Received Mon June 7, 2010

Dear Family,

It sounds like you had quite the Sunday yesterday. Believe it or not, I actually got sick this week too and it was pretty bad, and it was bad timing. On Wednesday morning (our transfer day) I woke up and it felt like someone was wringing out my intestines, then I started to get nauseated and I think I threw up 7 times by the end of the day. I still managed to get to transfer meeting though. I just brought a bag with me in the car, which I used. Then I went into our trainers meeting where President Saylin trains all the trainers. I had to leave twice to throw up in that 40 min meeting. After a while I just went to go lay down on the couch. I'm not sure what I had, but it wasn't good. The next couple days I started feeling better, but my stomach still hurt and about 15 minutes after I ate I would always have to run to the bathroom (not to throw up). I feel pretty good today, but I'm not sure if its totally gone.

My new companion is Elder Bunch. He is from northern California. He is a very very very excited missionary. It is pretty funny. He is pretty much exactly what you imagine when you imagine a greenie. Except he has absolutely NO fear, unlike most new missionaries. He loves to belt out hymns as we walk down the street and his absolute favorite thing to do is to talk to people in the streets. He literally runs after people yelling "HERMANO HERMANO! TENEMOS UN MENSAJE PARA USTED!!" It is hilarious. One day in the morning we opened up the front door and it was raining pretty good, and Elder Bunch paused for a second, then he ran outside singing some song about rain drops or something. The best thing about him is that he speaks Spanish almost 100% of the time, so he is picking it up pretty fast. He knew 0 (zero) Spanish before the mission, so he doesn't have a whole lot of background, but he's learning quick because we talk to each other in Spanish pretty much all the time. He is going to be a great missionary.

Ok, time to answer Mom's random questions:

Yes I have heard of the P90X workout. That is what all the guys in the movie 300 used to get ripped. It sounds pretty intense.

People yell stuff at us every single day, usually several times. They are usually all pretty funny. People try to think of creative things to try to offend us, but it just turns out sounding ridiculous. We had someone this last week stick his head out the window and yell out "GET A JOB!" that's one I never heard before...I thought it was pretty funny. We get a lot of fan honks too though. The nice people usually don't yell at us, they'll just honk and wave, which I think is the best. Sometimes people will pull over and talk to us, but that just uses a bunch of time and we always end up being late to wherever were going.

We are allowed to teach pretty much anyone. Muslims are the only ones that I know of that are that extreme and I've taught a couple different Muslims in my mission. Basically the rule is to just be careful. I ate dinner at a members home before and they grew up in Iran, where most people are Muslims. Even though they've tried to keep it a secret that they joined the LDS church, they are sure someone found out and they are probably black listed. They said if they tried to go home to Iran, as soon as they got off the plane, some government CIA type guys would go take them to a car, and they would drive off in the car and they would never be heard from again. It is pretty crazy.

I have a couple last questions for you now. I was wondering what the possibilities of finding some place to give me a scholarship for school. I might have to look for myself when I get back, but I hear people all the time talking about how they go and apply to all sorts of different scholarships and sometimes they'll get accepted. That would be awesome. I wonder if CJ or ST know anything about that.

And yes, I did get my contacts and my memory card. Thank you very much.

One last questions for you. I don't know if its possible, or even worth it, but I was wondering if there would be an easy way to burn the EFY 2010 CD so I could enjoy that for the last couple weeks here. Like I said, I don't know if it would even be worth it, but if there is an easy way, I figure you might as well.

And last but not least, Happy Birthday Mom!! I always forget that I only e-mail once a week so I have to say all my happy birthdays the Monday before. I've got Mom's birthday written on my calendar and I knew it was coming up, and I hope you have a fabulous birthday Mom, and I hope you enjoy the P90X DVDs.

I love you all and hope you have a great week!!!

Love,
Chase