December 29, 2009

They're(the twins), all growed up! Thank you so much for the pics. :-)
Hey family! I'm on and checking my emails.

How's everything going? Today's email has some very exciting transfer news! Is Elder Mace still in Apache Junction? Is Elder Seaborn still in Apache Junction? Or did someone get transferred?
Are you ready for it?
[drum roll]

[....more drum rolling....]

[....a little more....]

[....still going....]

[....wrapping it up....]

Well, Elder Seaborn is in fact still in Apache Junction. . . . But I am not.
Guess where I am emailing you from right now? No, I'm not on the Indian reservation. And no, I'm not even up north. I'm actually emailing you from the Library in Mesa. Yes, I was transferred back to Mesa. It was about this time last year that I was transferred to Mesa to be with Elder Rowe. Obviously I'm in a different area now than I was in last year.
My area is around McKellips and Country Club (in case you were wondering, or if you want to look on a map). My area is pretty small. . . . so I'm on a bike again.

I'm also no longer a Zone leader-- just a regular Sr. companion. Which means I will probably get some sleep on Sunday nights!!! lol. It's really strange though, I have to say-- Going from zone leader to a regular missionary. I'm pretty excited though.

My companion is Elder Dursteler (I think I might have spelled that right, lol). He seems like a good guy, so I'm excited. He's been out for 8 months-- not sure where he's from. Elder Moa took my spot in Apache Junction-- he was in the MTC with me. And in the area here I am serving near Elder Overocker and Elder Hansen, who were in the MTC with me. I'm really excited about this transfer.
I've lost my train of thought-- there are people all around me playing music and what-not on the computers. . . . Libraries. Gotta love 'em. :-P
Any way, we have a GREAT night at the Christmas lights on Christmas day! We had 113 non-members accept to have missionaries come over to teach them. Wow! That's a really good night. And a lot of members referred people as well. It was the best night at the lights the mission has had so far this year-- by far. Our zone holds all the records right now. [Or, I guess my old zone. I'll probably always consider it my zone.] :-) Not to be prideful. . . . (that's probably why I was transferred.)

We also had some great exchanges with missionaries this last week. Elder Edmonds went with me one day, and him and I got 47 street contacts and we set a baptismal date with one of his investigators. That was a really great day and it was a lot of fun. I had a good week to wrap things up in Apache Junction. I really really really loved it a lot and I'll really miss it a lot as well. But I can't wait to get to know this area. I'm about ready to dive into the work and get going.
When I get done I'll have to bring you all out to Apache Junction so I can introduce you to the people. And Mesa, Phoenix and Scottsdale too, of course.

I love you all and I'll write you again next week.
Congrats Kassie. Let me know how big the baby is :-)
And I love you. Thanks for the luck.
I'll catch you next week then.
Happy new year, and I love you all.

Love you,
Elder Jason Mace

December 22, 2009

Hey family!
Congrats on your graduation Kassie, happy birthday Kaydee, and merry Christmas family!
How's everyone doing this week? Everyone ready for Christmas? I can't believe that it's Christmas! Time goes by super fast. Tomorrows going to be Easter! Anyway . . . . Things are going pretty good here. We're still having trouble pinning people down, but things are still working out. We had a baptism scheduled for this Saturday, but it looks like it might not work out again. . . . Samantha got sick the day that she was suppose to have her baptismal interview. . . . So, now we have to see what's going to happen. If we get a hold of her soon, and she gets feeling better, she might still be able to get baptized. But if not, then it probably won't be for another three weeks because of the way the stake does baptisms here. . . . *sigh* Anyway, we're hanging on to hope! There is still a chance as long as we get the interview done in the next couple of days.
We went on exchanges with the Assistants this week. Elder Coffman came out with us. Well, not really. Elder Seaborn went with some other missionaries. A missionary in our zone broke his finger playing football thanksgiving day, and so Elder Seaborn went with him and his companion to have surgery done on it. Meanwhile, Elder Coffman came with me. We had a great day. There is a set of sisters in our zone that got came into a new area together and don't have much work. So we went tracting in their area to help them. It was us, the sisters (Sister Foster and Sister Bird) and the district leader and his companion (Elder Davenport and Elder Morgan). We didn't find the sisters a whole lot of new potentials, but the ones we did find were really good. Hopefully that will help out the work a bit.
Elder Coffman actually served in this area before I did-- I replaced him-- so he knows the people here. Some of the people he taught we are still teaching. One of them, Donaldo, he was really excited to teach. If you remember WAAAYYYY back when I first got here, Roxanne, his step-daughter got baptized, but he decided he didn't want to then. We've been working with him ever since. We've tried and tried to get him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. He would read it, but wouldn't pray to know if it was true. We were having a really hard time. A few weeks ago we met with him and told him (for the 100th time) that he really needed to pray, and we really wanted him to follow the example of Christ and be baptized. He said he knew and he would make his decision. When Elder Coffman came, we had an interview for a baptism at the same time as our appointment. So Elder Seaborn (back from the hospital) and I went to the interview and Elder Coffman went with a member to the lesson. Donaldo told Elder Coffman that he wanted to be baptized January 9th. Wow! The entire ward is super excited about it. Our ward mission leader has always said Donaldo will be the next High Priest Group leader. :-) He'll have his interview Christmas Eve, then he leaves on a trip with his wife, then when he gets back he'll be baptized.
We took and investigater to the Christmas lights last night. Bad idea! It was Monday night (Family Home Evening) and school is out. I've never seen such a big crowd! You could hardly move! And I don't think our investigater likes large groups of people-- he looked a little nervous all night. But it was still a good experience and I think he really liked it.
Well, I'm not sure what else there is to say. I'll probably be calling you around 10:00 ish Arizona time. Not sure exactly, but it will be in the morning.
I got a package from Grandma B., and I wasn't sure if I was suppose to open it or not. I figured I'd wait to be safe, lol.
By the way, who wrote the crazy sugar plum fairy story? lol.
Love you all and I'll *TALK* to you all soon. ;-)
--Jason

December 8, 2009

Hey everyone!
About the Christmas phone call, I have no idea how that will be working yet, but I'll let you know when we get that figured out. We actually have a home phone for our fax machine, because the mission office faxes us stuff, so I don't know if using that is an option or not. We'll probably end up doing calls at one of our Ward Mission Leaders houses.
Hey! Brother Butler is the new bishop! Yay! He'll do a great job. And there is finally a new bishop in the South Shore ward! The suspense is over! Tell Brother Butler that he's awesome for me. :-) He'll be a great bishop.
AND WHY DOES IT KEEP SNOWING IN TEXAS WHEN I'M NOT THERE?! Darn it! lol. That's pretty cool. No snow in the valley here, but it rained all day yesterday. I know that doesn't sound significant at all, but we are in Arizona. I've only seen it rain that much one other time in the past 15 months. (And it was when I was on a bike in Mesa!) We actually went tracting in the rain yesterday-- that was fun. :-) Good thing I had a rain coat.
The slide show sounds cool. I'll have to see it when I get back.
The Piano recital sounds like a success. And Kaydee, playing in front of Prof. Boyd and what's-his-face (the younger guy that really critics you) never really goes well. I'm sure you did fine. And your teacher is actually the one who gives you your final grade.
And Alex's friend not coming to dinner-- that happens a lot. But keep trying. :-) That actually reminds me of a story. . . So we were going to have a baptism this week upcoming week. . . . Samantha was suppose to get baptized. We had an appointment set for Friday so that we could go over the interview questions with her and then the interview was on Saturday. Well, she didn't show up for the appointment on Friday. We tried and tried to call her, but no luck. Saturday she didn't show up to the interview. It looks like she randomly went out of town. Hopefully nothing's wrong. Anyway, the baptism will have to be pushed back to the 26th of December.
I got to do a couple of baptism interviews this week. I did one for a lady named Patty last night. She's really awesome. We had a great interview. She was really nervous, so I read with her Doctrine and Covenants 20:37 ". . . All those who humble themselves before God, and desire to be baptized, and come forth with broken hearts and contrite spirits, and witness before the church that they have truly repented of all their sins, and are willing to take upon them the name of Jesus Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end, and truly manifest by their works that they have received of the spirit of Christ unto the remission of their sins, shall be received by baptism into his church." From what she was telling me, she really is looking for more peace in her life. She's having a lot of things happen to her and her son right now. But I was glad that I had the chance to add my witness to the missionaries that taught her, that the Gift of the Holy Ghost that she would be given after baptism by one holding the authority to act in God's name, would bring that extra peace that she's been looking for.
The holiday season in already taking a toll on our zone. When we got the numbers in from the district leaders Sunday night, it showed that the number of lessons we're teaching has gone down quite a bit from where is was last trasnfer, even though we have two extra companionships now. Elder Seaborn and I are struggling to get lessons in during the week. But we are still finding, and the work is still moving along.
The mission temple trip was great! And the Christmas lights that night were also amazing. Our Zone did amazing. Everyone worked really hard, and according to the sisters at the visitors center, it was the best night so far at the lights. Best of all, everyone had a good time. I'm really glad I'm in this mission where we have the Christmas lights and the Easter pageant. It's a lot of fun to change things up a little bit and see some lights, watch a play about Christ, etc.
And I STILL haven't gotten a letter from Joe. :-P You should "ask(A.K.A. compelled(A.K.A. forced at gun point)) " him again, lol. Maybe not the gun point thing, I think Officer Tammy might frown on that. :-D
Well, that's about it for this week.
Love you all,
Jason
P.S. Oh yeah, and I played Elder Seaborn at checkers last night and I beat him like 4/5 times. So tell Rachel Watts that she may have won before, but I'm practicing!

December 1, 2009

Look at the picture.
I thought you might like it. :-)
It's Travis and Elder Seaborn and I on Saturday. :-D Don't we all look sharp? :-D


Hey family! How's everything going? I'm checking my emails right now....

Hey family!

How's everything going? Sounds like you all had a good turkey day. Mine was pretty good too. We went over to the Ward Mission Leader in the Ocotillo ward for dinner. They had a some good food, and they sent us home with a bunch. :-) Not quite the same as being home, but it was good.

So the new bishop is finally going to be picked, huh? Well, after he gets called, tell Brother Watts congrat's for me. :-D Just kidding. I'm looking forward to hearing who it is.

Travis was baptized on Saturday! The baptism went really well. All of his room-mates were there and a bunch of his friends as well. I got to do the actual baptism, so it was a cool experience for me. And it only took TWO times to get it right. :-P The water wasn't high enough, and he's a tall guy, so the first time he went under his knee was poking up out of the water. :-( So we did it a second time and he straightened his legs under water and it worked. Then, on Sunday, he was confirmed by Elder Seaborn. And then Travis gave a talk in church! Yeah, he already got assigned a talk. It was on Faith in Jesus Christ, and he did a great job with it. He's a super solid guy. His room-mates aren't really very active, so he'll be a great example to them as well.

We have another baptism scheduled for the 12th of December. Samantha, the one getting baptized, will be interviewed this coming Saturday, and baptized the next Saturday after that. I'll give you more information on Samantha later on.

Last week I didn't feel like I even worked. It was really crazy. Monday for most of the day we had Zone Leader Council meeting. Tuesday we had a half P-day to shop, email, etc. Wed. we had District meeting in the morning, and then we went on an exchange with one of the district leaders-- Elder Davenport actually. Thursday was obviously Thanksgiving, so it was P-day until the evening. Then Friday was weekly planning until 2:00, and we had to work the Christmas lights at the Temple at 5:00, so that tells you how much time we had there. Saturday we had a baptism, and Sunday we had church from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. In other words, we didn't have much time this past week. :-P But we actually managed to find 5 new people to teach. Still not sure how that happened, but I won't question the miracles that come.

The Christmas lights were pretty crazy. It was opening night, so there were a TON of people there. Our job is to talk to people and invite them to hear the message of the Restoration (if a non-member) or invite a friend to hear it (if a member). The problem was there were so many people it was hard to talk to anyone. I was having a hard time, myself. It's not that I have a hard time talking to people-- that's not a big deal to me. But trying to stop someone in a huge mob of people is hard and ackward. It wasn't my best night ever, but it was fun. Glad I could do it.

Tomorrow is our missions annual Temple Trip! Once a year around Christmas time, instead of a zone conference, we go to the temple as a mission. (Well, a only few of the zones in the mission go at a time.) And, tomorrow night our zone again works at the Christmas lights. YAY! That should be a lot of fun.

Yes, I can take family names to the temple. I don't know if I can do initiatory for the grandpa's, But I would love to do the endowments. :-) That would be great if you send the names.

Well, I love you all and hope that all is well.
--Jason

Now for his letter November 24. 2009

How's everything going?
Good I hope!
I got an email from Joe, to which I sent you my response to send to him. I think it speaks for itself. At least He has a sense of humor. :-D
So, sounds like things are going well. I actually have heard of mom's calling before, but I had no idea what it was until about four minutes ago when I read the email. Sounds like it will keep her busy. :-)
Kellie's pianist in RS, huh? No surprise there. And they still haven't called a bishop? What is taking so long? I guess that have to send a letter to the first presidency and they have to send a letter back before they can even interview the future bishop and extend the call. But still, it's been a long time, it seems like.
Anyway, we have a baptism on Saturday! Travis recently moved into a house with three other guys, all of whom happen to be return missionaries. When he moved in, he asked his room-mates not to talk about their religion with him-- he wasn't interested. But he agreed to live by their standards: no drinking, no smoking, etc. The changes were a little hard for him, but he managed to do it. His room-mates agreed to not bring up the church, but in a short time Travis started asking them questions. They eventually invited him to church, and he accepted and came. At church they introduced him to us and we started teaching him. He was already right on track to get baptized. He has a great testimony and a desire to become better.
We had Zone Leader Council meeting yesterday as well. It was really a good meeting, mostly focused on the Christmas lights at the temple and how our mission can become more united and more "Zion-like." On Friday us Zone Leaders will be going to the opening night of Christmas lights to get a feel for it. We will be doing exactly what the other missionaries will be doing later (which is what I did last year: stand and as people walk by talk to them and invite them to learn more about the gospel). After that, we will be mostly just walking around collecting referral cards, motivating people, and what-not. It should be a lot of fun, I'm really excited. I just hope it doesn't rain.
The miracle of the week: I got an impression to stop by David's house this week. Elder Gomez and I taught David for a long time, and he was suppose to get baptized but didn't quit smoking cigars in time. Then Elder Page came, and he suddenly started avoiding us. He stopped coming to church, he wouldn't answer the door for us (even when we knew he was home) and he wouldn't even answer our phone calls. In fact, he wouldn't even answer any phone calls from his friends in the church. We finally stopped trying to go by or call. Well, this week I strongly felt like we needed to go back and try him again. I didn't know why, because I figured he'd still just ignore us. But Elder Seaborn and I went. Something changed, because when we knocked on his door, he warmly welcomed us and invited us in. It turns out that he will be moving to Pheonix soon because of financial problems, so it's a good thing we caught him. We can teach him a few times, get his new address, and then turn him over to the other missionaries.
Well, that's about all for this week. I got a CD of pictures made. I'll mail it as soon as I can.
Love you all,
Jason

November 24, 2009 Introduction to his future Bro in law...

Kassie's fiance' Joe was asked to write Jason a letter. So this is what he wrote...

Dear Jason,
I was asked(A.K.A. compelled(A.K.A. forced at gun point)) to write an email to you about myself. Being the very articulate person I am, I decided to refrain from writing and let my Illustration skills speak for me. So I have included a fairly accurate illustration of myself that I hope will give you some idea of who I am. I hope you will appreciate the time and effort it took to render this drawing and hope you will find it to your liking. I would ask however that you refrain from showing other individuals since this would violate several copyright laws as well as the FBI warning on several DVDs, as the drawing is for your eyes alone. I would appreciate your thoughts and general feedback on the drawing since I'm always looking to improve my skills.
Much appreciated
Joseph Lee Kaa-Tani Hale
The Lamanite

( I do not have the exact picture he sent, but below you wil see it with a few additions Jason made to it...) Here is Jason's response back.

Would you please FW this to Joe:
Hmmm. That was an impressive display of shading and texture. I'd imagine that it took years to develope that unheard of talent. That was well said-- Uh, drawn. Now I have a perfect picture of you in my head. Except for one thing-- that picture matches the picture of a well known salsa dealer wanted in 53 states (figure that one out). I've included his picture so that you can see the striking resemblance. As you can imagine, more information would be good to help me be sure that you are not the same person. I've submitted your picture to the FBI as well, just in case. I don't want to say that I think your the same guy. . . . but I'm not saying I don't. I look forward to the actual letter.
--Elder Mace

November 17, 2009

Hey family! How's life? I'm on and checking my email. Get ready for TRANSFER NEWS!

Hey everyone!
How's everything going? Good I hope. I know you've really been waiting and looking forward to this email, so I'll just move it right along.
To start I've got some really exciting transfer news that I know you really want to know about ---
WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE PROPOSED?! What have Kaydee and Kellie been doing this whole time?! . . . . Tell him I expect a lengthy letter from him very soon to tell me who he is. :-P Kaydee, you failed me. And you too Kellie. And Alex. . . . you didn't even try. Whatever. Congrat's Kassie. Let me know the details when you get 'em. But I seriously better get something from him soon. :-D
So any way, where was I? Oh yes! TRANSFER NEWS!!!
My companion, Elder Page, "died" yesterday afternoon, so I was companion-less for a while. We dropped him off at the mission office in Scottsdale at around 4:30 in the afternoon, and I was with one of the spanish speaking missionaries in the zone after that until I picked up my new companion today. That was really wierd. I had a missionary with me, but I didn't have a companion, if that makes sense.
My NEW companion is Elder Seaborn, who is from Alberta, Canada. I've heard a lot of good things about him, and he seems like a good guy, so I'm pretty excited. And, since I am still in Apache Junction, I will be here for(a total of) six months, which is the longest I've ever been in an area. Crazy, huh? I am still the Jr. Zone Leader. I expect that's where I'll be for a while. And yes, time is flying by. To give you an idea of where I am right now, I am on transfer number 11 of 17 transfers. I remember when I was on transfer 1 of 17. Holy Bible where does the time go? Having a companion go home makes you contemplate your time a bit.
Elder Rutledge, one of my companions in Phoenix, got transferred into my zone, so that's exciting too. :-) He's a good guy, and I'm looking forward to seeing him again.
Our zone had two areas split as well, due (I think) to the sudden increase of work in the zone. So we are going from 8 sets of missionaries to 10 sets. That should really help a lot, too.
We're going to have an amazing next transfer. We are teaching a guy named Ken, who's been looking into the church for a long time. Missionaries have been teaching him on and off, and he was never sure if he wanted to join the church, but he kept coming on his own. He recently decided he needed to join, so we are excited to work with him and help him along. The problem is that two things are holding him back: Coffee and cigerettes. He is having a really hard time quiting those. We gave him a packet that the church produced on quiting smoking-- it's a 2 week program that helps you quit-- but he didn't feel like it would be enough. We asked him what he needed, and he told us he really wanted a class and a support group. So we met with the bishop, and no sooner did we tell him that than he jumped on it. Now we are organizing the Meridian ward Quit Smoking class! YAY! That should really help him a lot. He aims to get baptized early in January. He's got a great testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. He's prayed about it, and knows it's true.
One thing that I am noticing more and more is that no one really seems to understand what we missionaries do. Even a lot of members don't understand what we do. Everyone seems to think that we go door to door looking for people to recruit/baptize-- which is why so many people don't want to talk to us. :-P "[Our] purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ. . . ." (Preach My Gospel pg. 1) We aren't there to recruit or to baptize. It's to bring people closer to Christ. Sure we invite people to be baptized when they learn our message is true, but we really just want them to hear us out and ask God what's true. God loves us and wants us to be happy, and that's why he called prophets and apostles throughout time-- to teach us how to live so that we can be happy. And Because God loves us and cares about us just as much today as he did 2,000 years ago, he again called a prophet to lead us. And by asking Him, we can learn that it's true. People that listen to the message can't help but change and live better. Whether they accept our message or not, they do come closer to God everytime. And all of them find more peace and happiness in their lives. It's been amazing so far to see that happen.
I love you all and hope that you have a great week,
I've gotta go. Love you!
Elder Jason Mace

November 10, 2009

Hello family!
Sounds like things are going alright, and Tony had a great farewell. I'll keep that idea in mind. Not to be trunky, but that might not be a bad idea for when I get home. In fact, it might even work better. Maybe we can think more about that later on. (I still have a long time left. ;-])
Great news! MyLDS Mail will soon be NO MORE!!!
Well, kind of. The zone leaders got a note saying that Google's GMail (what I used back home) will be contracting with the church to provide better emailing service. YAY!!! I have full faith that it will be a world better than it is now, so I am SUPER excited. Everyone in our zone is as well. I don't think any missionaries actually like MyLDS mail. But I guess it work-- kind of. The new email service starts sometime between now and December, so really soon. :-)
We taught a lady named Nikki this week. She was actually taught be missionaries a few years ago, and was about to get baptized (interviewed and everything), when some crazy family situations caused her to miss it. So we set a date for November 28th, and she is really excited about it. And so are we. She's awesome, we just have to get her fellowshipped into the ward before her baptism. Yup, got a lot of dates for Nov 28. They're all doing great.
Other things are still going well. Transfers are next week, so I get to find out who my new companion will be. Also, there will probably be a new assistant to the president, so I'll find out who that is as well.There is a zero percent chance of me becoming AP-- they would have to put two new ZL's here, which they wouldn't do. :-)
Been listening to some conferrence talks lately-- Jeffery R. Holland's talk is my favorit. Also the 70 that spoke on Joseph Smith. That was another great one. But I'm also growing fond of Henry B. Eyering's Priesthood session talk. That one was really good too.
Elder Evans of the 70 came down this week end for the Apache Junction stake conferrence. That was really neat as well. He actually gave us missionaries a LOT of good advice from the pulpit. I think all of Saturday nights talk was directed to us, even though it was a stake conferrence and there were only 7 of us there. It was amazing. One thing he hit hard on is don't just assign investigaters chapters to read. Have them read from the beginning. That was an epiphany (spelling?) for me. He gave us a lot of other advice. And he broke down 1 Nephi chapter 1 and taught so many prinicples of the gospel from it that it was mind boogling. 70's are amazing. There just like apostles, I'm beginning to realize.
Hope all is going well for you,
Sounds good. I'l make a CD when I can.
I gotta go soon.
Love you all!
Jason

November 3, 2009

Hey Family!
Not too much exciting happened this week, but I'll write you a letter anyway. Speaking of which, I got a letter from Kaydee AND Kellie this week. Santa Biblia! (That's Holy Bible in spanish ;-]) Thank you. :-) And I did get your Halloween package, and I didn't even throw away the new MP3 player. Thank you so much for sending me the package. It was (and still is) awesome.
So, it sounds like my room is being put to work. . . . lol. I'm trying to imagine it covered in Winnie the Pooh fabric and what-not. :-D I do remember those quiet books, and I'm trying to remember why I found them so entertaining. Everythings fun when you're little, I guess. Oh, some advice for the soon to be new parents-- don't bother with gifts for a while, just get him boxes. :-P He'll be perfectly happy, and it will save you oodles. (Yes, that's a real word, ask Kaydee.)
Elder Page is going home in 2 weeks, so the question now is going to be who my new companion will be. Our Zone will also probably be going through a lot of changes this next transfer. My guess is that about half the Zone will be leaving, so that will be interesting.
Yesterday was Zone Development Meeting and Interviews with President Bassett. Our Zone is doing better than it's ever done before. When I went in for my interview yesterday, president Bassett asked me who in the zone I was concerned with, and I told him I really wasn't concerned with anyone. I don't know if he believed me, because he opened his records and asked about two missionaries who haven't done so well in the past. Then he looked down at their recent numbers and said "never mind. Your zone is doing good." It was amazing. Our latest graph shows all of our numbers are above the mission average. When I first got here all the numbers were below. :-) We set a couple of baptismal dates this week, all for November 28th. We won't have any baptisms until then (so Elder Page will miss them). One was a guy named Travis, who moved in with some room-mates (all of which happen to be returned missionaries) in our area. Elder Gomez and I talked to them when they were moving in. He became interested in the church because of his room-mates, and wants to change his life, and he's been to church twice and has a baptismal date already.
The other is a 16 year old named Clinton, who basically is a member, but he's afraid to ask his parents for permission to join the church. We still have to work past that.
So far things are going well.
I'm loving the area more and more.
Sorry, my time is about up, and this stinking computer is dying on me.lol.
I gotta go, but I'll catch you next week.
Love you,
Jason

October 27, 2009

Hey family!
I'm on and checking my-- IT'S A BABY BOY!!! YAY!!! . . . Alex's email was dramatic. lol. :-D

First of all, I just wanted to -- It's a baby BOY!!! I'm so excited! What names are you thinking of? When is the baby suppose to be born? (I'm a terrible uncle, I already forgot. :-]) That's awesome. Thanks for the email Alex.
The League City Stake, huh? That sounds interesting. I'm trying to remember President Reeves. I think I know him. . . . Any guesses on the new bishop? What's the word on the street? I'm trying to think of who it might be, but I'm having trouble deciding. Anyway, that sounds awsome. I'll let president Bassett know.
So we had two more baptisms this last week. I'll have to send pictures of it. I baptized Elsa, and Elder Page baptized Roy. Roy was baptized with no problem, but Elsa wouldn't bend her knees, so her foot kept coming out of the water. lol. But it was really good. They were both really excited about being baptized, and I'm glad I had the chance to teach them both.
We still have some more baptisms scheduled for this transfer, so that's exciting. We are being so blessed! I know I say that every week, but this week we found 7 new investigaters. Seven! That's the most I've ever found in a week, and for this area that is unheard of. And most of them are REALLY solid investigaters as well. It just goes to show you that when you try your hardest, God will lead you to them or lead them to you. Either way, he gets it done.
President Bassett said in ZLC that the only thing slowing down God's work is us. That's humbling.
We were on exchanges yesterday and so I had Elder Robertson in our area. We went and taught a 10 year old girl who has been taught many times, and doesn't want to get baptized. Her parents were less active for a long time and are just now coming back. Elder Robertson and I prepared a really great lesson on following the prophet, but when we got there she suddenly had some questions about being baptized. It started with "Why do I need to get baptized now? Why can't I wait until I am older?" We talked about blessings of baptism and why now would be better than later, and we talked about her praying and asking God that question. We kneeled down and prayed with her right there, and although she wasn't convinced she got an answer right then, she felt good and committed to pray about it every day-- twice a day actually. She is really close to finding her answer. It's interesting that teaching a 10 year old is no different than teaching a 40 year old. You can't pressure them, you have to let them find the answers for themself, or it won't mean anything. I'll let you know how that one works out. I'm really excited about it, because I know if she prays with a "sincere heart, real intent, having faith in Christ" [moroni 10:4] she'll get the answer.
Anyway, the Zone is still doing good. All of our numbers are either at the mission standard or above it, which is great. The work is moving forward faster than ever.
How missionary work going for you? I love hearing your experiences.
Kaydee: Where's my emails?! And what's up with the A's?
Oh, and I will make sure to not throw away the MP3 player. Thank you so much for getting it for me! And for loading the music.
I've gotta go. I'll catch you next week.

Love you all,
Jason

October 19, 2009

Hey family!
I'm on a day early today because tomorrow is Zone Conferrence. I'm pretty excited about it-- they're always really great. I think next week or the week after will also be on a Monday because of Zone Developement meeting and Interviews with President Bassett.
Well, it sounds like it's been a crazy week. The stake is finally going to be splitting, huh? Wow. That's really exciting. You'll have to keep me posted on that one. I heard rumors that was going to happen waaayyy back when they took Clear Lake I & II out of our stake. . . . Well, when does Seabrook get to be it's own ward? :-D
The Apache Junction stake that I am serving in is actually in the same process of splitting right now. They are building the new stake center as we speak (or rather write) and when it's done, the AJ stake will be split into the AJ stake and the Usery Park stake. :-)
Anyway, how's life treating everyone? Sounds like Kellie and Dad are having fun. . . . :-P Hope you both get feeling better, by the way.
Our week has been pretty good. We found five new people to teach this past week, which I don't think I've done since I was in Phoenix. (I think 5 new in Phoenix is considered low now, actually). That is going to help out our area a lot. We are baptizing our investigaters, which is really good, but it drains our teaching pool.
So now we're getting some new people to teach. The miracles keep coming in.
We had a baptism on Saturday for a woman named Lee Ann. I can't remember if I told you about her last week, but I'll tell you again anyway. The bishop of one of our wards got a phone call saying there was a lady that lived in his ward boundries that was being taught in the Tempe Mission and was going to be baptized. They called because they needed his permission to baptize her in the Tempe Mission. He said no, she needs to get baptized in her ward and she needs to meet the people in her ward so she can get fellowshipped in (otherwise she would probably go less active right after the baptism). We found out that the Tempe missionaries were teaching someone in our area and our mission (which is against missionary rules-- they should have turned her over to us). But we got it straightened out and got her baptized this last Saturday, so all is well. She's a super nice lady, and we're excited to have her in the church.
We have two baptisms coming up this Saturday, so we're excited about that as well. I think I told you a little bit about them last week. Elsa is in her 60's, and the missionaries found her after her dog ran away (she was really upset about that). We ended up teaching her, convincing her to give up coffee, and now she's getting baptized. Roy moved into our area from somewhere else in the Zone. He's been taught forever, but health reasons always prevented him from getting baptized. I guess when your in your 70's, your health isn't all that good anymore. Anyway, his health is finally holding up, and he's ready to be baptized.
Other than that, we continue to find and work. And judge Chilli cook off's (chilli here just isn't the same. The winning one was a BBQ flavor chilli. . . what's up with that?) Alex puts ketchup on his burrito's? HOLY CHALUPA! He puts what on what? That just aint right. But I guess he can always move to Arizona. ;-)
Oh, and question for you:My MP3 player is on it's last leg. That is, it's almost dead. The battery doesn't last very long anymore, and it randomly does whatever it wants (restarts songs, changes albums/playlists, skips songs, etc.). So I was wondering what you think I should do. Should I buy one here and try to have a member load music on it, or do you want to pick one up for me and send it to me, or should I buy one and send it home so you can load music on it, or should I just give up and buy one when I get home (or take my Zune back ;-]). . . . ? Let me know what you think.

BTW, I'm practicing sneaking little children candies and goodies-- after their mom says no-- just for my new niece or nephew. :-P

Thanks, and I love you all.
Jason

October 13. 2009

More wonderful pictures!!!

This one is of Emad getting baptized. Christina, Ted, and Franky from the ward are also in the picture.


This is a picture elder Christensen took of me clicking my heels back when I was in Mesa. He just emailed it to me. :-D





Hey family!
How's life going?
This week was great. We had the baptism on Saturday, which was really good. Megan had a lot of her family come to her baptism (none of whom are members), her husbands family was all there, and some members of the ward and stake were also able to attend. The baptismal service itself was also good. Her father in law did the baptism on Saturday and the confirmation on Sunday. I'll send you a picture later on, if I have time. There was a mix up with the time, though. The stake does baptisms on a stake level, rather than a ward level like most do. We called to see what time the stake was going to do the baptism, and they told us 12, so we told Megan and Cameron and the ward 12. But then later the stake president told us it was 3. Oops! We tried to change the time to make everyone happy, but it was kind of a mess. The time ended up staying noon, and I think everyone is still happy, so that's good. :-)
We have two more baptisms set for the 24th of October. Roy, a 71 year old man, and Elsa, who is a sixty something year old woman. (Neither are related in any way, their baptisms just happen to land on the same day.)
Our zone is exploding! It's really neat to see the work spring forward. Last year if our mission got 100 baptisms in 6 weeks that was considered a miracle. This year, 100 is considered a lack of effort. The mission is really on fire, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is moving forward regardless of world conditions or circumstances. Missionaries are now working harder than ever, and the outcome is truely amazing.
I just got a graph of our zone for week one of the new transfer, and in some areas we are ahead of the mission average. :-) So the zone itself is doing well. Hopefully this continues, because what it considered good today will be only average tomorrow, the way that the work is going. It mean that we missionaries have to work REALLY hard. :-)
We had Zone Leader Counsel with president Bassett yesterday, and we started talking about Christmas lights-- yes, it's coming up again already. It starts the day after thanksgiving, which is the start of next transfer, if I am not mistaken. But ZLC is probably the best meeting ever. :-) It's kind of a shame only ZL's get to go.
Anyway, all is going well.
Love you and hope you have a fantastic week.
Any missionary experiences?
In the Ensign this month they talked about using the internet to share the gospel.
I gotta go. Love you!

Love,
Elder Jason Mace
P.S. Dad, go to a doctor :-P

October 6, 2009

Hi family, I'm online and checking my emails.....

Hello family!
It's time for transfer news. Dun dun dun!
First of all, Elder Stoker (our temporary other companion) flew home this morning and is probably back with his family now. So it went back to two. Now, guess who got moved to Wisconson? No one! And, in fact, neither me nor my companion moved. So nothing really exciting happened.
Elder Page goes home at the end of this transfer, so most likely I'll be here for at least one more transfer (possibly two) after this to get a new Zone Leader companion and teach him the area. So, for the first time ever, I might be in an area for at least 6 months!
Speaking of missionaries, I'm going on exchanges tonight. And Kassie might know him, as a matter of fact. His companion went home with Elder Stoker, so he spent the night with us, and he was talking about how he went to BYU-I studying graphic design. And I said that's what my oldest sister is studying there. He asked what Kassie's name was, and said "I think I know her!" So I showed him a picture, and he does. His name's Tayler Davenport, he was in Kassie's ward at BYU-I. I think he said he's also her friend on Facebook or something-- I can't remember. Anyway, small world.
(******A SIDE NOTE..... AFTER TALKING WITH KASSIE, SHE DOES INDEED KNOW ELDER TAYLOR DAVENPORT AND IS/WAS FRIENDS WITH HIM ON FACEBOOK).

And did I tell you in one of the ward's I cover there is a Brother Mace? Crazy stuff out here in Apache Junction.
And. . . JEFFERY R. HOLLAND IS AMAZING!!! That was pretty much the best talk ever. Everyone I teach from now on is going to hear that talk!!! lol. His talk last conferrence was also amazing. He's become my new favorite apostle (Sorry Elder Bednar! You're awesome too!). I really enjoyed the talks. There was another really good one on Joseph smith-- I can't remember the name of the guy that gave it, but it was really good. The talks were all super awesome.
Megan is getting baptized this Saturday, so I am really excited about that. We started talking about temples and how that needs to be her and her husbands goal, and they expressed a really deep desire to go there. They told us that when we went to the visitors center two weeks ago, they stayed after we left and walked around the temple. Megan said she felt something and knew she needed to go there. It made her cry. Cameron-- her husband-- said the same thing, though he was quick to add that he did not cry, lol. We're really excited for them. They are probably the most on-the-path people I've ever taught. Cameron is now becoming active again after not going to church in a decade and a half or so.
Roy is moving towards his date on the 24th, still, which is really good, too.
It was good to hear about your missionary experiences. Keep up the good work.

Oh, did I ever submit a guess on whether Kellie's baby is a boy or girl? 'Cause it's obviously going to be a girl. No brainer. :-) (If it turns out to be a boy, he can look back at this letter years from now and laugh at how wrong his uncle was. Or I can use it to prove to my neice that I have the spirit of prophecy. :-])

That's about it for this week.
We found a couple of new investigaters that are really good, and you'll probably hear more about later. A few of the "former investigaters" (People missionaries taught, then dropped because they weren't progressing) don't want to get baptized only because of the way that the stake here does baptisms. They only allow baptisms twice a month, and all converts get baptized together.
Well, that's great except our investigaters are shy and don't want the big audience that stake wide baptisms produce. :-o So we have to figure that one out now.
Week was great. Yup, watched all 5 sessions at the church. It was awesome.
Oh well.
Anyway, things are great.
I've gotta go, but I'll catch you all later.
Have a great week.
Love you all,
Jason

September 29, 2009

Hey family!
What's happening?
I guess the top story is Kellie's baby moved, 'cause everyone talked about that. :-) Yay! And. . . . Happy anniversary to Kellie and Alex.

Mom: All of my stuff is holding up just fine, so I think I'm still set for now. My shoes are still awesome (:-D), my shirts are still white (or white enough), and nothing is broken yet. And, I haven't gained a single stinking pound, so everything still fits as well. :-( Everyone else in the mission has been gaining weight-- I'm the only one that doesn't seem to be. Oh well.
Not too much happened this week in the way of exciting news. We managed to street contact an astounding 175 people this week, which is pretty darn good. It's not a crazy number, but it's good. We also went on exchanges with Elder Woolf this week, who is one of the assistants to the president. That was pretty fun as well. We got to get some feed back on what we can be doing better, which is always really nice.
I also went on exchanges with some other Elders in the zone, which went pretty good. Both of them are pretty young in the field, so they have some things to work on as far as teaching and what not (each of their lessons consist of non-stop analogies, lol), but over all they're doing really good. And they took my advice pretty well. :-) That's Always a plus.
Our Zone also had it's highest weekly numbers over all since. . . I don't even know how long. So that was REALLY exciting. We're doing really great as a mission and as a zone. We're moving right along. hopefully this keeps up. I don't see any reason why it shouldn't, either.
Elder Page and I went through our zone's records and found out what the best the zone has ever done on specific things (like street contacts, lessons with a member present, etc.) and we are going to talk to our zone tomorrow about smashing all the records this upcoming transfer. There is no better time than now to work harder and get more done.
Heavenly Father is really blessing us with a lot of people who are open and really willing to listen to what He wants for them. Even in areas where there isn't much work going on, missionaries are still being led to people who need Christ more in their life. We're seeing miracles.
We have two baptisms set for the 10th of October, one of them being super solid, the other so-so. I think I told you about Megan already, right? She's the super solid one. It's been really neat to teach her and see her and Cameron grow in their desire to have the spirit more in their lives. Cameron now even has a calling in the church-- working with the priests as the venture scout leader. :-) He's waaaayyy excited about that, 'cause he loves camping. And Megan is jealous 'cause she does too. lol. Anyway, things are going great.
Oh, and we hiked up the Superstition Mountains this morning. I don't know how I forgot that. It was a lot of fun. It was suppose to be a Zone activity, but only about half the zone was there. :-( But in any case, it was a lot of fun. A few of the missionaries went all the way to the top, but most of us went about half way and just took pictures and hung out. It was fun.
Anyway, keep sharing the gospel. I'm super excited about it.

Rhett: Yeah, that doesn't sound like too much fun. Oh well. Hopefully he gets healed up again soon.
I gotta go, my companions are wanting to leave. I'll catch you all next week though WITH TRANSFER NEWS. :-D Yup, it's already that time again.
Love you all,
Jason

September 22, 2009

Hello family,
Glad to hear everyone is in one piece. :-)
The soccar game sounds like it was a lot of fun.
It's been an interesting week. Elder Page and I went on exchanges with some missionaries. Elder Page went with a district leader and his companion, and I went with some other missionaries who are struggling to find new investigaters. Elder Page's exchange went really well. The missionaries he went with are doing amazing. Mine, not so much. They have a serious lack of faith in finding, and they wouldn't listen to any of my advice. When I tried to give feed back, they got mad. Do you have any suggestions for dealing with that?
We still are going on a few more exchanges before the transfer is up.
In any case, the zone is doing well. We had a Zone Developement Meeting, and we tried our best to inspire the zone to work harder. We have a lot of great missionaries in the zone, so hopefully that will get them to push just a little bit harder. I really think Elder Page and I did a good job with it. :-)
Elder Stoker is now with us in a threesome. He'll be with us for these last two weeks of his mission (not really sure why). He's a good guy, and we got some 39 street contacts in the half day that we worked. Not too bad, since the "Standard of Excellance" is 20 per day. ;-)
So, what missionary work are you doing now-a-days? Might a offer a suggestion? General conferrence is coming up soon. You should invite someone to watch it, preferably with you. :-) No one will get offended or stop being your friend if you do, I promise. ;-) Just invite them-- it doesn't even matter if they say yes. There are a lot of prepared people that just need a simple invitation. Plus, you've got to be doing a lot of missionary work so when I get home you can get me to keep doing missionary work. :-D
I love you all, and hope you have a great week.
Jason

September 15, 2009

Jason sent pictures today from his baptisms in Phoenix and Apache Junction. The one below is of new members Tracy & Lakota, His companion Elder Gomez and Bishop. This was (I believe, Jason's 1st time actually baptizing). Enjoy the other pictures on the side as well....



Hey family!
Let's try this whole emailing thing agian, huh? Hopefully this time it actually works.
Well, first of all, I'm sending some pictures of the baptisms that I've had since I last sent pictures to you. Those were all of our baptisms from Phoenix in the short time that I was there. I'll send the ones from here in Apache Junction soon.

Went to the temple today, and then did some other stuff. . .
Aaron's baptisms went very well this week. It was really great to finally see him get baptized. He's a good guy, and I'm excited that he took this step. His parents were not at the baptism, as far as I know, but he had a lot of friends there to support him. He really has a strong testimony and everyone seems to be impressed by enthusiasm for the gospel. :-)
Megan is doing really well preparing for her upcoming baptism on the 24th of September. We taught her the Word of Wisdom, and she said she drinks ice coffee. (It was funny, when we read through D&C 89, she asked if Iced Coffee is okay, because it's not a hot drink). When we told her that all coffee is against the word of wisdom, and asked her if she would give it up, she agreed without any hesitation. She really has a strong desire to get baptized. I don't know if she understands why, but she can feel that it is right. The week before (when the Email wasn't working) Elder Page told her that Satan would try to stop her from getting baptized, and she and her husband broke down a little bit. They explained that they had been going through a lot-- especially a lot of stress-- with the upcoming baptism, and they didn't know why. But when we explained it to them, they felt releived that it was normal and would get better.
Emad actually lives in our area here in AJ. He always did. When his wife and he seperated, he was living temperarily with a freind in my area in Mesa. I didn't realize that THIS is where he lives, so that was a really neat surprise. Unfortunately he is smoking 3 packs a day again, so we'll need to work on that some more, but he'll get right back on track and everything should go well. He was two teenage kids that we got to meet as well.
Our Zone is also continuing to pick up the pace. The number of street contacts that we are getting is going way up, so we're still pleased with the results. We've selected the things we want to discuss as a zone in Zone Developement Meeting next week, so hopefully the things we talk about and work on will excelerate things even more.
I have no idea what else I am leaving out, but that's pretty much the highlights of what's going on.
Oh, the Police thing with Joe was pretty good. But you gotta keep going. If you let up now, he's going to think he won!
Anyway, all is going well.

Love you all,
Jason

Then the girls started fighting over who was the favorite sister.... so this was kinda funny.....

I don't have a FAVORITE sister. . . .
Unless they send me a lengthy email during the week. ;-)

Here, I have an Idea.
Read only the part that is addressed to you, and we'll all be happy.
Kassie: Your my favorite sister
Kellie: Your my faverite sister
Kaydee: Your my favorite sister
Dora: your my hero :-P

September 8, 2009

I HATE THIS STINKING EMAIL SERVICE!!!! It just erased my weekly email without sending it. And now I don't have time to send another one!!!!!!!! it logged me out and erased it before I could get the darn thing sent. It's no where now. :-(
I hate this stinking email. :-(
The librarians may not be happy if I destroy one of their computers. . . . But I might do it anyway!
DARN IT!!!

Okay, short summary, cause this email stinks really bad: Aaron is getting baptized this week. He found a job and his parents decided to un-ground him. Yay!
We ran into Emad. He lives in our area now. He's gone a bit less active and has started smoking again, so we're helping him get back on track.
Megan was in church sunday, and really liked it.
Zone conferrence was yesterday, and it was good. Elder Page and I gave a training on calandering with baptismal dates.
Happy Birthday Kellie and Kassie. (Sorry mom, I was suppose to send you a card for your birthday, but I wasn't able to).

Love you all,
Jason
P.S. Mom, about College, I was planning on staying out the full time and starting the next semester after that, unless that is a problem.

September 1, 2009

Hey family,
The big news for this upcoming week:Thursday marks ONE YEAR of me being out. Wooh! I feel like I should still be in the MTC. And at the same time I feel like the MTC was forever ago. Crazy how time just flies by, isn't it?
So things are going pretty good here. We had a really neat day yesterday, all kinds of good stuff happened. Or cars' battery hasn't been doing too good lately-- sometimes we had trouble starting the car over the weekend. So, yesterday we had a Zone Leader Council meeting that required us to go to the mission office. We talked to the vehicle coordinater while we were there. He told us to go to Big-O tires to get a new battery, so we did. They looked at the car and told us we had a bad alternater. :-( We called the Vehicle Coordinater again, and he told us to meet him with the car at the dealership. We had to jump start the car to get it there. We got a ride home and had to walk the rest of the night. . . . It was really windy . . . . and it rained. :-( Oh well. Good times.)
We found a LOT of new people to teach last week, and we set a bunch of baptismal dates. I guess Heavenly Father thought he'd bless Elder Page or something, cause we had a crazy good week. :-)
For example, we got a referral for a guy this week (Referrals in Apache Junction are very rare, so that was huge!). We went by and contacted it, and we found out that the guy was a less active member who's friend invited him to come back to church. He went to another ward with his wife, and they both really enjoyed it. He wants to come back, and his wife wants to get baptized. Wow! We taught them twice, and it went extremely well. The spirit was really strong and they were really receptive and open. It was really great.
Another guy we found in a park when one of our appointments fell through. We talked to him, mentioned baptism, and he said he's never been baptized before and he'd like to be. :-)
And we found a few more decent investigaters as well. Right now we have a great teaching pool set up for our area. In fact, it's motivation to drop people who aren't progressing, because we don't really have much time. (On a sad note, I think we're dropping someone tonight. I REALLY hate dropping people. But sometimes you have to. :-[)
Our zone didn't really kick off the transfer well-- numbers were kinda low-- but hopefully things will pick up.
I gotta go. We have to pick up our car, and our Vehicle coordinater just called and is mad that we're not there. Even though we didn't know we were suppose to be there right now. :-P oh well.
Love you all,
Elder Mace

August 25, 2009

TRANSFER NEWS!

Hey Family,
Yes, another six weeks have come to a close, and transfers have come and gone. What happened you ask? Are Elder Gomez and I still companions? Nope. . . :-( Elder Gomez got transferred to be a Zone Leader in Scottsdale, with the rich people. :-D So now I'm Jr. Zone Leader to Elder Page. I've only known him for less than two hours now, but he seems like a really good guy. I'm excited to work with him.
It should be another really good transfer. Our zone did really good as far as baptisms go. The zone has been getting a consistant 6 baptisms per transfer (6 weeks). Last transfer, we got 17! Almost three times that number. And this transfer we're looking good. We still have a lot of dates set up, so that's exciting.
We took Donaldo to the Visitor Center last night to watch the Joseph Smith movie. (It was probably the 20th time I've seen that movie. . . . It's really good though.) If you don't remember who Donaldo is, it's Roxanne's dad. She was baptized a while back, the mom is also a member. We're just trying to get Donaldo baptized. We're not really sure what's going on there. . . Right now we're just trying to help him feel the spirit and gain a stronger testimony.
We found several new investigaters, as well. And all of them seem really solid, so that's exciting.
Sunday we had an appointment fall through, so as we were walking back I saw a guy in the park. I walked over and talked to him, and we ended up teaching him about the restoration right there in the park. His name is Jack.
Then, yesterday we taught a guy named Jesse. His grandma is a less active member, and I don't think his mom is a member. He's a really cool guy, and we had a great conversation with him. He wants us to help him quit smoking-- we happen to be experts at that. Not really, but we try.
And finally, last night a couple had us over for dinner and then a lesson. That went really well, too.
This next transfer should be really good. No baptisms coming up until September 12, because all of the baptisms are done on a stake level. So, the next stake baptism isn't until then, so our investigaters can't get baptized 'till then either. But it makes it a really spiritual experience, 'cause the stake does a really good job. One of our investigaters wouldn't come to church, but we got her to go to the last baptism. She came and liked it so much, she was in church the next morning. :-)
Not too much more happened this week.

How's yours been?
How's the new car? YAY! I have no idea how to drive it, but alright. I'll learn :-)

As for baby names.... I like Jason Jr. for the record. how about Jason XIV (That's roman for 14th, lol). That would be a really cool signiture.
I've got to get going. Love you and catch you next week.

Love,
Jason

August 18, 2009

Hey Family!
First off: YAY! Dad is home. Congratulations dad! How are you feeling? What have you been doing to make up for lost time in the hospital? President Bassett called to give me the update, but I'll tell you about that later, 'cause that's a bit of a story right there, lol.
Secondly, I am impressed with the latest Joe torturing attempts. They sound like their doing alright. Bishop Duke, in one of my wards, turned out to be a black belt of 20 something years and teaches martial arts as his actual income. You can tell Joe he's a ninja who trained Bruce Lee back in the day and that he's helping me develop my technique more, lol. Anyway, keep up the good effort, lol. :-P

Thirdly, Kaydee's taking Guitar! Are you using my guitar, Kassie's, or are you getting a new one? BTW, can you tune my guitar, if you haven't been doing that. The neck is probably way bent a little now if no one's been tuning it. :-(
Anyway, Keifer is awesome. He's the coolest music teacher at COM ever. Period. End of story.

Now onto my week.
Zone developement meeting went well. Everything worked out alright. But a lot of the trainings went over, so I spent more of it worrying about time than learning, it seemed like. But it all worked out and we still managed to end on time without cutting anything out. :-)
And our zone's numbers are continuing to go up, so that's great.
Elder Gomez and I woke up Saturday morning we had two baptismal dates set for this coming Saturday (I think I mentioned that last week), and we had both of the baptismal interviews set up for that day.
An 18 year old, had his in the morning. It all went well. He passed the interview, and was really excited to get baptized, and so were we!
Then, the other interview. He is 50 years old, came to the church and told us he was still smoking. :-O Needless to say, he didn't make it passed the interview. He was doing really well, but some current situations caused him to start smoking again, so the blessings of being baptized by someone who has priesthood authority will have to wait a little bit longer. We reset his date for mid September.
Then, later that night, we got a phone call from the 18 year old's girl friend. . . . He lost his job, and so his parents got mad and grounded him. So now he can't come to church for a while, and he can't get baptized for a while either.
:-( So we had two, now we have none.
But the rest of the zone will be baptizing seven or eight people this coming Saturday. WOW! We're seeing miracles, not just in the zone, but in the mission. The work here is going really strong.

So, Monday (yesterday) I woke up and got ready to go for the day. I had personal study, and then I started to feel funny. I got sick (I won't give you the details). After a while, I finally felt better, so we went out to work-- and came right back 30 minutes later 'cause I was feeling sick again. President Bassett called while I was sleeping, so Elder Gomez told me when I woke up that dad is out of the hospital. :-) Then we went out and worked from about 3 o' clock on. What made me sick you ask? Food poisining, it seems. From what? That is a good question. I don't know. Elder Gomez didn't get sick, and we ate the same things! Anyway, fun times.

This morning we had a Zone activity-- we played soccer. It was a lot of fun. :-) This afternoon one of our ward mission leaders taught us how to speed read. :-) With practice, we're suppose to be able to read way fast. He once read the Book of Mormon in 25 minutes, and the Old Testiment in 55 minutes. WOW!
Anyway, I love you and hope you all have a great week.
Jason

August 10, 2009

We weren't online this week to chat with Jason as we weren't expecting him to get on until tomorrow. So we missed him, but here is his letter and Jason responds to the news that "He's gonna be an Uncle"....


Hello again family! (from Apache Junction)

So, I got your emails, and I opened the first one and thought "I want some of that cake. It looks really good. Why's there a question mark there? Is the cake vanilla or chocolate?"
Then I opened the second one. . . . HOLY SANTA BIBLIA!
Congratulations. But I'm warning you, you better not corrupt the poor child. That's uncle Jason's job. ;-)

So my week was pretty good. We had another baptism, which I'll tell you about a little later on. But first, I have to tell you how awesome our zone is doing.
Our Zone is up to 9 baptisms after just four weeks! There are only 8 companionships in the zone, so you can kind of see how great things are going. As a mission, in four weeks, we've baptized 98 people! And many more are on there way for the last two weeks of the transfer. This is the most baptisms I've seen in the mission since I got to Arizona, I think. Hopefully this keeps up.

Moving on-- I think I told you a little bit about the baptism last week, but it was for Tracy and Lakota. We're teaching a part member family, and the mom and two oldest kids were going to get baptized on this past Saturday, but the mom wasn't ready so we decided it would be best to push the baptism back a few weeks. But the parents wanted us to baptize the kids anyway, so we went ahead and baptized Tracy and Lakota. They're doing really great. They actually started arguing over who gets to say the opening/closing prayer when we come over. :-) When I first started going over there, neither would pray. :-) Bishop Duke baptized Tracy, and guess who baptized Lakota? . . . . I did! That was pretty neat. It's the first time I've ever done a baptism. Hopefully their mom will be baptized on the 22nd of this month, but we'll see.

We do currently have two more solid baptism dates set for the 22nd. One is for an older guy named David (well, he's dad's age, so that to me is "older", lol), and the other is for a 19 year old guy named Aaron. Both are doing good and are on track for that day.

Tomorrow is Zone Development meeting, which is where we, the Zone Leaders, put together a meeting to help our zone improve. So we have assigned some missionaries in our zone to talk about street contacting (TTI's, as we call them), teaching simply, leaving commitments, etc. It should be great. It was a hard thing to plan, lol. All we really had to do was decide what the zone needed to work on and who we would assign to teach us a skill to work on that thing. Turns out that is kinda hard to do. lol.

That's pretty neat that Phillip is a ZL as well. And a lot of ZL's don't train. Elder Christensen was never even Sr. Companion when he became a ZL. He'd only been out 6 months. So you never know when it going to happen, I guess.

Didn't do much for my birthday. We had our entire day full of appiontments, which was really great. Except that all but one fell through. . . . that's probably the worst fall out rate I've seen in a long time. But the day was pretty good anyway. We had a district meeting, and elder Gomez had the zone sing me happy birthday. lol.

Thanks for all of the stuff. I love Eddie, my personal stress relieving from, lol.

Love you all,
Jason

August 4, 2009

Hey family!
So the mission is doing great with baptisms so far. By the end of this week our mission should be up to 90 baptisms so far for this six-week transfer, with two more weeks left after that, and 100 more baptismal dates set. To put that into perspective, we usually baptize between 90 and 120 people every transfer. It looks like we'll destroy that. And next transfer is looking good as well.
The mission is doing great. And, obviously, President Bassett is pretty happy about that.
The training blitz we did a while back really got the mission going in the right direction, it seems.
We had a great zone conferrence Tuesday. We talked a lot about finding. Elder Gomez and I gave a training on working with members, which was pretty neat. It went well, I thought. And I learned a lot from it. Usually missionaries go to members homes and say "who do you know that we can teach?" (usually after a spiritual thought or a short lesson). Our training was on how they need to be more than that. A lot a members don't have anyone for the missionaries to work with, but they really want to help. So we talked about how we can use members more by leaving them with simple things that they would feel comfortable doing. For example, coming to a lesson, sitting with an investigater at church, giving a friend a church video, etc. Things we should already know, but often don't do.
Speaking of, how's the missionary work going with the Mace family? I know you all have been a little busy (to say the least) lately, but any good experiences?
Elder Gomez and I didn't think we would have any baptisms this week-- we thought we'd have to push our investigaters dates back-- but we will have two baptisms this Saturday. It will be for Tracy and Lakota. Tracy is 13, Lakota is 11 I think. Their mom was suppose to get baptized as well, but she wants to wait a little bit longer. We were going to have the kids wait as well, but she wants them to go ahead.
We have several more baptisms set up for August 22nd. So that should be another big day.
We found some great new investigaters (finally!) yesterday. Their names are Justin and Samantha. I street contacted Justin a while back and set up a time to visit him. But Justin wasn't home at the set up time, and we couldn't ever seem to catch him. We almost gave up, but decided to try again. We stopped by yesterday, and he and his wife were home. We taught them, and they really loved the message. I'm excited to continue teaching them.
We went on exchanges this week, as well. That was a new experience. I've never really had to "evaluate" before. It's a little intimidating giving feed back to a district leader that's been out for longer than you have. :-P But I think it went okay.
And because of Zone Conferrence and exchanges, out finding numbers are finally starting to go up. Not drastically, but a little bit, so that's good. :-) Hopefully it keeps up.
I think that's about all that's happened this week.
Love,Jason
P.S. I won't be a teenager any more. It's the big Two-Zero. :-P I got three packages in the mail this week, so I assume that's all of them. Thank you!
And no, I haven't opened them yet. But I'm not waiting until 2010, whoever wrote that. lol. :-D

July 27, 2009

Hey family!
--==Question & Answers:==--
Do you need 2 cent stamps and if so how many? Or do you need new .44 cent stamps?I meant to buy some 2 cent stamps (Why did the post office have to change the price!!!) but I haven't had time. So, yes, if you can get me some that would be great.
So, how is the area? Did your baptism go through or was that this next week? The area is doing well. And the baptism went well. I tried to send some pics, but it didn't work on this computer. I'll try again another time. I still have to show you pics of Jorge's baptism, Theophile and Suzanne, and Milton as well. One of these days, lol.
Are you drinking tons of water? I'm sure you are! Yup. You can never drink enough 'cause the heat just sucks it all right out of you.
What do you want or need for your birthday? The girls already have something ready to go. I'm slow, but have things started. Anything you are needing me to send? Not really, no. Just stamps, I guess. Oh, and some more lables, if you can. :-)

--==Now on with the letter:==--
Our zone's doing great in the baptism area. In just two weeks we've already had 5 baptisms in our Zone, and we still have 20 more baptismal dates set. Needless to say, we're all really excited about that. Previously this Zone has been getting an average of 6 baptisms per transfer (6 weeks). It looks like we'll finally smash that pattern. :-) The down side is that finding efforts our low. So we're trying to figure out how to help our zone, or else next transfer will be a bad one. We'll end up baptizing everyone and then we'll have no one to teach! But we'll get that going.

We're going to be doing exchanges soon, so we can work with everyone on that. :-D Hopefully the numbers will go up after that, so we can set ourselves up for another great transfer.
This week I interviewed someone else for baptism. :-) It was for a 10 year old girl named Brylee. That was another great experience, and she was baptized the same day as our investigater, a nine year old girl named Roxanne. Roxanne's mom is a member, her dad is not. We're still working on getting her dad baptized. They're a really great family.
Tomorrow is Zone Conference, which is why I am on today. I will also probably be on next monday, because Tuesday is Zone Developement Meeting and interviews with President Bassett. After that it will probably go back to "normal".
So how's everyone doing? Congrats on graduating, Kellie! YAY! Now you can go for your Ph.D. :-)
I see you're all on, so I'll wrap up this email.
Love you all,
Jason

July 21, 2009

Sorry, with everything going on last week, I forgot to post the letter from July 21st, so here it is...

Dear Family,
....No one let me know Kellie was speaking at graduation-- until yesterday when I got Kellie's letter and today when I read mom's email! Congrats!
Mom sent me a list of questions, so here's the answers: (BTW, I do like q's. If you have any, send 'em to me)
How big of a zone do you cover? That depends on what you mean by big. It's the 4th largest Zone as far as the amount of ground we cover, so it's pretty big in that regard. As far as missionaries, though, we only have 16 in the Zone (8 companionships).
What areas do you cover? Our Zone covers part of East Mesa and I think all of Apache Junction. Elder Gomez and I cover one ward in Mesa and two in Apache Junction.
We live right on the boarder of Mesa and Apache Junction on a street called Meridian (Meridian and University are the major cross roads, if you want to look it up on a map).
Any indian reservations in your zone? Nope.
How's your comp? He's a great missionary. It's so nice to not be with a greenie! lol. I've spent my whole mission thus far with greenies (except my trainer), until now! lol. He works really hard, is really obedient to the rules, and is a great example. He's great.
Where is he from? South Jordan, Utah. The same place as my trainer Elder Williamson.
What's the area like? Desert. lol. It's the first area I've been in that really shows what Arizona is-- a desert. lol. It's actually a lot nicer than I thought it would be-- probably a good size step up from my area in Phoenix. The people aren't as humble, though. But they also don't have as many problems.
Is it a downtown area again? No. It's again more like Seabrook than Houston.
Is it getting really hot yet? YES. I told you in my last few emails it's hot! lol. It got to somewhere around 115-117 this past week. But it rained this morning, so it's a freezing cold 106 today. *shiver*
How do you like being a ZL? It's interesting. lol. It's good so far. Interesting, but good. I realized that I definately don't want to be an AP. lol. Elder Diaz, one of the AP's, was with us yesterday and his phone rang all day yesterday with missionaries calling him for this or that. It was crazy. At least we are never THAT busy. lol.
Any news from those in your last area? No.
Isn't Apache Junc. next to your Mesa area? Close, but not quite. Mesa is actually bigger than I thought. It goes WAY out to the east.
Is it in the same zone? No, my old area was in the Pueblo Zone, which is right next to this one, I think.
Hopefully that answers all of those.

So I did my first baptismal interview the second day of being a Zone Leader. It was for a 13 year old girl named LeAnn. I was more nervous doing the interview than she was, no doubt. It turned out alright, but it was hard just because I had no idea what I was doing. Elder Gomez practiced with me that morning, so that was good, but still. :-P Anyway, it all went well.
Our Zone has some struggles-- our numbers are below the mission average, so we're trying to figure out how we can help our zone do better. One of the assistants came with us on Exchanges yesterday to see how we're doing and give us some feed back. Elder Diaz-- the assistant that came with us for the day-- was in my district in Mesa. He's a great guy, and REALLY good at street contacts. It made me realize how much I need to work on that.
We have a bunch of baptismal dates set, including a baptism for this Saturday, so that's really exciting. It's for a 9 year old girl named Roxanne. We're trying to convince her non-member father to get baptized on the same day. Her mom is a member. They're a great family, so I'm looking forward to the baptism.

Well, I've got to go. Catch you again next week. Hopefully dad will be at home. :-) I'm still praying for you. Tell everyone hi for me.

Love you,
Jason

July 14, 2009

Hey family,
Yes, president Bassett called me with the update. I'm glad to hear that dad is doing well. Hopefully he'll be home soon. :-)
[drum roll]
Yes, it's time for more exciting transfer news!
I know what you're thinking, the Central Ward area must have been split again! That would have been amazing, but no, it wasn't. Actually, transfer news is even crazier than that.
Elder Turner and I were sure that he was leaving-- he's been in the area for a long time. But we were wrong. In fact, I'm not emailing you from the Phoenix library today. I'm actually emailing you from a library in Apache Junction right now. Yes, I got transfered to AJ! Crazy, huh?
I told Elder Christensen when I went to Phoenix that I would go to AJ next-- it's the next logical place in the valley after Scottsdale, Mesa, Phoenix. Yup, I called it.
Oh, and I am once again Junior companion, which is nice. I've been hoping to go Jr. again since I went Sr. in Mesa, lol. The problem is that I am Jr. companion to a Zone Leader. Thus, I am now a Zone Leader! :-) I turned a bit pale when President Bassett called me to tell me. But I'm happy to give it a try. Hopefully I don't let him down. So I am a Zone Leader in the Superstition Zone (spelling?).
My new companion is Elder Gomez. He's a pretty awesome guy, and I'm excited to work with him. Elder Coffman was here before me, BTW. Just thought you'd like to know that side note.
Oh, and my first born in the wilderness, my greenie Elder Christensen is also now a Zone Leader up in Pasen (spelling?). That was really great to hear. Both of us becoming ZL's at the same time. He's only been out six months and he's a Zone Leader already! He's such a good missionary. I'm glad I didn't ruin him, lol. :-D
Last week Elder Turner and I found a new investigater. She was really great-- she reminded me a lot of Ceanna, my first baptism. We taught her the first lesson, and she was really excited, so we set a a church tour to show her around the church. Then we taught lesson two, then three and set a date for August 2nd. All in one week! It was really amazing. She was yet another GREAT referral from the spanish speaking missionaries. They give us some really great people to teach.
James is doing well. He's down to five cigerettes. So far, so good. He's still slowly working his way towards getting baptized.
Hopefull I'll be able to make it to all the baptisms that will be coming up this next month in my old area, but it's a pretty far drive, so I may not get to. Either way, I'm glad I could help get the area moving.
While I was there, more people were baptized into the ward than the entire previous year. Not because of me, of course, but because the members were helping out a lot, and Heavenly Father was helping us find some really amazing people. I'm so glad I could help. I know the ward will keep moving forward, and work will increase even more. Everything was going great, so I'm sad that I had to leave the area, but I am excited to be in this area. I hear that there is a lot of work going on here, so I can't wait to get started!
hope all goes well this next week.
Love you, and hope to catch you next week. :-)
Tell everyone hi for me.
Jason

July 7, 2009

Once again, this week was alot of talk about the concerns he has for Rick. We can tell from his letters that this is really starting to bother him. We've encouraged him to get in contact with his mission president. But, here is news from the mission field...

Hey family,
I had yeat another interesting week. . .
First of all, you will be getting a surprise in the mail this week. A victims rights packet. Yeah, don't worry, we're fine. Our car got broken into this week. Some one jimmied the door and stole elder Turner's camera and my MP3 FM adapter. Not a big deal for me, but elder Turner lost his camera, so that stinks. I don't leave my camera in the car-- in fact it's always in my pocket. But that was a hard lesson for him to learn. So we filed a police report, called the mission office, talked to the appartment office (it happened at our appartment at night while we were sleeping) and got all that taken care of. Legally they have to send the packet to our home, so you'll be getting it soon. Again, nothing to worry about.
We set a baptismal date with a guy named Brian. He's really great. He doesn't have a car, so he asked if we could get him a ride to church. We called and called and called and everyone was out of town. We finally had to call him back and say we couldn't get him a ride. He told us he'd be there anyway. And sure enough, when we came to church he was already sitting there, ready to go. He's really awesome. When we told him about baptism, getting ready to set a date, he cut us off saying "I want to get baptized!" So we were like, "great!"
James is having some trouble with church, though. He has a REALLY severe fear of people. He tried to come to gospel principles, but only made it through about half the class before his fear finally got to him. Poor guy. He's really awesome, but he has some hard challanges in his life-- most of them aren't his fault. Like his fear of people is caused from the fact that he was shot in the face a few years back. It also caused him to go almost completely blind. And so he's on medication for anxiety, and that makes it really hard for him to quit smoking cause he can't sleep, etc. Luckily, the atonement can cover such problems. We just have to keep building his faith, and we know we'll see miracles happen.
We also found some great new people to teach, but not much is going on there, yet. I'll have to update you on them later. We're short on time today. Kind of a long story, but a new guy in the office is making life . . . interesting for us.
My 4th was just a normal day. I saw no fireworks. Nothing special :-)
We set a baptismal date, though. So that was good. :-)
But anywho.
Love you all, and I hope everything goes good for you all this next week.
Dad, get better!
Keep me posted.

I don't say it enough, so:
Love you Dad.
Love you Mom.
Love you Kassie.
Love you Kellie.
Love you Kaydee.

--Jason
Oh, and Alex. . . . You're a good guy. . . . ;-)

June 30, 2009

Hey family,
**** Note about his response about the news about his Tae Kwon Do students last belt test...
First of all: YAY FOR OLIVER, SABRINA, AND RICK!!! (I asume it's the brown belt Rick, as that's the only one I know who's not a black belt ;] ). Tell them a I said they're way awesome and congrats. :-) Our little Tae Kwon Do students are getting all growed up. :-) (Well, that sounds funny if you include Rick in that statement. . . lol) Bro. Saley is a 5th degree black belt?! No way! WOW! TELL HIM CONGRATS!!!

Now on to the weekly letter...

Anyway, my week was. . . . interesting. I'll start with the good stuff.
On Sunday I got to do the confirmation for Milton, as well as the Priesthood ordination for him. That was really neat. I was pretty well prepared for the confirmation-- I reviewed the prayer all week and what-not-- but then they asked Milton in Elders Quorum who he wanted to ordain him as a priest, and he pointed to me. So I had like 60 seconds to figure out how to do that! Thank you so much for giving me that card with all the different blessings on it, because it saved my life! lol. Brother Thompson came up to me after church, and it was funny. He said "That was a great blessing. Some people get carried away with stuff like 'we're so proud of you' and all that in the blessing; but not you! You were like we bless you with this, this, this, and this." lol. Anyway, Milton is really excited and he's doing great.
We've also been getting a less active to church. Missionaries have been working on getting this guy to church for years, but never with any luck. He kept telling us he was thinking about leaving the church. But we decided he justed needed a friend to talk to (he's in his 70's) so we go over a few times a week to just talk to him. And this past Sunday, and the Sunday before he came to church! And he really likes it a lot. He's totally changing. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, 'cause truth be told I don't think he really likes me all that much (he likes Elder Turner better) but WOW! It's really neat.
Another guy came to church, which is really great. He's struggling to quit smoking, though. He's down to 7 cigerettes, but can't seem to go any lower. We talked to him for a while on Sunday and just brainstormed some ideas on how he can keep dropping down. We'll see how it goes. He's still one of the greatest guys I've ever taught, and he's doing great.
So, these other 2 girls, I think I told you about them last time. One is 14 and the other is 18 and they both have a baby under 6 months old. We fasted and prayed all week that all of them would come to church. We taught the girls about church, prayed they would come, talked to them more about church, prayed more, invited them to tour the church building, prayed some more. And they sent us a text Saturday morning: "We won't be able to make it today. Also, we don't want to see you again. So sorry." We were so confuised. We gave them a call and talked to them. They said she talked to her pastor and she told them to stop meeting with us. So they dropped us. I'm not sure you can really imagine the heart break. :-(
That same morning another investigater dropped us due to work conflicts. So, that was a real bummer. One of the worst things that's happened on my mission so far since Rick, if you can remember that far back.
But we found another great investigater who really wants to get baptized and we got several referrals for really solid people as well. I think Heavenly Father knows when you need a pick-me-up. :-) He seems pretty good at that.
Yesterday we also got into a horrible bash with someone. It was going okay until Elder Turner got frustrated. They the investigater got frustrated and wouldn't let us talk. Then I got frustrated that he wouldn't let us talk. So we walked out. Good times. . . .
Anyway, we had a great lesson with another investigater right after that, so our day ended on a really good note.
Again, the rule seems to be after every bad thing that happens, something good will happen. :-)
Oh, and the temp here has been a great +/- 111 degrees. And we get to walk around in it. I hope I get tranferred north!!! lol. We drink tons of water and take breaks as needed, so don't worry. :-)
We've discovered here that all of us Elders like to play the Magic: the Gathering. You probably don't remember what that is, but it's that trading card game that Nathan got me into many moons ago. Everyone bought a deck and we've been playing on P-Days.
Love you and hope your week is going good,
--Jason

June 23. 2009

Hello family,
I'll start out with some breaking news. This is huge! Are you sitting down (just in case)?
President Bassett. . . . he . . . CHANGED OUR P-DAY!!! Woah! Yeah, I know what your thinking, "that's the craziest thing I've heard of sinced sliced bread." But yes, P-day will no longer be on Mondays in the AZ Mesa Mission. Now it's on (drum roll) . . . Tuesdays. :-) So yeah, crazy stuff. Really, it's not that big of a deal, but I thought I'd blow it way out of proportion for you. ;-)
President Bassett mentioned that in Zone conference like "Oh yeah, and by the way, effective this week, P-Days are on Tuesdays." It shocked us a lot, but it makes more sense to have our P-Day on Tuesday rather than on Monday.
Oh, and I'm glad to hear that Pres. Bassett called for Father's day! He's the greatest mission president ever, I'm pretty sure.

Some good stuff happened this week. :-)
So, we had another baptism this week! Milten was baptized this past Sunday, which was great. Our ward mission leader, did the baptism, and next Sunday I'll be doing the confirmation. So, obviously I'm excited about that. He's doing really good and seems to like church a lot.
James is doing good. We have a baptismal date set roughly for the 12th of July for him. It's going to be tough for him to get there-- he is struggling to quit smoking and to learn the doctrine-- but he's doing really good. Again, he's a super nice guy and really wants to learn about his Heavenly Father. We taught him how to pray a while back, and now he prays better than we do. He's just great, that's all I can say.
We found two new investigaters this week, as well. One is 14 and the other is 18, and they both have a baby. They were surprisingly tough to teach. You wouldn't think teenagers would have that many questions, but they did. It was really interesting. They didn't really seem to agree with what we were talking about, and they refused our invitation to pray about the Book of Mormon. But we talked a bit more, bore our testimonies (our Ward Mission Leader was with us, and he did a really great job) and they accepted and told us to come back two days later. We did, and they were a lot more open. They read what we assigned them and had prayed about it and seem to like it. It's still a long road (they really don't seem to like the idea of baptism) but they're great. Probably amoung our better investigaters, actually.
So the work is still moving foreward. Our ward mission leader is always smiling ear to ear. He thinks this is THE greatest thing on earth. We report our numbers to him on Sunday nights and he gets even more excited.
The work is really picking up in the central ward. :-) I'm just glad that I can help it a long a little bit.
We dropped a guy that just wanted to bash with us. That's always rough. But we're continuing to find the good investigaters who want to "come unto Christ, and be prefected in Him" (See Matthew 5:48 and Moroni 10:32-33 in your spare time.) Hopefully that will get you kind of caught up for the week.
Ha ha ha. You should find a hobby Kaydee. Like giving away copies of the Book of Mormon. :-) That keeps me busy.

Love you all,
Jason



Note to Watts family: WOW! Nathan's a ZL already, huh? That's great! Tell his parents to tell him congrat's for me. That's pretty awesome. He must be working hard. :-) Nathan's a year out... He's going down hill now!

June 15, 2009

Once again a short letter this week as time was spent chatting with his dad getting caught up on the health issues. Infact Jason was the first one to hear about the
CT reports as no one was around when the doctor came in to talk to Rick. To start with.... Jason's response to the girls of why he got the news first..

lol. It's cause I'm dad's favorite missionary. :-)

Now on to his letter.....
1st he answers my questions....


First, about the whole MTC thing. . . .Actually, it's kind of a funny thing. The MTC was in "lockdown" for a while, I guess. The new greenies that should have come into the mission two weeks ago didn't come in because they are worried about the swine flue, I guess. So, the missionaries here that president Bassett assigned to train the new missionaries coming in are currently companion-less. Some have been put in trios, others are companions with members, etc. The new missionaries should be here tomorrow, I think, so that will put things back to normal. Like you said, they still are letting people INTO the MTC, but they have to get dropped off at the door.

Are there 4 of you in the apartment now or who had to move out? Elder Rutledge and Voigtlaender moved into another (better!) appartment. President Bassett doesn't like putting missionaries together. They don't work as hard. :-)

Who got the car, or did they bring in another? We both have cars. Oh, and we name our cars. My car in Scottsdale I named Faith, my first car in Phoenix I name Hope, and then they replaced it with another that I've named Charity. lol. But I don't know what to name the next one, 'cause "love" is a dumb name, lol.

How is the ward liking the split? I don't know about the bishop, but our ward mission leader loves it! lol. He's super excited about the work that's going on here.

Is your Ward mission leader going crazy yet? See above, lol.

Did you get my package from Mexico (or KD's package actually, she's the one who picked the stuff out)? Yes, as a matter of fact my wonderful family sent me another really awesome package! It's pretty amazing! Thank you so much! I keep telling everyone about how much my family loves me. Don't know if it's on purpose or not, but I've gotten at least one package a month since I left. Yeah, my family is definately the best. Ever. Period. :-D

Did you just love the MC Donalds Ketchup... Was any of it any good? It tastes okay. I put it on a burrito. :-) Not quite the same as on fries, I'm sure, but it's good. :-)

Are you dying of heat exhuast yet? Nope. It got up to 111 degress (no, not a type, lol.) but then it cooled off. It's been in the upper 90's for almost two weeks.

How are the investagators? Great! I'll tell you about one later!!!

So dad's still in there, huh? Glad things are still going well, though. It's pretty awesome how that stuff works out when God's involved. :-D And, yeah, Tell Kellie to wait her turn! Good gravy!

So we got a referral for a guy this past week. We stopped by, knocked on his door, and were very confuised when we saw who it was. We had seen him in church several times before, and we just assumed that he was a member. He always would come and sit in the front row all by himself. Turns out, he's not a member but wants to join the church. To say that he is a nice guy would be an understatement. Elder Cole, our District Leader, came with me on exchanges and we went by and talked to him for a while, and he opened up and told us his story. It turns out that he was shot in the face years ago and it caused him to go almost completely blind. It also affected him mentally and psycologically. He doesn't really like to be around people because he gets scared, but he really loves coming to church. Long story short, as we were leaving, Elder Cole turned to me and said "Wow. I feel like giving him a hug." lol. He is awesome. I haven't gotten attached to an investigater in a while, but he just might do it. :-) Teaching him has gone kind of slow. He has a lot of questions and struggles to understand everything, so we teach him one principle at a time, rather than lesson by lesson. We go by every day, and so far he's catching on well, and is doing great.

The area is still moving along, and we had another great week as far as lessons go. Still trying to get people to church, though. That's the struggle. :-( But we'll get it figured out. For now I can't complain, we're finding a lot of work to do, so that's great.
So that's my quick summary of the week.
Love you all,
Jason