Serving in Kentucky: Scottsburg!

December 5, 2016

Dear Family,

This was a fun week! There was a TON that happened. I'm going to like it here in Scottsburg.

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

Last P-Day in Hurstbourne! It was a fun one. We all hung out at the church with like 20 other missionaries. Like all my areas, I'm going to miss Hurstbourne. It was a great time full of learning. And trials. And more learning.

For lunch, Elders Lesh, Hopkins and I ran to Arby's in the rain only to find their lobby closed due to short staffing. So what did we do? We walked through the drive-through because that was open. That was my first time doing that.

Later on we had a lesson with a lady who we met a few days prior. We had a lesson over Messenger because she wasn't feeling too well. It was my first lesson over Messenger. It was an interesting experience. I found that you're not able to teach as much because it takes a while to type stuff out and wait for the other person to type stuff out. Although we didn't teach her much, we answered a lot of her Q's. She had a lot of the classic "Question of the soul" questions, i.e. how do I find guidance in life? How do I rely on Christ? Etc. I don't think I've ever had anyone ask me those sincerely. We gave her a lot of scriptures and a lot of answers to her questions. She thanked us for helping her and wants to meet more. That'll be fun for Elder Hoole and his next companion.

I finished the day by packing. It took me a while as it usually does. For me, packing my bags is a time of personal reflection on what happened in the area I'm leaving. It took me about 4 hours to pack from Corydon, 3 from Campbellsville, 2 from Owensboro and 2 from Hurstbourne. If this continues, it'll likely take me 6 hours to pack at the end of my mission because I'll be thinking about everything that happened. I probably won't get much sleep on that night because of that 😊

-Tuesday-

In the morning Brother Vivian drove me to the transfer spot. While I was moving stuff around and saying "bye" to the departing missionaries I knew, I saw the Jensons from Campbellsville and Sis. Emmert from Owensboro. The Jensons are the ones that fed me last Thanksgiving. This transfer is the one Elder Shelley, my second companion, went home. Bye Shelley!

The Boettchers are the ones that picked me up and drove me to Scottsburg. They're the senior missionaries here and Sis Boettcher is the mission nurse. I talked with her for both of my bike accidents :). The drive to Scottsburg was quick. It's not too far from Louisville. The first thing I noticed when I got there was that we had a brand new red 2016 Toyota Corolla to drive around in :D. I think it's fitting my last area has a brand new red car to drive!

The Boettchers fed us lunch. Then it was off to unpacking and shopping. After all that was taken care of, we started working. My new companion's name is Elder Kloepfer. He's been out for a year. He was trained by a couple of the best missionaries this mission has seen. He's a Sterling Scholar in Science so he's way smarter than I am. He's humble about it though, which I like.

The first thing we did when we went out was bike around, and talk to everyone we saw. Biking here is so easy! Scottsburg is very flat. Surprisingly with how small this town is there's usually a lot of people out. It's actually easier to talk to more people here than it was in Hurstbourne. We rode to this tiny man-made lake to see if there was anyone there. There were a lot of people. I talked to a pastor and a guy who believed in some anti. They were both nice though.

Later on we went to a smaller town called Austin. Like Scottsburg, it's flat and there's people out. Scottsburg and Austin are the two towns we do most of our work in. They're the biggest ones in the area. Both towns are very, very poor and very, very quiet. You can barely hear the freeway. It's like being out in the middle of nowhere.

We finished the night with the Boettchers. They're basically our parents. They have us over frequently, give us lots of stuff, and come teaching with us often. Because Sis. Boettcher's the mission nurse she has a lot of random medical things. Perfect for a sick elder like me :).

-Wednesday-

We did our weekly planning on Wednesday. It was a long one because we actually have a good number of people we're working with. This area has 5 baptismal dates. 5! I haven't had that many dates at once in the longest time! One of them actually looks pretty solid.

We taught 3 lessons on Wednesday. The first one was with a 9 year-old girl. She's exactly like the last 9 year old I taught in Campbellsville. We reviewed the Plan of Salvation and drew it out for her. It was a fun lesson. The Boettchers were there to offer support. She seemed to understand everything we told her.

The second lesson was with the only Hispanic in Scottsburg. The Boettchers were with us again. We all read a little out of the BoM with him. He is a "former" that missionaries recently picked back up. His progression is a little slow but he still shows potential. I wish I would have picked up more Spanish from my 6 months of working with Hispanics in Owensboro so I'd be able to communicate with him more.

The third lesson was with a recent convert who is 16. His dad joined the church a few months ago. He's a super nice kid. He loves video games. He reminded me of my 16 year-old self, a shy video gamer :). We had a fun conversation about "fun runs". His school does mile runs once a month. I told him my school did them weekly.

-Thursday-

The first part of Thursday was spent "friending" members over Facebook and saying "hi" to them. We biked around for a while. Had a few appointments fall through. We went on a little bit of an adventure bike ride next to some train tracks. We rode next to them to the southern part of town.

Later on we were in Austin and had dinner at Huddle House. It's very similar to Waffle House. After dinner we stopped by a gas station to track down a potential who we knew spends a lot of time at this particular gas station. We found him and rescheduled an appointment. While there I found Ski in a glass bottle. I didn't know that existed. Without question, I bought two!

We finished the night by teaching one of our baptismal dates. He is one of the few investigators that actually reads out of the BoM daily. He'll probably get baptized if he keeps that up. As usual, the Boettchers were there to help us teach. It's nice having a senior couple!

-Friday-

Friday was the first semi-hard day. It was freezing cold. No one was out. The first few hours of biking around were brutal. Winter in "Kentuckiana" sucks. Later on we had interviews with the Broughs. The church has started this new thing were they have the mission presidents interview missionaries once a transfer instead of every other transfer. I like seeing the Broughs more. It allows them to get to know me better and it allows me to get to know them better. President Brough said he got a particularly good feeling when he moved me here. He said he didn't get that feeling in any of my other areas. He thinks I'll see great success here. I got a similar confirmation on the drive up here on Tuesday. I felt like this is where I needed to be.

During interviews the district leader, Elder Irwin, the same Elder Irwin that was in Columbia when I was in Campbellsville, trained on the new Christmas videos. As usual, the church gave us special cards for the Christmas season. Elder Irwin offered some ways that we could use them.

After the interviews the Boettchers drove us up to try Miss B but she wasn't available. On the drive back we drove through Austin, and I noticed a music shop with drums in it. Guess where I'll be spending a lot of time on p-days :).

-Saturday-

We started Saturday off by teaching a recent convert. We read a chapter out of the BoM to help her get back into the habit of studying daily. After the lesson was over I found some passion fruits growing across the street from her house. This is the time of year they ripen so, of course, I ate a couple. They were good! The last time I had fresh passion fruit was in J&L's yard back in Campbellsville.

Later on we had a branch Christmas party. I got to meet a lot of the branch members there. This is a tiny branch. They're all super friendly with strong testimonies. I should mention that the building we have to meet in now was just bought by the church a few months ago. It was a Christian school before it was a church. It has an odd layout - 7 bathrooms. The church did a great job adapting it for our purposes. There isn't really a big meeting room so the branch party was pretty packed. It was weird but cool!

We finished the night with a brief visit with Mr M. He didn't have time to chat but he did say he's still reading which is good.

-Sunday-

First day at church in Scottsburg. The whole service is only about 2 hours because the branch is so small. There were only 30 people there. It was fast and testimony meeting and like my other branches, there was no down time between testimonies. Everyone is eager to get up and bear their testimony. Our branch president, President Penrod, came up to me afterwards and said "Since you didn't get a chance to introduce yourself, will you give a 10 minute talk next week on charity and service?" I said "Sure." So now I'm giving a talk next week.

After church I met our other investigator who's our age. I'm not sure if he'll progress much. He's nice though.

We biked around for a little while in the rain... yup... fun... It was nice to have dinner with the Boettchers though. They had lasagna. The meals after a fast are always the best meals. After dinner we all went to visit Mr A again. This time we went over the interview Q's and watched the First Presidency's Christmas devotional. The lesson went well and the devotional was awesome. He likes watching things like that. That devotional was a great way to end the week.

-> Small Plates <-

This email is so long that I'm not going to do large message here. Something that this week taught me was that the Lord watches out for you more than you might think. There were a lot of things about this week that reminded me of that.

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)