Riverview Ward -- Trenton, MI

115 frogs Elder Meldrum and I caught one night just for the fun of it!

I got my new companions this past Tuesday. Tomorrow I will have been in the area for a week. The big move was so stressfull!  We packed the whole apartment up and moved it all to the other elders' apartment (where elder Meldrum is, so he had all the food and things that he needed). We stayed there for the night. The next day, me and an elder going home got dressed and headed into transfers. The elder had an early meeting and I had to drop off the car. I shuttled the other cars back to the mission office while I waited for transfers to start.

Transfers was pretty good. It was so crazy! As people's names get called, they get up and walk out. You just keep waiting for your name to be called. I was the last one to get called and then I looked around and I had no companion! I'm in Riverview Ward now and instead of one companion, I have two! So that is a huge change. They are both good guys and love the Lord so they should be easy to get along with. My one companion is a really foreign guy. He is a good guy but having a lot of problems and might be going home. We are suppose to get the call today to know what happens. The other is a really smart guy who follows the rules to the T-- like crazy! It's a good thing but going from a really relaxed companion to these guys is a big change.The area is a lot like Northville--big homes and white people. I kind of miss my ghetto. I made that my home and now I get to start over again. The joke is that once you are comfortable God moves you again. I guess I have something to learn or some one to teach here. We have found a couple new people to teach--a great start to the transfer. We have a young man with a date for baptism this transfer. It sounds like there could be a lot of baptisms in our ward. I'm excited about that! Please pray that I can endure my new place well!

You know it's been a long hard winter though when you are sitting on the couch and you see a spot on your arm. You are trying to get it off when you realize it's a freckle and you can't remember seeing it before! I laughed so hard at myself! All in all, it was a good week!

I hope that you have a great week!

Love,
  Cooper

The Pengelli family, one of the coolest in the ward!

Marlen Gaddis--the biggest teddy bear ever!

Feeling the Love

This week has been really good and hard at the same time! We have been getting the apartment all ready to move for the last couple of weeks but it's still hard because we have to live there and get ourselves ready for the transfer.

So I'm going to go to a new area. I'm super pumped to leave but yesterday was so hard. This whole time I had the goal to make this ward love me. I decided it wasn't possible to get them to love me so I stopped really fast with that dream. Then yesterday at church I had to say goodbye to people that I have worked with for the last four and a half months and I hated it! I didn't realize how close we had gotten. I thought that my glass had been empty this whole time. There were so many people that I got to tell I loved them it was crazy! I felt the love! It was so hard I almost wanted to stay and not leave but that isn't the plan for me.

Besides the move and getting everything ready with the apartment, we didn't have a whole lot of other neat things happen. We did find the "Tarzan" sound track which was an answer to our prayers! We searched for that thing for stinking ever and the Salvation Army, of all places, is where we found it! Small and simple things make life worth while!

I hope that you have a great week. I'll let you know what had happens with transfers this next Monday!

Love,
  Cooper

Another Day in Paradise

Standing at the River Rouge, the eastern boundary of our area.

I was so thrilled to hear that you got your kittens! I've spent hours on my knees worried that the cat wouldn't be able to have them but I guess that they all came out the end...literally (ha. ha. Spirit-to-naughty all in one big run-on sentence).

So we got a phone call this week and we are not going to be getting a new home. They couldn't find anything at all--like anything! So they are taking care of it at transfers. That means the area is closing down. Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning! The junk that missionaries keep is so dumb! No, we don't need a printer! We can't even get on-line to print things off, ha-ha. We have the whole apartment pretty much packed. We still have to wait until Saturday to see who's going where and what's going to happen. The district is pretty sure that I'm gone. I guess we'll see what God thinks about that.

We had a freak storm the other day. I was on exchanges and this storm came in. It was raining so hard I couldn't see the road to drive. Then we got a call from my companion. The zone leaders had called and they wanted us to tell everyone to go in for the night, ASAP! It was going to be a bad storm! Well, I was in it! The lighting hit so close to the car that we felt the shock go through us. It was so crazy! We were freaking out but we are still here, so it's a good story.

Remember Paul,the guy that I told I wouldn't eat meat? Well, he didn't pan out. Sadly he wasn't ready for the gospel. He was nice to us, he just didn't keep the commitments and stuff so we had to drop him. We had a couple other lessons, so that was good. Another week in paradise!

Sounds like you had a pretty good turn out for Ute's Eagle Court of Honor. That is really neat that all the people came! I think that it was cool that Clara got to be recognized too! I can't believe that you read my letter! I thought that for sure you were going to ask me today to send a different one--one that was more personal. I'm so glad that it work out though! It brought tears to my eyes that Ute   thought enough of me to give me his mentors pin even after all those beatings! I really must have beat all his brains out or at least his memory. Ha.Ha.

I hope that you have a great week. I'll let you know what happens with transfers next week and remember that a dream is a wish your heart makes. I'll be home for dinner soon!

Love you,
   Cooper  

Growing Up

I don't want to ever grow up! It's awful! We spent the majority of our week running around trying to find an apartment that we could live in. So the problems with our apartment are: the trash hasn't been picked up for the last couple of months so it's super full and really nasty. Our heat is always stuck on, so we froze during the winter because we couldn't turn it up and now that it's warming up, we roast! Nothing like waking up sweaty! That is a little of the smaller problems. Then the shower wasn't working. We almost had to run around to even get wet. That stunk but I fixed that. We just needed a new shower head. But the straw that broke the camel's back was one night, like two weeks ago, when I was sick, I had taken some pills so I could go to sleep and not cough. Then at like three in the morning, we woke up to our front door being kicked and a super loud noise--like the rushing of great waters. ha-ha  We ran into the bathroom--nothing. Ran into the kitchen and there was water everywhere! A pipe had broken under the sink and was gushing water. All the while, the door is getting bashed in by some one. Elder Meldrum to put a shirt on and answered it. (I had a blanket covering the ol' covenants ha-ha.) It was the downstairs neighbor. He came home and water was starting to seep through the ceiling. So we got the water shut off and mopped up the mess and went back to bed to get up a couple hours later for a meeting. So we have been using the shower water to drink and cook with.

The mission wants us out because our landlord is nowhere to be found. He stopped cashing the checks and isn't fixing anything so we need a new home. President Gerber came over on Saturday in p-day cloths (first time seeing his arms, weird) and fixed the kitchen sink for us. He also did a patch job on the heat so that it was off and we could sleep again. What a blessing to have him do that! The other water pipe broke last night. I called and he walked me through how to fix it. Now I can do it all by myself! Sorry, that was a lot but that's what has been up with my home away from home ;)

This week was okay. We didn't get very much work done--missionary stuff anyway. We have had no luck with finding a new apartment so the office finally said to do missionary work and put the apartment hunt on the back burner and they would keep working on it. I did get to go on an exchange with the zone leaders. I found that communication is the key to understanding people. I have gotten really stiffnecked and started not liking the mission leaders and what they asked us to do. I had a good chat with the zone leaders and by the end of the exchange I felt so much better--like 100% better! Now I understand what I should have done this whole time with people that I was frustrated with--talk to them and get it out! Only they can help me see where I was confused or misunderstood because that's all it was--a big misunderstanding. I also learned what it means to sustain our leaders too. I really enjoyed conference. It as really good. We watched at a church house for one of the secession. Then we watched the other ones at a member's house. It was good to be there with them. The Corless family is one of my favorite families in our ward. So, all in all, a pretty great week!

So I broke the veggie diet. It is so hard as a missionary because people feed us and I don't want to offend them. I went without meat for a week then I broke it. Paul hadn't kept up his end of the deal either so I felt okay.

I love you and I'll try to keep on rocking it! ha ha

Love,
   Cooper

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