Weirdest week so far...

June 22, 2015

Hello Family,

It's always good to hear from Mom and Dad. I'm happy Mom gave a talk. I am really looking forward to reading it. Thank you once again for all the support you give me. I'm learning the art of being bold. I've had some experiences this week that have helped me be more bold. Mainly going on exchange with Elder Sharp again. I found out that he's actually really good at street contacting. He's good at talking with people and becoming their friend. Another example I look to for being bold is the Savior Himself, since He was the perfect example for everything. There were several times where He had to be bold but He was always loving. 

This week was by far the weirdest week so far. Early in the week we heard it was supposed to rain a lot and Elder Lynch said he doesn't like the rain because it messes everything up. And it does. Rain messes everything up. It's hard to describe but it just does. I have to go day by day. I can't think of a better way to describe this week.

6-15-15 Monday

Today was another fun P-Day. We ate at Emery's again and spent most of the afternoon watching bible videos and started entering information into the AreaBook Planner app we got today. That's the app the church designed for missionaries. It combines the Planner and the Area Book all on one tablet. Later, we met with a Ms K and helped her burn a giant grass pile in her back yard. There was smoke everywhere. My clothes smelled like smoke for a while.

6-16-15 Tuesday

Today I went on another exchange with the ZL's. This time it was Elder Spencer. Pretty much everything fell through and some of our investigators dropped us by text message. We met with a couple and they've made a lot of progress with the WoW. They really want to join and have given up smoking, coffee, tea and are on the last of their tobacco. When they run out, they'll never buy more again. To end the day we ate at Pres. Sodders home again. At the end of that he pulled out some of his guns. I took pictures. Even though a lot fell through today, the ZL I was with was impressed at how well I knew the area and the people in it. 

6-17-15 Wednesday

Today was the first day we got soaking wet by the rain. We decided to park at the church and walk about a mile up the road to see some people we were meeting with in that area. No one answered and right as we turned back, it started raining. Hard. After we were good and soaking, someone in a truck stopped and offered a ride. We took it and since we were all in the car, Elder Lynch and I asked him if he'd be interested in the church. He said "no" in a very kind way. When we got the church, we entered more information into the AreaBook app. Later that night Elder Lynch interviewed Brenda. The Corydon Hermana's (Spanish sister missionaries) have been working with Brenda for quite a while now and she's finally getting baptized.  

6-18-15 Thursday

Today was fun. Brenda's son's birthday was today. I had a lot of really thick waffles. Her son asked for a "How to be an Elder" book so we gave him the old 1970's BoM I got a few weeks ago. Then we had district meeting and during the meeting we took "funeral" photos for Elder Lynch and Elder Spaulding (one of the ZL's) since they're both going home (dying). After that I went on exchange with Elder Sharp again, only this time I stayed in Corydon and got to drive around. I don't miss driving. We met a really solid potential, Mr A, who we're meeting tomorrow and we got caught in the rain AGAIN. This time we had to go back to the apartment and change. Later that night we had a dinner appointment with Bro. Larson and his family. He's the kind of person who's incapable of being mean. After dinner he went out with us to an appointment with Ms K. We taught a powerful Lesson 3 (The Gospel of Jesus Christ) but she still won't commit to baptism. 

6-19-15 Friday

After we exchanged back we went to see Mr A, the potential Elder Sharp and I met yesterday. We taught him a really solid Lesson 1 (The Restoration) and he understood everything. He told us that he's been looking to change his life for the better and we pointed out how right after he made that decision he met us. We actually meet a lot of people like that. People who realize they need to change and soon after they decide that they meet us. That's just a further testimony builder that God places people in your path. Later as the rain was about to start, we met with another less-active family and right after we got in with them, the rain started pouring again. If we hadn't gotten in with that family we would have been soaked again. And just before we left the rain stopped. Later that night, the former Branch President Bro. Blackburn and his family fed us. They fed us some of the best lasagna I've ever had. They also gave me a copy of Spencer W. Kimball's "The Miracle of Forgiveness" to borrow. I had heard several things about that book. Mainly, it makes everyone who reads it feel like a wicked sinner and that they need to speak with their Bishop to repent. Since the Blackburns read a ton of books I thought they would be good people to ask about it. So I did and they gave me a copy to borrow. 

6-20-15 Saturday

Today was the weirdest day in the weirdest week. About half way through the day, we arrived at one of our investigator's small apartment complexes. They lived on the top floor around a corner at the top of the stairs. When we got to the door we knocked and no one answered. Right after that we heard the downstairs door open and someone walking up. We thought it was our investigators but it was actually someone else. When they got to the top we saw that it was a man and a woman. When they stopped, they looked at us, and the man said "I'd like to invite you two to dinner." There was a bit of a pause and Elder Lynch and I looked at him like he was some weirdo. Then he added "I'm a member, and I served my mission here back in 1999." Elder Lynch and I were kinda mind-blown. He said his name was Bro Flam and his wife was Sis Flam. They were in the area doing an anniversary/mission tour and giving every companionship they met a free meal. They said they saw us right when we walked into the apartments. They asked when a good time to meet for food would be and since we had an appointment just barely fall through we said that right then would be a good time. They took us to O'Charlies and I ate this really well-made cedar plank salmon. They said they'd be at church tomorrow. After we ate they took us back to the church and we parted ways. The last half of today is where it gets all over the place. Tonight was Brenda's baptism in the New Albany Stake Center. At about 5:30 the person she asked to baptize her called us and said he couldn't find his white pants and asked us to be backups. We accepted the offer but because we were in New Salisbury at the time that required us to drive all the way back to the apartment in Corydon to get extra garments and drive all the way back to New Salisbury by 6:00 to meet Pres Sodders who was our ride to the baptism in New Albany. The baptism started at 7. As we were driving back Pres Sodders saw a doughnut shop he's always wanted to try, but it's always been closed every time he's driven past it. He asked us if we would like doughnuts for breakfast and we said "yes." So we stopped for doughnuts. We had to drive from New Salisbury to Corydon again and right before we would have gotten to the apartment, the Corydon Hermana's called us and asked us to "deal with a really big black snake right outside of their apartment". The snake was no more than 12 inches or so. It was the smallest garden snake. They are the biggest wimps with snakes I've ever seen. They live on the 2nd story of their apartment complex and the snake was on their top step. After Elder Lynch and I dealt with it, we finally were able to head back to the apartment.

6-21-15 Sunday

Sweet glorious Sunday! We had church, and church is relaxing, and this week wasn't relaxing, and I needed something relaxing. Bro and Sis Flam showed up at church. They're a really nice couple. Not a whole lot happened missionary wise today as once again, everything fell though. At night we ate at Pres. Sodders house again. The Hermana's and the Flams were there. After dinner Pres. Sodders took us on a tour around his 30 acre plot of land. That was actually the 2nd time I've had that tour. It was the Hermana's first time. 

That was this week. This week was weird. Rain makes everything weird.

Missionary work is becoming fairly routine now. But every day is still different. That's probably my favorite thing about the mission field. Every day is different. Even though I might teach the same lesson over and over again. Even though I may read a scripture over and over again, I can still pull something new out of it. Something I've come to realize is things like Scriptures or the whole Gospel itself has something I call "Eternal Value". I don't know why this never clicked with me before. Even though the scriptures are ancient they hold just as much value today as they did yesterday. Arguably more value today than yesterday. They were written by Prophets who were called by God to be basically God's mouth piece. Essentially, God wrote the scriptures. Since God is an eternal being, time doesn't hold the same value for Him as it does for us. And since God doesn't change, His teachings won't change. Something he revealed to a Prophet thousands of years ago holds the same value today as it did then. The scriptures are written in such a way that no matter how many times you read them, as long as you're reading them to continually find new things and learn new things, you'll always get something new out of them. I find that most material written by Prophets and Apostles, anciently and modern day, have this same trait. You could read a talk by Gordon B. Hinkley a million times and still get something new out of it. You could read King Benjamin's sermon a million times and still get something new out of it. The point is to always be searching for something new. Something you didn't apply before. Emphasis on apply. I feel like that's the biggest difference between an average member and someone who's truly converted. It's one thing to live the Gospel standards. It's a completely different thing to apply the Gospel itself. 

Thank you for sending me the viper knot picture. Unfortunately I can't go on Pinterest. I think if you just send me screen shots of an instructional video I'll be able to figure it out. Thank you for sending me all the temple pictures. They all look very pretty.

Thanks a million!

Elder Bennn

How am I already 10% through? #TimeFlies #NowhereNearTwoYears #Missionary

P.S. The church wants us to become familiar with their "Hash Tag campaigns" for the iPads. I never through I would use hash tags but I guess the church wants me to. 

Just some of Pres. Sodders guns...

He realized something...

Fiesta... we're with some members of the Spanish Branch.

"Funeral" photos

Here are some of the district meeting/funeral photos.
Names from left to right: Elder Rasmussen, Elder Koenig, me, Elder
Spencer, Elder Money, Elder Sharp, Hermana Bennett, Hermana Bateman,
and the two laying down are Elder Lynch and Elder Spaulding.

"No comment"

The Hermana's gave us food so we set up tables to eat it at our District Meeting.

Learning to be bold... more dogs

June 15, 2015

Hello Family! (don't get a dog) It's so good to hear from all of you! (don't get a dog) I'm happy that Ammon e-mailed me! (don't get a dog) Camp Helaman sounded like the perfect place for him. (don't get a dog) I think it's funny they won by pulling an "Anti-Nephi-Lehi". (don't get a dog)

For some reason I have dogs on my mind. I told Ammon about a fun dog experience (they're demons). There was another dog at a less-active's home that tried to get me to pet it. You know how Tessa will rub her head against your arm and make animal noises? Well, this dog was doing the exact same thing to me. It wanted me to pet it. I refused and it started growling at me. It tried threatening me by opening its mouth and pretending like it was going to bite me if I didn't pet it. I never petted it. 

Another funny experience - we had an appointment with a less-active family that fell through so we decided to tract around. As we walked up to a house, we got about half way across the lawn when this monstrous St. Bernard came out from under their porch, unleashed and ready to eat us. When that dog came out, I said "Absolutely not!" turned around and left the lawn we were on. I swear that dog came from the pits or outer darkness itself. It was as big as Beethoven (the dog) and the dog from Sandlot combined! 

Last Tuesday some pretty funny stuff happened to me. Elder Lynch and I had by far, the most awkward lesson we ever had. Here's what happened. We had an appointment with a lady and when we got to her trailer, we found her sitting down in a little blow-up pool about 50 ft away from the sidewalk. She was facing away from us and from our perspective we couldn't see her top. The pool sides were covering the bottom half of her back but we couldn't see any straps on the top half. We called out and asked if now was still a good time to meet. She turned around and said "Sure! Just pull up a chair." We kinda looked at each other and discussed if we should go because we couldn't tell if she was wearing a top or not. She noticed that and said "It's fine. I'm wearing a top." We still didn't see a top. We got some chairs and set them up about 10 ft away from the pool. She was leaning against the side and she still didn't look like she had a top on. It wasn't until half way through the lesson I saw her very low top. Just imagine giving a home teaching lesson without knowing if the person you were teaching was topless. 

I'm going to talk about the food this week. We went to the Buttiglieri's again (he's the master chef who made those amazing pastrami burgers) and they fed us more burgers. But these ones were fried egg bacon burgers. The fried eggs were cooked in the bacon grease. I don't know if you've ever tried a fried egg on a burger but it's actually really good. It kinda tastes like a breakfast biscuit. They also gave me two 2 liter coke bottles to take back to the apartment. I don't know what it is but it's a lot easier to get soda down here. 

I have a knot request. If you could, I would like you to find instructions for the "Viper Knot". It's too extreme to use daily in the field but I'd like to learn it for missionary Christmas parties and things like that where crazy tie knots are acceptable. There's another knot that I can't remember the name of but it looks like two double Windsors on the same tie. If you look up "Viper Knot" on YouTube you should find instructions for all kinds of complicated tie knots. I'd also like to learn a "Double Eldredge". It's also too extreme but I want it for the same reason. To use for missionary meetings where crazy ties are allowed. During one such meeting we had, there was an Elder who had a fish tie. The knot was the tail, the middle part was the body and the normally diamond shaped end was the head. 

Now for the spiritual stuff... I don't know if I've told you but we seem to tract into a less-active at least once a week. Pres. Sodders recently told us he feels that less-actives need to be a bigger priority and the fact that we keep tracting into them is sign enough for Elder Lynch and me. We walked by a lady and she gave us an abnormally friendly "Hello." We stopped and talked to her and she said that she was already a member. I couldn't believe it because we found her in a trailer park where we had already found like 5 other less-actives. It's kinda crazy how many less-actives we tract into. 

As you're well aware I've been having issues with street contacting. This week we had a zone meeting and the theme of zone meeting was being bold. What better way to start off a lesson about being bold than by role playing the law of chastity with other missionaries. The role play was about asking the bold/awkward questions without sugar-coating it. i.e. asking someone directly if they watch porn with a firm, clear and direct voice. As awkward as those role plays were, they helped me become more bold. The second half of the zone meeting was about role playing street contacts. I kinda sucked at it but it also built my confidence in being bold. The following morning I happened to study boldness in Preach My Gospel without realizing it. One of the scriptures I read was D&C 63:57-58 which reads "And again, verily I say unto you, those who desire in their hearts, in meekness, to warn sinners to repentance, let them be ordained unto this power. For this is a day of warning, and not many words. For I, the Lord, am not to be mocked in the last days." 

As I pick apart this scripture, a few things pop out to me. I really like the part that says "for this is a day of warning, and not many words." I think too many missionaries (kinda including myself) are worried about offending people. They worry about saying something that'll turn someone off from the gospel. According to that scripture we're supposed to be bold and unapologetic. If anyone is offended by us preaching the truth then it's their loss and there isn't really anything you can do to help them. We're not supposed to sugar-coat anything. We're supposed to tell it as it is and if that offends someone, then just move on. 

I know that God does try to help you as much as He can. You just have to be diligent in searching Him out. I've been trying to solve the whole "what to say" issue for a while. Now that I've read that scripture and have a better understanding of how He wants me to teach, I can gain more confidence in that I'm doing what He wants me to do.

It really is a lot like chess. You say something, the other person says something but just like in chess what you say/do may offend someone. The difference, however, is someone who is willing to play the whole game will gain a better understanding of the gospel, whereas, someone who doesn't play and flips the board off the table after you've taken one pawn away will never know of the gospel. 

Thank you all for the amazing support you've offered me. It really helps. 

Elder Ben

PS - Dad asked me about dogs. I still hate dogs. Don't let Dad get a dog. Don't let Tessa get a dog. Don't get a dog. Don't do it. I won't come back from the field if you get a dog. I'll apply to become the 4th Nephite and never come back if you get a dog. Please don't get a dog.

Elder Lynch's B-day!

Can you guess what that is...?
RED VELVET CAKE with Cream Cheese Frosting!!

Just me with a lovely Prince Albert tie knot, studying and drinking soda :)

Elder Lynch showed me these pens. They hardly ever smear. Sharpie pens are the best!

Tree for sale...

Prince Albert tie knot - ok for Elders

Viper tie knot - crazy!

A gift from the Buttiglieri's - Coke and those really good pretzel peanut butter things. Speaking of peanut butter.
Next time you're at Walmart, pick up a jar of "White Chocolate Wonderful" Peanut Butter. The company that makes it is "Peanut Butter & Co." It's sold in smaller jars but it's absolutely amazing! Any sort of peanut butter bars or peanut butter Hershey Kiss cookies need to be made with this peanut butter. 

Best Dinner Appt EVER... and Dogs...

June 8, 2015

Dear Family,

Yeah, "The District" is pretty much what life is like for me now. We'll be doing away with the planners and area books soon now that we have i-Pads. The Area Book Planner app should be coming out today. If it does, then all that fun stuff will be on the iPads. 

I don't even know where to start with this week, but whatever, here I go!

There was this guy we met at like 8pm who was just drunk out of his mind. He was asking us questions like "Why is dog spelled 'dog'? Who named it 'dog'? Why would they name those things 'dogs'?" He later asked us questions about obedience like "If your prophet came out and said that every member had to stand with their legs apart and kick each other in the privates for 30 minutes, would you do it?" He was a really weird guy. 

We had a lesson with a 19 year old who just graduated and is looking to major in political science and minor in social studies. We gave him lesson 1 and I don't know what happened or what was different but when we showed him a 4 minute clip of Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove, the Spirit just exploded. I had to tell the Spirit to "calm down" in my head. It was absolutely intense.

Yesterday was Elder Lynch's 21st birthday. It was an extremely good day for both of us. Except the fact that it was Fast Sunday and I suffered my way through most of it, but some really good things happened. At church, some investigators came that we weren't planning on coming and later that night we had the best dinner appointment EVER! We ate at the Bowen family's home. They're a part-member family who really like us. They made us Chicken Parm, Salads, Spaghetti, Chocolate Cake, and RED VELVET CAKE WITH CREAM CHEESE FROSTING! Here's our story with them. We first met them when we found out they were doing a 5k fundraiser for their son. We asked them in what ways could we help with that, so they said we could help direct people on the trail. The day of the 5k came, we helped out and after we helped, they gave us cookies. Not just any cookies, but those peanut butter Hershey Kiss cookies I love! A couple weeks after that their son graduated from High School and we went to their graduation party. We ate and talked and somehow the subject of Elder Lynch's birthday came up. Sis. Bowen asked what he wanted for a birthday dinner and he said chicken parm. She also asked about what cake he wanted but he was hesitant on that request. I jumped in and said "I like red velvet". I didn't think she would actually make it. Elder Lynch said he liked chocolate. Yesterday at the dinner appointment, we find out that she made BOTH. After fasting for as long as I did (about 22 hours), I was almost in tears at how good everything she made was. The food was extremely well made and the cake almost compared to Mom's. She even gave us half the cakes to take back to the apartment. There's only one other person in the branch who makes food that good and he was the one who made us those amazing pastrami burgers. 

I... still hate dogs.... Every time I knock on someone's house, their stupid dogs won't shut up!.... There was this little, drop-kickable​ dog at some member's house that bit me twice. It didn't hurt at all.... There's another dog at another member's house that's big AND energetic. That thing jumps all over me every time I go to that members home. Just yesterday there was a dog at an investigator's house that hit me in the privates. That didn't feel good. There seems to be two kinds of dogs here. Little ones, and BEAR-sized ones. Seriously, some of the dogs here are absolutely massive. Imagine Mr. Guinn on all fours. That's how big the dogs here get. Elder Lynch's favorite thing that I've said is related to dogs. Here's the story. We were tracting in the smallest town known to man and as we walked by someone's yard, their 200 dogs started barking at us.. I said "I hate dogs". Elder Lynch said "Oh come on, they're man's best friend. :)" to which I replied "I'd rather eat them." 

I'm sorry to hear about the Anderson's and Grandma Eva. I'll definitely keep them in my prayers. Nana and Papa K. sent me some Sprouts gummy bears and mint M&M's. That was a great surprise! 

Street contacting is pretty interesting and going better now. The hardest thing for me now is starting the contact. I can talk to them easily after the conversation has been started. That's where we honestly get most of the people we teach. Out of every 100 people we talk to only about 1 or 2 will be interested in the church. 

I'd say the number one reason people don't investigate the church is they just don't care about religion anymore. There are those who aren't religious, who don't care to try religion, and there are those who are so complacent in their religion that they don't care to hear us out. Here are the top 3 reasons I've found that people won't investigate the church

1. Complacency. They're so stuck in their ways that they won't bother changing.

2. Lies about the church i.e. plural marriage, racism.

3. "The Book of Mormon adds to the Bible which Revelations clearly states is a sin". This one is so common it's not even funny. 

I've gotten pretty dang good at explaining those last two points. The one that's the absolute kicker is complacency. It's hard to get people to see the value of what we're offering them. It's something they have to experience but if they're not willing to experience it they'll never know.

That's what most of the people I talk to are like. But there are those few that are just absolutely amazing and extremely prepared. Yesterday during Church, a couple of our investigators came in. We weren't planning on them showing up because they had been sick for a while. It was fast and testimony meeting and one of them even got up and bore her testimony about the church saying things like "I'm not a member yet, but I'm looking forward to becoming one. "I know the church is true." Later, we met with them at their home and they said they felt more comfortable there than at any other church they've been at. They felt at home. The husband said when he walked in,  he felt something on his back. He felt like someone put their hand on his back and said "Welcome home". 

Thank you for all the things you both do for me. It really helps. I actually used those Isiah verses you sent me on an investigator later that day. 

"Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness" (Isa 41:10) and "Fear not; for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned;... For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour... Since thou was precious in my sight,... I have loved thee... Fear not: for I am with thee" (Isa 43:1-5)

I can't thank you enough for all the advice. It really helps. Thanks for keeping me up on all the major events.Thanks for the tie knots! I still need you to re-send the tie knot charts you sent me last week. The picture didn't come through all that great. 

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox 

I was about to send pics when the computer kicked me off. I'm a little squished for time right now. I should have more next week. There's an app that I can download to get pictures from my camera to my iPad. I don't know what the app is and I can't just be downloading apps off the App Store, so if you could find out for me, that would be great.

i-Pad!

June 1, 2015

Dear Family,

Now that I have my iPad emailing will be easier. 

Speaking of which... IPAD! I HAVE AN IPAD!. The church restricted the crap out of it but none the less... IPAD! It's an iPad mini 2, the same model Ammon has. It has 32gbs and about a million church restrictions but it still works really well. If you go on the app store and download the app "LDS Pamphlets" you'll see the app that we are teaching from now. It was a bit of an odd adjustment going from pamphlet teaching to iPad teaching but it feels more like a powerpoint presentation now. I also downloaded "Gospel Library" and have downloaded so much stuff it's like 6 gigs big now. I'm in the process of downloading all the Mormon Message videos. 

I had a couple interesting contact's this week. Contacting people on the street/in their yard is probably my weakest area right now. I'm fine with everything else, teaching, studying, etc. but contacting still kinda scares me. I'm getting better but It's a slow improvement. I've been praying for experiences that will strengthen my confidence and this week I got 3. 

1: Mr N 

2: Mr L 

3: Mr T

In all of these instances I didn't really feel like talking to anyone. They were all at bad times when I just didn't want to talk to people.

We met Mr N towards the end of a day where most everything fell through... again... We were walking down the street and I saw him on the edge of his yard before Elder Lynch did but I didn't feel like talking, probably because this guy was a cop in uniform with guns n' tasers n' stuff, so I didn't say anything. I pointed him out to Elder Lynch and he started talking with him. We found out that he and his son LOVE the Bible. They love anything relating to the word of God and they especially love the idea of more scripture (the Book of Mormon). He also loved my Eldredge Knot. I wasn't expecting the contact to go as well as it did since yard contacts like that never seem to work.

Mr L was another yard contact. We had to go quite a ways into his yard before he noticed us. He's a preacher at a local church but he loved everything we told him about the church, what we know to be true, and how the church is organized. We ended the contact with asking him to pray about it and he said he would make it a priority. 

Mr T's story is this: Elder Lynch and I had just left the apartment to go to an appointment. I saw Mr T but he was a ways down the road and we needed to leave soon to get to the appointment on time. Elder Lynch happened to be dropping a bunch of stuff that day so by the time we were ready to leave Mr T was by our apartment. Now, I wasn't going to contact him because we needed to leave at that moment to get to the appointment on time. And I'm the kind of person that doesn't like to change plans. Elder Lynch saw him and contacted him and we found out that he recently got out of a 3-month coma that a brown recluse spider bite caused. Because of that, he had been searching for God and a good church lately. 

In all 3 of these I didn't want to talk to them. Whether because I was tired, or had something else to get to, I just didn't want to talk. Elder Lynch was the one to initiate the conversations. I never showed anything negative to these 3 people when we talked to them. Even though I would have rather been somewhere else, I didn't show that to them. And I talked to them just as much as Elder Lynch did after he initiated the conversation. After these 3 experiences a thought came to mind. A rather clear thought. It said "The people you don't want to talk to are the people I have prepared the most." I thought about that and realized that Satan would make it harder for me to talk to the people who are prepared than the people who aren't. One day Elder Lynch will be gone and I'll be training someone. I'll have to be bold and contact people with the same boldness that Elder Lynch has and as long as I try to make progress everyday, then I'll obtain that same boldness. 

Thank you for your letters. Thank you for the advice. I completely agree with everything you said and am really grateful for your willingness in helping me. I'd say my greatest weakness now is street contacting. I think there are 2 main reasons why contacting scares me. 1: the rules/suggestions/whatever-they-were 2: I've never had this much experience talking about the gospel in my whole life. I'm getting better but it's a slow climb. 

Now that I have my iPad I can read your emails whenever I want. I just can't respond until P-Day. Any tie knots you want to send, I can view on the iPad now. Here's my request for the week. On my iPhone (Ammon's iPhone) I had a blue, purple, yellow, and orange Matterhorn Mountain background. I want you to find that background and find the full version and send it to me. Search on google images and please send the one with the highest resolution. I would also like some good Temple backgrounds. I would search for the backgrounds myself but they don't want us going on google images. I tried going on the Church's Temple site but the pictures they have aren't HD.  

pics are on their way.

Thank you,

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox

Here's a drawing of our district Hermana Bennet made.

When you shrink the text, make the pages bigger and take out the cross references, the Bible isn't that big.

One of Elder Lynch's old companions called from Utah and ordered Papa John's pizza for us.

Before the pain... this was taken before I ate 4 warheads at once.
I recorded it and need to figure out a way to get it to you.

A lot of roads here look like this.... pretty.

What happened? This was in the middle of nowhere, down a single lane dirt road.

Eldridge Knot

My missionary ties

I-Pads - It's real!