Received Tuesday, Aug 5, 2008

Wow...it seems like a lot has happened this week.

I started to write down things I wanted to tell everyone, so hopefully I'll be a little more organized this time and be able to tell you everything, because I'm not sure if I'm going to have time to also write a hand-written letter. I have to write back like 3-4 other people from school that wrote me and they really only give us like 2-3ish hours to write letters.

Ok I'll start with the news that I've gotten. So Mom managed to break her leg again???? I knew what was going to happen as soon as Mom wrote about how she sprayed the back step with water. Well Mom you can look at it like you are on vacation now and you have 6 servants at your side to do whatever you want, so you don't ever even have to get up. That sounds like a pretty nice deal to me. I think I just convinced myself to break my own leg. I hope you feel better though. I am pretty confident that if there is any combination of drugs that will help relieve your pain, you will find it. We have a pretty big arsenal of drugs at home too. I've contributed some percoset and vicodin myself.

I can't believe I missed the earthquake!! I've been wanting to feel an earthquake forever. I felt some really tiny ones before when I was younger but nothing since then. On the day the earthquake happened my teacher told us there were earthquakes in southern California. I let out a big sigh of disappointment. As soon as I leave the earthquake hits. Luckily it wasn't a huge one though...that would actually be pretty scary. I think the funniest part about it was how Griffin didn't let the earthquake disturb his computer game. It brought a perfect image of that whole scene to my head.

Ok, so I realized I haven't really told you that much about all the basic stuff like where I'm living and about my district. So the building I live in is basically the best building you can be in. Its as close as you can get to EVERYTHING. Everything, i.e. our classrooms, the cafeteria, the bookstore, the post office, the RC, is surrounding our building. Its pretty awesome. I live on the top (4th) floor. The RC is actually on the 2nd story of our building so its pretty nice.

So...about my district. Me, my companion, and the 2 hermanas are all going to Houston Texas South Spanish speaking. We have 2 elders going to Montevideo, Uruguay. One going to Fresno, California. One going to Asuncion, Paraguay, two going to Argentina (Buenos Aires North and Resistencia) and that's all I think. I'm not sure if I told you all of that before yet. I do remember telling you that we have all taken Spanish before and were all intermediate Spanish. Everyone on our floor (of where we sleep) is either intermediate or advanced, so were pretty surrounded by Spanish. My companion, Elder Hickman, is somebody who I probably wouldn't get along with very well outside of the mission. But we make it work and we actually teach really well together. He is overly critical about a lot of things and pretty argumentative. I just let it all slide and he's starting to catch on to the fact that I don't want to argue and hes starting to really try to not argue about stupid things anymore. I remember once I said something about giving out Books of Mormon. He told me it was said "Book of Mormons." I told him that I know its pronounced Books of Mormon tried to explain how there are multiple books not mormons. He said there is only 1 book of mormon, but there are multiple copies and that you always pluralize by putting as S onto the end of everything. He was really aggravating me...I hate it when people tell me I'm wrong when I know I'm right. That's when I realized I just need to let things go and not worry about it.

By the way, Mom, we made some good choices on ties. People have been complimenting me a lot of my ties. After I started getting all these compliments I realized that a lot of my ties change colors depending on what angle you're looking at it. They are pretty cool. Also, another piece of important news: I tie my tie with a double winsor knot now. I stepped up from the normal winsor, its a big deal here at the MTC. We also have a daily debate about whether or not it is good to have a dimple. Pretty much everyone is against having a dimple, but one elder (elder Strickland) insists on putting in a dimple every time. Its pretty funny. We have a picture of the Quorum of the Twelve in our room and he pointed out that 2 of the 3 members of the presidency, including the prophet, have dimples in their ties. We have this "Dimple Doctrine" argument daily...its funny. My take on it is that if I happen to have a dimple in my tie, then I leave it, but if not, then the dimple was not meant to be.

I think I told you about how I love the prelude hymns at our devotionals and firesides and about how Army of Helaman was our districts favorite one. We asked our 1st counselor in the branch if he could play it for us soon (he plays the organ for a lot of the firesides/devotionals), and he said only Sister Boone (the MTC president's wife) gets to decide what he plays. It just so happens that our service assignment was to clean all the stairs in the main building and there just so happens to be a set of stairs outside Sister Boone's office. Me and 2 other elders walked into her office and asked if we could sing Army of Helaman for a devotional. She said yes of course and asked when we were leaving and promised us that we would sing it at least once before we left. So the next time we sing Army of Helaman its because we asked for it.

Ok I only have 5 minutes left and the timer thing in the corner is pulsing in big red numbers. I have a couple questions. So I bought new scriptures, should I send my old scriptures home? I also discovered that 1 pair of shoes I brought with me are too small, so I need to send those home too.

I'll quickly answer Mom's questions:My Spanish is coming along pretty well. Starting Thursday we are not allowed to speak English anymore. I eat a donut every day. We speak like 50% in Spanish everywhere. Umm...you can send me those socks in the next package you send me. You can also send me another pair of white socks. You can also send me that ankle brace...it starts to hurt playing soccer sometimes.

Ok 1 min left! I loved hearing from everyone in one DearElder letter. That's exactly what I wanted. I think that was a pretty good idea...it was good to hear from everyone. I'm going to try to send some pictures home soon. Ok, I love you all!Until next week,Chase