Culture Shock

The pictures are of Elder Evertsen (my son) and I before departing. Elder Hillier (my new companion). The Diaz Family (my very last visit in Houston 8 and the coolest convert family). And our kitchen floor after we used dish soap instead of dishwasher detergent. At least we have a clean floor now!

Dear Family,

Hope y'all are well. I finally am beginning to learn some good ole Texan drawl. I love the accent of the people out here but dislike the fact that every single person is an engineer or rocket scientist and thus uses a vocabulary that is far above my level of understanding. I think I will by a regular English dictionary today just to keep up.

I am loving things. Lots of changes. I have a car and cover two wards, the Caucasian culture is super different. It is kinda funny that I feel for the first time like I am experiencing culture shock on my mission when all that happened is I went English. It isn't too different from what I expected just very different from what I am used to.

For example, my very first appointment on Wednesday after being in the area for a total of 10 minutes was with an old lady named Barbara. We knocked on the door and she came out wearing a blue dress straight from the wardrobe of "I Love Lucy". It had white lace and everything. We proceeded into her house where there were little trinkets and she served us fruit in these little crystal cups that had the sole purpose of serving fruit cocktails. As I looked around the room I chuckled as I saw the Confederate flag in three different locations in her home. It was wonderful. It made me think of a story that Mike told me one time about his mission when he was watching General Conference and his companion was from somewhere in the British Isles and one of the ladies got up to speak and began by saying "I love exclamations marks!" and his companion just said, "Oh no". 

We have seen some great miracles her this week. Sister Bubble will be baptized this Saturday. It is fun to come into an area and already have a baptism set up. Please keep her in your prayers this week. As we were teaching Barbara's grandson Tyler, we began speaking of baptism. He asked when he could be baptized. He expressed his great desire to be baptized. Also, we went to visit a less-active family and we had plans to bring up baptizing the nine year-old boy and right as we began the lesson the mom asked when we would have time to start teaching the boy. His name is Troy and he should be baptized in the end of February along with Tyler.

We taught two different lessons last night about prophets and it was incredible to me how strong the Spirit was as He testified that we do indeed have a prophet on the earth today. We go to 5 straight hours of church on Sundays followed by a correlation meeting. I love it. Great teachings and powerful experiences during the Sacrament. Someone gave a talk about tithing yesterday and the blessings associated with the law of tithing and I just couldn't help but think about what dad has always taught. The number one blessing of tithing it that it allows us to have a temple recommend and that the blessings of the temple are all included in the blessings of tithing.

I am happy and well. I have been devouring the Book of Mormon reading all about Ammon and Aaron. What great examples. I have also been studying the Atonement a lot. I continue to stand all amazed by that great sacrifice. Something that Elder Hillier shared with me that I really enjoyed is that the Atonement is not only infinite and eternal (Alma 34:10) but it is also intimate and internal.

This work is true. The Spirit continues to testify of that to me. I pray for you often and can feel of your prayers. I love you!

Elder Case

The Promptings of the Holy Ghost

Dear Family,

Sorry we weren't able to write yesterday. Because it was Martin Luther King Day, the libraries were closed. I am still with Elder Evertsen today, we have transfer meeting tomorrow. I have said all of my goodbyes and had a touching moment in Sacrament Meeting as I pondered on the work I have done in this area for the last six months and the Lord helped me to feel peace.

Sounds like you are all doing well. Mary and Craig and kids just hanging out on the beach while all the Utah people are freezing to death. I was thinking about the pioneers the other day. I just don't think we understand what they experienced.

This past week was the best week I have ever had in this area. It was hard some days knowing that I was leaving but we had an incredible week and were greatly blessed. I will share about one family that has been a miracle. On Wednesday morning the other elders in our ward called and said that they were too sick to work and offered us the van for the day. We gladly accepted and decided to take advantage by going to visit some of the people that live a little bit further away. We knocked on a door of a less-active family (la familia Anderson) and the 18 year-old son opened the door. This was a miracle for two reasons; 1) there is a gate outside the front door that is always locked and thus has prevented us from knocking on the door in the past, 2) when we have stopped by previously the dog would bark and they would look through the windows and still not open the door. I have probably been to their house close to twenty times since I have been here.

We talked with Edgar at the door for a while and found out that they had been baptized about three years ago and then moved and stopped going to church. The family is the mom, dad, 18 year-old son, 17 year-old daughter, 12 year-old daughter, 8 year-old daughter, and a 7 year-old daughter. Everyone is baptized except for the dad who is Catholic and the 8 year-old. We echanged phone number and left saying that we would call his mom to set an appointment. As we drove away, we felt that we needed to call her right then, so we pulled over and called her. She said that she had seen us pulling away and had hoped to get our attention. She invited us to come back right then and teach her. We did so and had an incredible lesson. She told us that she has been feeling really strongly recently that she needed to go back to church but she just didn't know how to go about doing it. She said that the impression was strong enough that she had pulled out her scriptures that day in a hope that she would be able to use them. We got to know her a little bit, she invited us to read in the scriptures with her which we did gladly, and then we set two return appointments and left.

We went back on Saturday and brought a Hermano y Hermana Cerrio with us. They are the ones that made the empanadas that I sent to y'all. Hermana Cerrio is now the Relief Society President and Hermano Cerrio hasn't missed church for over three months after being completely less-active for more than 20 years. When Elder Barajas and I first visited them about 4 months ago, they hadn't been to church in a long time. But they came and we had the best experience. La hermana Abgil related the story of opening the door after we had talked with her on the phone. She said that even though it was so bright outside (it was about 4:00) that we glowed. She said that we shone brighter than the sun and that the Holy Ghost impressed upon her that we were servants of the Lord. We stopped by again last night and had a Family Home Evening. It was wonderful. They are going to come to church this week and have already started reading in the Book of Mormon again. It was been absolutely incredible to see the hand of the Lord as He allows us to participate in this great redemptive work.

Last night we stopped by la Familia Gronierfor my last time. They were the very first people I ever visited on my mission and my first day we extended a baptismal date to the 15 year-old girl which she accepted and who was then baptized and now a great member of the ward. We watched "The Lamb of God" which covers the final week of the Savior's life. It was a powerful video and it made me appreciate on a new level what the Savior did for me. Since last night I read Elder Bruce R. McConkie's final talk "The Purifying Power of Gethsemane" and studied about the topic in Jesus the Christ. I truly do "stand all amazed" for the Savior did for me.

I know this Gospel is true. I love this work. I am excited to go to Clear Lake. From what the members tell me, NASA is in my area. Should be fun. We will be having a baptism this weekend or next weekend for a 9 year-old named Audry Taylor. She is the only one not baptized in her family. Please pray for her.

I love you all!

Elder Case

P.S. I will send photos next week.

The Blessing of the Holy Apostleship

Dear Family,

We had a wonderful weekend here with Elder Ballard, Elder Nielsen, and Bishop Davies. They all gave incredible talks that inspired us and allowed the Holy Ghost to teach us spiritual truths. Elder Ballard had a great comment, he told us a point of missionary work and said, "if anyone tells you to do it any other way and they are junior to me, don't listen, if they are senior to me, write me a letter and I will talk with them." It was really funny but also pretty incredible to think that as he travels, he is probably normally the presiding officer. What a great that must be but what a privilege to be able to represent the Lord in setting the standards and doctrine of the church. I then realized that I have that same opportunity to a certain extent. To our investigators, we are at times the only representatives of the church they have ever known and to them, we establish the doctrine. That is a lot of responsibility to give to 18 and 19 year-olds.

Elder Ballard blessed all of you. So know that not only am I praying for you, but you have the apostles pulling for you too. If things are ever hard, He is always there.

I feel like I am going through a mid-life crisis right now. We had interviews with President Ashton on Thursday and he told me about transfers. Transfers aren't till the 23rd, so he told me really early. I am leaving my area and going english. He said that there was something he was praying about forever to figure out and the answer that came was my name. So I continue to tell the Lord and His servants, "I'll go where you want me to go". The only way to describe my feelings is that I feel like I am leaving home for the first time for college. This area is the only thing I know as a missionary, the ward feels like my family, and I am going to miss all these people like crazy and yet I know that what is coming is new experiences and challenges that will help me grow and stretch to reach my potential. It will be extremely different serving in English (it is only english since my companion will be an english missionary) but I am thrilled to be able to finally express myself fully and relate the doctrine of the Gospel as I have learned it. What is nice is that I still have my one hour a day of Spanish study to dedicate to keeping the language up. The best part of the change is that I know it comes from God and so I am not worried about it. Sad, excited, and curious, but not worried.

We had a really neat experience with a man named John this week. We taught him the Restoration and he said he would be baptized. He explained that he had been baptized Catholic as a baby but didn't consider that baptism valid. He came to our English class that night and then we took him on a church tour. He is an incredible man that has been prepared to hear the Gospel.

We are doing well. One last thought. We went to a funeral today because Elder Evertsen was playing the piano for it. It was for an old man from Honduras. There was a black man from Africa that spoke. Weird combination right? The man from Africa had baptized the deceased man in 2002. He served here in the Texas Houston South Mission. I talked with that man after and thanked him. I received a completely new understanding of missionary work and the impact we can have on lives. The family are all members now, many missionaries have served and are serving, and the funeral was the most spiritually uplifting funeral I have ever been to. Each speaker bore powerful testimony of the Plan of Salvation and taught that though this moment was sad, it really was one of rejoicing. The neat thing is that there were a ton of non-members there. The Spirit was strong.

I love you all! I continue to pray for you. Thank you for your prayers.

Elder Case

The Blessings of the Lord

Dear Family,

I feel like I emailed you yesterday. Time is going much too quickly. I continue to be reminded just how short two years is. I need to take advantage of every minute of it! The photo is of Elder Evertsen at his best. He has been a champ this week. He has been sick, but still working like crazy. He is finally better now after some extra sleep and we are both grateful for that.

This week has been a week of blessings. Not only did we have an incredible week as a companionship, the district had the best week we have had for almost a year! Still no baptisms, but lots of people with dates for this month. We are being incredibly blessed as we dedicate ourselves more fully to this work.

I had a really neat experience this week. On Thursday night all of our appointments fell through and we were trying to figure out what to do. It was cold and sprinkling and we wanted so badly to get into an appointment. We stopped to make some phone calls and while Elder Evertsen was on the phone, I laid down on the grass and looked up at the stars. The Spirit whisped that if God could create all those stars, He could certainly help us get into an appointment. I closed my eyes and began to pray. I pleaded with the Lord to tell me who we could go visit. Immediately the name Doris came into my mind. I thought it couldn't be right. We have tried visiting her so many times without success we had just about given up on her. I wasn't sure if it was a prompting or not but decided we had nothing to lose in trying. She was a little bit of a far ride from where we were, and the whole time I continued to question whether it was a prompting or not, but I continued to pray. We knocked on the door and even though she was busy, she invited us in and we had a wonderful lesson with her.

I am so grateful for the experiences I have each day that confirm to me that this is the Lord's work and that He is at the head. The Spirit continues to teach me that this is true. We are seeing the hand of the Lord. Thank you for your prayers. There is a quote that I have come to love since I have been out here: "Pray as if everything depended on the Lord, Work as if everything depended on you."

Something that President Ashton has taught me is that the Lord is willing to bless me even in my infirmities. I bear testimony of that truth. We have interviews with his this week and then a tri-mission conference with Elder Ballard, Elder Callister, and Bishop Davies this Saturday. I can't wait!

Please continue to pray for Doug and Dina. Also, please pray for Whoopi and Jorge.  I love you all and pray for you often.

Elder Case

By Small and Simple Things

Dear Family,

Happy New Year! I will be sending all of your Christmas presents out today. Sorry that I am such a slacker and behind. I blame the mission. Thank you for your prayers. They are being answered.

We have had a great week. I feel like I just talked with and emailed y'all a few days ago, but have had some good experiences since then. Yesterday we got a new bishop. I almost cried. I love our bishop so much. I also think that next week they will extend our ward boundaries which will be wonderful but will make our areas bigger. We'll see.

On Saturday, Elder Evertsen and I were riding home from an appointment and passed the Miller's house. He has been serving as the second counselor in the bishopric and their family is incredible. We used to be there about every other day teaching investigators, but that hasn't happened for a while now (almost a month) and we felt that we should just stop by and say hi. We did so and shared a message. At the end we asked if we could do anything for them and they just asked us to pray that all would be well with their family. I didn't think much of that becuase many poeple ask us to do that. Yesterday we had lunch with them though and the wife told us that her husband had just lost his job on Friday. It was interesting to me to see the Lord's hand. We had no idea that he had lost his job, we have ridden by their house countless times in the past month without stopping by, but on Saturday, the Lord knew how hard it must have been for hermano Miller to not have a way to support his family so He sends His missionaries to comfort him and remind him that he is not forgotten. It was a tender moment for me to remember yet again just how much the Lord loves us and is aware of us.

Last week David sent me an email and pointed out to me that 2013 will be the only year in my entire life that I spend entirely on my mission. I have been thinking a lot about this opportunity that I have and took the time to set my goals for this year during personal study today. It was incredible to think that for one full year, I can forget myself and serve the Lord. What a year of growth and change and learning this will be.

We have been talking a lot with people about setting goals and welcoming 2013 joyfully. As we have done so, we have shared Alma 37:6-7

6 Now ye may suppose that this is ^afoolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by ^bsmall and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.

 7 And the Lord God doth work by ^ameans to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very ^bsmall means the Lord doth ^cconfound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.
I have come to know just how true this is. It is by the small things, like reading the Book of Mormon as a family, praying as a family, serving together, and having Family Home Evening, that the Lord is able to bring about our salvation. I am grateful for the example I had growing up in a home where all these things were practiced and lived.

Please pray for Darlene and Doug. I love you all!
Elder Case