April 20, 2009

Jason's computer was acting up again today. He tried to send a really long letter, but it froze up and would go through, and then didn't save. So we again ended up with a short letter. ( I hate that as we would really like to hear all the details involved with his mission ). But here is the shorter version of his week.

Hey family,
Well, if you get this twice, then. . . . whatever. The first LONG letter didn't go through and didn't get saved. Really, I'm not liking MyLDSmail at all what-so-ever.

Anywho, transfer news. Guess what's happening? Is elder Mace going to Finland to speak Manderin Chinese? No. But I am getting transferred. I've been in Mesa for 18 weeks now, so I guess President Bassett thought it was about time.
So I'm going to. . . . . [drum roll] . . . . Centrol Pheonix. Yup, I wanted Snow flake and I end up in Pheonix. lol. I'm actually really excited about it-- it should be a lot of fun there.
And I'm the Sr. companion. . . . in a three-some. That will be a lot of fun, too. I think it's a bike area, not sure though. I leave tomorrow. I'm packing today :-(

Funny story time:
I was biking with some other missionaries after a meeting to get lunch, and a bird flew out of no where and hit me in the face! No joke. It bent up my glasses a bit, but I got them fixed okay. :-P Yeah, yeah. Stinkin' birds, lol. Everyone was laughing at me during lunch. :-D

Emad is still in the hospital, but he's recovering well. And that's about it.

Crazy pics by the way.(the ones of our flooded street) That's some insane rain!
And Kassie is sending me a package? no way! What happened?
Love you all,
--Jason

April 14, 2009

Hey Family,
Thanks for the package! I got is Wednesday. :-) I wore the new pink-ish tie to the Easter pageant the next day, lol. ;-)
My week was actually really boring. It rained, we had some Easter Egg hunts, one of our investigaters got stabbed, we ate dinner at the stake presidents house, my comp's bike fell apart (again), we taught a few lessons, and that pretty much does it.
Talk to you all next week.
Love ya!
Just joking, lol.
But yeah, all that really happened. I'll start with the most exciting event-- our investigater who got stabbed. You remember the investigater that we were helping quit smoking? Well, he moved and we've been trying to get a hold of him for two weeks to get his new address. We called again Saturday Morning and finally got a hold of him-- in the hospital. We went to visit him and he told us the story: He works as a maintenance manager for 24 Jack in the Box restraunts and 2 Golden Corrals, randomly getting called to different stores to fix things. Well, some how his ex-wife found him at one of these places and came up behind him while he was bending over fixing something. She stabbed him twice in the left shoulder. The first went in SIX INCHES and came a half an inch from his heart. The second only went in an inch and a half. Both missed all his organs and vitals. What a miracle! He's still recovering in the hospital. The funny part is, when we first called him, he said (all in one breath) "I got stabbed. . . I quit smoking. . ." Yes, he's been tabacco free for about two weeks. Crazy, crazy stuff. He should heal up well.
His wife is, in fact, is currently in jail. Not sure what will happen there. And, an interesting tid-bit, SHE had a restraining order against HIM. We always heard she was crazy, but I guess it was the truth this whole time.
We went to a crazy good rib dinner the day before Easter. The member made so much food! It was soooooo good. :-) We hid the eggs for their kids Easter egg hunt, but I don't think we did a good job, cause they were all crying at the end. "I only got TEN EGGS! He got more! It's not fair. I hate you!" lol. Oops.
We went to the stake presidents house on Sunday and ate with them. They had a non-member over, and we taught her a lesson after. Yup, the stake pres. is in our ward. But the investigater is not. She's actually not currently meeting with missionaries. She has several times in the past, but never got baptised. :-( But we still got to teach her. And we had another Easter egg hunt! lol. (we didn't hide the eggs for them. . . they must of heard our bad reputation. . . )
Afterwards, their son (I think he's thirteen or so) was riding my bike, and I told him to try riding it in 1x1 gear. It was really funny to watch, 'cause your legs go faster than the pedals. Then he tries it on Elder Christensens bike. That was a mistake. The derailer got stuck in the wheel spoke and popped off. Or, I should say, snapped clean off. We're trying to get it fixed. Good times.
That's about all for now.
Love ya,
Jason

April 7, 2009

Hey!

...Speaking of member missionary work, we had a really intense member presentation yesterday after a dinner with a member family. I was going to let Elder Christensen do the presentation, but he couldn't find anything to share (we don't think about member presentations until we're there, lol). So I taught one from Alma chapters 31 and 32. It was about Alma going to the Zoromite people, getting frustrated because no one would listen to him, so he prayed hard, searched for people to teach, and then had some elect people come to him. I talked about how important it was to pray for help, talk to everyone, and trust that God would send you people to teach. At the end Elder Christensen pulled out a couple of invitations to the easter pagent, expecting our normal commitment: invite a friend to go with you to see the play. But I committed them to talk to 5 random people during the week and invite them to church or to the easter pagent or anything else they wanted. I thought elder Christensen would die of shock, lol. But we talked about ways to invite and they accepted the challange. It was crazy. :-)

Hmm. Not a whole lot... Emad moved, and we don't know his new address so we're trying to call to get it. Transfers are two weeks from today. (P-day is today 'cause we had a Zone Developement meeting yesterday along with interviews with Pres. Bassett). We talked to some random intersting people this week, as well.
I think my purpose as a missionary is to find and set a date. Not baptise, lol.

Actually, one (story) is kind of interesting. I think I told you in Zone Conference they hit hard on talking to everyone we see. Well, Elder Christensen and I were biking through a small appartment complex on our way to visit someone when I saw two people sitting on a bench a ways off. I wasn't going to talk to them cause they were out of the way a bit. But then guilt set in when I remembered Zone Conference, so I biked over to them and started talkig to them. We ended up sitting down and teaching them a lesson right then and there, and we'll be teaching them again on Wed.

That's about it. Not too much excitement.

Kellie's stressed huh? lol.

Joe. . . . No comment. Yet

Gotta go. Working the Temple grounds again tonight for the Easter Pagent.
--Jason

Mount Camelback March 30, 2009

Mission Zone P-day activity, March 30, 2009

It was a lot of fun going up. Not quite as fun coming down.

Some steep slopes, lol.

All of the cuts and bruises I got we're from the descent. :- P

(PS.... Elder Mace is on the Left front row)

March 30, 2009

Hello!
I'm not having much fun using this MyLDSMail thing. I can really see why Pres. Bassett doesn't use it anymore-- it's not reliable at all. Oh well.
We had a great Zone Conferrence this last week. The best part was the Assistants to the President talked about TTI-ing. (or street contacting). They pretty much helped us shoot down every excuse for not talking to everyone. It was really great, and really motivational. Elder Christensen and I TTI-ed 75 people the next day. :-)
And the easter pageant is coming up-- it's a big play about Christ and his life-- so I'll get to help out with that later this week. It's pretty much the same as the Christmas lights-- I'll be going there to walk around and talk to people. :-)
Oh, we hiked Camelback Mountain this morning with the zone-- I'll try to send pics.
Emad is moving soon. He may have moved already. But we will probably teach him at least one more time. He should be down to five or six cigeretts a day, now. He hasn't been reading the BofM, though, so in our last lesson we talked a lot about that. And he missed church yesterday, even though he wasn't working or anything. . . .
Sorry, but I don't really feel like typing much more when I don't know if it will go through or not. I might write a hand-written letter later and mail it to you (yeah, I actually know how to do that).
Love ya,
--Jason

March 23, 2009

Ok, his Network did not work, but I broke into it so I could get his emails. Now he'll probably get in trouble for logging in to many times or something... but here is one letter from this week.

Hello Family,Good news, everyone. This will blow your minds, really. Are you ready for this? MyLDSMail has finally decided to work again! YAY!!!How's life been? Sounds like it's been kind of busy.Sweet story for you. We were going down Southern on our bikes (it's a busy street in our area) at night last week when the greastest thing ever happened. I was biking in front and Elder Christensen was behind me, when all of a sudden I heard a sound like quarters falling on the pavement. I looked back and saw my companion hit the road and roll a little bit. I jumped off my bike as fast as I could, put the kick stand down, and ran over to him to see if he was okay. He said he was, and I couldn't help it-- I started laughing. It was a really funny fall, and he just kinda sat there stunned. I asked him what happened and he wasn't quite sure. We looked at his bike, and it turns out that the bolt that holds his seat onto the frame just snapped in half, which caused him to fly off his bike. We had to spend the next hour and a half or so hunting down a new bolt to fix his seat. And we had to walk everywhere.
:-PAnyway, other news. We set a baptismal date with Emad for April 18th. He's super excited about it. He's dropped down to 16 or so cigerettes, and we asked his to drop down to 10. He said no, he's going down to 7 instead. We didn't complain, obviously. :-D The problem is, as it always is, he told us he's moving soon-- to the the TEMPE MISSION!!! COME ONE! One of our ward mission leaders decided that the missionaries there do nothing but fast that our best investigaters get transferred to them. Grrrr. Well, it doesn't matter. As long as he gets baptised.
And we're teaching Mike again. I don't know if you remember him-- probably not, it was like 2 1/2 months ago. But anyway, basically he dropped us and now he wants us to teach him again. :-)That's pretty much it.
Love ya,
--Jason

March 9, 2009

TRANSFER NEWS...
Hey family, Yes, yes, I know that you have all been losing sleep over transfer news-- you've been up late at night thinking "where is Elder Mace going to be spending the next 6 weeks of his life? Is he a new AP?" (yeah right, lol. Can you say no to pres. Bassett? j/k) "Is he a Jr. comp. again? Is he in a threesome? On the indian res.?" Have you had enough of this yet? IS THE SUSPENSE JUST ABSOLUTELY KILLING YOU?! . . . What? Why not. . . ? So guess what? I'm staying in the same area, as is my greenie Elder Christensen. Nope, no changes here. I actually broke the Two Transfer Curse in this area: no missionary in the past year or so has stayed in this area longer than two transfers. This will be my third. Curse broken. :-) I think they figure the area is already ruined, why send me somewhere where I can do more damage. lol. No, the area is actually just starting to take off, which is really great!
We're still trying to get Angie transferred over to the new elders-- turns out she's actually in the Tempe Mission now. Argh! But that means we get to teach her for a little longer until we get things set up. :-) We're teaching her tonight, and then next time we'll probably be meeting her and the other elders at the Visitors Center (I almost wrote VC, but I realized you probably wouldn't have understood that) to swap her over.
Not much excitement happened this week. Taught more lessons than previous weeks, which is good. Works finally starting to pick up a bit. Let's hope it continues.
--Elder Mace

March 2, 2009 6 months out

Hello Family!
How's it going? This week's been alright. We got some really horrible news though. Elder Christensen and I almost cried. Angie is moving suddenly. Tonight is probably our last lesson with her. :'-
Elder Christensen and I have been TTI-ing (teach, testify, invite. In other words, a street contact) all of Mesa. We TTI-d 170 people last week, which is a personal best for me. We've been talking to everyone we see and then some. That number doesn't include people we tract into, etc. Only people we see on our way to appointments/potentials/members/etc. One day elder Christensen and I were out TTI-ing the world, and despite the many people we talked to that day, no one was interested. In fact, most seemed angry with us, and a few people even used some interesting words I won't repeat. :-p We had an appointment that night, which was in an appartment complex, and as we made our way there a guy shouted "Are you mormons?" I couldn't tell where it came from because it was dark, so I kept walking. Then he shouted again, "Are you mormons?" Elder Christensen spotted him and walked over to him. He said we were, and the other man said "I love mormons! Can you share a message with me?" We told him we were on our way to an appointment, and he disappointedly told us to come back another time then. So we walked the rest of the way to our appointment, found no one was home, and ran back to the other guy and taught him instead... He's from Egypt. His family took lessons from missionaries back in the day, and his whole family was baptised except for him, because he couldn't quit smoking. He's currently seperated from his family. He came to church on Sunday and afterwards asked how we felt. We said we felt good, and he smiled and said he did as well. But then we taught him that night and we had a bit of a debate about the nature of the God-head. (We were watching the Restoration video, and he made us stop it when it got to the first vision.) I committed him to study it again and pray about it, and I promised I would do the same. Anyway, he's a good guy. Last night he had us try some Arabic food. :-) .... But what it all comes down to is this: Tony the tiger rules!
We should have a really busy week next week :-) Lots of appointments set up. We usually don't have appointments set up more than a few days in advance, but we already have 18+ appointments this week, most in the next 3 days.
And no, I haven't been out six months yet. Not until tomorrow. YAY!!!! TOMORROW MARKS 6 MONTHS OF MY MISSION!!! WOOT!!! YEAH!!! Time flies, especially when you have a good companion.
Obama was here a few weeks ago-- he spoke in a High School not far from me-- and I didn't even know it until the day before he came when someone asked us if we were going to listen to him. lol.
Anyway, I just wanted to repeat my advice: Move to Dallas. Not Utah, apparently. Dallas. Send pics of the new house so I can see it. :-D
Love ya,
--Jason