Received Mon June 22, 2009

Dear Family,

It looks as though Mom forgot to send out an e-mail this week!! Either that or it just didn’t send. That is ok though, I got a good letter from home 2 days ago.

It is weird how mail works here. Some mail takes 10 days to get here and other mail takes 3 days, I’m not sure why. But I got the letter with pictures from the beach on it. I must admit that I am a little jealous…that beach looked nice. The weather here has been hoooot. The weather forecast this week is all between 95-100. Even though we aren't biking, the heat is still really bad. Every time we get into our car its like 115+ degrees and by the time it cools down were at our next stop.

Happy Father’s Day yesterday Dad!! Its hard to remember these things before they happen because when I’m writing e-mails I’m only thinking about my past week, not what's going to happen in the future.

We had dinner at our stake presidents house for father’s day…it was good. They are awesome people.

I’m going to go down my list of things I wrote down to write about. First I will talk about last week’s P-day. It was a pretty good one. We toured a Jehovah's’s Witness Assembly Hall. This is their version of a conference center or a stake center. There are only 3 in Texas and not that many in the whole world. Their normal meeting places are called Kingdom Halls. It was all pretty interesting. It was so surprising to me to see how much we have in common with them. Their beliefs have kind of been evolving over time and they have been becoming more and more like ours. Even a lot of the organizational things they have are similar to ours. At the end I asked the lady giving us the tour if I could see one of their Watch Towers (basically like our Ensigns, that’s what they use a lot to tract with). She opened a cupboard with a bunch of their books, so we all grabbed something to look through. It's amazing how even though a lot of their beliefs might seem similar to ours, they are so…different. The whole backbone to their religion is completely different. They are taught not to pray about whether or not things are true, they believe everything is in the Bible and you have to use your own intellect. One of their little books that we got is called Reasoning with Scripture and it was basically one of their bashing books. It has a huge list of different topics and sets up bashing scenarios…it would say “If someone says…..You might say…. “ It was all very interesting. The lady who took us on the tour was nice, so that was good.

After that we got together with another zone and we had lunch and we all learned the Haka (the war dance that Polynesians do before sports games). We are holding a surprise party for our mission president on Saturday, so we’re going to perform it there. It was really fun to learn. We got really good at it by the end, but I’m not sure how much of it we will all still remember by Saturday. I will try to get someone to record it.

At church yesterday David Majewski got the Aaronic Priesthood. That was awesome to see. He is going to bless the sacrament next week. Mendy Dor also gave a talk in sacrament meeting. We helped her brainstorm a little, but she did most of it herself and it was very good. Her sister will speak next week. It was also a sad day because a lot of people we invited to church didn’t come. We found someone good to teach for the first time ever tracting the other day. We talked to a bunch of people in a park who were watching their kids, and this lady is genuinely interested and is looking for a good church. She said she would come, but she didn’t. I’m just hoping she didn’t get anti’d. Maria also didn’t come to church…she is reeeally depressed again. She had to put one of her dogs to sleep and her dogs are like her kids. She doesn’t even know what day it is or what time it is whenever we stop by. She is planning on moving out and living with her newly married daughter in Washington in September, so hopefully that will be better for her. She said she wants to get baptized in Washington, so that is good. We will teach her and get her prepared here and she will get baptized there. I don’t really care where it happens as long as she gets baptized and keeps living the gospel…that is the only way she will be happy.

I found a good scripture this week. It is one of the first Isaiah scriptures that I like and fully understand and can use in teaching. It is in Isaiah 5:20 or 2 Nephi 15:20. I don’t remember word for word what it says, but it says Woe unto them that call good evil and evil good, that put light for darkness and darkness for like and put sweet for bitter and bitter for sweet. Basically its describing our world today. People are saying that bad things are good and they are saying that good things are bad. As missionaries we are out amongst a lot of people with all sorts of standards, and this is definitely true. As a result, there are so many people that are sad and depressed and don’t know what to do. I just like that scripture because it reminds me that I always need to do what I know is right, even if others aren't doing the same.

Well, my companion is leaving on Thursday morning. I will get my new companion on Saturday, so by next week I’ll have an update. Our mission president is leaving..next week or something, I don’t remember. Maybe he will be gone by next week too. I am actually pretty excited for all the changes. My companion is ready to go home…this last transfer has been difficult for him. He isn't sad or anything like that, its just hard for him to focus 100% on the mission know hes about to leave in a few days and not being able to move very much makes it even harder. He’s done really really well though. He is a great missionary. I have learned a ton from him.

Ok that is all for this week! Have a good week! I love you all!!

Love,
Chase