped on our way home... 4 five elders on air-mattresses in our apartment ft. the 'tate' smile Que tal paisanos?!
It is a wonderful week here in Illinois! The sun is shining and everything feels beautiful. I heard a funny phrase the other day: When the weather is nice enough to be in a short sleeve white shirt and tie an Elder once called it "Full Mormon-Mode". So yeah, it has become "Full Mormon" weather and draw the gaze of just about everyone that sees us. Oh boy, I love being a missionary hahaha! I don't have anytime to write but I will send lots of pictures. This week was: -Exchanges -Bed bugs adventures -Stake conference -and a man gave me an Easter egg that was blessed with Holy water. Legit, I know. I love you all! Con mucho amor, Elder Stewart-Chester 1319 Butterfield Rd Ste 522 Downers Grove, IL 60515 1&2 our apartment:/ 3 Elder Riggins and I (my companion) 4 Sister Griffin giving me a haircut 5 Elder Moore making his face 6 the egg BUENAS TARDES Hola familia! Que tal? Como les va? Hey, it's me again. Another week has rushed by and things have been pretty exciting over here! The woodridge ward has some incredible people to work with and we have seen some great success. We also had our back to back to back exchanges this week which was fun. But I should probably explain the exciting part: Throughout my time in this apartment I have been getting little bug bites, like one or two a week or so. I didn't really think too much about it, but the past 2 weeks or so it has been a little worse. So we told our apartment maintainance and we had an inspection done. Well, my title is "chinches" which means bed bugs. So yup, they found some. Super gross I know, but the worst part is we hade 3 companionships from around the mission that were coming in to exchange in our apartment. NOT A GOOD IDEA. So this week we quarunteed our apartment, washed our clothes, and went out looking for places to sleep. We slept at the mission office one night which was fun, and we ended up going to Arlington Heights to exchange with the Elders in their own area. It was all over the place but we made some fun memories. This whole week has been spectacular and moving to me as I have contemplated the last week of the Savior's mortal life. It is such wonderful holiday to remember such significant events. This week I knocked on a man's door who said some wonderfully powerful things about believing in God. He made mention that he grew up in a religious environment, but that as he had grown older and become more enveloped in his studies he came to the conclusion that was offered by scientific theory as to the creation of the earth and the evolution of mankind. Then he talked about a reawakening in his life as he proceeded by boldly saying, "There is absolutely no purpose in a life that was created by mere coincidence". I am grateful to know that this life is not just happenstance. We DO have a purpose. I am grateful to know that God does exist, and that He sent His Only Begotten Son to the world to provide a way to live with him again. I love sharing this knowlege with other people! I hope you can too! This is the best time of my entire life. I love my mission and I love the people of Illinois! I love you all too! Que tengan una semana muy buena! Los quiero mucho, Con amor, Elder Stewart-Chester 1&2&3 Exchanges with Elder Atkinson (crazy becuase he started his mission in my zone when I was first in Aurora) 4 Exchanges with Elder Royce 1 Service project - we dug a pretty sweet trench
2 Sleeping in the mission office 3&4 Exchanges with Elder Reynolds 5&6 Super stud Nash Hanberg - A kid in our ward when we had FHE with their family Familia,
Como estan? Que de nuevo? Everything is going super well over here in Illinois, in fact, it is even starting to warm up and the rain is less frequent haha! I love it here so much. The area is pretty busy as per usual and there is always things to be doing. We saw some pretty choice miracles this week as well! This week we had 2 zone conferences and 2 exchanges, so it was slightly less swamped. This next week is our only week this transfer without a meeting, so we are going to get some serious work done! We have back to back to back exchanges. By the end of the transfer we will have exchanged with 12 different companionships. Some highlights from the week: While on exchanges we went looking for some of the investigators that we have that we haven't been able to contact in a while. Unfortunately, one of the doors that we knocked on we could hear the people inside but they wouldn't open up. So we smiled and turned around to knock the apartment door right behind us across the hall. A man opened up standing in his underwear, his name is Jamal. We talked with him for a little while and then he let us in to say a prayer in his home. We started teaching him (btw he put some pants on) and turns out his has tons of the most perfect questions - the ones that we have the answers to! So we are going back again tomorrow. It is amazing how the Lord gives everyone a chance to accept His Gospel. Another miracle was a dinner appointment that we had with Farren! I've talked about her before...she is the lady from Hong Kong that has been investigating the church on and off for a really long time. Anyways, we don't actively teach her, but she invites us over for meals sometimes. This time she also invited a friend, Jimmy, who ended up being a long lost member of the church! She didn't even know that he had been baptized already haha! Super incredible. So now we can send his info to the missionaries in his area. Farren also came to church yesterday! One last cool experience was with our investigator, Ahmad. He is a muslim man that grew up as a Christian. Probably one of the nicest people you will ever meet. We stopped by on Saturday night and he asked if he could come to church the next day, so of course we got him a ride! When he goes to church he wear the traditional turban of his faith, which is bright red and pretty noticeable in our congregation. During fast and testimony meeting I could tell that he really wanted to go up and bear his testimony, but he was nervous. So finally I told him that I would go up with him if he would like. So we went up together and he bore a simple powerful testimony, even as someone of a different faith. Our ward loved it and loved him. I am grateful for a God that sees past any cultural differences and appearances. We are all His children. I am also grateful to belong to an all-inclusive organization such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This truely is Christ's church on the earth today. I love Him I love you all! I hope you have a fantastic week, Con mucho amor, Elder Stewart-Chester 1319 Butterfield Rd Ste 522 Downers Grove, IL 60515 FOTOS: 1&2 Exchanges w/ Elder Maughan from Pete, ID 3&4 Zone conferences, We matched with President&Sister Griffin 5 Elder Dallas Anderson came to visit the mission! He is such a stud |
Fletcher Stewart-ChesterFletcher is called to serve the Lord in the Chicago West Spanish Speaking mission. This is a blog of his letters and adventures CategoriesArchives
July 2017
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