Dear Family,
Here is the transfer news! Elder Johnson is getting transferred and I will be training a new missionary. I am sad to see Elder Johnson go, but I am also pretty excited to train. Elder Johnson and I will hang out after the mission since he only lives a couple minutes away and were going to the same college. All the transfer changes will happen tomorrow, so I'll let you know who I've got next week.
It is a weird feeling knowing that this is my very last transfer. I don't really think about it very much, and I probably wont until it actually happens. I tell all the members and everyone that I've been out around a year and a half. The last thing I want is to have people bothering me about that. I'm hoping to have a really good transfer this transfer though.
This week was pretty good. We hit all out sit-down lesson goals and our OYM goals again. Elder Johnson and I went an entire transfer without getting less than 20 sit downs and an average of 10 oyms a day. We were pretty excited about that. Hopefully we can do the same this next transfer.
We have got several people who are right on the verge of baptism right now. There is this one lady in particular named Rosy Vasquez who knows she needs to be baptized, her husband is a member and is supporting her, but she is afraid that she is going to fall after her baptism. We have 1 or 2 other people who have that same fear. We have had a lot of good lessons on replacing fear with faith and the Holy Ghost and other things like that. They are very close.
I got news from the missionaries in League City that one of the people I taught back there got baptized on Sunday. That was awesome news. It was Bri Wells. I'm sure I wrote about them before. They were the ones where the husband is a member, but less active and doesn't ever want to go to church. They came from Washington and over there the missionaries played video games and wasted time with them. We started off really slow with this family and it was a big accomplishment to just get inside, then we slowly started teaching, then we got her to commit to coming to church, now shes getting baptized. That was some awesome news.
I've tried to really think through my week and think of good things to write about and I thought up of a few funny stories.
Here's the first one. In our room our beds are up on stilts high up in the air, like the top bunk of a bunk bed. Our desks are underneath. I'm not quite sure why they have it set up like that, because all the hot air rises and it is always waaay too hot at night, but that's how it is. The beds are around 5 1/2 feet up in their air...they are pretty high. There is a ladder at the end of the beds we can use to climb up, but I always just put my chair by the end of the bed, then just jump up. In the morning I slowly slide off the bed onto the chair below. Well one morning I was really tired and the alarm went off and I woke up, but I started falling back to sleep right away. Well I caught myself and jumped up really quickly and started to roll over to get off the bed, but apparently I was a lot closer to the edge than I thought and I came tumbling down. There was a lot of stuff, like cabinets and other random stuff I could have landed up and smacked my head up, but I somehow landed sitting down in my chair. It was pretty crazy. The wooden armrests left a mark across my back, but that is probably the best way I could have landed. I was so tired I didn't really realize what happened and I started to laugh and said my morning prayer and carried on with my day.
Next story. Have you guys ever heard of the fruit called Papaya? Back in Richmond, that Haitian family made my companion and I a papaya smoothie and it was waaay good, and I've told other missionaries about it and every single missionary who has tried papaya before has told me that it is one of the most disgusting foods they've tried. I don't know what that family did to make that smoothie good, but nobody else seems to have tasted a good papaya. Well on Sundays here we eat with the same member every Sunday and he always makes way good food because he worked in a restaurant. Last Sunday he had a papaya sitting there on the table and I made the mistake of asking what fruit that was, then he told us it was a papaya and he went on to cut it up so we could try some. I was pretty worried because of what all the other missionaries said. Plus this was after Elder Johnson and I stuffed our faces, so we were full. He brought us both out plates full of papaya. I sniffed it first because I was a little apprehensive and it smelled aaaawful. It smelled like something rotten. Luckily he had put a bunch of sugar on it, so I got a piece and loaded it up with as much sugar as I could and took a bite and it tasted just as bad as it smelled. And there was no hiding it. My companion laughed as he watched me eat it, and he asked me how it was. I told him it was not good, but he had to try it anyway and he had the same reaction. I thought it might have been a rotten one, but they were all eating it and they all said it was good. I guess our gringo taste buds are not use to that kind of stuff. We have a good relationship with the member, so he wasn't offended or anything and he just thought it was funny, but that was honestly probably one of the grossest things I've eaten before.
Weather: It has been pretty hot here. Its been in the 90s all week and it also rained a little bit a few times this week, which means it was really humid too. Everyone always gives us bottles of water, so we stay hydrated...its not too bad. A lot of Hispanics here start up little businesses in their apartments where they'll sell drinks, chips, snacks, phone cards, etc. A couple members have these little businesses, so they'll give us Gatorades whenever they see us. There are also these guys with cards that walk around all day selling paletas, and ice cream and stuff, so elder Johnson and I keep a few dollars in our backpacks to buy some when its hot.
Alright well that's about all I can think of for this week. Happy birthday to Heather! Have a good week!! I love you all!!
Love,
Chase
People at bus stops: We talk to crazy people all day long every day. You meet allll sorts of people wandering up and down westheimer. Some of them are literally crazy.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Received Mon, May 24, 2010
Dear Family,
BYU Living arrangements: To be honest, I don't know anything about any places to live at BYU. Wherever CJ and ST think will be good, I'm good with because I don't know anything about any place.
Congrats to CJ on getting the new job. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
My week here has been a pretty good, normal week. We still have a whole bunch of people to teach, but were trying to help them make that next step of coming to church, so they can really progress. Everyone is always so busy, or something comes up last minute that prevents them from coming to church. I am glad that we do have a pretty good sized teaching pool now though. We are still having a lot of success with less active families. So many people stop coming to church because they got offended by someone or something. We always talk about the reasons why we go to church, which is basically to renew covenants with God which are necessary for salvation. And by letting themselves be offended they are missing out on blessings which makes life harder, and they will not be able to have salvation. It usually works pretty well...it gets people thinking. We got 2 new families to come this week and they were really excited to be there. Once people come back, they always feel good and always want to come back the next week.
We found a new guy to teach this week who has a lot of potential. His name is Victor Raul...hes from Peru. The missionaries used to teach this guy all the time and he came to church several times, but he started to get really busy with work, so he slowly lost contact with the missionaries. Well, now he has some sort of health condition...thyroids or something, and he has to sit at home and just rest and recuperate for a couple months. So now he has all the time in the world to listen to us and come to church. Unfortunately he didn't come this Sunday because he was out playing soccer, so we'll have to talk about that, but were pretty excited to be teaching him again.
I don't really know what to write about this week! Here is one story I can think of. There is this family in our ward who just got sealed in the temple. They are the familia Madora...they are awesome. When I met them the first time they both said they were from Mexico. We've visited them several times since then, and I've always noticed that hermano Madora has an accent, and he looks just like an Argentino. Well, this last week we were visiting him, and he had all these different Argentinian foods and then I saw a mate cup in his kitchen. So I asked him why he likes Argentinian stuff so much and he told me that its because hes Argentinian. I was like whatt?? That's what I thought the whole time, but you told me you were from Mexico. I don't know why, but he said he just tells people he's from Mexico because his wife really is from Mexico. I told him how Christopher and Dad served their missions there, and he told us allll about Argentina. He gave us some alfajores and they were goood. He said its the best brand you can find...it was the Havana brand. He is an awesome guy.
Well...that's all I can think of for this week. By the way...I sent a memory card with pictures home a week or two ago, did you ever get that? Hopefully it didn't get lost in the mail.
Next week I'll have transfer news! Elder Johnson is probably getting transferred, but we'll see.
Ok I love you all!! Have a good week!
Love,
Chase
BYU Living arrangements: To be honest, I don't know anything about any places to live at BYU. Wherever CJ and ST think will be good, I'm good with because I don't know anything about any place.
Congrats to CJ on getting the new job. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
My week here has been a pretty good, normal week. We still have a whole bunch of people to teach, but were trying to help them make that next step of coming to church, so they can really progress. Everyone is always so busy, or something comes up last minute that prevents them from coming to church. I am glad that we do have a pretty good sized teaching pool now though. We are still having a lot of success with less active families. So many people stop coming to church because they got offended by someone or something. We always talk about the reasons why we go to church, which is basically to renew covenants with God which are necessary for salvation. And by letting themselves be offended they are missing out on blessings which makes life harder, and they will not be able to have salvation. It usually works pretty well...it gets people thinking. We got 2 new families to come this week and they were really excited to be there. Once people come back, they always feel good and always want to come back the next week.
We found a new guy to teach this week who has a lot of potential. His name is Victor Raul...hes from Peru. The missionaries used to teach this guy all the time and he came to church several times, but he started to get really busy with work, so he slowly lost contact with the missionaries. Well, now he has some sort of health condition...thyroids or something, and he has to sit at home and just rest and recuperate for a couple months. So now he has all the time in the world to listen to us and come to church. Unfortunately he didn't come this Sunday because he was out playing soccer, so we'll have to talk about that, but were pretty excited to be teaching him again.
I don't really know what to write about this week! Here is one story I can think of. There is this family in our ward who just got sealed in the temple. They are the familia Madora...they are awesome. When I met them the first time they both said they were from Mexico. We've visited them several times since then, and I've always noticed that hermano Madora has an accent, and he looks just like an Argentino. Well, this last week we were visiting him, and he had all these different Argentinian foods and then I saw a mate cup in his kitchen. So I asked him why he likes Argentinian stuff so much and he told me that its because hes Argentinian. I was like whatt?? That's what I thought the whole time, but you told me you were from Mexico. I don't know why, but he said he just tells people he's from Mexico because his wife really is from Mexico. I told him how Christopher and Dad served their missions there, and he told us allll about Argentina. He gave us some alfajores and they were goood. He said its the best brand you can find...it was the Havana brand. He is an awesome guy.
Well...that's all I can think of for this week. By the way...I sent a memory card with pictures home a week or two ago, did you ever get that? Hopefully it didn't get lost in the mail.
Next week I'll have transfer news! Elder Johnson is probably getting transferred, but we'll see.
Ok I love you all!! Have a good week!
Love,
Chase
Monday, May 17, 2010
Received Mon, May 17, 2010
Dear Family,
Happy Birthday on Wednesday Kylie!!! It sounds like you're going to have a pretty good party. I love ice cream cake. And molten lava cakes. I hope you have a good party.
The weeks have definitely been flying by here too. We are already about to start week 5 of the transfer. We've had a lot of good things happen this week though. We taught the Mendez family again, which is the family I wrote about last week where the husband was pretty mad at first to see us again. This time the wife was awake so we got him to go invite her. He said she would never come and listen, but we told him to go try any way, and he did and she came and joined us. We taught him, his wife, and his brother. It was a pretty good lesson. We left them with Books of Mormon and gave them part of King Benjamin's speech to read. We're going back tomorrow.
We found a lot of other new people to teach this week too. I think we got 6 new investigators. We have been trying something where instead of just trying to set up return appointments, we ask people if we can teach them right then. Surprisingly a couple people of week say yes and that is how we've been finding a lot of new people. Here are two cool stories. The first one is that last Monday at the end of our P-day, we were riding our bikes down Westheimer, which is the big, very busy, main street that runs through our area, and I saw this Hispanic guy riding his bike across the street with some groceries. I started talking to him, then I asked him if he lived in the apartments that were down the street a little bit, he said yes. So I asked him if we could come back to him apartment with him and share an important message with him. He surprisingly said yes. My companion couldn't hear much of what was going on because of all the traffic and everything and when he saw me get off my bike, he was like, what are we doing? I told him we were going back to this guy's apartment to teach him, so we did. His two roommates were drunk, so he didn't want us to go in, so we taught him on some benches in the courtyard of the apartment complex. It was a really good lesson, and my companion extended his first Spanish baptismal date, and he accepted. It was pretty awesome.
The second story is that we were riding our bikes down Westheimer again and we stopped to talk to a couple of people at the bus stop. As soon as I started to talk to this guy I saw the bus coming down the road, so I gave him a card and told him we have a really important message we need to share with him, and to call the number so missionaries can come by and share it to him. He asked if I could just tell it to him there. I told him its not a message you can just share in a couple of seconds, and that his bus was there and we didn't want him to miss his bus. He said..."Nah its cool man, I can just catch another bus. I want to hear your message." So we sat down on the grass on the corner of this busy road and taught this guy. He was really really open to it and we extended a baptismal date to him too. We gave him as a referral to this English Elders, so they are teaching him now. It was a pretty cool experience.
So those were some of our good experience of the week. On a funnier note, we talk to Lars (the guy we live with) most nights when we get home and as you can imagine, he is a pretty interesting guy. Being single at the age of 40, you have a lot of free time on your hands. He is waaay into studying about the end of the world and dissecting the book of Revelation in the Bible. He is pretty sure he's got in all figured out. The second coming will be in 2037, and all the big signs you read about in Revelation will start coming to pass after the year 2017. He is really serious about this stuff, so he has been preparing with food storage and all sorts of crazy things. Some of the things hes got are 500 lbs of wheat, 50 lbs of baking soda, he is building a massive water storage holder (like thousands of gallons), he's building an electromagnetic generator to produce electricity, and his newest project which I just learned about this week is that he wants to start raising chickens. The only problem is that it is against some city code to have chickens, so he is going to do it upstairs in his attic. He bought 3 fertilized chicken eggs, which should be arriving any time, and he's got this chicken egg incubator, which probably came off the internet too. When he was describing this whole thing, I kept thinking of that scene in Napoleon Dynamite where they try to buy a time machine off the internet and they've got these crystals and everything. I told him that's what it reminded me of and he just laughed. We'll see what happens with that. It is all good entertainment, that is for sure.
That is exciting that Zak is getting his Eagle project done. Has he gotten all the merit badges he needs? I remember I had to go to camp trask to finish off a couple. Does that old man who lives up the street still do all the eagle scout interviews? That would blow my mind if that guy is still alive. He used to always ask the same questions. It was about like...hypoxia?/altitude sickness, hypothermia, and something else.
Today for our morning exercise, Elder Johnson and I decided to run to McDonalds which is around the corner and eat some breakfast. It was good. Running is not that easy when you haven't run for 2 years though. It wasn't too bad though...I think the bikes have helped out with that.
Before I forget, I've got one last thing. I've got only 2 pairs of contacts left, so if I keep both of them in for a month each, I will barely make it, but I'll be pushing it. Is there any way I can get 1 more pair sent to me? I'm pretty sure my prescription is for -1.75 in both eyes, which is probably going to need to be readjusted when I get back. I've got the nigh & day brand.
Ok, I think that's about all for this week. I love you all and hope you have a good week!!!
Love,
Chase
Happy Birthday on Wednesday Kylie!!! It sounds like you're going to have a pretty good party. I love ice cream cake. And molten lava cakes. I hope you have a good party.
The weeks have definitely been flying by here too. We are already about to start week 5 of the transfer. We've had a lot of good things happen this week though. We taught the Mendez family again, which is the family I wrote about last week where the husband was pretty mad at first to see us again. This time the wife was awake so we got him to go invite her. He said she would never come and listen, but we told him to go try any way, and he did and she came and joined us. We taught him, his wife, and his brother. It was a pretty good lesson. We left them with Books of Mormon and gave them part of King Benjamin's speech to read. We're going back tomorrow.
We found a lot of other new people to teach this week too. I think we got 6 new investigators. We have been trying something where instead of just trying to set up return appointments, we ask people if we can teach them right then. Surprisingly a couple people of week say yes and that is how we've been finding a lot of new people. Here are two cool stories. The first one is that last Monday at the end of our P-day, we were riding our bikes down Westheimer, which is the big, very busy, main street that runs through our area, and I saw this Hispanic guy riding his bike across the street with some groceries. I started talking to him, then I asked him if he lived in the apartments that were down the street a little bit, he said yes. So I asked him if we could come back to him apartment with him and share an important message with him. He surprisingly said yes. My companion couldn't hear much of what was going on because of all the traffic and everything and when he saw me get off my bike, he was like, what are we doing? I told him we were going back to this guy's apartment to teach him, so we did. His two roommates were drunk, so he didn't want us to go in, so we taught him on some benches in the courtyard of the apartment complex. It was a really good lesson, and my companion extended his first Spanish baptismal date, and he accepted. It was pretty awesome.
The second story is that we were riding our bikes down Westheimer again and we stopped to talk to a couple of people at the bus stop. As soon as I started to talk to this guy I saw the bus coming down the road, so I gave him a card and told him we have a really important message we need to share with him, and to call the number so missionaries can come by and share it to him. He asked if I could just tell it to him there. I told him its not a message you can just share in a couple of seconds, and that his bus was there and we didn't want him to miss his bus. He said..."Nah its cool man, I can just catch another bus. I want to hear your message." So we sat down on the grass on the corner of this busy road and taught this guy. He was really really open to it and we extended a baptismal date to him too. We gave him as a referral to this English Elders, so they are teaching him now. It was a pretty cool experience.
So those were some of our good experience of the week. On a funnier note, we talk to Lars (the guy we live with) most nights when we get home and as you can imagine, he is a pretty interesting guy. Being single at the age of 40, you have a lot of free time on your hands. He is waaay into studying about the end of the world and dissecting the book of Revelation in the Bible. He is pretty sure he's got in all figured out. The second coming will be in 2037, and all the big signs you read about in Revelation will start coming to pass after the year 2017. He is really serious about this stuff, so he has been preparing with food storage and all sorts of crazy things. Some of the things hes got are 500 lbs of wheat, 50 lbs of baking soda, he is building a massive water storage holder (like thousands of gallons), he's building an electromagnetic generator to produce electricity, and his newest project which I just learned about this week is that he wants to start raising chickens. The only problem is that it is against some city code to have chickens, so he is going to do it upstairs in his attic. He bought 3 fertilized chicken eggs, which should be arriving any time, and he's got this chicken egg incubator, which probably came off the internet too. When he was describing this whole thing, I kept thinking of that scene in Napoleon Dynamite where they try to buy a time machine off the internet and they've got these crystals and everything. I told him that's what it reminded me of and he just laughed. We'll see what happens with that. It is all good entertainment, that is for sure.
That is exciting that Zak is getting his Eagle project done. Has he gotten all the merit badges he needs? I remember I had to go to camp trask to finish off a couple. Does that old man who lives up the street still do all the eagle scout interviews? That would blow my mind if that guy is still alive. He used to always ask the same questions. It was about like...hypoxia?/altitude sickness, hypothermia, and something else.
Today for our morning exercise, Elder Johnson and I decided to run to McDonalds which is around the corner and eat some breakfast. It was good. Running is not that easy when you haven't run for 2 years though. It wasn't too bad though...I think the bikes have helped out with that.
Before I forget, I've got one last thing. I've got only 2 pairs of contacts left, so if I keep both of them in for a month each, I will barely make it, but I'll be pushing it. Is there any way I can get 1 more pair sent to me? I'm pretty sure my prescription is for -1.75 in both eyes, which is probably going to need to be readjusted when I get back. I've got the nigh & day brand.
Ok, I think that's about all for this week. I love you all and hope you have a good week!!!
Love,
Chase
Monday, May 10, 2010
Received Mon May 10, 2010
Dear Family,
Well I think were all pretty much up to date from our conversation last night. The only thing I can think of to report on is yesterday at church, we had an awesome Sunday. We finally had a lot of people come. Only one of them was an investigator, but we got 4 other good sized less active families to finally come back to church. We counted up 14 people who we invited who finally came. That really makes a huge difference in a small ward like the one we have. It made for a good Sunday. I think it got the bishop and everyone else excited too. Most of them left after the first hour, but it was still a huge step to see them in sacrament meeting. Hopefully we'll see them keep coming.
Our area is doing a lot better now too. We have found some pretty good people this week that were going to be able to go back and teach this week. The best part about it is that they live in houses as opposed to apartment complexes where literally every single other Hispanic person we've met live. So hopefully they are a little bit more stable and wont disappear one day and maybe they'll even have cars to be able to get themselves to church. One of those families is actually a part member family. We talked to the wife in the driveway 5-6 days ago and she told us how her husband actually got baptized in Mexico. We were all excited and went back one day to meet him and we were met by a man (her husband) who was not very happy and said nobody in that home has faith in God. We asked him some questions and got him thinking about everything and a lot about how he felt when he was getting taught by the missionaries and by the end of the conversation he liked us and he let us make a return appointment for the next day. So we taught him yesterday and it went pretty well. The mom was asleep though, so next time were going to try to teach them all.
Ok, about housing at BYU. I think the best choice is probably going to be to have Christopher and Steven just choose a place for me to live and I can always change it sometime later if I feel like it. How does it all work? Do you have to sign a lease for a certain amount of time or what? If I got signed up for a place this month, but found a different place to live when I got back, would I be able to change it? If not, would I be able to change it at the end of the semester? I really have no plans at all right now, so either way the best thing to do is probably to have CJ and ST find a place for me to live and sign me up for classes.
That's too bad Christopher has got such a bad sunburn. I've never felt the aloe vera thing before. I think I have put it on though..I don't remember very well what happened. I haven't gotten a sunburn for a looong long time. Lets just say I have a pretty bad farmer's tan. And a watch tan. And a collar tan on my neck. I am going to try not to get the bike helmet strap tan lines.
Ok that is all I can think of for this week. We are starting week 4 of the transfer...it is flying by fast. I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!
Love,
Chase
PS. Its true that the obedience stuff has helped a lot, but I was talking about the # of baptismal DATES we have not baptisms. Right now we are baptizing around 40 a month which is still about double what we use to be doing.
Well I think were all pretty much up to date from our conversation last night. The only thing I can think of to report on is yesterday at church, we had an awesome Sunday. We finally had a lot of people come. Only one of them was an investigator, but we got 4 other good sized less active families to finally come back to church. We counted up 14 people who we invited who finally came. That really makes a huge difference in a small ward like the one we have. It made for a good Sunday. I think it got the bishop and everyone else excited too. Most of them left after the first hour, but it was still a huge step to see them in sacrament meeting. Hopefully we'll see them keep coming.
Our area is doing a lot better now too. We have found some pretty good people this week that were going to be able to go back and teach this week. The best part about it is that they live in houses as opposed to apartment complexes where literally every single other Hispanic person we've met live. So hopefully they are a little bit more stable and wont disappear one day and maybe they'll even have cars to be able to get themselves to church. One of those families is actually a part member family. We talked to the wife in the driveway 5-6 days ago and she told us how her husband actually got baptized in Mexico. We were all excited and went back one day to meet him and we were met by a man (her husband) who was not very happy and said nobody in that home has faith in God. We asked him some questions and got him thinking about everything and a lot about how he felt when he was getting taught by the missionaries and by the end of the conversation he liked us and he let us make a return appointment for the next day. So we taught him yesterday and it went pretty well. The mom was asleep though, so next time were going to try to teach them all.
Ok, about housing at BYU. I think the best choice is probably going to be to have Christopher and Steven just choose a place for me to live and I can always change it sometime later if I feel like it. How does it all work? Do you have to sign a lease for a certain amount of time or what? If I got signed up for a place this month, but found a different place to live when I got back, would I be able to change it? If not, would I be able to change it at the end of the semester? I really have no plans at all right now, so either way the best thing to do is probably to have CJ and ST find a place for me to live and sign me up for classes.
That's too bad Christopher has got such a bad sunburn. I've never felt the aloe vera thing before. I think I have put it on though..I don't remember very well what happened. I haven't gotten a sunburn for a looong long time. Lets just say I have a pretty bad farmer's tan. And a watch tan. And a collar tan on my neck. I am going to try not to get the bike helmet strap tan lines.
Ok that is all I can think of for this week. We are starting week 4 of the transfer...it is flying by fast. I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!
Love,
Chase
PS. Its true that the obedience stuff has helped a lot, but I was talking about the # of baptismal DATES we have not baptisms. Right now we are baptizing around 40 a month which is still about double what we use to be doing.
Received Mon May 3, 2010
Dear Family,
Dad's two comments about me in high school are pretty accurate. I went to sleep at around 9 or 9:30 my freshman and sophomore year, then my last 2 years I would usually go to bed around 10 or 10:30. And for at least my first two years in high school Dad would read to me at night. That's how I heard like 5 of the Harry Potter books.
BYU Stuff: I think it would be good if Steven could register me for some classes. I can always try to change it afterwards, but I think it would be smart to try to get some good classes early on. I'm probably going to need to take Statistics and some computer class to finish my prerequisites for the business school. I've thought it might be fun to take a soccer class too. Either that or a racquetball class.
Mother's Day Call: We found a member who will let us use their phone. We are planning at calling around 7:30 our time, so that's 5:30 your time I'm pretty sure. Hopefully that will work out.
This has been another good week in Houston 1. This is probably the hardest Elder Johnson and I have both worked in our missions. President Saylin got back from a meeting in Arizona where they met with some other general authorities, and one of the things they talked about was how in South America there are no cars, but in the US there are tons of cars and missionaries miss out on a lot of opportunities to talk to people. They gave promises to the mission presidents there that if the missionaries would park the cars and use bikes and rely on members to help them, we will always have people to teach. So he extended a challenge to all of us, that if we want we can accept, to park our cars for the month and not use them at all. So we've been doing it this week. It has been a HOT and reeeally humid week too. We rode our bikes to church and everything. Were definitely starting to run into some complications with dinner appointments all the way on the other side of the area from where we have all our other appointments throughout that day. And our area is huuge, so it is a challenge. We'll see what happens. I don't think I've ever sweat so much in my life. But we have found a lot of people to teach.
Here is a cool story. When we were riding home from church yesterday, we were talking to people along the way. I pulled over on my bike to talk to these two Hispanic guys walking down the rode and as I turned to talk to them, I realized I recognized one of them. It was Victor Hernandez, an awesome guy from Nicaragua that I taught while I was in Houston 2. He came to church several times, he was living all the commandments, and he had a baptismal date, then he disappeared because they all got evicted from their apartment. He had just gotten jumped too so he didn't have any phone. He was really happy to see us again yesterday. He said he's recently been thinking a lot about us and he wanted us to start coming by again, but every time he saw the missionaries they were always far away, so he was never able to flag them down. That would be cool if he was living in our area, but hes not. He's still back in Houston 2. So I passed on the referral to them. It made my day though.
We also saw another crazy thing happen. We were getting a ride home from our last appointment last night and as we were driving down one of the main streets in our area, these 2 cars zoomed passed us. One was an older Cadillac and the other one was a new Lincoln. They kept cutting each other off and they kept slamming on the brakes trying and they were trying to run each other off the road. They would actually bump into each other too...it was crazy. At one point the Lincoln actually pushed the Cadillac off the road onto the center median thing. Then when they passed through this intersection the Lincoln managed to pin the Cadillac between the median and his car, then they both jumped out of the car. We thought we were about to see someone get shot. Luckily neither of them had guns, and the one Cadillac guy jumped back into his car and back out into the intersection, into oncoming traffic and flew down the road. It was pretty crazy. I think it was probably just a bad case of road rage.
Everything has been going well. Elder Johnson and I are good friends. Spanish is going really well too. It has been awesome being back in a full Spanish area.
Oh yeah...Blue Bell Ice Cream. That's like the pride and joy of Texas. Its probably one of the first things I heard about when I got here. Its a brand of ice cream that I think they only sell in Texas. They have alll sorts of different flavors. It is all pretty good, but in my opinion (I would probably be hanged if I said this out loud here), I think its a little overrated and definitely over priced. Its like $5.75 - $6.50 for a gallon. It is pretty good though.
Ok well that's about all for this week! Have fun on your cruise Mom and Dad! Have a good week everyone...I love you!
Love,
Chase
Dad's two comments about me in high school are pretty accurate. I went to sleep at around 9 or 9:30 my freshman and sophomore year, then my last 2 years I would usually go to bed around 10 or 10:30. And for at least my first two years in high school Dad would read to me at night. That's how I heard like 5 of the Harry Potter books.
BYU Stuff: I think it would be good if Steven could register me for some classes. I can always try to change it afterwards, but I think it would be smart to try to get some good classes early on. I'm probably going to need to take Statistics and some computer class to finish my prerequisites for the business school. I've thought it might be fun to take a soccer class too. Either that or a racquetball class.
Mother's Day Call: We found a member who will let us use their phone. We are planning at calling around 7:30 our time, so that's 5:30 your time I'm pretty sure. Hopefully that will work out.
This has been another good week in Houston 1. This is probably the hardest Elder Johnson and I have both worked in our missions. President Saylin got back from a meeting in Arizona where they met with some other general authorities, and one of the things they talked about was how in South America there are no cars, but in the US there are tons of cars and missionaries miss out on a lot of opportunities to talk to people. They gave promises to the mission presidents there that if the missionaries would park the cars and use bikes and rely on members to help them, we will always have people to teach. So he extended a challenge to all of us, that if we want we can accept, to park our cars for the month and not use them at all. So we've been doing it this week. It has been a HOT and reeeally humid week too. We rode our bikes to church and everything. Were definitely starting to run into some complications with dinner appointments all the way on the other side of the area from where we have all our other appointments throughout that day. And our area is huuge, so it is a challenge. We'll see what happens. I don't think I've ever sweat so much in my life. But we have found a lot of people to teach.
Here is a cool story. When we were riding home from church yesterday, we were talking to people along the way. I pulled over on my bike to talk to these two Hispanic guys walking down the rode and as I turned to talk to them, I realized I recognized one of them. It was Victor Hernandez, an awesome guy from Nicaragua that I taught while I was in Houston 2. He came to church several times, he was living all the commandments, and he had a baptismal date, then he disappeared because they all got evicted from their apartment. He had just gotten jumped too so he didn't have any phone. He was really happy to see us again yesterday. He said he's recently been thinking a lot about us and he wanted us to start coming by again, but every time he saw the missionaries they were always far away, so he was never able to flag them down. That would be cool if he was living in our area, but hes not. He's still back in Houston 2. So I passed on the referral to them. It made my day though.
We also saw another crazy thing happen. We were getting a ride home from our last appointment last night and as we were driving down one of the main streets in our area, these 2 cars zoomed passed us. One was an older Cadillac and the other one was a new Lincoln. They kept cutting each other off and they kept slamming on the brakes trying and they were trying to run each other off the road. They would actually bump into each other too...it was crazy. At one point the Lincoln actually pushed the Cadillac off the road onto the center median thing. Then when they passed through this intersection the Lincoln managed to pin the Cadillac between the median and his car, then they both jumped out of the car. We thought we were about to see someone get shot. Luckily neither of them had guns, and the one Cadillac guy jumped back into his car and back out into the intersection, into oncoming traffic and flew down the road. It was pretty crazy. I think it was probably just a bad case of road rage.
Everything has been going well. Elder Johnson and I are good friends. Spanish is going really well too. It has been awesome being back in a full Spanish area.
Oh yeah...Blue Bell Ice Cream. That's like the pride and joy of Texas. Its probably one of the first things I heard about when I got here. Its a brand of ice cream that I think they only sell in Texas. They have alll sorts of different flavors. It is all pretty good, but in my opinion (I would probably be hanged if I said this out loud here), I think its a little overrated and definitely over priced. Its like $5.75 - $6.50 for a gallon. It is pretty good though.
Ok well that's about all for this week! Have fun on your cruise Mom and Dad! Have a good week everyone...I love you!
Love,
Chase
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Received Mon April 26, 2010
Dear Family,
It sounds like you all had an eventful week! I have as well. I got transferred!!! It is all really good news. If I could have picked for myself what I wanted to have happen and who I wanted to be with, this is what I would have picked. I am now in an area called Houston 1 (named after the ward we cover). It is in downtown Houston. And by downtown Houston, I mean it is really downtown, where a lot of the skyscrapers and stuff are. One of the best parts about it is that this place is chalk FULL of Hispanics. So yes, I am now back to Spanish. In our area we have the Pulga (it means flea is Spanish), which is the Hispanic flea market. Every weekend thousands of Hispanics go there to sell random stuff or just to shop and look around. So the place is crawling with people on the weekends.
My companion is Elder Johnson. He's been out for about 8-9 months now. He was in Galveston when I got to League City, so I met him there. We only really talked a few times there whenever we had meetings, but we already became friends. He is actually from La Canada. We are both in the Arcadia, CA mission, and that is actually where I did my missionary for a day thing. He is tall like most of my companions...he's about 6'5. We are pretty excited to serve together though.
Oh, and now I am serving as a district leader, which I am excited about to. It still the same amount of work as I would be doing as a zone leader, but now its all focused in a smaller area. I have a really good district too. There are 3 companionships and all of them are pretty strong. We got a call from the assistants this week and they said that President Saylin just got back from a training meeting in Arizona with a couple general authorities and he said that one of the idea that got brought up is what they are doing in the Arcadia mission with the whole inviting investigators to be taught in the church thing. He gave our district the special assignment to do that and test it out and see how it works. How it works is after we teach them the first time, we'll invite them to be taught the second lesson at the chapel. There we will show them the baptismal font and the chapel and talk about how our Sunday meetings go and say everything that will happen, so they wont be afraid to come. A lot of people are afraid to come because it is all so new, hopefully this will help with that. We've already got 2 return appointments set up in the church for this next week.
We live with a single guy named Lars. He's probably in his late 30s and he's never been married. He is exactly how you would imagine a single guy to be. He's got random unfinished projects all over the house, random stuff drawn on the walls, he eats cookie dough and cereal for dinner, etc. He is a pretty funny guy. He is in the Army Reserve.
Mother's Day phone call: So, I am hoping we can use Lars' phone, but all he has is a cell phone and I'm not sure if we has free minutes. We will have to call around and see if we can use a member's phone around here and I'll let you know next week. I'm guessing we'll call at night around 7:30 or 8, so you should be home.
Our area is in the condition pretty much every area is when I get there. We are in the re-building stage. They had several baptisms last transfer, but those were pretty much the only people they were working with, now we don't really have anyone! That's ok, there are tons of people around, so it shouldn't be too hard. I will be good. Hopefully I'll have good things to report back about next week.
Ok, that is about all for this week! I got Dad's letter this week finally, so I can write back now. I will do that right now. I'm sure I will have some good stories for next week. Congrats to Steven Heather and Christopher. I love you all!!
Love,
Chase
It sounds like you all had an eventful week! I have as well. I got transferred!!! It is all really good news. If I could have picked for myself what I wanted to have happen and who I wanted to be with, this is what I would have picked. I am now in an area called Houston 1 (named after the ward we cover). It is in downtown Houston. And by downtown Houston, I mean it is really downtown, where a lot of the skyscrapers and stuff are. One of the best parts about it is that this place is chalk FULL of Hispanics. So yes, I am now back to Spanish. In our area we have the Pulga (it means flea is Spanish), which is the Hispanic flea market. Every weekend thousands of Hispanics go there to sell random stuff or just to shop and look around. So the place is crawling with people on the weekends.
My companion is Elder Johnson. He's been out for about 8-9 months now. He was in Galveston when I got to League City, so I met him there. We only really talked a few times there whenever we had meetings, but we already became friends. He is actually from La Canada. We are both in the Arcadia, CA mission, and that is actually where I did my missionary for a day thing. He is tall like most of my companions...he's about 6'5. We are pretty excited to serve together though.
Oh, and now I am serving as a district leader, which I am excited about to. It still the same amount of work as I would be doing as a zone leader, but now its all focused in a smaller area. I have a really good district too. There are 3 companionships and all of them are pretty strong. We got a call from the assistants this week and they said that President Saylin just got back from a training meeting in Arizona with a couple general authorities and he said that one of the idea that got brought up is what they are doing in the Arcadia mission with the whole inviting investigators to be taught in the church thing. He gave our district the special assignment to do that and test it out and see how it works. How it works is after we teach them the first time, we'll invite them to be taught the second lesson at the chapel. There we will show them the baptismal font and the chapel and talk about how our Sunday meetings go and say everything that will happen, so they wont be afraid to come. A lot of people are afraid to come because it is all so new, hopefully this will help with that. We've already got 2 return appointments set up in the church for this next week.
We live with a single guy named Lars. He's probably in his late 30s and he's never been married. He is exactly how you would imagine a single guy to be. He's got random unfinished projects all over the house, random stuff drawn on the walls, he eats cookie dough and cereal for dinner, etc. He is a pretty funny guy. He is in the Army Reserve.
Mother's Day phone call: So, I am hoping we can use Lars' phone, but all he has is a cell phone and I'm not sure if we has free minutes. We will have to call around and see if we can use a member's phone around here and I'll let you know next week. I'm guessing we'll call at night around 7:30 or 8, so you should be home.
Our area is in the condition pretty much every area is when I get there. We are in the re-building stage. They had several baptisms last transfer, but those were pretty much the only people they were working with, now we don't really have anyone! That's ok, there are tons of people around, so it shouldn't be too hard. I will be good. Hopefully I'll have good things to report back about next week.
Ok, that is about all for this week! I got Dad's letter this week finally, so I can write back now. I will do that right now. I'm sure I will have some good stories for next week. Congrats to Steven Heather and Christopher. I love you all!!
Love,
Chase
Monday, April 19, 2010
Received Mon April 19, 2010
Dear Family,
Here is the big transfer news!! We get a fax on Monday morning with all the transfer news, so yes I do have it. I am getting transferred!! This means I am probably going back to a Spanish area for my last 2 transfers and I probably will just be a normal missionary or maybe a district leader. You never know what will happen, but that is the most likely. I am really excited about it though. I will find out where I'm going on Wednesday at our transfer meeting.
Dodgeball last week was awesome. All 26 missionaries in our zone came and everyone loved it. We played dodgeball for 2-3 hours. We played a several different versions of dodgeball. We started off by playing pivot tag, which is a game we played earlier on in my mission. It is basically free for all dodgeball. There are 3-4 balls and when you pick one up, you have to plant one foot and you cant move until you throw it. If someone hits you, you have to sit down and you have to stay down until the person who hit you gets out. So it keeps on going until one person has gotten everyone out. It was really fun but reeally tiring when there were so many people. The next day I was the sorest I have ever been in my life. It was pretty funny. When we were driving down the road that next day we saw an old man taking out his trash, so we pulled over to help him, and when we were struggling to get out of the car because of our soreness, I could only imagine what the old man thought. He was probably more capable of taking out the trash than we were. It was pretty funny. Every missionary I talked to said they were sore...I'm glad it wasn't just me. I am definitely pretty out of shape right now though. Zak is a brave man. I dint think I would race against Mom right now because I would probably lose and that would be embarrassing to get beat by my mom. Maybe I'll get transferred to a bike area. But yeah, it was a pretty awesome p-day.
That is exciting that Christopher is interviewing with Google. In my mind I have always seen Christopher working there. I bet it will go well. I remember years ago Christopher was telling me about the work place for google and how their office is and how well they treat the employees there. Plus its in California, so what more could you ask for.
This week has gone pretty well. We've found some more people to teach, which is always really good for this area. We also got 3 people to church. One of them is a mom of 7 children. Her husband is a doctor and a lawyer and hes constantly traveling around the world doing surgeries and crazy stuff like that. It goes without saying, but they are loaded. I originally talked to her in the Wal-mart parking lot when she was sitting in her car eating a hamburger. I didn't know it at the time, but when I talked about it at church, one of the members said they they are good family friends with them. This lady has had a lot of exposure to the church. Her husband too works with a lot of Mormons. It is pretty exciting.
There are so many people here in this area right now that have testimonies of the church and some that even want to get baptized, but they just have one or two obstacles in their path they are trying to overcome. If things fall into place, there could be a lot of baptisms in the near future.
I don't remember if I've talked to you about the Muslim family from Bangladesh we are teaching. Their last name is Rahman. The father's name is Anisuir, and the two kids are Yahmin and Molmehr. We've been teaching them for about a month. They now believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior and they want to get baptized. They absolutely love us and they love it when we come over and teach. It is fun. Most of their family will probably disown them when they join the church, but they said they will follow God no matter what the sacrifice. They are awesome.
We have also done really well working with the members this week. What we've started to do is after a dinner appointment or for whatever visit it may be, we ask if we can come back in the next week to share another short message. Of course they accept. Then we tell them we have a challenge for them and we challenge them to pray about and invite someone to come to our appointment with them. So the commitment is just to make an invitation, it doesn't matter if they accept or not. This morning we had a lady call us and tell us about how she went out and started talking to her neighbor and she told her all about the book of mormon and now she wants a copy. She was pretty excited...she is usually a pretty shy lady. Good things are happening. Our ward mission leader and our bishop are also going to be speaking at our stake conference this weekend and talk about how we have the Ward Mission Process running so well, which is something Elder L Tom Perry introduced where the Ward council is supposed to invite people to be taught by the missionaries in order to help them reach 20 sit downs each week. It is going really well in our ward. We have an awesome ward.
It is weird to think I am starting my second to last transfer. After you have a pretty big chunk of time in the mission behind you, you just kind of stop thinking about it and the months and transfers just fly by. It seems like every time you get use to a ward and an area, you get transferred. That is half of the reason why I knew I was going to get transferred. I am pretty excited for this Wednesday to see where I am going to end up.
Congratulations to Christopher, Steven, and Heather on graduating. That is awesome that it hasn't been too hard for them to find jobs. Hopefully by the time I finish school the economy will be back up and the job market will be good. I'm not even sure what I'm going to end up going into. We'll see.
Ok well that's about all for this week. I am going to be getting mail on Wednesday and transfer meeting, so hopefully Dad's letter will be in there. I probably could have just printed it out and read it that way...that would have been really easy. Have a good week, I love you all!! I will let you know next week where I end up!
Love,
Chase
Here is the big transfer news!! We get a fax on Monday morning with all the transfer news, so yes I do have it. I am getting transferred!! This means I am probably going back to a Spanish area for my last 2 transfers and I probably will just be a normal missionary or maybe a district leader. You never know what will happen, but that is the most likely. I am really excited about it though. I will find out where I'm going on Wednesday at our transfer meeting.
Dodgeball last week was awesome. All 26 missionaries in our zone came and everyone loved it. We played dodgeball for 2-3 hours. We played a several different versions of dodgeball. We started off by playing pivot tag, which is a game we played earlier on in my mission. It is basically free for all dodgeball. There are 3-4 balls and when you pick one up, you have to plant one foot and you cant move until you throw it. If someone hits you, you have to sit down and you have to stay down until the person who hit you gets out. So it keeps on going until one person has gotten everyone out. It was really fun but reeally tiring when there were so many people. The next day I was the sorest I have ever been in my life. It was pretty funny. When we were driving down the road that next day we saw an old man taking out his trash, so we pulled over to help him, and when we were struggling to get out of the car because of our soreness, I could only imagine what the old man thought. He was probably more capable of taking out the trash than we were. It was pretty funny. Every missionary I talked to said they were sore...I'm glad it wasn't just me. I am definitely pretty out of shape right now though. Zak is a brave man. I dint think I would race against Mom right now because I would probably lose and that would be embarrassing to get beat by my mom. Maybe I'll get transferred to a bike area. But yeah, it was a pretty awesome p-day.
That is exciting that Christopher is interviewing with Google. In my mind I have always seen Christopher working there. I bet it will go well. I remember years ago Christopher was telling me about the work place for google and how their office is and how well they treat the employees there. Plus its in California, so what more could you ask for.
This week has gone pretty well. We've found some more people to teach, which is always really good for this area. We also got 3 people to church. One of them is a mom of 7 children. Her husband is a doctor and a lawyer and hes constantly traveling around the world doing surgeries and crazy stuff like that. It goes without saying, but they are loaded. I originally talked to her in the Wal-mart parking lot when she was sitting in her car eating a hamburger. I didn't know it at the time, but when I talked about it at church, one of the members said they they are good family friends with them. This lady has had a lot of exposure to the church. Her husband too works with a lot of Mormons. It is pretty exciting.
There are so many people here in this area right now that have testimonies of the church and some that even want to get baptized, but they just have one or two obstacles in their path they are trying to overcome. If things fall into place, there could be a lot of baptisms in the near future.
I don't remember if I've talked to you about the Muslim family from Bangladesh we are teaching. Their last name is Rahman. The father's name is Anisuir, and the two kids are Yahmin and Molmehr. We've been teaching them for about a month. They now believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior and they want to get baptized. They absolutely love us and they love it when we come over and teach. It is fun. Most of their family will probably disown them when they join the church, but they said they will follow God no matter what the sacrifice. They are awesome.
We have also done really well working with the members this week. What we've started to do is after a dinner appointment or for whatever visit it may be, we ask if we can come back in the next week to share another short message. Of course they accept. Then we tell them we have a challenge for them and we challenge them to pray about and invite someone to come to our appointment with them. So the commitment is just to make an invitation, it doesn't matter if they accept or not. This morning we had a lady call us and tell us about how she went out and started talking to her neighbor and she told her all about the book of mormon and now she wants a copy. She was pretty excited...she is usually a pretty shy lady. Good things are happening. Our ward mission leader and our bishop are also going to be speaking at our stake conference this weekend and talk about how we have the Ward Mission Process running so well, which is something Elder L Tom Perry introduced where the Ward council is supposed to invite people to be taught by the missionaries in order to help them reach 20 sit downs each week. It is going really well in our ward. We have an awesome ward.
It is weird to think I am starting my second to last transfer. After you have a pretty big chunk of time in the mission behind you, you just kind of stop thinking about it and the months and transfers just fly by. It seems like every time you get use to a ward and an area, you get transferred. That is half of the reason why I knew I was going to get transferred. I am pretty excited for this Wednesday to see where I am going to end up.
Congratulations to Christopher, Steven, and Heather on graduating. That is awesome that it hasn't been too hard for them to find jobs. Hopefully by the time I finish school the economy will be back up and the job market will be good. I'm not even sure what I'm going to end up going into. We'll see.
Ok well that's about all for this week. I am going to be getting mail on Wednesday and transfer meeting, so hopefully Dad's letter will be in there. I probably could have just printed it out and read it that way...that would have been really easy. Have a good week, I love you all!! I will let you know next week where I end up!
Love,
Chase
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