Serving in Kentucky: Owensboro is Trying to Kill Me

July 5, 2016

Dear Family,

It has been officially decided by myself and many others that Owensboro is trying to kill me. You'll see why by the end of the email. Besides that, this was actually a really good week. We did a lot and we got fed by members every day this week. I think this was the first week of my mission that members fed us every day. It was awesome! Here's the week in review...

-> Large Plates <-
-Monday-
We bowled another 5 games with Jason. I did better this time and my hand didn't hurt as much. Then Jason took us to Olive Garden for a late lunch which was ultimately a bad idea because we had a dinner appointment right after with the Wagner family. At the Wagners, we had burgers, hot dogs, watermelon, and other things. Towards the end of the day we biked around and tried a few people. Not much happened.

-Tuesday-
I started Tuesday with getting my stitches out at the same Urgent Care that put them in. It didn't hurt at all. I barely felt it. My leg is holding up great now. It's healed a lot. Later, we got to the apartment and found that Elder Salazar's front bike tube was destroyed. We weren't able to drive because we were severely low on miles. And we were severely low on miles because we had to take several extra long drives this month that left us with hardly any miles for the end of the month. So that left us with walking.

We walked to Ms H's which took about an hour and read out of the BoM with her. I'm not so sure how well she's progressing. She likes having us over but she isn't reading herself. After Ms H, we walked back to the apartment, and had Bro Emmert drive us to splits.

For splits, I went out with Bro Pursley and visited Des, and Vic and Maku. Des fed us. This was easily the best meal I've ever had from her. She had great meatloaf, real mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, biscuits, and orange cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert. Her food was so good.

We were only able to spend a few minutes with Vic and Maku. They were preparing for 2 festivals in New Orleans and one in San Antonio. They're doing good. As we were there, the pizza guy came and Vic offered pizza so I got fed a second time. :)

-Wednesday-
We walked to Walmart, got a new tube for Salazar's bike, fixed his bike, and went on our merry way. That whole process took over 3 hours. When we finally got out, we visited Ms Val, a LA we haven't been able to teach for a long time. We had a simple lesson about the BoM. She said she was going to come to church.

We tried several more peeps but nothing happened. Later we were supposed to go to the Hoopes for dinner but they weren't able to so they sent us pizza and bread sticks. Yay food! We finished the night with English class. After a day completely full of walking and biking, I was exhausted!

-Thursday-
Not a whole lot to report on Thursday. We spent the whole day biking around and trying people but nothing happened. I had fun biking around though. My bike is awesome so I don't regret any time I spend on it. :)

We had dinner with the Childress family. Sis Childress prepared this amazing healthy meal that tasted wonderful after a day of biking around. She made potatoes, corn on the cob, biscuits (I love biscuits), and several other things I can't remember. We finished the night biking around, talking to peeps and trying more peeps.

-Friday-
We had district meeting. Elder Blake gave a cool training with shoes. I'll detail that in the small plates. Afterwards we went to Moonlite. Any day we go to Moonlite is automatically a great day. After lunch we drove around and tried some peeps. We finally have miles now because Friday was the first of a new month. I missed having a car.

Lately the "Belders" have been sending us potentials they meet that live in our area so a majority of our time working has been spent trying these people. We haven't had any major success with them. We've cleared several out because they no longer live at the given address but we still have a lot more to go through.

We finished the night at the Swopes. We ate pizza and threw a stuffed dolphin around.

-Saturday-
The Capeners are moving to New York next Friday so we helped them move a few things. We'll be helping them with the main move next week. Bro Capener is going to medical school for something and he found a place to do his residency a lot faster than he thought he would. He thought he was going to stay another year in Owensboro but it turned out he can actually leave now and progress with his education.

We spent a lot of the day trying peeps and referrals from the "Belders". Still no significant success.

We finished the night at the Emmerts. We ate dinner and shot fireworks off. A firework war broke out between everyone there. Everyone was trying to place small fireworks like those spinning things as close as possible to someone without them noticing. Everyone was also shooting little bottle rockets at each other. At one point I was standing by a truck, hiding from the action when someone lit a bottle rocket and threw it about 30 feet away from me. They weren't trying to aim for me, but when that thing landed it happened to be perfectly angled towards me, and when it went off, it went straight towards me. Everyone was rolling on the ground and laughing. But it didn't hurt much. Bottle rockets weight almost nothing. It felt like a big, angry, flaming bumblebee decided to headbutt me. That's how the war ended.

-Sunday-
Church. It was fast and testimony meeting and everyone wanted to talk about how much they're going to miss the Capeners. We went to the Fuquas for lunch and the Fedors for dinner. In between the two, we saw the Gom family and helped them understand the gospel. At the end of the night we received 1000 more referrals from the "Belders". Yay!

-Monday-
4th of July! Bro McKinnon called and asked me if I'd tune his drum set. Of course I accepted that opportunity. On the way to his house however, we were severely rear-ended and pushed into a car in front of us. We and the car in front of us were stopped at a red light when another lady slammed into our back bumper and pushed us forward. It was pouring rain so it was fun dealing with the police and the car stuff.

After everything was cleared, we went to Bro Mckinnon's and I tuned his drums. It's been 15 months since I've tuned drums so I may not completely remember how to do it. Speaking of 15 months, I hit 15 months in the mission! Woo!! 9 months left.

After I tuned the drums, I went to the Fedor's house and did all the church damage reports for the car. This was the 4th time I've done those. We had to use the Fedor's phone for a couple calls because our phone got wet in the rain while I was making a trillion calls at the scene scene of the accident. Our phone's working now thankfully, because we put it in a bag of rice overnight.

After the Fedors, we went to Jason's house with the "Belders" to celebrate the 4th of July and Elder Murdoch's suit burn. We had hot dogs, played Quelf, and had Elder Murdoch burn his suit with gasoline and the Sword of Laban. It was a fun night of which I severely needed after a day like this.

-> Small Plates <-
As I mentioned before Elder Blake gave a cool training about shoes. He had Elder Salazar put on a pair of old, worn out missionary shoes and had Elder Gardanier put on new, nice cleats and had them run around a tree. Neither of them were able to do it well. The old shoes were unusable and the cleats were the wrong size.

He then compared this to missionary work by asking if we still had our "cleats from home on" or if we were trying to "fill another missionaries worn out shoes". He pointed out how missions are extremely personal. They're between you and the Lord. The most important shoes you'll wear are your own shoes. Be yourself and give the Lord your all. Don't be distracted in the work by keeping your cleats from home on and don't be distracted from your own personal relationship with the Lord by trying to fill another missionaries shoes.

He also talked about how throughout his own mission he's thought "Either I suck, or there's no one prepared to receive the gospel." He learned that both statements are false. Missions are personal. They're between you and the Lord. Not anyone else.

-> Closing Remarks <-
This was a fun week. I ate a lot, worked a lot, had fun, and survived. So far in Owensboro alone, I've been attacked by a dog, cut my leg, got hit by a firework, and got severely rear-ended. In Corydon, I only got rear-ended. And in Campbellsville, I got attacked by a dog. Owensboro really wants me to leave. Oh well... Thanks for all the support you all have given me! Your prayers really help. I don't have much longer on the mission left. I'm going to keep going until I finish.

Loves!

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)