Dear Family,
This was the first week of my 4th transfer in Owensboro. It started off with a "bang". The rest of the week was normal (at least as normal as missions can be) but for some reason Elder Salazar and I were happier than usual. It was nice. It made the work a lot more fun. Here's the week...
-> Large Plates <-
-Monday-
Normal P-Day for the most part. We emailed, shopped, ate, and I got a hair cut. We attempted mountain biking with Bro Swope but I didn't get far into it when I cut my leg on the bike pedal spikes. As I was biking, the pedal slipped off my foot and ran up my leg. At first I didn't realize how bad it was because I didn't look at it and it didn't really hurt. I didn't even groan or anything. It just felt like I hit my leg and scraped it a bit. But when I looked down and saw the cut, I realized it was a lot more severe than I thought. Without question, I needed more medical help than a few band-aids.
Elder Gardanier drove me to an Urgent Care, I checked in, walked to the back, sat down on a nice big medical chair, and had the doctor examine me. He looked at my leg for about 10 seconds, looked at his assistant, and told her, "Tell the nurse we're sewing." At that moment I thought "Great... Here come the needles..." And boy did they come! The assistant had this needle that was probably 3 inches long that she would stick all the way up my leg and inject the numbing stuff as she came out slowly. She didn't stick it into my bone, she went parallel with my leg. The assistant did a few stitches for training and experience and the doctor did the rest. 13 stitches later, another nurse came in and wrapped me up and sent me home.
We drove home, got into our proselyting clothes, and went to the Capeners for Elder Gough's last dinner in the mission. They made breakfast for dinner. Sis Capener halfway freaked out about my leg. After dinner I bought some medial stuff so I could take care of my leg until they remove the stitches and began working like a normal missionary.
We met and had a surprise lesson with Ms H. She's a single mother of 3 kids. She's had a rough life. We talked about how the gospel could help her and she became very interested. She even wanted us to teach her kids. We met with her 2 other times in the week.
-Tuesday-
Elder Gough left early Tuesday morning. He's officially a "dead missionary." Elders Salazar, Gardanier, and I were in a trio for a few hours until the new guy came. We talked to a few people on the streets. It was fun being in a trio again. The new missionary is named Elder Murdoch. I've met him before. He was in English, IN while I was in Corydon. He goes home in August. When he arrived, we gladly broke him into Owensboro by taking him to Moonlite. That restaurant is blessed.
After lunch, Elder Salazar and I began working. We tried a few people and talked with a few people. Later we went on splits. I went out with Chase, Bro Emmert's son. We saw Des and then we saw Vic. We ate dinner with Des. With Vic, we weren't able to share a message but Chase did get to know him a bit. Maku wasn't there.
-Wednesday-
We started Wednesday off by helping Des clean her house with the "Belders." That's something we do occasionally for her. After we finished helping her it started to rain hard. We took the "Belders" home and took shelter. After the storm we saw the Goms and read with them. They're doing okay. We're trying to help strengthen their testimony.
Later we met with Ms H again. We attempted to teach L1 but we didn't make it far because she gets distracted easily and talked about other things. They were all gospel-related but they weren't Restoration-related Still had a good conversation though. She's still open and wants us to teach her and her family.
-Thursday-
We had district meeting. Usually we hold them on Friday's but we had the Spanish conference in Louisville so we moved it to Thursday this week. Elder Blake, the new District Leader, gave a great training about planning. He followed up with the training we had at the last Zone Meeting. Elder Blake was Elder Salazar's trainer. This is his last transfer. He's working in Tell City, IN which is weird because he's a Spanish missionary but he got called to an area with no Spanish people in it.
After District Meeting, we ate lunch at Subway and spent most of the day trying people and talking to people. We finished the night by visiting MA. She's the one who grew up in the church but never got baptized for some reason. We haven't been able to contact her lately so this was going to be the last time we tried and fortunately, she answered. That's happened to me a lot on my mission. I'll lose contact with someone, try their house several times, and when I get to the "last time," they answer. We talked with MA for a bit but she wasn't feeling well so we let her go back inside. She wants us to come by and teach her family. *yay*
-Friday-
We had to wake up extra early to drive to Tell City, and from there drive to Louisville for the Spanish Conference. The "Telders" got a brand new 2016 Nissan Altima. We got to Louisville, and had a good time at the conference. Most of the training was in English, but the last one wasn't. There were a few good things I learned. There were only 3 other English-speaking missionaries there because
there's only 3 more tiger-teams in the mission. I was one of 4 other English missionaries that got to hear this training. In the beginning of the meeting I didn't really care much about what was beint taught because it was for the Spanish missionaries, but when I realized how lucky I was to be there, I started paying more attention. They provided lunch after the meeting, Papa John's pizza. After all that, we drove back, got home, and died from exhaustion and lack of sleep.
When we got out and worked we saw Lil, that old lady we saw a couple weeks ago. We had a decent conversation. She gave us water and said she wanted to come see our church. The rest of the day was normal. We tried people and tried more people. We finished by teaching V. We had a decent lesson with him. We read from the BoM with him.
-Saturday-
We taught Ms H again. This time Bro Swope was there. We found out she is good friends with Jo, one of the "Belder's" investigators. We were able to finish L1 with her. Bro Swope was a great help in the lesson. Her whole family is doing well. Her kids are even reading.
Later, we did our weekly planning and a good chunk of it was spent talking about how to help people get baptized. We have a few ideas now.
-Sunday-
Father's Day! The Relief Society made a lot of pie and cake for the fathers in the ward. We got some too :). After church we went to the Fuqua's and died from excessive amounts of food.
Later we drove by Randy's house and decided to try him. He wasn't at church today we we thought we'd see what's up. We found out he's going to be half-moving to Paducah for his son and granddaughter. He's going to spend the weekends down there and go to church there but he'll be here in Owensboro during the week for work. While we we're there, we played more cards with him. He loves playing cards with missionaries.
We finished the day talking with people. Everyone we talked to was nice. It makes it so much easier to talk with people when they're nice. In fact, most of the people we talked to this week were nice. That's probably why we were a little happier than normal.
-> Small Plates <-
In 2 Nephi 8 there's 2 verses where we are invited to "awake" or wake up. They are verses 17 and 24.
17 Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury—thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling wrung out—
Verse 17 could mean to "awake" from sin because they're "drinking" the Lord's fury. "Awake" here could mean to examine yourself and stop sinning.
24 Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
Verse 24 says to "put on thy strength" and "put on thy beautiful garment". I interpret "put on thy strength" to mean that you are stronger to resist sin and temptation than you think which goes along with what verse 17 says. "Put on thy beautiful garment" could easily mean "purify yourself". That especially makes sense when you read the rest of 24.
Another place where waking up is mentioned is in 2 Nephi 4:28.
28 Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul.
Here Nephi decided to no longer allow his soul to droop in sin, to rejoice in Christ's victory, and to give place no more for the enemy. He "awoke" you could say. The verses in 2 Nephi 8 are quotes from Isaiah. Nephi loved reading Isaiah and understood him really well. I'm sure he read the verses quoted in chapter 8, pondered them, and realized that because of Christ, there was no need to droop in sin or listen to the enemy because Christ overcame all of that. He told himself to "awake" and rejoice in Christ because He's overcome the world.
Here's something I got from the Spanish conference. President Brough said "Don't give a talk. Prepare to give a talk." You could change the word talk for lesson and the idea stays the same. Don't prepare a talk, meaning don't prepare a heavily-detailed memorized plan for a talk. Rather, prepare yourself in such a way that the Spirit will be able to guide your words in your talk or lesson. Prepare to give.
-> Closing Remarks <-
Something I really appreciate about the mission is how every week is different and unique. Even though most of the time is spent doing things I've done a thousand times at this point, there's still many times to make every week, and every day, unique. When I first came out I loved how "cool stuff happened every day" because I was so new. That's still happening but it can often be hard to notice unless I look back and think about the week and the days.
Thank you all for everything you've helped me out with.
Loves!
-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)
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