Serving in Kentucky: Modern-Day Samson

October 31, 2016

Dear Family,

This was not Elder Hoole's week. We got smacked with everything. We still laughed about it though.

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

We started the day at Krispy Kreme again. This will probably become a normal P-Day thing. I love the raspberry jelly filled doughnuts! Later on we shopped and cleaned the apartment like usual.

We went to Panda Express for lunch. I talked with the new District Leader, Elder Lesh, and found out the Wihongis are his grandparents. I emailed Nana about it and she told me they've been friends for a long time.

We finished the night at... Carrabbas!!! I finally took Elder Hoole there. He got a shrimp meal where the shrimp were wrapped in bacon. He said it was amazing. I decided to branch out and got the Mahi Wulfe. Oh my gosh that was amazing! That is on my list of best meals ever now! I got this vegetable side thing and that was amazing too! Why is Carrabbas so good?

-Tuesday-

We saw Mr C. He's the gamer less-active we're trying to reactivate. We reviewed the Plan of Salvation and he really enjoyed it. He did bring up a concern with enduring to the end so that'll probably be next lesson's topic.

After we had to give Sister Williams a blessing. Apparently she hurt her back and wanted a blessing for it. When I first came out it seemed like I gave blessings every other day but now I seldom give blessings.

After that we went to Ms Be's again and helped her wash her windows this time. She had a lot of windows to wash. After we finished she fed us lasagna. She also prepared iced tea for us. It's always awkward to dance around tea or coffee when someone offers it. Don't worry! I didn't drink any.

After, we spent the last 3 hours of the day biking around, trying peeps, and talking to peeps.

So Elder Hoole has the diabetes (or "daiuhbeetus" as Kentuckians pronounce it). He's got an insulin pump that allows him to poke himself every 3 or 4 days instead of every meal. He's also got a nice blood sugar meter to go with it. Unfortunately, he lost his nice meter somewhere along the day. He's got others in case he loses that one but they're not as good. (He actually just found his pump this morning. Woo!)

He came out of the bathroom that night and said "Elder Cox, I'm a modern-day Samson. Only you don't cut my hair to make me weak, you drop my blood sugars to make me weak".

-Wednesday-

Another service Wednesday. This time at ReStore we helped finish moving the huge granite kitchen set we started last week for the same lady from last week... let me tell you that was a blast to do again... When we finished that lady gave us more food money for lunch afterwards. After she left, someone else who bought another huge granite kitchen set came to pick theirs up so we had to help load that one too. We moved 2 huge granite kitchen sets in all.

After ReStore we went to Golden Corral. It wasn't that good. I don't know why people like buffets so much.

So, last week I mentioned how Elder Hoole bought a bike. Well, when he bought it they didn't have the right size for him so they had to special order one in for him. In the meantime they gave him another bike to use until his bike came in. Well, his bike came in on Wednesday. So what did we do? We biked 6 miles up and down hills to get to the bike shop or trade in the bike. After we traded the bike, we biked 6 miles up and down hills back to get home. 12 miles of hills total. It took about 1.5 hours out of our day. We were just a little tired.

When we got home we rested a bit, then biked out way up another hill to get to the Methodist Church. As we were helping with the food kitchen they had their Trunk or Treat thing going on at the same time so everyone was dressed up.

-Thursday-

District meeting. Elder Lesh gave a good training on following the Spirit. Later on we were biking around as usual and met someone who was interested in the gospel AND in our area! That's a first! This guy gave us his contact info without us asking for it. He said he really wants to talk with us. He set up a time for the next day. Hopefully it's not a bash.

We saw Mr Ch. later. He just barely got his son from Florida so he was pretty exhausted. We just visited for a few minutes to check up on him. After we saw Mr V. His kids were listening to primary songs on YouTube and during one of the songs some pictures of temples came up. He asked us about the temples so we taught him a little about them. He seemed interested. With every visit, his progression looks worse and worse. Something better happen soon or we'll wind up dropping him.

-Friday-

The potential we picked up the previous day asked if we could reschedule to Saturday. So we used the time we would have spent on him to go to Walmart and get more bike tubes. Neither of us had spares on us and I've learned from experience that it's best to have spares on you at all times. We went to Walmart, got the tubes, and ironically, Elder Hoole popped his back tire on the curb he previously popped his back tire on. He's now a little scared of that particular curb for good reason. Fixing that was fun!

The rest of the day was pretty usual. We did our weekly planning, biked around, said "Hi" to peeps and so forth. We visited the Baptist family that likes us and found out one of their kids died suddenly.

-Saturday-

So... Saturday exploded. Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. First, our new potential, rescheduled to Tuesday. Then we found someone in Austin, TX stole Elder Hoole's debit info and tried to draw $50 out of it so he had to cancel his debit card. Then Sister Williams broke her chain off her bike. Of all things to break on a bike, the chain is something you DON'T want to break.

So in the morning we had coordination with Brother Haws. It was a good coordination meeting. He had some good ideas about how to use members and Facebook more effectively. After the meeting we found out about the stolen debit card.

Later on, the sisters and us helped a less-active rake some leaves. He has a gamer son and wants us to come and start teaching him to try and reactivate him.

After the service we were biking to the church for our ward's Halloween chili-cook off. On the way we got a call from the sisters and that's when we found out about Sister William's broken chain. It broke close to our apartment so they wanted us to come by and store the bikes in our apartment so they'd be safe while we all went to the Ward party.

After we got the bikes in the apartment, we biked to the church and the sisters got a ride from a member. The party itself was fun. The chilis were good and the deserts were amazing. Some people made some sort of pumpkin cake with creme cheese frosting on it. It was amazing!

After the party the sisters and us talked with Brother McKinney about the chain. He's sort of the ward's bike expert. Most wards have one. That should be a calling. He happened to have a spare chain, so we got the chain, met up at our apartment, and helped him fix it. It was actually pretty cool seeing how to fix a chain. The chain happened to be the right size, length, and pitch for Sister Williams bike. That worked out rather nicely!

-Sunday-

We had a fantastic church service again. One of the speakers in sacrament gave a great talk on forgiveness and another speaker spoke on the Atonement.

The gospel doctrine lesson was thrown on us so we had to teach it. It went a better than we thought it was going to be. We actually learned some things.

For 3rd hour the Priesthood and RS were combined. Brother Hatton gave a fantastic lesson on Family Home Evening. It was a great discussion and my appreciation for FHE grew.

Later on in the day we saw Mr Ch again. This time we were able to teach him a short lesson on prayer. It went really well and he was super appreciative of it. He told us how his day had been falling apart and how he was never praying for patience again. I've learned from experience that when you pray for patience, the Lord will give you plenty of opportunities to be patient... by making your day explode.

After we saw Mr V again. All I can say about this visit is... It was okay.

-> Small Plates <-

I heard a story about David A. Bednar at the beginning of my mission that I've been thinking a lot about lately. Whenever he gives a blessing, he asked "Do you have the faith to be healed?" The reason behind that question isn't too hard to figure out. If someone has faith to be healed, they can be healed because the Lord works miracles according to our faith.

But after he asks that question, he asks another question. That one is "Do you have the faith to not be healed?" The purpose behind this question is to ask the person whose receiving the blessing "If the Lord chooses to not heal you, will your faith hold? Will you maintain your testimony? Are you willing to do the Lord's will? etc."

If the Lord withholds a blessing or a miracle our first thought is "we're unworthy" to have the blessing or miracle. Sometimes that might be true. But other times it might be a test of our faith. For we "receive no witness until after the trial of our faith". This is a subject that I could say a lot about. But I'll leave it at this...

In my opinion, there's no such thing as failures. What we call "failures" are really teaching moments the Lord uses for our ultimate success. The Lord didn't set us up to fail. He set us up to succeed gloriously. If we have faith and trust Him, then we'll be able to see what the Lord is trying to teach us. If something like being healed is withheld from us it may be because we lack faith or it may not be. It might be something the Lord uses to teach us something. Whatever the case, God loves us and everything He does is for our benefit. He loves all of His children and wants them to grow. He watches out for all of us.

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)