Received Mon Nov 2 2009

Dear Family,

We got our transfer information this morning! Neither me nor my companion is getting transferred. Our district leader and 1 of the sisters in our district are getting transferred. Our district leader was a really cool guy…he is one of my good friends in the mission, so it is sad to see him go, but we expected it. I’m glad nothing changed in my companionship though.

I actually have some pretty good stories this week. I’ll start off with Halloween, since Mom asked about that. No, not very many people at all went trick or treating. I don’t think any parents feel safe walking around with their kids in these apartment complexes. We drove through a nice part of our area, called Bellaire, which is like a city within Houston, and there were a lot of people trick or treating there. But, the eventful thing for that night was that we went to the Lakewood Church (Joel Osteen’s church). We went on exchanges with one of our members earlier in the week and we started talking about Lakewood and he talked about how he use to go to Lakewood before he joined our church, then when he found out both of us wanted to go there sometime he offered to take us on Saturday night. That was quite an experience. We got there a little late because we were finishing up at an appointment. The building is huuuge. It actually reminded me of the Marriot Center at BYU…it was actually almost the exact same size. But anyway…when we got there there was a band playing on the stage and the music was blasting. There are 3 big jumbotron screens to watch the people on the stage and it had the words to the songs. The music was actually really good. It was a pretty legit concert, with music blasting, fog coming down from the ceiling, people dancing around and everything. After that, Victoria Olsteen came up and talked about how they had just visited Kenya and they played a little movie thing showing their visit there. After that she talked about families and told everyone to stand up if they wanted her to say a prayer and dedicate their families. Then she started praying. Oh yeah, and the whole time there was someone playing background music on the piano. When they pray all the people who are really into it raise their arms into the air and if they really like it they stand up too. After that there was more music, then Joel came up and he started his sermon. He started by quoting Psalms 47:1 that mentions a “shout of praise.” His whole sermon was on how we just need to shout (literally) praises to God to overcome trials and be more faithful. He used the example of how the army walked around the walls of Jericho 6 times, but then on the 7th time they all shouted a praise, and that’s what tore the walls of Jericho down. Then he told everyone to get up and to shout. So everyone did, and we did that a couple more times throughout his whole sermon. People would yell out some Hallelujah’s and Amen’s throughout if they liked it. It was all so interesting. Then at the end on the way out, one of the Usher guys asked us if we would like to meat Joel. (All the workers there knew we were missionaries from the LDS Church). We said ok, so he took us to the other side and he let us go in first and we all had to stand in a line side by side…there were probably 40 other people there. They gave us these little book things. Then Victoria and Joel came in and they signed our little books and the Usher guys took pictures for us.

All in all, I thought it was an awesome experience to see other people’s opinions of church. Now I know what some people are expecting when we invite them to come to church. Brother Ramos, the member who took us, explained it pretty well. He said the church is a church about nothing. Joel Osteen is a great motivational speaker and seems like a really nice guy, but you don’t really learn anything. You don’t learn the gospel. Now I understand why so many people don’t understand why people come to church every week. Going there makes you feel good and everything, but its more like a show and you don’t make covenants or learn about the scriptures or gospel. Well…that is probably a lot more than you all wanted to hear, but I thought it was all fascinating. I left out a lot of details and thoughts, but I’ll just have to tell that experience in person.

Next…so we have this apartment complex called Jefferson House where we have tons of investigators and everyone always sees us there and we always find more and more people to teach. Well, in the morning we stopped by one of our investigators and asked how she was doing. She was sitting on the couch and said her stomach was really hurting. We asked if she had taken any pills to help, and she said yes but it didn’t take away any of the pain. She said she was just going to wait for her husband to get home at 5. So we left. A couple hours later we were back in that same complex teaching someone else in their apartment when we hear a banging on the door. They open it and we hear screaming and crying. It was Lucia Mejia, our investigator we visited in the morning. She could barely stand. Apparently she knew the people we were teaching. They sat her down in a chair and she just kept screaming and crying and breathing hard. Then all the sudden she stopped and her whole body just went limp and it went dead quiet. That definitely scared me. The people ran and grabbed some rubbing alcohol and held it in front of her mouth and nose and that brought her back to consciousness. Meanwhile the neighbor was calling 911, but she could speak English, so my companion talked to them. Then we ran to the front of the complex, found out what the code was to open the gate and opened it when the ambulance got there. Then they took her to the hospital. A day later we stop by and shes back on the couch again at her normal spot with the front door wide open as usual. Apparently she had a uterus infection…awkward! She is taking some pills and she feels better now, but that was a pretty traumatic experience.

What else….we had a pretty interesting dinner this week. It was a big huge pot with a soup, filled with full sized, unpeeled, untouched shrimp (antennas, eyes, little crawly legs, shells, and all), octopus meat, squid meat, and imitation crab meat. I didn’t really know exactly how to eat it. At another dinner a few weeks ago they plopped a full size untouched fish on my plate, and I wasn’t sure what to do with that either. They ate the whole thing. They ate the skin, the brains, the fins, everything. So now with this shrimp I didn’t know if they were going to eat the whole shrimp or what. Luckily they expected us to crack them open and eat the meat on the inside. They would eat the brains and all…I couldn’t make myself do that. The octopus was actually pretty good and the squid wasn’t bad either. After that meal we reeked like fish food though. We went on exchanges with a member and when we got into the car he said we stunk. It was pretty funny.

I also went on exchanges this week with a companionship who’s having a tough time. It is a brand new missionary and his trainer who doesn’t know what to do. The new missionary had a hard couple of first days. He is scared of black people and his area is in the middle of the black ghetto, so he is scared out of his mind. He also is really fiery…he wants to whip that ward into shape, and he has good intentions, but he is offending a lot of people (members mostly) when he tells them they need to repent and change all these things in their lives. The trainer isn’t really confident either and he doesn’t know how to handle any of it. So we had a really good exchange with them...they were both really happy at the end of it. It turns out that new missionary is getting transferred and he is probably going to go out to the country somewhere where he can be more comfortable.

Hmm…I cant think of anything else. We knew about day light savings time because President Saylin texted us and told us to tell everyone in our zones.

We did have our primary program a couple weeks ago…it was awesome. I loved hearing all the songs in Spanish.

Ok, I am about out of time…I love you all!
Love,
Chase