April 7, 2010

Hey family!

Still no baby, huh? . . . . You do realize that I can't wait forever, right? lol. And still nothing from BYU-I, huh? Maybe they're playing hard to get. Kaydee should send them some chocolate or something. lol. :-D Well, anyway. How is everything going? Good I hope.

First of all, I got to work at the Easter Pageant this last week on Thursday and Saturday night. That was a lot of fun. As missionaries we walk around and talk to people, just like at the Christmas lights. Although this can be a lot more akward because people are sitting down, so people on the ends of rows get talked to a lot, and people in the middle don't unless a missionary wants to climb over tons of people to get there. And it's usually really crowded. There are usually 10 to 20 thousand people that attend, with the record being higher than that. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. I found a few people that were interested in meeting with missionaries, including a guy who spoke only Spanish. Don't ask me how I did it, but I managed to get his information for Spanish speaking missionaries to come by. I WISH I SPOKE SPANISH!

Conference was amazing. And funny. There were some good jokes, especially in Elder Hollands talk. "You wouldn't invite a burglar into your house, serve him tea and crumpets, and then show him where the silverware is. . . . You shouldn't be serving tea anyway. . . " And, as always, there were some GREAT insights. It seemed like the main theme was strengthening the family. Isn't it strange how all of the talks blend together so well when no one is assigned a topic and they don't coordinate their topics either? They all just speak as they feel inspired and all of the talks just blend together beautifully as Heavenly Father speaks to us through them and the spirit that touches our hearts as they speak.

Now, if you're observant you'll notice that I said that we were at the Pageant Saturday night. . . . That is during Priesthood session. I was distraught when I found out that we would be missing it! Priesthood session is the best session! I love it so much. But someone had to go to the Pageant. Well, luckily for us, they re-broadcast it for those who participated in the Pageant at 3:30 the next day-- just after the Sunday afternoon session of Conference. So I got to watch it. The funny thing is, that is when the Earth quake hit. We didn't feel anything, but it knocked out the Satellite for a few minutes. . . . I guess a few people-- including our mission president-- felt it. I didn't find out about it until the next day, though. lol. I'm slow to get news.

And we had Zone conference yesterday. Those are always good. That's also the reason why I am getting on Wednesday rather than Tuesday. We focused a lot on unity, which I suspect is partially in preparation for the new mission president coming in July.

Also the mission is focusing on talking to more people. Each companionship is suppose to talk to 140 people a week as we go to/from appointments. That's not a problem for us, but a lot a missionaries don't do it, so they are having us call in every night with how many people we've talked to. So far, in two days Elder Coltrin and I have talked with 91 people. :-)

Our drought with new investigators has finally ended as well! We found a few more this last week thanks to referrals from members and the Easter Pageant. Life is great!

And, best of all, we had a wedding in our area last night. Yes, you read that right. There was a wedding. We had two people that have been living together for twelve years that want to get baptized. They know that they have to be living the standards that Christ taught in order to be ready to make that covenant with God, and so last night they finally tied the knot and were married by the bishop in a very small but beautiful service. It was really neat to be a part of that. There will probably never be another time in my life when I'll get to be a part of all of these things again. Shawn, the newly married man, will be baptized May 1st, and Michelle, his wife, will be baptized shortly after. (I told you about them a while back, but I misspelled his name, in case you are confused. . . . )

Oh, Great news! I actually gained like five pounds so far in the 19 months I've been out! :-(

Yup. It's been really good so far. The work is constantly moving faster and faster, and it's all I can do to keep up! I remember when I first got in the mission, to have 70 baptisms in a transfer was impossible! Now, at the end of last transfer we had 132 baptisms, and everyone was disappointed because that is really low now. We are really being blessed with miracles, and the missionaries that are coming out of the MTC now are way better than the ones that were coming out with me. It's amazing to watch the work progress.

My easter was good. Mostly I was watching conference. One of our Ward Mission Leaders invited us over to his home for dinner. That was really nice. They are a great family!Yup, I got the pacakge! Thank you BTW

Well, I've got to go. I love you all and I hope your next week goes good. I look forward to baby pictures! Keep me posted! I really want to know the second he's born!

Love you all,
Elder Jason Mace
The coolest, best-est, non-Kung-Fu-Panda-Bellied missionary in the whole state of Oh-No.

PS... I just wanted to point out that my favorite-oldest-sister Kassie hasn't written to her favorite younger brother in a while. . . . Not to point fingers >>> or mention Kassie's name. . . . . lol.