Zoo!

April 25, 2016

Dear Family,

This was a rather unique week. Every day was pretty different from the others. Here's the breakdown:

Monday
Jason took us bowling again. I did a lot better than last time. My highest score this time was 139. Later on we had a really effective night. We met a lot of people and got a few potentials. We met one man who is the father of 4 kids. He's a nice guy. We met him in his yard while he was cleaning it. We started talking about the church and had a great conversation. He said he wants his kids to grow up with faith in God. We told him about the primary program and he liked it. We also asked if we could drop by to teach him and he said that would be great. He mentioned how he's unsure which church is right. You know, we actually met more people than normal this week with that concern.


Tuesday
In the morning Elder Salazar ran a few miles and I biked next to him. I don't like running but I did want to ride my bike. After that, we had to take the bike elders on a morning Walmart trip to get a new inner tube for one of their bikes. We picked them up, went to Walmart, Got the tube, dropped them off, and went back home. About 10 minutes later, they called and said the tube was defective so we had to pick them up and do it all over again.

Later in the day, we met with a man named Mr Ru. He speaks Spanish so Elder Salazar is the only one who can teach him. He taught him the first lesson and extended a baptismal date for May 28. He accepted. From what Elder Salazar said, he accepted it really well. During the lesson he was engaged and actually interested so that was nice. He told us about a dream he had where he was walking and he came to this large, black canyon. He couldn't cross it himself. But 2 angels came and helped him across. I'm pretty sure those two angels were us. :)

Tuesday night for splits, I went with the Smiths to see the Hamiltons. Sis Hamilton has had a lot of recent medical issues. When we got to their house we found them fishing in a pond. If Elder Salazar was there, he'd be all over the fishing. I talked to Sis Hamilton while Bro Smith talked to Bro Hamilton. Both of them are great people. They're really nice. Sis Hamilton is your typical Kentuckian who has an infinite amount of things to say somehow. She can talk. During our conversation she guessed that I like jazz drumming.

Wednesday
The Craigs took us out to breakfast Wednesday morning. They took us to this place called Dee's Diner. They had fantastic breakfast food. I ordered pancakes with my food and they brought out the biggest pancakes I've ever seen. They were literally a foot and a half wide. The plate they were on wasn't even big enough. They were thick pancakes too. After breakfast we started working with biking and talking to a lot of people on the street. The last two people we talked with said we could come back. One of them used to talk with the missionaries. Later we picked up the Belders (Bike Elders. That's what I'm calling them now) to help out with some service for a single lady. We just helped her clean out her house. We had to stop half way through to go to some appointments. but they all fell through so we went back and finished with the cleaning.

Later, we taught the Vans. They're doing okay. They know they need to change and get back into church, but they're not putting the action necessary in to accomplish that. Later, the youth went out bowling. A couple of our investigators went so that allowed us to go too. I didn't do so good this time around. I guess I've been bowling too much lately.

Thursday
Elder Salazar and I went to the Pitino Shelter (homeless shelter we do food service at) while Jason, the bowler, took the Belders to Dee's Diner again. Yeah... After that, I went on exchange in the bike area with Elder Gardenier. I got to ride my bike the whole day. It was fun. My bike worked flawlessly. We tried to teach a man the first lesson, but he would talk about judging and racial profiling. He was a talker. Nice guy through. After that, we took a break and had a good discussion about how hard it was to baptize.

Later, we taught Mr C. I taught him back in the trio so it was nice to see him again. He's working on getting back in the habit of reading and coming to church. He's still unsure about the church but he believes it's good. I'm sure he'll be baptized eventually. Afterwards, we went to support Miss Smith in her high school choir concert. That counts as service for members. :) The concert was really cool. There were a few songs that were awesome. They did a great job.

While we were there, a LA came up to us and started talking to us. She introduced herself and told us when she got baptized. We asked if she wanted us to visit and she said yes. So it was inspired that we went to a high school concert. :) Elder G and I both realized that was the first time either of us have been back in a high school since we graduated.

Friday
We exchanged back and had district meeting. The Jasper Elders (Jelders) gave a great training on using members. They gave me a different perspective on using members. 
They came up with an acronym for REBAR. Going backwards, 
Results happen from Actions. 
Actions come from Beliefs. 
Beliefs come from Experiences. 
Experiences come from 
Relationships with other members. 
That's a fancy way of pointing out how important members are in missionary work. 

After the meeting we went to Shogun but for some reason the food wasn't sitting well this time. I wasn't feeling good for the rest of the day. During the day, we had weekly planning in the library. We finished the night with the Gomez's. They fed us soft shell tacos with shredded beef. Man, that beef was good. 

Saturday
Nothing happened for the first half of Saturday. We biked half the town, trying people and talking with people on the streets, but nothing really happened. Later, we taught the Vans the Word of Wisdom. It went well. They know they need to quit their stuff. They said they would work on it. 

We went to the Emmerts Saturday night like usual. Bro Emmert grilled burgers and hot dogs this time.

Sunday
We had 3 investigators at church this week so that was good. Lately we've been focusing on helping people get to church instead of hoping they'll get there and it paid off a bit. We had a 1.5 hour ward council after church. Then Elder Salazar got his back fixed by Bro Capener. And then Sis Capener wanted to feed us so she made us PB&J's. After that, we did our studies. By the time we finished all of our after church stuff, we only had an hour to work. We met a couple of people who were interested.

We had dinner at the Fedors. Bro Fedor was telling me about his mission and how there were a few missionaries that had over 100 baptisms. He also told me about some of the major success he had and how when he went tracting there were many people throughout his mission that literally said "I've been waiting for you. Come in. Teach me." During all of that I was thinking "how the crap was all of that possible?" After dinner, he took us on a tour of his books. He's read just about every church-related book possible. He loves Brigham Young's journal discourses.

I'm looking forward to the Skype call. It'll be much needed. Thanks for everything you do. You help me so much.

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Giraffe time!

Gorgeous green snake

2 humps!

Teaching Lesson 1.

Elders and Belders at Evansville Zoo.