Zoo!

April 25, 2016

Dear Family,

This was a rather unique week. Every day was pretty different from the others. Here's the breakdown:

Monday
Jason took us bowling again. I did a lot better than last time. My highest score this time was 139. Later on we had a really effective night. We met a lot of people and got a few potentials. We met one man who is the father of 4 kids. He's a nice guy. We met him in his yard while he was cleaning it. We started talking about the church and had a great conversation. He said he wants his kids to grow up with faith in God. We told him about the primary program and he liked it. We also asked if we could drop by to teach him and he said that would be great. He mentioned how he's unsure which church is right. You know, we actually met more people than normal this week with that concern.


Tuesday
In the morning Elder Salazar ran a few miles and I biked next to him. I don't like running but I did want to ride my bike. After that, we had to take the bike elders on a morning Walmart trip to get a new inner tube for one of their bikes. We picked them up, went to Walmart, Got the tube, dropped them off, and went back home. About 10 minutes later, they called and said the tube was defective so we had to pick them up and do it all over again.

Later in the day, we met with a man named Mr Ru. He speaks Spanish so Elder Salazar is the only one who can teach him. He taught him the first lesson and extended a baptismal date for May 28. He accepted. From what Elder Salazar said, he accepted it really well. During the lesson he was engaged and actually interested so that was nice. He told us about a dream he had where he was walking and he came to this large, black canyon. He couldn't cross it himself. But 2 angels came and helped him across. I'm pretty sure those two angels were us. :)

Tuesday night for splits, I went with the Smiths to see the Hamiltons. Sis Hamilton has had a lot of recent medical issues. When we got to their house we found them fishing in a pond. If Elder Salazar was there, he'd be all over the fishing. I talked to Sis Hamilton while Bro Smith talked to Bro Hamilton. Both of them are great people. They're really nice. Sis Hamilton is your typical Kentuckian who has an infinite amount of things to say somehow. She can talk. During our conversation she guessed that I like jazz drumming.

Wednesday
The Craigs took us out to breakfast Wednesday morning. They took us to this place called Dee's Diner. They had fantastic breakfast food. I ordered pancakes with my food and they brought out the biggest pancakes I've ever seen. They were literally a foot and a half wide. The plate they were on wasn't even big enough. They were thick pancakes too. After breakfast we started working with biking and talking to a lot of people on the street. The last two people we talked with said we could come back. One of them used to talk with the missionaries. Later we picked up the Belders (Bike Elders. That's what I'm calling them now) to help out with some service for a single lady. We just helped her clean out her house. We had to stop half way through to go to some appointments. but they all fell through so we went back and finished with the cleaning.

Later, we taught the Vans. They're doing okay. They know they need to change and get back into church, but they're not putting the action necessary in to accomplish that. Later, the youth went out bowling. A couple of our investigators went so that allowed us to go too. I didn't do so good this time around. I guess I've been bowling too much lately.

Thursday
Elder Salazar and I went to the Pitino Shelter (homeless shelter we do food service at) while Jason, the bowler, took the Belders to Dee's Diner again. Yeah... After that, I went on exchange in the bike area with Elder Gardenier. I got to ride my bike the whole day. It was fun. My bike worked flawlessly. We tried to teach a man the first lesson, but he would talk about judging and racial profiling. He was a talker. Nice guy through. After that, we took a break and had a good discussion about how hard it was to baptize.

Later, we taught Mr C. I taught him back in the trio so it was nice to see him again. He's working on getting back in the habit of reading and coming to church. He's still unsure about the church but he believes it's good. I'm sure he'll be baptized eventually. Afterwards, we went to support Miss Smith in her high school choir concert. That counts as service for members. :) The concert was really cool. There were a few songs that were awesome. They did a great job.

While we were there, a LA came up to us and started talking to us. She introduced herself and told us when she got baptized. We asked if she wanted us to visit and she said yes. So it was inspired that we went to a high school concert. :) Elder G and I both realized that was the first time either of us have been back in a high school since we graduated.

Friday
We exchanged back and had district meeting. The Jasper Elders (Jelders) gave a great training on using members. They gave me a different perspective on using members. 
They came up with an acronym for REBAR. Going backwards, 
Results happen from Actions. 
Actions come from Beliefs. 
Beliefs come from Experiences. 
Experiences come from 
Relationships with other members. 
That's a fancy way of pointing out how important members are in missionary work. 

After the meeting we went to Shogun but for some reason the food wasn't sitting well this time. I wasn't feeling good for the rest of the day. During the day, we had weekly planning in the library. We finished the night with the Gomez's. They fed us soft shell tacos with shredded beef. Man, that beef was good. 

Saturday
Nothing happened for the first half of Saturday. We biked half the town, trying people and talking with people on the streets, but nothing really happened. Later, we taught the Vans the Word of Wisdom. It went well. They know they need to quit their stuff. They said they would work on it. 

We went to the Emmerts Saturday night like usual. Bro Emmert grilled burgers and hot dogs this time.

Sunday
We had 3 investigators at church this week so that was good. Lately we've been focusing on helping people get to church instead of hoping they'll get there and it paid off a bit. We had a 1.5 hour ward council after church. Then Elder Salazar got his back fixed by Bro Capener. And then Sis Capener wanted to feed us so she made us PB&J's. After that, we did our studies. By the time we finished all of our after church stuff, we only had an hour to work. We met a couple of people who were interested.

We had dinner at the Fedors. Bro Fedor was telling me about his mission and how there were a few missionaries that had over 100 baptisms. He also told me about some of the major success he had and how when he went tracting there were many people throughout his mission that literally said "I've been waiting for you. Come in. Teach me." During all of that I was thinking "how the crap was all of that possible?" After dinner, he took us on a tour of his books. He's read just about every church-related book possible. He loves Brigham Young's journal discourses.

I'm looking forward to the Skype call. It'll be much needed. Thanks for everything you do. You help me so much.

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Giraffe time!

Gorgeous green snake

2 humps!

Teaching Lesson 1.

Elders and Belders at Evansville Zoo.

Up!.. Then down...

April 18, 2016

Dear Family,

The first half of this week as great! The second half flopped.

Monday
Normal P-Day. We frolfed in the rain; heavy, freezing rain. By the end, our hands stiffened up to the point where we had no accuracy. It was fun. :) Somehow none of us got sick. Later on we met with a man named Mr Brn. We met him a few days prior. We talked to him and he said we could came back. Well, we returned on Monday night and introduced the BoM to him. He was very receptive to it. We asked when we could come back and he said tomorrow.

Tuesday
We started teaching Mr Brn again. This time we taught him a full L1 and extended a baptismal date for May 21st. He accepted the date a little more eagerly than most people. So, there's our first person with a baptismal date in a while. Mr Brn is married with 3 little kids. He's a nice guy. He seems interested. He gives intelligent answers to our questions. The kind of answers people give when they're actually interested.

Later, we met with K. K was a media referral. He's a nice guy with a passion for comic books and video games. So, basically a lot of what I'm interested in too. He's only the 3rd person on my mission I've been able to have video game conversations with. We read from the BoM with him and set another appointment for later in the week.

Later, we helped Ms Val move some sticks. Then we read 2 chapters from 3 Nephi with her. Later, we met with Mr Ed, one of our few Spanish investigators. Elder Salazar taught him L2 and he seemed to like it. He took it well. Mr Ed has his own beliefs that he's very strict so it's interesting whenever we introduce something new to him. Later that night, we went on splits. Elder Salazar and I went out with Bro Shelby. We tried a bunch of people but didn't get in anywhere.

Wednesday
We started on the bikes. My bike is awesome! :) We biked to and taught a man named Mr Ces. We first met him a few weeks ago but we haven't been able to get in regularly until recently. We read a little out of the BoM with him and set an appointment for tomorrow. Right after Mr Ces, we contacted a lady around the corner and wound up having a full L1 with her. Her name was Ms Bri. She's a young mom with 1 child.

Later, we taught the V's. They're a LA couple the missionaries have been working with for a while. Their problem is they'll say that they'll do stuff but never do it. We've been trying to help them but they aren't putting their effort into anything. It's a little frustrating. Oh well. After that, we had another surprise lesson with a guy we contacted a few days ago. His name was Mr He. He speaks Spanish so I'm unable to teach him. We weren't planning on getting in with him. We were just trying to see if he was home. He answered and let us right in. We taught him the first lesson.

English class was cancelled so we went to this neighborhood I've never been to before and talked to the people around. It was a great neighborhood. It was nice, new, clean, and everyone was friendly. Not a single person was mean to us. It was great. We got a few potentials out of it.

Thursday
We went to the Pitino shelter to help out. The zone leaders exchanged Elder Gough so Elder Hansen was there with us today. After service, we taught Mr Ces a full L1 and committed him to May 21st. He wasn't sure at first, but he accepted. The lesson went really well. He understood it and took sincere interest. Later on we met with K and taught him L2. He took off with it. He loved it. He understood it and committed himself to come to church this week.

Later, we picked up the bike elders for the Swopes. Elder Hansen was one of the missionaries who originally taught and baptized Bro Swope. They had their best meal yet: Fettuccini Alfredo, salad, and bread sticks! It was great!

Friday
We had district meeting. Elder Gough trained on setting baptismal dates with people. Afterwards, we ate at Shogun. If you remember, I ate at a Shogun in Glasgow and raved over it. We have one here and we ate at it. It was heavenly. Later we visited Ms Val. She gave Elder Salazar some of her fishing gear she doesn't use. Now Elder Salazar wants to go fishing. Great. I hate fishing. Later, we ate at the Gomez's. They're super nice as always.

Not a whole lot of teaching happened on Friday. This is where the week started to flop.

Saturday
We were supposed to meet with Mr Ces, but he cancelled. Later on, we biked back to him but he was still unavailable. Down the street from him, there was a man trying to get his truck to work. We tried to help him out, but we were unsuccessful. He had been working all day on his truck and said he was very thirsty. I gave him the cool, unopened water bottle I had just pulled out of the fridge. He was very grateful.

Later, we went to Bro Scudder's baptism. He just turned 8 this week. His father, who converted back in November, baptized him. After that, we took the bike elders down to Bro Emmert's for our weekly missionary coordination and meal. We roasted weenies over an open fire this week. I helped Bro Emmert's son climb up a tall, thin pole to nail something in the top. He was not happy to be up there. 

Sunday
We had some great talks in church. Bro Tidwell gave some good analogies for the priesthood and keys with medical licenses and hospital privileges. We ate at the Fuqua's afterwards. They fed us pork chops. They had a couple non-member friends there. Later on,
Bro Shelby had us over and fed us. He's a super nice guy. After, we visited the Q family. I talked to Bro Q while Elder Salazar tried to teach everyone else L3. Their kids are crazy.

That was this week. We have a couple of baptismal dates now which is better than last week. Thanks for all the support you give me!

Loves!

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Baby turtle!

So little...

Turtle belly!

This is on the side of almost every trash can here... literally, almost every one.
You know you're in a 100% Christian neighborhood when everyone's trash can has this on it.
2 Corinthians 5:17
 "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

See that little sticky note? That's not where I left it... oooo!
I left it beneath my PMG before I went to sleep. When I woke up, it was on my scriptures... oooo!
It's a reminder note to do a study project I thought of this week. I do a lot of study projects.
I think I'll benefit highly from this one as the note moved itself in the middle of the night... oooo!

That's Bro Emmert's son on the pole. He was barefoot and nailing something on the top. It was pretty sketchy

My shoes after a year. I shined them this morning. The bottoms hardly have any wear on them.
I think it's safe to say Ecco's are the best missionary shoe.

Zone Conference

April 11, 2016

Dear Family,

This was quite the interesting week. It was better than the last week. One thing I forgot to mention about last week was I was sick. I was getting over this nasty cough all last week and it finally didn't go away until this week. So for a majority of the week, I was still slightly sick which always makes things more fun right? :D

Monday
Sweet glorious P-Day. These are always needed. Especially after weeks where you were sick and not much happened. We cleaned the car out for the Zone Conference that happened on Thursday. And like usual, we "frolfed." This was Elder Salazar and Elder Gardenier's first time playing. Elder Salazar got lucky and nailed a perfect birdie from 200 ft. away. It was crazy to watch because he didn't try to do that at all. He just kinda threw it in the air and it happened to go 200 ft. and land perfectly in the basket. It didn't even touch the chains!

For dinner we ate at the Inman's. They gave us a tour of their home. Bro Inman used to own Eagle Gate College. After dinner, we visited the Quintana's, one of the few Hispanic families in the ward. They had a Jehovah's Witness friend over. Thankfully, they didn't want to discuss religion because JW's are vicious out here.

Tuesday
We started off joining the Wagners at Cheddars on Tuesday. Yes, we have a Cheddars. It was great. Bro Wagner grew up in Mexico City but is not Hispanic at all. He and Elder Salazar talked a lot in Spanish about Mexico City because that's where they're both from. Later on, we helped Ms Valles clean her garage. I found something cool out about her. Elder Anderson was the one who baptized her, and Elder Anderson was the one who trained Elder Lynch. Cleaning her garage wasn't that hard. It was just dusty. Later, I went on splits with the Smiths and visited a few more LA's.

Wednesday
Well, Wednesday started off with a small miracle. We had a new investigator just fall into our laps. We were walking down a street and this guy stopped next to us in our car. Usually when people do that, they want to yell or bash with us. So when this guy pulled over, I was thinking "great, here we go." But surprisingly, he said he had mad respect for us and our religion and asked us to come by his home to talk. So we went to his home and talked. His name was Mr R. He just barely converted to Christianity back in October from a life of... sin, basically... and praised Jesus for saving him. We taught him the first lesson and he liked it. He said he would read and pray about the BoM. In the few months Mr R's been a Christian, he's learned a lot about everything. During the lesson he was asking us questions about Joseph Smith that most people don't ask us. We answered his questions and set another appointment for later in the week. He said the closing prayer and it was actually done properly.

Later on we met with another new investigator named Ms J. She's a younger mom. She has 3 or 4 kids. We taught her the first lesson on her porch while her young kids were try to break down the door. We finished the day with English class.

Thursday
Zone Conference! We spent most of the day in Evansville because of it. It was a really good conference. President Brough and the Zone Leaders gave really good trainings about reaching our goals. A lot of the key indicators are greatly effected by the agency of others but he pointed out the things we can do on our part to do everything we possibly can for the key indicators. I never really thought much about how much is in our control. It was pretty good to learn something new. At Zone Conference our car was inspected. It has a lot of damage from previous missionaries and within the next week or two, we're going to have to put it in a body shop so we're going to be on bikes for a few days.

Friday
We had a long detailed weekly planning session. That was another thing that was talked about at Thursday's Zone Conference; making sure your weekly planning is done properly. After the planning, we saw a man named Mr Ed. He speaks Spanish, so the only one who can teach him is Elder Salazar. Mr Ed is very particular about his beliefs. He's a Saturday Sabbath kind of guy. It's a big concern with him. We read some of the BoM with him and he enjoyed it. Afterwards, we ate at the Gomez's. They gave us fresh mangos to take home. :)

Saturday
We started off with Barry's baptism. It was great. He had a lot of support from friends, family, and the ward. After the baptism, we took Bro Emmert to see Mr R for a disaster of a lesson. He read very little of the BoM and a lot of stuff from Google and attacked us with questions. Bro Emmert took over and basically threw down on him for not reading the BoM much. He is still open to our message, but he has an issue with over-complicating things and giving attention to things that aren't really that important.

Later on, we went to Bro Emmert's house for dinner and missionary coordination. He showed us his bike collection again. That man loves bikes.

Sunday
We went to church. Yay. Church is always a nice change of pace. We had a good Fast and Testimony meeting. We were supposed to have dinner with the Fedor's, but we found out they were out of town. Right when we found that out, the bishop invited us to his house for dinner. It was nice how that worked out. After dinner, we met with Mr El for the first time in a while. He is a Spanish "former." Here's something I learned from him. If you read the Book of Revelations without the knowledge of the pre-earth life, you will be very confused. That's what happened to Mr El. We tried to teach him that but he's very set in his ways. 

And that was this week. I enjoyed it. We're way down on our teaching pool. We should find someone this week.

Bye!

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Bored "Weekly Planning" face. 

Barry got baptized!

Weekly Chick-Fil-A selfie!

We "frolfed" in the rain today!

12 Months!

April 4, 2016

Dear Family,

I forgot my journal so I'm not going to be able to detail day for day this time.

I'm not going to lie, this was a hard week to get through. A lot of people dropped us. We spent a lot of time finding with little success. But with all the lows, there were extreme highs too.

On Monday I went bike shopping! There's this new bike shop in town called "Big O Bike Shop" that just barely opened up the Wednesday before I went there. That means I was the first LDS missionary to ever buy a bike there. Bro Emmert, who's an avid bike rider, told me about them and said I should check them out. I went and had a great experience. They're still in their temporary location. It's a little store and the staff was great. They were kind and super helpful. They led me to buy a Trek, a really nice bike that only weighs 23 pounds. It was a little more I wanted to pay for a bike but it should be worth it. It should last well beyond my mission. I'm definitely shipping it home when I'm done out here. :)

Later on Monday we went bowling with Mr J. He's an excommunicated member. He's a super nice guy and still believes in the church. He's just ex'd for some reason. Earlier in his life he almost went pro in bowling. As we were playing with him, he was striking almost every throw. It was insane! Later on in the week, he hosted us for the first two General Conference sessions on Saturday. He provided food and drinks :)

General Conference was fantastic as always. Yes, I did get to watch it. I actually realized I'll get 5 General Conferences on my mission. My last week is going to be a General Conference week. I think that's pretty cool! I really enjoyed President Nelson's talk. I thought it was great that he told us more of what happened with those 2 girls and their family. It was a great story. I laughed a little bit with Elder Holland's last talk. He was right when he said, "I didn't want tomorrow." I really didn't. I wanted more conference. I wanted more of that great feeling. But I've come to learn that without contrast, spiritual highs are not really highs at all. I also laughed when President Uchtdorf jokingly declared German to be the celestial language. :) 

I'll work on sending my notes to you. I didn't take as many this time. I should have them to you by next week.

I hit my year mark this week! It didn't really hit me until I realized that meant I've been out for 12 months! 12 MONTHS! Have I really been doing this for that long? My days in the MTC and with Elder Lynch feel like so long ago. But at the same time, I feel like I just left home last week. It's crazy!

I didn't realize how much I've grown until Sister Brough pointed it out to me a few weeks ago in our last interview. She said when I first came out, I looked terrified. I was. Everything was new, and I had no idea what I was doing. But she said now I've completely lost that look of fear. As I've thought about that interview, I've realized a couple things. To an extent, I still am terrified. It's not nearly as bad as when I came out but I still feel fear. I still worry about teaching the right thing, finding those who are ready, using my time effectively, and even contacting still scares me. But what's changed in the last year? What's changed to allow me to lose the look of fear and feel far more confident in the work? It's because I have come to know Jesus Christ. I have come to develop a relationship with Him. I've come to know how He does His work. And I have come to know His teachings.

When I first came out I didn't know much. I knew the doctrines and had some personal experiences but I didn't know a whole lot. And that was the ultimate source of my early fear, not knowing. But now that I've been out for a year, I have come to know. There's so much more that I know now. And from this knowledge I can draw confidence. There is no need for fear now. 

On another note, Cl and L dropped us this week. They've "decided not to be Mormon." We asked them why and they didn't give an answer. We'll probably try back later. They were too solid to just give up like that. We're also going to be unable to teach J, the 12 year old anymore. His mom got in the way. 

Those are some of the highlights of this week. It was good, but long. It had some disappointments and some happy moments. I would say this week is a great example of what missions are like. It had everything in it.

B should be getting baptized this Saturday. If we were still in the trio, he would count as my first baptism. But since he's in the bike elders area, he won't. :(

Thanks for the box again! It's fantastic. I haven't given out Little Miss' BoM yet. I want to give it to someone who I know will read it. I have a couple people in mind. I'll let you know how that goes.

Loves!

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

My brand new bike - weighs only 23 lbs!

#Selfie  #ChickFilA

At the car wash!

:)