Serving in Kentucky: 6 cold days and 1 warm day

December 19, 2016

Dear Family,

This was a relatively normal week. Nothing exploded. I went on exchange to Madison and got to eat Russian food. That was cool. Get the rest below!

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

This P-Day was busy as can be. I maintained both of our bikes. Cleaned them too. I made more progress on our kitchen. It's slowly going from a hot mess to a proper kitchen.

We had to do some small service in the middle of the day for a church maintenance worker who needed help moving some stuff around the church. First thing we did was move the branch president's old desk out of his office and move the new one in. We destroyed the old one. The church maintenance worker we were helping told us the weirdest thing he's ever done was destroy a temple altar in the parking lot with a sledge hammer. He was doing some work for the Louisville temple and they told him to take one of the old altars out and destroy it so they can put a new altar in. I guess the church destroys anything temple-related before they throw it away.

Sis Terrell took us shopping and paid for some of our groceries. That was the first time I've ever had a member help with groceries.

We saw Miss B again and continued with the commandments. She's doing well. She's looking like she'll actually get baptized. She wants to get baptized in the North Vernon Ward. That's the unit above us. It's out of the mission (we border the mission). We already have permission to go to that :D.

We also saw Ms J and tried to have a LoC lesson but... she didn't quite get it. There are some things she's done/doing that we tried to tell was wrong but she didn't fully understand.

-Tuesday-

I had a feeling Tuesday was going to be weird and it was. In the morning as I was finally cleaning the car, our next door neighbor Billy came over and introduced himself to us. Nice guy! Later on we tried a referral out in the country only to find the house wrapped in caution tape. Yeah... we took that as a sign that we should leave...

I met Sis S for the first time. She's this area's "apostate breeding ground". Every area has that one person who will do whatever they can to get the missionaries to be disobedient. She's an interesting member. She and her husband were working on getting to the temple but his work changed. Now he works every Sunday and hasn't been to church in a while...

We tried to meet with a young man named J. I say tried, because there was a party at his house. We had to set another time when things were calm. We met him the other day and he easily accepted the invitation to learn more about Jesus. He's about 17. He's cool. He likes music. His family is Catholic but J seemed to be your typical 17 year old who still hasn't decided on a religion. He believes in God but doesn't really know much about Him. Well we can help with that!

-Wednesday-

We had a lovely round of #BikingInTheBitterCold. We tried a lot of "formers." The few that answered were super nice but uninterested. We got to a point where we couldn't handle the cold so we started driving around. We try not to drive as much because we don't get many miles in this area.

We found Scottsburg's rich neighborhood. We tried a referral in the boonies. I was going 50 mph down a narrow country road and someone was still tailgating me.

Taught Mr A with the Boettchers. We hit on the Sacrament hard. He isn't really progressing. It's looking like we're going to have to drop him soon.

We finished the night with Mr Ad. We had a good lesson about temples with him. He asked a lot of Q's about heaven. He asked if there's video games up there. LOL

-Thursday-

We saw Ms J again with Elder Boettcher and tried to have a lesson on the Godhead. Yeah... she's also stopped progressing. I don't know what to do with her.

We saw J again. This time was a little better. We only had a few minutes though because he had to work on a test. We reviewed the BoM with him and committed him to read it. Hopefully he does because I feel like he has a good chance.

We served at Food 4 R Souls again. This time we served fried chicken. Again, it was a decent meal. I like serving at food kitchens but it makes it much better if the food itself is good too.

We saw Miss B again with the Boettchers. This time it was at her house. Normally we meet at the church. We finished the commandments with her. She's still looking good to be baptized.

-Friday-

Friday was great! We had district meeting in Madison, IN. Madison is very similar to Owensboro. They even have a blue bridge that looks exactly like the Owensboro one.

Elder Irwin and I did a lot of walking around at first. We walked through the downtown and along the river. It was very, very cold. Later on we ate out for dinner. Our waitress was someone Elder Irwin met when he first got here. Nice!

Elder Irwin did a baptismal interview for the Hanover Sisters. He interviewed someone who was the daughter of some recent converts. They're all from Russia! They fed us Russian food while Irwin did the interview. I got 2 dinners! Woo!

-Saturday-

For the first time in forever it was warm outside! We exchanged back and Kloepfer and I took advantage of the warm weather by biking 10 miles! It almost felt like I was back in Hurstbourne. Scottsburg has a few walking/biking trails in it. We hit a couple of them. One of them took us from the western side of town, to the northern side, then to the eastern side. There are some richer houses on the eastern side of town. All rich people seem to be generally the same. They're good where they're at.

As the day progressed it started to rain more. So we got into our car. Our evening plans fell apart. We wound up spending some time with the Boettchers and having a coordination meeting. We found out that the Boettchers will be transferring to the office for the last couple months of their mission. NNNOOOO!!!

-Sunday-

Church! All the meetings covered a similar subject, Service. Bro Stevens gave a talk in Sacrament about the gifts the Savior received. Bro Banda gave a similar lesson in Elders Quorum about service.

After church the Boettchers drove us out to Sis Terrells to give her a blessing. After the blessing we had an early dinner with the Boettchers and a girl named Miss C. She joined the church about a year ago. She's somewhat lost her testimony. The Boettchers are trying to help her. As always, the dinner was fantastic! They had fresh pineapple and it tasted so good!

We had a very productive evening of 3 lessons. One with a LA named Bro B. Another with an investigator named Mr Fr, and the last with Mr A. Mr Fr was the most interesting lesson. We dropped him recently because we couldn't meet with him but Elders Kloepfer and Williams contacted him on exchange. He's a nice guy. He's a salesman. He gave me a U of L beanie. And a huge water bottle. I'm not sure how well he'll progress but we'll see what happens.

-> Small Plates <-

I learned something neat about the Holy Ghost this week. The fact that we're able to feel the Spirit is evidence of the Atonement. Because the Holy Ghost can't dwell in unclean places, if we didn't have a way to be cleaned, the Spirit wouldn't be able to dwell with us. The Gift of the Holy Ghost is a gift of grace and mercy. A gift of love.

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)