Received Mon Jan 26, 2009

I think I'll start out this letter by talking about a few of our investigators.

First, we gave a baptismal date to one of our Hispanic investigators named William. He is from Nicaragua (not even half of the Hispanics here are from Mexico. They are from alll over central America). He is very very serious about studying the gospel and is very respectful about it all. He's come to church 4 times now. His baptismal date is for March 8th. He wants to make sure hes 100% ready before he makes the commitment of baptism.

With William, we teach his roommate, Jesús, and their neighbor Samuel. We also invited them to be baptized but Jesús is a little bit crazy and he said he needs a little more time. He's from Mexico where he has a wife and two kids. About 25 years ago he left and came to America where he pretty much wandered all over the place and lived in about 15 different states. He actually wandered through Arcadia at one point. He married a white woman while he was in California so that he could get papers and be legal. After he married her he left and pretty much just kept wandering and now hes in Galveston. He has a girlfriend right now and he smokes and drinks. So, he's got some problems. He says he usually goes back to Mexico to visit his family every 10 years or so.

You would be surprised at how many people here live like this. We call single Hispanic guys like him, chavos. You see a lot of chavos outside of home depot a lot just standing in a massive crowd trying to get work. We teach quite a few of them. Some are serious about learning and some aren't, so we sift through a lot of them.

Samuel is from Honduras and hes a pretty good investigator. He said he needed a little more time to think about baptism too and I don't blame him because we've only taught him twice. So hopefully in the near future those two will accept baptismal invitations.

Another chavo that were teaching is named Aldo. He is from Guatemala. We talked to him in the streets like a month ago and gave him a passalong card and got his phone number so we could call him later for an appointment. When we tried to call him later unfortunately his phone got disconnected. So like 4 days after that we were riding down a random street when we heard him yelling out at us from his front porch. We talked to him and his buddy that he was with and they were really really drunk, but Aldo told us that he knew we were messengers from God, so ever since that day he talked to us he started reading the New Testament and he read Matthew Mark Luke John and part of Corinthians. We talked to him a little about the Book of Mormon and also brought up the Word of Wisdom and told him that when he's drunk he cant have the spirit to be with him. So a week and a half later we were finally able to get a hold of him again and he said that after that day we talked to him he stopped drinking beer and he started reading the BoM. We taught a pretty good lesson on the BoM, then a little later we taught him another time. Right now hes in Houston but when he comes back were planning on giving him a baptismal date.

Were also teaching a korean girl named Somang. She is the neice of someone in the Thorley family, which is a very active family in the church. Brother Thorley is a white man and Sister Thorley is very Korean and doesn't have the best English. So since living in that house Somang has been brought to church 3 times, she's participated in family home evenings and also family prayers. We've taught her twice and she is progressing pretty well. Shes got a couple doubts she needs to overcome and as she keeps praying and when we feel like she has a testimony of the church were going to give her a baptismal date too. So those are some of our good investigators right now. '

We're seeing a lot of amazing things out here.Hmm...theres so much more to tell and not very much time.

On Wednesday of last week we had exchanges with the Texas City elders. Elder Pedersen went to Texas City and I stayed here in Galveston. My companion for the day was Elder Carroll who just barely got moved into our district. Hes only been out for like 2 transfers so he was a brand new missionary. I was pretty excited to be able to be the one to choose everything to do and how hard/how long to work. We had an amazing day. We taught 14 lessons before the day was over. One funny story that happened that day was after we talked to a big group of chavos we started riding away and I noticed my tire was completely flat. I found a big huge nail that went all the way through my tire. Luckily Elder Carroll had a patch kit, but we didn't have a pump, so we went and asked the chavos if they did. A Guatemalan guy named Angel ran inside the house and came out with an air compressor and started taking my tire off for me and doing everything himself. He patched it up and pumped it up and everything. Unfortunately the patches weren't working so well, so after trying to patch it 3 times he had a disappointed look on his face then jumped up and ran inside the house and came out with masking tape. He wrapped about 20 feet of masking tape around my intertube where the hole was. It was one strange looking intertube. Of course I took a picture of it, so you'll get to see it too.

I have a confession to make. I have not sent out the flash drive yet. Every week I'm going to something happens so I cant do it. The good thing is I keep taking more pictures and adding them to the flash drive. Today I've got it all ready to go and I'm going to send it.

Ok, that's about all I have time for today. Mom, you can get me the smaller sized journal. If they don't have any of those get the full sized one. Either way is fine for me.

I think Steelers are going to dominate the Cardinals. You never know though...remember last years super bowl. I've got my money on the Steelers though. Last time I picked them they went all the way. Ok, I think that's all your questions. If I missed any let me know. Sorry I'm in a big hurry this week. I've been typing really fast trying to get everything in.

I love you all!!
Have a good week!
Love,
Chase