Success

August 29, 2016

Dear Family,

We're finally coming out of our drought. We taught a couple lessons this week and got a baptismal date. We also have 5 members who have possible referrals for us. I forgot how much fun it was to teach lessons. 

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

We had a rather depressing P-Day. The fair was going on in Louisville and everyone had a way there except us so we spent a majority of the day at the church... #BestDayEver 

I went to Sport Clips for the first time for a haircut. Because it was my first time they upgraded my haircut to the "MVP Experience" for free. It was pretty nice. They cut my hair, washed it, massaged my face, massaged my head, and massaged my back. It was rather refreshing. 

We went to the Haws for dinner. Bro Haws is the Ward Mission Leader and yes, he's a dental student. We had a great meal with them and gave them the Brother of Jared Challenge. They loved it and accepted the challenge. 

-Tuesday-

Started with a normal morning. We studied, went on Facebook for a bit, and had lunch. We started going through our Ward roster meaning we knock all the doors of the members we don't know. We also started "splashing" around these members homes. "Splashing" is a term someone came up with a while ago. It means that after you knock on a door, you knock on a certain number of the houses directly around it and spend some time in the area trying to find people on the streets. It's a good finding method because it's diverse enough you won't go insane with it, it prevents you from burning through your plans too quickly by going from one person immediately to the next, and it allows you to possibly reach more people in the area. 

Later on we had dinner with the Crandalls. They live right next door to the Haws in the same apartment building and yes, Bro Crandall is a dental student. We had a great meal with them too. We also gave them the Brother of Jared Challenge and they easily accepted it. 

So... bad news... We found out that Eric, the recent convert who became a priest recently and received a car from some members, got his car stolen Monday night. He made it 8 days with that thing. The members who gave him the car are working with him, the cops, and the insurance company to resolve the matter. 

-Wednesday-

Service day. Went to Re-Store. That's the name of the Habitat for Humanity we go to. We helped move around a bunch of Christmas stuff. 

Later we went to the Methodist Church and did our thing there. They served breakfast this time. 

We finished the night with a small Facebook discussion with a potential. He told us his difficulties with school and we tried showing him how the Gospel can help with that. He didn't respond much when we started talking about Jesus so I'm not sure how he took it. 

-Thursday-

Interviews! I got to talk with President and Sister Brough. I had pretty normal interviews with them. Nothing extraordinary about them. Sister Brough gave me a ton of candy. Elder Patten trained on using members on Facebook while interviews were taking place. 

After interviews we did some quick service for a member's next door neighbor. They just had us move some light boxes in a U-Haul. Afterwards they gave us some money for Little Caesars. That's what we had for lunch. 

Later on, we had dinner with the Simmonds. They live in the same apartment complex as the Haws and the Crandalls and yes, Bro Simmonds is a dental student. They fed us and we gave them the Brother of Jared Challenge. After dinner, we did some finding in the southern part of our area and found someone who was actually interested. Their name was Ms D. She told us how she was supposed to meet with missionaries a while back but for some reason that never happened. We set up a time for Friday morning. 

-Friday-

Started off teaching Ms D the first half of L1. We had to teach her outside because she's a single lady. It was extremely hot outside so she asked that we finish the lesson later on. 

We did our weekly planning. The sisters called and wanted us to give one of their investigators a blessing so we biked down to their house and gave them a blessing. This investigator is working hard to quit smoking and drinking so they greatly appreciated the blessing. 

After the blessing Bro Campbell dropped Chick-Fil-A off at our place for dinner. It was amazing! We tried to meet with Ms D again but she wouldn't answer for some reason. 

-Saturday-

Started the day with missionary coordination with Bro Haws. After that we helped this guy put his bed together. He self-referred himself on Mormom.org to get help with his moving. By the time we called him he already finished the moving but still needed help putting his bed together. So we went over and put his bed together. While we were doing that his son was asking us about the church. He had some good Q's. He got a good introduction to the church from us. His mom joined the church a few years ago. That's how he knew about us. 

Later on we tried a new referral. The Spanish Elders contacted him first and gave him to us. 

-Sunday-

We had another good church service. During church we had 4 members come up to us and say they have people they're working on. We now have 5 possible member referrals to work with. I'm sure at least one of them will be an investigator. 

Later after church we went to dinner with the Fiets. No Bro Fiet is not a dental student. He's old, rich, and retired. They had some family over so we didn't get a chance to teach anything. 

We finished the night by trying a few people. 

-> Small Plates <-

Elder Williams helped me learn a powerful lesson about goals recently that I'm pretty sure I haven't shared yet. At least I can't remember if I've shared this so if I have, sorry. 

Elder Williams and I are very similar people. In fact, it wasn't until about 2 weeks into our companionship we finally found something we could disagree on. 

He LOVES camping and I HATE camping. 

Eventually our camping discussion led to our experiences in the BSA. We're both Eagle Scouts. I told him how I didn't care for anything in the BSA except the title of Eagle Scout. Both of us did the required amount of work to earn our Eagles but there's a very significant difference between us. 

He was in the BSA to learn, and I was there to get my Eagle. I didn't realize how valuable of an experience the BSA could have been until a couple of weeks ago. They teach you so much as you go through the merit badges. I missed out on so much knowledge. 

This taught me a profound lesson about goals. I learned from the BSA that too much of an emphasis on goals (like my goal to be an Eagle Scout) WILL get in the way of the vast amount of valuable knowledge you could obtain on the way. Elder Williams took the time to learn from the BSA. All I cared about was the Eagle. 

I feel like this is a trap that is all over the place in this life. There's always something you want in life. Eagle, Baptisms, House, Life, etc. There's a danger in goals. It's almost too easy to forget about everything except your goal. It's almost too easy to only care about your goals. 

Over my mission I've decided to have a goal to lean about everything I can. To slow down. To observe what's happening. To learn. I'm convinced that Heavenly Father has thousands of learning moments for us each day and I want to learn from as many as those as possible. But I won't catch them if I'm not paying attention or if I'm occupied by something else. 

-> Closing Remarks <-

I'm so happy to finally be coming out of our drought. Thanks for all the prayers!

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Patience

August 22, 2016

Dear Family,

These last 3 weeks have been a good test of our patience. I've noticed that the Lord loves testing my Christlike attributes from time to time. This time it was Patience. Waiting for the Lord's promised blessings to be fulfilled. This week things started picking up a bit. Hopefully we continue to see an increase. 

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

Another good P-Day. I got new brake pads for my bike. Now it stops faster than it did before. I got our District Leader, Elder Patten to buy me ice cream. I sparingly bugged him about it over the space of 3 weeks and he finally bought me ice cream. He said he didn't remember why he owed me ice cream. Lol

Our bishop asked us to give the sacrament to the Edwards family. Sis Edwards is sick often and Bro Edwards works a lot. We called Sis Edwards and she wanted us to meet her at a local martial arts studio that Bro Edwards attends. 

When we arrived, Sis Edwards came out with Bro Edwards and their daughter to take the Sacrament. So we did the Sacrament outside in a parking lot. That was honestly, not the first time I've done that. What made it even better is this particular martial arts studio is a Christian-based studio. Normally in martial arts you start and end by bowing to the instructor. Here, they start and end with a prayer, and talk about Jesus throughout the whole session. They've got swords of every kind everywhere next to their crosses. It was pretty funny. 

After we did the sacrament, Sis Edwards invited us over for dinner. She made this amazing Alfredo pasta with crab meat in it. It was heavenly! After dinner we gave Sis Edwards a blessing for her health. The Edwards are fairly recent converts. They've been members for about 4 years. It was actually a blessing that she received during her investigation that converted them because it healed her. They're a nice family. 

-Tuesday-

We did a lot of biking. We tried peeps at the bottom of the area, and made our way to the top as we went through the day. At one point we had to backtrack a few miles because a shortcut we thought we could take wound up not existing. So... that was fun... 

We were supposed to see the guy who was sustained a priest last week, but he had to cancel on us. 

There was a professional cleaning crew that came this week and we found that the primary children had left Plan of Salvation drawings on the ground and on every board in the church for this crew to see and possibly become interested. It was cute :). 

-Wednesday-

Service day! We went to Habitat for Humanity and served there. We moved a lot of stuff around in the store itself. 

After that, we saw Eric and read Mosiah 2 with him and discussed the chapter. He loves reading with us. He's doing great. It's nice to see how well-received he is in the ward. 

-Thursday-

Started off with district meeting. Elders Perman and Hopkins gave a great training on Patience and Diligence and Elder Patten tied it all together with Hope at the end. I love Christlike attribute trainings. I feel like they're the most spiritually powerful. They're like core workouts. Your core effects everything else. Like Christlike attributes, who you are effects what you do. 

Later on we met with a LA named Charles. This was my first time meeting him. He joined about a year ago but something happened at his work and he shut himself off from everyone. We went over, talked with him, and got him to open up about the church very easily. We read 2 Nephi 31 with him and he loved it. He committed to come to church this week. However, Charles is going to be hard for me and Elder Williams. He's a huge gamer, and we're both gamers, so... It's easy to get off topic. :)

-Friday-

We had an interesting encounter in the morning. We met a couple that was arguing with each other. We asked them if they "had a minute for Jesus?" and instantly they broke up and said, "Yes! We need a minute with Jesus." Turns out, some crazy lady attacked this woman's car and was trying to get to her husband. This caused some contention with this couple. The crazy lady claimed she knew the husband. We talked for a few minutes and taught them how family-centered the church is and how it can help families. They loved the discussion and wanted a BoM. Hopefully we get to teach them more. 

The rest of the day was #TryingPeepsForDays

-Saturday-

We had coordination with our mission leader. We talked about how we can get the members involved with Facebook. After that, we biked to the church in the rain again. That happens a lot here. 

When we finished at the church, we visited the Barrington family. We met Bro Barrington for the first time last week. He was walking outside and we contacted him like normal. He told us he was the bishop before Bishop Finder. When we stopped by this day, we happened to get in right before a severe rain storm hit. Thankfully! 

Here's another thing that was cool. Sis Barrington and I are Fb friends. When I redid my page I felt promoted to put my full name on it. Sis Barrington saw my middle name and asked me about it. She asked me if I knew an Elmer, Eva, Kent, and Carol. I was like "Yes! They're my family!" She said she grew up in the same ward as them. She would have been pretty young but she remembered them growing up. She used to commute to Salt Lake and back when Elmer was working with the sacrament cups. I told her about my plastic sculpture that Elmer made. 

I thought it was awesome to meet someone who knew my great-grandparents. She said she remembers Kent but that he's a lot older than her. 

We finished the night meeting with Charles again. This time we had a good discussion on why God gave us some basic commandments and the blessings we get for following them.

-Sunday-

We had a great Sacrament meeting again. Elder Williams spoke on the two great commandments. Bro Broadwater spoke on obedience, and Bro Ellis spoke on charity. I remember being on a bit of a spiritual high after that. I don't know if it's me, or if Sacrament meetings have been getting better. 

Bro Broadwater had some good things to say about obedience that put a helpful perspective on things. He said in his mission they had a scale that literally measured obedience and at the end of the week you had to report how obedient or disobedient you were to the mission leaders. That would be way worse to deal with than the TWE accountability. He also told an experience on his mission where he and his companion decided to drive up a mountain to basically waste time and when they reached the top, a bolt of lightning stuck the ground in front of them. They saw the sand melting. They realized at that point that the Lord wasn't happy with them wasting time. They tried to get to the bottom of the mountain but it started raining so badly that their car got stuck. They had to get some members to help and tell them exactly what happened. So they got a bolt of lightning and the members calling them idiots to keep them from being disobedient in the future. 

After church we went to the Mornins for lunch. They're a nice young family with 3 kids. They fed us spaghetti and we gave them The Brother of Jared Challenge. They loved it. This week we had more members sign up on our meal calendar than usual. Something we're doing is paying off. #Diligence #EndureToTheEnd

-> Small Plates <-

I don't have a spiritual message this week. Instead I would like to simply show that when we are persistent, the Lord will bless us. We didn't have much going for us in the first few weeks but now that we've worked hard and have started gaining the members trust, we're starting to have more happen. The Lord is blessing us. 

-> Closing Remarks <-

Thank you all so much! 

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Selfie with Elder Williams!

Plan of Salvation chalk art

Closer view

Celestial = Best
Terrestial = OK
Telestial = meh

Elder William's ramen burger... #cholesterol

Diligence

August 15, 2016

Dear Family,

Let's see... We taught 2 lessons this week... And talked to 161 peeps on the streets... Not much is happening for us. We're not sure what we're doing wrong, if anything. We pushed through though. 

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

We spent all day emailing and Facebooking. It's still weird I have Facebook. I messaged a few friends I haven't talked to in 16 months. It was nice to catch up. 

Later that night when we began working we tried a few peeps, biked a few miles, and talked to a few peeps. Nothing solid happened. 

-Tuesday-

I got to meet a man named L. Elder Williams met and taught him last week on exchange while I was in Indian Trails. We couldn't teach him this time because he was getting ready to leave but he said we're more than welcome to come back. He's a nice guy. If he's willing to talk with us, there's a chance for him. 

Later we biked to the church in the rain for some Facebook pros. I messaged a few members. 

Later that night we went to the Campbell's for dinner. They're a nice young couple that recently moved in the Ward. They fed us some of the best KFC I've ever had. Normally I'm not a KFC guy but I guess anything's good when you've been biking all day. We gave them the Brother of Jared Challenge and they loved it. They're willing to try it. 

We finished that night biking around trying peeps. A few of those peeps were in a rich apartment complex where the manager won't kick us out because he believes what we're doing is right and also because his mother does the same thing for her church. That's a blessing to have an apartment manager not get mad at us. 

We finished the night biking home from the top of the area to the bottom. We biked past Southeast Christian Church. It's the biggest church in the mission and it's in our area. That place had 8 parking lots. 

There are several passages in our area that we call "Narnia Passages". That's because they take us from one part to another that would normally take us longer to travel. Kinda like a wormhole. These passages aren't paved or anything. They go through trees and have been made by enough people walking through them to make a path. They are great shortcuts for bike missionaries. There's a big one that takes us from Southeast Christian Church to our apartment. 

-Wednesday-

Service day. We went to the Habitat for Humanity (DI) and helped out there. We labeled and sorted some doors. They invited us to Texas Roadhouse later that night. Of course we accepted!

After we finished there we spent some time to prepare our training on how to "find through Facebook" for Thursday's district meeting. After that, we did our service at the Methodist Church. I helped make icee's this time. 

When we finished service there we went to Texas Roadhouse. It was amazing getting free Texas Roadhouse. I got fillet medallions. They were heavenly. 

-Thursday-

We gave our training on "Facebook finding" at district meeting. It went decently. Because Facebook is so new the training was a little vague but we tried to help the district the best we could. Hopefully someone got an idea or two from all our rambling.

We spent the day like usual. Biking who knows how many miles, trying who knows how many people, and talking with who knows how many people. Towards the end of the day we were in a rich neighborhood and a lady gave us some water. I love people who give us water. 

Half way through our nightly planning, a member needed help locking the church up. Our church here uses digital card keys that you hold up to the door to unlock. For some reason though, everyone's cards but ours has stopped working. So they needed help locking the church back up. After we did that, the member that drove us up bought us McFlurries at the McDonald's next door. 

-Friday-

This was an adventurous day. There's 4 areas in our district and there's an area where all 4 borders meet, kinda like the 4 Corners in Utah. We received a referral that was in the 4 Corners area. Everyone kept saying it was in our area even after we proved it wasn't. So to satisfy everyone, we biked 10 miles to this mysterious referral through rich neighborhoods, ghettos, a jungle, over a fence, and through someone's backyard to try this person. That whole hour long process got us a... return appointment... We told the missionaries who should have been working with this referral about that and they said they would go to it.

We had to bike from there to the church for missionary coordination. Another 10 miles. On the way back we stopped at a gas station and bought some soda and Gatorade. We were entirely exhausted when we got to the church. 

Missionary Coordination itself, went well. Our Ward mission leader, Bro Haws, is a good guy. He's a dental student (like literally everyone else here) but still makes time to magnify his calling. He's a good mission leader. He asked us to come up with some ways the Ward could help. As hard as Elder Williams and I have been trying, we haven't been seeing the success we've wanted. It's not just us, the Sisters are struggling too. Bro Haws is going to get the Ward to help. 

We finished the day dead on the ground in our apartment. 

-Saturday-

We did our weekly planning. We had a long conversation about anything we're possibly doing wrong that would explain for the lack of success. We concluded that neither of us are disobedient but we do have plenty of human flaws that we'll work on. Nothing huge, just small weaknesses. 

After the planning, we met with Eric. He was baptized a few months ago. He's going great. He loves the church and is there every week. We're working with him to prepare him for the higher priesthood. He's excited for that. 

The rest of the day was spent on Facebook, messaging more members, and biking miles to try peeps. We tried PJ but he didn't answer. I hope he's not avoiding us. 

-Sunday-

We had a fantastic sacrament service. Bishop Finer gave a great talk about Peter and what love for the Lord means. Our stake president, President Chadwick was the other speaker and he built on that by speaking about why we keep the commandments. 

President Chadwick is a great guy. He's a convert to the church. He didn't tell his parents he joined until he was being sealed in the temple. 

After church we had lunch with the Hatton's. They're a nice older couple. Their kids are all moved out. They've developed a special relationship with Eric. They gave him a car they have that they're not using. Now Eric won't have to walk to and from work. 

By the time lunch was over and we finished our studies we saw our baptist friends. We found out they're really interested in family history. Our church has an awesome family history room in it and the baptists live just down the street from the church. We told them about it and they said they would love to check it out. 

At the end of the night we did apple cider shots in celebration of this difficult week. 

-> Small Plates <-

This is appropriate for this week. 

Patience (PMG chapter 6)

”Patience is the capacity to endure delay, trouble, opposition, or suffering without becoming angry, frustrated, or anxious. It is the ability to do God’s will and accept His timing. When you are patient, you hold up under pressure and are able to face adversity calmly and hopefully. Patience is related to hope and faith--you must wait for the Lord’s promised blessings to be fulfilled."

"You need patience in your everyday experiences and relationships, especially with your companion. You must be patient with all people, yourself included, as you work to overcome faults and weaknesses."

This week was a test of patience and diligence. I've noticed the Lord is masterful at crafting experiences that test your Christlike attributes. If you endure well, you'll receive a host of blessings, but if you don't endure well, you'll have to repeat a lesson. 

-> Closing Remarks <-

I need a day to sleep. 

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Sunday afternoon

Elder Williams & Elder Cox

Just finished a delicious lunch!

Facebook

August 8, 2016

Dear Family,

As the title suggests, we got Facebook this week. I never thought we would, but we did. We are 1 of 5 test missions for Internet proselyting. A few years ago when the church first tried giving Facebook to the missionaries, they had a million filters on it and changed the app icon to be orange instead of blue. However, this time they gave us the full, unfiltered Facebook and the Facebook Messenger app. I'll talk more about this in a bit but this was by far the biggest thing that happened this week.

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-
This was my official 16 month day! Woo! We did all of our preparation stuff in the morning. Cleaned, shopped, washed clothes, etc. The Spanish Elders drove us around. We emailed at the church. Because there are several missionary areas around our church, there were  about 5 companionships there. In the middle of our emailing and socializing, Elder Williams and I went to go get Panda Express again.

There's 2 companionships that cover the Hurstbourne Ward (Louisville 2nd Ward as it's officially called). There's us, and there's the sisters. We spent the last part of the day helping a part-member couple move in the Sister's area. The girl is a LA member and the guy is a non-member. 15 minutes into the move, the Sisters had to leave for another appointment, leaving us to finish the move for their part-member couple. It took us about 2.5 hours to move everything. When we were all done, the couple bought us pizza and, of course, the sisters came back for that... ;)

-Tuesday-
This was an exhaustive day. First, we biked 20 minutes down to this old lady who needed some weeding done. That took about 2 hours. Then we spent the whole rest of the day biking around trying people. No one answered so we spent ALL DAY biking.

At the end of the day we wound up teaching PJ. I was so tired I honestly didn't want to teach him, but I pushed through anyway. We taught him L2 and he really enjoyed it. He said it made much more sense that what the Catholics teach. He said he would keep reading the BoM. When we got home, I laid on the floor and wound up napping for an hour there. You know you're tired when you fall asleep on the floor without realizing it.

-Wednesday-
I spent this day in Indian Trails with Elder Patten on exchange. Indian Trails was Elder Shelley's first area. It was fun to see it. Like what we've been doing in Hurstbourne, Elder Patten and I biked around all day and tried peeps. Nothing happened for most of the day.

Most of the people in Indian Trails are poorer/refugee types and they just open up to us. The people in Hurstbourne are mostly middle/upper class types so it's hard to get them talking to us for more than 5 seconds.

After dinner, we taught this lady named Sha the first lesson. Half way through, we found out that she has no religious background whatsoever and barely knows who Jesus is. It made it impossible to finish the lesson without going a completely different route. She was nice and is willing to talk more.

-Thursday-
This was the day... Everything changed... I thought I knew how to be a missionary but then this happened...
First, we drove all the way down to E-Town (Elizabethtown) for a 3-hour training meeting on how to use Facebook. Because we're a test mission we get access to the church's super secret information on interest proselyting. :D  jk.... They really don't have a lot. They have a couple booklets (Safeguards for Using Technology and Missionary Work in the Digital Age), 8 additional pages to the White Handbook that basically say "Don't be stupid", and half of the District 3 videos. Yes, they made The District 3 and it's all about internet missionary work.

When we got back, we spent the last 4 hours of the day with the Spanish Elders setting up and trying to figure out how to work Facebook as a missionary. We had to go through our profiles and "clean them up". During this whole process we were all freaking out over having Facebook.

With Facebook comes the option to teach lessons online. We can teach over Messenger, Facebook video chat, Skype, normal FaceTime, etc. A big reason people can't meet in-person is their busy schedules. However, this allows us to work around that problem. In the training meeting they said the missionaries in other test missions that have been doing this for longer "teach an average of 7 lessons a day". Obviously, Internet lessons can't replace in-person lessons. But I've noticed that a lot of people tend to be more closed off in-person but more open online. The goal is to teach personal lessons but sometimes we'll have to go through Facebook first, to get there.

There are many other benefits to Facebook that I could ramble on about. The Zone Leaders described it as a "nuke" in missionary work. That's appropriate for many reasons. This will help us reach more people, it'll help us teach more, it'll help us stay in contact, and it will help us find more. Also, in our online lessons, we can invite a member to join whatever it is we're on at the time and it'll turn into a "member-present lesson".

-Friday- 
We biked to the church in the rain to continue Facebook. We still don't know what we're doing. Later we visited a younger member named Andrew and taught him the first missionary discussion as a preview of missionary work. We spent the whole rest of the day biking around and trying peeps. Nothing happened.

-Saturday-
We did more Facebook in the morning. We kinda have an idea of what we're doing. Then we spent the whole rest of the day doing the same thing we've been doing. Biking around with no success. Something's got to change. We finished at Circle K buying soda and Doritos as a reward for making it through this day.

-Sunday-
2nd Sunday in Hurstbourne. It was much better than last week. I met several more members. Our bishop made a really cool point that I'll talk about in the small plates.

After church we did what we normally do. Biked around. No success. Obviously something's wrong. Right now, Facebook is looking like the only frontier we can do anything on because nothing is happening as far as in-person lessons. Maybe the lack of success this week was supposed to show us how badly we need to use Facebook in this area. Because we can't get anyone in person.

-> Small Plates <-

Our Bishop made this sweet comment that changed my perspective on the pre-earth life and this life. He said "You've already conquered Satan once before. You withstood his temptations and made a choice to come down here to this earth in the pre-earth life."

I enjoyed his wording with "You've already conquered Satan once before." I never thought about it like that before. It's true though. There are many times in this life where we (at least me) feel hopeless, discouraged, and troubled for one reason or another. Although life trials are a great source of growth, they often leave us discouraged and lost. These negative feelings of discouragement are not from God, they are from Satan.

God didn't set us up to fail. He set us up to grow. He set us up to succeed. But it's often easy to forget that and allow Satan's influenced to wear on us. But as our Bishop pointed out, we already conquered him before, and we can do it again.

I feel like this is one of many reasons why the phrase "always remember Him" is repeated twice in the sacrament prayers. In the bread prayer it says, "...and witness unto thee... that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember Him and keep His commandments which He has given them..." In the water prayer it says, "that they may witness unto thee... that they do always remember Him..."

Notice the slight difference between these prayers? In the bread prayer we witness that we are WILLING to remember Christ. In the water prayer we witness that we DO always remember Christ. If we always remember Christ, Satan's influences will have little, if any, power over us. We will conquer him again.

-> Closing Remarks <-

I have Facebook... this is so weird!

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Enjoyed a delicious pineapple

Talking with everyone
#TWE

TWE Elders

Elder Williams

Elder Cox 

Hurstbourne

August 1, 2016

Dear Family,

Hellow!

Well, I survived my first week in Hurstbourne. Both my bike and I did okay. We don't have a car here so we're a full-time bike area. However, we see 1000's of cars every day. Hurstbourne is packed with people and cars. My legs have gotten much stronger in my first week here. Hurstbourne is interesting. There are some similarities to Campbellsville, though. We had a fun first week but not much in missionary work happened. Surprisingly, no one was mean. We talked to a lot of people this week and no one was mean. It's weird. I expect people to be mean. But they're not here. It's pretty nice. 

Elder Williams is interesting. We have very similar interests. He's fun. He's a good companion. The Bishop of the new ward is fantastic. A few of the other members introduced themselves to me. The move went well. I got settled in easily. I try not to carry much stuff with me as a missionary which makes moving easier for me. Most other missionaries have a lot more crap than I have.

16 months is weird. I've been out the longest of anyone else in the district. It's still fun and I still really enjoy teaching people.

Updates include:
-Every food place possible including the only Carrabbas in Kentucky.
-Actual people outside to talk with.
-Constant productivity because we're on bikes..

Anyway... Here's the week. It was actually pretty fun even though missionary work is a little dead here at the time being.

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-
Last full day in Owensboro :(. We emailed and ate at DQ. Later on, Chase took us to get my bike serviced at Big O Bike Shop for the last time. After we dropped the bike off, Chase took us next door to the ice cream/yogurt place called Orange Leaf. I had never heard of it before. I got strawberry and pistachio ice creams. It was so good! I almost felt cheated not knowing about that place before and having to leave Owensboro soon.

Later that night we had Hispanic Spaghetti at the Quints. It was interesting because it was spaghetti with Hispanic seasonings in it to make it taste more Mexican. It was good.

After dinner, Bro Wagner picked us up to go teaching for my last time in Owensboro. We tried a few peeps and eventually got in with Ms CS. She's a LA we've had little contact with because she works all the time. This was my 2nd or 3rd time teaching her since I've been here. We had a good lesson. We read from last month's First Presidendy message. I finished the night by finishing my packing.

-Tuesday-
I woke up extra early to finalize my packing because I was lazy the night before and wanted to go to bed. Bro Malone picked me up and drove me to Louisville. When I got there, I found Elder Williams, my new companion, moved my stuff from Bro Malone's van to the other van going to Hurstbourne, and went off to Hurstbourne. Hurstbourne is only 10 minutes away from the transfer spot at the Eastern Parkway church.

When I got to the apartment I settled in, got my bike ready, and went off. The first thing we did was go shopping. Since we don't have a car, we had to go on out bikes. Normally we would get a ride from the Spanish Elders in the ward (one of them happens to be Elder Passmore) but they did their shopping already and were busy with their normal Tuesday activities. So that left us with bikes. We couldn't buy much and the little we did buy we had to put on the handle bars. That whole experience of shopping with a bicycle made me feel like a true Kentuckian.

After we shopped we ate at Panda Express! It's been probably 2 years since I last ate at one. It was a nice reminder of home. After we ate we visited a person named L. He's about 15. Missionaries first met him a few days ago, so we taught him his first official lesson this time. We taught L1 and it went decently well. He's awkward and we're not sure if English is his first language. He accepted a baptismal date for Aug 27, though.

Not much else happened for the rest of the day. We bike around and tried several people but didn't teach anything. At the end of the day, Elder Williams and I talked and got to know each other. We're very similar people. We have some close interests. He's been out for about 10 months now. He's from American Fork. Hurstbourne is his 2nd area.

-Wednesday-
I'm going to mention my new apartment now. We basically live in a basement. We live on the bottom floor of a 3 level apartment building. The floor we're on is half-buried in the ground so when you go in the front door you have to go downstairs to get to our apartment. Therefore, it's basically a basement. The apartment itself isn't bad at all. Missionaries have only used this apartment for about 2 weeks now so it hasn't been destroyed.

We did a ton of service. We started the day helping the local Habitat for Humanity which is basically the same thing as DI in Utah. We helped out with the furniture and sorted some things around the store. Elder Passmore and his companion, Elder Hancock were there. After that service I stopped at a local pharmacy to pick up some DayQuil and NyQuil. I developed a cold earlier in the week so I needed something to help me function like a normal human.

Later that day we went to a Methodist church to do service that was like CCC back in Campbellsville (another similarity between Hurstbourne and Campbellsville) and the Pitino Shelter in Owenboro. We prepared food and passed it out to whoever came and got it. After everyone got fed, we got to eat some ourselves :). During the service I asked an older member there how long she's been in Kentucky and she wound up giving us a tour of the whole Methodist church. It was a nice building. They had some cool stained glass. Of all the denominations here, Methodists are the nicest.

-Thursday-
District meeting! It's an interesting 3 hour process here. We hopped on the Louisville bus system to take us to the Eastern Parkway building for District Meeting. It's weird having DM at that building. That's the transfer building. It's special with missionary work because it's the first church missionaries who are just coming out go to and it's the last church missionaries who are leaving go to.

The actual meeting was good. Elder Patten is the district leader here. He's older (~26). He's only been out for about a year. That's another weird thing about this district.Sister and I are tied for oldest missionaries in the district. That's because we came out together. I went right from a middle-age missionary in the Owensboro district to the oldest missionary here in the Hurstbourne district.

Later that night, we taught a man named PJ. I'm pretty sure that stands for something but he didn't tell us, so his name is PJ. We had a unique L1 with him. It blew his mind to find out Jesus visited the Americas. He showed great interest in the rest of our message. My teaching skills have been coming back in Hurstbourne. I lost some in Owensboro because Elder Salazar dominated like crazy in the Spanish lessons but now I'm getting my skills back.

-Friday-
Not much happened Friday. We taught a LA named Bro St. At one point he was a solid member, but he's old and his mind has deteriorated a bit. We spent the whole day biking from the bottom of the area to the top trying people. Side note: Our apartment is on the bottom border of our area. #WorstPlacementEver

-Saturday-
We started off with 5 hours of moving some of the Hurstbourne Sister's investigators to our area. Yay... more moving! It was pretty easy. The house was small. They bought us pizza afterwards. After all the service, we started biking around, trying people, and slowly making our way to Carrabbas!

We finished the day at Carrabbas! It was absolutely heavenly. It's the only Carrabbas in the Mission and I got called to the area it's in. Score! We also have a Macaroni Grill.

-Sunday-
First Sunday in Hurstbourne. It was good. Finally met the Bishop. His name is Bishop Finder. That's appropriate since we need to find new investigators. I'll have to find a way to get the ward pumped for missionary work.

After church, the McKinneys fed us French dip sammiches. They're an older couple who love listening to EFY music. After lunch, we shared the "Brother of Jared Challenge" with them. After we finished, we started biking around and got caught in a nice rain storm. We got soaked and took refuge in the church.

After the storm we visited our Baptist family. Here's another similarity to Campbellsville. We have some people who are great friends with us but won't join the church for whatever reason. They love having us over. They're old.

-> Small Plates <-

I started reading the churches new "Teaching in the Savior's Way" book. It's actually fantastic. There's a lot of simple, easy to understand instructions to become a great gospel teacher. One thing I read there that has stuck to me is a sentence that said, "Spiritual preparation isn't something you make time for. It's something you should always be doing." Later on the book says that teachers who master this can turn any situation into a gospel lesson. I thought that was cool.

-> Closing Remarks <-

Sorry this email came a little late. P-Day's are hectic here because there are many other missionaries around. I'm looking forward to my service here. I hope to spend 3-4 months here and the last part in my last area.

Thank you all so much!

Loves!

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Hurstbourne District Meeting

Elder Williams at Carrabbas!!

Myself at Carrabbas!!!

We got caught in a rainstorm.