Received Monday, June 1, 2009

Dear Family,

Wow...this has been a pretty unpredictable week. Last P-day everything went pretty much as planned. We ate breakfast with the ward, had a BBQ, then we went and played some football. Apparently some youth in Sugar Land challenged the missionaries to a game of football and they were talking a lot of smack, so the missionaries there called up a couple companionships to put a team together and we killed them.

We had 2 BYU football players, the starting running back for the Dixie State football team, a player from another college team, and 3 huge Tongans. It was hilarious to see my companion play. He would run directly at the guy with the ball, through whoever was in front of him, and get the guy with the ball out (we were playing 2 hand touch). It was as if he didn't see the people between the guy with the ball and him. After a few plays nobody would block him. Then on offense he would always catch the ball with one hand and half the time he would forget it was 2 hand touch and just lower his head and run straight at someone if they were in front of him. He had never seen football played until he got here.

Unfortunately the story doesn't have a happy ending. After we clobbered the youth, we (the missionaries) made 2 teams and were playing against each other. Near the end, my companion jumped up to get the ball and when he came down, he landed in a hole. It turns out he tore his ACL and his meniscus (however you spell it). So last week we had to go to doctors appointments, MRI's, and he had to ice it and keep it elevated. Tomorrow were going back to the doctor to get the MRI read and they'll talk about what to do about the surgery...whether they'll do it here or in back in New Zealand where his family is. Luckily, it doesn't hurt bad enough to the point where he can't move. Obviously we cant go knock doors or just make random visits, but if we had a set appointment then we'll go. So I've been calling all our investigators and setting up lots of appointments.

We get to go to the temple this Thursday! The youth are going on a temple trip, so the Dor's kids are all going to go for the first time. And we get to go with them. That will definitely be a highlight of the week.

Yesterday was a really good day at church. A lot of good things happened. Michelle Dor (the mom), brought her sister-in-law and her nephew to church. She is already doing missionary work! Hopefully we can start teaching her and her kids. 2 of her kids already come to mutual with the Dors kids. Jonathan Dor, who is 12, got the priesthood yesterday and passed the sacrament for the first time. That put a smile on my face. He is a really good kid...he's one of those people you know will be a good member the rest of his life. Then like 15 people got callings. A few less actives we've been working with got callings which made me really happy. It shows how much they've progressed and this will help them stay strong and active. One of the people who got callings was our investigator David Majewski. He's on the activities committee with his wife. That made me happy too. We're going to have a lesson on Wednesday with him..he should have a baptismal date soon. We haven't been able to meet with them for like 3 weeks because they've been out of town. We had 6 non members at church this week, which was really good.

I actually do have a couple stories even though we didn't go out that much this week. We had a very strange dinner appointment last Saturday. Mom would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in that house. We got to their house and they invited us in and we sat on their couch and talked with them for like 15 minutes. I was wondering if they had forgotten about our dinner appointment. I don't remember what we talked about but it was definitely a strange conversation. Then in mid sentence, all the sudden the husband was like, LETS EAT! (I use an exclamation point because he literally yelled it). So we go to the dining room and its all perfectly clean and very elegant. There were china plates and full silverware (including the different sized forks). I was pretty surprised and wondered what we were going to eat. So we went into the kitchen and saw 6 boxes of pizza. That were more boxes than there were people. Well, lets just say we both ate until we couldn't eat anymore. Oh yeah, there were a couple of boxes of breadsticks too. That was delicious. They talked to us about computer games and that vampire romance book and all sorts of other things. I had a great time there..it was all really entertaining. They were both very nice people, but they were just a little different.

Next story is also about a dinner appointment. We ate at a Chinese restaurant called Bamboo Hut. I wasn't too happy when I heard we were going to go eat Chinese food, because we eat it all the time and I never really liked it to begin with, but this was gooood. It was a buffet and it wasn't just Chinese food. They had steak and ribs and all sorts of meat. They had a sushi bar and a huge selection. There were some interesting foods too. I had a crab claw. I was thinking it was the fat part of the crab arm full of meat. It literally was just the crab claw. They put the claw part of the arm (basically like a finger nail) and wrapped it in potato or something. I also had cheesy crab. I think it was imitation crab meat, but it was still alright. I also ate a frog leg. I don't know how many chances I'll have to do that, especially for free, so I did it. It tasted just like fish to me. It didn't taste that bad, it was just weird knowing it was a frog. Plus you could see veins and ligaments and stuff in there.

What a coincidence...I saw a professional football player too. I actually got to eat dinner at his house. I think he just barely got released from the Texans, but the Broncos are going to pick him up. He's and offensive lineman, so he is huge. His name is Scott Jackson I think. He lives in Sugar Land. I was on exchanges in Sugar Land so I lucked out that we were having dinner with him that night. They were a really nice family.

Alright well I think that's about all for this week. Hurricane season officially starts today for this area. That always makes things more exciting.

Oh yeah, did you guys see the videos that were on my memory card? I thought the video of me playing the phantom of the opera was pretty funny, just because that's what Christopher would always play when he got home.

Ok, well have a good week! Don't tear any ligaments...its not fun! I love you!!

Love,
Chase


NOTE FROM CHASE'S MOM: I didn't even know there were videos on Chase's memory card! Glad he said something. Here is the Phantom video: