Dear Liesey,
How are you? What's new? Things are going well here in Cali. You may have heard of my transfer by now, it's been great so far, but I'll get more into that later.
I'm glad you enjoyed the tie-burning pictures. Sorry that I've been lazy with pictures lately. I've no excuse, just had my mind elsewhere. All the same, I'm glad you liked them and that you were able to appreciate my pyro-talents.
I'm glad you enjoyed conference; that's always a good thing. I enjoyed conference as well, except for the raking through the coals for not getting married. That part rather sucked for me. Don't get me wrong, I love the talks, but I had different plans about getting married after the mission. Apparently, I'm supposed to get married long before I originally planned. My companion hated the talks on marriage...apparently the girl that is waiting for him has been dating him for about three years. After the Sunday morning [session] he said, "If one more person talks about marriage, I'm walking home and doing it!" Luckily, he didn't follow through with that.
So you went and saw a gay show in Vegas, eh? How was that for ya? Awkward much? Probably not, it sounds like it was family friendly. I would have been kinda weirded out through. I'm glad the trip as a whole was a good experience.
Hmmm...five racing suits for $100...not a bad deal, but I think I'd have stopped at two or three suits. Hopefully that does help you get into the pool again. I know how you feel about not having any desire to get your knees "fixed" ever again. The time after my knee surgery was the most sinfully boring times of my life. I wanted to go to work instead, for Pete's sake!
The Due West concert sounded like good fun and it [is] way cool that they do "Tip Jar" for people in need. That's way cool!
Alright, mission news. There's nothing terribly exciting about the transfer, kinda the same old missionary story about teaching and tracting. I do love the people we teach though; they are awesome. We have four people very close to baptism. Other cool things about the area is right now I cover and English ward and a Tongan ward! So I'm learning some Tongan slowly bu surely. :) The area is also way pretty. I live in Seaside City, so I'm of course next to the ocean and have a great view of it from our apartment. Last Monday, we went on a 20-25 mile bike ride across the coast which was way pretty; I got some fun pictures of it. One of them at Pebble Beach! One of the members in our stake lives on the Pebble Beach golf course, the 18th hole is the family's backyard! So we might get to go golfing there! That'd be way cool! Anyway, that's all I have time for now. Talk to you soon!
Love you, miss you!
Love,
Elder Jacob S. Chipman
(Two pictures were also included: One of the ocean and some surfers which read, "So...This is what I have tempting me EVERY SINGLE DAY! It's hard, but I've been offered surfing lessons by members afer the mission though. :) " The other has six Elders on P-Day lookin' all posed and GQ with sunglasses on a bunch of rocks. It reads, "When we become a Boy Band and make it big, this is going to be our album cover." Hilarious.)
