Welcome Elder Plant

My new companion is pretty cool, so far.  His name is Elder Plant and he's from Utah. His last area was in Detroit--like actually in Detroit!  He's suffering from a culture shock right now--going from the "hood" to massive houses. He just keeps asking me where all the black people are and if there is a ghetto in South Lyon. He has been out for 21 months, so he thinks this is his last stop before he goes home. That's kind of cool but I think I'm going to have to start working harder than ever. He seems pretty trunky and burned out. I guess we'll just have to change that!

I got to teach sharing time yesterday.  Ha. Ha. It was SO much better than elders' quorum! We had a lot of fun!  I tried to be creative so I hope that the kids liked it. It was junior  primary, so they were pretty easy to keep happy. I felt so good! We walked in and a lot of the kids knew my name. It was great! 

Also this week, Elder Cardon from the First Quorum of  the Seventy came and talked to us. It was really cool. He was nice and we got to shake his hand. This is a picture of half the Michigan Detroit Mission including President and Sister Gerber.

The biggest blessing I had this week was with Greg. We took a member to visit him on Friday and he wasn't home.  I was so bummed out!  We went by again yesterday and a miracle happened! Greg wanted to know how Nephi was a descendant from Joseph that was sold into Egypt. We gave him a King James Bible so he could look it up but he hadn't.  He was flipping through the Bible, reading the chapter headings, trying to find the connection. He couldn't find it!  I was standing there and I knew if he couldn't find it, we would loose him.  He doesn't want proof but we told him the two books (the Book of Mormon and the Bible) work together and are connected. I thought, "if he can't find it, then he would think we lied and the Book of Mormon isn't true."  So he kept flipping through the headings and he finally handed me the Bible and tells me to find it! I'm like, "oh crap! I don't even know the New Testament, let alone the Old!"  I don't even know where to look!  I opened the Bible and read the chapter heading. The first one that I read was the one that I was looking for! It was such a blessing! I couldn't believe it!  The Lord so provided that one!  It was a great experience!

I love you and I hope that this week goes good for you!

Cooper

Goodbye Elder Olsen

This week went really good. We got transfer calls on Saturday and I'm staying in South Lyon but

Elder Olsen

Elder Olsen is leaving :(  I wish I could say that it's all good and I'm totally ready for this but I'm not! I've been worried about it for the last couple days. It doesn't seem real to me. I feel like I don't know enough to be able to take over the area but Olsen has told me before that when you don't feel you're ready is when you grow the most. So I guess I'll get to rise to the occasion. I don't go get my new companion until tomorrow but Barb asked one of the A.P's if my guy is cool and he said yes. I really hope that he's chill and we get along well!

We had a lot of lessons on door steps this week. That was really exciting.  We tried using an object lesson and people listened more so that was really cool. We went to Daniel's house (he was a referral that wanted the Book of Mormon). He and his wife sat and bashed with us for over an hour--well, maybe not bashed but they were asking very deep questions. They seemed surprised at our answers and we just told them to go and read the Book of Mormon. It was cool. Elder Olsen took their Bible and was pulling scriptures out of it to answer their questions. I hope I get to that point some day! Other than that, nothing too exciting has happened. We did have a member tell us at dinner that he could tell a good missionary that works hard and has a testimony. He can just see it. He said he could see it in us. That made me feel good. Some times I doubt that I have the spirit with me--like I'm good, but just not quite good enough to have it testify. I don't know how to explain it.  It felt good to hear that some one can see it in us.

My district

It's good that you had the sister missionaries over for dinner.  Now that I'm out here, I wish we had had them or the elders over more. It feels so good to have members that will take care of you a little and watch over you.  Some people will never know how much it means to a missionary to have some one they can call family while they are away from their real family!

I love you guys and you 'll be in my prayers

Love,
    Cooper

The Elders

A Bit of Real Joy

Monday was a good p-day..it is always pretty good. It's nice to have a little bit of a break. Tuesday was nice--I can't remember anything really exciting happening but Wednesday was different. We had district meeting and they had just re-done the floor in the gym so it was super smelly. We opened up the windows to try to air it out a little and while we were in the meeting it started to rain.  It was coming down really steadily so we went home and had lunch then we went out and knocked doors in the rain. It wasn't too bad, the first hour anyway, but after that it got old and we didn't have any success.

We did get to talk to a preacher's wife. There is a huge non-denominational church called Oak Point. The woman's husband is one of the pastors there. We talked to her for a minute and invited her to get a Book of Mormon and she said the already had one and she has read some of it.  That was pretty surprising! We invited her to get it out again, read it, and pray about it. She said she hoped we would pray so God could help us find the truth.  ha-ha! It was pretty funny. Thursday and Friday were pretty uneventful just tracting and stuff.  Oh! on 9/11 the teenage girl that we go and teach had her baby. We haven't seen either of them yet but we are planning on seeing them, along with the girl's mom, this Thursday.  So I'll get to see a brand new baby!

This week got chilly. Thursday we went out to the car and turned right back around and got jackets! It was 50 and 60  instead of the 70 and 80. It's chilly!  We went and knocked some doors and I found this tiny butterfly. It was too cold to fly so I picked him up and carried him around with me for a couple hours. Olsen thought that I was a little off but I liked it! so say hello to my little Friend!

Saturday was pretty great we have a family in our ward that are super awesome he is a returned missionary and his wife is super cool. They have two little kids and their little boy turned six and had a party. He likes us a lot so we got invited! That it was cool but a little weird because the kids' parents were all there and we are the weird robots, you know. Some of them talked to us, so that was good. It was nice to be at a party-- even if it was only for a little while. Then we went and knocked this  neighborhood. Not too may people answered the door. Then, at the last house, this lady answers the door and invited us in. We couldn't go in because there was no man home, so she stepped out. She works for Scentsy, (the company that sells the wax that you have for your little pot thing) so she has a lot of Mormon friends. She was so awesome! She is Catholic but she wanted to help us and told us her home is always open to us for anything. It was really cool. She told us she was gay and introduced us to her partner. That was a little of a shock but she was so nice to us! She told us she wanted her house to be our home-away-from-home and to stop by anytime.  It was good! Faith in humanity restored!

Alright, now the super awesome mission experience! We had a referral a couple weeks ago and the guy wasn't home. The next door neighbor was out smoking on his front step so Olsen went over and we talked to him (I didn't want to go, by the way). We taught him about the restoration and then we stopped by again and gave him a book of Mormon. We read the intro with him and challenged him to read. This week we went to follow up with him. In one week, he had read the first 13 chapters of Nephi and asked all sorts of questions! It was great! He said that he felt reading was helping him grow spiritually. It was so great! Poor Olsen had to do all the teaching...I just sat there thinking "holy crap! he actually is reading! I don't know what to do from here!" It was great! That's the first time that I've felt what real joy is! I can't wait to go visit him this next week!!

Have an awesome week!  You are in my prayers and heart!

--Cooper

Sister Thompson sent these photos from Sept. 15. She wrote "Your boys are the hardest working missionaries I have met! An elderly man in our ward, whose wife passed away, needed to empty his house and barn to sell it. They worked really hard to help fill up this 30 yard dumpster.  They even gave up some of their p-day to get it done.

A Taste of Home

At the Bauss home

This week seemed to fly by!  We had Labor Day on Monday and there was a huge stake picnic at a park. We went...there were so many people! Ugh! I still hate crowds and when you wear a tag, every one wants to shake your hand and act like they know who you are. It's kind of annoying! Tuesday we did a little service in the morning. That was a nice break--something to do other than talk to people. The lady we helped really appreciated it. Wednesday we had our district meeting and that was good. The A.P's were there. They are both really good friends with Elder Olsen and they are so funny!  I want to end up like them! They are awesome!!

After our meetings, we went on exchanges with some of the elders in town so I was on my bike. We got to talk to two people that were semi-interested in our message.  It was super cool how that worked out.  The person we had planned on meeting wasn't home. So we knocked doors and that's how we found one of the people we talked to. The other was a street contact.  It's good just to be on my bike. Even with only talking to two people, I felt super accomplished! The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. Nothing too exciting other than we had a massive storm come through. It was knocking trees over and stuff! There were three hundred thousand people without power! The storm wasn't even that long! I was kind of bummed out about that!

I have told you there are a lot of frogs here. We picked this one up at the Thompson's house (it's in Olsen's hand).  We put the frog on the car and drove the 2 or 3 miles home.  It held on the whole way!  Olsen was so proud! Barb told us we were mean and gave us an earful about it! Ha. Ha. She really isn't that scary so it wasn't too big of a deal.

On Sunday night we had dinner with the Bauss family.  Sister Bauss has a tradition she calls "A Taste of Home" where she prepares a favorite dinner from home for each missionary. It was my night!  Dinner was good...It is the thought that counts. Ha. Ha.  The potatoes weren't  the same as yours-- they were a little runny, but they still tasted the same. I tried and tried to figure it out what we were going to have. I honestly just ate whatever you fixed. I couldn't think of anything that really stood out as my favorite. But once I saw the food, I knew exactly what it was! I am so happy that you didn't tell her maggots! I would have been super disappointed!

Well I love you and I hope you have a good week!

Love,
   Cooper

Knocking Doors in the Rain

Last Monday, we walked into the store and I told Olsen, "oh, look! there's Barb's car" and we laughed. There are a lot of cars like hers, so we didn't think anything of it. Then we walked in and had barely started shopping when we bumped into her! She is the sweetest lady! She loves us and takes good care of us. She told us that if she takes good care of us, then some one might do the same for her son, who is serving a mission in California. Honestly, if it weren't for her, some days would have been a lot harder on me. That was on Monday...

On Tuesday Barb invited us over for dinner. So we went knocking doors in a neighborhood that's close by. There were some nasty looking clouds and we just kept going. We thought we heard the storm sirens start going off but we thought, "whatever, we will be safe!" So we knocked one more door and it just opened up on us!  It was crazy!! We were sopping wet in under a minute! It rained so hard that it took out trees and stuff...it was crazy! But I still had one Book of Mormon! So we knocked doors until we gave that book away--it was going to get ruined if I'd have kept it!

Arriving at our dinner appointment with the Thompson family... and wearing borrowed bathrobes while our clothes dried.

Some good things and bad things happened this week. First, the bad...We got yelled at twice this week.  I can now say that I've been threatened to be shot and its only my second transfer! We were knocking doors. It was our second house of the day. A guy answered the door and he said he was Catholic and said something about the trinity. We had a third elder with us (his companion had surgery so he was just hanging with us for the day) and he asked where he got the trinity idea from. He said, "The Bible" and he shared some scriptures. Then the elder kind of said, "well, we believe this..." and the guy blew up! It was crazy! He slammed the door so hard the screen door flew open! It was pretty scary but an experience. The other guy we ran into told us that he thought it was invasive for us to knock on peoples' doors and told us to get off his F-ing property. He told us he would shoot us if we ever came back!  I was pretty surprised, so was Olsen. Olsen said that guy was probably the worst screamer he's met on his mission! It was pretty wild--two in the same week!

Finally, the good...We had a really good lesson with one of our family's about faith. We told them, nicely, that we can only help them so much and then it's their choice to do what they know is right. We challenged them to read and pray as a family I pray that they did, they need some blessings!

Know that God is watching out for you guys for me and don't be surprised when angels help out a little.

Keep the faith!
     -- Cooper