July 20, 2010

Hello family!

How is everything going this week? Hopefully things are still going well. Sounds like Camren is having a bad week. You all should be nicer to him or something. . . . I'll save him when I get back. . . . in six months. . . . ;-) Poor baby boy. :-( He needs a deep fried, chocolate covered cherio. :-)    And it sounds like Kassie and Nathan did a great job on Sunday. I had to fill in some extra time the last time I spoke, too. But not quite that much extra time, lol. Kassie should have given part two of her talk after Nathan spoke. :-p

Anyway, I'm glad Snowflake, Arizona is popular enough to be in the movie "Saints and Soldiers." Whoever wrote it must have been here as a missionary as well. :-)

Anyway, funny story: Yesterday I was on exchanges with Elder Jenkins,  one of the Zone Leaders of the Zone. (Back in the day he was a district leader in my zone in Apache Junction.) Well, as we were heading out the door from dinner we got a phone call from President Ellsworth, who wanted to talk to Elder Jenkins. Elder Jenkins is the new assistant to the president. :-) We're now on exchanges with his companion elder Hilton until transfers on Tuesday, when he will get a new companion.

Speaking of which, next week is the last time I will email you with

--== TRANSFER NEWS ==--

So you should be on the edge if your seat for that. I can still end up in Argentina. You never know.

Now I'll tell you about my week.

So Aaron is getting baptized this Saturday, so that will be awesome. It will be tough because the 24th of July is Pioneer day, the day that Salt Lake City, Utah and Snowflake, Arizona were founded. People here take that day serious-- we're talking parades, rodeos, fairs, etc. And in the middle of all of that, we have Aaron's baptism schedualed. But luckily Aaron is a popular guy, and everyone really wants to come to his baptism, even if it means missing some of the celebration. I love the Snowflake 3rd ward. It's one of the best wards I've ever served in.

Aaron is really excited for his baptism, and so far everything is good to go.

We got some crazy rain this last week (for a desert it was crazy-- I haven't seen rain like it since I left Houston). Sunday night was the worst of it. Luckily, that night a member was nice enought to drive us around. During one of our lessons, we had just said the opening prayer and were about to start teaching the plan of Salvation when suddenly-- the power went out. . . . Of course. . . . We still taught it anyway. In the dark. :-)

On Friday we had zone developement meeting and our first interviews with president Ellsworth. Elder Lerwill and I were asked to give an hour training on effectively planning for the day. That's something that I think we do well, so it was a pretty easy training to give. We started out by walking up and pretending to plan wrong. It was pretty funny. Then we actually taught how to plan and demonstrated it. It was good.

And interviews with President Ellsworth were great. He was really personal and tried to get to know us as well as our areas. The more I work with him, the more impressed I am.

And finally, I went on exchanges with Elder Paiz and Elder Mesecher this last week. This was the last companionship in my district that I needed to go with. I went with Elder Paiz to his area, and his companion and mine worked in our area. It was a great exchange. Elder Paiz did an awesome job, so I was really impressed. My district is amazing, I gotta say.

Tomorrow is Distric Meeting, so I've got some great things planned. :-)

I think that's about it for me.

I love you all, and hope you have a great week.

Elder Jason Mace

of the Mesa, Oh-No mission