Received Tue, Aug 12, 2008

Dang it...I totally forgot to bring the dear elder's Mom sent me. I had highlighted all the questions and all the things I was going to talk about. I'll just try to remember as well as I can. I did write down a bunch of things I was going to talk about though.

Happy Birthday yesterday Dad! I tried to get a picture of the Houston temple to send home as a birthday present, but they didn't have any. I did find a really cool Book of Mormon bookmark though. It's really colorful and it has pictures of all the Book of Mormon stories in chronological order. I'm going to be sending that home with the pictures I'm sending this week.

I did get Dad's letter last week. The time went by so fast I didn't get to respond to much of what anyone said. But I was really glad to hear that Dad likes his job a lot. I honestly think that I would love to do something similar to that. I've got a lot of time to think about it though. I wouldn't mind going to work with Dad for at least part of a day when I come back.

Mom: I totally forgot about those return address stickers, I am glad you reminded me. I've been using them ever since last week, they are very convenient. The address is slightly different than the one I usually use, but it still works just fine.

That is awesome that Zak and Quinn get to go to scout camp. I actually never got to do that.

I did buy a journal and I have been writing in it pretty much every night. We actually had a fireside a little while ago about how important it is to write in your journal.

Oh yeah, how did our family pictures turn out? I would like it if you could send me one...I don't really care what size.

My Spanish is been coming along pretty well. This last Friday we had a funeral for English. English is no longer alive in our district. We only speak English during planning and interviews. We learn the gospel, grammar, and everything all in Spanish now. This is definitely the best way for me to learn Spanish. Doing those exercises in textbooks never really help much at all. I've got all the grammar principles and things I need in my head already, I've just got to get use to learning when to use them and being able to do it quickly. I can understand like 75% of what a native speaker says when they are speaking as fast as they like.

One major thing I've noticed is that when I'm listening to someone speak in Spanish I don't have to sit there, listen to their sentence, then translate it to English. Now I just hear a Spanish word and the meaning automatically registers in my head. I can actually keep up in a conversation
now. So I think I'm definitely on my way to speaking Spanish pretty well, I just have to expose myself to it and get my mind in Spanish mode.

Quinn: Of course I do real pull-ups, that is the man's way to do it. I actually never do chin-ups. Everyone says they're easier, but I honestly don't notice much difference. The pull-up bar we have is metal and it punches my skin when I'm doing my pull-ups, so I haven't been doing them very much. My roommate, Elder Painter who is a martial arts black belt guy/ certified professional trainer, has been showing me a lot of cool pushups and martial arts stuff. The highest I've gotten to is 15 pullups, so try to beat that. If you do, I'll have to extend a challenge for push-ups.


Ok those are all the questions I remember.

Well as far as news for me this week, the biggest thing is that my companion and I were asked to be the zone leaders. Our current zone leaders are leaving in a week or so, then we're going to take over for them. That means I'm going to be responsible for like 60 missionaries. I don't think it will be so bad though. As a district leader you really have to know everyone personally and be able to set goals and help everyone according to individual needs. As a zone leader you don't have to get to know every person in your zone super well. So I'm going to have a lot more responsibilities now, but they wont be as intense. I'll let you know how it goes.

2 sundays ago we I had my first testimony meeting in Spanish. It was awesome. We have a lot of natives in our branch so it was cool to hear them speak in "real" Spanish. It was good practice for when we get out to the field. I bore my testimony too, it was a good experience.

Oh yeah, I loved hearing from everyone last week. Even though it was just a sentence or two I could totally pick out your personalities by what you wrote, it was funny. I think everyone should write again.

Oh yeah...I remember when Steven told that story he heard about sister missionaries praying to turn water into gasoline. Well, those missionaries were in my teachers mission in Florida. He told us that story and he said people joked about it for months. The car was totally ruined after that and they had to get rid of it. It was funny to hear the story from him because he knew them
personally. He told us how the story spread all across the east coast too, and I guess that's how it got to Steven's mission. My teacher is actually 23, turning 24 this Friday. He's been married for like 1 1/2 years, which is weird because he's younger than Christopher.

One of my favorite things here at the MTC is the RC(Referral Center). I think I've explained it to you before. People see commercials or get a passalong card and order a Bible/BoM/video or something, then we go to the RC and call them back to make sure they got it. Then we talk to them about the Gospel and how they like whatever they ordered. Every time we go we always get these people from the south who have really thick accents. It's hard not to laugh sometimes.
People have some hilarious answering machines too. I've had some pretty funny conversations with people there.

Well, I'm just about out of time. Things are going good though. I've only got like 3-4 weeks left or something. Time is passing by so fast. I'm learning a ton though. I'm way excited to finally get to go to the mission field. We had people come in and tell us about foods we'll probably be eating in our missions, that was a fun lesson. They told us about some of the grossest things we're going to be eating on our missions too. Christopher have you heard of menudo? Its basically all the intestines and nasty parts of an animal put together in one dish.

Ok I have like 30 seconds left. I love you all and miss you! Hope to hear from you soon!
-Chase