Hey.

Ok, so I got transferred again. It's the third transfer and I'm in my third area already. I've been in the same amount of areas that people usually have been in after a year or so. It's cool though because I'm getting to see a lot of the mission.

So when they called us about transfers, I was thinking the one place I didn't want to go was Buenaventura because they eat lots of fish there. So guess where I've been for the last week now! Although I was freaking out when they told me I was coming here, I realized it's AWESOME here. It is by far the coolest place in the mission.

There are a few things that make this the best are in the mission. I don't remember if I mentioned this already, but President Prince had talked to me about my transfer and said some cool things. He said out of 160 missionaries, he needed to choose six who would be good for this assignment, and three were already here so had to pick three missionaries out of all of them to send here. He said he felt impressed that I should be one of them. So that was pretty cool. Another guy is a Dominican named Elder B.. The other guy who got picked to come down here was...Elder H.. hahahaha I was so stoked when president told me he was coming down here with me and he got picked too.

So some things about this place. All six of us live in the same apartment. Its pretty crammed but it's cool cause there are a lot of people to talk to. The DL is another gringo Elder W. He is way cool. My comp is Elder A. from Bolovia. He's awesome. Elder H's comp is Elder A., who was in the Bogotá mtc with us. The missionaries just got here to Buenaventura about 6 months ago. There are only the six of us in the entire city. Elder A. and I are opening a new area called La Isla. We have the island part of the city. It's not like an island island. It's basically like Balboa Island, where its technically an island but doesn't feel any different. Its way cool to be able to see the water. I feel way more at home living close to the ocean. There are a lot of black people here. 85 percent they say. The accent is so hard to understand. So there's only one branch for the entire city. Everyone here is a new member of the church except the branch president. People here don't really know how to run the church organization, so the missionaries have a way bigger role. We have to help out a lot and make sure the classes don't teach the doctrine correctly. There's no chapel so we use a building that we rent. The branch president told us that it's like the year 1820 here for the church. As if it is just starting and we have to help everyone.

There's really no other place like this in the whole mission. Elder A. said president asked them what kind of missionaries they needed here and he said they told him they needed the very best. They started looking at the lists of zone leaders and stuff and trying to decide who they thought president would send. And then president sent me and Elder H. hahah. Anyway, I think I will be here in Buenaventura for a while. Nobody has given me fish yet so that's a good thing. There is a lot of poverty here. We were walking around some pretty ghetto parts by the ocean the other day. Everyone was just staring at us and people would ask us what we were doing there or if we were lost haha. Then it started getting dark and we were kinda lost... that's when we really started freaking out. We made it out ok though. The problem is this is a new area and we don't know where the dangerous red zones are yet. I guess well find out.

Anyways, so I've been out for almost 5 months now which is nuts to think about. i feel like I've been out here forever, but also like I just got here yesterday.

Esta experiencia ha sido tan chévere. Especialmente aquí en buenaventura. Es chévere que yo esté con E'H. otra vez. Este lugar es lo mejor y sé que disfrutaré de este tiempo. Me cae muy bien mi nuevo compañero. Elder H. y yo nos gusta quejarnos de Elder C. haha. Me alegro que ese tiempo de mi misión ya haya pasado haha y me encanta me nueva parte de la misión Colombia Cali. Espero que todos estén bien allá. nos vemos en dos. Que estén bien.

y para que sepan, creo que en el futuro vamos a escribir mas temprano por la mañana. entonces cuando me escriban, escribanme el domingo para que yo pueda leer las cartas

Elder Chase