Hurstbourne

August 1, 2016

Dear Family,

Hellow!

Well, I survived my first week in Hurstbourne. Both my bike and I did okay. We don't have a car here so we're a full-time bike area. However, we see 1000's of cars every day. Hurstbourne is packed with people and cars. My legs have gotten much stronger in my first week here. Hurstbourne is interesting. There are some similarities to Campbellsville, though. We had a fun first week but not much in missionary work happened. Surprisingly, no one was mean. We talked to a lot of people this week and no one was mean. It's weird. I expect people to be mean. But they're not here. It's pretty nice. 

Elder Williams is interesting. We have very similar interests. He's fun. He's a good companion. The Bishop of the new ward is fantastic. A few of the other members introduced themselves to me. The move went well. I got settled in easily. I try not to carry much stuff with me as a missionary which makes moving easier for me. Most other missionaries have a lot more crap than I have.

16 months is weird. I've been out the longest of anyone else in the district. It's still fun and I still really enjoy teaching people.

Updates include:
-Every food place possible including the only Carrabbas in Kentucky.
-Actual people outside to talk with.
-Constant productivity because we're on bikes..

Anyway... Here's the week. It was actually pretty fun even though missionary work is a little dead here at the time being.

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-
Last full day in Owensboro :(. We emailed and ate at DQ. Later on, Chase took us to get my bike serviced at Big O Bike Shop for the last time. After we dropped the bike off, Chase took us next door to the ice cream/yogurt place called Orange Leaf. I had never heard of it before. I got strawberry and pistachio ice creams. It was so good! I almost felt cheated not knowing about that place before and having to leave Owensboro soon.

Later that night we had Hispanic Spaghetti at the Quints. It was interesting because it was spaghetti with Hispanic seasonings in it to make it taste more Mexican. It was good.

After dinner, Bro Wagner picked us up to go teaching for my last time in Owensboro. We tried a few peeps and eventually got in with Ms CS. She's a LA we've had little contact with because she works all the time. This was my 2nd or 3rd time teaching her since I've been here. We had a good lesson. We read from last month's First Presidendy message. I finished the night by finishing my packing.

-Tuesday-
I woke up extra early to finalize my packing because I was lazy the night before and wanted to go to bed. Bro Malone picked me up and drove me to Louisville. When I got there, I found Elder Williams, my new companion, moved my stuff from Bro Malone's van to the other van going to Hurstbourne, and went off to Hurstbourne. Hurstbourne is only 10 minutes away from the transfer spot at the Eastern Parkway church.

When I got to the apartment I settled in, got my bike ready, and went off. The first thing we did was go shopping. Since we don't have a car, we had to go on out bikes. Normally we would get a ride from the Spanish Elders in the ward (one of them happens to be Elder Passmore) but they did their shopping already and were busy with their normal Tuesday activities. So that left us with bikes. We couldn't buy much and the little we did buy we had to put on the handle bars. That whole experience of shopping with a bicycle made me feel like a true Kentuckian.

After we shopped we ate at Panda Express! It's been probably 2 years since I last ate at one. It was a nice reminder of home. After we ate we visited a person named L. He's about 15. Missionaries first met him a few days ago, so we taught him his first official lesson this time. We taught L1 and it went decently well. He's awkward and we're not sure if English is his first language. He accepted a baptismal date for Aug 27, though.

Not much else happened for the rest of the day. We bike around and tried several people but didn't teach anything. At the end of the day, Elder Williams and I talked and got to know each other. We're very similar people. We have some close interests. He's been out for about 10 months now. He's from American Fork. Hurstbourne is his 2nd area.

-Wednesday-
I'm going to mention my new apartment now. We basically live in a basement. We live on the bottom floor of a 3 level apartment building. The floor we're on is half-buried in the ground so when you go in the front door you have to go downstairs to get to our apartment. Therefore, it's basically a basement. The apartment itself isn't bad at all. Missionaries have only used this apartment for about 2 weeks now so it hasn't been destroyed.

We did a ton of service. We started the day helping the local Habitat for Humanity which is basically the same thing as DI in Utah. We helped out with the furniture and sorted some things around the store. Elder Passmore and his companion, Elder Hancock were there. After that service I stopped at a local pharmacy to pick up some DayQuil and NyQuil. I developed a cold earlier in the week so I needed something to help me function like a normal human.

Later that day we went to a Methodist church to do service that was like CCC back in Campbellsville (another similarity between Hurstbourne and Campbellsville) and the Pitino Shelter in Owenboro. We prepared food and passed it out to whoever came and got it. After everyone got fed, we got to eat some ourselves :). During the service I asked an older member there how long she's been in Kentucky and she wound up giving us a tour of the whole Methodist church. It was a nice building. They had some cool stained glass. Of all the denominations here, Methodists are the nicest.

-Thursday-
District meeting! It's an interesting 3 hour process here. We hopped on the Louisville bus system to take us to the Eastern Parkway building for District Meeting. It's weird having DM at that building. That's the transfer building. It's special with missionary work because it's the first church missionaries who are just coming out go to and it's the last church missionaries who are leaving go to.

The actual meeting was good. Elder Patten is the district leader here. He's older (~26). He's only been out for about a year. That's another weird thing about this district.Sister and I are tied for oldest missionaries in the district. That's because we came out together. I went right from a middle-age missionary in the Owensboro district to the oldest missionary here in the Hurstbourne district.

Later that night, we taught a man named PJ. I'm pretty sure that stands for something but he didn't tell us, so his name is PJ. We had a unique L1 with him. It blew his mind to find out Jesus visited the Americas. He showed great interest in the rest of our message. My teaching skills have been coming back in Hurstbourne. I lost some in Owensboro because Elder Salazar dominated like crazy in the Spanish lessons but now I'm getting my skills back.

-Friday-
Not much happened Friday. We taught a LA named Bro St. At one point he was a solid member, but he's old and his mind has deteriorated a bit. We spent the whole day biking from the bottom of the area to the top trying people. Side note: Our apartment is on the bottom border of our area. #WorstPlacementEver

-Saturday-
We started off with 5 hours of moving some of the Hurstbourne Sister's investigators to our area. Yay... more moving! It was pretty easy. The house was small. They bought us pizza afterwards. After all the service, we started biking around, trying people, and slowly making our way to Carrabbas!

We finished the day at Carrabbas! It was absolutely heavenly. It's the only Carrabbas in the Mission and I got called to the area it's in. Score! We also have a Macaroni Grill.

-Sunday-
First Sunday in Hurstbourne. It was good. Finally met the Bishop. His name is Bishop Finder. That's appropriate since we need to find new investigators. I'll have to find a way to get the ward pumped for missionary work.

After church, the McKinneys fed us French dip sammiches. They're an older couple who love listening to EFY music. After lunch, we shared the "Brother of Jared Challenge" with them. After we finished, we started biking around and got caught in a nice rain storm. We got soaked and took refuge in the church.

After the storm we visited our Baptist family. Here's another similarity to Campbellsville. We have some people who are great friends with us but won't join the church for whatever reason. They love having us over. They're old.

-> Small Plates <-

I started reading the churches new "Teaching in the Savior's Way" book. It's actually fantastic. There's a lot of simple, easy to understand instructions to become a great gospel teacher. One thing I read there that has stuck to me is a sentence that said, "Spiritual preparation isn't something you make time for. It's something you should always be doing." Later on the book says that teachers who master this can turn any situation into a gospel lesson. I thought that was cool.

-> Closing Remarks <-

Sorry this email came a little late. P-Day's are hectic here because there are many other missionaries around. I'm looking forward to my service here. I hope to spend 3-4 months here and the last part in my last area.

Thank you all so much!

Loves!

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Hurstbourne District Meeting

Elder Williams at Carrabbas!!

Myself at Carrabbas!!!

We got caught in a rainstorm.