Injured and Sick

November 21, 2016

Dear Family,

This week was rather hard. I was recovering from by bike accident and got sick on top of that. I felt pretty crummy for most of the week. We still had quite a bit that happened. We did a lot of service. More service. And more service. We had a zone conference in E-Town. Taught one of Hoole's LA friends. Had another day off. And we attended a baptism. 

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

Another normal P-Day. We spent the whole day in the church. Everyone else in the district is down with something. Another Elder got into a bike accident too. His arm was almost broken. 

Later on we visited our baptist friends. They gave us pizza and Ice drinks. I'm starting to really like Ice drinks. 

-Tuesday-

We started off early with service with the lady who's in charge of the food kitchen at the Methodist church. We go to her house occasionally to help her. We did some simple raking. Their leaf blower wouldn't work. When we finished she fed us shrimp linguini. It was so good! 

After that we did our studies. Then we went around trying people. I had to take some time off at the church because I wasn't feeling well. We tried Mr R but he didn't answer. He's been avoiding us lately. 

-Wednesday-

Service day. I felt pretty miserable throughout it. At ReStore I helped a lot of customers move stuff. I also helped clean a bunch of cabinets someone donated. 

After service we had a district Skype call and I got to give a 5 minute talk/training on how faith, hope, and charity relate to each other. It went really well :).  

At the Methodist church we helped make a lot of grilled cheeses. I felt way out of it as we helped. When service ended I called the night a little early because I was feeling bad. 

-Thursday-

We had Zone Conference in Elizabethtown. President Brough came and gave some great trainings on expectations. The Zone Leaders had a fun BoM training that involved a lot role plays. It was one of the best meetings I've had in a long time. 

The meeting was 7 hours long. It took a while to get home too. Traffic on Louisville's on and off ramps is horrible. Whoever designed Louisville's streets didn't know what they were doing. They had to have been out of their mind. 

When we got home we biked to the church to prepare for a lesson with one of Elder Hoole's less-active friends. With Skype comes the possibility to teach people over the Internet. And with President's permission, that includes your friends and family. Hoole's friend has been a member her whole life. She's LA now. We don't know why. Something to do with her father. We reviewed the Plan of Salvation with her and it went really well. She knew everything except the Atonement. I thought it was odd she knew everything except the most important part. 

-Friday-

We spent most of the day in service clothes. We started off helping a family move stuff out of their car into their basement. After that they took us to an Asian buffet for lunch. Dad's Asian food has ruined me for other Asian foods. Americanized Asian food doesn't taste as good as authentic Asian food. 

After lunch we did our weekly planning. I had to Skype Indian Trails again for bike maintenance. I'm becoming the districts "bike guy". 

We then proceeded to help Bro. Filbert move out of his apartment. It only took us 25 minutes because he didn't have much stuff. It was an easy move. 

When we got back to the apartment we noticed our neighbor outside with his bike. It was squeaking badly. We offered to service it and he accepted. We lubed about everything possible, fixed the brakes, and adjusted the derailleur's. That bike needed help badly. He gave us pork n' beans, and deer bacon to pay us for the service. 

We finished the day with a brief visit to Mr Ch.

-Saturday-

I had to take another Saturday off. This was definitely the worst day. Whatever I had, it got worse the colder I got. It was freezing outside so every time I stepped out, I would start to feel exhausted but when I stepped in the warm apartment, I'd feel fine. I took a long nap. That was nice. 

Elder Hoole cooked up the deer bacon and warmed up the pork n' beans for dinner. The deer bacon was amazing! I even had some pineapple to go with it :). 

-Sunday-

Went to church. On the way to church we met an Indian guy who wanted a selfie with us before he went back to India. He said he was visiting family and was about to go home. He was a nice guy. 

Church was good as usual. We had lunch and studies after. 

We had to go back to the church later on for a baptism. It went well. After the service I felt noticeably better. It was almost like the baptism physically healed me. 

After the service we hauled down to the Hall's house for dinner. They fed us an interesting sausage, potato, and kale soup. It was pretty good. I never had anything like that before. I've heard kale is super good for you so maybe that'll help me heal further. Bro. Hall drove us home in his truck. 

-> Small Plates <-

So I've been reading Job lately. I only have 5 chapters left. I had a pretty strong impression in the middle of the week to read it. I already knew the general story but I never read through the book before. It is a fantastic read. It's helped me learn a lot more about the purpose of trials. 

To keep this through short... Trials are not necessarily punishments like a lot of people are led to believe. Trials are a way of helping us grow. If we understand the purpose of them, we are humbled instead of hardened. I would encourage everyone reading this to take a second look at their trials and try to see the good that can come from them. 

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)

Hey ya'll!

Deer bacon is good!

Elder Hoole

Zone Conference