Serving in Kentucky: Meals on Diels

January 23, 2017

Dear Family,

First off... I apologize for the length of this email. Normally my emails are long, this one is longer than most. That's because the small plates section is much bigger than normal. I'll understand if you skip down to the small plates. That's where the best part of the email is anyway. Enjoy!

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

Another P-Day down! I don't have many of these left. The first part was normal. Emailing, shopping, etc. We went to Sister Chandler's funeral. It was a good service. She looked peaceful in her casket. Yeah... #PlanOfSalvation

On a more positive note, our new senior couple came! They're the Diels (pronounced "deal"). Elder and Sister Diel. They just finished a mission in the Philippines. They taught Self-Reliance. The first thing we did with them was unload their car. After that was done, they took us to Cracker Barrel for dinner. Sister Diel is a quieter Sister Boettcher, and Elder Diel remindes me of Kronk from "Emperor's New Groove."

-Tuesday-

We tried to get our broken dryer fixed. That didn't happen. The belt broke in it and the only appliance place in town is closed all the time. And the apartment management will never answer their phone.

We called bingo at the nursing home again. That's always fun to do. Every time we go we get free popcorn too!

We met with D and C again and sat in their home while they taught us about their life. They vented their frustrations about not being able to find a job. We gave them a solid commitment to read from the BoM with a promise that if they did, they'd find a job. I haven't left many other commitments that were as solid, bold, and direct as that one so hopefully they actually read.

At had dinner with the Morgans that night. They live in a nice house on the shore of Lake Hardy, which is forever away from the apartment. They fed us a really nice pasta dish with bacon and chicken in it. For dessert they had rice crispy ice cream sandwiches. Our lesson with them was about the gospel and Facebook. It went well for the most part. They love the gospel, not Facebook, so getting a commitment was a little awkward.

It was Elder Koepfer's birthday! He turned 21! Yes, he's a month older than me.

-Wednesday-

Another weekly planning session down. I don't have many more to do. For the morning and afternoon hours we went on a long walk around town. For part of this walk we explored an abandoned factory that's next to Lake Iola. This factory was abandoned in the 50's. The ceiling is gone, but the walls are still up. There's even some old machinery that was left behind still there! I took a long video of us touring that place. We had a fun time exploring it. It's not every day that you get to explore an abandoned factory from the 50's that's still decently intact. Part of the reason we did this was in celebration of Kloepfer's birthday.

Later that day we taught Miss B with the Diels. We gave her the first new member lesson. It went decently well. She's able to retain a lot of knowledge for a 9 year old. She seems to be calmer and happier now that she has the Gift of the Holy Ghost.

We finished the night with the H family. We had a decent lesson about temples. They're all working on getting their recommends so they can do baptisms for the dead. Bro. H gave the closing prayer. As he was praying his son in the kitchen was being noisy, so in the middle of the prayer Bro H yelled, "Dylan! I'm praying!" I laughed a bit because I had never heard a parent get onto their kid while they were praying.

-Thursday-

This was a fun Thursday. We went to the Clearinghouse and helped sort more food there with the Diels. The Clearinghouse is very similar to DI. When we finished there the Diels took us next door to the YMCA so they could meet President Penrod (he's the CEO of the YMCA in town). The Diels met him, and he invited all of us to lunch. We went to this Mexican place that was surprisingly authentic. I got a tamale. I really like tamales. The Diels paid for us. That was the second meal they provided for us.

Later on we saw Ms Ro and gave her a decent temple lesson. She wants to go to the temple. She feels unworthy so we assured her that she can make it if she works for it.

We served at Food 4 R Souls again. I had some nasty fatigue while we were helping. There were actually several days this week I felt fatigued. I'm pretty sure that was caused by all the stress of being sick with one thing or another for the last month. That, and I've also noticed that if I don't have 3 proper meals a day then I'll get fatigued too. Being an adult isn't fun.

After Food 4 R Souls, we saw Jo for the first time in forever. He's still Jo. He still wants to learn how to repent but being 17 isn't helping. Yeah... We'll see what happens.

Taught Bro. L again. Read D&C 121 with him. He's also still Bro. L.

-Friday-

The Diels drove us to their first district meeting in Madison. The sisters gave a great training on Christlike attributes. It's been awhile since anyone has trained on those. After the meeting the Diels took us to the Downtowner. That's a little food place in downtown Madison that we went to when Kloepfer and I went to Madison for P-Day last transfer. This time the special was a grilled cheese with ham and tomato soup. Just like last time, the food was great. I really like the Downtowner.

Layer on we were walking around like usual when this guy stopped us and talked to us. He was a super nice guy. He gave us A&W cream soda. He wanted to "study" with us right then and there. We didn't have anything going on at the moment so we agreed to "study" with him. His version of "studying" was simply telling us how he believed that God was an alien and that tobacco is good for you. Yeah... People are funny.

-Saturday-

Oh my gosh! The weather was great on Saturday! It was 65 degrees most of the day! It felt so nice! There were so many people out to work with. We took the Diels to visit Ms Ro. They were fantastic for Rosetta! They were able to relate to her better than we could. The Diels used to be less-active themselves. They'll be great for a lot of the members in the branch because of the experience they've had. Ms Ro should be able to progress faster with the Diels.

Later on that night we went on an adventure drive in the boonies to try people we've never met before. One person we tried was another less active named Sis J. Right when we got out of the car at her house, her husband let the dogs out of the front door. They started running towards us. We got back into the car rather quickly. After the husband saw who we were he came out, talked to us (while we were still in the car), and set up a time to meet for the next day.

-Sunday-

I had one of the top 5 church services on my mission this week. It was amazing! I'm finally starting to get a lot out of church. Which is a good thing since I'll be going to church for the rest of my life. In sacrament meeting, Bro Sebastian reviewed some of my favorite church blog articles from recent months. Bro Nutter was the second speaker. He used to be the branch president but he moved out some years ago. He visited this week and gave the most powerful sacrament talk I've ever heard. It was general conference level. I'll attempt to describe it in my small plates. Bro Banda's lesson in priesthood echoed everything that was taught.

After church we visited Sis J. She's a nice lady. She still believes in the church but she has issues with the members of the local branch. She said she'll come back someday. We asked her if she'd like to meet the Diels and she accepted. They'll be able to help her better than we could.

The Diels fed us a Sunday night dinner. Spaghetti, bread, and salad. Classic easy meal. It was great! Sister Diel's a good cook. This was the 4th meal they fed us.

-> Small Plates <-

Here's a (sort of) condensed version of Brother Nutter's talk from my memory. Hopefully I can do it justice.

"To start off, let me take you back to 1979. I was a Sargent in the Marine Corps stationed in California. There was a man named John who was a Vietnam veteran, had left the Army, joined the Marines, and was then worked for me. The time came for John to re-enlist. He came to me and asked for my advice on what he should do.

"I told him 'You know, you have some bargaining room here. You should be able to ask for just about any responsibility you want. You should go on embassy duty. Marines guard all the embassies around the world. Not only do they guard, they have to attend all the events too. All the dinners. All the dances. Whenever no one's dancing with the daughter of a foreign representative, you'll have to dance with her. You'll also get to chauffeur people around in a white shirt and tie. And during all of this, you'll be in a foreign county.'

"He said to me 'Wow! That sounds pretty good! I'll do that!' So he went through the training. Before he finished the training be came to me and said 'This has been great! Thanks for recommending this. Do you have any other advice for me?' I told him 'About a week before you finish the training they'll ask you where you want to go. There's about a 50/50 chance you'll get it. However, if you ask for hardship duty, they'll put you somewhere where there's a lot of anti-American feelings for a year. Somewhere like Russia, or the Middle East. It'll be hard year. But when you complete that year, they'll guarantee you anywhere you want to go for 3 or so years. Do you want to go to New Zealand? Australia? England? That's their commitment to you if you complete the hardship duty.' He said to me 'That sounds good too. I'll do that.'

"Well, the time came when they asked John where he wanted to go and he asked for hardship duty. In 1979, he was sent to the embassy in Tehran. That embassy was taken in 1979, and everyone that was there was held hostage for over 400 days. John was one of those hostages.

"John and I were both Marines. We both signed up to be in harms way. That fact gave me some comfort with John's situation, but I couldn't help but feel bad because my advice had led John to be a hostage.

"Some of you are probably wondering 'What does any of this have to do with the gospel?' Well, long before 1979, we were all offered benefits if we would accept hardship duty. We were promised perfect bodies, eternity with our families, exaltation, and many, many other things. Back then we said 'Wow! That sounds amazing! I want that.' So we all signed up for hardship duty. However, when when got here we realized that this was going to be a lot harder than we thought. Our bodies are imperfect right now. They have all kinds of pains and trials. We suffer. We hurt. There seems to be no end.

"While John was in Tehran, he went through many trials. They beat him. Tortured him. But he had support from the other hostages that were with him. They would help each other when things got hard. When John didn't have strength to continue, his friends were strong for him. John also had support from people on the other side of the conflict in America who were working hard for his release. People all the way up to the President of the United States.

"As we go through life, we go through many trials. We are beaten, and in some cases tortured. Thankfully, we have support from our friends and family. They can help us when things get hard. They can be strong for us when we don't have strength. Our friends and family are not our only source of support, however. We also have much support from the other side. There are thousands and thousands of people who are helping us and others to come home through many means. People all the way up to our Heavenly Father.

"Eventually, John and the other hostages release was negotiated, and they were led home to be reunited with their families.

"John would not have made it if it weren't for the support of his friends in Tehran, and for the support of those on the other side in America. Likewise, we won't make it back home without our friends and family, or without the support of those on the other side of the veil."

(My memory of the talk ends here. There wasn't much more that he said at this point. He made some analogies to missionary work and how we can help others return home. Yup... I really liked his talk.)

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)