Blacker, Chandler

Hey everyone! This last week was kinda crazy! We had been living outside of our area and walking like 40 minutes everyday to our area but this week we finally moved! We moved all in by Tuesday and on Wednesday we starting working and seeing miracles immediately! For the first time in too long we have really awesome friends that truly want to follow Christ! There were a couple days this week that we simply couldn't stop seeing miracles! People came up to us on the street and said, "Can you come over and teach me?" It was absolutely amazing. We helped a friend come to the church for the first time but it was rather chaotic. We helped him get to the church but he had to leave shortly after. During the second hour it started storming like crazy. We were having our normal Elders Quorum lesson and all of a sudden we heard a loud boom! We went outside and found out that the steeple was struck by lightning! Our big white steeple split in half and fell to the ground! Being mission...

Hello everyone! How are things? I have had such a rollercoaster ride recently. These past two weeks my emotions have been crazier than ever. It all started about 3 months ago, back in the office. I watched the mission very closely. I love watching areas that looked "dead" and seeing a missionary come in and start baptizing like crazy. I watching these missionaries especially closely. I learned from them and thought I had found the secrets to being a good missionary.   Leaving the office, I got put in a dead area. Nobody had been baptized in a long while. I followed the whole process and did everything I could, but to no avail. We weren't teaching anybody. They closed that area down a month later. I got moved to the neighboring area, a strong branch shared between us and hermanas, and was hyped to do some good work. The hermanas had been baptizing frequently, and we were excited. Starting was hard. We had no people to teach so we went contacting. Here I am 2 months later.....

Hello everyone! Happy Easter! This week was incredible. Not because of the actual missionary work we accomplished, but simply because I studied and taught about the Atonement of Jesus Christ all week. We opened this area about 6 weeks ago and honestly we still don't have many friends here. Nobody is progressing and that makes me kinda sad. But thanks to Jesus Christ, I'm happy anyway. We had so many times this week where we simply had nothing to do. It's kinda rare for missionaries to go door to door contacting here. We usually find people with help from members, street contacts, or from other people we are teaching. But we went contacting door to door all week. The visible fruits of our labors were few but it's all good because I know I'm doing my part. I can't think of any cool story to share or anything. Though... fun fact, if I were an hermana I would be getting home tomorrow. Love y'all!  Élder  Blacker Photos: I gave an Easter talk and we made chipa

Op! I love that greeting.  Paraguayans are very specific about the way they greet people.  Op is used to acknowledge the presence of someone you know, but you don't necessarily want to talk to them.  It's almost like honking your car horn in passing. Anywayyy.... I hope you're all doing well.  My week went by really quickly.  We honestly didn't see much success.  There are days where I don't see success and usually I know that I could have done better.  This week was different.  I gave it my all and still nothing happened.  My area is the exact same as last week.  But that's okay.  I feel really happy about it.  I was really focusing on my love for God and for the people this week, and I saw the results.  I was simply really happy and ready to serve, success or not. Also crazy story.  Being inspired by an old comp, we decided that every morning we wanted to wake up and immediately do 50 push-ups to get us going. ...

Hola!!!  How is everyone? These last two weeks have been rather odd.  Everyday this week I have realized that my life is not normal.  We were on our way to the church to make lunch with other missionaries before the conference and someone gave me a weird look.  I thought, "what?  Did I do something wrong?"  Then I looked down and realized that I was a very white american guy wearing a full suit and carrying a giant pot and a bag of chicken.  Then I realized that nothing about that is normal here in Paraguay, but for me it's just life.   I feel like I have grown a lot recently.  I love that the mission provokes so much change.  One thing I started doing was putting a way bigger focus on having the Spirit with me always.  In every single lesson I wanted to feel the spirit and show our investigatores that this is the truth.  We had some very powerful lessons and frankly stopped wasting a lot of time with those that aren't wil...

Hello all!  Hope you're all well! It's been two weeks since I wrote last and we had transfers!  I arrived at my last area (the evil neighborhood with 38 false churches) in the middle of the last transfer and I've already left!  Well... sorta.  I got moved just across the bridge to an area that already had hermanas.  My new comp and I split their area in half and we took the half closer to the bridge.  We are now working in this new area that we just created (Rama 2) AND my old area across the bridge (ita paso) AND that one town an hour away where I described so many miracles in my last email (coronel bogado).  We have 3 areas!  The craziest part is that we are trying to close down the ita paso branch, but open up the coronel bogado branch, while opening up a new area in the rama 2 branch.  We still don't have many people to teach but we're working on it! My new comp is amazing.  His name is Elder Linton.  We are just totally on the ...