Elder Casper 8/25/2008

Dear Family-

Well it has been another wonderful week, we have been extremely blessed in the sector and the Lord has blessed us with many new people to teach. Aileen is doing great and she is now the president of the principles of the Gospel class. Her older brother Pablo received his mission papers this week and now the branch president just has to talk to his parents who aren´t members to inform them on the financial part of the mission. Yesterday he gave a talk on the subject of how we as member of the church must be, he shared the scripture in D & C 38:25-27, I really enjoyed listening to his testimony of how the Gospel has blessed his life and how faithful members have befriended him and loved him; he is an absolute crack up. He started his talk by saying, "when ever I walk into this chapel I feel warmth, and it’s not from the heating system…it’s because of the spirit of unity felt in this branch." It was a wonderful experience him speak and to see the progress he and his sisters have made over the past few months.

This week President Resek had his mission president seminar with Elder Scott and Elder Gonzalez. Today we had our weekly meeting with him and he told us all about what they did. It was really interesting because he said that they during the four day seminar they did a lot of practicing and that all of the situations that they used are the situations that we have been planning on using for zone conference this change. They are the basic commitments but as a mission we are starting to forget about the small and simple things and that is what is impeding us from progressing more. This week was the best week of the year as far as statistical progress, we are finding more people that we ever have and as a mission last week we almost accomplished the 10 contacts per day per missionary or in other words we did 9,560 contacts as a mission and to reach Elder Ballard´s goal we have to reach 10,250. We are teaching a ton and the Lord is blessing is so much I am jealous of Elder Del Güercio and Elder Rosales because they are going to be here for the rest of year to see the progress in the mission. I feel so blessed to be a part of the Lords work and to feel of his hand pressing things forward on a daily basis.

How is the family doing? How is your health Mamma? How is Laur doing with preparing for school? How are Ash and Lace? How are the boys? How are Grams, Nana and Papa and the rest of the clan doing? Please send my love to all and let them know how very excited I am to see them.

So Kaid is now married!!! Wow, that’s crazy. I am so happy for him and It makes me happy to know that he has found his eternal companion, he such an amazing person and will just continue to grow as he takes this next step in his life. Mamma it sounds like you had fun at the wedding reception and that you saw a few of my friends, how are they? I´ll be honest, I am really excited to see all of my friends again and to see the progress that they have made in their lives, I know they won´t be much different but I am excited to see the personal progress of each and every one of them. It continues to amaze me how blessed we are as 19 year old young men to be able to go out into the world and preach the restored and everlasting Gospel. The other day I was reading in D&C 34:5-6 and I really liked what it says, the Lord was speaking to Orson Pratt and He told him that he had been called to preach the Gospel, preaching repentance to a corrupt and perverse generation in order to prepare to way of the Lord for his second coming. One thing I love about Doctrine and Covenants is that it´s modern day revelation and also in many of the revelations I can replace my own name with the name of those in the script and I fell more a part of what truly happened and it applies more to me or anyone who reads it. And after the Lord told Orson that he was called to preach the Gospel he gave him a promise at the end of verse 10, and it reads: "Preach, and it will be given to you by the power of the Holy Ghost." I have felt that over the past two years, that as I have declared this message the Holy Ghost has been my constant guide and has helped me discern and to know where to go, what to do and what to say. What a treasure it is to preach the Gospel. Thank you so much family for your wonderful examples of faithfulness, obedience and for the priceless principles that you have taught me throughout my life. You all are a testimony in itself of the love that my Heavenly Father has for me.

It makes me happy to know that the boys are doing well and that they are having fun with their sports teams and all. Mamma as I was reading over the talk that you invited me to read I found a few things very interesting. One thing that impressed me while reading it was the Spirit I felt in knowing that you were directed to read that talk that specific day, it is exactly what you needed and our Heavenly Father new it, it made me happy to know that you followed that subtle impression that the Spirit offered you, thanks Mom for being so awesome. The talk is neat because it tells many stories and many metaphors. I really like the metaphor of the rope and the colt, as it says in the talk: "Inappropriate attempts to force obedience, like, yanking the rope, create difficulty in fostering companionable relationships with young children and teens." It´s important not to force children, at least as a child when I was forced to do things or punished in certain ways I did not like it and then I felt that the urge to be disobedient. Also I really liked in the talk about limits, and I just want to thank you two for the limits and rules that you set in our family while Ashton, Lauren and I were growing up together. We have been very blessed to have those limits in our lives because they have guided us and helped us realize when we have crossed those limits. Thanks for being the greatest parents ever and for loving us so much.

Just know that I love you more than you could possibly know, I am grateful for all of the wonderful teachings you have given me and for the way you have raised me and helped me to make correct decisions in my life. Send all my love, I cant wait to hear from you soon. In two week Andrew Adams will be down in Provo for school, he is working at the MTC and it would be cool if you guys invited him over for Sunday dinner.

I love you guys and I cant wait to hear from you next week. Until then, work hard, study hard and do what is right and the Lord will bless you. Know that you are in my prayers. I love you, I love you, I love you.

1-4-3-4,

Elder Mason Casper