Dear Family,
Surprise surprise…I am getting transferred! I definitely did not expect that and I am a little sad. This is probably one of my favorite areas. We have appointments all throughout the day every day. There are usually only like 3 or maybe 4 hours of the day in the afternoon where we don’t have any set appointments and during that time we always have things to do or people to contact. It has been awesome. I don’t think I mentioned it last week, but one of the Assistants is going home this transfer, so they had to pick a new assistant. I definitely did not want that to be me. For one, because that is a 100% English area, for 2, they spent so much time in the office doing all these random projects and I would prefer to be out teaching people doing normal missionary work. They just have crazy schedules. So I have been worried about that for the past couple of weeks and I shared with President my thoughts in my last president’s letter. Last night President Saylin asked one of the zone leaders from the other Spanish zone to be the AP…so I am way relieved. He is one of my good friends in the mission, so that makes me really happy too. I am really excited for the next couple of transfers.
There are only a couple zone leader areas with spots open for me to go to, so I think I figured out where I am going. I love playing the guessing game and trying to predict where everyone is going. I think I’ve got it all figured out. I am probably going to be going to League City, which is out near Galveston, which means I’ll get to go on exchanges with the Galveston Elders. That will be awesome. The downside is that the area is an English area. Half the zone is English and half is Spanish, so they have 1 english and 1 spanish zone leader there. I’ll get to go on exchanges to all the Spanish areas, but my area will still be English. I also told president that I want to stay in Spanish for the rest of my mission. Well, this is what he responded:
“I appreciate your sharing your desires with me as to your own transfer
destiny! The good news is that you have lots of mission left to serve! We
will see where the Lord takes you! This I promise you -- you will receive
assignments to go where He wants you to be. I'll tell you, my friend, I am
very confident that there is no better place to be that where the Lord wants
you to be! Hang tight -- good times are coming!”
Basically that translates to, he is aware of my desires, but the lord wants be somewhere else and I will probably get to finish off my mission in a spanish area. I am ok with that.
Well enough of transfers talk. Transfers are always exciting so there is always a lot to say about it. But I do have some stories for this week.
On Tuesday, Bessy and Luis Miguel got baptized! It was an awesome baptism. I baptized Luis Miguel and Elder Cameron baptized Bessy. I have always tried to get members to do the baptisms, but they really wanted us to, so of course we accepted. My favorite part about the baptism was when Bessy bore her testimony right after getting baptized. She is going to be such a strong member. I think one of the most satisfying things on the mission is when you baptize someone and you don’t have any doubt in your mind that they will stay active for the rest of their lives. This was one of those baptisms.
On that same day on Tuesday, we actually got fed breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was awesome. There is a senior missionary couple that lives in our apartment complex and they invited us over for dinner that day, then we had lunch at a member’s home, then our dinner was the baptism “refreshments.” I say “refreshments” because when Hispanics say that, it means a meal. Whenever we have family home evenings they will allllways make a full course meal afterwards as the “refreshment.” So after the baptism we had pupusa’s, which are a delicious El Salvadoran food. It looks almost like a pancake, but it is made out of tortillas, and it is filled with meat and beans and whatever else they choose to fill it with. Pupusas are definitely one of my favorite foods I’ve had out here.
Then last night we put on an investigator fireside. That is where everyone in our zone brings their investigators to a fireside and we have a couple recent converts tell their conversion stories, then have a final speaker who is usually someone who got baptized several years ago, so they can hear testimonies of new converts, then of a convert who has been in the church for a long time. It is always a really good fireside. Bessy was one of our recent convert talks and she did awesome. I was also the one who conducted the meeting. This was my first real meeting I’ve conducted in Spanish. I was definitely nervous, but it turned out alright.
Ok here is an awesome story. So every P-day we go to the same Wal-mart and on the way we always drive past this donut store called Best Donuts. We always joke about the name and talk about how they have the self proclaimed Best Donuts. Well knowing me, of course I suggest we go try out these so called best donuts. When we pull up all the lights are off in the store, so we sit there for a second, then the owner of the shop, an asian guy, asks us if we wanted to buy some donuts. I told him yes of course, because they are the Best Donuts. They were about to close, but he let us in and showed us all the donuts he had left. I asked him if we could get discounts for the donuts since they were about to close. He was like, “Yes….I give you everything for 8 dollar.” There were over 50 donuts there! Of course we bought them! It turned out to be like 15 cents a donut or something. We all stuffed ourselves. I had like 8-9 donuts for lunch that day. Delicious. I do have to admit it made me kind of sick, but I would still do it again.
Next story…so you remember my story about giving the blessing to the guy who got shot in the head? Well the mom of that guy called us up again and wanted us to come back to say a prayer with them or something. When we show up we find out she wanted us to come back and see him because he is now conscious and he is recuperating very well. So we said a prayer of thanks with them. They all want to us to teach them. (None of them are members…the mom is just friends with a member of the church and she is the lady who referred us to go give the blessing). It was pretty awesome.
Well this lady has another friend whose son is also in the same hospital and she wanted us to go give a blessing to him. He has a pretty crazy story too. We don’t have all the details, but he was at some party and he fell/got pushed off the balcony of a 2 story building and landed on his head and he had been in a coma for 5 months. He was in the ICU with all these tubes and things keeping him alive. We had to put on a gown thing, gloves, and a mask in order to go into the room and give him the blessing. It was pretty intense.
We’ve had a lot of good things happen this week too with all our investigators. We’ve found some new people who are pretty awesome. There are going to be a lot of baptisms here next transfer. I am sad that I have to leave, but that is what we do as missionaries. We just go wherever were sent and we work our hardest and do our best wherever we’re put. So I am happy.
Oh, and to answer your questions, no I did not get any Sees candy nor a package from the YM/YW.
The polygraph test sounded pretty intense, but working for the department of defense sounds pretty awesome.
Ok, well next week I will be writing from a brand new area. We’ll see where I go! I love you all and hope you have a good week!
Love,
Chase
Monday, December 14, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Received Mon, Dec 7, 2009
Dear Family,
This has been a COOLD week. On Friday it was around 32 degrees all day and yes it did snow. It snowed for several hours in the afternoon. It was real snow too, not just the slushy snow stuff. It was all melted by the next day, but it was still freezing. I am definitely not a fan of the cold so I bundled up in an attempt to stay warm. Here is what I wore: a normal white T-shirt, then a long sleeve church shirt, then a sweater, then my suit coat, then my trench coat, 2 pairs of socks (including those big thick hiking socks I have), and gloves. Yes I was still cold. It was mostly my face, which meant I had a runny nose all day, but I brought tissues with me so I was fine. The next day was in the upper 40s and the next day was in the 50s. It was cold. Its back to normal now, so I am happy.
On Saturday we had the wedding for Luis and Caty Aquino, and Bessy and Julio. It all went well and they (Luis and Bessy) are getting baptized tomorrow night. Bessy is awesome. After church on Sunday, Bessy came up to us and was like, “I wanted to go up and bear my testimony to day, but I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to and Julio said he didn’t think I could.” Well, I think Julio is disfellowshipped right now because he is going through the whole repentance process to come back to church, so the bishop told him he couldn’t say prayers or bear testimony or anything and I guess he thought that meant that non-members couldn’t bear testimony either. We told Bessy she’d have another chance the next month, and that we were going to ask her to bare her testimony after her baptism too. Then last night we had another baptism in our ward and we had invited some other investigators to come and see it, one of which was deciding whether nor not he should be baptized, so afterwards we had Bessy go and bear her testimony to him. And she happily did and invited him to get baptized with her tomorrow. He was a little apprehensive about doing it so soon, but he is going to get baptized on Sunday. She is going to be an amazing member.
We’ve been having success with a lot of other people as well. There are 7-8 people who are preparing for baptism right now, but for whatever reason they don’t feel comfortable choosing a specific date yet. One of them is named Mario. He is a 74 year old man from Mexico. He is our only investigator that we have that lives in a house (as opposed to living in an apartment). He is a big, jolly old man who is always laughing. He has been getting taught for several months, but these last few weeks he has really started to make some good progress. He finally came to church and he even agreed to fast. Hopefully he keeps it up.
This is week 6 (the last week) of the transfer! I’d assume my companion and I would stay together, but you never know. In week 6, President Saylin e-mails all of the zone leaders and asks us to give suggestions and input as to what we think should happen in transfers, so that is always fun to be a little part of it. Next week I’ll have the news as to whats happening next transfer.
This week I went on exchanges with the APs, assistants to the president, in Sugar Land. I finally got to go drive by T-Mac’s house (ask dad if you don’t know who he is!). We got the code to get into the gated community where he lives from a member in a ward in Sugar Land who is dating T-Mac’s neighbor. He lives in a reeeally nice area with mansion houses, as you could imagine. I don’t think he was home though…none of his cars were in the driveway and no lights were on.
I think I may have mentioned that we cover the Medical Center area in my area. That means that whenever people’s investigators, or members go to the hospital and need blessings, we get called up to go and give the blessing. I’ve only had to do 3-4, but they are all pretty intense. This week I had a pretty crazy one. This guy was apparently in his car one night here in Houston and these guys walked up to the car, and pulled him out to try to steal his car. I’m guessing he tried to fight back or something, but they pulled out a gun and he put up his arm and they shot him, I don’t know how many times. But the bullet shattered when it went through his arm then it went into his head, so they’ve been having to do surgery to get all the bullet pieces out of his head. He was in the ICU hooked up to tons of machines and had tubes coming out everywhere. We barely got there in time to give him a blessing before he went into another surgery. That was a pretty crazy story to hear though.
This week for whatever reason, missionaries stopped by our apartment on different occasions and when they walked in they noticed the painting Dad gave me that I have up on the wall, and they would walk up to it and say, “Woooow, who painted that? That is an awesome painting!” I’ve gotten compliments for the painting for pretty much my whole mission. It is a pretty awesome painting. Thank you Dad!
Well I think that’s about all for this week. I am pretty excited for the baptisms tomorrow. Transfers is always exciting too. In my last interview President Saylin mentioned, “You never know how long you’re going to be with your companion.” Mission presidents always throw in little hints. So he was thinking about moving at least one of us…we’ll see.
Oh yeah…congratulations Mom on running 9 miles…that is really impressive. I don’t think I could even do that.
And yes I did get the wedding invitation…I forgot to write that last week. That is the first wedding invitation I have gotten! A lot of these missionaries from Utah have friends back at home getting married left and right. That is way weird to me.
Zak have fun with the braces. “Vale la pena” as we say in Spanish. It might not be fun for a while, but it is worth it. My braces didn’t bother me at all after a while…I was just happy my teeth were getting straight. Zak’s teeth were already pretty straight, so he wont have to have them on for too long will he?
I am glad Dad is somehow finding some good business at work. I definitely know how it feels to work when you are sick. Not fun.
Definitely update me on Christopher’s polygraph test. So…isn’t a polygraph test where they hook you up to a lie detector and ask you a bunch of questions? Is he going to work for the government or something? Or is it just some big company over there?
Michael Vick plays for the Eagles? The Eagles just boosted up to be one of my favorite teams.
Oh yeah, last thing. I think the best thing I could get for Christmas besides those other few things I mentioned would be just some treats/food. I don’t really want anything else. I can’t believe I am hitting my 17 month mark on Wednesday! I just realized that. It is scary how fast time goes by.
Ok that is the end of my list of random thoughts and stories! I hope you have a good week!! I love you all!
Love,
Chase
This has been a COOLD week. On Friday it was around 32 degrees all day and yes it did snow. It snowed for several hours in the afternoon. It was real snow too, not just the slushy snow stuff. It was all melted by the next day, but it was still freezing. I am definitely not a fan of the cold so I bundled up in an attempt to stay warm. Here is what I wore: a normal white T-shirt, then a long sleeve church shirt, then a sweater, then my suit coat, then my trench coat, 2 pairs of socks (including those big thick hiking socks I have), and gloves. Yes I was still cold. It was mostly my face, which meant I had a runny nose all day, but I brought tissues with me so I was fine. The next day was in the upper 40s and the next day was in the 50s. It was cold. Its back to normal now, so I am happy.
On Saturday we had the wedding for Luis and Caty Aquino, and Bessy and Julio. It all went well and they (Luis and Bessy) are getting baptized tomorrow night. Bessy is awesome. After church on Sunday, Bessy came up to us and was like, “I wanted to go up and bear my testimony to day, but I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to and Julio said he didn’t think I could.” Well, I think Julio is disfellowshipped right now because he is going through the whole repentance process to come back to church, so the bishop told him he couldn’t say prayers or bear testimony or anything and I guess he thought that meant that non-members couldn’t bear testimony either. We told Bessy she’d have another chance the next month, and that we were going to ask her to bare her testimony after her baptism too. Then last night we had another baptism in our ward and we had invited some other investigators to come and see it, one of which was deciding whether nor not he should be baptized, so afterwards we had Bessy go and bear her testimony to him. And she happily did and invited him to get baptized with her tomorrow. He was a little apprehensive about doing it so soon, but he is going to get baptized on Sunday. She is going to be an amazing member.
We’ve been having success with a lot of other people as well. There are 7-8 people who are preparing for baptism right now, but for whatever reason they don’t feel comfortable choosing a specific date yet. One of them is named Mario. He is a 74 year old man from Mexico. He is our only investigator that we have that lives in a house (as opposed to living in an apartment). He is a big, jolly old man who is always laughing. He has been getting taught for several months, but these last few weeks he has really started to make some good progress. He finally came to church and he even agreed to fast. Hopefully he keeps it up.
This is week 6 (the last week) of the transfer! I’d assume my companion and I would stay together, but you never know. In week 6, President Saylin e-mails all of the zone leaders and asks us to give suggestions and input as to what we think should happen in transfers, so that is always fun to be a little part of it. Next week I’ll have the news as to whats happening next transfer.
This week I went on exchanges with the APs, assistants to the president, in Sugar Land. I finally got to go drive by T-Mac’s house (ask dad if you don’t know who he is!). We got the code to get into the gated community where he lives from a member in a ward in Sugar Land who is dating T-Mac’s neighbor. He lives in a reeeally nice area with mansion houses, as you could imagine. I don’t think he was home though…none of his cars were in the driveway and no lights were on.
I think I may have mentioned that we cover the Medical Center area in my area. That means that whenever people’s investigators, or members go to the hospital and need blessings, we get called up to go and give the blessing. I’ve only had to do 3-4, but they are all pretty intense. This week I had a pretty crazy one. This guy was apparently in his car one night here in Houston and these guys walked up to the car, and pulled him out to try to steal his car. I’m guessing he tried to fight back or something, but they pulled out a gun and he put up his arm and they shot him, I don’t know how many times. But the bullet shattered when it went through his arm then it went into his head, so they’ve been having to do surgery to get all the bullet pieces out of his head. He was in the ICU hooked up to tons of machines and had tubes coming out everywhere. We barely got there in time to give him a blessing before he went into another surgery. That was a pretty crazy story to hear though.
This week for whatever reason, missionaries stopped by our apartment on different occasions and when they walked in they noticed the painting Dad gave me that I have up on the wall, and they would walk up to it and say, “Woooow, who painted that? That is an awesome painting!” I’ve gotten compliments for the painting for pretty much my whole mission. It is a pretty awesome painting. Thank you Dad!
Well I think that’s about all for this week. I am pretty excited for the baptisms tomorrow. Transfers is always exciting too. In my last interview President Saylin mentioned, “You never know how long you’re going to be with your companion.” Mission presidents always throw in little hints. So he was thinking about moving at least one of us…we’ll see.
Oh yeah…congratulations Mom on running 9 miles…that is really impressive. I don’t think I could even do that.
And yes I did get the wedding invitation…I forgot to write that last week. That is the first wedding invitation I have gotten! A lot of these missionaries from Utah have friends back at home getting married left and right. That is way weird to me.
Zak have fun with the braces. “Vale la pena” as we say in Spanish. It might not be fun for a while, but it is worth it. My braces didn’t bother me at all after a while…I was just happy my teeth were getting straight. Zak’s teeth were already pretty straight, so he wont have to have them on for too long will he?
I am glad Dad is somehow finding some good business at work. I definitely know how it feels to work when you are sick. Not fun.
Definitely update me on Christopher’s polygraph test. So…isn’t a polygraph test where they hook you up to a lie detector and ask you a bunch of questions? Is he going to work for the government or something? Or is it just some big company over there?
Michael Vick plays for the Eagles? The Eagles just boosted up to be one of my favorite teams.
Oh yeah, last thing. I think the best thing I could get for Christmas besides those other few things I mentioned would be just some treats/food. I don’t really want anything else. I can’t believe I am hitting my 17 month mark on Wednesday! I just realized that. It is scary how fast time goes by.
Ok that is the end of my list of random thoughts and stories! I hope you have a good week!! I love you all!
Love,
Chase
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Received Mon, Nov 30, 2009
Dear Family,
Last week I decided I wanted to set a goal to gain some weight. When I came out on my mission I weighed 150 lbs, and I’ve been fluctuating between 145-150. Whenever I get sick I always lose 5+ lbs and it takes forever to get back up to 150. My goal is to hit 160. Well, I learned that you had better be careful what you ask for. On Thursday we had an appointment at about 12, where we went taught a lesson, then they said they had food ready for us. I was happy, because I was hungry of course, and I stuffed myself. I had 5 tostadas and it was delicious. Then at 6 we had our normal dinner appointment. I was honestly still not that hungry because I ate so much at lunch, but I stuffed myself again and ate as much as I possibly could. We had chicken and mashed potatos and salad and some other stuff. Most Hispanic people here have never eaten a turkey and have no idea how to cook one. I don’t think turkey is that great anyway, so no big loss. Well after that we had another appointment. We show up with our lesson prepared and everything and we sit down on the couch waiting for everyone to come in, then we see them bring out a huuuge turkey and drop it on their dinner table. Then they start bringing out all the rest of the food. I guess they decided they wanted to eat with us instead of do a lesson. I thought I was going to die, but we definitely could not reject it. They went out a bought a huge turkey for us and they barely have enough money to pay rent. Then they got some recipe and just tried to cook it the best they could. I think the funniest part was after we said the prayer they were all trying to decide how to serve it, then One of them just stabbed the huge turkey and started forking out random pieces of meat. It was a lot of chaos. We managed to stuff down a little more food. I’ve become a master at making it look like I have more food on my plate than I really do…these little surprise dinners happen all the time. I could hardly walk back to the car that night, but the most disappointing part is that I weighed myself a few days after and I didn’t gain any weight. Oh well, I will have to keep trying. I’ve started to buy whole milk instead of 2% milk too, but that isn’t doing anything either.
This Saturday we are going to have 2 weddings and then on Tuesday 2 baptisms. This is that family who I talked about where, Samuel Aquino just got off his mission and how hes reactivating his 2 brothers and sister and were teaching their boyfriend/girlfriends. Luis Miguel is going to get married to Catalina (who is the member…Samuel’s sister) and Julio (Samuel’s brother) is getting married to Bessi. Luis and Caty have been living together for like 4 years and they have a 2 year old daughter, so they are happy to finally just get married, and Julio and Bessi have been living together for about a year. Then on Tuesday Luis and Bessi are getting baptized. So that is exciting. They are both very happy. Bessi especially was really prepared and she’s going to be a strong member. At our thanksgiving dinner with them we went around and talked about what our goals for the next year were and she said she wanted to keep learning about the gospel and get a strong testimony to endure to the end. What an awesome answer.
I think I have talked about this black Honduran family named the Mejilla’s before. Unfortunately they are probably not going to get baptized. They have this problem where Lucia Mejilla, the wife, is married to some other guy in Honduras, so in order for her to get married to Fernando, the guy she is living with right now, she would have to get a divorce first. It costs tons of money to get a divorce and they literally don’t have enough money to pay for rent. They’ve gotten their power turned off several times. Unfortunately there are a looot of people stuck in this situation. In our ward right now there are like 5-6 people who are active, but not baptized because they don’t have enough money to get their divorce first. That is one of the biggest struggles that we have and there isn’t really any good solution.
Ok, here are 2 more little random observations that I’ve made about this area, so that you can imagine the area. Most of our area is pretty much like a Spanish speaking country. Nearly everyone is Hispanic…most of the signs are written in Spanish and everything. There are these guys who have these little cart things with wheels and they sell “elote” which is corn on the cob. So they push their little carts around yelling ELOOOOOOTE!!! And kids with run out with money to buy some elote. They usually eat their elote with a ton of mayonnaise on it, and some chili powder. I’ve had it before and its pretty gross. They’ll put ketchup and all sorts of other weird stuff on it too.
My next observation is that there is this ghetto restaurant here with the funniest name…its called “Finger Lickin’ Good.” I think it’s a fried chicken place or something…they have tons of fried chicken places around here. It makes me laugh every time we drive past it.
Another thing I’ve noticed here is that everyone starts putting up their Christmas lights and decorations so early. People started putting up their Christmas lights and Christmas trees about a week ago. Most people live in apartments here, so they’ll just put lights all over their windows and stairwells. We don’t have Christmas lights but we do have a little Christmas tree that we put up today. It will be interesting to see what we do for Christmas this year in the mission.
I’ve also thought of 2 more things to add to my Christmas list. First…I mentioned the classical music thing last week…I remember bumpa has a pretty sweet classical music tape or something that he always listens to when he works out…I think you know what I’m talking about. Well I would love to work out to that in the morning as well. I started to do pushups and sit ups in the mornings again, but mormon tabernacle choir just doesn’t really pump you up that much when its early and you're trying to force yourself to exercise. I don’t know if its possible to copy that or anything about it, but that’s just a thought that came to mind.
The other thing is that it is always nice to get new ties. It is easy to get sick of all your ties. Oh yeah, and last week I mentioned I could use a few pairs of black socks, well this morning I had to throw away 2 pairs of my blue socks. I’m getting to that time where a lot of my socks are so used that you can see right through them, then big holes start to form. So it wouldn’t hurt to throw in 1-2 pairs of blue socks too.
Oh yeah…one more question. How is Dad’s work going? The last that I heard was on Mother’s Day when it was going slow like everywhere else. I have heard that the economy is starting to get a little better, but obviously I have no idea, plus I haven’t heard anything about the real estate market.
Well that is all I have for this week. Thank you for all the updates and stories, it was all entertaining and interesting. Its nice to see that some things never change, ie…DotA tournaments, turkey bowl, and random game competitions. And fantasy football. And the delicious Thanksgiving meals (I haven’t seen any better thanksgiving dinners out here than the ones we have at our house). I love you all…have a good week!!
Love,
Chase
Last week I decided I wanted to set a goal to gain some weight. When I came out on my mission I weighed 150 lbs, and I’ve been fluctuating between 145-150. Whenever I get sick I always lose 5+ lbs and it takes forever to get back up to 150. My goal is to hit 160. Well, I learned that you had better be careful what you ask for. On Thursday we had an appointment at about 12, where we went taught a lesson, then they said they had food ready for us. I was happy, because I was hungry of course, and I stuffed myself. I had 5 tostadas and it was delicious. Then at 6 we had our normal dinner appointment. I was honestly still not that hungry because I ate so much at lunch, but I stuffed myself again and ate as much as I possibly could. We had chicken and mashed potatos and salad and some other stuff. Most Hispanic people here have never eaten a turkey and have no idea how to cook one. I don’t think turkey is that great anyway, so no big loss. Well after that we had another appointment. We show up with our lesson prepared and everything and we sit down on the couch waiting for everyone to come in, then we see them bring out a huuuge turkey and drop it on their dinner table. Then they start bringing out all the rest of the food. I guess they decided they wanted to eat with us instead of do a lesson. I thought I was going to die, but we definitely could not reject it. They went out a bought a huge turkey for us and they barely have enough money to pay rent. Then they got some recipe and just tried to cook it the best they could. I think the funniest part was after we said the prayer they were all trying to decide how to serve it, then One of them just stabbed the huge turkey and started forking out random pieces of meat. It was a lot of chaos. We managed to stuff down a little more food. I’ve become a master at making it look like I have more food on my plate than I really do…these little surprise dinners happen all the time. I could hardly walk back to the car that night, but the most disappointing part is that I weighed myself a few days after and I didn’t gain any weight. Oh well, I will have to keep trying. I’ve started to buy whole milk instead of 2% milk too, but that isn’t doing anything either.
This Saturday we are going to have 2 weddings and then on Tuesday 2 baptisms. This is that family who I talked about where, Samuel Aquino just got off his mission and how hes reactivating his 2 brothers and sister and were teaching their boyfriend/girlfriends. Luis Miguel is going to get married to Catalina (who is the member…Samuel’s sister) and Julio (Samuel’s brother) is getting married to Bessi. Luis and Caty have been living together for like 4 years and they have a 2 year old daughter, so they are happy to finally just get married, and Julio and Bessi have been living together for about a year. Then on Tuesday Luis and Bessi are getting baptized. So that is exciting. They are both very happy. Bessi especially was really prepared and she’s going to be a strong member. At our thanksgiving dinner with them we went around and talked about what our goals for the next year were and she said she wanted to keep learning about the gospel and get a strong testimony to endure to the end. What an awesome answer.
I think I have talked about this black Honduran family named the Mejilla’s before. Unfortunately they are probably not going to get baptized. They have this problem where Lucia Mejilla, the wife, is married to some other guy in Honduras, so in order for her to get married to Fernando, the guy she is living with right now, she would have to get a divorce first. It costs tons of money to get a divorce and they literally don’t have enough money to pay for rent. They’ve gotten their power turned off several times. Unfortunately there are a looot of people stuck in this situation. In our ward right now there are like 5-6 people who are active, but not baptized because they don’t have enough money to get their divorce first. That is one of the biggest struggles that we have and there isn’t really any good solution.
Ok, here are 2 more little random observations that I’ve made about this area, so that you can imagine the area. Most of our area is pretty much like a Spanish speaking country. Nearly everyone is Hispanic…most of the signs are written in Spanish and everything. There are these guys who have these little cart things with wheels and they sell “elote” which is corn on the cob. So they push their little carts around yelling ELOOOOOOTE!!! And kids with run out with money to buy some elote. They usually eat their elote with a ton of mayonnaise on it, and some chili powder. I’ve had it before and its pretty gross. They’ll put ketchup and all sorts of other weird stuff on it too.
My next observation is that there is this ghetto restaurant here with the funniest name…its called “Finger Lickin’ Good.” I think it’s a fried chicken place or something…they have tons of fried chicken places around here. It makes me laugh every time we drive past it.
Another thing I’ve noticed here is that everyone starts putting up their Christmas lights and decorations so early. People started putting up their Christmas lights and Christmas trees about a week ago. Most people live in apartments here, so they’ll just put lights all over their windows and stairwells. We don’t have Christmas lights but we do have a little Christmas tree that we put up today. It will be interesting to see what we do for Christmas this year in the mission.
I’ve also thought of 2 more things to add to my Christmas list. First…I mentioned the classical music thing last week…I remember bumpa has a pretty sweet classical music tape or something that he always listens to when he works out…I think you know what I’m talking about. Well I would love to work out to that in the morning as well. I started to do pushups and sit ups in the mornings again, but mormon tabernacle choir just doesn’t really pump you up that much when its early and you're trying to force yourself to exercise. I don’t know if its possible to copy that or anything about it, but that’s just a thought that came to mind.
The other thing is that it is always nice to get new ties. It is easy to get sick of all your ties. Oh yeah, and last week I mentioned I could use a few pairs of black socks, well this morning I had to throw away 2 pairs of my blue socks. I’m getting to that time where a lot of my socks are so used that you can see right through them, then big holes start to form. So it wouldn’t hurt to throw in 1-2 pairs of blue socks too.
Oh yeah…one more question. How is Dad’s work going? The last that I heard was on Mother’s Day when it was going slow like everywhere else. I have heard that the economy is starting to get a little better, but obviously I have no idea, plus I haven’t heard anything about the real estate market.
Well that is all I have for this week. Thank you for all the updates and stories, it was all entertaining and interesting. Its nice to see that some things never change, ie…DotA tournaments, turkey bowl, and random game competitions. And fantasy football. And the delicious Thanksgiving meals (I haven’t seen any better thanksgiving dinners out here than the ones we have at our house). I love you all…have a good week!!
Love,
Chase
Received Mon Nov 23, 2009
Dear Family,
Hmm...not a whole lot happened this week. We had our Zone Conference which was good as always. Then we had our stake correlation meeting afterwards which was okay. It started to turn into a finger pointing match and everyone started to get defensive. These meetings are always interesting.
Our 2 investigators are still set to get baptized on December 6th. They are both living with their boyfriend/girlfriends and we taught them the law of chastity a few weeks ago and challenged them to either separate or get married. Yesterday they told us they finally decided they are going to get married. We have taught them pretty much everything, so they are set for December 6th.
We have this other investigator named Roman. He is awesome. His wife drinks a lot and they recently separated (which is weird...usually its the man who is the drunk). Roman is friends with one of the members, which is how we met him. He lives with a bunch of other guys in an apartment. Well last week we were in the complex and we saw all those guys standing around outside drinking beer and I thought for sure we'd see Roman out there with them. Well Roman was out there and everyone was drinking beer, but Roman was standing out there drinking a coke instead. That is probably one of my favorite mental pictures I have of my whole mission: Roman standing around with all the other guys drinking his coke while everyone else is drinking their beers. Roman is also preparing to get baptized.
Last week Mom mentioned that song that talks about the Word of Wisdom, well we tried it out last week and sang it before teaching one of our word of wisdom lessons. We taught the Word of Wisdom 3-5 times last week. It is always interesting to see people's reactions.
In the mail last week I got a bag of chex mix from the Achievement days girls and me and my companion and every other missionary who has been in our apartment have been enjoying it.
This week is just going to be a normal week of missionary work. We are just going to have a normal dinner appointment and everything. Most hispanic people here don't celebrate Thanksgiving really, so it wont be too hard to find people to visit.
OK, now in response to Mom's e-mail. What the heck is a droid phone? I am glad Christopher fixed my computer...I would be very happy if it was still there when I got back. I think that's really strange how the monitor stopped working.
I loved seeing everyone's favorite teams. Those are some good teams. I think all the teams that I like are on there. My favorites in order of how much I like them are: Chargers, Saints, Colts, Steelers
Hmm...I started to make a Christmas list and I was going to bring it today but I forgot. I think all I've really thought of is that I need more pens, those pilot G-2 black and blue pens. And black socks...and other random stuff like tapioca pudding (the kind I always use to make), and beef jerky.
Well that's all I can think of for this week. Oh yeah, I got a padded envelope, so I can send home my memory card this week. There's lots of space left still so you don't need to delete any of the pictures. But do make sure you save them on the computer somewhere. I love you all and hope you have a good week!
Love,
Chase
Hmm...not a whole lot happened this week. We had our Zone Conference which was good as always. Then we had our stake correlation meeting afterwards which was okay. It started to turn into a finger pointing match and everyone started to get defensive. These meetings are always interesting.
Our 2 investigators are still set to get baptized on December 6th. They are both living with their boyfriend/girlfriends and we taught them the law of chastity a few weeks ago and challenged them to either separate or get married. Yesterday they told us they finally decided they are going to get married. We have taught them pretty much everything, so they are set for December 6th.
We have this other investigator named Roman. He is awesome. His wife drinks a lot and they recently separated (which is weird...usually its the man who is the drunk). Roman is friends with one of the members, which is how we met him. He lives with a bunch of other guys in an apartment. Well last week we were in the complex and we saw all those guys standing around outside drinking beer and I thought for sure we'd see Roman out there with them. Well Roman was out there and everyone was drinking beer, but Roman was standing out there drinking a coke instead. That is probably one of my favorite mental pictures I have of my whole mission: Roman standing around with all the other guys drinking his coke while everyone else is drinking their beers. Roman is also preparing to get baptized.
Last week Mom mentioned that song that talks about the Word of Wisdom, well we tried it out last week and sang it before teaching one of our word of wisdom lessons. We taught the Word of Wisdom 3-5 times last week. It is always interesting to see people's reactions.
In the mail last week I got a bag of chex mix from the Achievement days girls and me and my companion and every other missionary who has been in our apartment have been enjoying it.
This week is just going to be a normal week of missionary work. We are just going to have a normal dinner appointment and everything. Most hispanic people here don't celebrate Thanksgiving really, so it wont be too hard to find people to visit.
OK, now in response to Mom's e-mail. What the heck is a droid phone? I am glad Christopher fixed my computer...I would be very happy if it was still there when I got back. I think that's really strange how the monitor stopped working.
I loved seeing everyone's favorite teams. Those are some good teams. I think all the teams that I like are on there. My favorites in order of how much I like them are: Chargers, Saints, Colts, Steelers
Hmm...I started to make a Christmas list and I was going to bring it today but I forgot. I think all I've really thought of is that I need more pens, those pilot G-2 black and blue pens. And black socks...and other random stuff like tapioca pudding (the kind I always use to make), and beef jerky.
Well that's all I can think of for this week. Oh yeah, I got a padded envelope, so I can send home my memory card this week. There's lots of space left still so you don't need to delete any of the pictures. But do make sure you save them on the computer somewhere. I love you all and hope you have a good week!
Love,
Chase
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)