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
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