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