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