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