Chandler Webb has the Heart of a Champion

          Mom my mission president wants you to forward this to the Webb family when you get their email. Also I need you to pray for my companion today. Last night his cousin who was one of his best friends was murdered. They grew up together. Please pray for him to know that his cousin is happy and is in paradise.

          Dear Webb Family and Friends,

     This morning I got the news from my mission president that Chandler has passed away. He asked me to send an e-mail to all of you today. I feel so lucky to have been able to know one of the funniest, happiest, and best men that has ever lived on this earth. I'm sure that heaven is laughing a little harder now that Chandler is there. I will never forget all of the memories that I have with him. All of the doughnuts that we did in the burgundy sentra, all the cliff jumping in Lake Powell, all the times me and him would try and get super tan but then just end up getting horribly sunburned, his unparalelled love for the Jazz, and especially all the times that him and I would go get Panda Express together. I could always count on Chandler to make me laugh and smile.

     It's true that Chandler was funnier than anyone, but something that I loved even more about Chandler was his loyalty as a friend and how good of a person he really was. He was always out to make others days happier and to make others feel as though he cared. He was such a good example of how to help other people by bringing them happiness.

     This morning when I got the call from President Clements about Chandler. I was obviously devistated. The one thing that has brought me peace right now is the knowledge that I have that I will never ever truly have to say goodbye to Chandler. Only see you later. This morning I was reading in the scriptures trying to find something that would help me out and I found this scripture. In Alma 22:18 it says The sufferings and death of Christ atone for their sins, through faith and repentance, and so forth; and that he breaketh the bands of death, that the grave shall have no victory, and that the sting of death should be swallowed up in the hopes of glory.

     As I read this scripture I realized something. Chandler Webb has the heart of a champion. And he fought hard these past couple weeks for all of us so that we could have a few more precious weeks with him. And then I realized that when Chandler passed away this morning, he didn't lose... He won. Because of the Savior and Chandler's decision to be faithful to this gospel, he will live forever and ever. I know without a doubt that Chandler is prepared to meet God. A week before Chandler went into a coma this is the email that he sent me. "Hi Marshall Tis chandler, I tried to text you the day before you left but apparently your phone was all broke but anywho I just thought if let you know I started my papers on Sunday, but enough with the boring stuff let's talk Jazz, trey Burke broke his finger and is out for 4-6 weeks, so I'm all depressed, how's the MTC, any hot girls? Lol how's Chinese class, that's cray you can speak that language soon, well I'm proud of you and all that stuff loves you"

     After that I wrote him an email telling him that I'm way excited for him and that I know he'll be an awesome missionary. I told him I can't wait to see him in two years and he wrote me this back. 

     Ya I'm way excited to see where I go (it better not be Russia or I'm not going) but ya it sucks I never got to say an official good bye to you:( but I guess we will just have to have the best hello ever in 2 years. In case you were wondering I now rep 9 plates benching and what's kinda weird is that during this letter I am writing some guys just knocked on my door and told me where the singles ward is, and that's weird because I was wondering where it was and know I know. Well I'm going to take a nap now, I'm out like a fat kid playing dodgeball

    Chandler knew that he was suppose to serve a mission. He was prepared by God to do it and I'm sure that he will be a great missionary where he is serving. Evidenced by this stirring email we can see that not only did he love the Jazz and his friends, but more importantly he loved God and was willing to give two years of his life to His service (except just not in Russia but that's ok because I'm sure he's warm enough in heaven). God has promised great blessings to those who are righteous like Chandler. In Alma 40:12 it talks about where we go after we die and where those who are good live. It says "And then shall it come to pass. that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow."

     I know that right now Chandler is smiling, that he is happy, and that he is at peace. The people in heaven truly are priveledged to have a man as great as him with them. I love Chandler so much. Chandler told me that we would have the best hello ever in two years and it looks like I'll just have to wait a bit longer then that but I'm sure it will be glorious. I can't imagine a better place to meet a friend again than in paradise.

     To my friends. Remember all the good times we had... That should be easy because there never was any bad ones. Remember Chandler and strive to do your best to honor him. Remember that he will always be with us and will walk beside us on our missions and throughout the rest of our lives. I love you guys so much.

     Webb Family. Thank you so much for your son. He was a light to the world. His smile, his hair, and his spirit shined bright in a world that is pretty dark. No matter how sad my day was I could always count on your son to make it better. I know that this is a hard time. I remember when I lost my brother and I felt absolutely horrible every second of the day. But the one thing that gave me hope was the thought of how happy we will be when we meet again. I wrote this letter this morning when I found out about your son and it is helping me get through today. "My tears are heavy because Chandler and I have a mortal separation. But I know that through the Atonement of Christ, my tears can be just tears of anticipation. For we'll be together again walking through the golden streets of heaven, we'll laugh and reminisce while sipping celestial slurpees from the neighborhood 7-11" I know you will see your son again. Thank you for all you have done for me and for your love. I love you all so much and will pray for you every day.

I'm Coming to Minnesota With the Fire of the Gospel

UPDATE:  Marshall called from the airport today!  He spoke Hmong, and it was sooooo fun to hear!  He is so excited to get to Minnesota. His friends were at the airport flying out to  play in a UVU soccer game, and sent this photo:

Dear Everybody,

     HEYYYYYYYYYYY. So I have one hour left in the MTC and Im getting so excited to head out and preach the gospel.

Im finally going to meet the amazing people who I know absolutely nothing about. I hope their ready for me because Im coming to Minnesota with the fire of the gospel and the strength of all of your prayers. I don't know if I've learned a lot at the MTC or nothing at all I guess we'll find out in the next couple hours. But if there's one thing that I've learned here it's really not about how much you know, it's about how hard you try and how strong the Spirit is with you. When you have the Spirit amazing things start to happen and I see it every day. As all of you know Im definitely not the brightest guy in the world but somehow God has allowed me to pickup this language(I'm sure I really don't know it but right now I think I do) and Im so grateful for it. I took two years of high school spanish and Im pretty sure that I only know how to say hello and goodbye. Queso and Buenos noches right? haha jk but really the Gift of Tongues is real and I see it every day.

       I dont have any more time but I just want to tell all of you that I love you and thank you so much for everything you've done for me and all the awesome times that we have had which have prepared me to go and teach my people in Minnesota. I know God lives and that he loves us and that through Him all is possible. Through His power we can truly do miracles. I know without a shadow of a doubt that the Book of Mormon is true and that when we read it daily we cannot go astray. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that he translated the Book of Mormon. I have serious respect for that man and no matter how many times someone tells me Joseph Smith is a liar or that he is an evil man, I will have no problem politely replying that Joseph Smith has done more for them than they could ever imagine and that when he was just 14 years old the God of the universe and His Son Jesus Christ really did appear to him. I know that to be true and no one will ever take that from me. I know this church is true and I love it with all my heart. I think the reason that I know it's true is that it makes me happy. Take away all the awesome stuff like through the priesthood you can split the Red Sea or that you can live in heaven with your family and friends FOREVER(which is pretty awesome) or that through God and this church we can perform daily miracles, and I would still be a member of this church because it truly does make me happy. Anyways its time to head out. Love yall and I'll sure to send some pics of me and the Hmong Clan Leader when I meet him. Peace Out.

 Me and my tus khub halloween costume. He's the baseball player and I'm the scuba diver

Ghost bustin at the MTC:  ME and my teacher brother Koob Meej

Cool clouds and whatnot

 Me and my district doin the Hmong pose with our tus nais khus tij laug Lor

 Elder Henrie & his HS pal, Elder  Johnson

SNOOWWWWWWWW

My Doctrine is Christ's Doctrine

Hey everyone,
So first things first congratulations to JW and Jess for the new member of their family. I heard that you named him Charles John and you're calling him Charlie but he will forever be Moose to me. He looks so much like James it's crazy. Since I can't be there to impart my wisdom to him for the next two years I request that you teach him only two things. 1. Teach him to love the UTES! 2. Teach him to love Panda Express. If you can teach him those two things he'll be successful in life. Mom that is such an amazing experience that you had and I would love if you wrote me about it in more detail because that is so awesome. Dad it turns out that I have been spelling my name wrong this whole time. It's actually spelled Huaj Vam and it means Hope. I'll try and get Hmong names for the rest of you sometime soon. Mom I have to tell you a way funny story that happened with me and my companion. I was showing him pictures of our family and I showed him the one of when me and you were standing next to each other outside the Englands house at Junior Prom and he asked if you were my girlfriend. I laughed so hard and when he asked me why I was laughing I told him that it was my mom. 

   This week was so awesome and I had a lot of really cool experiences that have been a huge blessing. During one of my classes we had two native Hmong elders who were leaving to serve in Wisconsin the next day but they wanted to come talk to us. They testified to us about the importance of missions and it was really cool but even cooler than that, they talked about how grateful they were to all of us for going to teach their people. Then one of the elders got in our districts faces a little bit and told us that we needed to learn more and work harder. It was really good for our district to hear and we have been working a lot harder ever since. Also we had two devotionals, one on Sunday and one Tuesday and both of them were crazy awesome. The speaker Sunday said something that I don't think I will ever forget. He told us a quote from Bruce R. McConkie(pretty sure I spelled that wrong) and he says this, "My acts are Christ's acts, My voice is Christ's voice, and my doctrine is Christ's doctrine." During our district review after our devotional things were going well but not quite as well as they were in past reviews. I stood up and promised the elders 3 things. I told them they would learn the language faster, feel the Spirit more strongly, and serve a successful full time mission if they could tell themselves each night when they went to sleep that, "Today my acts were His acts, My voice was His voice, and His doctrine was my doctrine." After my testimony one of the elders stood up and bore one of the most powerful testimonies I have ever heard and he promised all of us that he was oing to work hard to learn the language

and be a good missionary. It has been amazing to see the change in him since that night.

     Something pretty scary happened last night. I was talking to one of the Elders in my district and he told me how he had been crying himself to sleep like every night and that he had been thinking of going home. I was absolutely terrified because I love him so much. I told him that before we said anything else we should say a prayer. After the prayer we talked for a little bit and he's doing a lot better now and he's working hard to learn the language. It really has been a miracle to see how much God looks out for His missionaries and wants them to succeed.

     So yeah things are going really well here now and this week has been amazing. I hope Jameser gets feeling better and that Moose does well. I love you all.

Elder Huaj Vam

Me and my Hmong brothers Elder Lee on the right and Elder Vang on the far left My companion Elder Pratt in the middle

Just takin' out the trash

Me and Elder Pratt bein downright fabulous

P.S. Shoutout to Liggy for his killer farewell talk. Even though I wasn't there I'm sure it was stellar because I'm pretty sure he used quotes from my talk(at least he told me he would.) Shoutout to K. Amachur for gettin his call to serve the people of Compton. Shoutout to Hessman for being to legit. Shoutout to RJ for representin SAN D until at least October 30 and being a boss at Smash Bros

I Finally Got to See Some Hard Work Pay Off

Hello Everybody!!!

         This week was crazy awesome and it's going really well. I don't know if I've said this in any other emails but we write a talk each sunday and they pick two people from the congregation to come up and talk at random. This week I was lucky enough to get picked. As I was walking up for some reason all I could think about was James. So as I was giving my talk I got this feeling to stop reading my talk and just tell his story. As I started telling his story the Spirit in the room was so strong and the talk went really well. Right after my talk the first counselor's wife got up and talked about her son who was a heroine addict and was just about to finish his 3 year jail sentence and how she has learned so much about enduring through trials. After the meeting she came up to me and thanked me like three hundred times for my talk. I don't know what it was in my talk that I said that helped her but I guess hearing about James helped her so that was pretty cool to see a blessing from listening to the promptings of the Spirit.

         Another really cool experience that I had was on thursday or friday i can't remember which one; but anyways we were teaching one of our investigators and I finally got to see some hard work pay off. We were teaching our investigator about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and it felt like the lesson was going really well but for some reason our investigator just kept saying that he didn't think it was true and that he didn't want to pray about it. I started bearing my testimony to him that Joseph Smith really did see God and Jesus Christ and that if he read the Book of Mormon his family would be blessed (He has a fake sick wife and two fake kids.) And all of a sudden I just started saying all this stuff that I didn't even know what it was and I was speaking way fast it was so cool. Right after I said amen I just looked at my companion and we both were like "What did I/you just say" But my companion then bore his testimony and right after we were done he agreed to pray. I know that it was just a fake investigator but that was one of the strongest spiritual experiences I've had in my life listening to someone pray to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon was true. I'm 1000000% sure that if that was a real lesson in the field we would have baptized that man and his family. J.K. I guess it just depends on if it's there time or not but it was an awesome lesson. Another little tender mercy with that lesson was that I got the letter from you mom about Steve's death about five minutes before I was supposed to go in to my lesson and usually I open letters right when I get them but for some reason I just decided not to open it until after and I definitely wouldn't have been able to focus if had read that before I taught.

        One thing that was really fun on Saturday was we had a birthday party for one of the Elders in our district (I'll try and send a picture) but his mom sent us all a bunch of party hats and kazoo's so we went pretty crazy. Also he was struggling pretty bad but after his birthday he has been doing so much better and has been working really hard and the language is going a lot better for him.

        Yesterday we had a devotional at the Marriot Center and they told us that it was the last devotional that they were doing for missionaries there because they are building another building for devotionals and it is almost finished. So I guess I'll go down in history as one of the last missionaries to be in there which is cool I guess. But the speaker that talked to us that night gave us an amazing talk. He talked all about the blessings that we get from serving a mission and he told a story that really inspired me. He talked about a man named Mitch Davis who was married and had two or three kids. One night he decided to take one of his kids and a couple of the kids friends on a camping trip up the canyon. It started to rain and thunder so they quickly set up there tent. The man was standing in the tent when all of a sudden a lightning bolt hit the man directly in the head and traveled through his body and shot out of the tent. He was laying on the ground unconscious when he started to come to. He heard one of the boys in the corner praying, another was silent, and his son was telling him to wake up. He started to black out again and before he did he thought to himself I'm going to die. And before he could even pray a voice came into his head and said this "You have served a valiant mission, ask me whatever you want and I'll give it to you." So he prayed in his mind and in the next three minutes he was walking back to the car with the three boys feeling just fine. I think it's so amazing that the thing the Lord cared about above him getting married, having kids, and everything else he did in his life was the fact that he served a full time mission. I have already seen the blessings of serving a three week mission and I can't even imaging how blessed I will be for serving for two years.

        Anyways I love you all and I hope things are going well.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Elder Huav Vam

P.S. Mom thanks for the package my whole district plays that dice game every night and it has been fun having some crazy nerf gun wars. Also tell grammy that she's the MTC's favorite grammy because of her carmelitas.

And Libby you gotta tell me all about the third grade and your teachers and stuff.

I don't know if I've sent these pictures or not yet last time the computer i used froze when i sent my email.

Marshall & Spencer in the MTC: Sept, 2013

Marshall & Spencer 
 in the MTC: Sept, 2013, a photo by to libby with love on Flickr.