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