Received Mon Jan 4, 2010

Dear Family,

I am glad to hear everyone had a good time with the wedding/visit to Utah/Idaho. It sounded like it was all fun. It sounded like a lot of eating too, which is definitely a good thing. So where are Steven and Heather living right now? I know they eventually plan on moving down to California again for Steven’s job.

I finally got the lost package with the Sees candy and stamps! I don’t know what the deal was, but it looked like it has been tossed around a lot. It was all ripped down the side and somebody had tried to tape it back together. Everything was still in there as far as I could see though. The Sees candy was still delicious, so thank you.

After e-mailing last week I got started to get sick and I think I had the 24 hour flu. My companion got it a couple days before and its spreading like crazy in the mission. Yesterday I started to get a sore throat and this morning I woke up and it has gotten pretty bad. I have a headache, backache, and sore throat. It already feels much better though. I called up the 2 senior missionaries in charge of all the health stuff with missionaries and they told me to stay in for 48 hours and to take Tylenol and ibuprofen. They are kind of crazy. I did take some Tylenol and I’m going to buy some ibuprofen…hopefully that helps with the back. There is no way I’m staying in for 48 hours though. I have never been sick so many times though. Before the mission I was never sick, now in the mission I’ve gotten sick like 7 times. I wash my hands all the time too. Luckily it usually never lasts more than 24 hours.

I got to go on exchanges to an area called Clear Lake this week. I know if I ever explained it fully, but I know I did mention the League City Zone was barely created when the League City Stake was formed about 2 months ago. Well when that happened, the stake took in wards from another stake just north of us, which is actually outside of our mission. Because of that our mission boundaries changed and we got a couple new areas and some new missionaries. Clear Lake is one of those new areas. Ever since being in our mission, the area has never had a baptismal date. I’m not really sure what the problem is…I know there were some pretty disobedient missionaries there who got sent home, and that always leaves a bad taste in the member’s mouths, but I honestly believe you can change that pretty fast if you just work hard and work well with the members. Anyway, when we went on exchanges we planned out some good lessons and planned to extend baptismal dates in every lesson. We only got in to teach 1 of the investigators they had planned, but we taught the lesson as we planned, extended the date and he accepted! I think a lot of missionaries just get afraid of extending baptismal invitations and they end up doing it pretty weak, or just not at all. I think our experience at least helped cure this problem at least a little bit. They went to teach one of the investigators who we had planned for, but wasn’t home, the day after I left and they extended another date. That was good to hear.

Elder Cameron, my last companion, also called me up last night to update me on how all the people from my last area are doing. A lot of the people that I found and taught with Elder Cameron are progressing well still and are getting closer to baptism. That was a pretty amazing area. Hopefully we can turn this area into an area like that. Our teaching pool is pretty sparse right now though. Although we did get another baptismal date and find a few new hopeful people, so things are looking better.

Ok, one more thing. My driver’s license expires on my birthday in April. I talked to our vehicle coordinator guy and he told me I have 2 options. 1: I can go to the DMV here and get a Texas driver’s license, or 2: I can write to my family and see if they can extend my driver’s license. At first I thought it would be pretty cool to have a Texas drivers license, but then I started thinking about it and thought it might cause problems living in California, but having a Texas driver’s license. I’d have to change the address and all that stuff. So the best option would probably be to extend my driver’s license at least until I get home, so I can go and get a new one when I get back. If that doesn’t work out, I’ll just get one here. So, could you please try to find out what all needs to happen in order to extend my license?

That’s about all for this week. Pray that we can find some new good people to teach! I love you all!

Love,
Chase