Serving in Kentucky: Bye 2016! Hello 2017!

January 2, 2017

Dear Family,

I've been seeing a lot of memes on Facebook about how hard 2016 was for everyone. It wasn't really much different for me. It beat me up. Physically with 2 car accidents and 2 bike accidents. Mentally with trying to stay creative in relatively small areas. And Spiritually with how demanding the Spirit is. Yeah... 2016 was hard for me too. There were a lot of good times and a lot of bad times too. Overall, it caused a lot of growth. I learned a lot too. Do you want to know how my last week in 2016 was? Get it below...

-> Large Plates <-

-Monday-

This was a weird half P-Day because of Wednesday's temple trip. Whenever you go to the temple your P-Day is split up. So... in the morning we went to the Masonic Lodge! That was fun! The Branch Presidency's second counselor here is a Mason. He's even led the Masonic Lodge in Scottsburg a few times. He took us in and showed us around. It was fun seeing all the stuff inside. I learned that Masons are VERY Christian people. Everything they do has some sort of root in the Bible. Both new and old testaments. It was fun!

Next we did our emailing and shopping. Yay!

Then we saw Ms Ro. In the lesson she asked us what the Atonement was. That's the second person on my mission who's asked me that and it's becoming my favorite question to answer. When she asked that our lesson completely turned around and we started teaching about the Atonement. Teaching about the Atonement has a different feeling than teaching anything else in the gospel.

We read with Mr Ad again. It's still cool to see how interested in the Book of Mormon a 16 year-old can be.

-Tuesday-

Well... we walked... and walked... and walked... and... guess what?... we walked!...

On our walking we ran into Sis S. We met her about a month ago and have been unsuccessful at contacting her since. Thankfully, we found her walking around as we were walking around. She's doing about the same as she was last time we saw her. I don't know if we'll be able to reactivate her but we'll see what happens.

The Boettcher's drove us clear up to Miss B's house. She lives just barely outside of our mission in the Indianapolis mission. Her parents have permission to attend the Scottsburg branch though, and that's why we're teaching Miss B instead of the other missionaries. We had a good visit with Miss B and her mom. We decided it would be best to push her baptism back a few weeks because there was still a lot that needed to happen. She was upset. She really wants to get baptized.

-Wednesday-

Temple day!!! After almost 2 years I FINALLY got to go to the Louisville temple! It was a tiny, tiny temple. But it was still amazing! The Boettchers drove us there. There was several other missionaries there too. Including Elder Hoole! After the temple the Boettehr's took us to Red Robbin. I got a nice bowl of clam chowder and a salad. Then the Boettcher's went shopping at Costco. That was another weird experience being in Costco after almost 2 years. Then we went home and rested a bit. After a while we started biking around but we didn't do that for long because it started freeze raining. It was cold!

-Thursday-

Thursday was pretty dry. We had service that fell through. And all of our other plans for the morning and the afternoon fell through too. Yeah... I think Thursday was as dry as it was because Wednesday was amazing with the temple and all.

We went to Food 4 R Souls in the evening there. It was a normal night. I served cabbage soup. It was some pretty good cabbage soup too!

We saw Ms Ro again and taught her more about the Atonement. I feel like the church's Missionary Department needs to create a lesson about the Atonement itself. Instead of having it be part of the second lesson. There's so much to it. It's the most important subject in all of the gospel.

-Friday-

District Meeting in the morning. Elder Irwin gave another teaching skill training. After the training, we went to this little BBQ place called Smokin' Crow's in Hanover. I got a BBQ pulled pork sammich. I still love BBQ pork! It's the best. After lunch I went on exchange with Elder Williams in Madison! Wooo! It was fun being with an old companion again.

The Madison Elders recently started doing service at an animal shelter that takes care of dogs and cats. Do you want to know what I did? I helped wash a dog, played with a puppy for 10 minutes, and walked 2 other dogs by myself... You're probably re-reading that to make sure you read that correctly... yes... I worked with dogs for a couple hours. Did I enjoy it? Yes and no... I still don't want a dog. The first dog I walked was very well-behaved. The second wasn't at all. The puppy was fun. Washing the other dog wasn't... yeah...

After the animal shelter we spent a while walking around Madison's downtown. They have a sweet downtown. Elder Williams and I finished the night by buying cider and geeking out over geeky things like we used to do.

-Saturday-

Drove to Scottsburg and exchanged back. Elder Kloepfer and I did our weekly planning. Then we had missionary coordination with Bro Ponder and the Boettchers. By the time all of that was done we only had a couple hours to work before we had to be in for New Year's Eve. We spent that time driving around in the boonies trying random people. Nothing happened.

Like other holidays, we had 6-9 off for New Year's Eve. We spent the last 3 hours of the day at the Boettchers playing Yahtzee. Elder Kloepfer kept winning. It was a fun way to end the year. We were in bed by 10:50 or so. I didn't stay up this time like I did last year.

-Sunday-

Went to church. It was great! It was fast and testimony meeting for us. It was the Boettcher's last Sunday so they both got up and bore their testimonies. We had a nice D&C lesson for 2nd hour and a nice lesson on the Priesthood for 3rd hour. It was a successfully edifying Sunday.

After church the Boettchers took us out to the boonies to track down Mr Al's new house. He moved last week. We found the house but he wasn't there. He's stopped answering our calls and texts. We're starting to think he's lost interest.

We had our last Sunday dinner with the Boettchers. They'll be gone by this coming Wednesday. We're both sad to see them go. They've been awesome! Along with dinner they had freshly cut pineapple. Ever since Elder Williams (he LOVES pineapples), I've had a strong appreciation for pineapples.

-> Small Plates <-

I gained a cool insight about Ether 12:27 this week. I've had many instances throughout my mission where I'll be studying one subject but my mind will be pulled to another subject. One such instance happened this week. I think I was reading something about finding investigators but my mind was not focusing on that. My thoughts were being pulled to another subject. I believe the Spirit was pulling my thoughts.

My thoughts were pulled to the subject of weaknesses. Probably the most famous verse about this subject is Ether 12:27 "...if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble... if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

I asked myself "does that mean the Lord will fix our weaknesses if we have faith in Him and humble ourselves to Him?" I think the answer is sometimes yes. I feel like in some cases the Lord will help you fix your weakness to help you improve. Having a weakness leads to humility. If we didn't have weaknesses, it would actually be more difficult to humble ourselves and learn how much we need to rely on the Lord. This idea is expressed by Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. In these verses Paul says he has "a thorn in the flesh", or in other words, a weakness. He goes on to say how that weakness helps keep him humble and that he's actually grateful for his weakness.

This is probably the longest thought I've sent. 😝

-Elder Benjamin Kohkonen Cox (GKLM)