July 6, 2010

Sorry, I got busy and forgot to post this letter from last week.......

Hey family!

How was everyone's 4th of July? Were the fireworks awesome? From mom's email, it sounds like Kaydee had fun this week, lol. I pictured her playing the piano without her thumb, and it made me laugh a little. lol. (Which reminds me of some great news: so far I have had NO BIKE WRECKS in this area! I know it's boring for you, but it's great for me. :-D)

Random thought: did you ever hear back about that one guy-- I forget his name-- in League City that the missionaries are teaching? What's going on with him?

Anyway, is Nathan's mission really over now? That's crazy. I swear we just left. Tell him hi for me when you see him. :-) And tell me how his Spanish is, lol. Does he like Spanish yet? My Spanish won't get any better. lol. Sorry, but no time to learn Spanish. And there are not many people up here that speak Spanish. I think I already met both of them. lol.

My week was great. We had two people that were planning on getting baptized at the start of the week. They were both really great people, but they're desire to act wasn't really there. As the week went on, both in some way or another decided not to take that step. But what was really neat was that two more people decided that they did want to.

The first guy's name is Cody. He's a nice guy in his 20's that struggles with faith in God. He's not sure he believes that God exists. But he has a desire to do what's right, and especially to know if God does exist. What better way to find out then the Book of Mormon? If the Book of Mormon really is true, then God does exist, Jesus Christ lives, and they've called a prophet today to speak for them on the earth. And best of all, the only way to actually know for sure that it's true to to pray and receive the answer through revelation from God himself.

The other guy's name is Aaron. He's amazing. He has a really strong desire to follow God. I don't think that we can teach him fast enough. He always wants to know more, and he can see and feel the change that it's been making in his life, and in his families. He has a wife and a two year old daughter.

We got to meet President and Sister Ellsworth and part of their family (the ones that are not grown and moved out) on Friday. They're awesome, of course. I was really impressed with them, and as much as I miss the Bassett's, I'm really excited to work with them. President Ellsworth is from Idaho, I don't know how to spell the name of the town, but it's Carrie or Kary or something rather. He was in the mission presidency up there before he was assigned to come down here. Their going to do such a good job. They already love the work and are ready to get things moving.

Here in Snowflake/Taylor area (both are tiny towns right next to each other) they had the celebration on the 3rd instead of the 4th. You can probably guess why. :-D It was interesting, because I was biking around on the 3rd and I didn't know whether I should say "happy 4th of July" or "happy 3rd of July." Neither one really made sense. lol. Our day was really long and dull, too, because Taylor has a big rodeo to celebrate independence day, and everyone goes to it. The result is that no one is in snowflake all day. We caught-- no joke-- three people home all day. And all three were members of the church.

I had to teach the lesson in Elders Quorum in the Snowflake 6th ward on Sunday. That was kinda fun. The lesson was on chapter 2 of preach my gospel. Pop quiz, what does that chapter talk about . . . ? Effective study! (If you answered missionary work, that was a lame answer, lol.) So I brought in my study material and we had a discussion on the was that missionaries study and how those ideas can be applied to members. The lesson went well because the quorum was really involved and helped a lot, so I didn't have to do too much. Plus "Preach My Gospel" is amazing! It teaches by itself.

And then yesterday we went on Exchanges. I went with Elder Zakimi to his area in Taylor and Elder Harper went with Elder Lerwill to our area. Our day in Taylor was kind of slow, but we had some really good things happen. I have a lot of respect for Elder Zakimi. When he talks you can feel the charity and love that he automatically has for you. It's such a natural thing for him, it's amazing. And while I was gone Elder Lerwill and Elder Haper found three new people to teach and taught a ton of lessons. . . . Of course, when Elder Mace isn't there the work moves forward. lol.

And that brings us to a funny story for the day. We were suppose to go check out some Indian ruins today with one of our ward mission leaders. But last night he and his family went camping and their van got attacked by a bear. No kidding. The family is fine, but obviously he has other things to take care of today. The bear only damaged the bumper and maybe the back window.
I can pedal pretty quick down hill. Uphill not so much. lol.

Well, that's been my week. I love you all and hope everything goes well!
I gotta go. But I'll catch you next week.

Love
Elder Jason Mace