15 Hours of Service

May 30, 2016

Dear Family,

15 Hours of Service Later...

We did a lot of service this week. I added up all the time we spent and it was about 15 hours. Maybe 16. A lot of people wanted our help with stuff this week. We helped move 2 families, cleaned an apartment, moved some couches, mowed a yard, and helped clean the church. I don't know how I'm not extremely sore right now.

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-
Brother Pursley came out frolfing with us. He's really good at it. Elder Gardenier threw his disc into the creek. He, Elder Salazar and Elder Gough had quite the adventure getting it back. I wish I would have recorded it. It landed on the other side so they had to cross to get it. On the way to it they had to walk through a field of stinging nettle. They all had shorts on. When they got to the disc the side of the creek was so muddy Elder Salazar fell in. The water was to his neck.

We went shopping at the new Meijer that opened this week. It was pretty nice. Everything has huge discounts on it for opening week. I got myself a nice water bottle. Later on we saw Victor and Maku, the couple I gave Tessa's BoM to. They're still the nicest people ever. We read a few scriptures with them and had a good conversation about Jesus and other characters in church history like Moroni and Joseph Smith. They're actually interested. They said they're going to have us over for African food sometime. That'll be fun because I've never had African food.

-Tuesday-
We started off Tuesday with moving these 2 expensive, heavy couches out of  the In's house and into Sis Pepper's brother's house. Sis Pepper's brother is a McCoy. The McCoy family that had that huge war with the Hatfield family forever ago. He's not a member. He really appreciated the help. We moved the couches in a truck, drove to his house, and unloaded them. He also had us move some old couches out of his house. The whole process took about 1.5 hours.

When we started working we taught Ms Eli a full L1. We're not sure how well she understood our claim to be the one true church. She still loves having us come over and teach her. She loves anything to do with God.

We had a fantastic splits. Bro Swope came out with us. We saw Ms SS and her father. They moved in from another ward a few weeks ago. Her father was baptized a couple years ago. He used to teach gospel principles. We had a good conversation with him. He never met his father. He always had a close relationship with God and considered Him his Father. There was a scripture he really liked about God being our Father but he wasn't sure where it was. He quoted it to me and thanks to my iPad I was able to find it. It was Matthew 3:9.

Later we visited the Tins family with Bro Swope. They fed us dinner with Pizza Hut and a lot of soda. We had a good time there. Bro Tins loves hearing testimonies so he had Bro Swope bear his. It was a good way to start off the lesson. We taught a full L1 and they enjoyed it for the most part. The adults were fully interest but the kids weren't as much. They said they're going to come to church this week because it's the Craig's farewell. The Tins are one of the nicest families I've met on my mission. There are several people we're working with right now that are extremely nice. That makes the work a lot easier.

-Wednesday-
Not a whole lot happened the first half of the day. Just the usual checking on people and walking the streets. Later on we went to the Swope's and taught Ms Swope and her son L2. They liked it. He seemed to understand it. That's always a difficult lesson to explain simply. Even when you can explain it simply, it's a long lesson. They're both looking good for June 11. They gave us this interesting Dragon Fruit drink. It was pretty good.

We finished the day with English class. It had been a while since we last saw our English students.

-Thursday-
We started off moving the Anderson's out of their duplex. That took about 2 or 3 hours. It was just the 4 of us and the Andersons. They bought us Pizza Hut afterwards. Right after that we helped Ms Des move furniture around and clean the place up. I think that took 1.5 hours.

Later we saw Kie. We taught him the first part of L1. We're concerned he's just having us over for fun instead of learning the gospel.

Later that day we did yard service for the Swopes. We mowed and weed whacked for the most part. At some point during the service we got into a tick patch because I found 20+ ticks on my clothes and in my shoes before dinner. According to Bro Swope they were the "bad ones". I didn't know there were kinds of ticks that were worse than others. I thought they all sucked.

They fed us lasagna. It was fantastic. They also had the Shaws over for dinner. They're an older couple in the ward. They're also some of the nicest people ever. They're both converts. They drove us back after dinner and told us about some of their favorite memories in the church.

We finished the day at Walmart buying air fresheners and tick poison. We bathed our clothing in poison several times. Elder Salazar found a tick on his knee and one on his back. I didn't find any on me. Hopefully we got them all.

-Friday-
We went to district meeting. Elder Gough gave a great training on self-mastery and integrity. Later we had lunch at Dee's Diner. Elder Peck, one of the ZL's, actually finished all the pancakes. He didn't look very good afterwards. On the way back to the Belder's apartment I scraped the two right doors on this log that was low to the ground. I was rounding a corner and didn't see the log. It put a nice dent along the two doors. I don't know how I spent 3 years driving before my mission without any sort of accident and now as a missionary I've been rear ended, locked the keys in the car, and dented up 2 doors. What changed?

It's actually a good thing this happened because the car has a lot of other damage from previous missionaries that hasn't been fixed yet so this'll present a good opportunity to have all of that fixed.

Later we helped Bro Swope clean the church. More service! After that we ate dinner at the Gomez's. We finished TWEing on 2nd Street. In May there's something in Owensboro called "Friday After 5". All long 2nd Street and Smothers Park there are bands playing, people selling food, and other booths with stuff. It's basically a downtown party every Friday. There were a ton a people there this time. It was absolutely packed. There were almost as many as there was at the BBQ festival. It was a fun time.

-Saturday-
We started off Saturday with 7 hours of service. We helped the In's move completely out of their house. They had a lot of heavy stuff. We used their riding mower to drag stuff from their basement to the trucks. The funniest part was pushing their piano from their basement. The In's provided breakfast with McDonalds and lunch with Pizza Hut. That's everyone's pizza of choice this week. Once we finished with the house we unloaded some stuff in their storage unit. That was another hour by itself.

Once we were done with everything we went and bought drinks. We took showers and began working again. Not much happened for the rest of the evening. As we were walking in a neighborhood we saw a kid riding a rip stick. He started talking with us. I mentioned I used to ride those and he wanted me to ride his. I tried for about a minute. It felt weird. I could still do it though. The kid asked if it had been 8 years since I rode one last. I thought about it and realized it had been about 8 years since I last rode one.

Later on we ran into a Native American on the streets. He taught us about several beliefs and traditions they have. It was fun to learn more about the Lamanite apostasy. He was a nice guy. He was fun to talk to. As we were talking with him I had the thought that he had Nephi and Alma in his ancestry. 

We finished the day at Walmart buying ice cream because we decided after a day like the one we had, we deserved ice cream. God did too, because we happened to run into some members who gave us the money for ice cream. It was great!

-Sunday-
We went to church. There were a lot of people there because it was the Craig's farewell. The Tin's were there. It was good to see them. Jes wasn't because Satan caused his apartment lights to light on fire so he had to deal with that. In order for him to be baptized on June 11th now, I'd have to get special permission. We can't push it back because that's Ms Swope's day. She's been pushed back enough. Either I get special permission or they'll be baptized separately.

We finished the night eating at the Fedor's. They had pulled pork sammiches again. :)

-> Small Plates <-

A long time ago towards the beginning of my mission someone said the Angel in 1 Nephi 11-14 uses a very specific pattern with showing Nephi the vision. I never really figured it out back then so I forgot about it. I remembered it this week when I actually did figure out the pattern.

It's in these verses. 1 Nephi 11:8, 12, 19, 24, 26, 30, 31, 32. 12:1,
11. 13:1. 14:9, 18.

In all of these verses the Angel says "Look" before showing Nephi more of the vision. Nephi was never directly shown the vision. He always had to "look" to see more. He always had his agency too. He could have chosen to look where the Angel said to look or not look and be content with what he saw so far.

I thought of a couple ways this applies to us. For us to endure to the end, we have to "look" where the Angel (Holy Ghost) tells us to look. We can't be content with part of the gospel. We have to constantly be "looking" into it. We have to see more.

The phrase "look" also suggest that we need to put forth effort in order to "see more of the vision". Looking is so simple and basic. But observe what it did for Nephi, or the Israelites when Moses held up the serpent. If we will just spend a little effort and "look" it will make an eternity of difference.

Another way I thought this would apply to us is in missionary work. Whenever we teach and commit people the gospel we are,in effect, acting as the Angel and saying "look". If our investigators would just look, and not cast it out by their unbelief, they would gain a witness. It's always fascinated me how easy the gospel is but how hard people are to understand it.

Nephi "looked" every chance he got.

Here's more stuff I got out of 1 Nephi 14. The chapter has a very heavy theme of God triumphing over evil. As I pondered this, this thought process occurred.

In this life we feel as if there's more working against us than for us. Really there's 2 dominant forces in the universe. Good and evil. God and Satan. Satan's influences can seem more powerful than they are because they tend to be a lot louder than the influences of the Holy Ghost. Also, it's human nature to notice the bad more than the good.

In all trials where we feel hopeless and abandoned, we need to remember that we always have Christ working for us. Even if Satan's influences are more prevalent in our lives, Christ has already triumphed over all. He's already won. It's over. All that's left is to watch everything play out.

Elder Holland had a good quote about this. He said something to the effect of the game is already won, but we're still running around trying to figure out what jersey we're wearing.

Well, that was about everything from this week. Thanks for everything! Love all of you!

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Dee's Diner

Couldn't eat the last 2 pieces of french toast