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.