Received Mon June 29, 2009

Dear Family,

This has been one interesting week. I was only in Richmond last week on Wednesday, Thursday morning, and Saturday night.

Starting Monday when P-day ended (6pm) I went on exchanges to Rosenberg (nearby city in our district). Everything was going well until the next day I woke up not feeling well at all. That was one of the worst stomach aches I’ve ever felt. It felt like someone was wringing out my intestines. The Elder I was with had just gotten over a stomach virus that made him sick for a week, so I was afraid I was going to get that. All the food in my stomach came out whichever way it could (I wont go into detail), then after my stomach was emptied I started feeling a little better. But to make matters worse, as soon as I started to feel a little better the Elder I was with all the sudden got a hernia. His stomach had not been feeling right since he was sick, then that day finally he got a hernia, so some organ fell out of place and was poking his skin out to make a little bump. Gross. So my sick self drove him all the way over to a doctor in a couple cities over and they set up an appointment with a surgeon so the surgeon could decide what they needed to do. He is going to find out this week sometime if he’ll have to go home to get the surgery. But good news is that I was feeling much better by nighttime. I got a powerade slush at Sonic and that was my healing potion as usual. It helped rehydrate me and that was one thing I felt like my stomach could hold down.

Wednesday we did normal missionary work. Elder Taufa said good-bye to a lot of people. Thursday morning I dropped him off at the mission home. That was really weird saying good-bye knowing we would never see each other again. We became really good friends. Most people get sick of each other after staying together 3 transfers, but we weren’t. His family moved to New Zealand, so that is where he’s going home to. He’s never even been there before. I heard that he got stuck in LA with some sort of visa problems, so he’s been waiting around til today before he could leave.From Thursday til Saturday when we had our transfer meeting I was with our Zone Leader, Elder Fiefia, whose companion also went home. He is a good missionary…we had a good time. He is also Tongan, but he grew up in West Jordan (maybe South Jordan…one of those places), Utah. Then we had our transfer meeting.

After transfer meeting we had our little surprise party for the Allreds. Everyone in the mission came and hid in the gym while we were having our transfer meeting in the sacrament room. At the end they opened the divider thing for the overflow and everyone surprised him. It was fun…there was a slide show and a couple people sang songs, then our zone and another zone did the Haka. I got someone to film that one, so you’ll get to see that one when I send pictures home.

My new companion is Elder Cambell. He is from Layton Utah and hes been on his mission for about 18 months. He is our new district leader. He is a cool guy…I think we will have a good transfer. In my interview with president we talked about the area and he asked me what I think needs to happen so that we could keep having success there. I told him that all the area needs is a good missionary who is ready to work and ready to work with the members. I’m probably going to get moved out of this area at the end of this transfer and probably go back to Spanish, so I knew the Elder coming here would be taking over the area when I leave. It would be so sad to see someone lazy come take over the area and see it all fall apart. President Allred honored my request, so now Elder Cambell is here. He reminds me a lot of my first companion, Elder Nielson. He’s pretty tall and has a pretty deep voice and he talks really slow. And he’s one of those people ALWAYS has a smile on his face. It sounds like he’s always about to start laughing…its pretty funny. He is a good missionary though.

It is pretty exhausting to take over the area though. I have to do all the planning by myself and decide everything to do until my companion starts to learn the area so he can help. Yesterday felt like 3 days in 1. I love going home at night and being exhausted though…that means I worked hard. When I work hard I feel good.

My random story from the kitchen for this week is that I made donuts! Someone in Elder Fiefia’s area made donuts for him and him and his companion on Wednesday, so we tried making them on when we went on exchanges together on Thursday. So we made them on Thursday, then I made some on Saturday. They are sooo good. I think they are pretty unhealthy though. All you have to do is buy some biscuits (we use some Pillsbury kind…I don’t remember the name). And you poke a hole in all the biscuits so they’ll look like donuts, then you pour a bunch of oil in a frying pan and fry them up when the oil gets pretty hot. It probably only takes a minute to cook both sides and they look just like donuts. Then to make the frosting (this is the part I haven’t gotten down yet) you put a bunch of powdered sugar, some butter, some milk, and some cinnamon in a bowl and mix it together. You can replace cinnamon with whatever flavor you want your frosting to be, but cinnamon is good. We’ve found the best way is to rip the donut in half and dip it in the frosting. Its so good.

Responses to Mom’s e-mail:Yes I got the package with the Apple Jacks and the shirt…the Apple Jacks have already been eaten.The story about CJ & ST’s roommate who just got baptizes is very interesting. I have this CD called Conversion of a Catholic and that’s basically the story the guy on there told. He was studying to become a priest, but went to Idaho to take a couple extra classes and one of his roommates there was LDS. The story is a really good story. Maybe I’ll copy it and send it home some time…maybe the next time I send pictures. It’s a really good missionary CD. Yesterday in church before we started our elders quorum class our elder’s quorum president announced that Brazil just scored their first goal against the US and they could possibly be making a comeback. That is funny that they turned out winning.Last comment: I have never heard of a Trek til I came on my mission. A lot of missionaries here have a Trek CD that have a lot of songs that people listen to on their trek things or something. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it is a good CD.

OK that’s about all for this week. Thank you for the e-mail Mom…it was full of good stories. I think that all the stories are good, even if I don’t make comments about each of them. Have a good week, I love you all!!! I am jealous that you all get to go swimming!

Love,
Chase