Dear Family,
That is exciting Quinn is starting high school. That is definitely where grades do start to count. Every grade you get will be a deciding factor in whether or not you get into a good college.
That was a smart idea too, to have Zak take the ACT. I remember I just took it my senior year…that was cutting it close. Plus then you can take it stress free and not really have to worry about doing perfect your first time.
Mrs. Gant was at Highland Oaks when I was there too. I don’t really know anything about her.
You will have to tell me how the BYU vs Oklahoma game goes. That will definitely be a challenge for them. I heard they’re going to be playing in the Superdome. Funny story about that…we are teaching this one girl and she said she’s going to be busy this weekend because shes going to the superbowl. We were like..what are you talking about…the superbowl isn’t until the end of the football season. We might not watch TV, but were not THAT out of it. Shes said, no…I’m going to the superbowl to watch my cousin play soccer for the first time. She thought we were so stupid for not knowing what she was talking about. Then when she mentioned that the “superbowl” was in Dallas, I realized she was talking about the Superdome.
Lets see…this week we went to the temple! We usually would go sometime next month, but the temple will be closed for cleaning. The temple was of course great. It is always nice to be able to go and just be inside the temple where there is nothing but peace and relaxation. It was definitely relieving after several long days of stressful work. Then afterwards we had our zone conference as usual, which was also very good. We got more trainings on some of the things the general authorities wanted us to get trained on. They were really helpful and it was all interesting, but of course, as always, loooong and tiring. We woke up at like 5:00am to get ready to leave and we got back at around 6:00pm. That night we did have a really good lesson with a new investigator, which made me really happy. We had a member come with us too, which was also a success in itself (We’re trying to work together more with the branch). We also found 1 other decent investigator as well, so it is nice to finally start having a little success. It is hard to do missionary work when you have 0 progressing investigators.
This week we actually found 14 investigators and last week we found 15. We had something like 23 or 24 set appointments this week, but probably all but 10 of those fell through. Most of the people here don’t know their work schedules and they just work whenever they can and for as long as they are told to, so they never know when they're home. That’s probably one of the biggest struggles in the area. We find tons of people, but they are never there for their return appointments.
I also did my first baptismal interview this week. It was a 9 year old girl. It went well. She was shy and a little nervous at start, but I asked her a lot of questions to get her talking and then she really opened up.
Oh yeah, and David Haven, the guy from my last area, got baptized on Wednesday. He’s the one who drove up to Idaho to spend time with this Mormon family members up there and he also wanted one of them to baptize him. That made me happy.
1 more story about my last area: First, there was this family named the Gomez family who moved down here from Utah about the same time I got to Richmond (around 6 months ago). We would stop by and visit them all the time and work with them to help them to stay active. Well, the last week I was in Richmond, their lives pretty much got turned upside down. It’s a long story, but I will try to condense it and have it make sense the best I can. They both have been studying all year to take the BAR exam to become certified lawyers or whatever. So they finally went to go take it and when they were about to take it, someone asked Brother Gomez to please come to the desk. He did and there was a US Marshall waiting there who then arrested him and told him that he was involved with the biggest visa fraud and immigration scams ever uncovered in the state of Utah. He had been working for some lawyer in Salt Lake City doing whatever he was told to do, and apparently his boss had him doing illegal things. So he got sent to jail and eventually was freed on $10,000 bond and we visited him the day after he got home and tried to help them and gave him a blessing. They found a lawyer who would take their case, but it was going to cost them $200,000. Well, I saw Elder Campbell at our temple zone conference and he told me that apparently the Gomez’s just disappeared. They must have flown back to Venezuela and went into hiding. Another big coincidence is that someone who just moved into the Richmond Ward is basically a US Marshall and apparently he was assigned to try to find Brother Gomez. This member went on exchanges with Elder Campbell and told him about his job and how he was actually supposed to be looking for someone who might be a member of the church and supposedly lives in Richmond area. Elder Campbell was like, uhh…is his name Carlos Gomez? That surprised the member and he told Elder Campbell that apparently the Gomez’s had gone into hiding or something. Pretty crazy story!
A couple of random thoughts/information about Rosenberg: People here are crazy about their cars. Lots of cars have neon lights underneath their cars, people get all sorts of paint jobs. They deck out their cars with all sorts of stuff. They usually aren’t very nice cars though, so all the add-ons/accessories probably end up costing more than the car does. Something new that I’ve never seen before is that people now have like speakers outside of their car or something. I’m not sure how it works but somehow their music gets played outside of their car. It might be coming from out of the hood of their car or something, but people drive by all the time with their music blaaasting. Half of the time its like those Mexican mariachi bands and music like that…it makes me laugh.
One last random thought. Coming and e-mailing in these libraries is like sitting on one of those metro’s or buses in the city…you meet and see all sorts of people. Today there is one guy in front of me and I’m pretty sure hes sending out those scam e-mails that asks for you to send him money, then he promises you will get re-paid millions or something. He’s been sending a bunch of those types of e-mails. Then this other guy next to him is probably the fastest 2 finger typer I’ve ever seen. He just uses his 2 index fingers to type, but he goes SO fast. If you hear it, it sounds like he’s using all his fingers, but when you watch, you see a flurry of index fingers going all across the keyboard. It is pretty funny.
Ok, well that’s about all for this week. We’re just working hard to find more good people to teach. Hopefully some of these people we’ve found will find time somehow to keep taking the lessons and be able to come to church on Sunday. I love you all!! Good luck in school!
Love,
Chase
Monday, August 31, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Received Aug 24, 2009
Dear Family,
Happy Birthday Quinn! I think this is the first birthday that has been on a Monday since I left. So that means Quinn is going to be a teacher. I think the thing I was most excited about when I was going to be a teacher was that I would get to eat the leftover bread.
Answers to Mom’s questions:
The Spanish is coming easier and easier now. I am happy about that, especially because its only been about a week and a half. Depending on how quickly/what kind of accent someone has, I can understand about 75-95% of what people are saying. I’ve also learned that I can speak so much better when I focus on speaking slowly and clearly, rather that trying to speak quickly and sound exactly like a Hispanic. I think that when I start speaking Spanish I get really antsy and my mind doesn’t think clearly. While I’m talking to someone I’ll forget a word or keep on incorrectly conjugating a verb, then immediately after the conversation I know all the words I was trying to say and I can conjugate everything perfectly in my head. So I think nervousness kind of clouds my mind, but hopefully that will leave with time.
Me and my companion don’t really speak Spanish in our apartment. We are starting to try to speak Spanish all the time at least while were outside of the apartment. I’ve tried to do it several times, but I don’t think my companion really likes to do it. I’ve decided that this week I’m going to do it whether or not he does. We might be having half Spanish half English conversations, but I think it’ll really help my Spanish.
I probably know more Spanish than my companion does. We were probably almost even when I first got here, but I’ve been picking it up again pretty fast.
My companion and I live in a 1 bedroom apartment. Yes there is AC…I probably wouldn’t be alive if we didn’t.
Lets see…in other news, I went on exchanges with our zone leaders this week, whose area is in inner city Houston. It was fun. I hope I get to serve inside Houston sometime. Its exactly how I pictured it. Basically it is really really ghetto. You always hear sirens whizzing by and in at least 1 of the complexes we went into I overheard a little group of people talking about some crime that had just occurred in their complex, then the cops showed up a few minutes later. We ate dinner in this one complex and literally every person that I saw in there was black except for the Hispanic people’s houses we were eating at. We ate on a little table just outside of their apartment because her husband wasn’t home so we couldn’t go in. A bunch of kids came sat around and talked to us the whole time. Their parents who were in the stairwell above us would yell at them to get away every once in a while. I learned how prevalent racism still is when one of those kids started talking to us and telling us about how her mom doesn’t like white people or Hispanic people. The little girl didn’t really understand why. It surprised me how that stuff already starts to get engrained into the heads of the kids while they are so young. On our way out we past by these 2 girls who were coming into the complex who nicely let us know that we shouldn’t be in that complex. Of course we have to be careful, but it kind of made me laugh. We wouldn’t have gone in there if it was past dark. In the back of the area books they have certain complexes names written down and there are rules that you cant go to certain ones past sundown. That’s really how things are in the inner city though. I thought it was all interesting. There were people outside everywhere too, so we always had a lot of people to talk to. That makes missionary work a whole lot easier.
Now that I’ve been in my area for a little while, I’m starting to kind of get a grasp of how things are and what needs to get done. Basically, a lot of work needs to get done here. We don’t have a single progressing investigator. So we have basically no teaching pool…that’s a big problem. And the next big thing is that our relationship with the branch is not very good either. That’s another huge problem. There's all sorts of other little things that need to get worked out too, so we have a lot of work to do. We found 15 new investigators this week and taught 29 other lessons (other lessons are just lessons without members, whether we sit down and teach them in the home or just teach them in the streets), which is the most I’ve ever had. Hopefully soon we can get some solid investigators that we know will show up for lessons, and have members accompany us to them.
Next note I wrote down: Rain. It rained probably 3 times this week. We got soaked all 3 times. One of the times it was raining it was probably 95 degrees…it was weird. Yesterday I went into a gas station to buy a drink so I could get change for laundry (yes I have to pay for laundry now, which is not fun because its not very cheap either), which took about 2 minutes, but when I walked out it was POURING. We were only like a block away from home but we both got completely soaked.
Here's my one funny story for the week. We run into a lot of crazy people and have some interesting discussions almost every single day. Last week we had a really good one. I don’t know if this guy was slightly drunk or just plain crazy. In the middle of our lesson he’d go off and start talking about random stuff. One of the times he was like, So do you know who taught the Indians? I was guessing we were supposed to say God, so I did. He was like, “No…it was the ANTS! The Indians watched the ants and copied what they did. They saw how they traveled up and down the hills, and that is why Indians lived in the hills!” He then went on to tell us how they wrote down all the secrets of the world and put them underneath a pyramid. I think that part he was talking about how they discovered some metal plates (like the plates the BoM prophets wrote on) underneath one of the Great Pyramids. People also always love to bring up how the Mayan calendar ends on December 1, 2012 and that is when the end of the world is going to be. One person expanded on that theory and told us how in 2012 that will be the first time ever that all the planets will line up, and at the end of the planets, there is a dark hole and that is going to suck us all in. Haha…I bet you never knew that.
Ok, well that’s all for this week. Enjoy your last week of summer! School starts today here in Houston…which I am happy for because that means all the libraries wont be full of a bunch of kids looking at myspace and playing internet games. I love you all!
Love,
Chase
Happy Birthday Quinn! I think this is the first birthday that has been on a Monday since I left. So that means Quinn is going to be a teacher. I think the thing I was most excited about when I was going to be a teacher was that I would get to eat the leftover bread.
Answers to Mom’s questions:
The Spanish is coming easier and easier now. I am happy about that, especially because its only been about a week and a half. Depending on how quickly/what kind of accent someone has, I can understand about 75-95% of what people are saying. I’ve also learned that I can speak so much better when I focus on speaking slowly and clearly, rather that trying to speak quickly and sound exactly like a Hispanic. I think that when I start speaking Spanish I get really antsy and my mind doesn’t think clearly. While I’m talking to someone I’ll forget a word or keep on incorrectly conjugating a verb, then immediately after the conversation I know all the words I was trying to say and I can conjugate everything perfectly in my head. So I think nervousness kind of clouds my mind, but hopefully that will leave with time.
Me and my companion don’t really speak Spanish in our apartment. We are starting to try to speak Spanish all the time at least while were outside of the apartment. I’ve tried to do it several times, but I don’t think my companion really likes to do it. I’ve decided that this week I’m going to do it whether or not he does. We might be having half Spanish half English conversations, but I think it’ll really help my Spanish.
I probably know more Spanish than my companion does. We were probably almost even when I first got here, but I’ve been picking it up again pretty fast.
My companion and I live in a 1 bedroom apartment. Yes there is AC…I probably wouldn’t be alive if we didn’t.
Lets see…in other news, I went on exchanges with our zone leaders this week, whose area is in inner city Houston. It was fun. I hope I get to serve inside Houston sometime. Its exactly how I pictured it. Basically it is really really ghetto. You always hear sirens whizzing by and in at least 1 of the complexes we went into I overheard a little group of people talking about some crime that had just occurred in their complex, then the cops showed up a few minutes later. We ate dinner in this one complex and literally every person that I saw in there was black except for the Hispanic people’s houses we were eating at. We ate on a little table just outside of their apartment because her husband wasn’t home so we couldn’t go in. A bunch of kids came sat around and talked to us the whole time. Their parents who were in the stairwell above us would yell at them to get away every once in a while. I learned how prevalent racism still is when one of those kids started talking to us and telling us about how her mom doesn’t like white people or Hispanic people. The little girl didn’t really understand why. It surprised me how that stuff already starts to get engrained into the heads of the kids while they are so young. On our way out we past by these 2 girls who were coming into the complex who nicely let us know that we shouldn’t be in that complex. Of course we have to be careful, but it kind of made me laugh. We wouldn’t have gone in there if it was past dark. In the back of the area books they have certain complexes names written down and there are rules that you cant go to certain ones past sundown. That’s really how things are in the inner city though. I thought it was all interesting. There were people outside everywhere too, so we always had a lot of people to talk to. That makes missionary work a whole lot easier.
Now that I’ve been in my area for a little while, I’m starting to kind of get a grasp of how things are and what needs to get done. Basically, a lot of work needs to get done here. We don’t have a single progressing investigator. So we have basically no teaching pool…that’s a big problem. And the next big thing is that our relationship with the branch is not very good either. That’s another huge problem. There's all sorts of other little things that need to get worked out too, so we have a lot of work to do. We found 15 new investigators this week and taught 29 other lessons (other lessons are just lessons without members, whether we sit down and teach them in the home or just teach them in the streets), which is the most I’ve ever had. Hopefully soon we can get some solid investigators that we know will show up for lessons, and have members accompany us to them.
Next note I wrote down: Rain. It rained probably 3 times this week. We got soaked all 3 times. One of the times it was raining it was probably 95 degrees…it was weird. Yesterday I went into a gas station to buy a drink so I could get change for laundry (yes I have to pay for laundry now, which is not fun because its not very cheap either), which took about 2 minutes, but when I walked out it was POURING. We were only like a block away from home but we both got completely soaked.
Here's my one funny story for the week. We run into a lot of crazy people and have some interesting discussions almost every single day. Last week we had a really good one. I don’t know if this guy was slightly drunk or just plain crazy. In the middle of our lesson he’d go off and start talking about random stuff. One of the times he was like, So do you know who taught the Indians? I was guessing we were supposed to say God, so I did. He was like, “No…it was the ANTS! The Indians watched the ants and copied what they did. They saw how they traveled up and down the hills, and that is why Indians lived in the hills!” He then went on to tell us how they wrote down all the secrets of the world and put them underneath a pyramid. I think that part he was talking about how they discovered some metal plates (like the plates the BoM prophets wrote on) underneath one of the Great Pyramids. People also always love to bring up how the Mayan calendar ends on December 1, 2012 and that is when the end of the world is going to be. One person expanded on that theory and told us how in 2012 that will be the first time ever that all the planets will line up, and at the end of the planets, there is a dark hole and that is going to suck us all in. Haha…I bet you never knew that.
Ok, well that’s all for this week. Enjoy your last week of summer! School starts today here in Houston…which I am happy for because that means all the libraries wont be full of a bunch of kids looking at myspace and playing internet games. I love you all!
Love,
Chase
Monday, August 17, 2009
Received Aug 17, 2009
Dear Family, (August 17th’s letter)
Well, I believe I answered Mom’s first question when I re-sent my last week’s e-mail. Here is a recap of transfer day. It was on Wednesday; I packed a little on Tuesday night and finished on Wednesday morning. We went to Sugar Land where we always have our transfer meeting, which includes singing hymns (of course) and hearing a talk or 2…I don’t even remember what happens because its so hard to pay attention. After you sit through those talks thinking about where you're getting transferred to, the mission president finally reads off a list of the new companionships and what area they will be. So he goes down a list and says like…Elder Cole and Elder McGrath will be serving together in the Brazos Central area. Then I stand up/look around to see who Elder McGrath is. Then after he goes through all the names we end the meeting, you throw all your luggage into a car and drive to your area. Our area is a bike area, so the English elders who cover our same area took us because they have a car.
So my new companion is Elder McGrath. He is from Sandy Utah. He’s been out for about 10 ½ months. My area is called Brazos Central, which covers mostly the city of Rosenberg, which is a city that borders Richmond (my last area). I’ve actually been on exchanges to Rosenberg several times, so I recognize a lot of different places, so I’m not totally lost. We attend the Brazos Spanish branch, hence the name Brazos central. We are in charge of teaching all the Spanish people around here, so there are English elders who teach all the English people in the same area. So if we run into a good potential English investigator we give them to the English elders. They also have a car, so sometimes they’ll give us rides, which is nice. There are also Spanish sisters who cover the Brazos branch and they have a car, so they cover everything that’s too far for us to bike to. We live in an apartment complex and luckily it is pretty clean for a missionary apartment. Of course its not like any of the last places I’ve stayed at, but its still pretty nice.
Yesterday was my first day going to church in Spanish since Galveston…so about 6 months. I forgot how it is to be in a Spanish branch, but it brought back a lot of memories that made me laugh. When we started sacrament meeting there were around 20-30 people there and I was thinking…”wow this is a tiny branch.” But over the next 30 minutes about 20-30 more people wandered in. Then I remembered that everyone always comes late to everything in Spanish culture. I also noticed that they started off sacrament meeting and they hadn’t even finished preparing the sacrament yet. They finished maybe 15 minutes or so after sacrament meeting started. I think one of my favorite parts about attending church in Spanish is the singing. I love it because almost every single person sings, but almost nobody has any idea how to sing. There may be 1 or 2 people in the congregation that hit most of the notes and sing well. Everyone else basically says the words really loud and make their voices go up and down whenever they feel like it. I think the funniest part is that there is always at least 1 lady who loves to sing loud, but doesn’t really understand how to sing along with the notes. It is always a good experience.
Now I will tell you a little about the city of Rosenberg. It is completely opposite of Richmond, even though they are so close to each other. Rosenberg is a very rich, affluent area. Rosenberg is definitely ghetto and has a lot of Hispanic and African American people. All day long we hear Hispanic music blasting as cars drive past us. I definitely need to take some pictures of some of the areas that we go to, because it is exactly what I imagine when I think of ghetto. Old brick buildings, where the bricks are falling out with graffiti everywhere and a bunch of black metal bars everywhere. I probably wont take a ton of pictures here though because its not a very smart thing to carry that around with me everywhere and show it off.
So far it hasn’t been too bad on the bikes. We’ve been really lucky and have had a lot of cloud coverage for most of the time I’ve been here. Of course we still sweat like crazy and now I shower 2 times a day every day. When I got here it was 105 degrees outside…that was hot. Plus my companion doesn’t really ride very fast, so its not too bad. Our area is huge for a bike area though, so we ride at least 20 miles a day. My thighs are definitely sore today. We live on the second floor too, so running up and down there all the time doesn’t really help that much.
Other than that I didn’t really write down a whole lot to write about. I am very happy with the way my last area was going when I left. I believe in leaving the area better than you found it. We have a lot of really good things going on there, so I feel really good about that. I also like my district a lot too. We have 6 Elders and 2 sisters. I already knew everyone except for 1 elder, so I was excited about that.
Ok, that’s all for this week. Have a good week everyone! I love you! Hopefully my e-mails go through today.
Love,
Chase
Well, I believe I answered Mom’s first question when I re-sent my last week’s e-mail. Here is a recap of transfer day. It was on Wednesday; I packed a little on Tuesday night and finished on Wednesday morning. We went to Sugar Land where we always have our transfer meeting, which includes singing hymns (of course) and hearing a talk or 2…I don’t even remember what happens because its so hard to pay attention. After you sit through those talks thinking about where you're getting transferred to, the mission president finally reads off a list of the new companionships and what area they will be. So he goes down a list and says like…Elder Cole and Elder McGrath will be serving together in the Brazos Central area. Then I stand up/look around to see who Elder McGrath is. Then after he goes through all the names we end the meeting, you throw all your luggage into a car and drive to your area. Our area is a bike area, so the English elders who cover our same area took us because they have a car.
So my new companion is Elder McGrath. He is from Sandy Utah. He’s been out for about 10 ½ months. My area is called Brazos Central, which covers mostly the city of Rosenberg, which is a city that borders Richmond (my last area). I’ve actually been on exchanges to Rosenberg several times, so I recognize a lot of different places, so I’m not totally lost. We attend the Brazos Spanish branch, hence the name Brazos central. We are in charge of teaching all the Spanish people around here, so there are English elders who teach all the English people in the same area. So if we run into a good potential English investigator we give them to the English elders. They also have a car, so sometimes they’ll give us rides, which is nice. There are also Spanish sisters who cover the Brazos branch and they have a car, so they cover everything that’s too far for us to bike to. We live in an apartment complex and luckily it is pretty clean for a missionary apartment. Of course its not like any of the last places I’ve stayed at, but its still pretty nice.
Yesterday was my first day going to church in Spanish since Galveston…so about 6 months. I forgot how it is to be in a Spanish branch, but it brought back a lot of memories that made me laugh. When we started sacrament meeting there were around 20-30 people there and I was thinking…”wow this is a tiny branch.” But over the next 30 minutes about 20-30 more people wandered in. Then I remembered that everyone always comes late to everything in Spanish culture. I also noticed that they started off sacrament meeting and they hadn’t even finished preparing the sacrament yet. They finished maybe 15 minutes or so after sacrament meeting started. I think one of my favorite parts about attending church in Spanish is the singing. I love it because almost every single person sings, but almost nobody has any idea how to sing. There may be 1 or 2 people in the congregation that hit most of the notes and sing well. Everyone else basically says the words really loud and make their voices go up and down whenever they feel like it. I think the funniest part is that there is always at least 1 lady who loves to sing loud, but doesn’t really understand how to sing along with the notes. It is always a good experience.
Now I will tell you a little about the city of Rosenberg. It is completely opposite of Richmond, even though they are so close to each other. Rosenberg is a very rich, affluent area. Rosenberg is definitely ghetto and has a lot of Hispanic and African American people. All day long we hear Hispanic music blasting as cars drive past us. I definitely need to take some pictures of some of the areas that we go to, because it is exactly what I imagine when I think of ghetto. Old brick buildings, where the bricks are falling out with graffiti everywhere and a bunch of black metal bars everywhere. I probably wont take a ton of pictures here though because its not a very smart thing to carry that around with me everywhere and show it off.
So far it hasn’t been too bad on the bikes. We’ve been really lucky and have had a lot of cloud coverage for most of the time I’ve been here. Of course we still sweat like crazy and now I shower 2 times a day every day. When I got here it was 105 degrees outside…that was hot. Plus my companion doesn’t really ride very fast, so its not too bad. Our area is huge for a bike area though, so we ride at least 20 miles a day. My thighs are definitely sore today. We live on the second floor too, so running up and down there all the time doesn’t really help that much.
Other than that I didn’t really write down a whole lot to write about. I am very happy with the way my last area was going when I left. I believe in leaving the area better than you found it. We have a lot of really good things going on there, so I feel really good about that. I also like my district a lot too. We have 6 Elders and 2 sisters. I already knew everyone except for 1 elder, so I was excited about that.
Ok, that’s all for this week. Have a good week everyone! I love you! Hopefully my e-mails go through today.
Love,
Chase
Monday, August 10, 2009
Recieved August 10, 2009
Dear Family,
First of all, Happy Birthday Dad!! I actually remembered to say happy birthday before it came this time. I always forget when Mom and Dad's birthdays are. I know they are both the same day of the month. In my journal last year I wrote Dad's birthday was on August 9th, and I wrote Mom's birthday was on June 10th, so I knew something was wrong. I'm pretty sure now though that both of those are wrong and that your birthdays are on the 11th. Either way, I hope you have a good birthday, Dad!
Yes, I do have transfer news. I got the first bit of it yesterday when President Saylin called me. While we were in an appointment the Mission Home was calling us and I thought that was weird, and I forgot about it so we went straight to our next appointment. The mission home called 2 more times in that appointment, so after that appointment I called them back. It was President Saylin and he told me he had been praying a lot and he has received confirmation that the Lord wants me to be a district leader. After I said that I would do it he told me that I would be getting transferred and that I would be going to a Spanish area. He said he’s sending me to a very excitable district. I’m of course nervous, but also excited to be going back to a Spanish area. I cant say I’m really that surprised by it though. Its always been in my mind that after Elder Taufa left, I would get a new companion, teach him the area, then go back to Spanish when the transfer ended. So I’ve been doing my best to prepare for that (studying Spanish, making sure my companion is learning the area, ect). The first few weeks will probably be pretty rough getting back into the whole Spanish culture, especially because I’ve never served in a 100% Spanish area. But I am excited. Being asked to be a district leader threw a new spin on things too though. My main responsibilities are to be in charge of district meetings, interview baptismal candidates being taught by those in my district, and to take care of and help those in my district. I can just imagine having to do a baptismal interview my first night in my area…that would definitely be dropping me off in the deep end. So that is all I know. I will have more specifics as to where I am and who I’m with next week. It is really relieving to at least know what to expect now…I’ve been thinking all week about what my future is going to be like, so I’m glad I finally got the news.
So that was the main event for the week, but I do have a couple other random things I wrote down. First, I think I may have told you about the member in our ward who runs www.mycardata.com. And how he gets a brand new car straight from the manufacturer every Thursday. Well last week he had a brand new 2010 Chevy Camaro. After we shared a scripture with him and said a prayer and everything, I said, Brother Foss, I have one more question for you….how do you like the Camaro? He was like, You know what, I haven’t even taken it out today, do you guys wanna come for a ride? Of course we said yes. He took us for a ride around the neighborhood and a little up the freeway. That is one fast car. It was so much fun to ride around in. Everyone was staring at us and we had a couple people chanting, race, race, race! It was fun.
Next, I think I may have told you about how President Saylin told us about how all the leaders of the church taught them a lot of things in the MTC and promised them if they would apply them, they would see an increase in baptisms. Well the most investigators with a baptismal date our mission has had, was in the 80s somewhere and we hit that at the beginning of the year. Now were at 96 and were on track to get about 50 baptisms this month, this has been our mission goal for a long time. We had an average of 25 baptisms per month, and our goal the whole time I’ve been here is to double baptisms and maintain it. So it is really cool to see how much our mission is improving.
The next interesting thing was that yesterday at church we split our Elder’s Quorum. I guess when you hit 96 Elders or something you're supposed to split the quorum. Well we either hit that or got really close, because they’ve been talking about it for a while in PEC and on Sunday they finally did it. I’ve never seen that before, but it was interesting. I wont get to see how it all works out because I’m leaving, but it was cool to see it happen. Last week the deacons actually ran out of water cups during sacrament, so the priests had to get more water and re-bless it. I’ve never seen that either.
I’m planning on sending home my memory card either today if I have time (probably not) or next week. So expect that coming home pretty soon. I bought one of those padded envelopes that says handle with care, so I’ll send it in that.
Ok, that’s about all for this week! I love you all! Have fun at Yosemite and wherever else you may be.
Love,
Chase
First of all, Happy Birthday Dad!! I actually remembered to say happy birthday before it came this time. I always forget when Mom and Dad's birthdays are. I know they are both the same day of the month. In my journal last year I wrote Dad's birthday was on August 9th, and I wrote Mom's birthday was on June 10th, so I knew something was wrong. I'm pretty sure now though that both of those are wrong and that your birthdays are on the 11th. Either way, I hope you have a good birthday, Dad!
Yes, I do have transfer news. I got the first bit of it yesterday when President Saylin called me. While we were in an appointment the Mission Home was calling us and I thought that was weird, and I forgot about it so we went straight to our next appointment. The mission home called 2 more times in that appointment, so after that appointment I called them back. It was President Saylin and he told me he had been praying a lot and he has received confirmation that the Lord wants me to be a district leader. After I said that I would do it he told me that I would be getting transferred and that I would be going to a Spanish area. He said he’s sending me to a very excitable district. I’m of course nervous, but also excited to be going back to a Spanish area. I cant say I’m really that surprised by it though. Its always been in my mind that after Elder Taufa left, I would get a new companion, teach him the area, then go back to Spanish when the transfer ended. So I’ve been doing my best to prepare for that (studying Spanish, making sure my companion is learning the area, ect). The first few weeks will probably be pretty rough getting back into the whole Spanish culture, especially because I’ve never served in a 100% Spanish area. But I am excited. Being asked to be a district leader threw a new spin on things too though. My main responsibilities are to be in charge of district meetings, interview baptismal candidates being taught by those in my district, and to take care of and help those in my district. I can just imagine having to do a baptismal interview my first night in my area…that would definitely be dropping me off in the deep end. So that is all I know. I will have more specifics as to where I am and who I’m with next week. It is really relieving to at least know what to expect now…I’ve been thinking all week about what my future is going to be like, so I’m glad I finally got the news.
So that was the main event for the week, but I do have a couple other random things I wrote down. First, I think I may have told you about the member in our ward who runs www.mycardata.com. And how he gets a brand new car straight from the manufacturer every Thursday. Well last week he had a brand new 2010 Chevy Camaro. After we shared a scripture with him and said a prayer and everything, I said, Brother Foss, I have one more question for you….how do you like the Camaro? He was like, You know what, I haven’t even taken it out today, do you guys wanna come for a ride? Of course we said yes. He took us for a ride around the neighborhood and a little up the freeway. That is one fast car. It was so much fun to ride around in. Everyone was staring at us and we had a couple people chanting, race, race, race! It was fun.
Next, I think I may have told you about how President Saylin told us about how all the leaders of the church taught them a lot of things in the MTC and promised them if they would apply them, they would see an increase in baptisms. Well the most investigators with a baptismal date our mission has had, was in the 80s somewhere and we hit that at the beginning of the year. Now were at 96 and were on track to get about 50 baptisms this month, this has been our mission goal for a long time. We had an average of 25 baptisms per month, and our goal the whole time I’ve been here is to double baptisms and maintain it. So it is really cool to see how much our mission is improving.
The next interesting thing was that yesterday at church we split our Elder’s Quorum. I guess when you hit 96 Elders or something you're supposed to split the quorum. Well we either hit that or got really close, because they’ve been talking about it for a while in PEC and on Sunday they finally did it. I’ve never seen that before, but it was interesting. I wont get to see how it all works out because I’m leaving, but it was cool to see it happen. Last week the deacons actually ran out of water cups during sacrament, so the priests had to get more water and re-bless it. I’ve never seen that either.
I’m planning on sending home my memory card either today if I have time (probably not) or next week. So expect that coming home pretty soon. I bought one of those padded envelopes that says handle with care, so I’ll send it in that.
Ok, that’s about all for this week! I love you all! Have fun at Yosemite and wherever else you may be.
Love,
Chase
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Received Mon Aug 3, 2009
Dear Family,
I do know an Elder Taylor. We were in the same zone when he first got into the mission. I was pretty good friends with his trainer. He is also a Spanish missionary and I think hes somewhere in the city. I'm sure I'll serve near him again before the end of my mission. What is the new family's name? (**So you won't be confused, here is what I wrote to Chase and what he is responding to: Elder Taylor: he is in your mission. Started his mission in October, so I guess he got there sometime in December. There is a new family in our ward, that dad tapped me on the shoulder today and told me that his son’s friend was in your mission….Elder Taylor. Do you know him?)
I have been wondering what was happening with Michael Vick. I saw him on a TV in a restaurant when we were eating dinner with some members one night. So I figured something happened, but I had no idea what. I don't have any sort of guess as to where he would go because I don't know which teams would be looking for a QB. That will be interesting to see what happens. (**I also wrote to Chase about Michael Vick.)
Last week for P-day we went and toured a Hindu temple. It was very interesting. We were able to take pictures out side of the temple (which they call a Mandir), but not inside. The mandir didn't have any closed walls and it was made completely out of stone. There are pillars all around to hold it up, but no wall is completely closed off. The guy giving us a tour gave out all sorts of facts throughout the whole thing and I learned a little about their religion. One interesting thing is that they constructed the whole mandir without using any sort of steel..no wires or screws or anything. They just carve the stones and attach all the segments together like a puzzle. He probably mentioned this 5-6 times. He also mentioned they estimated the mandir has a building life of 1000 years. Another slightly comical statistic is that (you know Hindu's believe in reincarnation) they said that it takes 8.4 million reincarnations to reach the human form. There were all sorts of crazy statistics like that. It was all REALLY confusing, but interesting nonetheless.
One of the most interesting things that I have observed on my mission is how each church deals with their lack of knowledge of the fullness of the gospel. Each church has some part of the truth, but only one has all of it. After visiting the Hindu temple, it was pretty clear the Hindu's deal with it by over complicating everything. There are hundreds of gods, and the members don't know very much about their own religion. I've run into some churches that deal with the lack of knowledge by bashing and trying to disprove other religions. Others just completely ignore huge aspects of the gospel and say if you do just a few things that they do understand, then you will be saved. Its been really interesting to me to see all of this and its showed me how grateful I am to know of the restored gospel. The true, complete, gospel answers all these questions simply and directly and the holy ghosts testifies to you that it is true once you fully understand it. That way, we can all be confident in what we believe in and we don't have to take anyone elses word for it, each individual can know for themself.
In other exciting news, we have 2 baptismal dates now! The first is named David Haven. He has a lot of extended family that are members of the church and are even mission presidents and professors at BYU-Idaho. His wife is very very against the church though. Well about a year ago David started to gain a testimony and was getting taught by the missionaries. Well, something happened and the wife got really upset and their family was not going to stay together if David kept pursuing the church. A few weeks ago David showed up to church and we've been meeting with him and working with him as to what to do about his wife situation and he is going to get baptized on August 19th. We have been meeting with a member of our bishopric and we've worked out a lot of things. David talked to his wife and she is at least not angry about David's decision to get baptized.
Next, we extended a baptismal invitation to Niyeem. He opened up to us and told us about a drinking problem that he has and he mentioned he has a couple other small things he wants to work on before he gets baptized. He chose October 3rd as his baptismal date. He wants to make sure he can keep the covenants he makes when he is baptized. That date will get moved forward or back depending on how he is doing, so that is exciting too.
Next Monday we get our transfer calls. I am pretty nervous about it...I think I am probably going to get moved out. We had interviews with our mission president this week and he hinted that I would be getting moved and he's been giving a lot of strong hints that he is going to put me into leadership...I don't know how soon. I'm probably most worried about going back into a full Spanish area. I really want to go to a Spanish area, but I know it will be pretty rough for the first couple weeks. Since I haven't been able to speak Spanish very much at all in the past 6 months, my Spanish is not where I would like it to be. I know once I get submerged in it and I get on a good study schedule it will help a lot. It is really hard to study Spanish here, then never use it because I cant even remember something like that unless I put it into action. So there's a couple things that are just looming there in the future, but I'm just going to keep working and try not to worry about it.
I got the Griffin poster last week! I taped it up on my closet door. It will probably stay there until I get transferred, then I don't know where it will go.
Ok, that's about all for this week!! I love you all...have a good week!!
Love,
Chase
I do know an Elder Taylor. We were in the same zone when he first got into the mission. I was pretty good friends with his trainer. He is also a Spanish missionary and I think hes somewhere in the city. I'm sure I'll serve near him again before the end of my mission. What is the new family's name? (**So you won't be confused, here is what I wrote to Chase and what he is responding to: Elder Taylor: he is in your mission. Started his mission in October, so I guess he got there sometime in December. There is a new family in our ward, that dad tapped me on the shoulder today and told me that his son’s friend was in your mission….Elder Taylor. Do you know him?)
I have been wondering what was happening with Michael Vick. I saw him on a TV in a restaurant when we were eating dinner with some members one night. So I figured something happened, but I had no idea what. I don't have any sort of guess as to where he would go because I don't know which teams would be looking for a QB. That will be interesting to see what happens. (**I also wrote to Chase about Michael Vick.)
Last week for P-day we went and toured a Hindu temple. It was very interesting. We were able to take pictures out side of the temple (which they call a Mandir), but not inside. The mandir didn't have any closed walls and it was made completely out of stone. There are pillars all around to hold it up, but no wall is completely closed off. The guy giving us a tour gave out all sorts of facts throughout the whole thing and I learned a little about their religion. One interesting thing is that they constructed the whole mandir without using any sort of steel..no wires or screws or anything. They just carve the stones and attach all the segments together like a puzzle. He probably mentioned this 5-6 times. He also mentioned they estimated the mandir has a building life of 1000 years. Another slightly comical statistic is that (you know Hindu's believe in reincarnation) they said that it takes 8.4 million reincarnations to reach the human form. There were all sorts of crazy statistics like that. It was all REALLY confusing, but interesting nonetheless.
One of the most interesting things that I have observed on my mission is how each church deals with their lack of knowledge of the fullness of the gospel. Each church has some part of the truth, but only one has all of it. After visiting the Hindu temple, it was pretty clear the Hindu's deal with it by over complicating everything. There are hundreds of gods, and the members don't know very much about their own religion. I've run into some churches that deal with the lack of knowledge by bashing and trying to disprove other religions. Others just completely ignore huge aspects of the gospel and say if you do just a few things that they do understand, then you will be saved. Its been really interesting to me to see all of this and its showed me how grateful I am to know of the restored gospel. The true, complete, gospel answers all these questions simply and directly and the holy ghosts testifies to you that it is true once you fully understand it. That way, we can all be confident in what we believe in and we don't have to take anyone elses word for it, each individual can know for themself.
In other exciting news, we have 2 baptismal dates now! The first is named David Haven. He has a lot of extended family that are members of the church and are even mission presidents and professors at BYU-Idaho. His wife is very very against the church though. Well about a year ago David started to gain a testimony and was getting taught by the missionaries. Well, something happened and the wife got really upset and their family was not going to stay together if David kept pursuing the church. A few weeks ago David showed up to church and we've been meeting with him and working with him as to what to do about his wife situation and he is going to get baptized on August 19th. We have been meeting with a member of our bishopric and we've worked out a lot of things. David talked to his wife and she is at least not angry about David's decision to get baptized.
Next, we extended a baptismal invitation to Niyeem. He opened up to us and told us about a drinking problem that he has and he mentioned he has a couple other small things he wants to work on before he gets baptized. He chose October 3rd as his baptismal date. He wants to make sure he can keep the covenants he makes when he is baptized. That date will get moved forward or back depending on how he is doing, so that is exciting too.
Next Monday we get our transfer calls. I am pretty nervous about it...I think I am probably going to get moved out. We had interviews with our mission president this week and he hinted that I would be getting moved and he's been giving a lot of strong hints that he is going to put me into leadership...I don't know how soon. I'm probably most worried about going back into a full Spanish area. I really want to go to a Spanish area, but I know it will be pretty rough for the first couple weeks. Since I haven't been able to speak Spanish very much at all in the past 6 months, my Spanish is not where I would like it to be. I know once I get submerged in it and I get on a good study schedule it will help a lot. It is really hard to study Spanish here, then never use it because I cant even remember something like that unless I put it into action. So there's a couple things that are just looming there in the future, but I'm just going to keep working and try not to worry about it.
I got the Griffin poster last week! I taped it up on my closet door. It will probably stay there until I get transferred, then I don't know where it will go.
Ok, that's about all for this week!! I love you all...have a good week!!
Love,
Chase
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