Serving in Kentucky: This Week was a Blessing

March 7, 2016

Dear Family,

This week was far better than the last. One of the best things I learned early on in my mission was when things get hard, blessings are on the way. I have never forgotten that. And every time something has gotten hard, there's been a blessing for it. This week was a blessing for the last week.

Monday
Leap day P-Day! We went up to Grandview, IN to meet with the Tell City Elders for disc golf. They have a small course in Grandview. We had a lot of fun. Towards the end, these 2 eight year old kids showed up and asked if they could play with us. We said sure. So we threw discs around with them for a bit. We played a game where we raced to get the disc in the basket. We, of course, let the kids win but they were no less happy in their victory. One of them said "Wow, 2 kids bested 5 grown-ups!" That was the first time I was ever called a "grown-up" by a kid. Later we met with Ms Cl and Miss L and read with them. They're mother and daughter investigators. They both are happy to be getting baptized. We had to push their date back though, because of coffee, but it didn't seem like too big of an issue. Later we met with Randy, a recent convert, and had a lot of laughs as he read a letter he wrote to a JW explaining why he doesn't want to join their church. He's such a cool member.

Tuesday
We started off eating at Burger King. A member here is a manager there so she invited us out to lunch and paid for us. That was nice of her. Later we met with a Micronesian member who had a nice grass mat in her house. It has been a while since I've seen one of those. At the end of the day I went out with Bro. Emmert on splits. Unfortunately we didn't get in with anyone but I did get a good story out of it. We went by some recent converts, who have some highly-untrained, huge pit bulls, to see how they're doing. We knocked on their door, they opened it and 3 of these huge dogs came out and tackled me. By now I'm pretty used to big dogs jumping on me, but these ones jumped and basically punched me in the face with their mouths. They cut my upper lip and a spot on my chin with their teeth. They continued to jump on me until I was pushed to the edge of their porch which had to have been 2.5 feet of the ground. Somehow, I didn't fall off it. I stepped off. To be honest, it had to have been angels of the Spirit that guided my steps because my adrenaline was going so hard at this point, I wasn't thinking straight. Everything happened so fast. Well, I stepped off and these stupid dogs wouldn't let up. They didn't cut my anywhere else other than the initial tackle, but they were still trying to get on me. Eventually the owners came out and took the dogs in. Bro. Emmert and I left after that. (My everlasting hatred towards dogs has increased. My face was pretty sore for a few days after this.)

Wednesday
We met with Miss Al again. Miss Bey, the daughter of a member who also goes to high school with Miss Al was there to help with the lesson as well. We had a lesson solely on the Godhead to teach her about them. It was a great lesson. She had a lot of great questions. We found out she plays drums. She said we should play sometime. Unfortunately she doesn't have her set anymore. :( Later we ate dinner at the Gomez's. They fed us roast beef and rice. It was fantastic. They're good cooks.

Thursday
We had interviews with Pres. Brough. They went really well. Pres. Brough issued me a new temple recommend because somehow my old one got water in it and it destroyed the barcode. During interviews, Elder Gough gave a good training on how to do "Come to Jesus" lessons with your investigators. Those are basically an investigators last chance before you drop them. You only teach those lessons if they're not keeping any commitments. Later we tried teaching J, the 12 year old the Plan of Salvation. But due to the thousand other kids in the house, it wasn't the best lesson. J is still a cool kid. He just doesn't have the best living circumstances. It was hard to teach him with that many distractions there. But he still got the point. Later we met with Sis. Re. A LA I didn't meet until today. She's a nice lady. Her life's hectic right now so she asked us for a blessing. I got to give the blessing. I still love giving blessings. I just feel like I'm doing a large amount of good with them.

Friday
All the early day stuff fell through but that's okay. We got to meet with Miss Al again later. We taught her L2 and it went really well. Miss Bey was there again. Miss Al had a lot of questions. She's asking smart questions. It's cool to see, because we get a lot of people who don't ask questions because they either don't care, or think they already know stuff. Miss Al's questions are the kind of questions people ask when they want to truly know for themselves. She also told us more about her PT. She regularly goes to Marine Physical Training to see if that's something she wants to do after high school. She told us how she had to "carry a 160 lb. guy and only dropped him once." You wouldn't think she could endure PT from looking at her, because she's pretty skinny. But she goes regularly because she enjoys it. And apparently she endures it well. She reminded me of the girls I had to spar with in martial arts. To be honest, the girls would hit way harder than the guys. I would take fighting a guy any day over fighting a girl.

Saturday
The Zone Leaders came by to give Elder Gough a training for him to do at zone meeting later on. They trained him on how to use the new Easter video in member missionary work. As missionaries, we have access to the Easter video before the rest of the world. It's pretty cool. :) Then, we and the zone nerds went to "Moonlight" for lunch. "Moonlight" is a famous Kentucky restaurant that's only found in Owensboro. It specializes in BBQ food. MAN, WAS IT GOOD!! I was in heaven! I haven't had food that good from a restaurant in a long time. Later we met with the member who's the manager at Burger King. We only had time to share a brief scripture with her. We shared Alma 27:18: "Now was not this exceeding joy? Behold, this is joy which none receiveth save it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness," which is actually a dang good scripture you don't hear quoted very often. We finished the day with Bro. Tindall. He lives in the boonies. He is a nice guy who had a very large, friendly dog, unlike the dogs from Tuesday. Bro. Tindall told us about his yearly Easter egg hunt he runs for the kids in the neighborhood. He said he's going to have to hide over a thousand eggs this year.

Sunday
Went to church. It was fun. I had a neat revelation about the sacrament. The sacrament is meant for remembering the Savior and His sacrifice more than trying to learn something new. You can learn something new, but its primary purpose is to help you remember and
renew your covenants. I thought that was cool. Not much else happened for the rest of Sunday.

We haven't gone back to see our Muslim friends. We probably won't. It was more of an interesting encounter than an opportunity for serious teaching. They were all super friendly, like every Muslim I've met out here.

I know baptisms aren't what describes a successful missionary. PMG has a nice successful missionary section on page 10. Although I'm saddened by all the "almosts" I've had, baptisms are not what's keeping me out here. They've never been what's keeping me out here. I am out here serving because I know that God was with me throughout my life. He has helped me through every trial I've had. I've always known that. Even from an early age. Because of that, I've always wanted to repay Him. I know I'll never be able to fully repay Him, but I feel serving a mission is a good place to start. Even though I'm saddened, I don't consider myself a failure as a missionary. I actually consider myself as extremely successful.

Well that was this week. You're all awesome!

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)