Dear Parents & families:
I have been in touch with all of the missionaries today and all are fine. They are now involved in clean-up efforts and are enjoying being of service. Thank you for your prayers and concern. We have been blessed.
With love,
Pres. Allred
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Chase Gets Evacuated!
Zak got a call this afternoon from a man who is hosting some missionaries in his home. He said he was in Southern Houston. All the missionaries have been evacuated. He said they did expect to get some "weather" where they were at, but he wanted us to know that Chase was safe.
He gave Zak his home phone and cell phone numbers. He said we could call if we wanted. I will try NOT to call. I'm sure Chase will be fine. He is probably very excited. One of his goals on his mission was to be in a hurricane! Third day in, he is going to get his wish!
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
The Phone Call!
Chase called and woke me up this morning at 7:00 CA time. He was at the airport, waiting to get on the plane for Texas. He had about 2 hours to wait.
Of course Zak and Kerry had been up for hours (seminary) and Kylie, Griffin and Quinn were up too.
He sounded very good. Said he got up at 4:30am! The packing was not a big deal. He had the time and room in his luggage. He is sending home a bad (old?) white shirt, shoes that he brought that were too small, old scriptures.
He went to go and get a cinnabon for breakfast, they were out, he had to wait 10 minutes, then they would have fresh. Yummy.
The only information that he received about Texas was that he (they, all the missionaries) would be met at the airport by their mission president, Pres. Allread. They get on the plane around 10:00, arrive around 2:40. The missionaries will not sit together on the plane. Chase bought a Book of Mormon that he could give away if he got the opportunity. He also had plenty of pass along cards.
He said he was really ready to leave the MTC and begin this part of his mission. He felt good about his Spanish. He and his companion speak Spanish a lot. He sounded positive, secure and happy.
Oh, yes, yesterday they had a devotional. Pres. Uchtdorf spoke! He said it was very good.
That is all I can remember. It was nice to hear his voice.
Of course Zak and Kerry had been up for hours (seminary) and Kylie, Griffin and Quinn were up too.
He sounded very good. Said he got up at 4:30am! The packing was not a big deal. He had the time and room in his luggage. He is sending home a bad (old?) white shirt, shoes that he brought that were too small, old scriptures.
He went to go and get a cinnabon for breakfast, they were out, he had to wait 10 minutes, then they would have fresh. Yummy.
The only information that he received about Texas was that he (they, all the missionaries) would be met at the airport by their mission president, Pres. Allread. They get on the plane around 10:00, arrive around 2:40. The missionaries will not sit together on the plane. Chase bought a Book of Mormon that he could give away if he got the opportunity. He also had plenty of pass along cards.
He said he was really ready to leave the MTC and begin this part of his mission. He felt good about his Spanish. He and his companion speak Spanish a lot. He sounded positive, secure and happy.
Oh, yes, yesterday they had a devotional. Pres. Uchtdorf spoke! He said it was very good.
That is all I can remember. It was nice to hear his voice.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Received Tues Sept 9, 2008
Ahh...my last day here in the MTC.
I think normally stateside missionaries leave on Tuesday but there was some mission presidents conference or something, so we leave on Wednesday instead. I'm happy for that though...we get to go to the temple once more and go to more last devotional. Speaking of devotionals, Quinten L Cook came to our last devotional. He was on the committee that made Preach My Gospel, so of course he talked about that. It was an amazing talk. But anyway, half our district already left...all the international ones. They left yesterday.
Alriiiight...I remembered to bring my DearElder's with me this time. I still haven't responded to Mom's labor day letter where Zak, Quinn, and Mom wrote me. So...Quinn it looks like you're catchin up to me on pullups. I can probably only do 11 right now. I gave up on those because our stupid pullup bar is made out of metal and it pinches my hands when I use it. I do it anyway sometimes...I should take a picture of my hands after I use it next time...you can see exactly where the pull-up bar pinches me. How is Mario Kart Wii? It sounds like it should be pretty fun. I'll have to whoop you when I get back, so you better start practicing.
Bub...that was a good football update. I totally did not expect Brett Favre to come back. That's gonna be weird seeing him play for the Jets. And the story about Ocho Cinco made me laugh out loud. I also did hear that BYU won their first game. Our branch president told us that night when he came to our residence halls to visit us. And have fun waking up for seminary...even I don't have to wake up that early. Missionaries all have to wake up by 6:30, but here in the MTC we have to be in class by 7, so if you want to shower in the morning you have to wake up earlier. I usually wake up at like 6:15. But if it makes you feel any better, I have to report to the travel office here at 6am tomorrow, so I'm waking up at 4:45. That's going to be fun. Waking up in the morning is still definitely hard for me. Its not getting easier to wake up, but I think I'm just getting use to being tired in the morning. I wake up and I'm too tired to even open my eyes so I just walk around with my eyes closed walking into stuff, then I start to wake up more after I shower and get to class. Oh and Mom told me you have Sister Swift for English. I didn't know her either until I saw her at high school then saw her at church...it kind of scared me the first time. Just wait until you get sister To'o for a sub...haha...thats always interesting. While we're on the subject of football, I had better bring up fantasy football. Mom did update me on the Falcons, but I didn't hear if the Chargers won or not. I think I'm safe to assume they did. Looks like I won my first week of fantasy football too. I guess Bub gets some credit for overseeing my team.
OK....back to mission stuff again. No, nobody talked to me about Texas or any of the hurricanes. The only thing I know is that I'm supposed to be in the travel office here by 6:00am and that my flight takes off at 10:00am and lands at 2:19pm. I'm pretty sure there's a 1 hour time zone difference so the flight is only 3 hrs 19 min. That's plenty of time to convert all the people on the plane. haha...but in all seriousness they don't even give us Books of Mormon to give out, so I'm going to buy one for myself in case I find a good opportunity. I've stocked up on like 6-7 passalong cards too. I'm pretty set to go.There are 11 missionaries in my travel group, I'm not 100% sure if they are all going to my mission. 4 of us are from my district. Me, my companion, and the 2 hermanas. I did start packing. This last week one Elder was delayed because of some visa problems and the rest of his district left, so we picked him up as a 3rd companion until he left yesterday. We had to take him back to our rooms on Sunday to pack, so I just packed at the same time. So I'm pretty ahead of things. I've got a lot of room...packing as gone really nice so far. They do have a ton of rules about the weight of the bags and that you can only have 2 bags checked for free now or something. Pretty stupid rules...but I guess they need to find more ways to take money from people to make up for gas prices. I don't know when my P-day will be in Texas. E-mailing me the first week sounds like a good idea to me. We'll see how it goes and I'll figure something out. I remember Christopher (I'm not sure about Steven) would always print out the e-mail right away and just respond to the previous weeks email that he printed out and read the last week. I haven't been doing great with the whole taking pictures thing. I'll try to take a bunch before I get done packing though.
About my phone call...so Mom you told me your doctors appointment is at 9:30 PM?? did you mean AM? I'd assume so because that is a weird time for a doctors appointment. I'll call your cell phones though if nobody picks up at home. I think I'm just going to buy like a 15 minute calling card and use that. And the flash thing is just when you call someone you can hit flash and dial a 3rd person so its like a 3 way call.
No I am not sick of the MTC food. Sometimes it is nasty, but they always have like 3-4 food options and there's always something fairly edible. Its going to be a change having to cook everything for myself. I have been sleeping pretty well. At first it would take me like and hour or maybe 2 to get to sleep, not I can do it like 20 min. I am feeling well. Usually when a big change is about to happen a ton of anxiety builds up, but I feel fine now. I usually don't even realize when I have all that anxiety built up in me, but whenever it happens I can only eat like half as much as normal. This morning for breakfast I had 4 bowls of frosted flakes, a donut, and 2 glasses of powerade, so i think I'm fine. I'll definitely miss the easy access to unlimited donuts.
I don't get too nervous speaking Spanish. I know its going to be pretty rough for the first few weeks in the field, but I think I'll adjust pretty well. I really like speaking Spanish a lot though. I'm excited to be able to start speaking like natives and learn their little expressions they always use. All in all I've been doing really well. I just gave a blessing to one of the hermanas that is super stressed out. It was a really powerful blessing. It was a really good experience. She feels way better. After the blessing she wrote down everything about it she could remember in her journal.
Ahh...I'm running out of time!! A lot of things happened this week, but I guess its not so bad because I'm going to get to call home tomorrow anyway. Ok...I'm excited to talk to you tomorrow! I've got a lot of stuff left to do today. I love you all and miss you!!
Love,
Chase
I think normally stateside missionaries leave on Tuesday but there was some mission presidents conference or something, so we leave on Wednesday instead. I'm happy for that though...we get to go to the temple once more and go to more last devotional. Speaking of devotionals, Quinten L Cook came to our last devotional. He was on the committee that made Preach My Gospel, so of course he talked about that. It was an amazing talk. But anyway, half our district already left...all the international ones. They left yesterday.
Alriiiight...I remembered to bring my DearElder's with me this time. I still haven't responded to Mom's labor day letter where Zak, Quinn, and Mom wrote me. So...Quinn it looks like you're catchin up to me on pullups. I can probably only do 11 right now. I gave up on those because our stupid pullup bar is made out of metal and it pinches my hands when I use it. I do it anyway sometimes...I should take a picture of my hands after I use it next time...you can see exactly where the pull-up bar pinches me. How is Mario Kart Wii? It sounds like it should be pretty fun. I'll have to whoop you when I get back, so you better start practicing.
Bub...that was a good football update. I totally did not expect Brett Favre to come back. That's gonna be weird seeing him play for the Jets. And the story about Ocho Cinco made me laugh out loud. I also did hear that BYU won their first game. Our branch president told us that night when he came to our residence halls to visit us. And have fun waking up for seminary...even I don't have to wake up that early. Missionaries all have to wake up by 6:30, but here in the MTC we have to be in class by 7, so if you want to shower in the morning you have to wake up earlier. I usually wake up at like 6:15. But if it makes you feel any better, I have to report to the travel office here at 6am tomorrow, so I'm waking up at 4:45. That's going to be fun. Waking up in the morning is still definitely hard for me. Its not getting easier to wake up, but I think I'm just getting use to being tired in the morning. I wake up and I'm too tired to even open my eyes so I just walk around with my eyes closed walking into stuff, then I start to wake up more after I shower and get to class. Oh and Mom told me you have Sister Swift for English. I didn't know her either until I saw her at high school then saw her at church...it kind of scared me the first time. Just wait until you get sister To'o for a sub...haha...thats always interesting. While we're on the subject of football, I had better bring up fantasy football. Mom did update me on the Falcons, but I didn't hear if the Chargers won or not. I think I'm safe to assume they did. Looks like I won my first week of fantasy football too. I guess Bub gets some credit for overseeing my team.
OK....back to mission stuff again. No, nobody talked to me about Texas or any of the hurricanes. The only thing I know is that I'm supposed to be in the travel office here by 6:00am and that my flight takes off at 10:00am and lands at 2:19pm. I'm pretty sure there's a 1 hour time zone difference so the flight is only 3 hrs 19 min. That's plenty of time to convert all the people on the plane. haha...but in all seriousness they don't even give us Books of Mormon to give out, so I'm going to buy one for myself in case I find a good opportunity. I've stocked up on like 6-7 passalong cards too. I'm pretty set to go.There are 11 missionaries in my travel group, I'm not 100% sure if they are all going to my mission. 4 of us are from my district. Me, my companion, and the 2 hermanas. I did start packing. This last week one Elder was delayed because of some visa problems and the rest of his district left, so we picked him up as a 3rd companion until he left yesterday. We had to take him back to our rooms on Sunday to pack, so I just packed at the same time. So I'm pretty ahead of things. I've got a lot of room...packing as gone really nice so far. They do have a ton of rules about the weight of the bags and that you can only have 2 bags checked for free now or something. Pretty stupid rules...but I guess they need to find more ways to take money from people to make up for gas prices. I don't know when my P-day will be in Texas. E-mailing me the first week sounds like a good idea to me. We'll see how it goes and I'll figure something out. I remember Christopher (I'm not sure about Steven) would always print out the e-mail right away and just respond to the previous weeks email that he printed out and read the last week. I haven't been doing great with the whole taking pictures thing. I'll try to take a bunch before I get done packing though.
About my phone call...so Mom you told me your doctors appointment is at 9:30 PM?? did you mean AM? I'd assume so because that is a weird time for a doctors appointment. I'll call your cell phones though if nobody picks up at home. I think I'm just going to buy like a 15 minute calling card and use that. And the flash thing is just when you call someone you can hit flash and dial a 3rd person so its like a 3 way call.
No I am not sick of the MTC food. Sometimes it is nasty, but they always have like 3-4 food options and there's always something fairly edible. Its going to be a change having to cook everything for myself. I have been sleeping pretty well. At first it would take me like and hour or maybe 2 to get to sleep, not I can do it like 20 min. I am feeling well. Usually when a big change is about to happen a ton of anxiety builds up, but I feel fine now. I usually don't even realize when I have all that anxiety built up in me, but whenever it happens I can only eat like half as much as normal. This morning for breakfast I had 4 bowls of frosted flakes, a donut, and 2 glasses of powerade, so i think I'm fine. I'll definitely miss the easy access to unlimited donuts.
I don't get too nervous speaking Spanish. I know its going to be pretty rough for the first few weeks in the field, but I think I'll adjust pretty well. I really like speaking Spanish a lot though. I'm excited to be able to start speaking like natives and learn their little expressions they always use. All in all I've been doing really well. I just gave a blessing to one of the hermanas that is super stressed out. It was a really powerful blessing. It was a really good experience. She feels way better. After the blessing she wrote down everything about it she could remember in her journal.
Ahh...I'm running out of time!! A lot of things happened this week, but I guess its not so bad because I'm going to get to call home tomorrow anyway. Ok...I'm excited to talk to you tomorrow! I've got a lot of stuff left to do today. I love you all and miss you!!
Love,
Chase
IKE
Chase may get a taste of his first hurricane on Saturday! Ike is reported to reach Galveston on Saturday. Galveston is right on the coast, Houston is just inland from there. Maybe we will get news from Chase today about that!
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Thinking of Writing Chase?
Chase leaves for Texas on Wednesday!
So if you want to write to him now, send him a letter right to Texas. Here is that address:
Elder Chase Barton Cole
Houston South Mission
4627 Austin Parkway
Sugar Land, TX 77479
Send him a letter! He would love to get a "hi" from ALL of you!
So if you want to write to him now, send him a letter right to Texas. Here is that address:
Elder Chase Barton Cole
Houston South Mission
4627 Austin Parkway
Sugar Land, TX 77479
Send him a letter! He would love to get a "hi" from ALL of you!
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Received Tue, September 2, 2008
I got my flight plans this week!!! I'm leaving for the Houston Intercontinental airport on September 10 at 10:00am. I leave Salt lake at 10:00am and get to Houston at 2:19pm. I'm leaving the MTC at 6:00am. Our branch president is going to talk to us this Sunday and tell us all about what's going to happen and everything, so I don't know that much right now, but I do know that we get to call home for like 15 min before we take off in Salt Lake, or maybe in Houston after we land...I'm not sure.
I think I just have a normal P-day next week so I'll probably be able to E-mail with more information, but I should be calling home sometime on Wednesday. I'm assuming Mom will be home. If you want we can do a flash call or whatever and call everyone else who's available. If not that's OK too...it'll only be like 15 min anyway.
That was a good story about the girl who just got back from my mission. It's good to know I'll be in good hands. That's funny that she said ya'll all the time...I guess that's inevitable after living in Texas for 2 years. I'm sure that'll happen to me too. I'm assuming that girl was an English speaking sister, so it was probably a lot easier for her to pick up the Texas accent.
I just realized something really cool about being serving a state-side Spanish speaking mission. At first I was hoping that I would only ever speak Spanish after I got into the field and never use English. But just yesterday I realized that being able to speak English is a gift. I will truly be bilingual, whereas if I went to a fully Spanish speaking country, pretty much everyone only speaks Spanish, so you only use one language. In Texas, there will be random people in the streets who speak English and Spanish, and I know both languages. Another thing is that I'll meet Spanish speakers from all over the world. People come to America from all over the place. I'm assuming the majority will be from Mexico, but I know that there's a pretty diverse range of Spanish-speaking ethnicities. So I'll get a little taste of everything. I'm way excited to get out into the field.
I'm glad you liked the bookmark Dad, I have one for myself too. I didn't even notice it was in chronological order until I had it for a week or two.
Kylie that is some pretty impressive stuff. Doing a flip and a half has always been pretty scary for me because I'm afraid I'm going to slam my face into the water. It looks like Kylie is going to give me some competition on the diving board by the time I get back. Especially because I'll be pretty out of practice.
I bet Griffin is so excited to finally be able to be on his own soccer team. Griffin's probably going to be a star player on his team.
So the Olympics came and went and the only things I ever heard about the Olympics were from Mom. The MTC really is a giant bubble. We are so excluded from the outside world to the point where its funny. We definitely have no idea whats going on. We don't even have newspapers or anything. Out in the field we'll probably at least hear of these things from members or in other random places.
I think when I left California, gas was around $4.55. That's good that gas is finally going down a little, but is the stock market still way down? Our teacher told us it was dropping pretty bad for a while.
Ok I have a pretty crazy story. So last Tuesday I was sitting in a devotional and these 2 senior missionaries were sitting by me and the man looked so familiar. I thought I had just seen him around or something. We went through the whole devotional without ever saying anything to each other. Then after the devotional we started talking and I told him where I was from. He said that his wife's brother (I think) is Bill Card. Then I was like...wait a second. Did you use to work on the LA temple? He said yes and we both remembered that he was one of the temple workers who was there when I took out my endowments. His last name is Christenot (pronounced Chrisnot I think). It was a pretty huge coincidence to first have randomly met each other in the temple then to randomly be sitting next to each other in a massive room during a devotional. I've seen like at least once every day since then. They're going to Virginia on a military service mission or something like that. He use to be a navy pilot.
Ok I have one question. So I'm going to be leaving in a week and I've kind of thought about packing. I think I should probably send my old scripture and my shoes that are too small, back home. I also have a whole bunch of letters. Do you think I should save these letters or should I send those home too? I could probably put them in the same box as the stuff I'm sending home. Christopher and Steven, did you save your letters or did you just throw them away? I felt kind of weird about throwing letters away, but I also don't really want to carry them around with me everywhere.
We'll this week is a really important week for me. Here in the MTC we focus on learning and studying, then we practice teaching on the side. I know that when we get into the field we are going to be focusing on teaching then only do a little learning and studying on the side. So, anything I really want to study hard or learn well I should study this week. So I've got to be really selective on what I study. I've learned a ton though and I'm getting pretty ready to go. I've gone through over 100 sheets of papers taking notes and preparing lessons. My study binder is getting stuffed.
Ok well I'm just about out of time now. The last DearElders I got were from Friday because yesterday was labor day and you don't get dearelders on weekends. Our district leader just went to get all our mail, so I'll have to respond to it next week. My Spanish is coming along pretty well. I am am still working with subjunctive. Its coming very slowly, but its still coming. I feel comfortable teaching lessons and I can communicate with natives, so I feel good about that. I'm sure it'll take a while to get use to it all in the field, but I'm excited for that.
Ok, I have to go now!
I love you all!
Chase
I think I just have a normal P-day next week so I'll probably be able to E-mail with more information, but I should be calling home sometime on Wednesday. I'm assuming Mom will be home. If you want we can do a flash call or whatever and call everyone else who's available. If not that's OK too...it'll only be like 15 min anyway.
That was a good story about the girl who just got back from my mission. It's good to know I'll be in good hands. That's funny that she said ya'll all the time...I guess that's inevitable after living in Texas for 2 years. I'm sure that'll happen to me too. I'm assuming that girl was an English speaking sister, so it was probably a lot easier for her to pick up the Texas accent.
I just realized something really cool about being serving a state-side Spanish speaking mission. At first I was hoping that I would only ever speak Spanish after I got into the field and never use English. But just yesterday I realized that being able to speak English is a gift. I will truly be bilingual, whereas if I went to a fully Spanish speaking country, pretty much everyone only speaks Spanish, so you only use one language. In Texas, there will be random people in the streets who speak English and Spanish, and I know both languages. Another thing is that I'll meet Spanish speakers from all over the world. People come to America from all over the place. I'm assuming the majority will be from Mexico, but I know that there's a pretty diverse range of Spanish-speaking ethnicities. So I'll get a little taste of everything. I'm way excited to get out into the field.
I'm glad you liked the bookmark Dad, I have one for myself too. I didn't even notice it was in chronological order until I had it for a week or two.
Kylie that is some pretty impressive stuff. Doing a flip and a half has always been pretty scary for me because I'm afraid I'm going to slam my face into the water. It looks like Kylie is going to give me some competition on the diving board by the time I get back. Especially because I'll be pretty out of practice.
I bet Griffin is so excited to finally be able to be on his own soccer team. Griffin's probably going to be a star player on his team.
So the Olympics came and went and the only things I ever heard about the Olympics were from Mom. The MTC really is a giant bubble. We are so excluded from the outside world to the point where its funny. We definitely have no idea whats going on. We don't even have newspapers or anything. Out in the field we'll probably at least hear of these things from members or in other random places.
I think when I left California, gas was around $4.55. That's good that gas is finally going down a little, but is the stock market still way down? Our teacher told us it was dropping pretty bad for a while.
Ok I have a pretty crazy story. So last Tuesday I was sitting in a devotional and these 2 senior missionaries were sitting by me and the man looked so familiar. I thought I had just seen him around or something. We went through the whole devotional without ever saying anything to each other. Then after the devotional we started talking and I told him where I was from. He said that his wife's brother (I think) is Bill Card. Then I was like...wait a second. Did you use to work on the LA temple? He said yes and we both remembered that he was one of the temple workers who was there when I took out my endowments. His last name is Christenot (pronounced Chrisnot I think). It was a pretty huge coincidence to first have randomly met each other in the temple then to randomly be sitting next to each other in a massive room during a devotional. I've seen like at least once every day since then. They're going to Virginia on a military service mission or something like that. He use to be a navy pilot.
Ok I have one question. So I'm going to be leaving in a week and I've kind of thought about packing. I think I should probably send my old scripture and my shoes that are too small, back home. I also have a whole bunch of letters. Do you think I should save these letters or should I send those home too? I could probably put them in the same box as the stuff I'm sending home. Christopher and Steven, did you save your letters or did you just throw them away? I felt kind of weird about throwing letters away, but I also don't really want to carry them around with me everywhere.
We'll this week is a really important week for me. Here in the MTC we focus on learning and studying, then we practice teaching on the side. I know that when we get into the field we are going to be focusing on teaching then only do a little learning and studying on the side. So, anything I really want to study hard or learn well I should study this week. So I've got to be really selective on what I study. I've learned a ton though and I'm getting pretty ready to go. I've gone through over 100 sheets of papers taking notes and preparing lessons. My study binder is getting stuffed.
Ok well I'm just about out of time now. The last DearElders I got were from Friday because yesterday was labor day and you don't get dearelders on weekends. Our district leader just went to get all our mail, so I'll have to respond to it next week. My Spanish is coming along pretty well. I am am still working with subjunctive. Its coming very slowly, but its still coming. I feel comfortable teaching lessons and I can communicate with natives, so I feel good about that. I'm sure it'll take a while to get use to it all in the field, but I'm excited for that.
Ok, I have to go now!
I love you all!
Chase
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