"How hard can it be?"

Chase asked this week that I post a link to this video in a prominent place on his blog.  I've added it to the header, but here it is again: A Book of Mormon Story

Hello!

Mary's baptism was this week!  It was on Wednesday!  It happened!  It was a spiritual day, with a lot of tears from her, she really felt the spirit.  I guess you had to be there. 

We got a lot of pizza this week! I love pizza. 

We had our park day this week (the one day each month where the car stays in "park" all day.  Not to be confused with the kind of park day where you go to the park and chill all day.  two unrelated concepts) and we almost got run over on our bikes 193489230 times.  I dont have any idea why there is no shoulder on any of the streets in our area, except that whoever designed these streets does NOT like Mormons
.

Hey, so like a month ago or so I sent some letters, and most them have been returned to sender, one of them i just got back like 2 days ago.  So sorry if you haven't gotten a letter in a trillion years.  I sent out some more a few days ago, but maybe these will be returned to me also haha. 

This is gonna be a good week.  It just will be. 

Gail needs to be married before she can be baptized because she's currently living with Ricky.  So my goal is to have a marriage this week.  How hard can it be?

I know I haven't written much, but I'm really hungry.... so I'm gonna go...

Elder Chase Lonas!

"With smiles and rainbows and hearts, but like in a manly way"

I am so happy!  Missionaries are the happiest people I know, and I'm the happiest missionary I know.  I can't even put my finger on why, but Life is just so good.  Oh by the way, turns out my companion knows Ally (a cousin)! 

 

So, one of my first nights in Puyallup, it was about 8:45pm, and we see a guy on the side of the road, give him a Book of Mormon and invite him on a church tour.  His name is Dean, but you've never heard of him before, because shortly thereafter he fell off the face of the earth.  Then we give him a call a little bit ago, and he picks up!  says he's still interested but won't meet with us because of all the stuff going on in his life.  

Two days later, we're out knocking doors on this one street, and we pass a guy, so we invite him to church, and he's like "wait a minute, I think you guys called me the other day.."

 hahah i'm like "DEAN!? is that you!!!???"  

and he's like yeah!  

so then he follows us down to the church, and we start the church tour.  

 

We always start with an opening prayer in the foyer.  During the prayer he's making some noise which i didn't think much about, but afterwards he's just like "wow.... just then, I felt like...the presence of God around me, telling me this is good.  It felt so warm, what was that?"

:)

So we explain, and then finish the church tour.  He happily committed to be baptized on september 1st. 

but the next day, he told us to meet him outside the safeway at 3:00.  So we're there, we wait for 15 minutes, and look all over for him.  We know he spends some time in the forest behind safeway, so we also looked for him there, but to no avail.  So we still need to find him again.

 

Mary is set to be baptized on Wednesday at 12!  And it's finally solid! 

 

Last night we were down in Olympia doing the missionary music fireside thingy, it was so great.  We sing a few songs (best of all, Amazing Grace, and I get to belt the tenor part way loud) and i'm part of a ten piece musical number, How Great Thou Art.  At first there was just 8 of us, so we called ourselves "How Great Thou Oct"  hahaha  get it? but 2 more got drafted in, so we became "TENder Mercies" which became "TENor Mercies" 

We clearly have too much time on our hands.

Lil Krees (Elder C, a previous companion) is also in a musical number, which is sounding tighter than ours, except the arrangement is pretty boring. 

but, Krees, Major, and Rhodes are doing this trio for Come Thou Fount, and it's the most legit thing i've ever heard.  It sounds, SO good. 

Oh, and Sis. Grenfell is conducting this whole thing If i didnt already mention it, and it just makes me so happy haha, she is so good at it.  

 

Anyways, so last night we're there singing and I just realize how so so so so happy I am, and it makes me so so so so sad to know that one day my mission will be a memory. 

 

The happiest, best, and sweetest experiences of my life have been in these past 8 months while serving a mission, If anyone by chance is reading this and considering whether or not a mission is right for them, It is.  Please don't deprive yourselves. 

With smiles and rainbows and hearts, but like in a manly way,

Elder Chase Lonas

DL, dead animals, and direct answers

First things First!  TRANSFER CALLS! 

I've never been so not nervous for transfer calls, because I was so sure I was staying in Fruitland, and keeping my boy!  anddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd..... I was right!  So I'm very excited about this!  It's gonna be another awesome transfer, and we're gonna tear it up!  

 

Transfer calls were pretty funny for me, because I actually got calls from both AP's, and President Weaver too, haha.  First one AP (Assistant to the President) called to give me my transfer call, that was normal.  Then the other called to give me some information for the Mission fireside things we're doing, and then President called to tell me I'm going to be the new DL (District Leader) (ACK!!!!) So it was an eventful night, and the whole time I got these calls, we were still with an investigator.

 

Let's see. 

 

So a few weeks ago we were driving down 128th (A street in Washington) and we see a guy on the side of the road trying to cut these bushes for no apparent reason, so we pull over and offer help.  He assures us that the situation is well under control.  (the situation= the fact that bushes exist) We invite him to follow us down to the church, but after giving it serious consideration, decided that this was not a good night for him.  But he set up a return appointment for one week from then.  So at 8:25, the next sunday, we returned to 128th and stood by what was left of the bushes, but he didn't come.  But sometime this past week we were driving by again and this time saw him outside in his yard.  We pull up and talk to him, and ask him what he's doing.  Turns out, he's about to bury a dead kitten. So we offer to help him hold a funeral.  He buries the kitten, I give a little eulogy and a prayer (It occurs to me that this is 3rd or 4th funeral for an animal I've been involved in on my mission)  and he cries for a minute and then starts talking to us about church.  As it turns out, he is already a member!  He just hasnt been to church since he moved to Washington from Arizona.  So this week he came to church!  Before Elders Quorum he was telling this guy about his story and why he was at church this week.  It was pretty humbling to hear his point of view.  We see so many people every week, and invite so many people to come to church, and helping someone bury a kitten is pretty easy stuff.  But for him, it was a direct answer to a prayer he said about 5 seconds before we showed up.

 

Mary should be able to be baptized this Friday!  I'm so excited but also kinda stressed, because it all hinges on a follow up interview taking place on Thursday.

 

But we have quite a few people progressing towards baptism, and I'm so glad me and my boy are staying!  Puyallup has been in a bit of rut, so we're gonna change that, and then blow up this mission :)  

"...but even then, life is still good - it just feels bad"

Well, it's been a great week.  I can't believe we're starting week 6 of the transfer,  in 5 days we get transfer calls.  It's been the fastest transfer of my mission.   Hey, I just realized that this is August!  the year is practically over!  and by extension, my mission is practically over.  that is totes cra-cra.

 

Oh :( we got dropped by Rodney this week :(  I dont remember if I've ever told you about him.  actually he might have dropped us last week, but the point is it was recently, and I'm thinking about it right now.

Rodney is an older man (one of two older men we are teaching at the moment actually)  in his 80's.  The first time he invited us in he played us some piano and sang for us, it was pretty cool.  Heather, every time he plays piano or sings for us I always think of you, because you would LOVE it.  he plays these old sweet songs, and his voice is so... old.  but like, you can tell he had/has a great voice, its just old now.  He has pretty bad tremors, which make it difficult to play the correct notes on the piano, but he's still pretty good.  So we would go over there, do a lesson, he'd play us a song on the piano, sometimes we'd play him one, and thats kinda how our visits would go.  and he LOVED talking to us, because he's very lonely since his wife passed away.  But then the last time as we were leaving, he just dropped us on our way out the door, it was so sad :(  It's Dbow's (his companion) first time getting dropped, he described it as feeling like a break up.  yep.

 

You may recall Mary, or maybe not, but she is probably going to be baptized on Friday :)  She's all set to go, the only issue is scheduling the baptism itself, her schedule is unpredictable, and since she has just about 0 monies,  she takes work whenever it pops up.  But we'll meet with her tomorrow and finalize the schedule hopefully. 

 

ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Life is good.  except yesterday, which was over 90 degrees, and the whole time we tracted I dont think a single door opened up.  but even then, life is still good, it just feels bad - haha.

 

OH!  one more thing, remember that boy Tony we're teaching?  So here's how we taught him the commandments.  Well, first of all, to preface, when we were teaching Mary the commandments, I took a piece of paper, and drew a beach.  I talked about how beaches are fun, great places, but you have to be careful or you can get hurt.  I talked about riptides, unstable cliffs, stingrays, etc.  and then drew pictures of warning signs, and then related each warning sign to a commandment, and how that keeps us safe in our lives :)  The analogy worked well, so I'm gonna keep using it.  So with Tony, he's an 11 year old boy, so to make it fun, we went to the dollar store and bought some brown paper, some blue stuff, some posterboard, and we made a beach in his backyard!  Then we went through the beach and talked about different stuff, and me and dbow would act out different concepts like falling off cliffs, getting carried away by riptides, stung by stingrays...  actually, I think in every commandment either me or Dbow got injured in the demonstration.  But it was fun haha. 

So yeah, that was the highlight of yesterday :) 

 

Welp, Love you!