Dear Family,
Happy Birthday on Thursday G-MAN! The scout story sounds exactly how I remember scouts being. I don’t think I ever remember going up a correct trail and we always ended up camping out in the middle of nowhere. That was a huge error on the leaders part to let a group of scouts hike way in front by themselves.
The dodgeball game also sounded fun. We played a pretty fun game a while ago…I think I may have told you about it. I’ll say it again anyway. Its called Pivot Tag. Its basically like a free for all dodgeball. You start out by having everyone line up on one side of the room and you put 2 dodge balls in the middle. You start and run to get a ball and when you get a ball you have to plant one of your feet and you cant move it until you through the ball, hence the name pivot tag. When you get hit you have to sit on the ground and you're out, until the person that hit you gets out. So basically to win, you have to get everyone out. It is really fun.
This week was a good week. We had a zone conference on Wednesday. It was President Saylin’s first zone conference, so he and everyone else was really excited. He told us he’s been excited for it because he wanted to teach us things that the prophet and apostles told them they should teach to us, and if we put those things into action we are promised an increase in baptisms. All the things he talked about were things that would be perfect for our area. I’ve really been trying to think of ways to find new investigators in our area and I know we have to use the members, but its hard to know how to use the members to help you find people. That’s what half the conference was about: how to get the members to actively do missionary work. Instead of sharing missionary related scriptures with families then asking them if they have any referrals for you, we need to actually help them with their missionary work. So, instead of saying that, we ask them if they’ve ever had any sort of gospel conversation before with anyone. Nearly every single person has. Then we give them suggestions and ideas as to how to take that little gospel conversation to the next level. Usually inviting them over for a lunch or showing them one of the pamphlets that we use or inviting them to an upcoming ward activity. That is so much more effective than just asking for referrals and making members feel guilty that don’t have any. Pretty much every member wants to share the gospel, its just hard and they aren’t sure how. So we have been doing that with a lot of members and its working really well. We were also taught a lot of other really good things in zone conference. It was a memorable one. In our zone we have 6 more baptismal dates in this week alone.
Elder Campbell and I plan on extending baptismal invitations to Niyeem, and also Michael and Yabo Akinola (the Nigerians) this week. It has been really cool to see our relationship with the Akinola’s evolve over these past few months. At first they kind of avoided anyone from the church and they were very hesitant about everything. Now every time Yabo sees us she gets a big smile on her face and gets all excited. They both work a lot, so its hard to schedule appointments with them, but they really want to meet with us and they are making time on this Wednesday so we can have an appointment. If all goes well, we plan to extend baptismal invitations to each of them at that appointment.
On Thursday afternoon, we went over to go on exchanges with the Elders in Rosenberg because they had a couple appointments, but one of them is sick (he’s actually got a hernia but he’s trying to wait til the end of his mission to get surgery on it) so we helped them out with that. Then that evening I went to Alief to go on exchanges with them. This was an awesome exchange. Alief is a ghetto part of Houston. There are tons and tons of African refugees there. There are entire apartment complexes just full of people from nearly every African country. It was so fun to go there and be with those people and to learn about their culture. It was like spending time in Africa. The first people I met were these 3 older African men who were standing outside of an apartment arguing about something. I couldn’t figure out exactly what language they were speaking, then after a couple seconds I realized it was English. After a while I learned how they speak and I could even speak it myself. They’ll cut off the end of a lot of words, they have really broken grammar, and the funniest thing is that they end “O” to the end of a lot of words, especially if they’re asking a question. One of them was asking me what I was drinking, so he said, “Wha you drink-o?” And of course they say it in their thick African accent. Another funny little thing they do is that instead of doing a normal handshake, you start out like you're going in for a hand shank, then you snap your fingers together with theirs. Its hard to explain, but once you get good at it you can make a loud snap. If you don’t snap it loud enough then they make you do it again.
In one of those apartments there was a man named Pappi. He is a member and hes from Liberia. Everyone in the whole complex knows Pappi, because everyone donates all their extra stuff to Pappi, then he gives it out to needy people. He’s like their own little DI/Goodwill. Like half his apartment is full of random junk he has acquired. People also bring them their empty bottle and cans, so he can recycle it, then use the money to buy soda to give out to all the kids who stop by. While I was there a group of 6 little African girls stopped by. 3 of them were from Tanzania and the other 3 were from Somalia. It was fun to be able to talk to them and make them laugh. A lot of them didn’t have shoes and they had probably not changed their clothes for long time (that might not seem too strange to SOME members of our family). But the neat thing is that they were all so happy and always smiled. The oldest one was 10 and she would watch out for all the other little girls. They would just roam this apartment complex by themselves and so would so many other kids. It was like being in a different country. It was fun.
Then on Friday evening, the Mission Bend Elders had some appointments and one of those missionaries is sick, so we went on exchanges to help them out too. So I toured most of our stake in 24 hours. Its amazing how many random members I know from each of the wards because of all the exchanges I’ve been on in the past 5 months.
Hmm..there is only 1 other story that I can think of. Last week on Sunday I woke up and my ankle was really itchy. At church it started to itch a ton so when I got home, I took of my shoe and sock to see that my ankle was huuuge. I actually couldn’t see my ankle anymore. It was pretty funny. After looking I saw a little red mark above my ankle and I’m guessing that while I was playing soccer a bee stung me and I didn’t notice. It healed in a few days and its back to normal size again.
That’s about all for this week! Thank you Christopher for your e-mail too. It was very interesting and entertaining to read. It sounds like a lot of work, but I’m sure it will pay off afterwards. I love you all!! Have a great week!
Love,
Chase
PS. I listened to a really cool recording this week. It was Glenn Beck's conversion story. Its titled, "An Unlikely Mormon." I thought it was really interesting and funny. I've met a lot of people who have gone through similar situations to him. I'm sure it was so fun for me to listen to because I'm a missionary, but if you are really bored, I bet you could youtube it.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Received Mon, July 20, 2009
Dear Family,
Well it is still blistering hot here and I now have a pretty impressive farmers tan (partially from how much sun I’ve gotten and partially because of how white the rest of me has gotten) and I am working on a watch tan. I have never gotten a watch tan in my life, even though I wear it all day, every day. It must be because it always slides around. I can actually see an outline of my watch now though. If I get a good one, I’ll have to take a picture.
We’ve also had several thunderstorms this week. And yes, it was still burning hot. I did get some sweet pictures and videos of the thunderstorms though. You could literally see lightning bolts shooting out of/around the sky every 5 seconds at one point. So I went outside and focused my camera then took the picture as soon as I saw a flash. I got some amazing pictures of lightning shooting across the sky. Then I took 2 videos as well. I’ll probably send home my memory card in a few weeks. I don’t have that many pictures on it right now, but I do have a good amount of videos.
Here is a pretty crazy story. We got a referral on our cell phone the other day. (When people call church HQ and order stuff, they send us those referrals directly to our phones via text message). Someone ordered a Book of Mormon from the church website and the comment was “I am looking into joining LDS. Getting and reading a Book of Mormon is the first step. Thank you and God bless!!” We were excited of course, but at the same time skeptical, because it sounds too good to be true. Well, we contacted the referral and it is true. This guy is 18 and hes about to leave for Kansas State University and he has a lot of friends that are Mormon and 2 grandparents that are Mormon as well. The only sad part is that hes moving in a few weeks. He did say that his mom and his sister would probably be interested as well, so we are trying to contact them as well, but they are going to move too if they can sell their house. It seems like everyone is moving away from our area right before they get baptized!! It is a little frustrating, but I am glad that people are joining the church.
2 Nigerian people came to church with their daughter yesterday. Their names are Michael, Yabo, and Elizabeth Akinola. They have been coming every so often (like once a monthish) for about 3 months, but they are almost impossible to contact and there is a little bit of a language barrier. We finally got in contact with them a few days ago and invited them to come to church and set up an appointment for this week. I am excited for that. Yabo (the mom) calls our church her church. Story: One day when we stopped by their house to try to contact them and Yabo happened to be outside. She asked who we were and we told her we were missionaries. Then she asked for which church. We told her the name of the church. Then she asked which church that is, and we told her the location of our chapel, then she gets a big smile on her face and she said “OH!! That’s my church!!!” So, they already consider themselves members of the church, but we just need to teach them so they can be official members of the church. Hopefully they are there for their appointment (a lot of African people don’t really have any concept of appointments).
One goal that my companion and I have made is that we want to have a member with us at every single set appointment that we have. I may have told you that before. But we have been doing that and it makes a huge difference. The members bring something to the lesson that we cant offer. We aren’t just normal people who live in the area. Its different for someone to listen to someone who lives in their own area, who is not a full time missionary. I really love working with the members. We have some really interesting people in our ward too.
I’ve told you about the ex navy seal/nuclear bomb maker. He is always a fun one to visit. I don’t know if I have ever told you about the inventor. I think I may have. He is a less active guy and he actually retired several years ago, but since then he’s started inventing tons of stuff. He is definitely passionate about inventing, and that is an understatement. He told us all about these pens he invented that use magnets, so it clips to itself, and how he did the same thing with glasses so he could clip his glasses to his shirt. Well, he comes to find out that magnets cause a condition called Rouleaux and Aggregation, which is where you blood cell stack and it causes all these problems. Doctors put magnets in pace makers, which gives them magnetic poisoning and they don’t even know they're doing it. So he is working with some big medical guys and he’s writing a huge report about that whole deal. It will be interesting to see if that turns out to be a big thing.
Someone else in our ward runs the website www.mycardata.com. Car manufacturers send him a new car every Thursday and he drives them around for a week, then puts up a report on that website I guess, then he gets a new car and repeats it. It is fun to see what new car he has every week. He’s driven almost every car out there. He once had a $300,000 Bentley.
Anyway, I’ve noticed in these past couple weeks that I’ve really learned to love missionary work. I’m not really concerned with the number of baptisms I get or any sort of numbers, I just love to help people and show them that they can live happier lives. That’s all I really care about. Whether I’m helping an active member, less active member, or a non-member, I just want to help them and bless their lives. It’s the one time in your life where you just forget about everything else and just dedicate everything to being an instrument in God’s hands. Throughout this last week or 2 I’ve seen so many situations where we have been led to the right place at the right time so that we could help someone out. Sometimes it’s a little thing and sometimes it’s a huge thing. This last week we stopped by and visited someone whose family is getting split apart and there is a whole lot of chaos and confusion going on. (He is the rapper I think I mentioned a few months ago). He’s been inactive since he was 19 and he knows hes made a lot of mistakes, but his family is the 1 thing he cares about more than anything. Now that that is falling apart, he knows he needs help. We just happened to show up at this doorstep the day after all this started happening and he broke down for the first time ever and he asked for a blessing. I am glad that we decided to go there at that specific time.
There is so much that is involved in missionary work too. You have to balance a lot of things and there really is a lot of skill involved. Its kind of like a sport to me. You need to practice a lot and develop your talents. As you do that then you perform well. Plus its also fun.
Ok I am out of time and I have got to go! President Saylin also started something in the mission where we e-mail him weekly instead of write him letters. He gave us 15 more minutes of e-mail time for that, so I am going to go do that right now. Have a good week, I love you all!!!
Love,
Chase
Well it is still blistering hot here and I now have a pretty impressive farmers tan (partially from how much sun I’ve gotten and partially because of how white the rest of me has gotten) and I am working on a watch tan. I have never gotten a watch tan in my life, even though I wear it all day, every day. It must be because it always slides around. I can actually see an outline of my watch now though. If I get a good one, I’ll have to take a picture.
We’ve also had several thunderstorms this week. And yes, it was still burning hot. I did get some sweet pictures and videos of the thunderstorms though. You could literally see lightning bolts shooting out of/around the sky every 5 seconds at one point. So I went outside and focused my camera then took the picture as soon as I saw a flash. I got some amazing pictures of lightning shooting across the sky. Then I took 2 videos as well. I’ll probably send home my memory card in a few weeks. I don’t have that many pictures on it right now, but I do have a good amount of videos.
Here is a pretty crazy story. We got a referral on our cell phone the other day. (When people call church HQ and order stuff, they send us those referrals directly to our phones via text message). Someone ordered a Book of Mormon from the church website and the comment was “I am looking into joining LDS. Getting and reading a Book of Mormon is the first step. Thank you and God bless!!” We were excited of course, but at the same time skeptical, because it sounds too good to be true. Well, we contacted the referral and it is true. This guy is 18 and hes about to leave for Kansas State University and he has a lot of friends that are Mormon and 2 grandparents that are Mormon as well. The only sad part is that hes moving in a few weeks. He did say that his mom and his sister would probably be interested as well, so we are trying to contact them as well, but they are going to move too if they can sell their house. It seems like everyone is moving away from our area right before they get baptized!! It is a little frustrating, but I am glad that people are joining the church.
2 Nigerian people came to church with their daughter yesterday. Their names are Michael, Yabo, and Elizabeth Akinola. They have been coming every so often (like once a monthish) for about 3 months, but they are almost impossible to contact and there is a little bit of a language barrier. We finally got in contact with them a few days ago and invited them to come to church and set up an appointment for this week. I am excited for that. Yabo (the mom) calls our church her church. Story: One day when we stopped by their house to try to contact them and Yabo happened to be outside. She asked who we were and we told her we were missionaries. Then she asked for which church. We told her the name of the church. Then she asked which church that is, and we told her the location of our chapel, then she gets a big smile on her face and she said “OH!! That’s my church!!!” So, they already consider themselves members of the church, but we just need to teach them so they can be official members of the church. Hopefully they are there for their appointment (a lot of African people don’t really have any concept of appointments).
One goal that my companion and I have made is that we want to have a member with us at every single set appointment that we have. I may have told you that before. But we have been doing that and it makes a huge difference. The members bring something to the lesson that we cant offer. We aren’t just normal people who live in the area. Its different for someone to listen to someone who lives in their own area, who is not a full time missionary. I really love working with the members. We have some really interesting people in our ward too.
I’ve told you about the ex navy seal/nuclear bomb maker. He is always a fun one to visit. I don’t know if I have ever told you about the inventor. I think I may have. He is a less active guy and he actually retired several years ago, but since then he’s started inventing tons of stuff. He is definitely passionate about inventing, and that is an understatement. He told us all about these pens he invented that use magnets, so it clips to itself, and how he did the same thing with glasses so he could clip his glasses to his shirt. Well, he comes to find out that magnets cause a condition called Rouleaux and Aggregation, which is where you blood cell stack and it causes all these problems. Doctors put magnets in pace makers, which gives them magnetic poisoning and they don’t even know they're doing it. So he is working with some big medical guys and he’s writing a huge report about that whole deal. It will be interesting to see if that turns out to be a big thing.
Someone else in our ward runs the website www.mycardata.com. Car manufacturers send him a new car every Thursday and he drives them around for a week, then puts up a report on that website I guess, then he gets a new car and repeats it. It is fun to see what new car he has every week. He’s driven almost every car out there. He once had a $300,000 Bentley.
Anyway, I’ve noticed in these past couple weeks that I’ve really learned to love missionary work. I’m not really concerned with the number of baptisms I get or any sort of numbers, I just love to help people and show them that they can live happier lives. That’s all I really care about. Whether I’m helping an active member, less active member, or a non-member, I just want to help them and bless their lives. It’s the one time in your life where you just forget about everything else and just dedicate everything to being an instrument in God’s hands. Throughout this last week or 2 I’ve seen so many situations where we have been led to the right place at the right time so that we could help someone out. Sometimes it’s a little thing and sometimes it’s a huge thing. This last week we stopped by and visited someone whose family is getting split apart and there is a whole lot of chaos and confusion going on. (He is the rapper I think I mentioned a few months ago). He’s been inactive since he was 19 and he knows hes made a lot of mistakes, but his family is the 1 thing he cares about more than anything. Now that that is falling apart, he knows he needs help. We just happened to show up at this doorstep the day after all this started happening and he broke down for the first time ever and he asked for a blessing. I am glad that we decided to go there at that specific time.
There is so much that is involved in missionary work too. You have to balance a lot of things and there really is a lot of skill involved. Its kind of like a sport to me. You need to practice a lot and develop your talents. As you do that then you perform well. Plus its also fun.
Ok I am out of time and I have got to go! President Saylin also started something in the mission where we e-mail him weekly instead of write him letters. He gave us 15 more minutes of e-mail time for that, so I am going to go do that right now. Have a good week, I love you all!!!
Love,
Chase
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Received Monday, July 13, 2009
Dear Family,
It has been a hot week here too!! A hot month actually. All last week we had record breaking temperatures. The Randall’s kids came in to visit this week from Arizona and they said it is much worse here than in Arizona. The temperature might get higher in Arizona, but the heat is different in Houston. It is not fun to ride a bike in. I don’t remember if I’ve written home about this, but it starts to get hot by about 10 and keeps getting hotter until about 5. 4 or 5 is the hottest part of the day. Then at nighttime it hardly cools down. August is the hottest month here also. This has been an usually hot July, record breaking like I said, so hopefully it wont get even hotter in August.
To answer Mom’s question, I just read the e-mail every week and respond. I’m usually not very pressed for time, so it all works out well.
I didn’t really do anything extra on my anniversary. We had appointments that filled the night, so theres not much more I could ask for. I was thinking about burning a shirt, but I didn’t want to give up any of my shirts. I need them all for those days I have to shower twice a day. Plus it would be more of a hassle than a celebration. At nighttime when we get home we immediately plan out the next day, then I get ready for bed and usually try to write in my journal, then sleep. I am not afraid to go to sleep early.
This transfer ends on August 9th, so we are just starting the 3rd week. We are not quite half way. This is probably been one of the longest transfers I’ve had and that’s probably because this is the hardest I’ve worked. Elder Campbell is starting to learn the area a little more so I don’t feel so alone in everything anymore. It still feels like every day is 2 days though.
At church this Sunday we got a new bishop. It was sad to see our old bishop go, because he is an awesome guy and we have been working really well with him. Eating breakfast at his house every Saturday morning was fun too. Our new bishop is Bishop McPherson. He was the 1st counselor. I should also mention that I predicted our entire bishopric. I’m excited to work with Bishop McPherson too. He’s a funny hardworking guy. We are going to meet with him on Wednesday and we are going to try to set up weekly visits with him too, so we can always be on the same page and make sure were doing everything he would like us to.
Unfortunately we heard some bad news this week. One of our best investigators, Niyeem, is moving. I don’t know if I’ve ever written about Niyeem before. I think I’ve written briefly about him, but I’ll refresh your memories. Niyeem is from Bangladesh and he use to be a devout Muslim. He would go to the mosque and pray 5 times a day and do all that. Well after a while some bad things happened and he became angry at God and eventually started to deny his existence. It just so happens that a member of the church works at the same company as him and Niyeem saw him praying on his food before he ate it. That discussion led to an invitation to learn more, and we started teaching Niyeem. We didn’t realize that Niyeem didn’t even believe in God, so we taught an entire lesson then at the end invited him to pray about it. That’s when he said, “That’s the problem, I don’t even believe in a God to pray to.” In these last 4 months he has come a long way. He now believes in God, believes God loves him, and he prays daily. He has told us about a lot of neat experiences he’s had praying. He has changed completely. Unfortunately because of his background, it puts him in a difficult situation with religion. In the Muslim religion, if you convert to another religion you can be killed and your whole family is at threat as well. He probably wont be able to ever return to Bangladesh, but he is not really too concerned about that. Last week he brought his cousin to the lesson and he was very interested as well. Sadly, he lives outside of our area also. Niyeem is moving to a city called Alief, and I think that’s where Sadad (the cousin) lives also. That is in our zone though, so if he gets baptized while I’m still here, I’ll be able to attend it.
Our other good investigator, Maria, is also going to move. She is moving to Nicaragua, where she originally came from. She moved here when she was 13 and has lived here ever since. She’s just had bad thing after bad thing happen to her for the past few years and she doesn’t have a job and cant pay for her house anymore. So her house is going into foreclosure and the only place she has to go is to Nicaragua, where her mother is living. Her daughter hasn’t made the smartest choices either. I probably shouldn’t laugh at this, but I cant help it. Her daughter (she joined the church a few years ago) went to BYU-Idaho. Well, she’s been there 2 semesters now and she’s taken only 2 classes, and they were like marriage prep or something like that. I’ve heard of people just going to college to get married, but this is probably the most extreme example. But the story goes on..she failed both those classes and she got kicked out. She also used all the $15,000 that her parents gave her to help her out with college. I don’t think I’ve ever even used that much money in my life. I guess sometimes you just need to learn things the hard way. So Maria is worrying about that situation too, its all kind of a mess. Hopefully her moving to Nicaragua will be good for her, with the whole change of scenery and starting a new life. She plans on getting baptized after she moves too. I am going to try to stay in contact with her also.
Hmm…oh yeah, here is my kitchen story for the week. Each day I’m in the kitchen is like an ongoing experiment. I had a pretty good one last week. I bought some hotdogs with cheese in them (I’ve learned that I like cheese a lot) and I wanted to eat them, but I thought that would be too boring. So I cooked 2 hotdogs, then I cooked up some bacon, then I put some butter on the hotdog buns and fried them so they were crispy. Then I wrapped the bacon around the hotdogs and put a dab of masterpiece bbq sauce on there and it was delicious. I also made donuts again as a snack for our weekly planning session. That was delicious. The frosting was way better this time than last time.
I also got the letter with all the pictures from the trek. It was a good one. Other than that I don’t think I have much else to report on. President Saylin sent me an e-mail today thanking me for the president’s letter I sent him last week (we are supposed to write to our mission president weekly). I thought that was very nice. Well, I’ll just copy/paste what he said: “Thanks for your letter of 6/29 and warm welcome! Even though we have only met twice, I feel like I already know you. I look forward to getting to know you better in our upcoming interview. With love, Pres. Saylin.”
Oh, I just got another E-mail from Mom. I’ll respond to that one in another e-mail. Have a good week this week. I love you all!! Don’t stay up too late, that is a tough habit to break!!
Love,
Chase
It has been a hot week here too!! A hot month actually. All last week we had record breaking temperatures. The Randall’s kids came in to visit this week from Arizona and they said it is much worse here than in Arizona. The temperature might get higher in Arizona, but the heat is different in Houston. It is not fun to ride a bike in. I don’t remember if I’ve written home about this, but it starts to get hot by about 10 and keeps getting hotter until about 5. 4 or 5 is the hottest part of the day. Then at nighttime it hardly cools down. August is the hottest month here also. This has been an usually hot July, record breaking like I said, so hopefully it wont get even hotter in August.
To answer Mom’s question, I just read the e-mail every week and respond. I’m usually not very pressed for time, so it all works out well.
I didn’t really do anything extra on my anniversary. We had appointments that filled the night, so theres not much more I could ask for. I was thinking about burning a shirt, but I didn’t want to give up any of my shirts. I need them all for those days I have to shower twice a day. Plus it would be more of a hassle than a celebration. At nighttime when we get home we immediately plan out the next day, then I get ready for bed and usually try to write in my journal, then sleep. I am not afraid to go to sleep early.
This transfer ends on August 9th, so we are just starting the 3rd week. We are not quite half way. This is probably been one of the longest transfers I’ve had and that’s probably because this is the hardest I’ve worked. Elder Campbell is starting to learn the area a little more so I don’t feel so alone in everything anymore. It still feels like every day is 2 days though.
At church this Sunday we got a new bishop. It was sad to see our old bishop go, because he is an awesome guy and we have been working really well with him. Eating breakfast at his house every Saturday morning was fun too. Our new bishop is Bishop McPherson. He was the 1st counselor. I should also mention that I predicted our entire bishopric. I’m excited to work with Bishop McPherson too. He’s a funny hardworking guy. We are going to meet with him on Wednesday and we are going to try to set up weekly visits with him too, so we can always be on the same page and make sure were doing everything he would like us to.
Unfortunately we heard some bad news this week. One of our best investigators, Niyeem, is moving. I don’t know if I’ve ever written about Niyeem before. I think I’ve written briefly about him, but I’ll refresh your memories. Niyeem is from Bangladesh and he use to be a devout Muslim. He would go to the mosque and pray 5 times a day and do all that. Well after a while some bad things happened and he became angry at God and eventually started to deny his existence. It just so happens that a member of the church works at the same company as him and Niyeem saw him praying on his food before he ate it. That discussion led to an invitation to learn more, and we started teaching Niyeem. We didn’t realize that Niyeem didn’t even believe in God, so we taught an entire lesson then at the end invited him to pray about it. That’s when he said, “That’s the problem, I don’t even believe in a God to pray to.” In these last 4 months he has come a long way. He now believes in God, believes God loves him, and he prays daily. He has told us about a lot of neat experiences he’s had praying. He has changed completely. Unfortunately because of his background, it puts him in a difficult situation with religion. In the Muslim religion, if you convert to another religion you can be killed and your whole family is at threat as well. He probably wont be able to ever return to Bangladesh, but he is not really too concerned about that. Last week he brought his cousin to the lesson and he was very interested as well. Sadly, he lives outside of our area also. Niyeem is moving to a city called Alief, and I think that’s where Sadad (the cousin) lives also. That is in our zone though, so if he gets baptized while I’m still here, I’ll be able to attend it.
Our other good investigator, Maria, is also going to move. She is moving to Nicaragua, where she originally came from. She moved here when she was 13 and has lived here ever since. She’s just had bad thing after bad thing happen to her for the past few years and she doesn’t have a job and cant pay for her house anymore. So her house is going into foreclosure and the only place she has to go is to Nicaragua, where her mother is living. Her daughter hasn’t made the smartest choices either. I probably shouldn’t laugh at this, but I cant help it. Her daughter (she joined the church a few years ago) went to BYU-Idaho. Well, she’s been there 2 semesters now and she’s taken only 2 classes, and they were like marriage prep or something like that. I’ve heard of people just going to college to get married, but this is probably the most extreme example. But the story goes on..she failed both those classes and she got kicked out. She also used all the $15,000 that her parents gave her to help her out with college. I don’t think I’ve ever even used that much money in my life. I guess sometimes you just need to learn things the hard way. So Maria is worrying about that situation too, its all kind of a mess. Hopefully her moving to Nicaragua will be good for her, with the whole change of scenery and starting a new life. She plans on getting baptized after she moves too. I am going to try to stay in contact with her also.
Hmm…oh yeah, here is my kitchen story for the week. Each day I’m in the kitchen is like an ongoing experiment. I had a pretty good one last week. I bought some hotdogs with cheese in them (I’ve learned that I like cheese a lot) and I wanted to eat them, but I thought that would be too boring. So I cooked 2 hotdogs, then I cooked up some bacon, then I put some butter on the hotdog buns and fried them so they were crispy. Then I wrapped the bacon around the hotdogs and put a dab of masterpiece bbq sauce on there and it was delicious. I also made donuts again as a snack for our weekly planning session. That was delicious. The frosting was way better this time than last time.
I also got the letter with all the pictures from the trek. It was a good one. Other than that I don’t think I have much else to report on. President Saylin sent me an e-mail today thanking me for the president’s letter I sent him last week (we are supposed to write to our mission president weekly). I thought that was very nice. Well, I’ll just copy/paste what he said: “Thanks for your letter of 6/29 and warm welcome! Even though we have only met twice, I feel like I already know you. I look forward to getting to know you better in our upcoming interview. With love, Pres. Saylin.”
Oh, I just got another E-mail from Mom. I’ll respond to that one in another e-mail. Have a good week this week. I love you all!! Don’t stay up too late, that is a tough habit to break!!
Love,
Chase
Received July 5, 2009
Dear Family,
That was an awesome e-mail! I loved hearing from everyone. It was all good/interesting/made me laugh. Sounds like it has been a pretty eventful week at home.
It has been a pretty good week here as well. This was my first week with Elder Campbell. I have learned how hard it is to take over an area, especially when the area is hard to learn. I am still doing pretty much everything myself: planning, driving, deciding what to do, deciding what to teach, even teaching most of the lesson myself. It is exhausting! I think it is Elder Campbell’s personality to be a little more passive when it comes to missionary work. Every day has seemed like it has been 2 days, so I’m pretty drained mentally and physically at the end of every day, but that is ok. I love it much better than not being able to work. For the last 6 weeks our area has started to slide downhill a lot because of all the problems Elder Taufa was having. As a side note, his problems didn’t end. He had a layover in LA and there he had visa problems and they wouldn’t let him fly to New Zealand. So the mission president picked him up down there and Elder Taufa just hung out there for a few days, then they finally decided just to send him to Tonga, because Tonga would let him in, but not New Zealand. That whole thing probably didn’t make his family too happy. I’m sure he’s home in New Zealand now, but I’m not sure.
But anyway, we have been working really hard this week trying to get things rolling again. We’ve seen a lot of miracles happening. We’ve somehow gotten back in contact with a lot of people we lost contact with and we have met several inactive members who have pretty high potential to start coming back to church again. So I am really happy. I was disappointed yesterday when only 1 person we invited came to church. Well 1 non member came and 2 less actives came for the first time. Like 5-6 other investigators said they were planning on coming though, so that was kind of disappointing, but that’s the way it normally works. Hopefully they’ll come next week.
We met our new mission president and his family on Friday. They are an awesome family. Like I said before, they have 6 kids w/ ages ranging from 3 to 14. President and Sister Saylin are 40 or 41 years old. They all told the experience of when they got called to come to this mission. It was really interesting. They interviewed and met with 2 different apostles and with President Eyring as well. In the MTC they told about how all the mission president’s had a meeting in 1 room and sitting on the stand was the whole First Presidency, 11 of the 12 apostles, the presidency of the Seventy, and all the leaders from the Missionary Department. That had to have been an intense meeting. Elder Packer missed that meeting because he wasn’t feeling too well. I have a feeling he has not been in good health. Later that day Elder Packer did come and got helped up onto the stands and gave a really powerful talk. He told all the mission presidents that he promises them with the keys and authority he has as an apostle of the lord that they will never make a mistake unless first being told by the Holy Ghost. That is a pretty powerful promise to make. President Saylin also said a lot of things that made me put my full trust in him. He told us that just because he is the new mission president, that doesn’t void everything President Allred has taught us. He said he plans to “Stay the course.” Our mission has been on a huge incline the past several months and he wants to keep that going. President and Sister Saylin both said how much they enjoyed being able to spend an afternoon with the Allreds and they could tell they were great leaders and we should keep doing what we’ve been taught. Probably the most memorable thing President Saylin said was that he will take action unless he knows he is being prompted by the Spirit. That really made me trust all of the decisions he would make.
President and Sister Saylin both grew up in Southern California…in Palos Alto or whatever that place is. Somewhere around there. Then they moved to North Salt Lake and that’s where they came from. All the kids love sports and they like the Lakers, BYU, USC, and the Angels. That is a pretty good set of teams to like.
The only other interesting thing for this week that I can think of is that we ate at 3 hispanic members of the ward’s homes this week. 2 of them were Venezuelan and 1 was Bolivian. So we got to practice our Spanish a lot. (Did I tell you Elder Campbell is a Spanish missionary too?). One of the Venezuelan families fed us Arepas, which is kind of like their version of tortillas. Its basically like a scone. You cut it in half and put whatever you want in it. You can make it a breakfast arepa or a dinner arepa. I cant even remember what we put in it…it was some sort of meat, beans and rice. At the other Hispanics family we had empanadas. Those were delicious. That had some sort of meat in it too. They gave us the leftovers too so I ate that for lunch the next day.
On Saturday I also went and played our normal Saturday morning game of soccer. It was fun, but it got soooo hot. I could almost feel my skin boiling. All the heat just sits above the grass and the humidity is so thick that its like youre running through jello. At home I didn’t mind getting so hot like that because I would jump in the pool when I got home and it would feel soo good. Obviously that’s no longer an option. I will definitely never take a pool for granted again. Instead we always stop at a Sonic on the way home and I buy a powerade slush.
In other news…I’ve been taking a lot of videos. I recorded a good thunderstorm last week, I recorded us when we did the Haka at President Allred’s good bye party, I recorded us when we did the Haka for President Saylin’s welcome, I recorded a new Elder (VERY interesting guy) in our district showing off his bowstaff skills (it is impossible not to laugh when watching this video), and I recorded the Elder who just came into the mission who played for U of U’s bball team dunking over his trainer, who was sitting in a chair. I haven’t taken that many pictures but I’ve taken a few. Now here is my question. Is it safe to send home a memory card in a normal envelope? I heard from somewhere that they smash some of those envelopes when you send stuff and I wouldn’t want that memory card getting smashed. So I was wondering what the best way is to send home my camera memory card.
Alright thanks again for the great e-mail!! I loved hearing updates from everyone. That is the best 1 year mark present you can give me. And happy Anniversary Mom and Dad, and Happy Birthday to Steven. This is an eventful week! I love you all…have a good week!!!
Love,
Chase
That was an awesome e-mail! I loved hearing from everyone. It was all good/interesting/made me laugh. Sounds like it has been a pretty eventful week at home.
It has been a pretty good week here as well. This was my first week with Elder Campbell. I have learned how hard it is to take over an area, especially when the area is hard to learn. I am still doing pretty much everything myself: planning, driving, deciding what to do, deciding what to teach, even teaching most of the lesson myself. It is exhausting! I think it is Elder Campbell’s personality to be a little more passive when it comes to missionary work. Every day has seemed like it has been 2 days, so I’m pretty drained mentally and physically at the end of every day, but that is ok. I love it much better than not being able to work. For the last 6 weeks our area has started to slide downhill a lot because of all the problems Elder Taufa was having. As a side note, his problems didn’t end. He had a layover in LA and there he had visa problems and they wouldn’t let him fly to New Zealand. So the mission president picked him up down there and Elder Taufa just hung out there for a few days, then they finally decided just to send him to Tonga, because Tonga would let him in, but not New Zealand. That whole thing probably didn’t make his family too happy. I’m sure he’s home in New Zealand now, but I’m not sure.
But anyway, we have been working really hard this week trying to get things rolling again. We’ve seen a lot of miracles happening. We’ve somehow gotten back in contact with a lot of people we lost contact with and we have met several inactive members who have pretty high potential to start coming back to church again. So I am really happy. I was disappointed yesterday when only 1 person we invited came to church. Well 1 non member came and 2 less actives came for the first time. Like 5-6 other investigators said they were planning on coming though, so that was kind of disappointing, but that’s the way it normally works. Hopefully they’ll come next week.
We met our new mission president and his family on Friday. They are an awesome family. Like I said before, they have 6 kids w/ ages ranging from 3 to 14. President and Sister Saylin are 40 or 41 years old. They all told the experience of when they got called to come to this mission. It was really interesting. They interviewed and met with 2 different apostles and with President Eyring as well. In the MTC they told about how all the mission president’s had a meeting in 1 room and sitting on the stand was the whole First Presidency, 11 of the 12 apostles, the presidency of the Seventy, and all the leaders from the Missionary Department. That had to have been an intense meeting. Elder Packer missed that meeting because he wasn’t feeling too well. I have a feeling he has not been in good health. Later that day Elder Packer did come and got helped up onto the stands and gave a really powerful talk. He told all the mission presidents that he promises them with the keys and authority he has as an apostle of the lord that they will never make a mistake unless first being told by the Holy Ghost. That is a pretty powerful promise to make. President Saylin also said a lot of things that made me put my full trust in him. He told us that just because he is the new mission president, that doesn’t void everything President Allred has taught us. He said he plans to “Stay the course.” Our mission has been on a huge incline the past several months and he wants to keep that going. President and Sister Saylin both said how much they enjoyed being able to spend an afternoon with the Allreds and they could tell they were great leaders and we should keep doing what we’ve been taught. Probably the most memorable thing President Saylin said was that he will take action unless he knows he is being prompted by the Spirit. That really made me trust all of the decisions he would make.
President and Sister Saylin both grew up in Southern California…in Palos Alto or whatever that place is. Somewhere around there. Then they moved to North Salt Lake and that’s where they came from. All the kids love sports and they like the Lakers, BYU, USC, and the Angels. That is a pretty good set of teams to like.
The only other interesting thing for this week that I can think of is that we ate at 3 hispanic members of the ward’s homes this week. 2 of them were Venezuelan and 1 was Bolivian. So we got to practice our Spanish a lot. (Did I tell you Elder Campbell is a Spanish missionary too?). One of the Venezuelan families fed us Arepas, which is kind of like their version of tortillas. Its basically like a scone. You cut it in half and put whatever you want in it. You can make it a breakfast arepa or a dinner arepa. I cant even remember what we put in it…it was some sort of meat, beans and rice. At the other Hispanics family we had empanadas. Those were delicious. That had some sort of meat in it too. They gave us the leftovers too so I ate that for lunch the next day.
On Saturday I also went and played our normal Saturday morning game of soccer. It was fun, but it got soooo hot. I could almost feel my skin boiling. All the heat just sits above the grass and the humidity is so thick that its like youre running through jello. At home I didn’t mind getting so hot like that because I would jump in the pool when I got home and it would feel soo good. Obviously that’s no longer an option. I will definitely never take a pool for granted again. Instead we always stop at a Sonic on the way home and I buy a powerade slush.
In other news…I’ve been taking a lot of videos. I recorded a good thunderstorm last week, I recorded us when we did the Haka at President Allred’s good bye party, I recorded us when we did the Haka for President Saylin’s welcome, I recorded a new Elder (VERY interesting guy) in our district showing off his bowstaff skills (it is impossible not to laugh when watching this video), and I recorded the Elder who just came into the mission who played for U of U’s bball team dunking over his trainer, who was sitting in a chair. I haven’t taken that many pictures but I’ve taken a few. Now here is my question. Is it safe to send home a memory card in a normal envelope? I heard from somewhere that they smash some of those envelopes when you send stuff and I wouldn’t want that memory card getting smashed. So I was wondering what the best way is to send home my camera memory card.
Alright thanks again for the great e-mail!! I loved hearing updates from everyone. That is the best 1 year mark present you can give me. And happy Anniversary Mom and Dad, and Happy Birthday to Steven. This is an eventful week! I love you all…have a good week!!!
Love,
Chase
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Try, Try Again
Just so you know,
I have TRIED several times to paste Chase's letter...IT WILL NOT WORK. I will try again tomorrow!
Sorry.
I have TRIED several times to paste Chase's letter...IT WILL NOT WORK. I will try again tomorrow!
Sorry.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
HUMP DAY!
It's Hump Day for Chase!
One glorious year down, one more to go!
Keep up the good work.
p.s. ok, I just realized I haven't put up Chase's letter from Monday - SORRY- will do it before the day is over!
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