Serving in Kentucky: How Far is that Plane?

March 20, 2017

Dear Family,

"How far is that plane?" That's a question that older missionaries ask younger missionaries to tease them about how long they have left. When I was at the beginning of my mission, I was with Elder Koenig on an exchange. We saw a plane and he asked me "How far away do you think that plane is?" I responded with "Oh... probably about 2 or 3 miles." He then said "No, it's about 2 years away."

We'll now I can ask others that question because I have 2 weeks left! I got my itinerary, or "trunky papers" as most missionaries call them, this week. I'll be talking more about that soon. For the most part, the entire week was uneventful so I probably won't say much about the days.

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

For the most part this was a very normal and very uneventful P-Day. We did all the normal stuff. It snowed. Yup, it snowed. Not very much, but it did snow.

As usual we saw the H family. We wanted to teach the brother, D, more but he had a friend over so we worked with A. We had a fun time reading and trying to explain 2 Nephi 3 to him. There's 4 Josephs to keep track of in that chapter. Lehi's son Joseph, old Joseph who was sold into Egypt, Joseph Smith, Senior, and Joseph Smith, Junior.

The scriptures are hard enough to understand. It doesn't help when everyone has the same name or when the time line takes a crap. i.e. trying to piece together Jarom, Omni, Words of Mormon, and most of Mosiah in chronological order is a headache.

-Tuesday-

We did something that we haven't done in a while on Tuesday. We walked around in the bitter cold! Yay! I forgot how miserable doing that was. Everything was cold! :D

We walked to a referral's house who lived about a mile away. Can you guess what happened when we got there? They weren't home! We walked all that way in freezing temperatures. Ah, mission life. :) It's things like this that I'm not going to miss. At least our venture wasn't completely in vain. There was a lovely note on the door of said house that told us what time our referral would be home in the following day. Yay!

-Wednesday-

This was my "21 days left" mark. Woo! We had another weekly planning session. I think I only have 2 more left. Wow! That's crazy! I've done so many of those!

After the planning we ventured out to that referral we tried the yesterday. Well... He wasn't there again. We called him, which we should have done at the very first, and found out he won't be home for several days. I'll let you know if anything happens with him.

Later on we drove to some far out places to try peeps. We reconnected with a former who has potential. She hasn't really been taught anything. She wants to look into the church but for the last few months her life has been crazy. That's why she hasn't been taught. But we reconnected with her and now there's a solid chance we'll be working with her soon.

-Thursday-

We did service for most of Thursday. We did even more service than normal. We had a normal time at the Clearinghouse. Again, they didn't have a whole lot to do for us. Would you like me to tell you about how exciting it is to sort cans?... No?... Okay.

After the Clearinghouse we did some service for Bro P. He was recently hospitalized for the 3rd time. He's out now and recovering. We went to his house to try and clean it up a bit. The crazy storm from a couple weeks ago tore a lot of his trees up. Sticks and logs were everywhere. After 2 hours of work, there was still a lot of work to be done. It was the Diels, the Morgans, and us, who were there. I think we'll be going back on Saturday to gather all the sticks and burn them.

After that service we went to F4RS. They had good food this time which was nice. Deli sammich's and cheesecake. It's always the same people that come every week. I've noticed that F4RS isn't busy in the beginning of the month but way busy at the end. One of the other volunteers told me that's because everyone runs out of food stamps at the end of the month.

-Friday-

Had my 2nd to last district meeting. Sis. Harris has become my District trunky friend. Elder Haws is my Zone trunky friend. Sis Harris reminded me how little time I had left. She's excited for me. I don't know why because she has 17 months left. She just barely came out. The Zone Leaders were there. Elder Passmore is one of them. It was fun seeing him.

After the meeting we went to Smokin Crows BBQ for lunch. Man, that place is good! I got a little chicken sammich, a little pork sammich, and a little brisket sammich. The brisket was amazing! It was so good! I'm going to miss good BBQ when I get home.

The rest of the day was... normal... Yup...

-Saturday-

I got my flight plans on Saturday morning. It's difficult to describe the feeling I had as I stared at the little envelope in the mailbox, picked it up, opened it, and read it. Happy to be leaving, sad to be leaving, excited to be leaving, scared to be leaving, and everything in between. I didn't think my papers would come so soon! I remember when my trainer got his papers. That doesn't seem too long ago.

Later in the day we went to some more far out places in the area to try people. We tried Miss B, but she wasn't home. Her dad was, so we talked with him for a minute. He recently dislocated his thumb and he works on semi trucks for a living.

-Sunday-

I went to church! Elder McIntosh gave a nice talk about the armor of God. I had a trunky moment with President Penrod. He's become my Branch trunky buddy. He informed me that I'll be giving a talk next Sunday for my last normal sacrament meeting on the mission. He wants me to talk about service and the things I've learned on the mission. Yay!

At the end of the day we saw Ms Ro. We actually had a good visit with her. It was more of an open, casual visit. We read with her and talked about how we can help her daughter. She likes talking about ways to help her. I feel like Ms Ro progressed a bit. That's good!

-> Small Plates <-

I'm still reading the BoM. I'm almost done with Alma. As fun as the war chapters are, they're a little difficult to get through. Anyway, I'm not even going to talk about the war chapters. I'm working on my "Words of Wisdom," which is the advice every departing missionary gives to the other missionaries before leaving...

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)