Tuesday, March 30, 2010

March 30, 2010


Jason's letter was short this week as we had other things to discuss with him. But here is the latest from the mission field....

Hey family

How's everything going? I'm still processing emails, so I'm not going as fast as I maybe should be. But everything here is good.

first and foremost-- we had a wonderful baptism this last Saturday. Robin, Serena, and Jillian were all baptized. It was a really special thing to see an entire family take that step. As I watched them each go into the font and be baptized, it occurred to be that this wasn't just three people getting baptized into a church; and, it wasn't just a mom and dad deciding where they wanted their family to go on Sunday. This was a family deciding that the life Christ taught us to live is the life that they wanted to live. This was what they were committing to be, and to help their children to be. I had never really thought of it that way before.

The ward has really been supportive of them and we had pretty good attendance at the baptism. I'm always impressed when an investigator can walk in and instantly feel right at home because the members have such great love for each other and anyone that walks through the door.

I'll try to include a picture of them. I'm sure that I told you about them in a previous letter, so I won't re-tell the story, but they are really amazing and they will be a great addition to the ward family. Everyone is really excited about work that's going on in the ward.


We have a couple more baptismal dates set for the 24th of April, so we'll see how that goes. And some more news on Shawn and Michelle (I spell Shawn's name wrong last week-- it's not spelled "Sean" evidently). They are not yet married, but Shawn and Michelle finally decided to tie-the-knot, and they'll are going to be getting married soon. They met with the bishop Sunday to find out if he would marry them. We are going to be working out a baptism date with them-- Shawn will probably get baptized first, and then he will baptize Michelle later as she has a few more things to work through. They are really amazing people. I love seeing people change and ". . . come unto Christ by [receiving] the restored Gospel. . . " ("Preach my Gospel" page 1; [if you're not currently reading it, may I suggest that you do as a family? Especially chapters 1, 3, 4, 5, and 9])

Anyway, that's pretty much all of the excitement. One down side to everything, with the baptism Saturday, we are running low on people to teach in that ward. I guess that's not a bad problem, though. :-) But now we have to find more people to teach.

I love you all and hope things go well for everyone. Keep me posted on all the news. I know a lot is going on right now, so please keep me up to date. Especially on my nephew. :-) His first word will be "Ke ya!" (sp?).

Love you. Have a great week!
--Jason

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

March 23, 2010

Hello Family!

So guess what's new and exciting in the big AZ (A.K.A. the Oh-No)?

If you couldn't tell, I'm emailing later on in the day than I usually do. Anyone want to guess why? Yes, it was transfers today. And yes, I was just transferred to a small village somewhere in the middle of Africa! I'm sitting in a small hut with a laptop and wireless Internet via satellite. . . . Not really. I'm actually still here in Mesa. (Still not up north. . . . ) But my companion changed. Elder Dursteler got transferred to east Mesa in the Superstition Zone. So now I have a new companion: Elder Coltrin. He's from Idaho and has been out eleven months. This should be a really good transfer. Hopefully he likes to work hard. :-)

I don't know if I told you about the mission split, but the New Mexico Farmington Mission is being made in July (Which is when the mission presidents change-- I'll hate to see Pres. Bassett go!). The new mission will take in all of the reservation up north in AZ, so any missionaries in that zone in July will no longer be in the Mesa Mission-- they'll be in the New Mexico Farmington Mission. There is almost zero chance of me going there, because I'll only have 3 months left when the mission splits off. I don't see why they'd switch me over. But either way it's pretty neat. So, in case I didn't tell you, now you know. One of our Zone Leaders here just got sent up there, so he will likely end up in the new mission. We'll all miss him if he does.

Now that that is out of the way, the most exciting news should come first: We have a baptism this Saturday!

Robin, his wife Serena, and their daughter Jillian will all be baptized this coming Saturday. They are a really amazing family, and I am really excited for them. They had their baptismal interview this past Saturday, we planned the baptism yesterday, and now they're all set to go. I'll let you know how the baptism goes. And if your lucky I'll even send pictures! :-p I still haven't sent you pics of the last baptisms. . . . .

We went on exchanges last week with the Zone Leaders, and some neat stuff happened. Elder Porter came to our area with me, and we set a few baptism dates. We had one lesson with a 17 year old girl that we are teaching named Elvia. We read 3 Nephi 11 with her (if you haven't read it recently, please do). There is a special power and spirit that comes from the book of Mormon, especially when you read the words that the Savior taught to the people here in the America's. Can you imagine being there when Christ descends out of heaven and declairs to the people what he just did for them in Jerusalem. As we read it, Elvia was really seemed to grasp the concepts that the Savior taught. She asked some great questions about the things that the savior taught about baptism. At the end she asked what we need to do to be baptized the same way. Yesterday we had a lesson with her about the plan of Salvation and we set a baptismal date with her.

We've been really blessed in our area, and in the mission in general.

Love you all a lot.
I gotta go, but I'll catch you all next week. Love you all!

Oh! Tell Grandma Mace thank you for me! I need to write to her, but I don't know when I'll get to it. She sent me her conversion story that I had asked her for.

And to grandma Baldwin, Thank you so much for writing me every week!

I love you all.


Elder Jason Mace
The cool Oh-No missionary.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

March 16, 2010

WHY DOES SHE (Kaydee) ALWAYS BEAT ME?!!! Can't I just win once? Can't she just get one "B" or something? (mom's note.... KD got her acceptance from BYU- Hawaii in just 2 days. Jason's took 4 days!)

(His response about BYU-Hawaii or BYU-Idaho.... Big Decisions to make!)
Hmmm. I don't know. I'll have to think/pray about it. (You already knew that, of course.) Of course, money is one of the big things for me-- the less I have to save up the better. :-P If I really can graduate from BYU-H with and pay partially with their polynisian (spelling?) center that would be great, so I'm anxious to hear about that. How much money do I have saved, and how many semesters do I have left, anyway? I don't even know anymore. lol. Anyway, I'll keep thinking about it. I don't know of anyone that knows much about BYU-H, so I don't know who to talk to. But I can ask around. One of my Zone Leaders if from Hawaii, so he might know a little. I do really like the smaller class sizes. That would be really great! Anyway, I look forward to more info. :-) Love you, and thank you for getting my applications together for me.

Hey family!

How's life going for everyone? Sounds like things are going good, so far as I can tell, lol. When is the big wedding day again? Not sure if anyone gave me a definite date. Mom just sent me two. I am guessing the 1st is the wedding and the 2nd is the reception?

For school, I should just say to let Kaydee decide. And then I'll do the opposite. lol. Just kidding. Maybe. lol.

So we had a really great week last week to follow up the really slow week the week before. We found five new investigators this last week, and all but one are really solid. One was Carrol-- I think I wrote about her last week.

That same day, we found a lady named Marie. She had met with missionaries before but had an addiction to alcohol so never did much. Well, we taught her and she expressed a great desire to change. She had given up drinking and was wanting to get back on the right path. Unfortunately somewhere between our first and second appointment she got anti'd and didn't want to talk to us anymore. Why people believe the garbage other people say, I will never know. People have to know that those things are retarded lies, but they still believe it. Anyway.

Then we taught Bob, a members brother. He's a really nice guy, and because of his sister, he's always been around the church, so he knows some of the members, but he doesn't know much about it. Ironically, we found him when we were trying to teach his niece, who turned out to not be interested. He's a really solid guy.

TOP STORY: Saturday the 6th we talked to a member of the ward at the adult session of stake conference. He told us that a while back he had set a date to have someone for us to teach in his home. He had carefully prayed about it and had been given what he felt was an inspired date. Well, he told us the date he set was the 7th of March, which was the next day. He told us sadly that he hadn't yet found anyone, but told us that he did not doubt. He gave us his testimony that Heavenly Father would prepare a way. So he told us to find him the next day, and he would have someone for us. I'm somewhat ashamed to say that I did not have much faith in that situation. I've seen members carelessly try the set-a-date program for a while, and I've never yet seen it work. Just getting members to try it is like pulling teeth.

Well, the next day we didn't see him, and I honestly forgot all about it. The next day (Monday) he called us with great news: he had found someone for us to teach. He had felt inspired Sunday to invite his neighbor to talk with us. The neighbor declined. As he walked home, he was wondering what to do, when he felt the spirit say his nephew was prepared. His niece-in-law and nephew live with him, but they've never been interested in the church. They both have lived rough lives, and he hadn't thought they'd accept it. But he invited them. And they accepted.

When we first me with Shawn and Michelle, they expressed their sincere desire to change. They cried as they expressed how they had been struggling in life, and how much they needed a change. It was a great experience for me to teach them about the healing power of our Savior's atonement. We taught them about how, through a living prophet, God had restored authority to baptized; and through the saving ordinance of baptism, they could start again with a new life, just as Paul describes in Romans 6:3-4 (I think). They are some of the most prepared people that I have taught so far. So many people are in pain and are seeking healing and comfort, and they just need to be invited. I admire that Brother's faith. He never doubted, and right at the end the Lord answered his prayers, and his nephew's.

My faith in members sharing the gospel is really increasing rapidly. Thank you, by the way, for sharing Bill's story and giving me updates. That's really cool. I know without a doubt that "angels are declaring it unto many at this time in our land; and this is for the purpose of preparing the hearts of the children of men to receive his word at the time of his coming in his glory." (Alma 13:24)

Well, that's about it for this week. A lot a great things are happening, and I'm really excited to be a part of it all.

Love you all,
Jason


Oh! And Clinton got baptized! Don't know if you remember him, I taught him in Apache Junction. He finally got the courage to ask his parents, and like we knew they would, they said yes. Clinton is the best teenager I've ever known. He's awesome.


I gotta go. Love you all!

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

March 9, 2010

Mom's note so you can understand Jason's letter.... This last week I had a wonderful missionary experience where I was able to give someone a Book of Mormon,
The Restoration DVD, and The Testaments DVD. Plus get his address for the missionaries in our area to go by and visit. So, here is Jason's response...

WOAH!!! THAT IS AWESOME!!! That's pretty much the coolest thing EVER!!! I'm way excited. You will have to let me know how it goes. And what's really cool too is that you had all of that stuff ready to give him (and you remembered to get his address, lol)! Heavenly Father definitely uses those that are prepared. "He will lead you to them or them to you" as it says in Preach my Gospel. Thank you for sharing that. Keep praying for him and for other opportunities. I love you all.


And Now for his weekly email....

Hey family!

First of all, I have to let this one out, and I can't yell in the library. I'M GOING TO HAWAII! Well, at least I could go. lol. I got in, so that makes me happy. Thanks for forwarding the email. It made my day. Now let's see if Kaydee's fancy GPA can get her in as well. :-) (Does she really HAVE to do better than ME? lol) Not to be too arrogant, but I would bet that I'll get into BYU-I since I don't think it's as hard to get in as BYU-H. If not, there's always Hawaii. I just have to find a way to pay for it, lol.

And no application was sent to Harvard? lol. (I couldn't tell if you were joking when you wrote that it wasn't sent in-- I wasn't serious about ever sending one to Harvard, just in case you thought I was, lol. I was serious about Yale, though. Just kidding.)

So any way, sounds like you had a great experience sharing the gospel. And I'm glad that I could help from two states over. Tell Bill (if that's his name) that we can talk shop when I get back. ;-) He sounds like a really solid guy. The sisters there must be working and praying hard too. Keep up the good work and the fellowshipping. Does he know what time church starts? Church is the key to helping investigators feel comfortable.

Well, my week has gone really good. It wasn't the best week ever-- we didn't teach a whole lot, most lessons fell through, and we only found one new person to teach-- but it was still good.

I don't know if I told you, but we cover a singles ward in addition to two family wards. The family wards have a lot of work going, but the young single adult ward has always been dead with work for us. And it's not for lack of effort. Everyone really tries to share the Gospel because it means so much to them. Well, Wednesday we were walking through a trailer park and we were talking to everyone when a girl walked by. We stopped her and talked to her. Her name is Brandi, and she happened to be 20 (YSA age!). We talked to her for a few minutes and she told us her family was religious at one time, but they had a bad experience and now they're not. We asked if we could share part of our message for a few minutes and she agreed. We taught the restoration and about how throughout time God had always called prophets to teach us about Christ (Acts 10:43) and teach us how to follow him. As we told her about God calling a prophet today, she expressed how it made sense, and she excitedly committed to read the Book of Mormon and find out if it's true.

Yesterday was probably the most exciting day with missionary work. We did more yesterday then in the past week it seemed like, lol. We found three new people to teach, and had some really great lessons. One of them was a lady named Carrol. We found her in a . . . unique way. . . .

We talked to another lady named Carrol a few weeks ago, and we planned to contact her. She lives on the second floor of an apartment complex. As we walked over to see her, there was another lady on the balcony of her first floor apt. My confused companion went up to her and said "Hey Carrol, how are you?" My first thought was "NO! That's not her! What are you doing?!" But she just looked surprised and said she was doing good. Elder Dursteler said something like "Well, Carrol, when can we come over?" We set up a time, and then she asked "How did you know my name?" lol. My companion just looked confused. Later I explained that that lady was not the right Carrol. But we taught both Carrol's, and both are amazing.

Anyway, everything is going good. Thanks for keeping me posted.

Love you all!

Elder Jason Mace
Potential BYU-H student :-D lol


Another Mom's note..... Then I informed him that Kellie went to the hospital today for her routine visit, when she found they were NOT going to let her come home. She had 5 contractions in an hour. The doctor said she could come home and wait.

Jason's response...
Yay! When he comes I expect to see TONS of pictures and vivid descriptions of my new nephew. lol.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

March 2, 2010

Hey family!

How's everything going? Have we gotten a response from Harvard yet? I think Kaydee and I can get in with no problem (imaginary high-five to Kaydee right now). And I'm sure BYU will be begging us to come, as amazing and humble as we are. :-D But, uh, maybe you shouldn't mention that in the applications. :-D

So anywho, my week has gone pretty good. We decided to start dropping some of our investigators that aren't making much headway so that we could free up more time to find new people to teach. We dropped probably five investigators in two days. What's awesome is that, as we dropped people, we found more almost immediately. I took that as Heavenly Father recognizing our efforts to be effective with our time and blessing us with new opportunities. Our teaching pool it already almost filled back up.

Interestingly (is that a word?), one of the people we dropped was Bervena. We dropped her because she was missing a lot of appointments and wasn't coming to church (which is all she needs to do right now to get baptized). We went by the members that had been fellowshipping her and asked them to continue to work with her, and they agreed to. That Sunday, she was in church. ???? I'm still confused about that, but it was really amazing.

We met with Robin and Serena last night and had a great lesson. Earlier in the week we took them to the visitors center to watch "Joseph Smith: the Prophet of the Restoration" movie which is only playing at Visitors Centers. It was really neat to have them and their kids there to feel the spirit and watch the movie about the prophet's life. I hope you can see the movie sometime soon. It really is amazing. But there aren't any Visitor Centers in Texas that I know of. lol. Anyway, we went by Robin and Serena last night and met with them again to talk about their baptism, and after talking with them we decided to move it to the 27th of March. They are really doing amazing, so I'm excited for them. We taught the word of wisdom, and they are already basically living it. They already know almost all of the stuff that we are teaching them, so they're making our job too easy.

We had an interesting experience a few nights ago. We were out working and I decided we should go to the church to make some phone calls for our appointments the next day. To me it seemed like a random idea, but apparently it wasn't. When we got to the church the lights were on and a few people were playing basket ball in the gym. We went to the phone near where the bishops offices are and started making some calls. After only a few minutes the bishop of one of the wards came out of his office, saw us, and said "Oh! Perfect. The missionaries are here. Elders I need you to help me give a blessing." We followed him in and helped him give a girl a blessing. Not sure what it was for, but it was obvious that she really needed it. Glad we were there to help.

It's been pretty good weather here all week. Except Sunday it decided to rain On us. We managed to avoid the rain most of the day, since we were in meetings almost all day. Until the last hour before we went in Sunday night. . . . It started to rain and we were right in the middle of it working. Oh well. A little water won't hurt, right . . . ? At least it's not like in Houston where when it rains, it RAINS! lol.

Glad to hear that BYU-H is still an option, lol. And glad that Renee and Brenn are okay. I heard about the earthquake at dinner that night and the possible "sweet surfing conditions" aka tsunami. Glad it's nothing, though.

And I got the letter about great Grandpa and Grandma. If you get a chance, let them know how much I love them. I'd really love to see him again, but it doesn't sound like he'll make it that long. But let him know I love him and I'm thinking about him and praying for him. And same to grandma.

Jason

P.S. Hopefully as you were cleaning, my stuff didn't make it to the garbage, lol.

Anyway, that's about all I've got for this week. Love you all a lot.

Jason