Serving in Kentucky: The Law

November 7, 2016

Dear Family,

You may be wondering why this email is titled "The Law". Don't worry, I didn't get in trouble with any police or anything. However, I did get a chance to teach the most awkward/detailed Law of Chastity lesson this week. Overall this was actually a really good week. Probably the best week I've had here in Hurstbourne so far. Get the details below... :)

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

#HappyHalloween. We got the whole day off! It was awesome! I got some much needed rest. We started off at Krispy Kreme like usual :). Then we went to the church and played basketball for hours. Towards the end of the day everyone left and it was just us in the church. We spent the night watching random church movies.

-Tuesday-

This was the day I hit 19 months! I can't believe I've been out for that long! The next month is the big 20! What?! We started the day by teaching Mr R. The bike ride to his place was insane! We almost got hit by 2 cars and a garbage truck!

When we got to his house, we taught him a very custom first lesson. It went extremely well. He flat out told us he felt the Spirit as we were talking about Joseph Smith. He said he feels like that was true. I've never had an investigator tell me that before!

After, we biked to the post office to pick up a package! Thank you family! When we got back to the apartment we found an industrial staple in Elder Hoole's back tire. We're still not sure how that got there. Of course, we had to change the tube again.

Once everything was fixed we went back out and had a rather successful day. Everyone we talked with was abnormally nice. It was weird honestly! We got like 5 actual potentials and gave out 2 BoM's!

We finished the day with a dinner with the Simmonds family. They just barely had their second kid. They fed us a great dinner. It didn't hurt they had a lot of soda :). We taught them this new Facebook lesson plan Elder Hoole and I developed and they enjoyed it. Hopefully that act on the simple invitation to post gospel things to their pages.

-Wednesday-

Went to ReStore and sorted doors the whole time. For some reason, people donate and buy a lot of doors. I don't know where they all come from or where they all go.

Later on we shared a message out of Matthew with Mr Ch, the less-active gamer. I'll detail that message in the small plates :).

After Mr Ch, we went to serve at the Methodist church. While we were there we cut up 10 lbs. of potatoes. After our service we had dinner with the Campbells. We gave them the same Facebook lesson we gave the Simmonds and they also really liked it. We're probably going to teach this lesson a hundred times before we get through everyone in the ward.

We went in a little early because Elder Hoole's diabetes (dah-uh-bee-dus as Kentuckians pronounce it) was acting up.

-Thursday-

We had a zone meeting in Elizabethtown. We had some funny role plays there. The Zone Leaders gave an interesting training on "Mission Culture". I won't go into specifics here because it would take me forever but there's a lot of issues with the mission's "culture" that we're addressed.

After the meeting I went on an exchange to the Indian Trials area with Elder Robbins. We had a good day together. For the most part we just biked around and tried people. I got to ride around on Elder Lesh's double suspended mountain bike. It was fun to bounce around on that thing :).

At the end of the day we met with Mr S. He was the guy who I met last time I was in the Indian Trials area. He was the guy President Brough interviewed. Since then he's been baptized and had received some of the new member lessons. The lesson Elder Robbins and I taught him was the Law of Chastity. I won't mention much, but this lesson was the most detailed, and most awkward Law of Chastity lesson I've ever had. He had a lot of questions about it as a new member. Words and phrases were used that I haven't used since 7th grade.

-Friday-

We exchanged back. Elder Hoole and Elder Lesh had a good time in Hurstbourne while Elder Robbins and I were in Indian Trails. They actually met someone on the street, taught him the restoration, and wound up setting a baptismal date with him.

When Elder Hoole and I got home we did out weekly planning. Then we set out to teach a LA named Mr Bo. He's a gamer. Kinda stuck in life. He's struggling with his testimony. He's also hard of hearing. He could hear Elder Hoole better than me so I had him teach for the most part. Elder Hoole covered a lot of stuff. He was basically overtaken by the Spirit and taught one of the most perfect lessons I've seen. Hopefully Mr Bo acts on what we taught.

Later on we taught Mr R again. He hadn't read from the BoM so we read with him. We read Alma 7:11-13,

11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

13 Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.

Ether 12:27,

27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

and Mosiah 3:19,

19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

and discussed all of them. He loved all of those scriptures. We wanted to get him a baptismal date but we were nervous to because he said he doesn't really believe in baptism. We asked him about his belief in baptism and said he believes he needs to be baptized so we invited him to be baptized and he said "I would be honored to be baptized in your church".

I've never had an investigator say that. He likes us. He believes we have Christ in our hearts. He's always going off on how good our parents must have been to raise us to the point where we'd serve missions. So he feels honored to join something that can put the Spirit of Christ in someone like it's done to us.

-Saturday-

We had coordination with Bro. Haws in the morning. It was nice having people to report on. After coordination we went to the bike shop to have some special work done on Hoole's bike. Ironically, Elder Hoole popped his front tire on the way up. After we fixed that we continued our journey to the shop. When we got there we got Hoole's bike fixed and bought some fancy multi-tools that have 19 tools in them. The bike ride home was hard. #HillsForDays

After we got home and rested a bit we visited Sis S and taught her how important her calling is in the Primary. She appreciated that. We used some scriptures that describe the importance of teaching and learning in the church. Hopefully that gives her more incentive to return to full activity.

We finished the day with Mr Ch. He asked us for some scriptures to help his family and all I could thing about were the two great commandments in Matthew 22:36-39

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38 This is the first and great commandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

We read them and applied them to his family. He appreciated that.

-Sunday-

We had a good church service again. There were some good testimonies for this fast and testimony meeting. We and the sisters got to help teach the primary kids. They divided the kids into 4 groups and had us rotate through the 4 groups. We taught them different ways you can receive answers to prayers. My lesson was on how "A Summer with Great-Aunt Rose" helped answer my prayer.

Later on we contacted a referral close to the church. She was super nice and gave us a ton of leftover Halloween candy. There were actually a few people that gave us their leftover Halloween candy.

-> Small Plates <-

This message comes from Matthew 14:14-21

14 And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.

15 ¶And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals.

16 But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat.

17 And they say unto him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes.

18 He said, Bring them hither to me.

19 And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.

20 And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.

21 And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.

There was a multitude of over 5000 people and Jesus wanted to feed them. His disciples only had a small amount of food to offer. Instead of asking for more food, in effect, Jesus said "bring what you have to me". The disciples brought the food they had and Jesus made it sufficient to fill everyone.

Jesus will take what we have to offer and make it sufficient to fit His needs.

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)