That was a pretty good email for doing it last minute and with not much to write about.
So Sterling got the LAN party sponsored by Monster??? What does that mean? Did they give everyone energy drinks or something? I remember at last years LAN party I won 1v1's and me and Steven won the 2v2s. Last year I found out that caffeine doesn't really do much to my body. On Halloween I was going to pull an all nighter watching Halloween movies all night but I was really tired, so I drank two cans of Rockstar energy drink then fell asleep half an hour later.
This morning Elder Pedersen and I called the famous 1-800-555-TELL to check the Chargers Bronco's game (remember the chargers are my favorite team and the bronco's are elder Pedersen's favorite team and whoever won this game goes on to the playoffs) and I was very happy to see my boys dominated. They're gonna pull a Giants and become amazing at the end of the year and win the super bowl.But anyway, this week has been pretty uneventful. We haven't really left the apartment since last Sunday. Ive been going crazy and getting pretty restless. Last night we did get to go out though. We went and taught Paulette's daughter, Montanna, who just moved in. She is 12 years old. Paulette and Kim have been talking to her all about their baptisms and how great the church is and Montanna came to church yesterday and loved it. So halfway through the lesson as we were talking about authority and baptism, she said "So...when can I be baptized??" That's every missionaries dream. She said she wants to get baptized next week, but we need to teach her everything first, so we set her date for January 10th. Abraham's son who is 10 was also there last night. He's only going to be there for a week because he usually lives with his mom in a different city. After Montanna asked to be baptized, Abraham's son asked us if he could be baptized too. He told us that the baptists baptized him when he was younger, but they didn't have the correct authority. This kid is a genius. He completely understood everything he taught and he even said the prayer at the end of the lesson. It was a really and successful lesson. We did an object lesson and we had both of them jumping up and down getting really excited, yelling out "this is so fun!!" They are both very smart...smarter than most adults we teach. All in all it was an amazing lesson and it felt really good to finally get out and teach. It got Elder Pedersen re-excited again too, so that will give him more motivation to want to get out and start working again.
Today we played miniature golf...it was pretty fun. I tied with Elder Pedersen. We're going to have to play again next week for a tie breaker. I'm also getting ready to send home picture on that flash drive again. I think the whole flash drive thing was a great idea, especially when I figured out how to write captions on the pictures. But I was just wondering if you wanted me to print out some pictures too. Obviously it would be cheaper not to, but if you want me to I can.
Ok, I've got to go now. I loved being able to talk to everyone on Christmas. I pray for you guys every night.
I love you all!!!
Chase
Monday, December 29, 2008
Received Mon Dec 22, 2008
After thinking about it after I e-mailed last week I also decided Christmas would be the best day to call home. So it will be sometime after 7pm...that's all I know. 7 my time is 5 your time I believe. I'm pretty excited about that.
Christmas came up so fast. As a missionary your perception of time is so much more different. You measure time by transfers (6 month periods) and by weeks. For example, for me right now, the time is 3rd transfer, week 4. We had our Christmas Sunday yesterday as well...it was an interesting one for me. English and Spanish met together at the same time. When we showed up the branch president came up to us and said he needed 3 of us to translate. Well...it wasn't full on translating, but when the narrators would go up to read a scripture, we had to read it into a little microphone thing in Spanish. All the Spanish speakers had those headset things on and listened to us translating. People in English read fast!! I read Spanish as fast as I could and they still always finished before me. None of us could keep up with them. Then when I looked at the program I saw that part of the program was a song by the missionaries. I guess nobody felt it was very important to let us know before hand. It all turned out fine though...we sang Hark the Harold Angels Sing or whatever that song is called. After we finished the first verse, Elder Pedersen accidentally started singing the 1st verse again instead of the 2nd verse...it got some laughs.
We had a Spanish Branch party on Friday Night. I was on splits with the Zone Leaders and the one that was with me for the day didn't know any Spanish at all. So the party was pretty fun for me to watch. When we showed up one of the members came up to me and said that she wanted one of us to be Santa Claus. The white handbook got me out of that one though...we aren't allowed to have little kids sit on our laps, so a member of the branch presidency did it. We also got asked to sing last minute for that party.
This last week we've had a lot of investigators kind of fall off the face of the earth and lose all interest in the church, so we've been focusing on finding more people. We had another big week...we found 15 new investigators. That reminds me of a little story about our investigator named Erica. So at first she was so happy about us coming over and we helped her so much, she started seeing a ton of blessings, she even got a perfect job where she didn't have to work on Sunday. Well, she's kind of a workaholic and her boss started to pressure her to work on Sundays, so she did. She said she wanted to get a lot of money so she could buy her kid a ton of stuff for Christmas. We were pretty disappointed, but we figured we just let her be and hope that she realizes that life isn't as good without the spirit in your life. I remember using her as an example to a couple other people we were teaching. In talking about the Book of Mormon I would talk about the pride cycle: how people become really righteous, then they get blessed, then they become prideful and forget God and just glory in their riches, then they get humbled by something bad happening, then the cycle goes around again. Well, Erica just made it all the way around the cycle. She called us a couple days ago (after not talking to her for a week) and she was crying, telling us about how she got fired. She told us she needs the church back in her life and she realized how empty her life was without it. So we can start teaching her again...hopefully all goes well.
We really cracked down on Max and Angie yesterday. We told them that in order to progress spiritually they need to live the commandments, including the law of chastity. We said, spiritually, you don't just stand still. You re either progressing or you re falling back. And they can't progress when they're constantly breaking commandments. We told them they either need to get married right now, or one of them needs to move out. They took it really well. That was exactly what they needed...they needed someone to be bold with them and just tell them to their face how it is. So they are praying about that and they're going to make a decision hopefully very soon.
One of our other investigators who we were going to give a baptismal date just disappeared...this alcoholic guy that she was living with said that she moved in with her daughter in League City. There was definitely something odd about the situation...were going to try to figure it out. I don't know if I ever told you about this lady...her name is Debbie and she just got into a horrible car accident. She has 8 metal rods in her back and she's been on the verge of death. There's no reason for her to all the sudden decide to move out where shes been living forever...its kinda creepy.
Well...thats about all this week. On Christmas we have a Zone Conference and the entire mission is going to meet together in Sugar Land, then were going to open presents afterwards. They are keeping every one's Christmas packages down in Sugar Land so we can just open them there. So I'm just assuming they have it.
Oh yeah...its been freezing cold again for most of this week. Its been reeeally foggy. All the fog has been rolling off the ocean and we cant even see the ocean when we ride down sea wall anymore because the fog is so thick. By the time we make it back to our apartment at night after riding home, my hair is all wet and all my clothes have a layer of water on them. The fog is different too...its more like ocean mist than fog. You can literally see all the individual water particles floating around. I guess that's what 100% humidity is like.
Ok...I'm excited to talk to everyone on Thursday night!! I love you all and hope everyone has a great Christmas like we always do!
Love,
Chase
Christmas came up so fast. As a missionary your perception of time is so much more different. You measure time by transfers (6 month periods) and by weeks. For example, for me right now, the time is 3rd transfer, week 4. We had our Christmas Sunday yesterday as well...it was an interesting one for me. English and Spanish met together at the same time. When we showed up the branch president came up to us and said he needed 3 of us to translate. Well...it wasn't full on translating, but when the narrators would go up to read a scripture, we had to read it into a little microphone thing in Spanish. All the Spanish speakers had those headset things on and listened to us translating. People in English read fast!! I read Spanish as fast as I could and they still always finished before me. None of us could keep up with them. Then when I looked at the program I saw that part of the program was a song by the missionaries. I guess nobody felt it was very important to let us know before hand. It all turned out fine though...we sang Hark the Harold Angels Sing or whatever that song is called. After we finished the first verse, Elder Pedersen accidentally started singing the 1st verse again instead of the 2nd verse...it got some laughs.
We had a Spanish Branch party on Friday Night. I was on splits with the Zone Leaders and the one that was with me for the day didn't know any Spanish at all. So the party was pretty fun for me to watch. When we showed up one of the members came up to me and said that she wanted one of us to be Santa Claus. The white handbook got me out of that one though...we aren't allowed to have little kids sit on our laps, so a member of the branch presidency did it. We also got asked to sing last minute for that party.
This last week we've had a lot of investigators kind of fall off the face of the earth and lose all interest in the church, so we've been focusing on finding more people. We had another big week...we found 15 new investigators. That reminds me of a little story about our investigator named Erica. So at first she was so happy about us coming over and we helped her so much, she started seeing a ton of blessings, she even got a perfect job where she didn't have to work on Sunday. Well, she's kind of a workaholic and her boss started to pressure her to work on Sundays, so she did. She said she wanted to get a lot of money so she could buy her kid a ton of stuff for Christmas. We were pretty disappointed, but we figured we just let her be and hope that she realizes that life isn't as good without the spirit in your life. I remember using her as an example to a couple other people we were teaching. In talking about the Book of Mormon I would talk about the pride cycle: how people become really righteous, then they get blessed, then they become prideful and forget God and just glory in their riches, then they get humbled by something bad happening, then the cycle goes around again. Well, Erica just made it all the way around the cycle. She called us a couple days ago (after not talking to her for a week) and she was crying, telling us about how she got fired. She told us she needs the church back in her life and she realized how empty her life was without it. So we can start teaching her again...hopefully all goes well.
We really cracked down on Max and Angie yesterday. We told them that in order to progress spiritually they need to live the commandments, including the law of chastity. We said, spiritually, you don't just stand still. You re either progressing or you re falling back. And they can't progress when they're constantly breaking commandments. We told them they either need to get married right now, or one of them needs to move out. They took it really well. That was exactly what they needed...they needed someone to be bold with them and just tell them to their face how it is. So they are praying about that and they're going to make a decision hopefully very soon.
One of our other investigators who we were going to give a baptismal date just disappeared...this alcoholic guy that she was living with said that she moved in with her daughter in League City. There was definitely something odd about the situation...were going to try to figure it out. I don't know if I ever told you about this lady...her name is Debbie and she just got into a horrible car accident. She has 8 metal rods in her back and she's been on the verge of death. There's no reason for her to all the sudden decide to move out where shes been living forever...its kinda creepy.
Well...thats about all this week. On Christmas we have a Zone Conference and the entire mission is going to meet together in Sugar Land, then were going to open presents afterwards. They are keeping every one's Christmas packages down in Sugar Land so we can just open them there. So I'm just assuming they have it.
Oh yeah...its been freezing cold again for most of this week. Its been reeeally foggy. All the fog has been rolling off the ocean and we cant even see the ocean when we ride down sea wall anymore because the fog is so thick. By the time we make it back to our apartment at night after riding home, my hair is all wet and all my clothes have a layer of water on them. The fog is different too...its more like ocean mist than fog. You can literally see all the individual water particles floating around. I guess that's what 100% humidity is like.
Ok...I'm excited to talk to everyone on Thursday night!! I love you all and hope everyone has a great Christmas like we always do!
Love,
Chase
Monday, December 15, 2008
Received Mon Dec 15, 2008
Dear Family,
I wrote a letter today that I am going to send home. I've been wanting to write one for a while but whenever we get home on P-Day it is time to get out and start working again. But we were stuck inside for an hour one day, so I started a letter home then finished it this morning.
I got the package with letters and the flash drive! I got it on Tuesday. I wrote a lot of my letter about the things in there.
The weather has been CRAZY here recently. When I started to write the letter on Wednesday it was actually snowing here in Galveston. Its been pretty cold 5-6 days out of the week, so I usually wear that blue windbreaker and a longs leeve shirt. Gloves and a beanie and all that cold stuff I asked for will probably get put to good use. The wind is what makes it so cold. We almost never ride along Seawall anymore because the wind is always so strong there and it freezes your face.
Elder Pedersen and I decided to start a tradition last night. Every day we are going to write a highlight of the day in our planners. We tried to think of everything that happened this last week and these are a few of the highlights we had:
Monday: For P-day we went and played softball for 2 hours then football for an hour and a half after that. All the districts in the zone were invited. We had probably 16-18 people, so it was perfect teams. It was a ton of fun, but we paid bad for it after. I was sore for 4 days straight. Elder Pedersen was sore for 5 days. I now know what it feels like to be 90 years old. Once you sit down you dont want to get up because it hurts. Getting on and off our bikes was the worst. It was definitely worth it though, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. That was also the day Kim had a big Myspace fiasco where her "friends" from sugarland started threatening her on myspace and said some really bad things to her. She was really freaked out so we had to go give her advice and help her out. Myspaces are so stupid...never ever make one. All I ever hear about is drama that comes from it.
Tuesday: We visited some lady we met named Charlene. She invited us into her house and it was a mess. Not only was there trash and random furniture everywhere but it was like a zoo in there. Every corner we turned we saw more dogs in cages or tied up somewhere. Then she told us about her bird collection. The storm destroyed her bird room, so she put all of her birds in the kitchen. We went in there and there were probably 10 birds in different cages all over the place. They were loud birds too, like parrots, cockatoos, and other big birds. The place stunk pretty bad. I've come to realize how many people are weird and you never know what is going on inside someones house. All the houses look normal on the outside, but when you go inside you never know what to expect.
Thursday: This was the day that the Lone Star Rally started. Apparently this is a nationwide motorcycle rally that lasts for 4 days. They have it every year in Galveston. Bikers from across the country ride down here and there are a bunch of streets blocked off with stands set up for bikers to spend their money at. All we've been hearing all day long are loud motorcycles riding around everywhere. It feels like the whole island is rumbling. There are literally thousands of bikers here. There arent as many as there usually is though because the rally had to get rescheduled because of the storm. Last year there were apparently 100,000 of them. They're all gone now though, so thats nice.
Friday: We had our Zone Meeting that day and I gave a talk. A lot of people complimented me on the talk and told me it was really good, so that was satisfying.
Saturday: A big drama story happened with the missionaries today. Apparently some missionaries from different areas decided to take the day off and go check out the Lone Star Rally. A lot of the missionaries were lying and Elder Pedersen had to stay up really late trying to figure things out, which means I had to stay up late too. I was pretty tired on Sunday. Earlier in the day we gave a baptismal date to Angie though. Angie is Max's (LotR guy) girlfriend. Her date is January 24th. Shes definitely got some things to work out, but she wants to be baptized and we figured giving her a date to work towards would give her some motivation and kind of a kick to start doing better. -Sunday: We visited a recent convert named Abraham. This man can talk and talk and talk and talk. Then talk some more. He never takes a breathe. This is the guy who just barely got married and his wife (Paulette) and daughter (Kim) are the ones we just baptized. His daughter is at her mom's house and Paulette is in Dallas with her daughter who just had a baby, so Abraham has been home alone. He let it ALL out when we visited him. We were there for 2 1/2 hours and we didnt say a word in response to his stories because he never slowed down! I'm glad we went though, it did a lot of good for him.
So, thats what I've been up to! Everything I wanted to write about I wrote in there. I like this Highlights of the Day idea though...it makes things more fun and it gives me things to talk about. So much always happens every day, but its hard to remember it all. I also realized that last week I hit my 5 month mark! I'm gonna hit my 6 month mark by the end of the transfer too.
Oh yeah, so on Christmas we are going to have a Zone Conference in Sugar Land and we are going to open all our presents together afterwards. We can either call home on Christmas Eve after 7 or on Christmas Day after 7. What do you guys prefer?? I dont know if I really have a preference. I'll try to think about it and see if one day is better than the other.
Ok, that is everything. I hope you enjoy my long e-mail! I love you all and will talk to everyone later!
Love,
Chase
I wrote a letter today that I am going to send home. I've been wanting to write one for a while but whenever we get home on P-Day it is time to get out and start working again. But we were stuck inside for an hour one day, so I started a letter home then finished it this morning.
I got the package with letters and the flash drive! I got it on Tuesday. I wrote a lot of my letter about the things in there.
The weather has been CRAZY here recently. When I started to write the letter on Wednesday it was actually snowing here in Galveston. Its been pretty cold 5-6 days out of the week, so I usually wear that blue windbreaker and a longs leeve shirt. Gloves and a beanie and all that cold stuff I asked for will probably get put to good use. The wind is what makes it so cold. We almost never ride along Seawall anymore because the wind is always so strong there and it freezes your face.
Elder Pedersen and I decided to start a tradition last night. Every day we are going to write a highlight of the day in our planners. We tried to think of everything that happened this last week and these are a few of the highlights we had:
Monday: For P-day we went and played softball for 2 hours then football for an hour and a half after that. All the districts in the zone were invited. We had probably 16-18 people, so it was perfect teams. It was a ton of fun, but we paid bad for it after. I was sore for 4 days straight. Elder Pedersen was sore for 5 days. I now know what it feels like to be 90 years old. Once you sit down you dont want to get up because it hurts. Getting on and off our bikes was the worst. It was definitely worth it though, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. That was also the day Kim had a big Myspace fiasco where her "friends" from sugarland started threatening her on myspace and said some really bad things to her. She was really freaked out so we had to go give her advice and help her out. Myspaces are so stupid...never ever make one. All I ever hear about is drama that comes from it.
Tuesday: We visited some lady we met named Charlene. She invited us into her house and it was a mess. Not only was there trash and random furniture everywhere but it was like a zoo in there. Every corner we turned we saw more dogs in cages or tied up somewhere. Then she told us about her bird collection. The storm destroyed her bird room, so she put all of her birds in the kitchen. We went in there and there were probably 10 birds in different cages all over the place. They were loud birds too, like parrots, cockatoos, and other big birds. The place stunk pretty bad. I've come to realize how many people are weird and you never know what is going on inside someones house. All the houses look normal on the outside, but when you go inside you never know what to expect.
Thursday: This was the day that the Lone Star Rally started. Apparently this is a nationwide motorcycle rally that lasts for 4 days. They have it every year in Galveston. Bikers from across the country ride down here and there are a bunch of streets blocked off with stands set up for bikers to spend their money at. All we've been hearing all day long are loud motorcycles riding around everywhere. It feels like the whole island is rumbling. There are literally thousands of bikers here. There arent as many as there usually is though because the rally had to get rescheduled because of the storm. Last year there were apparently 100,000 of them. They're all gone now though, so thats nice.
Friday: We had our Zone Meeting that day and I gave a talk. A lot of people complimented me on the talk and told me it was really good, so that was satisfying.
Saturday: A big drama story happened with the missionaries today. Apparently some missionaries from different areas decided to take the day off and go check out the Lone Star Rally. A lot of the missionaries were lying and Elder Pedersen had to stay up really late trying to figure things out, which means I had to stay up late too. I was pretty tired on Sunday. Earlier in the day we gave a baptismal date to Angie though. Angie is Max's (LotR guy) girlfriend. Her date is January 24th. Shes definitely got some things to work out, but she wants to be baptized and we figured giving her a date to work towards would give her some motivation and kind of a kick to start doing better. -Sunday: We visited a recent convert named Abraham. This man can talk and talk and talk and talk. Then talk some more. He never takes a breathe. This is the guy who just barely got married and his wife (Paulette) and daughter (Kim) are the ones we just baptized. His daughter is at her mom's house and Paulette is in Dallas with her daughter who just had a baby, so Abraham has been home alone. He let it ALL out when we visited him. We were there for 2 1/2 hours and we didnt say a word in response to his stories because he never slowed down! I'm glad we went though, it did a lot of good for him.
So, thats what I've been up to! Everything I wanted to write about I wrote in there. I like this Highlights of the Day idea though...it makes things more fun and it gives me things to talk about. So much always happens every day, but its hard to remember it all. I also realized that last week I hit my 5 month mark! I'm gonna hit my 6 month mark by the end of the transfer too.
Oh yeah, so on Christmas we are going to have a Zone Conference in Sugar Land and we are going to open all our presents together afterwards. We can either call home on Christmas Eve after 7 or on Christmas Day after 7. What do you guys prefer?? I dont know if I really have a preference. I'll try to think about it and see if one day is better than the other.
Ok, that is everything. I hope you enjoy my long e-mail! I love you all and will talk to everyone later!
Love,
Chase
Monday, December 8, 2008
Received Mon Dec 8, 2008
Hmm...I'm just thinking back on this week and not much has happened here either. We only really got to go out and work 3 times this week.
Other stakes keep on sending us semi truck loads of clothes and things to give away and we have more than we can handle. This week literally a semi truck FULL of clothes came to Galveston and we (the missionaries) along with help from a few members unloaded the whole thing. The ENTIRE cultural hall was filled with clothes with only room for a few walkways between all the boxes of clothes. After church (this was last week actually, not this week) people spent hours upon hours looking at the clothes and taking boxes out to their cars. They only left when they couldn't fit anymore clothes into their cars.
So for P-day we went to the church and we had a contest to see who could find the best/funniest clothes. We did 2 rounds and we had 2 minutes to find clothes then we had to go into another room and put them on. I've got some pretty funny pictures from that.
So on Wednesday after that we had to go load all the leftover clothes into trucks to give them away to goodwill and other places like that. There were still TONS. All the donation centers are full now. On Friday we got another load full of Christmas trees, decorations, and random household items. So a lot of my week has been loading and unloaded boxes of stuff from trucks.
On Saturday we had a ward open house. We spent all week passing out invitations to all the houses that we did service for. We set up stands to show different things that we believe in. We actually had a very good turnout, which is good because we put ALL of our time into advertising for this this past week. We found 3-4 people that were going to begin teaching.
On Sunday we had the confirmations of Kim and Paulette. I confirmed Kim and Elder Pedersen confirmed Paulette. It was a really neat experience for me. I did a lot of praying and did everything I could to make sure my mind was 100% ready to be able to tell Kim everything she was meant to know. It was a really neat feeling. She had tears running down her face by the end. Paulette did too after her blessing...it was a really good Sunday.
I got my package with my swishy pants and shoes this last week. I'm actually wearing my shoes right now. I sleep in my swishy pants every night now too...its getting pretty cold. SO...that brings me on to my next point: my Christmas list.The only things I have really thought of are winter clothes. I have a rain jacket but I don't have just a normal sweater for when its just cold and not rainy out. So I would like a sweater...maybe just something like that green soft one I got for Christmas last year. Whatever you get will be perfect. I also want a beanie...my ears get freezing cold every night. Just a solid color beanie...something really cheap and simple. Hmm...oh yeah. Early on in my mission, unfortunately I think some of my garments got taken. At the Alemany's house some missionaries came to use their washer and I think they accidentally took some of my garments so I've got 2 extra tops with no bottoms. So if you ever get the chance, more garments would be good. I think I have 6 tops and bottoms, then 2 extra tops with no bottoms. So I'd get maybe 3 bottoms and 1 top or something like that. Pens would also be nice...a couple black and blue pens. Those Pilot G-2 pens you always get are nice. Somehow I have 0 black pens left...they also disappeared during all my post-hurricane adventures. Oh and also one of those cheap 10 dollar zip-up sweatshirts you can get at walmart. I had a grey one I bought in Provo...something like that would be perfect for P-day. That's everything I've thought of that I really need.
Speaking of presents...that reminds me of a funny story. One day Kim called me and Elder Pedersen and told us she was at the Renaissance Fair and that she bought us each a gift. So eventually we came over and she ran over to get her bag with our gifts in it. She pulls out my gift and its a necklace with a catholic cross on the end of it. I was like uhh...wow that's an awesome gift, thank you! And I kind of strayed the conversation away and put it in my backpack. Then she was like, oh, I thought you were going to wear it. I really did not want to wear that thing, so I thought of a good way to get myself out of the situation. I told her I would try it on, but then I had to put it in my backpack so it wouldn't get in my way when I was riding my bike home. Then she pulled out Elder Pedersen's gift and it was a really girly wand with a big pink star at the top that blinks on and off. She gave it to him and said she got it because "you're my guiding star." And she was 100% serious this whole time too. Elder Pedersen just played it off like it was the coolest gift ever. It was pretty funny. We pinned up the cross and the star wand on our wall in the apartment. I've got pictures of us with our gifts.Ive been taking a lot of pictures lately...I'll probably send that USB drive home by Christmas. Hopefully that package gets here though.
Ok well I've got to get going now. I think we're going to play softball as a zone for P-day today. I'll talk to you all later!!
Love,
Chase
Other stakes keep on sending us semi truck loads of clothes and things to give away and we have more than we can handle. This week literally a semi truck FULL of clothes came to Galveston and we (the missionaries) along with help from a few members unloaded the whole thing. The ENTIRE cultural hall was filled with clothes with only room for a few walkways between all the boxes of clothes. After church (this was last week actually, not this week) people spent hours upon hours looking at the clothes and taking boxes out to their cars. They only left when they couldn't fit anymore clothes into their cars.
So for P-day we went to the church and we had a contest to see who could find the best/funniest clothes. We did 2 rounds and we had 2 minutes to find clothes then we had to go into another room and put them on. I've got some pretty funny pictures from that.
So on Wednesday after that we had to go load all the leftover clothes into trucks to give them away to goodwill and other places like that. There were still TONS. All the donation centers are full now. On Friday we got another load full of Christmas trees, decorations, and random household items. So a lot of my week has been loading and unloaded boxes of stuff from trucks.
On Saturday we had a ward open house. We spent all week passing out invitations to all the houses that we did service for. We set up stands to show different things that we believe in. We actually had a very good turnout, which is good because we put ALL of our time into advertising for this this past week. We found 3-4 people that were going to begin teaching.
On Sunday we had the confirmations of Kim and Paulette. I confirmed Kim and Elder Pedersen confirmed Paulette. It was a really neat experience for me. I did a lot of praying and did everything I could to make sure my mind was 100% ready to be able to tell Kim everything she was meant to know. It was a really neat feeling. She had tears running down her face by the end. Paulette did too after her blessing...it was a really good Sunday.
I got my package with my swishy pants and shoes this last week. I'm actually wearing my shoes right now. I sleep in my swishy pants every night now too...its getting pretty cold. SO...that brings me on to my next point: my Christmas list.The only things I have really thought of are winter clothes. I have a rain jacket but I don't have just a normal sweater for when its just cold and not rainy out. So I would like a sweater...maybe just something like that green soft one I got for Christmas last year. Whatever you get will be perfect. I also want a beanie...my ears get freezing cold every night. Just a solid color beanie...something really cheap and simple. Hmm...oh yeah. Early on in my mission, unfortunately I think some of my garments got taken. At the Alemany's house some missionaries came to use their washer and I think they accidentally took some of my garments so I've got 2 extra tops with no bottoms. So if you ever get the chance, more garments would be good. I think I have 6 tops and bottoms, then 2 extra tops with no bottoms. So I'd get maybe 3 bottoms and 1 top or something like that. Pens would also be nice...a couple black and blue pens. Those Pilot G-2 pens you always get are nice. Somehow I have 0 black pens left...they also disappeared during all my post-hurricane adventures. Oh and also one of those cheap 10 dollar zip-up sweatshirts you can get at walmart. I had a grey one I bought in Provo...something like that would be perfect for P-day. That's everything I've thought of that I really need.
Speaking of presents...that reminds me of a funny story. One day Kim called me and Elder Pedersen and told us she was at the Renaissance Fair and that she bought us each a gift. So eventually we came over and she ran over to get her bag with our gifts in it. She pulls out my gift and its a necklace with a catholic cross on the end of it. I was like uhh...wow that's an awesome gift, thank you! And I kind of strayed the conversation away and put it in my backpack. Then she was like, oh, I thought you were going to wear it. I really did not want to wear that thing, so I thought of a good way to get myself out of the situation. I told her I would try it on, but then I had to put it in my backpack so it wouldn't get in my way when I was riding my bike home. Then she pulled out Elder Pedersen's gift and it was a really girly wand with a big pink star at the top that blinks on and off. She gave it to him and said she got it because "you're my guiding star." And she was 100% serious this whole time too. Elder Pedersen just played it off like it was the coolest gift ever. It was pretty funny. We pinned up the cross and the star wand on our wall in the apartment. I've got pictures of us with our gifts.Ive been taking a lot of pictures lately...I'll probably send that USB drive home by Christmas. Hopefully that package gets here though.
Ok well I've got to get going now. I think we're going to play softball as a zone for P-day today. I'll talk to you all later!!
Love,
Chase
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Received Mon Dec 1, 2008
I'm back in the Texas City library e-mailing this week so I don't have to worry about the computer restarting on me.
This has been a crazy week. On Thursday apparently one of the senior missionaries volunteered us to go to a baptist church and serve thanksgiving dinner to a bunch of people there. That turned out to be very interesting. It turned out to be kind of like a soup kitchen type thing. The only people that came were homeless, scruffy looking people. Probably only 15-20 people in total came. We got to eat the food too there though, it was pretty good actually. Well, mostly just the ham was good. After that we went and looked all around the church, it was all really interesting. I took a bunch of pictures. Their "sanctuary" (their sacrament room) had a whole band set up. Drums, guitar, keyboard, etc. They have one of those big choir groups that wears those dresses and sings those gospel songs. They also have a balcony in the room you can sit on. I also climbed up this ladder and went up in the big spire thing. I got some good pictures playing on the drum sets in there and standing at the podium condemning the congregation. It was all a little shady. The baptists congregation only has like 5-10 people now, so they rent out the church to the Pentecostals every Sunday.
So an hour after that we went to a members home who invited us over for thanksgiving. Their names are the Rabago's. They are in the Spanish branch, but they are also related to the English ward's bishop, so that whole family came. There was a bunch of people there...probably 20. They had a big nice TV on with the football games on. Everyone there wanted to watch the game, so as we waited for the food to get finished we actually got to watch some football. We saw the end of the Titans vs Lions game and saw the first half of the Seahawks vs someone else game. It was all really interesting to me. They showed a bunch of the standings and it was amazing to see how things changed so dramatically from last year. I cant believe the Titans are doing so well. We had a really good dinner there too. It was nothing compared to Mom's food though. I definitely miss the cinnamon rolls and the pomegranate jello stuff with marshmallows. And our ham and of course the turkey bowl. It doesn't really feel too much like thanksgiving without all that stuff, but I don't really care that much. I'm willing to sacrifice 2 thanksgivings out of my whole life. When you look at it from a whole life's perspective, that's hardly anything. And I've already sacrificed the first thanksgiving, that means I'm only going to have to do it one more time. It seems so short to me to think that I'm only going to experience one more thanksgiving on my mission before I go home.
On Friday we did service for the whole day. Each day 1 district from the mission comes to Galveston to do service for the day and Friday was our day. We gutted out an entire house in one day. This lady had done nothing to her house yet. The mold was almost all the way up the 2 by 4's. The water line on that house was above my head...they got it pretty bad. There's no way she's going to be able to recover that house, but shes going to try. It was pretty fun to get out and do some good physical activity for a day.
On Saturday Elder M. Russell Ballard came and spoke to the 3 Houston missions! I'm pretty sure I told you that last week. It looked like a stake conference full of missionaries. I had pretty decent seats...it was in the last row inside the sacrament room. He brought his son-in-law (I think), whose name is Peter Huntsman. Apparently his father is the governor of Utah or something. Peter is the head of a multi-billion dollar corporation. He was a very eloquent speaker. Elder Ballard talked to us about the importance of doing all the small things in missionary work. He mostly talked about how we need to talk to everyone every day all throughout the day and always seek to get referrals from members. He was a pretty funny guy too. We found out that L. Tom Perry is going to come speak to us in January too...I'm getting spoiled.
Oh yeah, then after that we had Abraham and Paulette's wedding. It was a simple wedding, but they both loved it. The bishop came and did it, and we did it in the multi purpose room in the church. They were really happy. Then Sunday was a pretty stressful day. We were at church from 7:30am to 5:30pm. We had our normal schedule with ward council, English sacrament meeting, Sunday school, priesthood, Spanish sacrament meeting. Elder Pedersen and I spoke in Spanish sacrament meeting and President and Sister Allred came to listen to us. I also blessed the sacrament for the first time in Spanish. Every week they get the missionaries to pass or bless the sacrament in both the branch and the ward. Last week I gave the closing prayer in the English ward, blessed the sacrament in the English ward, and passed the sacrament in the Spanish branch. They pass it differently every time, its pretty funny. So then after that, the Spanish branch made a big meal and fed us all. (They feed the missionaries every Sunday after church. Every time there's a 5th Sunday they feed everyone in the ward). Then like 30min after that was the baptism. I wore Steven's white baptismal pants, one of my white long sleeve shirts, and Elder Brown (the senior missionary we live with) gave me a white tie. He had 3, so he let me keep one. The baptism all went great. I was actually kind of nervous because Kim is a pretty big girl and that would be pretty embarrassing if I had problems pulling her out of the water. It all went great...I baptized Kim, then Abraham baptized Paulette, his wife. President and Sister Allred were there too. All of us missionaries sang The Spirit of God as a special musical number. We sang Praise to the Man and Nearer, My God to Thee for opening and closing songs. Our investigators have always loved the songs we sing in church and they loved our song selection for the baptism. They will both be confirmed next week.
Last night I slept so well. Its been a packed, pretty stressful past couple of days. We had to write our talks in Spanish and do the baptism programs and organize everything for the wedding and the baptism while we did all that other stuff. Erica wasn't able to make it to church this week. She worked for 6 days this last week and did a ton of overtime. She has had problems with her sister in law in the past so she was going to work during thanksgiving to avoid her, but her mom said that if she stayed for thanksgiving and didn't cause any problems, she would go to church with her. So Erica prayed a lot and she did it! Her mom is a very devout Catholic so it was a pretty amazing thing for her to offer that deal. Erica's life has changed around so much and she's had so many blessing out of nowhere that its impossible to deny she's getting blessed for the choices shes making. Her mom has seen that in her life and I'm sure that's what compelled her to want to come to church with her. That'll be really neat to see what comes of that. Max (crazy Lord of the Rings guy) and Angie went to Angie's dad house for thanksgiving and we haven't heard back from them since. We visited them once last week and Max talked to us about how he knew Hurricane Ike was coming and he was hinting that he was prophesying of that. He was like, "I knew the storm was going to come. I was in the bishops office weeks before the storm trying to warn him." We asked him how he knew the storm was coming and his response was: "The Lord of the Rings. Don't you guys remember the scene at the end with the eye and there are a bunch of earthquakes and storms?" And he went all into detail about that. Its really hard not to laugh sometimes. When he said that I could barely hold back laughs and I cracked a smile and I happened to look over at Angie and saw her trying not to smile as well. I think she knows Max is a little crazy, she's surprising a pretty smart person. Like most people around here, she has had a really rough past.
Ok my time is almost up. I would talk about some of the things Mom e-mailed me, but I have to go! Hopefully next week I wont be so rushed. Hah...that would be a miracle.
OH YEAH, I forgot to say today is the end of the transfer. Nobody in my district is getting transferred though. I was really glad I got to stay here...I want to stay and see the area continue to thrive.
I really want to hand write a letter home sometime too. Our P-days are always so packed though and I'm only ever in our apartment in the morning and I study in the morning. Its pretty crazy stuff, but that's the story of my mission! Alright I better go. I love hearing about how everyone is doing and it always makes me laugh. We get to talk on the phone in 24 days too!! I'm excited. I need to start making a list of some things that might be good to send me for Christmas. I'll try to do that next week. I love everyone and I always pray for each and every person in our family!
Love,
Chase
This has been a crazy week. On Thursday apparently one of the senior missionaries volunteered us to go to a baptist church and serve thanksgiving dinner to a bunch of people there. That turned out to be very interesting. It turned out to be kind of like a soup kitchen type thing. The only people that came were homeless, scruffy looking people. Probably only 15-20 people in total came. We got to eat the food too there though, it was pretty good actually. Well, mostly just the ham was good. After that we went and looked all around the church, it was all really interesting. I took a bunch of pictures. Their "sanctuary" (their sacrament room) had a whole band set up. Drums, guitar, keyboard, etc. They have one of those big choir groups that wears those dresses and sings those gospel songs. They also have a balcony in the room you can sit on. I also climbed up this ladder and went up in the big spire thing. I got some good pictures playing on the drum sets in there and standing at the podium condemning the congregation. It was all a little shady. The baptists congregation only has like 5-10 people now, so they rent out the church to the Pentecostals every Sunday.
So an hour after that we went to a members home who invited us over for thanksgiving. Their names are the Rabago's. They are in the Spanish branch, but they are also related to the English ward's bishop, so that whole family came. There was a bunch of people there...probably 20. They had a big nice TV on with the football games on. Everyone there wanted to watch the game, so as we waited for the food to get finished we actually got to watch some football. We saw the end of the Titans vs Lions game and saw the first half of the Seahawks vs someone else game. It was all really interesting to me. They showed a bunch of the standings and it was amazing to see how things changed so dramatically from last year. I cant believe the Titans are doing so well. We had a really good dinner there too. It was nothing compared to Mom's food though. I definitely miss the cinnamon rolls and the pomegranate jello stuff with marshmallows. And our ham and of course the turkey bowl. It doesn't really feel too much like thanksgiving without all that stuff, but I don't really care that much. I'm willing to sacrifice 2 thanksgivings out of my whole life. When you look at it from a whole life's perspective, that's hardly anything. And I've already sacrificed the first thanksgiving, that means I'm only going to have to do it one more time. It seems so short to me to think that I'm only going to experience one more thanksgiving on my mission before I go home.
On Friday we did service for the whole day. Each day 1 district from the mission comes to Galveston to do service for the day and Friday was our day. We gutted out an entire house in one day. This lady had done nothing to her house yet. The mold was almost all the way up the 2 by 4's. The water line on that house was above my head...they got it pretty bad. There's no way she's going to be able to recover that house, but shes going to try. It was pretty fun to get out and do some good physical activity for a day.
On Saturday Elder M. Russell Ballard came and spoke to the 3 Houston missions! I'm pretty sure I told you that last week. It looked like a stake conference full of missionaries. I had pretty decent seats...it was in the last row inside the sacrament room. He brought his son-in-law (I think), whose name is Peter Huntsman. Apparently his father is the governor of Utah or something. Peter is the head of a multi-billion dollar corporation. He was a very eloquent speaker. Elder Ballard talked to us about the importance of doing all the small things in missionary work. He mostly talked about how we need to talk to everyone every day all throughout the day and always seek to get referrals from members. He was a pretty funny guy too. We found out that L. Tom Perry is going to come speak to us in January too...I'm getting spoiled.
Oh yeah, then after that we had Abraham and Paulette's wedding. It was a simple wedding, but they both loved it. The bishop came and did it, and we did it in the multi purpose room in the church. They were really happy. Then Sunday was a pretty stressful day. We were at church from 7:30am to 5:30pm. We had our normal schedule with ward council, English sacrament meeting, Sunday school, priesthood, Spanish sacrament meeting. Elder Pedersen and I spoke in Spanish sacrament meeting and President and Sister Allred came to listen to us. I also blessed the sacrament for the first time in Spanish. Every week they get the missionaries to pass or bless the sacrament in both the branch and the ward. Last week I gave the closing prayer in the English ward, blessed the sacrament in the English ward, and passed the sacrament in the Spanish branch. They pass it differently every time, its pretty funny. So then after that, the Spanish branch made a big meal and fed us all. (They feed the missionaries every Sunday after church. Every time there's a 5th Sunday they feed everyone in the ward). Then like 30min after that was the baptism. I wore Steven's white baptismal pants, one of my white long sleeve shirts, and Elder Brown (the senior missionary we live with) gave me a white tie. He had 3, so he let me keep one. The baptism all went great. I was actually kind of nervous because Kim is a pretty big girl and that would be pretty embarrassing if I had problems pulling her out of the water. It all went great...I baptized Kim, then Abraham baptized Paulette, his wife. President and Sister Allred were there too. All of us missionaries sang The Spirit of God as a special musical number. We sang Praise to the Man and Nearer, My God to Thee for opening and closing songs. Our investigators have always loved the songs we sing in church and they loved our song selection for the baptism. They will both be confirmed next week.
Last night I slept so well. Its been a packed, pretty stressful past couple of days. We had to write our talks in Spanish and do the baptism programs and organize everything for the wedding and the baptism while we did all that other stuff. Erica wasn't able to make it to church this week. She worked for 6 days this last week and did a ton of overtime. She has had problems with her sister in law in the past so she was going to work during thanksgiving to avoid her, but her mom said that if she stayed for thanksgiving and didn't cause any problems, she would go to church with her. So Erica prayed a lot and she did it! Her mom is a very devout Catholic so it was a pretty amazing thing for her to offer that deal. Erica's life has changed around so much and she's had so many blessing out of nowhere that its impossible to deny she's getting blessed for the choices shes making. Her mom has seen that in her life and I'm sure that's what compelled her to want to come to church with her. That'll be really neat to see what comes of that. Max (crazy Lord of the Rings guy) and Angie went to Angie's dad house for thanksgiving and we haven't heard back from them since. We visited them once last week and Max talked to us about how he knew Hurricane Ike was coming and he was hinting that he was prophesying of that. He was like, "I knew the storm was going to come. I was in the bishops office weeks before the storm trying to warn him." We asked him how he knew the storm was coming and his response was: "The Lord of the Rings. Don't you guys remember the scene at the end with the eye and there are a bunch of earthquakes and storms?" And he went all into detail about that. Its really hard not to laugh sometimes. When he said that I could barely hold back laughs and I cracked a smile and I happened to look over at Angie and saw her trying not to smile as well. I think she knows Max is a little crazy, she's surprising a pretty smart person. Like most people around here, she has had a really rough past.
Ok my time is almost up. I would talk about some of the things Mom e-mailed me, but I have to go! Hopefully next week I wont be so rushed. Hah...that would be a miracle.
OH YEAH, I forgot to say today is the end of the transfer. Nobody in my district is getting transferred though. I was really glad I got to stay here...I want to stay and see the area continue to thrive.
I really want to hand write a letter home sometime too. Our P-days are always so packed though and I'm only ever in our apartment in the morning and I study in the morning. Its pretty crazy stuff, but that's the story of my mission! Alright I better go. I love hearing about how everyone is doing and it always makes me laugh. We get to talk on the phone in 24 days too!! I'm excited. I need to start making a list of some things that might be good to send me for Christmas. I'll try to do that next week. I love everyone and I always pray for each and every person in our family!
Love,
Chase
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Received Mon, Nov 23, 2008
Dang it...I had just gotten done writing a big long e-mail when some error popped up and the computer just shut down. This week we decided to try to e-mail at Galveston community college. The only problem is there are only 2 computers and they are really slow. We'll probably just go to Texas City again next week.
But anyway...I'm just gonna try to sum up everything real quick as best as I can because I can't stay for very long. This week has been pretty good again. Kim is going to get baptized on November 30th...she just passed her baptismal interview a few days ago. Her Dad is the recent convert named Abraham, and he is going to get married to someone named Paulette. Paulette has been taking the lessons from missionaries where she lives in Dallas, but ever since they got engaged she's been down here a lot so we kept teaching her. She is going to get baptized hopefully on November 30th too. The plan is for Abraham and her to get married on the 29th then Kim and Paulette will both get baptized on the 30th. Kim asked me to baptize her, even though we really tried her to ask her dad to do it. She kept on insisting though and she said that we taught her, not her dad, so she wants one of us to do it. Abraham is just happy she is getting baptized and it doesn't make a difference to him who does it, as long as Kim is happy.
We are going to give a baptismal date to Angie (the crazy Lord of the Rings man's girlfriend) this week. We've talked to her several times without Max and we found out she is a really solid investigator and she has her own testimony of the church. She even said that whether or not her and Max stay together she is going to join the church. We're also planning on giving a date to Erica within the next week or so. So things are going pretty well.
Oh yeah...so today I wrote letters to Grandma and also Tony. As I was putting the stamps on the envelopes I noticed how I always have really girly stamps. At first I had hearts, now I have flowers. I am guessing this was not on purpose. It doesn't really bother me that much, but it made me laugh. And I also decided that whenever you send another package, I would like to have my shoes that I left at home and also my swishy pants. I don't really like wearing my nasty shoes that I've worn every day doing service. The swishy pants will also be good to sleep in when its freezing cold at night.
Ok, well I have to go now. Maybe I'll probably write a long e-mail next week because I'll have to include stuff from this week too. I think today were going to take the ferry over to Bolivar Island and just walk around there and see the destruction if there is any left. A couple weeks ago there were apparently alligators all over the island. There's always crazy rumors about Bolivar going around. People said they found human body parts in the alligators stomachs, I don't know how much I believe. But anyway, I love everyone and I'll talk to you next week!!
Love,
Chase
But anyway...I'm just gonna try to sum up everything real quick as best as I can because I can't stay for very long. This week has been pretty good again. Kim is going to get baptized on November 30th...she just passed her baptismal interview a few days ago. Her Dad is the recent convert named Abraham, and he is going to get married to someone named Paulette. Paulette has been taking the lessons from missionaries where she lives in Dallas, but ever since they got engaged she's been down here a lot so we kept teaching her. She is going to get baptized hopefully on November 30th too. The plan is for Abraham and her to get married on the 29th then Kim and Paulette will both get baptized on the 30th. Kim asked me to baptize her, even though we really tried her to ask her dad to do it. She kept on insisting though and she said that we taught her, not her dad, so she wants one of us to do it. Abraham is just happy she is getting baptized and it doesn't make a difference to him who does it, as long as Kim is happy.
We are going to give a baptismal date to Angie (the crazy Lord of the Rings man's girlfriend) this week. We've talked to her several times without Max and we found out she is a really solid investigator and she has her own testimony of the church. She even said that whether or not her and Max stay together she is going to join the church. We're also planning on giving a date to Erica within the next week or so. So things are going pretty well.
Oh yeah...so today I wrote letters to Grandma and also Tony. As I was putting the stamps on the envelopes I noticed how I always have really girly stamps. At first I had hearts, now I have flowers. I am guessing this was not on purpose. It doesn't really bother me that much, but it made me laugh. And I also decided that whenever you send another package, I would like to have my shoes that I left at home and also my swishy pants. I don't really like wearing my nasty shoes that I've worn every day doing service. The swishy pants will also be good to sleep in when its freezing cold at night.
Ok, well I have to go now. Maybe I'll probably write a long e-mail next week because I'll have to include stuff from this week too. I think today were going to take the ferry over to Bolivar Island and just walk around there and see the destruction if there is any left. A couple weeks ago there were apparently alligators all over the island. There's always crazy rumors about Bolivar going around. People said they found human body parts in the alligators stomachs, I don't know how much I believe. But anyway, I love everyone and I'll talk to you next week!!
Love,
Chase
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Pictures
Chase sent 176 pictures. Obviously, I can't (won't) post all those, but I will post some. Here are pictures until I am sick of posting. I will put the caption above each picture:
A favorite house of Chase's. He sees great possiblitiy to throw water balloons down on people form one of the balconies.
A favoriet car of Chase's. Notice the tail and all.
Chase said, "our house NEVER gets this dirty!"
One of his apartments. Missionaries, what are they thinking!
Chase teaches someone who lives in this house. It was built in the early 1900's.
This house belongs to that man.
Chase with his Trainer and anothe elder trained by Chase's trainer
A favorite house of Chase's. He sees great possiblitiy to throw water balloons down on people form one of the balconies.
A favoriet car of Chase's. Notice the tail and all.
Chase said, "our house NEVER gets this dirty!"
One of his apartments. Missionaries, what are they thinking!
Chase teaches someone who lives in this house. It was built in the early 1900's.
This house belongs to that man.He had a large gun collection.
Chase helped clean out the house.
Apparently he enjoyed the guns.
Apparently he enjoyed the guns.
Remember the story of the grocery store owner letting them take some groceries? This is the booty...or some of it.
A boat where it doesn't belong. Chase sent many pictures like this. The boat owners do not know what to do.
This would have been Chase's first apartment in Galveston. The "clean-up" was already done by the time Chase got there. He said in some cases, you can see 10 apartments down because of the drywall removal.
There are/were piles of trash like this all over and for a long time, maybe still. This big crane comes by the cleans it up. There is more the next day. There are lots of these trucks.
A big semi came to the church parking lot loaded with supplies. Chase helped unload it.
In Chase's words: "My sweet bike".
Huge tree fell from the hurricane.
Chase has seen loads of these cockroaches. He said they were 3 - 4 inches long. Whenever they cut down a tree loads of them came scurrying about, crawling on and over whatever including Chase's shoes.
A house Chase helped clean out. He said the smell was awful.
Streets were lined with fallen trees.
Dirty from a days work.
Workers marked house when they went through them.
People had pre-cut-to-size boards to put over their windows. It was very dark inside when the boards were up.
Stop sign blown over
Chase hates the sound these cicada's make.
The tree branch impaled the roof.
That's it!
A boat where it doesn't belong. Chase sent many pictures like this. The boat owners do not know what to do.
This would have been Chase's first apartment in Galveston. The "clean-up" was already done by the time Chase got there. He said in some cases, you can see 10 apartments down because of the drywall removal.
There are/were piles of trash like this all over and for a long time, maybe still. This big crane comes by the cleans it up. There is more the next day. There are lots of these trucks.
A big semi came to the church parking lot loaded with supplies. Chase helped unload it.
In Chase's words: "My sweet bike".
Huge tree fell from the hurricane.
Chase has seen loads of these cockroaches. He said they were 3 - 4 inches long. Whenever they cut down a tree loads of them came scurrying about, crawling on and over whatever including Chase's shoes.
A house Chase helped clean out. He said the smell was awful.
Streets were lined with fallen trees.
Dirty from a days work.
Workers marked house when they went through them.
People had pre-cut-to-size boards to put over their windows. It was very dark inside when the boards were up.
Stop sign blown over
Chase hates the sound these cicada's make.
The tree branch impaled the roof.
That's it!I am not spell checking.
24 is on - I must watch it.
Hope you enjoyed it!
Monday, November 17, 2008
Clarification From "The Mom"
I (Chase's Mom) am happily sharing Chase's e-mails with all of you. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do! I am happy to hear Chase's "voice" every week and hear that he is doing so well, working hard, and enjoying what he is doing.
Just remember that he is writing in response to my letter to him every week. In this letter he speaks about politics a bit. They are just his feelings, what he sees. Just see it for what it is; Chase talking about politics.
Chase also mentions 2 funny family stores. One is about Griffin's new sandwich idea - you can see it here, and the other is about his brother's Halloween costume; you can see that here.
Hope you enjoy.
You know Chase would love to receive a letter from you! His address is right over there to the left!
Just remember that he is writing in response to my letter to him every week. In this letter he speaks about politics a bit. They are just his feelings, what he sees. Just see it for what it is; Chase talking about politics.
Chase also mentions 2 funny family stores. One is about Griffin's new sandwich idea - you can see it here, and the other is about his brother's Halloween costume; you can see that here.
Hope you enjoy.
You know Chase would love to receive a letter from you! His address is right over there to the left!
Received Mon, Nov 17 2008
This week has been another pretty good week.
We had 3 investigators at church again. Erica came again, and she brought her sister, Monique, her son, and Monique brought her two kids. The kids loved primary.
The thing that I've seen that most people like about our church is the families. Everyone always says that love seeing lots of children at church and they love it when they scream. At other churches they don't allow parents to bring their children and they don't care that much about family. Erica said she loved watching the families because when a kid would start screaming she would see the husband look at her wife and then roll his eyes and realize it was his turn to take the kid out to the foyer and he'd get up and do it. She loved how the husband and wife worked together and everything. I thought that was neat. The only problem with her is that she doesn't believe there is one true church. She believes that each person has a church that works for them and helps them be faithful to return to God again. She told us she wants to be a latter day saint and that she believes this is the church for her. We think that the reason why she has this belief is because she cares about her family a lot and her parents are pretty hardcore catholics and they're really good people. She can't accept the fact that her parents could be wrong. We're going to teach the Restoration lesson again and really focus on authority. We'll see how that goes.
We gave a baptismal date to Kim! She's the one who is the recent convert's daughter. Her scheduled baptismal date is November 29th. Hopefully everything goes smoothly until then. Most of her friends are pretty bad influences and shes trying to escape her old life. She used to be into drugs and all that stuff. She has her tongue and lip pierced...shes one of those punk rocker girls. She has changed a ton though. She went out to Sugar Land this weekend to visit her friend and her friends Mom and she brought Books of Mormon for them and she's excited to tell them about the church. We're still teaching Angie, who is the one who moved in with the another recent convert named Max. We have only taught her twice so far. Max is probably one of the biggest weirdo's I've ever met. He is definitely a little crazy. He use to be a drug dealer and he believes he saw a vision and saw a bunch of angels and stuff. He says he had almost the same experience as Joseph Smith. He had this experience while he was watching all 3 Lord of the Rings extended versions. He was clearly not sober and his mind was going crazy. He refers EVERYTHING we teach him to the Lord of the Rings or wrestling. He has all these crazy weird analogies. He says wrestling (like WWF wrestling you watch on TV) is all symbolic of Bible stories and stuff. Right now his plan is to become a favorite wrestler so he can share the gospel with everyone with his mask on, so nobody will know who he is. He's if he spreads the gospel to everyone without a mask then the people back in Houston will shoot him if they ever see him. We get all sorts of crazy stories when we go over there.
Oh yeah...so last week or whenever that was I didn't even realize the election was happening. I re-sent in my absentee ballot the day before the election thinking the election would be held in a few weeks. Apparently Obama is president now. Everyone here thinks the 2nd coming is near now. Everyone thinks he's a terrorist and an America hater. They're all angry that he didn't salute the flag or something. I'm a little skeptical just because he has hardly any experience. I don't think someone with so little experience is qualified to lead the nation. We'll see though. I'm not too afraid of him doing anything crazy because we aren't living in a monarchy or anything. That's why we have checks and balances. I'm not at all surprised he got elected though...this whole island pretty much voted for him. A lot of black people voted for the first time so they could have a black person be president, so I'm sure that happened all throughout the south. They're all pretty happy about it around here though. We're already starting to hear comments from black people like, "Obama is president, I can do whatever I want." It's kind of funny.
Me and Elder Pedersen have picked up a little hobby over the last couple of weeks. As we ride down the sea wall every night we ride past a lot of the same hobo's, so we decided to start naming them. We named the one who is always shoeless Shoeless Joe Jackson. He is always sitting on a bench meditating. We named the scruffiest, most hobo-like one Hobo Jones. The coolest one is named Dexter. Whenever we ride past him he always yells, I LOVE LATTER DAY SAINTS!! and stuff like that. We named him Dexter because he sounds like a really educated person when he speaks, but he's definitely a hobo. Then one day we actually saw him riding around on a segway. We have NO idea how he got a hold of one, but we haven't seen him since then. He must have escaped with it. I'm sure he'll be back.
I finished putting all the pictures on a flashdrive and put captions on them all, so I'm going to send that home today. You should be able to open it on mom's computer and open it with the Windows Picture viewer or whatever its called...I don't know. Its the picture viewing program that comes with vista...I wrote the captions on there, so if you open it with that you should be able to see them. You can figure it out.
This last week I thought that I should start taking pictures of some of the crazy painted houses here, because I know Mom would be fascinated by them. Almost nobody paints their house a normal color. The most common color is lime green. Some houses paint each window or each area a different random bright color, its pretty funny to see. I haven't taken any pictures yet, but I should before I leave.
I got those two packages with the pictures and stuff in it. I thought it was hilarious. I took that picture of CJ and STC and showed it to the Browns (the old people we live with) and just said, These are my two brothers! He (brother brown) didn't believe they were my brothers and he asked who these two weirdo's were. I thought it was hilarious. After messing around with him some more I finally told him it was just for Halloween.
I am shocked to hear Dad beat me this week on fantasy football. I'm also honestly surprised that I'm doing so good when the Chargers are doing so bad. Oh yeah, so this week is the BYU Utah game. Elder Pedersen asked president if we could watch the 4th quarter of the game if we go visit a less active member who is watching the game. President said no, it was worth a try. He'll be calling in 1-800-555-TELL though to get the scores I'm sure. But tell me how that one goes.
OK I'm sure I've already asked this question before, but if I need to buy something should I use my debit card or credit card??Alright well I've got to go now! There are only two weeks left in this transfer, its going by so fast! Alright well I'll talk to you all later!
Love,
Chase
P.S.
I just sent me e-mail and when it closed I saw mom's question about how I got to Texas City. The sister missionaries come and pick us up every day at about 11 and we drive to Texas city to e-mail, shop, and go bowling or do whatever we planned. Ok, great stories this week. The sandwich story made me laugh out loud. And I want to hear how CJ's MLS game went. I've always wondered if those would be fun. Ok bye!Love,Chase
We had 3 investigators at church again. Erica came again, and she brought her sister, Monique, her son, and Monique brought her two kids. The kids loved primary.
The thing that I've seen that most people like about our church is the families. Everyone always says that love seeing lots of children at church and they love it when they scream. At other churches they don't allow parents to bring their children and they don't care that much about family. Erica said she loved watching the families because when a kid would start screaming she would see the husband look at her wife and then roll his eyes and realize it was his turn to take the kid out to the foyer and he'd get up and do it. She loved how the husband and wife worked together and everything. I thought that was neat. The only problem with her is that she doesn't believe there is one true church. She believes that each person has a church that works for them and helps them be faithful to return to God again. She told us she wants to be a latter day saint and that she believes this is the church for her. We think that the reason why she has this belief is because she cares about her family a lot and her parents are pretty hardcore catholics and they're really good people. She can't accept the fact that her parents could be wrong. We're going to teach the Restoration lesson again and really focus on authority. We'll see how that goes.
We gave a baptismal date to Kim! She's the one who is the recent convert's daughter. Her scheduled baptismal date is November 29th. Hopefully everything goes smoothly until then. Most of her friends are pretty bad influences and shes trying to escape her old life. She used to be into drugs and all that stuff. She has her tongue and lip pierced...shes one of those punk rocker girls. She has changed a ton though. She went out to Sugar Land this weekend to visit her friend and her friends Mom and she brought Books of Mormon for them and she's excited to tell them about the church. We're still teaching Angie, who is the one who moved in with the another recent convert named Max. We have only taught her twice so far. Max is probably one of the biggest weirdo's I've ever met. He is definitely a little crazy. He use to be a drug dealer and he believes he saw a vision and saw a bunch of angels and stuff. He says he had almost the same experience as Joseph Smith. He had this experience while he was watching all 3 Lord of the Rings extended versions. He was clearly not sober and his mind was going crazy. He refers EVERYTHING we teach him to the Lord of the Rings or wrestling. He has all these crazy weird analogies. He says wrestling (like WWF wrestling you watch on TV) is all symbolic of Bible stories and stuff. Right now his plan is to become a favorite wrestler so he can share the gospel with everyone with his mask on, so nobody will know who he is. He's if he spreads the gospel to everyone without a mask then the people back in Houston will shoot him if they ever see him. We get all sorts of crazy stories when we go over there.
Oh yeah...so last week or whenever that was I didn't even realize the election was happening. I re-sent in my absentee ballot the day before the election thinking the election would be held in a few weeks. Apparently Obama is president now. Everyone here thinks the 2nd coming is near now. Everyone thinks he's a terrorist and an America hater. They're all angry that he didn't salute the flag or something. I'm a little skeptical just because he has hardly any experience. I don't think someone with so little experience is qualified to lead the nation. We'll see though. I'm not too afraid of him doing anything crazy because we aren't living in a monarchy or anything. That's why we have checks and balances. I'm not at all surprised he got elected though...this whole island pretty much voted for him. A lot of black people voted for the first time so they could have a black person be president, so I'm sure that happened all throughout the south. They're all pretty happy about it around here though. We're already starting to hear comments from black people like, "Obama is president, I can do whatever I want." It's kind of funny.
Me and Elder Pedersen have picked up a little hobby over the last couple of weeks. As we ride down the sea wall every night we ride past a lot of the same hobo's, so we decided to start naming them. We named the one who is always shoeless Shoeless Joe Jackson. He is always sitting on a bench meditating. We named the scruffiest, most hobo-like one Hobo Jones. The coolest one is named Dexter. Whenever we ride past him he always yells, I LOVE LATTER DAY SAINTS!! and stuff like that. We named him Dexter because he sounds like a really educated person when he speaks, but he's definitely a hobo. Then one day we actually saw him riding around on a segway. We have NO idea how he got a hold of one, but we haven't seen him since then. He must have escaped with it. I'm sure he'll be back.
I finished putting all the pictures on a flashdrive and put captions on them all, so I'm going to send that home today. You should be able to open it on mom's computer and open it with the Windows Picture viewer or whatever its called...I don't know. Its the picture viewing program that comes with vista...I wrote the captions on there, so if you open it with that you should be able to see them. You can figure it out.
This last week I thought that I should start taking pictures of some of the crazy painted houses here, because I know Mom would be fascinated by them. Almost nobody paints their house a normal color. The most common color is lime green. Some houses paint each window or each area a different random bright color, its pretty funny to see. I haven't taken any pictures yet, but I should before I leave.
I got those two packages with the pictures and stuff in it. I thought it was hilarious. I took that picture of CJ and STC and showed it to the Browns (the old people we live with) and just said, These are my two brothers! He (brother brown) didn't believe they were my brothers and he asked who these two weirdo's were. I thought it was hilarious. After messing around with him some more I finally told him it was just for Halloween.
I am shocked to hear Dad beat me this week on fantasy football. I'm also honestly surprised that I'm doing so good when the Chargers are doing so bad. Oh yeah, so this week is the BYU Utah game. Elder Pedersen asked president if we could watch the 4th quarter of the game if we go visit a less active member who is watching the game. President said no, it was worth a try. He'll be calling in 1-800-555-TELL though to get the scores I'm sure. But tell me how that one goes.
OK I'm sure I've already asked this question before, but if I need to buy something should I use my debit card or credit card??Alright well I've got to go now! There are only two weeks left in this transfer, its going by so fast! Alright well I'll talk to you all later!
Love,
Chase
P.S.
I just sent me e-mail and when it closed I saw mom's question about how I got to Texas City. The sister missionaries come and pick us up every day at about 11 and we drive to Texas city to e-mail, shop, and go bowling or do whatever we planned. Ok, great stories this week. The sandwich story made me laugh out loud. And I want to hear how CJ's MLS game went. I've always wondered if those would be fun. Ok bye!Love,Chase
Monday, November 10, 2008
Received Mon, Nov 10, 2008
Happy Birthday Christopher! I hope you went to tucano's...thats what I would have done if it was my birthday. Laser eye surgery sounds like a pretty good present. I realized last week that I had left my contacts in for like 6 or 7 weeks, so I took them out and went a day or two without contacts. Not having to hassle with them would be pretty nice.
This week has actually been pretty tough. Two of our really good investigators told us they don't want us to visit them anymore. They were perfect investigators and were pretty sure the anti-mormons must have given them a couple visits. They definitely would have been baptized. That was tough. Then our other few investigators that were good also dropped us. We also found out a lot of the recent converts are having problems. Its pretty tough to know what to do sometimes. But we just keep working and things fall into place and we find more people. We had 3 investigators come to church with us yesterday, that was awesome. One of them is named Erica. She's the one who pulled up to us in her car on Halloween to give us a bag of candy and told us she loves latter day saints. She decided she wants to change her life for the better and she is seeking for the truth. We've been having really good visits with her and she had a really good experience at church. I'm excited to see how she progresses.
Another one is named Kim and she's a recent convert's daughter. She just moved back in with him and she's kind of in the same boat as Erica. She wants to change for the better. Her dad's name is Abraham and he is probably the most amazing recent convert I've ever seen. He shares the gospel with everyone and he absolutely loves the scriptures and the church. He was pentecostal before and his dad was a big time preacher in LA, so it was a huge change for him to join the church. He got pretty much disowned by his family. His daughter was raised pentecostal too and apparently they bring in people to talk specifically about Mormons and about all this anti stuff, so we're helping her resolve doubts.
The last one is named Angie, she is a recent convert's girlfriend. The problem is that they're living together. The recent convert, named Max, knows how important the church is and he took her to church with him. He's been talking to her about it and she likes it all so far. We're just being careful that she's not just trying to be baptized so she can be with Max. Max is kind of a weird guy though...he talks about how he saw angels before or something. Its some long story about how he was watching the extended versions of all the lord of the rings movies in a row and he started having visions or something. So those are the 3 that we had come to church. We're also teaching Germán, a Hispanic guy. He's been getting taught for a while and we had him read 2 Nephi 31 and talked about baptism. We invited him to pray to find out whether he needs to be baptized. He was like, the decision to be baptized isn't the hard part, enduring to the end is. He knows he needs to be baptized but he wants to keep reading the Book of Mormon and praying to find out if its true. He said he's about 70% sure its true right now. He used to be a missionary for his church in Guatemala so he's making a pretty big step to convert too. He's also living with his girlfriend, but I think he'll be willing to separate once he knows for sure the Book of Mormon is true.
One time during this week we had two reaaaally old men threaten me and Elder Pedersen. We were riding down the street and saw two old men on the street corner slowly making their way to the car, so we said hi to them. One of them turned slowly to us and started shaking his finger at us and said "We're going to beat the poop out of you" (censored of course). It was so random and it made us both laugh. I said, "Uh oh, we better get out of here!" It was almost as if a 6 year old boy was threatening us. Afterwards Elder Pedersen said he should have furiously thrown down his bike and said, "BRING IT OLD MAN!" That would have been pretty funny.
We also tried to contact this one referral, then some super old lady answered the door. I told her we were missionaries and we were here to give her the book she ordered. She said she couldn't hear so I said it louder. She said again shes hard of hearing and stepped closer, so then I just yelled it out. She could finally hear me but it was pretty hard to have a conversation when I was literally yelling at the lady. It was also hard not to laugh because it was so unnatural to be standing there yelling at some old lady. We could barely keep a straight face until she shut the door and we laughed for a good 10 minutes after that. I was kind of glad she didn't want us to teach her because I would have had a sore throat by the end of every lesson.
I got the package with the camera cord, pictures, stamps, ect. Thanks a lot. Yes that is my camera cord and I'm going to try to put all the pictures on it today. The Brown's have a laptop that I can use to put captions on the pictures. Hopefully it'll work the same way on the computers at home. The laptop has windows vista so if you look at the pictures on Mom's computer with the same program then it should work fine, I'm sure you can figure it out.
Alright I've got to go now before they try to kick me off the computers. They only guarantee 30 min on the computers here. We e-mail at a library in Texas City because the one in Galveston is flooded. I love hearing about everyone every week. I'll talk to everyone next week!!
Love,
Chase
This week has actually been pretty tough. Two of our really good investigators told us they don't want us to visit them anymore. They were perfect investigators and were pretty sure the anti-mormons must have given them a couple visits. They definitely would have been baptized. That was tough. Then our other few investigators that were good also dropped us. We also found out a lot of the recent converts are having problems. Its pretty tough to know what to do sometimes. But we just keep working and things fall into place and we find more people. We had 3 investigators come to church with us yesterday, that was awesome. One of them is named Erica. She's the one who pulled up to us in her car on Halloween to give us a bag of candy and told us she loves latter day saints. She decided she wants to change her life for the better and she is seeking for the truth. We've been having really good visits with her and she had a really good experience at church. I'm excited to see how she progresses.
Another one is named Kim and she's a recent convert's daughter. She just moved back in with him and she's kind of in the same boat as Erica. She wants to change for the better. Her dad's name is Abraham and he is probably the most amazing recent convert I've ever seen. He shares the gospel with everyone and he absolutely loves the scriptures and the church. He was pentecostal before and his dad was a big time preacher in LA, so it was a huge change for him to join the church. He got pretty much disowned by his family. His daughter was raised pentecostal too and apparently they bring in people to talk specifically about Mormons and about all this anti stuff, so we're helping her resolve doubts.
The last one is named Angie, she is a recent convert's girlfriend. The problem is that they're living together. The recent convert, named Max, knows how important the church is and he took her to church with him. He's been talking to her about it and she likes it all so far. We're just being careful that she's not just trying to be baptized so she can be with Max. Max is kind of a weird guy though...he talks about how he saw angels before or something. Its some long story about how he was watching the extended versions of all the lord of the rings movies in a row and he started having visions or something. So those are the 3 that we had come to church. We're also teaching Germán, a Hispanic guy. He's been getting taught for a while and we had him read 2 Nephi 31 and talked about baptism. We invited him to pray to find out whether he needs to be baptized. He was like, the decision to be baptized isn't the hard part, enduring to the end is. He knows he needs to be baptized but he wants to keep reading the Book of Mormon and praying to find out if its true. He said he's about 70% sure its true right now. He used to be a missionary for his church in Guatemala so he's making a pretty big step to convert too. He's also living with his girlfriend, but I think he'll be willing to separate once he knows for sure the Book of Mormon is true.
One time during this week we had two reaaaally old men threaten me and Elder Pedersen. We were riding down the street and saw two old men on the street corner slowly making their way to the car, so we said hi to them. One of them turned slowly to us and started shaking his finger at us and said "We're going to beat the poop out of you" (censored of course). It was so random and it made us both laugh. I said, "Uh oh, we better get out of here!" It was almost as if a 6 year old boy was threatening us. Afterwards Elder Pedersen said he should have furiously thrown down his bike and said, "BRING IT OLD MAN!" That would have been pretty funny.
We also tried to contact this one referral, then some super old lady answered the door. I told her we were missionaries and we were here to give her the book she ordered. She said she couldn't hear so I said it louder. She said again shes hard of hearing and stepped closer, so then I just yelled it out. She could finally hear me but it was pretty hard to have a conversation when I was literally yelling at the lady. It was also hard not to laugh because it was so unnatural to be standing there yelling at some old lady. We could barely keep a straight face until she shut the door and we laughed for a good 10 minutes after that. I was kind of glad she didn't want us to teach her because I would have had a sore throat by the end of every lesson.
I got the package with the camera cord, pictures, stamps, ect. Thanks a lot. Yes that is my camera cord and I'm going to try to put all the pictures on it today. The Brown's have a laptop that I can use to put captions on the pictures. Hopefully it'll work the same way on the computers at home. The laptop has windows vista so if you look at the pictures on Mom's computer with the same program then it should work fine, I'm sure you can figure it out.
Alright I've got to go now before they try to kick me off the computers. They only guarantee 30 min on the computers here. We e-mail at a library in Texas City because the one in Galveston is flooded. I love hearing about everyone every week. I'll talk to everyone next week!!
Love,
Chase
Monday, November 3, 2008
Received Mon Nov 3, 2008
This week as been a pretty crazy week. But I guess that's not really unusual for me.
Hmm...where should I start. Lets see...we have been having a really hard time with our bikes. There are nails and thorns all over Galveston right now, so we have been getting flat tires all the time. Tuesday Elder Pedersen had two holes in his tires so we patched that up.
Then on Tuesday evening we planning an awesome day with backup plans and everything. We were pretty excited about it. Then at like 10:32, Elder Brown (the senior missionary were living with) knocked on our door and told us that we needed to do service tomorrow at the church and help clean out this shed to store all the tools or something. We were already in bed and everything, but we had to throw out our plans and just do it. He said it was probably a two hour job. Nope, we didn't finish until like 4pm. Then we had to go to a member's house and help them replace a huge hole in their ceiling. So we didn't get to go out that day.
Then the next day Elder Pedersen had a leadership meeting out in Sugar Land. The zone leaders came and picked us up and drove to their apartment in a place called Friendswood. There all the district leaders carpooled to Sugar Land for the meeting. The zone leaders gave me the key to their apartment and said I was going to work their area with a brand new missionary who had just come in like a week before. I knew about these plans like a day or two in advance so it wasn't a huge surprise. So we did our studies there and I took the new missionary out and we knocked doors. This was a tough area...everyone was either rich and thought they had everything already or they were old and said they were set in their ways. It was really fun though. I got to try out all different kinds of door approaches and find out what works. It was also kind of fun to be the senior companion for the day. I really learned a lot from having to being the senior comp. That took pretty much the whole day and by the time we got back to our apartment it was too late to go out and work in our own area.
Then Friday morning morning we woke up, studied, and went to get our bikes to go out but I saw my tire was totally flat and had a huge nail sticking in it along with like 4 thorns. We used all of our patches to fix it. So we go back out again to get ready to go and I see my front tire is totally flat too. We had no more patches and the only Walmart is like 65 blocks away. We were pretty much stranded. We had a district meeting to go to, and luckily the sisters picked us up in our car and took us there.
President Allred was there to do interviews and he heard about our problems and he just gave me some money and told one of the assistants to take me to wal-mart to buy more patches and a new intertube. So to fast forward things, we did that patched it all up and it was dark so we couldn't go out for a 3rd day in a row. We had a bunch more things happen and more flat tire problems, but its all long and boring stories that wont be very interesting to tell, but our bikes are all fine now.
I've got one more bike story. So finally that next day we got to go out again and I was determined to talk to a ton of people and make up for our missing 3 days. We got on our bikes and started riding along Seawall to contact a referral that was 38 blocks away. I was riding as hard as I possibly could, but I felt like my bike was made out of lead weights. I wasn't going nearly as fast as I should have been. I just kept riding harder and harder until we finally got there. I was sweating hard and this was the first time I was actually really tired from riding my bike in Texas. I got off my bike and noticed something weird about my back tire. I tried to spin it and it barely moved. When I had put on my back tire, somehow my brakes got tightened and they were squeezing against my tire the whole time. So I rode 38 blocks with my brakes on! My thighs were so tired I could barely walk up the stairs to the house. My bike felt really nice for the rest of the day though...pedaling is much easier when you aren't riding around with your brakes on.
Aside from those 3 off days we did amazing this week. We've been praying hard to find people because we have almost nobody to teach and we have been working hard. Because of that we have been so blessed. We have literally had people yell out to us and call us over and tell us that they use to get taught by the missionaries, then lost contact and they had been wanting to get involved with the church again. That happened with like 3-4 people. We were just always in the right place at the right time. We found tons of people every day. By the end of the week we had found 15 new investigators. When we called in to report our numbers they told us we found the most investigators in the whole mission! We didn't even get to work for 3 of those days. It has been really awesome. I'm really excited for these next couple weeks to follow up with these people and teach the people who are really sincere about learning more. I don't know if I told you but only 2 people have been baptized in our area in this past year. We really want to change that. So that's pretty much how my week went!
It sounds like everything's going well at home. I definitely miss having that In N Out truck for Halloween parties. We came in early on Halloween for obvious reasons. Strangely, there were barely any trick-or-treaters around here this year. I guess its because so many houses were destroyed that people assumed it wouldn't work out too well. Its also not exactly the best place to be letting your kids walk around at night time. The crime is pretty bad in Galveston...its a pretty shady place, especially now with looters around.
No I did not remember the time change. Our stupid cell phones didn't automatically change the time. We have Sprint phones...they're stupid. We did remember before we left the apartment though. We just went back to sleep for an hour. There were 3-4 people who showed up at church an hour early though, that was pretty funny.
Moms Questions:Things are going great with my companion. We both want to bring success to this area and were working hard. Were also having a lot of fun, which I've found is really important if you want to be a good, happy missionary.
We don't regularly do service anymore, but it seems like about once a week they tell us they need us to do service for the day. We don't see very many yellow shirters anymore. Pres Allred is only sending 4 missionaries a day now. We've helped over 600 houses though and I figured that I've personally helped out 50-60 houses. We definitely got pretty good exposure.
We rarely get dinner appointments. MAYBE one a week. Since eating that nasty Indian food that made me throw up 5 times we have had 2 dinner appointments. And the senior missionaries never make food for us. I think they're kind of poor so I never ask them for anything. Plus they eat old people food filled with fiber and all kinds of other nasty stuff, so I'm kind of glad they don't make us anything.
No we haven't tracted in our own apartment complex. We have been visiting people who we have done service for. This is one of our most useful finding tools. Its pretty hard to reject us when our church spent a day doing service for them. By the way...we heard that tree chopping companies are charging like $1000 dollars to take out a good sized tree from yards and they're charging several thousand to gut out houses. We do that stuff all day long.
We don't really have plans for P-day this week. Last week we went bowling. I am planning on sending home some pictures today though. I just put all the pictures on a CD this time...it was the easiest and probably cheapest thing to do. I still have all those pictures on my camera so if you have questions about the pictures just ask me and I'll let you know. In the future I want to put the pictures on the flash drive with the Brown's laptop and I can actually write in captions to the pictures on the computer. I couldn't this time because the CD is not a re-writable CD, its a CD-R not a CD-RW, so you cant change anything on it once its been made. That seemed like a really good idea to me.
Church was good. We have only been having sacrament meeting for the English ward and the Spanish branch. The rest of the church is filled with supplies and stuff so they cant have class. Next week we'll have normal church. I'll tell you our crazy Sunday schedule for church next week.
I'm going to be excited to get that stuff you sent Mom...that's all exactly what I've been needing. And yeah it takes a week and sometimes a little more to get mail here. It gets sent to the mission office then they send it out here with whoever happens to be coming out here within the next week. Sometimes nobody comes out for a while though, so it takes a while. I do love the things you send though. Elder Pedersen saw our fantasy football stuff and he said he wants to do that when he gets back from his mission. He's heard of it before but nobody has ever explained to him what it is.
Jake got his mission call...that's awesome!! I'm glad to hear Jeff is doing well still too. Ive been pretty worried about that situation.Ok, this was a pretty packed e-mail...next week I'll have to include some more stories and random things that have happened to us during the week.
I love you all!
Love,
Chase
Hmm...where should I start. Lets see...we have been having a really hard time with our bikes. There are nails and thorns all over Galveston right now, so we have been getting flat tires all the time. Tuesday Elder Pedersen had two holes in his tires so we patched that up.
Then on Tuesday evening we planning an awesome day with backup plans and everything. We were pretty excited about it. Then at like 10:32, Elder Brown (the senior missionary were living with) knocked on our door and told us that we needed to do service tomorrow at the church and help clean out this shed to store all the tools or something. We were already in bed and everything, but we had to throw out our plans and just do it. He said it was probably a two hour job. Nope, we didn't finish until like 4pm. Then we had to go to a member's house and help them replace a huge hole in their ceiling. So we didn't get to go out that day.
Then the next day Elder Pedersen had a leadership meeting out in Sugar Land. The zone leaders came and picked us up and drove to their apartment in a place called Friendswood. There all the district leaders carpooled to Sugar Land for the meeting. The zone leaders gave me the key to their apartment and said I was going to work their area with a brand new missionary who had just come in like a week before. I knew about these plans like a day or two in advance so it wasn't a huge surprise. So we did our studies there and I took the new missionary out and we knocked doors. This was a tough area...everyone was either rich and thought they had everything already or they were old and said they were set in their ways. It was really fun though. I got to try out all different kinds of door approaches and find out what works. It was also kind of fun to be the senior companion for the day. I really learned a lot from having to being the senior comp. That took pretty much the whole day and by the time we got back to our apartment it was too late to go out and work in our own area.
Then Friday morning morning we woke up, studied, and went to get our bikes to go out but I saw my tire was totally flat and had a huge nail sticking in it along with like 4 thorns. We used all of our patches to fix it. So we go back out again to get ready to go and I see my front tire is totally flat too. We had no more patches and the only Walmart is like 65 blocks away. We were pretty much stranded. We had a district meeting to go to, and luckily the sisters picked us up in our car and took us there.
President Allred was there to do interviews and he heard about our problems and he just gave me some money and told one of the assistants to take me to wal-mart to buy more patches and a new intertube. So to fast forward things, we did that patched it all up and it was dark so we couldn't go out for a 3rd day in a row. We had a bunch more things happen and more flat tire problems, but its all long and boring stories that wont be very interesting to tell, but our bikes are all fine now.
I've got one more bike story. So finally that next day we got to go out again and I was determined to talk to a ton of people and make up for our missing 3 days. We got on our bikes and started riding along Seawall to contact a referral that was 38 blocks away. I was riding as hard as I possibly could, but I felt like my bike was made out of lead weights. I wasn't going nearly as fast as I should have been. I just kept riding harder and harder until we finally got there. I was sweating hard and this was the first time I was actually really tired from riding my bike in Texas. I got off my bike and noticed something weird about my back tire. I tried to spin it and it barely moved. When I had put on my back tire, somehow my brakes got tightened and they were squeezing against my tire the whole time. So I rode 38 blocks with my brakes on! My thighs were so tired I could barely walk up the stairs to the house. My bike felt really nice for the rest of the day though...pedaling is much easier when you aren't riding around with your brakes on.
Aside from those 3 off days we did amazing this week. We've been praying hard to find people because we have almost nobody to teach and we have been working hard. Because of that we have been so blessed. We have literally had people yell out to us and call us over and tell us that they use to get taught by the missionaries, then lost contact and they had been wanting to get involved with the church again. That happened with like 3-4 people. We were just always in the right place at the right time. We found tons of people every day. By the end of the week we had found 15 new investigators. When we called in to report our numbers they told us we found the most investigators in the whole mission! We didn't even get to work for 3 of those days. It has been really awesome. I'm really excited for these next couple weeks to follow up with these people and teach the people who are really sincere about learning more. I don't know if I told you but only 2 people have been baptized in our area in this past year. We really want to change that. So that's pretty much how my week went!
It sounds like everything's going well at home. I definitely miss having that In N Out truck for Halloween parties. We came in early on Halloween for obvious reasons. Strangely, there were barely any trick-or-treaters around here this year. I guess its because so many houses were destroyed that people assumed it wouldn't work out too well. Its also not exactly the best place to be letting your kids walk around at night time. The crime is pretty bad in Galveston...its a pretty shady place, especially now with looters around.
No I did not remember the time change. Our stupid cell phones didn't automatically change the time. We have Sprint phones...they're stupid. We did remember before we left the apartment though. We just went back to sleep for an hour. There were 3-4 people who showed up at church an hour early though, that was pretty funny.
Moms Questions:Things are going great with my companion. We both want to bring success to this area and were working hard. Were also having a lot of fun, which I've found is really important if you want to be a good, happy missionary.
We don't regularly do service anymore, but it seems like about once a week they tell us they need us to do service for the day. We don't see very many yellow shirters anymore. Pres Allred is only sending 4 missionaries a day now. We've helped over 600 houses though and I figured that I've personally helped out 50-60 houses. We definitely got pretty good exposure.
We rarely get dinner appointments. MAYBE one a week. Since eating that nasty Indian food that made me throw up 5 times we have had 2 dinner appointments. And the senior missionaries never make food for us. I think they're kind of poor so I never ask them for anything. Plus they eat old people food filled with fiber and all kinds of other nasty stuff, so I'm kind of glad they don't make us anything.
No we haven't tracted in our own apartment complex. We have been visiting people who we have done service for. This is one of our most useful finding tools. Its pretty hard to reject us when our church spent a day doing service for them. By the way...we heard that tree chopping companies are charging like $1000 dollars to take out a good sized tree from yards and they're charging several thousand to gut out houses. We do that stuff all day long.
We don't really have plans for P-day this week. Last week we went bowling. I am planning on sending home some pictures today though. I just put all the pictures on a CD this time...it was the easiest and probably cheapest thing to do. I still have all those pictures on my camera so if you have questions about the pictures just ask me and I'll let you know. In the future I want to put the pictures on the flash drive with the Brown's laptop and I can actually write in captions to the pictures on the computer. I couldn't this time because the CD is not a re-writable CD, its a CD-R not a CD-RW, so you cant change anything on it once its been made. That seemed like a really good idea to me.
Church was good. We have only been having sacrament meeting for the English ward and the Spanish branch. The rest of the church is filled with supplies and stuff so they cant have class. Next week we'll have normal church. I'll tell you our crazy Sunday schedule for church next week.
I'm going to be excited to get that stuff you sent Mom...that's all exactly what I've been needing. And yeah it takes a week and sometimes a little more to get mail here. It gets sent to the mission office then they send it out here with whoever happens to be coming out here within the next week. Sometimes nobody comes out for a while though, so it takes a while. I do love the things you send though. Elder Pedersen saw our fantasy football stuff and he said he wants to do that when he gets back from his mission. He's heard of it before but nobody has ever explained to him what it is.
Jake got his mission call...that's awesome!! I'm glad to hear Jeff is doing well still too. Ive been pretty worried about that situation.Ok, this was a pretty packed e-mail...next week I'll have to include some more stories and random things that have happened to us during the week.
I love you all!
Love,
Chase
Monday, October 27, 2008
Received Mon, Oct 27, 2008
Dear Family,
My new companion's name is Elder Pedersen. He's huge...hes like 6'3 or 6'4 or something. Hes a football player. He graduated high school then left for his mission. SUU has offered him a full ride (EVERYTHING paid for) scholarship to play football for them. A couple weeks ago Bronco Mendenhall talked to his Dad and said he wants to meet with him in February and talk about recruiting him for BYU. If that goes well and Bronco can give Elder Pedersen a scholarship, he is going to play there. He's a receiver. He has only been out on his mission for about 9 months, so hes pretty new. Hes only been out like 6 months more than me. He is our new district leader and hes pretty nervous about everything. He's nervous about being district leader and because we are pretty much whitewashing the area. We're pretty much starting over with all new investigators and everything because most of them moved out during the storm. I'm not really very stressed out about it because I don't see any reason to be. I figure if we just do what were supposed to and work our hardest every day, opportunities to teach will arise and this area will be up and running again. So as long as I'm trying my hardest every day, I'm not really stressed out about whats going to happen.
Elder Pedersen is a good missionary though. Its been interesting to see how he does things as opposed to Elder Nielson. He does get kind of frustrated about having to whitewash though because its hard to know what to do sometimes. As time goes on it'll be fine though. It has been pretty hard to know what to do sometimes though...especially when it gets dark. It gets dark at like 7:30, so after that we cant find people to teach and we don't have a ton of investigators to set up appointments. Elder Pedersen is also a really deep sleeper so he sleeps through any and every alarm, so I wake him up every morning. That helps me get out of bed though. I guess the only weird thing about him is that he rarely closes the bathroom door when he's going to the bathroom. The last week has been interesting with him though because he's pretty much just following my lead. I have to decide who to visit and I'm the one who has to lead the way there. I'd only been in the area for like a week and a half and now I was the one responsible for knowing where everything was. I'm proud to say we never even got lost and we've been doing pretty well. Luckily Galveston is pretty easy to navigate in. Its been kind of fun being the leader though.
My stay in Texas City was pretty good. I love working with other missionaries because it gives me more exposure to different techniques and just different ways of doings things. It gives me experience. I learned a lot of valuable things in Texas City...some good things to do and some things I shouldn't do. They aren't exactly the hardest workers. They drive around and visit members for pretty much the whole day. They stay at each place for like an hour and a half too. They don't even share a spiritual thought with them half the time either. After a while I just started sharing the spiritual thoughts and started hinting that we had to go. I could tell the members would get uncomfortable with us there for so long but apparently the other Elders don't see that. One of them has been here a long time and hes just waiting to go home and the other one has only been out 6 months or so and he just follows along with what his companion does. I know I'm going to have at least one companion who doesn't really want to work on my mission, so I just always know in my mind that I'm going to always do what were supposed to regardless of what people around me are doing. I got a little practice with that in Texas City. I woke up on time and did all my studies when I was supposed to. The other missionaries weren't really bad but they were slow to get up and study and do the things were supposed to. It was all a good, learning experience for me. Being in a companionship of 3 wasn't too weird for me. I think a lot of people thought we were like FBI agents though. It is kind of intimidating on people who don't know us. It was funny to watch people's reactions.
Yes I'm still in the same area, its called Galveston East.
Yes were allowed to baptize illegal immigrants...I'm pretty sure there are several that attend the Galveston branch.
I did get those nasty pictures of your foot, I'm not sure if those are the pictures you're talking about.
No I did not receive the flash drive. I came across a little problem with that. I don't have the cord that connects my camera to the computer and I need that in order to put pictures on the flash drive. Maybe I can just try to buy one at Wal-Mart if I'm ever there again. I also thought of a back-up plan. I can just make a CD with all my pictures on it and send that home. I might try to do that today.
No I haven't received my absentee ballot. there was actually a problem with that. I didn't get a chance to fill out those papers that first week because my time ran out on the computer and I don't think you could print there anyway. So I sent it out last week and I think that was right on the deadline. hopefully that turns out alright.
So...I'm assuming we finally got our family pictures. Can you make a copy of one and send it to me? That would also be really nice if you could send me a bunch of stamps along with it. I'm out of stamps and I don't think I'm going to be able to go to a post office any time soon.
I found my new favorite thing last week. A powerade slushy from Sonics. They are soooo good. Its a blue powerade slushy. From like 2-5 they are half off too. Ive only gotten fast food like twice on my mission, but last time I had one of those and it was delicious.
In Texas City we visited this one Hispanic family and they were cooking dinner out back on their grill. That was the most meat I have ever seen in one place before. They had a massive grill FULL of meat. On the table they already had 3 plates stacked high of all sorts of meat...sausage, steak, ribs, chicken, etc. They were also cooking a huge thing of brisket. Apparently they just leave the brisket in the BBQ overnight. Definitely dangerous but it looked good. The food I ate was amazing too. People are pretty big on BBQing around here and they always buy ridiculous amounts of food.
I don't think I've ever told you about bed bugs before. Apparently bed bugs are real. They are tiny black bucks that hide in cracks in couches and beds and come out and suck your blood when you're sleeping. During my first stay in Texas City I got eaten every night by them. I've never even seen them though. Luckily we don't have bed bugs in our new apartment...those things are annoying.
Ok, I need more suggestions for food to make. I already make grilled cheese and BLT's all the time. Yesterday I thought of making those tacos we make at home with meat, cheese, lettuce, and beans. Quesadillas with chicken might be good. What else is good and easy to make?? I need ideas!
Ok, that's about all for this week. Were doing our best to find people to teach every day. We are visiting a lot of the people we did service for, the only problem is most of their houses are destroyed and they aren't living there right now. We are slowly finding more and more people though. Its a slow process but its hopefully going to get up and running pretty quickly.
Alright I love you all and I'll talk to you next week!
Love,
Chase
My new companion's name is Elder Pedersen. He's huge...hes like 6'3 or 6'4 or something. Hes a football player. He graduated high school then left for his mission. SUU has offered him a full ride (EVERYTHING paid for) scholarship to play football for them. A couple weeks ago Bronco Mendenhall talked to his Dad and said he wants to meet with him in February and talk about recruiting him for BYU. If that goes well and Bronco can give Elder Pedersen a scholarship, he is going to play there. He's a receiver. He has only been out on his mission for about 9 months, so hes pretty new. Hes only been out like 6 months more than me. He is our new district leader and hes pretty nervous about everything. He's nervous about being district leader and because we are pretty much whitewashing the area. We're pretty much starting over with all new investigators and everything because most of them moved out during the storm. I'm not really very stressed out about it because I don't see any reason to be. I figure if we just do what were supposed to and work our hardest every day, opportunities to teach will arise and this area will be up and running again. So as long as I'm trying my hardest every day, I'm not really stressed out about whats going to happen.
Elder Pedersen is a good missionary though. Its been interesting to see how he does things as opposed to Elder Nielson. He does get kind of frustrated about having to whitewash though because its hard to know what to do sometimes. As time goes on it'll be fine though. It has been pretty hard to know what to do sometimes though...especially when it gets dark. It gets dark at like 7:30, so after that we cant find people to teach and we don't have a ton of investigators to set up appointments. Elder Pedersen is also a really deep sleeper so he sleeps through any and every alarm, so I wake him up every morning. That helps me get out of bed though. I guess the only weird thing about him is that he rarely closes the bathroom door when he's going to the bathroom. The last week has been interesting with him though because he's pretty much just following my lead. I have to decide who to visit and I'm the one who has to lead the way there. I'd only been in the area for like a week and a half and now I was the one responsible for knowing where everything was. I'm proud to say we never even got lost and we've been doing pretty well. Luckily Galveston is pretty easy to navigate in. Its been kind of fun being the leader though.
My stay in Texas City was pretty good. I love working with other missionaries because it gives me more exposure to different techniques and just different ways of doings things. It gives me experience. I learned a lot of valuable things in Texas City...some good things to do and some things I shouldn't do. They aren't exactly the hardest workers. They drive around and visit members for pretty much the whole day. They stay at each place for like an hour and a half too. They don't even share a spiritual thought with them half the time either. After a while I just started sharing the spiritual thoughts and started hinting that we had to go. I could tell the members would get uncomfortable with us there for so long but apparently the other Elders don't see that. One of them has been here a long time and hes just waiting to go home and the other one has only been out 6 months or so and he just follows along with what his companion does. I know I'm going to have at least one companion who doesn't really want to work on my mission, so I just always know in my mind that I'm going to always do what were supposed to regardless of what people around me are doing. I got a little practice with that in Texas City. I woke up on time and did all my studies when I was supposed to. The other missionaries weren't really bad but they were slow to get up and study and do the things were supposed to. It was all a good, learning experience for me. Being in a companionship of 3 wasn't too weird for me. I think a lot of people thought we were like FBI agents though. It is kind of intimidating on people who don't know us. It was funny to watch people's reactions.
Yes I'm still in the same area, its called Galveston East.
Yes were allowed to baptize illegal immigrants...I'm pretty sure there are several that attend the Galveston branch.
I did get those nasty pictures of your foot, I'm not sure if those are the pictures you're talking about.
No I did not receive the flash drive. I came across a little problem with that. I don't have the cord that connects my camera to the computer and I need that in order to put pictures on the flash drive. Maybe I can just try to buy one at Wal-Mart if I'm ever there again. I also thought of a back-up plan. I can just make a CD with all my pictures on it and send that home. I might try to do that today.
No I haven't received my absentee ballot. there was actually a problem with that. I didn't get a chance to fill out those papers that first week because my time ran out on the computer and I don't think you could print there anyway. So I sent it out last week and I think that was right on the deadline. hopefully that turns out alright.
So...I'm assuming we finally got our family pictures. Can you make a copy of one and send it to me? That would also be really nice if you could send me a bunch of stamps along with it. I'm out of stamps and I don't think I'm going to be able to go to a post office any time soon.
I found my new favorite thing last week. A powerade slushy from Sonics. They are soooo good. Its a blue powerade slushy. From like 2-5 they are half off too. Ive only gotten fast food like twice on my mission, but last time I had one of those and it was delicious.
In Texas City we visited this one Hispanic family and they were cooking dinner out back on their grill. That was the most meat I have ever seen in one place before. They had a massive grill FULL of meat. On the table they already had 3 plates stacked high of all sorts of meat...sausage, steak, ribs, chicken, etc. They were also cooking a huge thing of brisket. Apparently they just leave the brisket in the BBQ overnight. Definitely dangerous but it looked good. The food I ate was amazing too. People are pretty big on BBQing around here and they always buy ridiculous amounts of food.
I don't think I've ever told you about bed bugs before. Apparently bed bugs are real. They are tiny black bucks that hide in cracks in couches and beds and come out and suck your blood when you're sleeping. During my first stay in Texas City I got eaten every night by them. I've never even seen them though. Luckily we don't have bed bugs in our new apartment...those things are annoying.
Ok, I need more suggestions for food to make. I already make grilled cheese and BLT's all the time. Yesterday I thought of making those tacos we make at home with meat, cheese, lettuce, and beans. Quesadillas with chicken might be good. What else is good and easy to make?? I need ideas!
Ok, that's about all for this week. Were doing our best to find people to teach every day. We are visiting a lot of the people we did service for, the only problem is most of their houses are destroyed and they aren't living there right now. We are slowly finding more and more people though. Its a slow process but its hopefully going to get up and running pretty quickly.
Alright I love you all and I'll talk to you next week!
Love,
Chase
Monday, October 20, 2008
Received Mon Oct 20, 2008
Today has been a pretty crazy day.
It is the end of the transfer already and my companion is going home. We dropped him off in Sugar Land about an hour ago and I'm here with the zone leaders doing e-mail at a library.
After this I will go and stay with the Texas City elders and we will be a companionship of 3 until Wednesday when I will get my new companion.
Yesterday I was really sick. I'm not sure what it was, but I think it might have been from the food I day the night before. We ate once at 4pm at a Hispanic lady's house. It was like pasta then some tortilla's with steak. That was pretty good, but it had a ton of onions. Then we ate at 7pm at another members house. They made some weird Indian food with couscous and they poured some weird stuff on top and put yogurt in it. It was a bit strange, but it actually tasted alright. I felt good and even ate again before I went to bed, but the next morning I woke up at 5am and felt really sick. I threw up a little after that, then I threw up about 4 more times until about 2pm. After I had thrown up so many times I had nothing left to throw up, so I wanted to get a little something in my stomach. I drank some powerade and that healed me up quite nicely. I felt a lot better after that. I ate a little bit of yogurt too. I did that at like 2 and didn't throw up again. My nausea went away and everything. I think powerade is a miracle drink. I had to ask the senior missionaries to go get some for me and I even knew which color would be the best for my stomach at that time. I napped for most of the day and went to sleep for the night at 7. I lost 4-5 pounds in that one day, but I feel fine today. That morning I was kind of in denial that I was sick though because it had been so long. I would throw up, then rest for like 5 min, then go shower or do my laundry or do whatever else I would normally do. After about the 3rd time I didn't have enough energy or strength to walk more than about 10 steps and realized I should probably rest. I'm all better now though.
Last week I got to go shopping and buy real food for the first time since I've been here. I might have already told you but I've been living pretty much off frozen foods that you just heat up, because we have been moving around all over the place so we couldn't really buy cooking stuff. So I bought a whole bunch of fruit and good food. For lunch some of the things I've had are chili dogs, a couple BLTs, and chicken fingers. I always eat my food with some grapes, an orange, and some fruit juice. Its made a big difference to be eating a lot healthier.
I also got my haircut at supercuts. I said what Christopher told me to say, which is, a 3 on the sides and trim the top. I was the only person there and some Asian guy cut my hair. After I told him that he never said another word. Usually they ask you how you want your sideburns or the back done and if you are satisfied. He just cut everything without saying anything and he took forever. He cut the front part like a retard too. He just combed it straight down and cut it straight across. Mom always cuts criss cross kind of so its not just like straight across, but apparently this guy didn't know. Everything else was fine though. I'm just happy I have shorter hair.
Hmm...what else happened this week. We have been mostly visiting less active members and members this week so I could get to know them before Elder Nielson left. I have also been trying to get to know the area, because my new companion will know nothing. There are about 3 active families in the Spanish ward right now. We have been visiting this one less active Spanish lady named Milagro this last week and we got her to go to church on Sunday! She hasn't been to church for 16 years and she finally agreed to go! It was really exciting. Were going to keep visiting and working with her.
Ok, I wrote down a bunch of random things I've thought of that I haven't told you from the past, so the rest of my e-mail will be random thoughts.
Dad do you remember that BYU quarterback named Gifford Nielson? He is the stake president of the Houston South Stake and we worked with him every day. Elder Nielson and I went to his house too...I didn't even know who he was at the time. Hes also a sports caster for a TV station down here. Tracy McGrady also lived down the street. He's got a huge house surrounded by a big gate.
I noticed this week that about 75% of the Spanish speakers that we are teaching are illegals. They usually aren't even that secretive about it to us either. One guy named Pachuca told us that the cops came and knocked on his door 3 times already, but he just went out the back door and hid. Hes been here in America for a couple years and his family doesn't want him to come back until he can get legalization papers for his whole family.
Haha...that reminded me of when we were trying to get Milagro to come to church, she knew Elder Nielson wanted to become a lawyer after his mission and she said she'll go to church as long as he comes back eventually and helps her get her legalization papers. He said he wont be done with school for another 7 years or so, but she said she didn't care and that she could wait. I think she was only half joking.
I was also just wondering how Brother Melton is doing. And has anyone talked to Jake Melton to see how he's doing at BYU?
Mom I think it would be best if you bought the flash drive and sent it to me. I don't know when I'll be able to go to a Wal Mart again. We usually just do our shopping at a nearby grocery store. I'm hoping next week I'll be able to get some of my pictures printed off, because I'm not going to be able to this week.
Ok well that's about all for this week. I cant believe a transfer has already passed. English missionaries have 17 transfers and Spanish missionaries have 16. I'm down to 15 left already! I'll have a new companion in a few days. I hope hes willing to work hard because this area is going to require a lot of work. We only have about 2-3 investigators who didn't move away because of the storm. There are a lot of really good finding opportunities though and this area has huge potential. We just have to be willing to work really hard for it. Regardless of how my companion is, I'm going to do my best to take advantage of what we do have.
Ok Ill talk to you all next week! I love you!!!
Love,
Chase
Ps. I got the absentee ballot thing yesterday and I'll send it in today.
It is the end of the transfer already and my companion is going home. We dropped him off in Sugar Land about an hour ago and I'm here with the zone leaders doing e-mail at a library.
After this I will go and stay with the Texas City elders and we will be a companionship of 3 until Wednesday when I will get my new companion.
Yesterday I was really sick. I'm not sure what it was, but I think it might have been from the food I day the night before. We ate once at 4pm at a Hispanic lady's house. It was like pasta then some tortilla's with steak. That was pretty good, but it had a ton of onions. Then we ate at 7pm at another members house. They made some weird Indian food with couscous and they poured some weird stuff on top and put yogurt in it. It was a bit strange, but it actually tasted alright. I felt good and even ate again before I went to bed, but the next morning I woke up at 5am and felt really sick. I threw up a little after that, then I threw up about 4 more times until about 2pm. After I had thrown up so many times I had nothing left to throw up, so I wanted to get a little something in my stomach. I drank some powerade and that healed me up quite nicely. I felt a lot better after that. I ate a little bit of yogurt too. I did that at like 2 and didn't throw up again. My nausea went away and everything. I think powerade is a miracle drink. I had to ask the senior missionaries to go get some for me and I even knew which color would be the best for my stomach at that time. I napped for most of the day and went to sleep for the night at 7. I lost 4-5 pounds in that one day, but I feel fine today. That morning I was kind of in denial that I was sick though because it had been so long. I would throw up, then rest for like 5 min, then go shower or do my laundry or do whatever else I would normally do. After about the 3rd time I didn't have enough energy or strength to walk more than about 10 steps and realized I should probably rest. I'm all better now though.
Last week I got to go shopping and buy real food for the first time since I've been here. I might have already told you but I've been living pretty much off frozen foods that you just heat up, because we have been moving around all over the place so we couldn't really buy cooking stuff. So I bought a whole bunch of fruit and good food. For lunch some of the things I've had are chili dogs, a couple BLTs, and chicken fingers. I always eat my food with some grapes, an orange, and some fruit juice. Its made a big difference to be eating a lot healthier.
I also got my haircut at supercuts. I said what Christopher told me to say, which is, a 3 on the sides and trim the top. I was the only person there and some Asian guy cut my hair. After I told him that he never said another word. Usually they ask you how you want your sideburns or the back done and if you are satisfied. He just cut everything without saying anything and he took forever. He cut the front part like a retard too. He just combed it straight down and cut it straight across. Mom always cuts criss cross kind of so its not just like straight across, but apparently this guy didn't know. Everything else was fine though. I'm just happy I have shorter hair.
Hmm...what else happened this week. We have been mostly visiting less active members and members this week so I could get to know them before Elder Nielson left. I have also been trying to get to know the area, because my new companion will know nothing. There are about 3 active families in the Spanish ward right now. We have been visiting this one less active Spanish lady named Milagro this last week and we got her to go to church on Sunday! She hasn't been to church for 16 years and she finally agreed to go! It was really exciting. Were going to keep visiting and working with her.
Ok, I wrote down a bunch of random things I've thought of that I haven't told you from the past, so the rest of my e-mail will be random thoughts.
Dad do you remember that BYU quarterback named Gifford Nielson? He is the stake president of the Houston South Stake and we worked with him every day. Elder Nielson and I went to his house too...I didn't even know who he was at the time. Hes also a sports caster for a TV station down here. Tracy McGrady also lived down the street. He's got a huge house surrounded by a big gate.
I noticed this week that about 75% of the Spanish speakers that we are teaching are illegals. They usually aren't even that secretive about it to us either. One guy named Pachuca told us that the cops came and knocked on his door 3 times already, but he just went out the back door and hid. Hes been here in America for a couple years and his family doesn't want him to come back until he can get legalization papers for his whole family.
Haha...that reminded me of when we were trying to get Milagro to come to church, she knew Elder Nielson wanted to become a lawyer after his mission and she said she'll go to church as long as he comes back eventually and helps her get her legalization papers. He said he wont be done with school for another 7 years or so, but she said she didn't care and that she could wait. I think she was only half joking.
I was also just wondering how Brother Melton is doing. And has anyone talked to Jake Melton to see how he's doing at BYU?
Mom I think it would be best if you bought the flash drive and sent it to me. I don't know when I'll be able to go to a Wal Mart again. We usually just do our shopping at a nearby grocery store. I'm hoping next week I'll be able to get some of my pictures printed off, because I'm not going to be able to this week.
Ok well that's about all for this week. I cant believe a transfer has already passed. English missionaries have 17 transfers and Spanish missionaries have 16. I'm down to 15 left already! I'll have a new companion in a few days. I hope hes willing to work hard because this area is going to require a lot of work. We only have about 2-3 investigators who didn't move away because of the storm. There are a lot of really good finding opportunities though and this area has huge potential. We just have to be willing to work really hard for it. Regardless of how my companion is, I'm going to do my best to take advantage of what we do have.
Ok Ill talk to you all next week! I love you!!!
Love,
Chase
Ps. I got the absentee ballot thing yesterday and I'll send it in today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)