This week I am writing my e-mail in Microsoft Word, then I will copy/paste it over. I always try to remember to copy my e-mails before I send them, but I’m usually just so relieved that I got through my whole e-mail without having any problems, so I click send quickly before anything happens. Unfortunately most things go wrong while you're sending. This is kind of interesting writing in Microsoft word…I get to see all my spelling and grammar errors. Myldsmail.net does not have any sort of spell check.
There are only a few interesting things that I left out of my recap letter last week. One of them being that I got to play racquetball again and it was a lot of fun. They also made a new rule that missionaries are no longer allowed to go to public gyms anymore, because it separates you from your companion and because missionaries are spending too much money on memberships. Me and Elder Taufa lucked out though. We have permission to keep using our gym because it’s a little private gym for the residence in our area only. It is kind of strange to hear the radio every morning and see TV’s, but I’m so tired in the mornings I don’t really pay attention to anything. So I’ll get to keep going to the gym as long as I’m in this area. I’m thinking I’ll be here for a while. I’ll be here for the rest of this one, and I’m pretty sure I’ll stay in this area and finish off Elder Taufa’s mission, then I’ll be here one more transfer at least to teach Elder Taufa’s replacement the area. So that’s like 3 more months or something. I’m very happy though.
Dad might be the only one to appreciate this, but Frank Beard from ZZ Top lives in our area. We just found that out…we have been driving past his house at least once a week. He has a huuuge property with big fields with lots of cattle. He has a big gate in front of his drive way and it says “Top 40” on it. The next time we see that gate open were going to drive down his driveway and go knock his door. I’ll let you know how it goes.
We just introduced our ward mission plan yesterday. Its really simple, but effective. Basically, our bishop challenged everyone in tithing settlement to invite 4-5 nonmembers into their homes every year. The goal is to have our ward have 1000 visits from nonmembers into their homes this year. I think it’s a genius plan. If members do this, everything else will fall into place. People will ask questions about pictures or whatever random things members have in their homes and it will spark an interest. More importantly than that, they will feel something in their homes that they don’t feel anywhere else. We’ve heard a lot of neat experiences already. To track the visits, our ward mission leader drew a house with 1000 bricks. Each time someone has a non-member visit, they get to fill in a brick with a marker, so by the end of the year hopefully all the bricks will be filled in and our house will be built. It’s a fun little idea. Our bishop loves the idea and he has full support for the plan. We have a really good relationship with the bishop, which is vital to be successful in an area. Part of that is due to us having breakfast with him every morning. I love that because we get to eat delicious food and we are helping progress the work.
Our investigators are all doing really well. We taught Tien the Word of Wisdom and she said she’s been living that for her whole life. We also taught the Word of Wisdom to the Dors and there were not really any problems, but Michelle (the mom) drinks decaf coffee. We were sure if that is included in the Word of Wisdom or not, so we talked to our mission president who told us we should just be safe and tell her we need to follow the word of wisdom completely and not drink any kind of coffee. I was a little bit worried, but when we told her, she was like, “Ok, I will stop drinking it.” It was no problem at all. A lot of our other good investigators have been sick with something that’s been going around here, so we haven’t been able to see them, but they are all doing well. David Majewski (the one that is going to be baptized after finishing the Gospel Principles book) is doing well too and hes getting pretty close to the end of the book.
This last week me and my companion have been on an ice cream crave for some reason. Ever since Mom sent me those peanut butter blossom cookies I’ve been on a cookie crave too. Last week Erika sent me a cookie pie (basically just a sheet of cookies on a circular pan) and I’ve been eating that on top of a bowl of ice cream almost every day. Together, me and Elder Taufa ate a gallon of ice cream last week. It was delicious. We bought another gallon today.
I tried some African food the other day. Maybe Steven has tried some also, but we had this stuff called Fufu with a big fat cow tongue and goat meat. Fufu is…well I think the best way to describe it is that it looks like Play-Do, tastes like it, and feels like it. I’m not sure what its made out of and I don’t think anyone really knows. My companion went on exchanges to another area and brought that back for me. I tried a tiny bite of each and it was gross. I don’t recommend it.
The doors fed us Haitian food again. They made fried plantains. They were pretty good, considering I don’t even really like bananas. I didn’t even know what plantains were until I came on my mission. I actually learned the word in Spanish, platano. So when I saw the plantain in the Dors I was like… Ohhh that’s a platano! They looked at me weird and I realized that was only a Spanish word. They also made a Papaya smoothie which was soooo good.
I think one of the coolest parts about serving a mission is that you get to talk to so many people from all around the world. They all have different backgrounds and their own unique stories. I counted it up the other day and I’ve talked to people from 28 different countries that I can remember. I’ve learned how to say hello in 15 different languages: English (obviously), Spanish, Vietnamese, Hindi, German, Korean, Russian, Tongan, Samoan, Fijian, Tahitian, French, Hawaiian, Japanese, and Tagalog. Those are all the ones that I’ve written down.
I think one of the neatest guys that we visit is a guy named Brother Noah. He has really bad cancer all over so he never really leaves his home but he has some crazy stories. He started out by working for the CIA (he cant really talk about anything he did there), then he was in the first group of people to be a Navy SEAL. This was during the time of the Vietnam war so he had a lot of special ops missions over there. He has some crazy stories. He got wounded and had to quit that, so then he went on to develop and build nuclear weapons. So we always have a good time talking to him. He let us hold a real grenade.
Last week I also talked to a guy who was in the NFL draft. I’m not sure if he got drafted or what team he went to, but I’ll find out today.
Well that’s about all. Mother’s Day is coming up, which means I get to call home. We have church from 11-2, which I think means we end church at 12 California time (you might want to double check). So if you give me a time frame that I should call in, next week I’ll try to give you a more precise time I’ll be calling.
Ok, well it sounds like everything is going well at home. I think that was a genius idea to hide the beetle so you could play with it later. Oh yeah, I’m not sure if I wrote back to Nana and Bumpa when they sent me a birthday card, so could you ask and see? If not I will write them next week. Ok, I love you all!! Have a good time at testing! I always loved that week because we had no homework and they were always easy tests.
Love,
Chase
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