Up!.. Then down...

April 18, 2016

Dear Family,

The first half of this week as great! The second half flopped.

Monday
Normal P-Day. We frolfed in the rain; heavy, freezing rain. By the end, our hands stiffened up to the point where we had no accuracy. It was fun. :) Somehow none of us got sick. Later on we met with a man named Mr Brn. We met him a few days prior. We talked to him and he said we could came back. Well, we returned on Monday night and introduced the BoM to him. He was very receptive to it. We asked when we could come back and he said tomorrow.

Tuesday
We started teaching Mr Brn again. This time we taught him a full L1 and extended a baptismal date for May 21st. He accepted the date a little more eagerly than most people. So, there's our first person with a baptismal date in a while. Mr Brn is married with 3 little kids. He's a nice guy. He seems interested. He gives intelligent answers to our questions. The kind of answers people give when they're actually interested.

Later, we met with K. K was a media referral. He's a nice guy with a passion for comic books and video games. So, basically a lot of what I'm interested in too. He's only the 3rd person on my mission I've been able to have video game conversations with. We read from the BoM with him and set another appointment for later in the week.

Later, we helped Ms Val move some sticks. Then we read 2 chapters from 3 Nephi with her. Later, we met with Mr Ed, one of our few Spanish investigators. Elder Salazar taught him L2 and he seemed to like it. He took it well. Mr Ed has his own beliefs that he's very strict so it's interesting whenever we introduce something new to him. Later that night, we went on splits. Elder Salazar and I went out with Bro Shelby. We tried a bunch of people but didn't get in anywhere.

Wednesday
We started on the bikes. My bike is awesome! :) We biked to and taught a man named Mr Ces. We first met him a few weeks ago but we haven't been able to get in regularly until recently. We read a little out of the BoM with him and set an appointment for tomorrow. Right after Mr Ces, we contacted a lady around the corner and wound up having a full L1 with her. Her name was Ms Bri. She's a young mom with 1 child.

Later, we taught the V's. They're a LA couple the missionaries have been working with for a while. Their problem is they'll say that they'll do stuff but never do it. We've been trying to help them but they aren't putting their effort into anything. It's a little frustrating. Oh well. After that, we had another surprise lesson with a guy we contacted a few days ago. His name was Mr He. He speaks Spanish so I'm unable to teach him. We weren't planning on getting in with him. We were just trying to see if he was home. He answered and let us right in. We taught him the first lesson.

English class was cancelled so we went to this neighborhood I've never been to before and talked to the people around. It was a great neighborhood. It was nice, new, clean, and everyone was friendly. Not a single person was mean to us. It was great. We got a few potentials out of it.

Thursday
We went to the Pitino shelter to help out. The zone leaders exchanged Elder Gough so Elder Hansen was there with us today. After service, we taught Mr Ces a full L1 and committed him to May 21st. He wasn't sure at first, but he accepted. The lesson went really well. He understood it and took sincere interest. Later on we met with K and taught him L2. He took off with it. He loved it. He understood it and committed himself to come to church this week.

Later, we picked up the bike elders for the Swopes. Elder Hansen was one of the missionaries who originally taught and baptized Bro Swope. They had their best meal yet: Fettuccini Alfredo, salad, and bread sticks! It was great!

Friday
We had district meeting. Elder Gough trained on setting baptismal dates with people. Afterwards, we ate at Shogun. If you remember, I ate at a Shogun in Glasgow and raved over it. We have one here and we ate at it. It was heavenly. Later we visited Ms Val. She gave Elder Salazar some of her fishing gear she doesn't use. Now Elder Salazar wants to go fishing. Great. I hate fishing. Later, we ate at the Gomez's. They're super nice as always.

Not a whole lot of teaching happened on Friday. This is where the week started to flop.

Saturday
We were supposed to meet with Mr Ces, but he cancelled. Later on, we biked back to him but he was still unavailable. Down the street from him, there was a man trying to get his truck to work. We tried to help him out, but we were unsuccessful. He had been working all day on his truck and said he was very thirsty. I gave him the cool, unopened water bottle I had just pulled out of the fridge. He was very grateful.

Later, we went to Bro Scudder's baptism. He just turned 8 this week. His father, who converted back in November, baptized him. After that, we took the bike elders down to Bro Emmert's for our weekly missionary coordination and meal. We roasted weenies over an open fire this week. I helped Bro Emmert's son climb up a tall, thin pole to nail something in the top. He was not happy to be up there. 

Sunday
We had some great talks in church. Bro Tidwell gave some good analogies for the priesthood and keys with medical licenses and hospital privileges. We ate at the Fuqua's afterwards. They fed us pork chops. They had a couple non-member friends there. Later on,
Bro Shelby had us over and fed us. He's a super nice guy. After, we visited the Q family. I talked to Bro Q while Elder Salazar tried to teach everyone else L3. Their kids are crazy.

That was this week. We have a couple of baptismal dates now which is better than last week. Thanks for all the support you give me!

Loves!

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Baby turtle!

So little...

Turtle belly!

This is on the side of almost every trash can here... literally, almost every one.
You know you're in a 100% Christian neighborhood when everyone's trash can has this on it.
2 Corinthians 5:17
 "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

See that little sticky note? That's not where I left it... oooo!
I left it beneath my PMG before I went to sleep. When I woke up, it was on my scriptures... oooo!
It's a reminder note to do a study project I thought of this week. I do a lot of study projects.
I think I'll benefit highly from this one as the note moved itself in the middle of the night... oooo!

That's Bro Emmert's son on the pole. He was barefoot and nailing something on the top. It was pretty sketchy

My shoes after a year. I shined them this morning. The bottoms hardly have any wear on them.
I think it's safe to say Ecco's are the best missionary shoe.