6 cold days and 1 warm day

December 19, 2016

Dear Family,

This was a relatively normal week. Nothing exploded. I went on exchange to Madison and got to eat Russian food. That was cool. Get the rest below!

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

This P-Day was busy as can be. I maintained both of our bikes. Cleaned them too. I made more progress on our kitchen. It's slowly going from a hot mess to a proper kitchen. 

We had to do some small service in the middle of the day for a church maintenance worker who needed help moving some stuff around the church. First thing we did was move the branch president's old desk out of his office and move the new one in. We destroyed the old one. The church maintenance worker we were helping told us the weirdest thing he's ever done was destroy a temple altar in the parking lot with a sledge hammer. He was doing some work for the Louisville temple and they told him to take one of the old altars out and destroy it so they can put a new altar in. I guess the church destroys anything temple-related before they throw it away. 

Sis Terrell took us shopping and paid for some of our groceries. That was the first time I've ever had a member help with groceries. 

We saw Miss B again and continued with the commandments. She's doing well. She's looking like she'll actually get baptized. She wants to get baptized in the North Vernon Ward. That's the unit above us. It's out of the mission (we border the mission). We already have permission to go to that :D. 

We also saw Ms J and tried to have a LoC lesson but... she didn't quite get it. There are some things she's done/doing that we tried to tell was wrong but she didn't fully understand.

-Tuesday-

I had a feeling Tuesday was going to be weird and it was. In the morning as I was finally cleaning the car, our next door neighbor Billy came over and introduced himself to us. Nice guy! Later on we tried a referral out in the country only to find the house wrapped in caution tape. Yeah... we took that as a sign that we should leave...

I met Sis S for the first time. She's this area's "apostate breeding ground". Every area has that one person who will do whatever they can to get the missionaries to be disobedient. She's an interesting member. She and her husband were working on getting to the temple but his work changed. Now he works every Sunday and hasn't been to church in a while...

We tried to meet with a young man named J. I say tried, because there was a party at his house. We had to set another time when things were calm. We met him the other day and he easily accepted the invitation to learn more about Jesus. He's about 17. He's cool. He likes music. His family is Catholic but J seemed to be your typical 17 year old who still hasn't decided on a religion. He believes in God but doesn't really know much about Him. Well we can help with that! 

-Wednesday-

We had a lovely round of #BikingInTheBitterCold. We tried a lot of "formers." The few that answered were super nice but uninterested. We got to a point where we couldn't handle the cold so we started driving around. We try not to drive as much because we don't get many miles in this area.

We found Scottsburg's rich neighborhood. We tried a referral in the boonies. I was going 50 mph down a narrow country road and someone was still tailgating me. 

Taught Mr A with the Boettchers. We hit on the Sacrament hard. He isn't really progressing. It's looking like we're going to have to drop him soon. 

We finished the night with Mr Ad. We had a good lesson about temples with him. He asked a lot of Q's about heaven. He asked if there's video games up there. LOL

-Thursday-

We saw Ms J again with Elder Boettcher and tried to have a lesson on the Godhead. Yeah... she's also stopped progressing. I don't know what to do with her. 

We saw J again. This time was a little better. We only had a few minutes though because he had to work on a test. We reviewed the BoM with him and committed him to read it. Hopefully he does because I feel like he has a good chance. 

We served at Food 4 R Souls again. This time we served fried chicken. Again, it was a decent meal. I like serving at food kitchens but it makes it much better if the food itself is good too. 

We saw Miss B again with the Boettchers. This time it was at her house. Normally we meet at the church. We finished the commandments with her. She's still looking good to be baptized. 

-Friday-

Friday was great! We had district meeting in Madison, IN. Madison is very similar to Owensboro. They even have a blue bridge that looks exactly like the Owensboro one. 

Elder Irwin and I did a lot of walking around at first. We walked through the downtown and along the river. It was very, very cold. Later on we ate out for dinner. Our waitress was someone Elder Irwin met when he first got here. Nice! 

Elder Irwin did a baptismal interview for the Hanover Sisters. He interviewed someone who was the daughter of some recent converts. They're all from Russia! They fed us Russian food while Irwin did the interview. I got 2 dinners! Woo!

-Saturday-

For the first time in forever it was warm outside! We exchanged back and Kloepfer and I took advantage of the warm weather by biking 10 miles! It almost felt like I was back in Hurstbourne. Scottsburg has a few walking/biking trails in it. We hit a couple of them. One of them took us from the western side of town, to the northern side, then to the eastern side. There are some richer houses on the eastern side of town. All rich people seem to be generally the same. They're good where they're at. 

As the day progressed it started to rain more. So we got into our car. Our evening plans fell apart. We wound up spending some time with the Boettchers and having a coordination meeting. We found out that the Boettchers will be transferring to the office for the last couple months of their mission. NNNOOOO!!! 

-Sunday-

Church! All the meetings covered a similar subject, Service. Bro Stevens gave a talk in Sacrament about the gifts the Savior received. Bro Banda gave a similar lesson in Elders Quorum about service. 

After church the Boettchers drove us out to Sis Terrells to give her a blessing. After the blessing we had an early dinner with the Boettchers and a girl named Miss C. She joined the church about a year ago. She's somewhat lost her testimony. The Boettchers are trying to help her. As always, the dinner was fantastic! They had fresh pineapple and it tasted so good! 

We had a very productive evening of 3 lessons. One with a LA named Bro B. Another with an investigator named Mr Fr, and the last with Mr A. Mr Fr was the most interesting lesson. We dropped him recently because we couldn't meet with him but Elders Kloepfer and Williams contacted him on exchange. He's a nice guy. He's a salesman. He gave me a U of L beanie. And a huge water bottle. I'm not sure how well he'll progress but we'll see what happens. 

-> Small Plates <-

I learned something neat about the Holy Ghost this week. The fact that we're able to feel the Spirit is evidence of the Atonement. Because the Holy Ghost can't dwell in unclean places, if we didn't have a way to be cleaned, the Spirit wouldn't be able to dwell with us. The Gift of the Holy Ghost is a gift of grace and mercy. A gift of love. 

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Christmas District pic.

Merry Christmas!

My ties are supposed to be color-coordinated. Elder Williams messed them up on exchange!

.. . . cold. .. bitter cold.. . ..

December 12, 2016

Dear Family,

Another busy week here in Scottsburg. I was bitter cold for most of it. 

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

This was the busiest P-Day I've had in a long time. We spent a lot of time cleaning the apartment and I spent a lot of time maintaining and cleaning my bike. This poor apartment has been hashed by years of missionaries living in it. I'm probably going to be working on it until I die here. 

In the evening we taught a lady named Ms J. She's one of our baptismal dates. She has a newborn baby that she kept talking about. It was hard to teach her. Sis Boettcher was also there. She tried to help us teach but Ms J was more interested in talking about her concerns with her new baby than talking about the gospel. This is her first kid so she's figuring out the whole mom thing. 

After Ms J, we saw the Hyde family. Bro Hyde was baptized about 6 months ago. His 16 year old son was recently baptized. We went in with a plan to teach something but wound up giving service by helping them put their Christmas tree up. It was nice to be able to do that since missionaries don't get many chances to set up a full tree on their missions. 

-Tuesday-

What better way to start a day than with rain? We walked around and biked around in the rain for the first part of the day. There's a tiny man-made lake that we go to occasionally. We found a paved trail that led into the woods from the lake that we never noticed before. We went down it. It was a fun mile or so adventure bike ride through the woods. The trail ended in the northern part of town next to the hospital. 

We went to a nursing home to help old people play Bingo. That was fun. The two old ladies they had me sit next to wouldn't stop talking. Elder Kloepfer would call out a number and I would help these two find them. One of the ladies got to a point where she had 4 possible Bingo's on her card but none of the 4 numbers she needed would come up. She almost covered her whole board before one of those numbers came up. It was funny to see how close she was. 

We visited this LA named Bro L. He's been a member for a few years. Loves the church. He's your normal LA that wants to come back to church and get to the temple but lacks the full desire to do so. This was my first time meeting him. He wanted to read out of the BoM. I felt impressed to read Mosiah 4 with him. It basically threw down on everything he was doing wrong. Now he seems to have more of a desire to come back.

We finished the night with Mr M. We found out he's on probation which means he can't be baptized until we talk to President Brough.

-Wednesday-

We saw Ms J again and had a much more productive lesson this time. We actually made it through the first lesson. Although it took 2 hours. She has some member friends who found out about her baptismal date and told her she couldn't get baptized because she's not living all the standards. We were planning on addressing those concerns later down the line but wound up addressing them then and there. Ms J was great about it. She still wants to learn and eventually be baptized. She just has some things she needs to fix. So her baptismal date dropped too. 

Afterwards, we biked around in the bitter cold. Sounds fun right? It's not. Don't do it. We decided to take a rest on some benches by that man-made lake that I mentioned earlier. While we were sitting this guy came up to us and asked "How long has that eagle been there?" We asked "Eagle? What eagle?" He then pointed out this huge Bald Eagle that was sitting in a tree not far from where we were sitting. I had never seen a wild Bald Eagle before so I naturally shot out of the bench and tried to get close to take a pic. It flew off before I could get close enough to take a decent pic. Dang! 

We taught Miss B, the 9 year old, at the church. This time we went over L3. She seemed to understand it well. She's on track to be baptized on December 31. Elder Boettcher was there and offered some great input. 

-Thursday-

Thursdays are our service days here in Scottsburg. In the morning we drove with the Boettchers to this place called the "Clearing House". It's where local stores donate food. All we did there was stock shelves and sort cans. It was easy service. They let us raid the place when we finish helping. #FreeFood

After that we walked around Austin in the bitter cold for a couple hours. Bitter cold = Unimaginable amounts of fun!... 

After the "fun" we helped out at a church food kitchen called "Food 4 R Souls". It's similar to the Pitino Shelter in Owensboro and the Methodist Church in Hurstbourne. We help serve food to people who need/want it. We probably fed the whole town with how many people were there. It took almost 2 hours. There was a near constant stream of people. I helped people get drinks. I served two things. Lemonade and coffee. Guess which one I emphasized more. There was a surprising number of kids ages 5-10 who got coffee. Like all my other food kitchens, we ate there too when everything was done. Honestly this place has the best service food I've had. It's quality. 

We finished the night with Bro Lloyd again. He wanted to read again. This time I was impressed to read Alma 32 with him. Again, it was directly applicable to him. He seems to have more desire to come back. 

-Friday-

Had a Zone meeting in New Albany. I've had a lot of those in New Albany. There were two trainings. Elder Irwin trained on the mission culture and the Zone Leaders trained on desire vs. motivation. The desire vs. motivation training was interesting. It was based off of something Elder Bednar recently said. One of Elder Bednar's sons is a bishop over one of the wards in our mission so Elder Bednar visits our mission a lot more frequently than other Apostles do. Elder Bednar just doesn't hold mission conferences every time he comes to visit his son. 

About 3 weeks ago Elder Bednar spoke in his son's Sacrament meeting. I think about 6 missionaries from our mission were present in that. One of those missionaries asked him what the differences between desire and motivation were. Elder Bednar's response was "desire is worldly". Based off of that statement and other statements he made, the whole mission is now training on this. 

Sis Tindall, from Owensboro, tagged me in a post during the meeting. It was her recounting of 2016 and all that happened to her. She mentioned how Elder Salazar and I started teaching her family and eventually, they got baptized by the sisters that were transferred in. It was special to be acknowledged in her conversion. It was also Elders Passmore and Gough that started teaching them too, but it wasn't until I left that they become full investigators. 

We had a fantastic Restoration lesson with Mr A, the only Hispanic in Scottsburg. The Boettchers and us were basically pounding him with the Spirit and the truths of the Restoration. Our efforts paid off a bit. He still won't commit to a baptismal date but he's quite a bit closer now. He'll probably accept one in the next week or two. 

We finished at the Hydes again. We helped with their tree some more and taught Mr A some of the new member lessons. He's about done with the new member lessons. He just has a few more principles to go. 

-Saturday-

What's the most effective thing to do in the morning in a small town? Why, bike around of course! In the bitter cold! Yeah! That's exactly what we did! I can't tell you how "fun" it was! I learned something new about my bike as I was freezing. If you ride through a puddle and get your rims wet, the water will freeze instantly on the cold metal rims. Which makes the brakes entirely useless. I thought getting brakes wet was bad enough. Getting ice on them literally makes them so they're not there. They do nothing at that point. So now I know to avoid puddles when it's bitter cold outside. 

We had coordination meeting with the mission leader, Bro Ponder, at the Boettcher's home. It was a good meeting. We talked about a lot of the individual members and how to help them. It took a while but it was good. During the meeting Sis Boettcher kept feeding us cake. 

What's the most effective thing to do in the evening in a small town? You guessed it! Bike around! And don't forget in the bitter cold too! Not just regular cold. Bitter cold! The kind of cold that has humidity behind it that'll cut through all your clothing! Say good bye to your fingers and toes! You don't need those anyway. 

We saw Ms Ro, one of our recent converts. We did what seems to be the favored thing with converts here, which is read out of the BoM with her. She works nights at Walmart so mornings are a struggle for her. We tried to help build her desire to return to church. 

-Sunday-

Went to church, gave a decent talk, and had branch council after... yeah... 

I saw the 3rd largest town in our area, Crothersville. Scottsburg's the biggest. Austin's 2nd. Crothersville's 3rd. We bike around all of Crothersville in an hour. In the rain. It wasn't bitter cold though. It was in the 40's. Bitter cold is below 32. I've become so accustomed to bitter cold now that normal cold doesn't bother me much. 

After Crothersville, we went to Austin and did more biking in the rain. We actually met some cool people that might be interested! So, worth it! 

We had #DinnerWithTheBoettchers. They fed us pork tenderloin. Man,it was good! They're quite the cooks. They're literally my second parents! They go home in March so my last month here won't be as fun. Unless another senior couple replaces them. Pray for that! 

-> Small Plates <-

I noticed something interesting in the scriptures this week. As we were reading Alma 32 with Bro Lloyd I noticed that Alma used the phrase "learn wisdom" in verse 12. That reminded me of King Benjamin's use in Mosiah 2:17 "I tell you these things that he may learn wisdom..."

Our of curiosity I wanted to see how many times the scriptures use that phrase. There's not that many. 

1 in the Old Testament. Proverbs 30:3.

5 in the Book of Mormon. 2 Nephi 28:30; Mosiah 2:17; Alma 32:12; 37:35; 38:9.

2 in the Doctrine and Covenants. D&C 97:1; 136:32.

I looked up the definition of "wisdom" and it basically means knowledge and good judgement gained through experience. Or in other words, knowledge through experience. 

Well, that's perfectly applicable to the gospel. You learn more about the gospel through experience. As you experience the gospel you see how its teachings offer the best way to live. It's a sort of cycle of knowledge. As you experience, your knowledge grows. As your knowledge grows, you learn to stick to the gospel. As you stick to the gospel, you continue to have experiences in the gospel which will further your knowledge. Yay! 

Cool! Right? 

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Scottsburg!

December 5, 2016

Dear Family,

This was a fun week! There was a TON that happened. I'm going to like it here in Scottsburg. 

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

Last P-Day in Hurstbourne! It was a fun one. We all hung out at the church with like 20 other missionaries. Like all my areas, I'm going to miss Hurstbourne. It was a great time full of learning. And trials. And more learning. 

For lunch, Elders Lesh, Hopkins and I ran to Arby's in the rain only to find their lobby closed due to short staffing. So what did we do? We walked through the drive-through because that was open. That was my first time doing that. 

Later on we had a lesson with a lady who we met a few days prior. We had a lesson over Messenger because she wasn't feeling too well. It was my first lesson over Messenger. It was an interesting experience. I found that you're not able to teach as much because it takes a while to type stuff out and wait for the other person to type stuff out. Although we didn't teach her much, we answered a lot of her Q's. She had a lot of the classic "Question of the soul" questions, i.e. how do I find guidance in life? How do I rely on Christ? Etc. I don't think I've ever had anyone ask me those sincerely. We gave her a lot of scriptures and a lot of answers to her questions. She thanked us for helping her and wants to meet more. That'll be fun for Elder Hoole and his next companion. 

I finished the day by packing. It took me a while as it usually does. For me, packing my bags is a time of personal reflection on what happened in the area I'm leaving. It took me about 4 hours to pack from Corydon, 3 from Campbellsville, 2 from Owensboro and 2 from Hurstbourne. If this continues, it'll likely take me 6 hours to pack at the end of my mission because I'll be thinking about everything that happened. I probably won't get much sleep on that night because of that 😊

-Tuesday-

In the morning Brother Vivian drove me to the transfer spot. While I was moving stuff around and saying "bye" to the departing missionaries I knew, I saw the Jensons from Campbellsville and Sis. Emmert from Owensboro. The Jensons are the ones that fed me last Thanksgiving. This transfer is the one Elder Shelley, my second companion, went home. Bye Shelley! 

The Boettchers are the ones that picked me up and drove me to Scottsburg. They're the senior missionaries here and Sis Boettcher is the mission nurse. I talked with her for both of my bike accidents :). The drive to Scottsburg was quick. It's not too far from Louisville. The first thing I noticed when I got there was that we had a brand new red 2016 Toyota Corolla to drive around in :D. I think it's fitting my last area has a brand new red car to drive! 

The Boettchers fed us lunch. Then it was off to unpacking and shopping. After all that was taken care of, we started working. My new companion's name is Elder Kloepfer. He's been out for a year. He was trained by a couple of the best missionaries this mission has seen. He's a Sterling Scholar in Science so he's way smarter than I am. He's humble about it though, which I like. 

The first thing we did when we went out was bike around, and talk to everyone we saw. Biking here is so easy! Scottsburg is very flat. Surprisingly with how small this town is there's usually a lot of people out. It's actually easier to talk to more people here than it was in Hurstbourne. We rode to this tiny man-made lake to see if there was anyone there. There were a lot of people. I talked to a pastor and a guy who believed in some anti. They were both nice though. 

Later on we went to a smaller town called Austin. Like Scottsburg, it's flat and there's people out. Scottsburg and Austin are the two towns we do most of our work in. They're the biggest ones in the area. Both towns are very, very poor and very, very quiet. You can barely hear the freeway. It's like being out in the middle of nowhere.

We finished the night with the Boettchers. They're basically our parents. They have us over frequently, give us lots of stuff, and come teaching with us often. Because Sis. Boettcher's the mission nurse she has a lot of random medical things. Perfect for a sick elder like me :). 

-Wednesday-

We did our weekly planning on Wednesday. It was a long one because we actually have a good number of people we're working with. This area has 5 baptismal dates. 5! I haven't had that many dates at once in the longest time! One of them actually looks pretty solid. 

We taught 3 lessons on Wednesday. The first one was with a 9 year-old girl. She's exactly like the last 9 year old I taught in Campbellsville. We reviewed the Plan of Salvation and drew it out for her. It was a fun lesson. The Boettchers were there to offer support. She seemed to understand everything we told her. 

The second lesson was with the only Hispanic in Scottsburg. The Boettchers were with us again. We all read a little out of the BoM with him. He is a "former" that missionaries recently picked back up. His progression is a little slow but he still shows potential. I wish I would have picked up more Spanish from my 6 months of working with Hispanics in Owensboro so I'd be able to communicate with him more. 

The third lesson was with a recent convert who is 16. His dad joined the church a few months ago. He's a super nice kid. He loves video games. He reminded me of my 16 year-old self, a shy video gamer :). We had a fun conversation about "fun runs". His school does mile runs once a month. I told him my school did them weekly. 

-Thursday-

The first part of Thursday was spent "friending" members over Facebook and saying "hi" to them. We biked around for a while. Had a few appointments fall through. We went on a little bit of an adventure bike ride next to some train tracks. We rode next to them to the southern part of town. 

Later on we were in Austin and had dinner at Huddle House. It's very similar to Waffle House. After dinner we stopped by a gas station to track down a potential who we knew spends a lot of time at this particular gas station. We found him and rescheduled an appointment. While there I found Ski in a glass bottle. I didn't know that existed. Without question, I bought two! 

We finished the night by teaching one of our baptismal dates. He is one of the few investigators that actually reads out of the BoM daily. He'll probably get baptized if he keeps that up. As usual, the Boettchers were there to help us teach. It's nice having a senior couple! 

-Friday-

Friday was the first semi-hard day. It was freezing cold. No one was out. The first few hours of biking around were brutal. Winter in "Kentuckiana" sucks. Later on we had interviews with the Broughs. The church has started this new thing were they have the mission presidents interview missionaries once a transfer instead of every other transfer. I like seeing the Broughs more. It allows them to get to know me better and it allows me to get to know them better. President Brough said he got a particularly good feeling when he moved me here. He said he didn't get that feeling in any of my other areas. He thinks I'll see great success here. I got a similar confirmation on the drive up here on Tuesday. I felt like this is where I needed to be. 

During interviews the district leader, Elder Irwin, the same Elder Irwin that was in Columbia when I was in Campbellsville, trained on the new Christmas videos. As usual, the church gave us special cards for the Christmas season. Elder Irwin offered some ways that we could use them. 

After the interviews the Boettchers drove us up to try Miss B but she wasn't available. On the drive back we drove through Austin, and I noticed a music shop with drums in it. Guess where I'll be spending a lot of time on p-days :). 

-Saturday-

We started Saturday off by teaching a recent convert. We read a chapter out of the BoM to help her get back into the habit of studying daily. After the lesson was over I found some passion fruits growing across the street from her house. This is the time of year they ripen so, of course, I ate a couple. They were good! The last time I had fresh passion fruit was in J&L's yard back in Campbellsville. 

Later on we had a branch Christmas party. I got to meet a lot of the branch members there. This is a tiny branch. They're all super friendly with strong testimonies. I should mention that the building we have to meet in now was just bought by the church a few months ago. It was a Christian school before it was a church. It has an odd layout - 7 bathrooms. The church did a great job adapting it for our purposes. There isn't really a big meeting room so the branch party was pretty packed. It was weird but cool! 

We finished the night with a brief visit with Mr M. He didn't have time to chat but he did say he's still reading which is good. 

-Sunday-

First day at church in Scottsburg. The whole service is only about 2 hours because the branch is so small. There were only 30 people there. It was fast and testimony meeting and like my other branches, there was no down time between testimonies. Everyone is eager to get up and bear their testimony. Our branch president, President Penrod, came up to me afterwards and said "Since you didn't get a chance to introduce yourself, will you give a 10 minute talk next week on charity and service?" I said "Sure." So now I'm giving a talk next week. 

After church I met our other investigator who's our age. I'm not sure if he'll progress much. He's nice though. 

We biked around for a little while in the rain... yup... fun... It was nice to have dinner with the Boettchers though. They had lasagna. The meals after a fast are always the best meals. After dinner we all went to visit Mr A again. This time we went over the interview Q's and watched the First Presidency's Christmas devotional. The lesson went well and the devotional was awesome. He likes watching things like that. That devotional was a great way to end the week. 

-> Small Plates <-

This email is so long that I'm not going to do large message here. Something that this week taught me was that the Lord watches out for you more than you might think. There were a lot of things about this week that reminded me of that. 

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

We still do a lot of biking! Scottsburg is very flat, thankfully.

At Huddle House with Elder Kloepfer

I found more passion fruit!

Last Week in Hurstbourne

November 28, 2016

Dear Family,

This week was interesting. It had a member paying for doughnuts, district lunch at Chipotle, a pink and purple sunset, a million Christmas trees, more bike maintenance, Thanksgiving, Chick-Fil-A, transfer news, cheesecake, church, and the nicest Baptists ever. 

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

Started off at Krispey Kreme. As we were walking up a member happened to pull up and pay for our doughnuts. He's an oral surgeon. That was nice having our doughnuts paid for this week :). 

Other than that not much else happened this P-Day. It was pretty normal. Spent it at the church hanging out with like 12 other missionaries. It was fun.

-Tuesday-

District meeting was moved to Tuesday because Thanksgiving is on Thursday. Elder Lesh gave a TWE training that was good. After the meeting we went to Chipotle for lunch. It was alright. 

The rest of the day was pretty normal. We spent it biking around trying people. Towards the end of the day we saw a purple and pink sunset that only lasted a few minutes. Elder Hoole got some pics of it. 

We met a young guy on the streets and taught him the first half of the Restoration. We blew his mind with a few of the points of doctrine. 

-Wednesday-

Service day. At ReStore we moved a million more trees from upstairs to downstairs. 

I learned more about bike maintenance. My bike accident left my rims lightly bent. I called a member who knows a lot about bikes and asked how to straighten them. You have to take a spoke wrench, of which my new multi-tool has, and adjust the spokes accordingly. I spent a lot of time straightening my rims. I got them straight though :). 

At the Methodist church we helped cook chicken nuggets.  

-Thursday-

Thanksgiving! Holidays as a missionary are always hard to get through. For the most part we just rested at the church and at our apartment. The Dodds had us over for lunch. They're a fun family. It was nice. They had great pumpkin bread. 

We finished the night by watching the "Piano Guys Face2Face" and President Monson's "On the Lord's Errand." They were great movies. 

-Friday-

My sickness was acting up on Friday. We started the day at Chick-Fil-A because it had been a while. It was heavenly. 

We went to visit Mr Ch. We showed him a Mormon Message. I don't know what to do with him. I doubt he'll return to full activity soon. 

Later on in the day we met a lady who said she'd be interested in a message and has "a lot of questions for us." It always worries me when I meet people who "have a lot of questions". 

We finished the day reconnecting with a Catholic lady Elder Lesh and I taught a couple weeks ago. She said she would love to keep meeting with us. 

-Saturday-

We found out our transfer news in the morning. I'm going to Scottsburg, Indiana. My new companion will be Elder Kloepfer (cleffer). He'll hit his year mark in December. Scottsburg is another small town in Indiana. It'll probably be similar to Corydon. 

In the morning we went to ReStore again because they asked us to come back on Saturday. We moved even more Christmas trees. After that we had to bike to the church for a lesson with Ms Fer. We taught her in our service clothes. She's a referral from one of the California missions. English is not her first language. In the lesson we had to Skype in a member from California who worked with her to translate. They talked in a Persian language for most of the time. We taught her the first half of the Plan of Salvation. The member translated everything we said. It was an interesting experience teaching like that. 

After that long lesson we finally got into dress clothes and biked around. We went and visited the Baptists. They invited us to their Christmas service. They gave us Cheesecake :). 

-Sunday-

Went to church. Brother Crandall and Bishop Finder gave fantastic talks. They're both great speakers. I was supposed to teach Gospel Principles but no one showed up so it was cancelled and I got out of teaching :). 

Later on Phil, one of the Baptists, picked us up and took us to their church for the service. The moment we walked in we got a couple death glares. But everyone else was super friendly. A lot of people came up to us and were very kind to us. Absolutely no one tried to fight us which is almost uncharacteristic of Baptists. This was the nicest lot of Baptists I've been around. Even the pastor was super nice to us. He told us how he spoke with some RM's and Seventy's in Utah and loved our church. He said he wanted to meet with us and talk with us. He also said he is strictly against bashing. He just wants to understand our church more. 

The service itself was fun. There were a lot of classic Christmas carols. A couple recited prayers. And a lot of food. 

<- Small Plates ->

I have 18 weeks left. That's as long as I spent in Hurstbourne. I feel like I just barely got to Hurstbourne. By the time I get to the end of my mission I will have felt like I just barely got to Scottsburg. It's weird to think I've spent this long in the mission. I'm dying (lingo for mission ending). I don't really know what to say at this point. The mission has been an experience that I can't put into words. I have obtained a knowledge that is invaluable. A knowledge I wouldn't have been able to obtain any other way. I've learned so much. I've experienced so much. 

My testimony of the gospel, Jesus Christ, the scriptures, the restoration, the plan of salvation, and everything else has become unbreakable. For that I will be forever thankful.

Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox - GKLM

Louisville Zone Conference

Our District

Again...

Christmas Service at the Baptist Church.

Gotta represent!

In the kitchen

Elder Hoole made Hawaiian chicken and I cut pineapple :)

Purple and pink sunset

District Pic

Crazy times!