We asked Chase some questions about how much he exercises and is active. We got worried about him just driving around all day and all that sitting can contribute to stress and we wanted to make sure he was taking responsibililty for his mental and physical health.
Que tal familia mia? Well to answer your questions, yes we work out everyday at 6:30 when we get up to 7. There is a little gym in the basement of our building so we go there a lot. Also we go to a park two blocks down a lot and run. Also we've gotten up at 5:30 a few times to go play tennis or basketball at these really nice outdoor courts with some members we convince to come with us. But don't worry about me stressing, I'm doin fine.
But that's awesome you guys went camping and to the fair and stuff. Sounds like you're all doin great. This past week was great. We were able to do a lot and we had our first baptism on sunday. (forget this, I am not editting this anymore ~W) i had nothing to do with preparing him cuz he was already prepared before we got here, but it was cool to share the experience with him. i felt bad for him though cuz he had to be dunked three times because his hand wouldnt go under.
but other than that we've been teaching a lot and having a lot of new investigators. there are a lot of people here that are ready to receive the gospel . also we had zone conference last friday and that was really cool. it was an awesome experience and i got to meet a lot of other elders.
so reading is quite the town, white people are the minority and when you see a white person they usually look like theyre on drugs or dont have any teeth. but there are pitbulls everywhere, random people jaywalking everywhere, people practicing in parking lots for quincieneras, you can rent your block and the parks and rec will block it off and people have big parties that way, also cockroaches, crazy bugs, and a lot of different stuff. so its a different world but its awesome. i need some ideas about family home evenings though, some games and activities we could play.
but ya everything is goin good and im glad you guys are so active all the time in goin camping and doin sports. sarah, kick some butt in soccer cuz i know how you feel not makin varsity your junior year, i didnt play varsity football much my junior year but hey loook how my senior year went, so just work hard and have fun and get to know the coaches well. brooks, thats awesome that youre running, i hope you can do well at that and have success, just remember, you still need to lift weights while your in XC cuz if not youre gonna be a skinny twig come basketball season, also you wont be able to beat me up after my mission. blake, keep doing good in football man, try to run over everyone that tries to tackle you or juke em out of their socks, and dont worry, have a good time. well thanks for everything you guys have a good week.
love you guys.
norman
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
August 20th -Amish siting
Que tal familia? So this week flew by. It's been going really good and our days are full of appoinments with folks. We have a baptism scheduled for this Sunday but we don't think it will happen til next weekend. But all is well and we have other investigators that are working on baptismal dates.
This past week was miserable weather-wise. It's been hot and muggy. A lot of the houses don't run their AC that much so I sweat a lot during lessons and my ties are my handkerchiefs for now. But we have a car, Mazda 3 like the Bass's. We don't really walk very much because our area is so big and we have so many appointments that we need a car.
But ya, things are going good. We are working with this family that is the team we play today and every Thursday in softball. They're an awesome family and really die-hard baseball fans. They call me Derek Jeter and they like me so that's good.
The Spanish is going good. I still have a hard time understanding what the heck the people are saying but everything is going well. Oh, we had a district meeting in Allentown on Monday and it is about an hour drive over there. But the cool part was I actually got to see the country and we drove through Amish country. It was awesome. I saw my first Amish buggy and horse cruising down the shoulder of the highway. It was crazy. So that was the highlight of my week.
But thanks for the letters, they're awesome. Hope you guys are having fun and reading in the Book of Mormon. Hope you had a good birthday Blake. I tried celebrating with my companions but they weren't feeling it. Well, have a good week. Hasta ver. Love you guys.
Norman
Que tal familia? So this week flew by. It's been going really good and our days are full of appoinments with folks. We have a baptism scheduled for this Sunday but we don't think it will happen til next weekend. But all is well and we have other investigators that are working on baptismal dates.
This past week was miserable weather-wise. It's been hot and muggy. A lot of the houses don't run their AC that much so I sweat a lot during lessons and my ties are my handkerchiefs for now. But we have a car, Mazda 3 like the Bass's. We don't really walk very much because our area is so big and we have so many appointments that we need a car.
But ya, things are going good. We are working with this family that is the team we play today and every Thursday in softball. They're an awesome family and really die-hard baseball fans. They call me Derek Jeter and they like me so that's good.
The Spanish is going good. I still have a hard time understanding what the heck the people are saying but everything is going well. Oh, we had a district meeting in Allentown on Monday and it is about an hour drive over there. But the cool part was I actually got to see the country and we drove through Amish country. It was awesome. I saw my first Amish buggy and horse cruising down the shoulder of the highway. It was crazy. So that was the highlight of my week.
But thanks for the letters, they're awesome. Hope you guys are having fun and reading in the Book of Mormon. Hope you had a good birthday Blake. I tried celebrating with my companions but they weren't feeling it. Well, have a good week. Hasta ver. Love you guys.
Norman
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Man of Few Words
Looking ahead at how jam-packed Sundays are, I decided to make entries on Thursdays because that is the day we get an email from Chase. So far, he hasn't sent us any letters so that's good that he is too busy to write.
Here is his August 13th email:
Como esta? Well, I aint go much time so I'll be brief. (We had asked him some questions. I need to ask him if he walks or rides a bike). The church is about four miles away, we eat our own food and at members' houses, I sleep good, we write at the library. But ya, this last week was awesome. We had a really successful week and taught a lot of people. There are a few with baptismal dates so it's going good.
But one quick story for you. We went to Luis's house and Luis is a recent convert and his wife is a member. But Luis looks just like the guy on Men in Black who the alien at the beginning of the show disguises himself as. But anyways, we knock forever on his door and then the wife comes to the door. We walk in and Luis is down the hallway, head between his hands on the table, looking down. We walk in and start talkin to him. After all is settled, he feels a lot better and he told us all this stuff he'd done in the past and also that he was just about to leave his wife and then we walked in and we looked like angels to him. We game him a blessing and then left. But it was a really cool experience.
But things are going good. I'm pickin up on what they're sayin when they ramble on a million miles an hour so that's a good sign. My companions and I are gettin along good so everything is good. But love you guys and have a good one. Today we have a softball game that is awesome. We played last week too and it's the real city baseball game experience except that everything is in Spanish. The church is true. Love you guys.
Norman
Here is his August 13th email:
Como esta? Well, I aint go much time so I'll be brief. (We had asked him some questions. I need to ask him if he walks or rides a bike). The church is about four miles away, we eat our own food and at members' houses, I sleep good, we write at the library. But ya, this last week was awesome. We had a really successful week and taught a lot of people. There are a few with baptismal dates so it's going good.
But one quick story for you. We went to Luis's house and Luis is a recent convert and his wife is a member. But Luis looks just like the guy on Men in Black who the alien at the beginning of the show disguises himself as. But anyways, we knock forever on his door and then the wife comes to the door. We walk in and Luis is down the hallway, head between his hands on the table, looking down. We walk in and start talkin to him. After all is settled, he feels a lot better and he told us all this stuff he'd done in the past and also that he was just about to leave his wife and then we walked in and we looked like angels to him. We game him a blessing and then left. But it was a really cool experience.
But things are going good. I'm pickin up on what they're sayin when they ramble on a million miles an hour so that's a good sign. My companions and I are gettin along good so everything is good. But love you guys and have a good one. Today we have a softball game that is awesome. We played last week too and it's the real city baseball game experience except that everything is in Spanish. The church is true. Love you guys.
Norman
Sunday, August 9, 2009
August 9th 2009
Chase arrived in Philadelphia and we were glad to get his email on Thursday and a message from the mission office. The mission office also sent a picture of the President and his wife and 15 elders who had arrived with Chase. Fifteen seems like a large number of new missionaries to get prepared for and get settled. But I think they took good care of all the new elders because they were fed philly cheese steaks that first day. Food is a great pacifier! Especially a philly cheese steak sandwich!
Chase and another new elder went 50 miles northwest of Philadelphia to Reading. They were put with an elder from Kansas so they are a trio. This is probably temporary until an elder leaves and opens a companionship. Here are some of Chase's own words (He writes with no punctuation, capitalization, or paragraphs so I have to fix it as I go so if I lapse into really bad form, I can only blame him, his English teachers, or habits formed while texting :D)
"Wow, this is gonna be a crazy two years over here. The city life is crazy man. Sorry, I got so much to tell you guys about what's gone on in the past two days that I don't know where to start. Right now I'm in Reading, PA. Right now I am in a trio with a guy from the MTC and our trainer, Elder Merrill from Kansas. Elder Merrill is a cool guy and is really go at Spanish. He's half Tongan and is a really nice guy. Reading is about an hour north I think of Philly and is bigger than Boise. The people here are really different. They all walk around with their shirts off and hardly any clothes and the majority of people here are either black or Latino. The streets are lied with row houses and it's pretty "hood" in some spots we went to yesterday. The humidity isn't that bad but your collar is always stuck to your neck. Also the pollution and smog is bad. It's hard to see the sky. There aren't big mountains here so I can't tell where I am most of the time. It's all rainforesty lookin with small rolling hills. Our apartment is really nice though. We have a kitchen, big living room, with desks, bathroom, nice beds, AC and our own washer and drier. But the problem with it isi that all this morning during studying you hear cars go past with their boom boxes and music blasting all the time, and guys with crotch rockets everywhere that pin the throttle all the time so show off a las chicas...
...But ya, Reading is awesome and the popel are really nice and I'm excited so it's all good. I saw my first firefly here, they are really cool and actually glow. But hey, I got to go. Love y'all and I'll write back on next Thursday."
Chase and another new elder went 50 miles northwest of Philadelphia to Reading. They were put with an elder from Kansas so they are a trio. This is probably temporary until an elder leaves and opens a companionship. Here are some of Chase's own words (He writes with no punctuation, capitalization, or paragraphs so I have to fix it as I go so if I lapse into really bad form, I can only blame him, his English teachers, or habits formed while texting :D)
"Wow, this is gonna be a crazy two years over here. The city life is crazy man. Sorry, I got so much to tell you guys about what's gone on in the past two days that I don't know where to start. Right now I'm in Reading, PA. Right now I am in a trio with a guy from the MTC and our trainer, Elder Merrill from Kansas. Elder Merrill is a cool guy and is really go at Spanish. He's half Tongan and is a really nice guy. Reading is about an hour north I think of Philly and is bigger than Boise. The people here are really different. They all walk around with their shirts off and hardly any clothes and the majority of people here are either black or Latino. The streets are lied with row houses and it's pretty "hood" in some spots we went to yesterday. The humidity isn't that bad but your collar is always stuck to your neck. Also the pollution and smog is bad. It's hard to see the sky. There aren't big mountains here so I can't tell where I am most of the time. It's all rainforesty lookin with small rolling hills. Our apartment is really nice though. We have a kitchen, big living room, with desks, bathroom, nice beds, AC and our own washer and drier. But the problem with it isi that all this morning during studying you hear cars go past with their boom boxes and music blasting all the time, and guys with crotch rockets everywhere that pin the throttle all the time so show off a las chicas...
...But ya, Reading is awesome and the popel are really nice and I'm excited so it's all good. I saw my first firefly here, they are really cool and actually glow. But hey, I got to go. Love y'all and I'll write back on next Thursday."
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
MTC Experiences
Well, Chase left for Philadelphia yesterday and we got to talk to him for an entire 3 minutes. Typical. However, that is alright because he is focused and excited to be starting the REAL mission. I'll post weekly entries if you are interested in reading about his mission experiences. Here are some of Chase's observances from the MTC:
Sister Missionaries: "Then all the sisters in our zone are big and ugly and cry all the time."
"The only bad thing is there aren't any chicas worth lookin at (I know I shouldn't be thinking that, and most of the time I don't) but I swear all the sisters here are either twice as big as me or look like they were raised by wolves.
In answer to being asked if there are sisters going to Philly with his group: "I'm glad there aren't any sisters in our group cuz they're all grand champion fat heifers that act like they're your mther and are more righteous than you."
His Companion: "Me and my companion are doing great though. by the way he's going philly spanish too and is from southern cal, went to byu hawaii uh is a total nerd and i get mad at him for being so straight with the rules. haha but we're doing great together, we teach good and have a strong spirit with us.
"I almost killed my compainion this week though, not really, but he's been driving me nuts. He's also the most unathletic human eing I've ever met too. The other day for gym we decided to play soccer and he was on defense by the goal. A kid from the other team kicked it and my companion being the weirdo that he is tries to move out of the way so he doesn't hit the ball. The ball hits him and then bounces into the goal. He socred for the other team. But even though he's a goon I love him (most of the time) and we get a long.
District Leader: "Y'all can call me DL now. I was called to be the new district leader last Sunday and I'll be it until we leave. "
"But everyone likes me as the district leader, it's cool. They all really respect me and don't get offended when I yell at em for goofin around. The first night I was district leader, I had a challenge though. A companionship that's a trio was having a companionship inventory, that's where you tell your comp how much you hate him and how little you love him, but they were all yellin at each other and one elder was about to cry and so I came in and had to step in. We settled everything and I had em all tell all the positives they like about each other and other stuff. It was all good though."
"I swear, right when they called me to be DL things started going bad, and if they were bad they got worse. So at first I had to worrry about an Elder who was really depressed and wanted to go home. So I had everyone in the district write him a letter. Also I had to talk to everyone about lot of stuff about his needs. But he finally gutted up and is stickin through it."
"We've had this situation between a teacher and an elder who is the stuobbornist, selfishest, nice sprited guy sometimes, who always butt heads. I'd talked to him twice last week about shuttin up and not arguing but he kept at it and finally some changes had to be made. Also this Elder was so rude to him somp who is the elder who was thinking about goin home. But the changes came unexpectedly and I had no ideas about it. We got a new teacher and new companions. And now I am with the rude, selfish Elder but things have settled down now."
Call Center (from the TV commercials for Bibles of Books of Mormon): "This is awesome. In the RC where we take phone calls from people and snswer questions and stuff, I called inSpanish on Friday when we went. Talk to two people and could understnad pretty much all they said, I sent the missionaries over to both of em with a Book of Mormon. It was awesome. Probably the greatest feeling I've had my whole time here. And one guy was from Bethlehem, PA, It's in my mission so that was awesome."
Family Advice: "Brooks and Blake, you guys need to read Alma 44 and be like the servant. Sarah I ain't got anything for you specifically but Mosiah 26 is really cool. Dad I'll give you some of my notes from the devotional about temples. And mom, you can take a look at Helaman 5 and Alma 57:21. Have a good one and continue to be the awesome family you guys are."
Sister Missionaries: "Then all the sisters in our zone are big and ugly and cry all the time."
"The only bad thing is there aren't any chicas worth lookin at (I know I shouldn't be thinking that, and most of the time I don't) but I swear all the sisters here are either twice as big as me or look like they were raised by wolves.
In answer to being asked if there are sisters going to Philly with his group: "I'm glad there aren't any sisters in our group cuz they're all grand champion fat heifers that act like they're your mther and are more righteous than you."
His Companion: "Me and my companion are doing great though. by the way he's going philly spanish too and is from southern cal, went to byu hawaii uh is a total nerd and i get mad at him for being so straight with the rules. haha but we're doing great together, we teach good and have a strong spirit with us.
"I almost killed my compainion this week though, not really, but he's been driving me nuts. He's also the most unathletic human eing I've ever met too. The other day for gym we decided to play soccer and he was on defense by the goal. A kid from the other team kicked it and my companion being the weirdo that he is tries to move out of the way so he doesn't hit the ball. The ball hits him and then bounces into the goal. He socred for the other team. But even though he's a goon I love him (most of the time) and we get a long.
District Leader: "Y'all can call me DL now. I was called to be the new district leader last Sunday and I'll be it until we leave. "
"But everyone likes me as the district leader, it's cool. They all really respect me and don't get offended when I yell at em for goofin around. The first night I was district leader, I had a challenge though. A companionship that's a trio was having a companionship inventory, that's where you tell your comp how much you hate him and how little you love him, but they were all yellin at each other and one elder was about to cry and so I came in and had to step in. We settled everything and I had em all tell all the positives they like about each other and other stuff. It was all good though."
"I swear, right when they called me to be DL things started going bad, and if they were bad they got worse. So at first I had to worrry about an Elder who was really depressed and wanted to go home. So I had everyone in the district write him a letter. Also I had to talk to everyone about lot of stuff about his needs. But he finally gutted up and is stickin through it."
"We've had this situation between a teacher and an elder who is the stuobbornist, selfishest, nice sprited guy sometimes, who always butt heads. I'd talked to him twice last week about shuttin up and not arguing but he kept at it and finally some changes had to be made. Also this Elder was so rude to him somp who is the elder who was thinking about goin home. But the changes came unexpectedly and I had no ideas about it. We got a new teacher and new companions. And now I am with the rude, selfish Elder but things have settled down now."
Call Center (from the TV commercials for Bibles of Books of Mormon): "This is awesome. In the RC where we take phone calls from people and snswer questions and stuff, I called inSpanish on Friday when we went. Talk to two people and could understnad pretty much all they said, I sent the missionaries over to both of em with a Book of Mormon. It was awesome. Probably the greatest feeling I've had my whole time here. And one guy was from Bethlehem, PA, It's in my mission so that was awesome."
Family Advice: "Brooks and Blake, you guys need to read Alma 44 and be like the servant. Sarah I ain't got anything for you specifically but Mosiah 26 is really cool. Dad I'll give you some of my notes from the devotional about temples. And mom, you can take a look at Helaman 5 and Alma 57:21. Have a good one and continue to be the awesome family you guys are."
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