Chance Looses an Implant

Chance had a desperate few hours last week. He couldn't find one of the 

battery packs for his implants.

When he called home, he told us that he had looked everywhere and couldn't find it.

He and his companion had looked everywhere they could think of and had come up empty.

Since they are still spending most of their time in their flat due to COVID 19, it was hard to imagine

where an implant battery pack could have ended up since

it wasn't really going to that many places. 

Chance was starting to get a little nervous about its whereabouts 

and when he did finally find it, he sheepishly told us that

he had found it in one of his pant pockets that was in the laundry.

He may have had a panic moment with his implant battery pack, but on the positive side,

he and his companion are allowed out of the flat for about 3 hours a day now, 

so they have been able to do some exploring of their English hometown.

He has been sending home some nice pictures that give us a feel for his place of residence. 

Here is part of what Chance shared this week in his email home:

The only pictures I took this week were from our walks. We found this amazing Woodlands place that we can explore now and It has been just amazing. The last picture is a cemetery we visited on one of our walks. 

We also had a jeopardy game with the missionaries in our stake and it was so much fun! Elder Sprouse and I did so good and came up in first! It was a lot of question about the bible, book of Mormon, church history, and other miscellaneous things as well. 

We are now allowed to go for 3 hour walks each day and it has been a wonderful blessing! I have loved every minute I have had outside. It is so amazing!

This week I wanted to share a thought from Mosiah 24:14-15 

  14 And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.

  15 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.

This is the Lord talking to Alma and his brethren in their afflictions. They have been through persecution by Amulon and his people. The first thing they did was call out upon the Lord and ask for his help. They didn't try to get themselves out, rather, they trusted in God and called upon him. I love this scripture because whatever our burdens are, however big for small they are, they can be made light. 

The Savior performed his great atoning sacrifice to not only cover our mistakes, sins, weaknesses, and shortcomings, he did it as a means to allow our burdens to be lightened from off our backs and our shoulders. The Savior has already felt all those burdens. We don't need to go through those burdens ourselves because we are not relying on the Savior, that would be defeating the whole purpose of Christ's Atonement. So allow the Savior to help you. Give everything over to him, and trust in him wholly. 

In so doing, we can be strengthened and submit cheerfully to the will of the Lord, and live joyful grand lives! This is my testimony, our burdens can and will be lifted because of the great enabling power of Christ's Atonement. 

I love you all! I hope you have a great week! Please let me know how you are doing and if there is anything I can do for you.

8 Weeks in the Flat

Chance has spent a LOT of time in his flat. I bet he knows every nook and granny of the place he calls home. 

He may be spending a lot of time in his flat, but he has been able to see some incredible things

on his daily walks judging from the pictures he takes.

The cathedral in front of the sun.

An artillery tower.

A really old boat dock stop.

Being out and seeing nature is really good for Chance's mental health.

He loves all things nature and being able to see animals.

He has always been this way.

I am sure that seeing the duck in the pond was a special treat for him.

Here is what Chance had to say this week in his weekly email home:

大家好!

Hello everybody! Another week has come and gone, it seems to fly by like it did when we were outside now. Which is really weird. It has been 54 (7 weeks, 5 days) days since we have been inside. People keep asking me how I do this, and how I have not been going insane. It kind of surprises me too. I have gone a little insane, don't get me wrong, If I hadn't, then there would be something wrong with me haha. I think a lot of it has been that we've been able to continue to focus on others and their needs even though we are all inside. We have been working with a lot of members and this past week we have been able to communicate with a couple of people that could potentially be interested in the Gospel so we will see how that goes!
We haven't been able to teach a whole lot of nonmembers since we have been inside. Most of the people we were teaching returned back to China. However, we have been able to learn a lot of lessons while in Isolation. I have learned a lot about patience, humility, and other things while here. It has been amazing. As my mission president's wife, Sister Green told me last week, "You are getting a crashcourse of a whole lot of lessons that will set you up for the rest of your life." It's so true! We can all learn lessons that will help us when we come out of Quarantine.

I want to share a thought with you that I got from a BYU speech that Elder Bednar gave called, "In the Strength of the Lord." He said:

"There is no physical pain, no anguish of soul, no suffering of spirit, no infirmity or weakness that you or I ever experience during our mortal journey that the Savior did not experience first. You and I in a moment of weakness may cry out, “No one understands. No one knows.” No human being, perhaps, knows. But the Son of God perfectly knows and understands, for He felt and bore our burdens before we ever did. And because He paid the ultimate price and bore that burden, He has perfect empathy and can extend to us His arm of mercy in so many phases of our life. He can reach out, touch, and succor—literally run to us—and strengthen us to be more than we could ever be and help us to do that which we could never do through relying only upon our own power."

I love this. The Savior understands you and I perfectly, even in quarantine. This event is no surprise to him. He felt all of this before it even happened. In those times when you feel annoyed, angry, frustrated, sad, lonely, or anything else in this circumstance, know that the Savior understands. It doesn't just take remembering the Savior and his sacrifice that is going to help us, we have to act. We need to call upon the enabling power of Christ to cover all of our weaknesses, imprefections, and mistakes. We need to pray and say, I need help with this situation I am going through, please give me the strength to endure through it.
In this talk he talks a lot about how in times of hardships, instead of asking to be delivered FROM our trials, we need to ask to be delivered IN our trials.
I invite you to read through this talk. It has a lot of amazing insights and it helped me understand so much more about what the Atonement of Christ is. Here is the link for the talk.

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/david-a-bednar/strength-lord/

Pictures: We've been able to explore a lot of England on our walks everyday! 

Chance Gets to Play Cowboy

The current pandemic has caused a lot of pain and suffering for many people worldwide

and I certainly don't mean to make light of that suffering.

I did have to chuckle a little bit though, when I saw Chance in his make shift mask

for going out......it is a bandana....just like the bandanas that

Chance used to wear when he played cowboy as a  little boy.

Chance also mentioned in his last email home, that his hair was growing a bit long

as he has not been out to get a haircut for quite a while now and the picture of him in his 

 bandana mask also shows that his hair is quite a bit longer than it used to be.

Chance is still spending all day in his flat, only going out when he and his mission 

companion need food once a week and for their daily walk. 

Chance had this to share in his email this week:

I wanted to share with y'all a thought that I had this past week from my Personal Study. I was studying a lot about faith, hope, and charity. More specifically Hope. While I was studying this I read Ether 12:4. It says: 

"4 Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God."

I loved this scripture because it mentions the word Anchor. Hope is an anchor. It helps us to continue forward. It helps us to be rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ and trust that he has a plan, and that he knows the way, and that through him all things can be accomplished. Going along with that, Elder Holland's most recent General Conference address was amazing! And I loved that he shared that even though we have Hope's that may not come true in the near future, we can know that someday, somehow, in some way, we can have our Hope's and righteous desires. 

I hope you all had a fantastic Easter even though it was different. Keep being awesome and keep doing what you can to stay sane. Keep praying for this Coronavirus to be lifted so that we can return to a "normalized life". Don't know that will look like or when that'll be, but we can trust in God.

Chance and I have been talking about the rebirth that spring brings and about how the

earth is putting on a display of her visual delights and smells.

I asked Chance to take pictures of some of the blossoms he is seeing on his walks and he sent 

me this beauty:

I will have to send a picture in return of the tulips that are blossoming all

across our front yard.