An Ammon Moment

This week was pretty good. This transfer has just been a long one but its moving on thankfully! The weather is warmer but it was still really cold compared to what I want it to be. ha-ha.

Some crazy stuff has been happening at our apartment so the landlord is a ghost. We have never heard or seen him or her and the problems are piling up! So we finally got Sister Gerber involved and that got the ball rolling. We are suppose to be out tomorrow. The order came from Salt Lake, which was super crazy. So we went apartment shopping this weekend and that was gay--two guys walking in shopping for a house (ha-ha) but whatever! We didn't find one. Everything is up in the air on what's going to happen to us. They might shut the area down (what we heard) and split us up or they will get us a new place to live. It's all on President Gerber. Whatever he says is whats going to happen. We are waiting for a phone call tonight that will let us know.

We did get to see a miracle! I have taught thousands of lessons so far on my mission. Sadly, I have only taught a couple of people and actually taught them. The guy Paul, that I told you guys about this last week, we got to see him again. We had an Ammon experience. Paul doesn't believe in a God but he believes in a great power. We got to start at the creation and why we are here. By the time we left, he was saying God instead of "a great power" and it made sense to him. It was great! That was the biggest thing that happened. We did get to do some other cool stuff. We were in the ghetto and found an old Rolls Royce parked behind an old church. It looked abandoned. I totally wanted it! Maybe I'll ask to look at it some time but we didn't do anything more than take pictures this time.

I had a Dad moment this week. I had an elder that was sick in the district and Elder Meldrum wasn't feeling well. The other elders had been asked to help someone move. It was only going to be a couple hours so we went on exchanges. Well 6 hours later, we finally got done moving this lady. That poor elder didn't know how to work at all and I was in work mode! I was nice as I could be but still... As I was driving home, I realized that I was just like Dad. It made me laugh but I can say that if  Dad hadn't taught me how to work, I would be just like that elder.

We do have plans for Easter dinner. The man that sent you pictures of the last dinner is having us over. We are pretty pumped about it. But other than that, it's knocking on doors, sadly. I hope that you guys have a good Easter. Just think: you'll only have one more and then I'll be back!  I love you. I hope that you have a great week!

Love always,
    Cooper

Meat-free Challenge Accepted

One of the cool things this week was meeting a man named Paul. He is 95 and acts like a 70 year old man. He is so spry! We met him while knocking doors. He told us that he stopped eating meat 8 years ago and has had no pain since then. He said that he had hurt for 40 years and he finally asked his doctor if he could help him. The doctor said that he couldn't help him, so Paul fired him and went home and stopped eating meat. Four weeks later, Paul thought he was dying--he had no pain! It was funny to listen to him talk. He challenged us to go meat-free for four weeks and we would be happier. So I asked if he was a reader. He said he was. I gave him a Book of Mormon and said I would accept his challenge if he would read this book for the next four weeks. He said he would. We meet up again on April 11th. That month that I went without meat totally has prepared me for this moment! ha-ha Elder Meldrum isn't doing it. He thinks it's too hard but I've done it before so I know I can! Plus, I would hate to have Paul read the Book of Mormon and me not have held up my end of the deal. It's going to be great!

This week we also had a special stake conference. Elder Rasband spoke. It was super great! His talk was about building up our homes. He told some awesome stories about presidents of the church. One of them was about President Lee. Elder Rasband had to drive in New York City on his mission and he was from some little town and was super scared. He said that he felt a hand on his shoulder part way through the drive...it was President Lee. He said, "Elder, this is one of the times that the Lord will for sure protect you. Relax a little and just get me to the mission home." It was a great story. He had a lot more. I really enjoyed it.

All in all, a great week and I'm almost completely healthy again! Something bad that happened though is our apartment is just going to pot. So we are looking for a new one. We will be getting a new address and stuff but I don't think it will change this week. I'll keep you guys posted!

Have a great day and know that I love you forever!

Cooper

Welcome, Warmer Weather!

They say that a watched pot never boils and I think I can add that a watched clock never moves. My watch finally gave up the ghost. It lost the nob to turn it for the time change, so I went and had it looked at by a watch repair place. They were going to charge me $50 to fix it. I decided that was too much so I didn't wear a watch this week and it flew by. Who knew?!

The weather was beautiful this week it was so warm like 40's and 50's. I was so happy! Elder Meldrum, who has only seen Michigan in the cold, cracked out his first short sleeves. We didn't have to wear jackets. It was weird to see all of my tie again ha-ha. We did a lot of finding and that was pretty good. We got to see a lot of less active people and started getting nights set up where we could come over every week to visit and teach them. But with every good there has to be a bad and I got sick. Just a sore throat but just enough to make me an ornery elder. I'm feeling better now, after a lot of drugs and Elder Meldrum getting the chance to see my ugly side. Thankfully we didn't have a lot of knocking planned or some one might have gotten baptized out of fear!

Other than that, we got to meet a really great man. We didn't teach him--we just got to love him for a little while. We knocked on his door. He told us he wasn't interested so we left. Then we saw him the next day. He apologized for being short with us and that same day, as we walked back to the car, he called us over and asked for us to pray for him. He has bladder cancer and has already been carved out a couple times. He is a great guy. He invited us to sit on the porch and he talked to us for a minute or two and then we left. We laughed. They say that you have to have seven contacts with the church before you investigate. Well, Phil has had 3 so only a couple more to go! He is going to be a great Mormon someday!

Sadly Darlene hasn't met with us in a while. She is kind of like Grandma Summers--she takes care of all of the grand kids. She wants to meet with us when she doesn't have them to distract her. We stopped by and saw her though, just for a couple of minutes. She said that she was having a hard time still. It hurt to ask because the second that we mentioned it, she started to tear up. Sometimes...well, a lot of the times, I wish that I could take people's problems for them. I feel that I'm strong enough to handle them, even though I can hardly handle my own problems. We won't see her this week. It's going to be next week when we see her again.

Thanks again for the the letters, prayers and hugs you've given me. I hope you have a great week.

Love,
   Cooper

Staying in Dearborn

We'll I lived to see another transfer here in Dearborn. So that's pretty exciting. I am a little sad that didn't get to move though. I think it's my restless feet syndrome kicking in, ha-ha. We had a good week. I really can't think of anything that sticks out to tell you guys about...a lot of tracting.

I honestly just wish that I could handle more than three hours of tracting a day. We would do so much more but I get burned out after hour number three. I get a little moody and lippy with people...or maybe it's bold? I think it's lippy though. Elder Meldrum thinks it's funny when I reach that point. I hate it though. There was this one old lady that we talked to and she was going off on us--not mean, but just stepping around the bush. Finally I told her we were offering her salvation and would she like some. Needless to say she didn't want it right then.

For Cooper's birthday we sent him a year supply of fortune
cookies...350 cookies. He wrote "So I ate all those fortune
 cookies that you sent Mom. All in the month of February.
 Lets just say my mouth was a little cut up! 

One thing did happen that was pretty wild. We were tracting and this girl came up and told us she was a member of our church. Yea, right! But then she actually named some people that were in the ward. She said we should go and visit her mom. She gave us the address then she seemed to just vanish. So after the street was done, we went and knocked on the door. Some one yelled, "who is it?" and opened the door just a crack. We said it was the missionaries....silence. So we said it again. Then the door was flung open and the lady just stared at us. We told her that her daughter had sent us. She looked so confused. She said her daughter was right there.There was a little four-year old girl behind her. I was like, "We just saw a ghost! This is crazy!" Well, she was a less active member. Come to find out there is some major bad blood between her and the ward. They told us, when we mentioned it to them on Sunday, that we should not go back and see her. Weird! Other than that, it was a pretty normal week.

I should have had you guys pray for warm weather sooner! It's a sad thing when its in the 30's and you think it's warm! It has been in the 40's and it's suppose to stay that way the rest of the week...with a couple days in the 50's. I am so pumped! I feel like I can actually be a missionary again, ha-ha!

I love you. I hope that you have a good week. Know that I'm thinking of you guys always.


Love,
  Cooper

P.S. Here are some pictures taken at the Ford Museum.

Count Your Many Blessings

Johnny Cash sang a song called "One Piece at a Time." He
drove a Cadillac though, not an El Camino! Ha. Ha.

This week was a really really rough week and a very blessed one as well. The longer that I stay out, I realize that missionary work goes in phases each week. It happens almost every time. So I hit the hard phase this week. It has been building up on me and ugh! I just hated to get up and do it all over again. Go knock some doors and then teach some people---all the rejections. Elder Meldrum joked around and changed the song "Count Your Many Blessing" into "Count Your Rejections."  But as tough as it is, I am so lucky!

Awhile ago, Elder Oviatt and I found this lady named Darlene. She is older and she was interested. We only got to teach her two lessons and then couldn't see her again. We have been trying to set stuff up and it just never worked. So I thought, "Great! Here is another person that is just blowing us off." But I was wrong. The Lord helped my unbelief. We met with her and she had actually read from the Book of Mormon and she loved it! She thinks it's terrific! Then, as we talked, she broke down and told us she was turning into an alcoholic. She cried and said she didn't want that life and she pleaded with us to please help her. She said she knew we were the only ones that could help her through it. God sent us to her. Not only was there a lady that God prepared for the gospel, but He also let me feel how much He loved that one daughter. He softened my heart. What a blessing!  She gave us all the Vodka she had and accepted the invitation to pray about a date for the end of March. On top of that great experience, there was a member that saw that I was struggling. He went on a mission, so he gets it. He gave me some advice and just loved me. There are angels always around us to lift us. They just don't always have wings and halos.

Sorry I didn't email yesterday. The computers at our library went down as we were emailing. So we couldn't do anything. That stunk! But we got to go to the Ford Museum yesterday. I'll send you some pictures of that next week with my other stuff and I'll tell you more about it. I hope that you have a good day. Pray for it to warm up over here, would you? We have freezing rain today and it's miserable. I love you and think about you always .


Love,
     Elder Cooper Kniffen