Thanksgiving was Wonderful!

Hello Family!!

So great to hear about your holiday and your awesome races! Way to go! And WOW Maren Hale (Maren was just called to Megan’s same  mission)  is a friend of mine from my ward last year, she was one of my FHE group leaders and the little sister of one of my best friends in the ward! Wow, I can't wait to see her :)

This week was another grueling and amazing week. The demanding schedule of service all day and proselyting all night is starting to take its toll, but I am still happy to do it :). We have all had to back off a little bit, for all of our back's sakes. That is one good thing about having all these member volunteers come in on the weekends--fresh blood and backs ha-ha.

Thanksgiving was wonderful. We got up and went to Flushing  Meadows Corona Park (it has the big globe from  the “Men in Black” movie) to play football with a few other zones. It was a lot of fun and amazing to run around and play outside ( I forgot how much I loved the smell of turf.) Our zone came all dressed in crazy ties and we looked good.  I will send pictures. After football, a group of Latinos challenged us missionaries to a soccer game. The missionaries ran out of players so they invited me to join (they were desperate ha-ha). It was a lot of fun and I held my own.  I even stole the ball a couple times. As one of the elders told me,"You just ruined that kids day" ha-ha. I guess BYU 4th ward soccer prepared me for my mission ha-ha.

This week all of our service has been in Far Rockaway, and it is the "hood." We definitely are the only white people walking the streets. I love it and I’m meeting a lot of interesting people. I am really learning the power of loving and serving people different than me. This past week we helped a lesbian couple (at least I was pretty sure they were) clean out their house,. They were very grateful and it was a privilege to serve them. They invited us over for a cookout next summer when the house is restored :) On Saturday we helped a Mr. Washington from South Carolina. He was a big black man with a large cross on a chain around his neck. He is probably one of the most humble and good hearted men I have ever met. When we first got there, the members and missionaries from the North mission (they came to help out), began to take the lead and such. (It is really funny being a sister missionary because no one takes you seriously when it comes to cleaning out basements, even when you have been dedicating your whole life to it for the past month). I finally pushed my way through and told Mr. Washington what needed to be done with  the dry wall (how you have to take 4ft out because mold grows up, how any furniture touched by the water must be cut out or thrown out etc. etc.). He looked at me  and said excitedly, "Dang girl! You Smart! You know wha' chu' doin'! I like you!" And then we got to work.  

As we were working Mr. Washington went around repeating over and over "alleluia amen!" Sis Simplicio had a great talk with him and he bore his testimony to us about his relationship with God and how we were a literal answer to his prayer. It was beautiful and felt really good. When we ended, he sang us a song. It was beautiful and full of soul. We then sang "I am a child of God" for him and the spirit entered into the room so powerfully. It was neat.

It is crazy how the Lord is blessing us to know what to do. Turns out that FEMA approached our APs and wanted to know how we do our work orders so they could model their system after ours.

I love you all.  The Spirit is real! Our church has a direct connection to heaven, as well as the authority to act in God's name on earth through the Priesthood.

Megan

 

Miracles seem to follow us

Dear Family,

 

Good luck with your race this week! I am sorry you can't run this year mom, what a bummer. I guess this year will be up to Allie, Chip and Dad to carry on the family turkey day 5k legacy ha-ha. But Stephen, check and make sure its okay for you to run it. NCAA can be crazy about these things during the year, so I would ask your coach if you haven't already. I love hearing about what you are doing for thanksgiving too! Have fun with the Burgoynes! You will have to give them all hugs for me :). Oh and Stephen, I met Danny's brother once in the Marriott School. He is very nice if you haven't met him yet.

 

 

For thanksgiving we are having a big lunch for the whole mission tomorrow, and zone turkey bowls on Thursday. Hopefully the elders will actually throw the sisters the ball ha-ha. Then the dinner invites are building. The ward members see it as a great honor to have the missionaries over, all of them. So we will see how it plays out...I am kind of nervous ha-ha. Also some of the communities we have helped out have invited us to their feasts.

 

Service this week has been nuts, but great. The work is getting really nasty because of the mold that is beginning to set in. We also are branching out. Our zone got sent to Far Rockaway this weekend. As some of the elders that serve there call it, the "Hood." It is neat to serve so many different people. They also all have nasty crawl spaces.

 

Yesterday we had a really powerful experience. We were helping a black lady named Bonnie. She is a single mother of 2 teenagers. She had a crawl space that needed cleaning. We started with a prayer with her as we usually do and blessed her, her family and her home and then got to work. Probably the nastiest experience of my life. Imagine this, a 4 foot ceiling, a space covering the entire bottom of the home, full of fallen soaking wet and moldy insulation. I got to be the lucky few who endulged. We spend 2 hours down there ripping apart the insulation and shoving it out of a little vent hole and the trap door. We still had fun doing it. It was me with 3 members down there. There was a nursing student, actress, and personal trainer all from the manhattan singles ward, it was an interesting mix haha. It smelled so bad that one of the girls was threating to puke (it was that gross) and I quickly told her (half way joking haha), that we are all on that edge and so she better not or we all will haha. Anyway, we were hurrying to finish because bonnie had her dialysis appt. When we did finish, we crawled up and she was so grateful that she hugged us even though we all smelled like we had been playing in a moldy crawl space. She also went on to say that while we were working she got a call from the hospital saying that they had a kidney for her and were ready to operate today. She had been waiting for that call for 9 years! My companion was with her when she got the call, and Bonnie immediatley attributed the blessing to the prayer we had offered. What a miracle. We asked if we could leave with a prayer she exclaimed, "of course! I could sure use another one of those!"

 

It is nasty work but I am so grateful to be able to serve these people like this. It also is amazing to witness the miracles that seem to follow us, more than just cleaning basements. I know God lives and that this is His work. I love you all! Have a great week!

 

Megan

Megan is pictured in this week's Church News!  See the article and the picture at : http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/62973/Helping-Hands-inspire-hope-gratitude-in-storm-victims.html

Sister Megan Chipman of the New York New York South Mission carries a box as part of clean up Belle Harbor in the New York City Borough of Queens.

 

New York Daily News article about the Helping Hands volunteers- Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Read article at http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1201469

The work is messy, nasty, & very rewarding

 

Hello family! How are you all?

 

I am sorry this is so late! Due to service, Veterans Day, weird library hours, and things taking unexpectedly long today.....this is coming later than usual.

 

I just got your letter Stephen! Wow was it good to hear from you and wow can you make me laugh, I miss your humor so thank you :). Mom I also got your package and turkeys and both were perfect. I am going to say to hold off on the rain slicker. I was thinking about asking for it and I might regret it, but honestly it would just get ruined and getting wet with rain water can't be as bad as the sewage water we play in these basements ha-ha. Also, a very kind stake sent in an entire church gym full of clothes that we were able to search through. I didn't take a lot cause I am pretty set with your package and the couple things that I bought (a $7 jacket and some rain boots.) The best find was a winter coat that I can trash! And it's blue! Your sending my winter coat was not in vain though. This past snow storm was FREEZING (and I rarely complain about it being cold outside) and so I am grateful to have the liner to layer with. Thank you so much again! ----Oh and the knee pads are just what I needed too!

 

Well I will try to answer some questions :). At first we were just going house to house asking for help, but now they have a "referral" or "work order" system. (The first title was getting too confusing!). Essentially we handed out a bunch of flyers with one of the APs phone numbers on it and people call in for help. We are trying to limit the help to members, first responders, elderly and other people who really cannot do it themselves. The APs and president then organize everyone in groups and send us there. This past weekend, over 1000 members bused into the area and also helped us out. We do everything from hauling stuff out to tearing apart dry wall and taking out insulation and floors. I really wasn't expecting this part of being a missionary, but I am learning quickly how to use hammers, razors and crow-bars. Some of the elders consider me the "dry-wall master", and I often feel like the "insulation queen" because that is usually what my jobs entail. (Side note, pumped insulation is nasty stuff!). When you do it all day almost everyday, it isn't tricky to figure out. Also it doesn't take much skill to tear things apart.

 

It is very messy and nasty work. The other day I was pulling soaking wet insulation out of the ceiling above me. there was so much water, it was just pouring out of the ceiling. It also is pretty dangerous and I know the Lord is protecting each of us. I have felt the spirit guide me and protect me. We all have masks and gloves and even though I often find myself surrounded by rusty nails and swinging hammers, I feel safe :) and the work is very rewarding.

 

My back and leg are miraculously not even a problem. I do try to be careful and leave the big jobs to the Elders, but I really have been able to lift and move close to how I used to. At one of the houses, I helped a man who was a good friend of the family we were helping carry some big boards to the beach where they were piling the trash. He told me that he was impressed and that I was a "strong woman," and later he let me teach him about the restoration and was really interested. Amazing how the Lord can heal us and can use all of our talents, even a strong body, to open doors to the gospel :).

 

I have had so many touching experiences this past week I wish I had time to share them all. One in particular, we helped an elderly couple, Mary Ellen and Andrew this past weekend. They both had lived in the Rockaways for over 70 years and had never seen such devastation occur. They both lived in their basement and so lost everything in the storm. When we got there, Mary Ellen told us their horrific story of how they survived the storm. Like everyone else, they didn't evacuate. When the water came in they ran to the top floor with their daughter where their tenant lived. There they tied themselves together with electrical cords so that if they got swept away, they would be found together. They literally just lied on the floor like that and waited to die. I guess the water was really scary when it came. Many of the firefighters and cops that we have helped have stated that it was probably the single scariest moment of their lives (and many of them were at the world trade center when it fell). Crazy stuff. Anyway, we helped them finish up their clean up. When we said a "closing prayer" with them (we begin and end each home with a prayer), Andrew cried. When I went up to shake his hand, he looked me in the eye and said, "Thank you so much, I was so depressed this morning and for lifting my spirits I can never repay you." to which I replied, " You are very welcome sir, we are happy that we could help. Some jobs are a lot easier with an army. To which he looked me in the eye again and said, "Yes, especially when it is God's Army." When we all got outside we took pictures with him and his wife. She wanted the picture because she wanted to remember what angels look like.

 

Andrew's comment really got me thinking. I even shared that experience and talked about it in the short talk I had to give at our small missionary zone service sacrament meeting. That was another amazing experience. I only was given about 45 minutes notice and so I prayed that the spirit would be clear and direct in what I should share. I opened my preach my gospel and scriptures and was taught a powerful truth. Very similar to the one you shared your email Dad :). I wanted to answer the question, "Who is God's Army?" When I gave the talk, The spirit bore powerful witness to me, and everyone in the room that God's army are those that make covenants with God to become like His son Jesus Christ. And when they do this, others can recognize their Savior in His army’s countenances and works.

 

I love you all! Till next week! Thanks for everything and the prayers!

 

The following is a beautiful video depicting the work done by the missionaries and other members in the area: http://vimeo.com/joshuabrown/hurricanesandy

 

The group that did the video also setup a facebook page dedicated to the cleanup efforts along with some pictures there also: http://www.facebook.com/groups/mormonhelpinghandsnyc/

The following is a recent article about the clean up efforts done by the missionaries: http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/new-round-of-cleanup-projects-scheduled-by-mormon-helping-hands

 

The following are some pictures from the article as well as sent by the mission.  Megan is pictured in the first two.

 

 

Going out & serving is my religion in its purest form

Hello family!!!

Mom, Thank you SOO much for sending me stuff! I was just about to ask for some things and you already sent them!! Sister Simplicio and I went and bought some little things but it is going to get cold fast (already has) and the need for basement clean up is endless!

I have thought a lot about what I would write about today because the transformation that has taken place in me and what I have experienced is incredibly difficult to describe. Last week there was a night that I was on my knees just crying and begging for help because I felt so weak and was so overwhelmed with being a missionary and learning a language and being away from home. This past week I have almost broke down crying several times, but it is different. Last week it was because of my issues and difficulties. This week is because of the suffering and devastation in the lives of the people we have been serving. And even though I am exhausted, I have been filled with joy, a joy I haven't felt before. I know it is because my focus is beginning to turn from myself to the people I am serving. Amazing how you really can selfishly serve someone, by thinking of yourself and how you are performing. It’s a powerful lesson and powerful to realize that Christ served and took no thought of himself.

Yesterday was one of the most powerful sacrament meetings I have been apart of. All the missionaries in my zone (about 25) went to the English ward dressed in our work clothes. We took the sacrament and then left to go clean out more basements.
The spirit bore a powerful testimony to me that this is my religion in its purest form. Going out and doing good and helping those in desperate need as Christ would. It was neat to be apart of.

Personally, each day this week, I have been serving in the Rockaways. It is only 20 min south from the mission office. It is on a peninsula that runs east to west. The storm surges came up on both the north and the southside and met in the middle. 6ft of water in some areas!! All the streets and everything look like a beach. Everyone's basements and some 1st floors were completely full of water! Everything was destroyed and needs to be thrown out-including all the dry wall and insulation. A lot of people live in the basement or do their laundry down there. Many people lost ALL of their clothes to keep them warm. The govt has kind of showed up with water. The natl guard and police are EVERYWHERE mostly to keep the peace. For a while it was in marshall law-- and it still might be. There also is NO power and so no heat or lights, and no one knows when there will be. This isn't even the famous breezy point, and there are several buildings and homes burned down too.

The craziest day was when 3 other sisters and I helped at a neighborhood clothes and food distribution. There were two ladies who were seeing their neighborhood kids freeze and so wanted to do something about it. It was insane the need. Full grown men were almost brought to tears and I was helping them look for something to keep their families warm. Some people were so cold that they had a hard time looking through the clothes. They were so grateful and I wished I could have done more than just hand them a pair of pants.

I wish I had more time to describe everything; I will have to write it in letters. I will ask and see what they could use, you know, the missionaries could all use some coats and boots to trash. Maybe you could ask the mission office for ideas or if you could do that. Also a lot of supplies are coming in now for the area, but in a couple weeks.

I miss and love you all! Thank you for your support and prayers! This area sure needs it.

Love,

Megan

 

 

New York Times video clip about the damage in Rockaways:

http://www.nytimes.com/video/2012/11/04/nyregion/100000001884759/lights-out-in-the-rockaways.html#100000001884759