General Conference Week

Dear family,

Conference was way good! It was so nice to be able to clear my mind of everything else and just sit and watch. My favorite talk came from a guy who's name I can't remember and dont have my notes here to tell you. He talked about stepping on a scorpion and having to go to the hospital all because he didn't follow the counsel of his parents. I really like how he related that to us - God's children and following His commandments.That's too bad you weren't able to go! I was lookin for ya. Did you watch inbetween conference on Sunday where they showed the Mormon Helping Hands here in L.A. ? I was apart of that but at a different location so I wasn't on the show.. They also showed our new Visitors Center and some of the Sisters there, etc., that was pretty cool. Sounds like you'll have a good time in Michigan, tell them hello for me. Thanks for the Theo advice... I'll pass it on to him - that means a lot.

Wednesday - 9-29-10

We biked a whole bunch. We've tried to stick to walking mostly but actually had some appointments we needed to be at so we'd need to bike to get to them on time. Did I tell you how hot it has been? Broke the record in L.A. with 113. Solid. Not. Sister Green fed us some sloppy joes (not quite as good as yours or grandma's but still pretty darn good). We visited Theo and asked him about Sunday. He apologized and asked if I was mad that he showed up drunk. I told him no... just disapointed. He got quiet and looked at me and sincerely said "i'm sorry. It wont happen again Elder Cottrell". We'll see. Hopefully he was able to get something out of church that day. We visited the fuifelau's and went to wendy's with them. That was a treat - did I tell you that there are only like 2 wendy's in the mission? 1 Arbys, 1 krispy kream, no arctic circles, 1 dairy queen - all of the places here are local. Which I like.. it was just nice to feel kind of 'utah' for a minute. I'd say this day we put about 50 or 60 miles on the bikes.

Thursday

Went to our farmers market down the road and met up with the peanut people. I swear they're Mormon.. but they aren't. We had a good talk with them, they gave us a huge bag of peanuts and then we grabbed some lunch. Get this - I got a bacon wrapped hot dog with mayonaise, onions, mustard, ketchup and jalepenos. Thought you'd like that. Elder Hodell picked us up to take me to my doctors apt. in San Pedro. We did another xray and found that my finger is doin really well but that I did in fact break the bone AND the tendon but things are healing well. I still have to wear this little brace for a few more weeks just to hold it in place. My companion loved the Utah shirt... I don't know how your hands didnt melt when you touched it. Shame. He told me to tell you that 'you're the coolest ever' so there you go. My BYU shirt is hanging on the wall by my bed and his utah shirt is by his bed. Funny. Later that night I got in an argument with some guys outside our apartment about the church. I was really really frustrated .. it was bad. We ended up leaving - i'm sure you could see the steem coming out of my ears. I walked to the room, sat in my desk and looked up. There was a picture of Christ there. The thought came to my mind "How did you represent me today?" As you can imagine I felt really bad for what had just happened. I wrote our number on a pass along card and walked back outside. I apologized for the dispute and told them that if they ever really wanted to know about the church to call that number. Afterall, we're all just trying to get closer to the same person - Christ. Their attitude changed, we talked a little more and then I left. I felt a lot better this time.

Friday

District Meeting day. I gave a spiritual thought on Love and shared the experience I had the night before with the guys outside my apartment. I went on splits with my best bro Elder Hodell in san pedro. We went to a Chilean house and had 'completos' (bacon wrapped hot dogs with guacamole) -man it sounds like i've been eating really bad lately. We talked with them for a good while along with some other Elders. Elder Hodell and I did a lot of tracting in his area and visited some people that him and his companion are teaching. Elder Hodell said that his aunt told him that she used to babysit ME when I was little... she babysat a Sam Cottrell in Layton, UT.  .. does that last name ring a bell?

Saturday

We went to conference at the Palos Verdes building. It was us, about 8 other Elders and maybe 5 other people. I hope everyone else was watching it on tv! We stayed there the whole day and then after priesthood we all went to a pizza place in San Pedro called Niko's. I missed the Crown Burger tradition but it was still really good.

Sunday

Went to conference all day at the Carson building and again there was almost no one there! Crazy to me but I guess people have other ways of watching or listening to conference at home - hope that's what they were doing. We walked to the Romo's for dinner afterwards and had taquito's (real taquito's ;)) and then tracted on the way home.

Monday

We did laundry and relaxed at the apartment until about 1 and then Elder Hodell came and picked us up. We went to the mall and ate and walked around for a little while. Got some groceries and then had them drop us off at our dinner apointment (Elder Poemape broke my bike when I was on splits with Elder Hodell. I fixed it today.) We ate with the Bishop and his family - he's been bishop for close to a year now. It's been really fun to see him take on all different sorts of challenges and interesting people that just show up at church off the street. He's a really good guy and will continue to do well in his calling. Then Bishop Adams drove us over to Franco's. We read some scriptures with him and had a good talk. He STILL talks about that ring. Jeez. Told me to tell you and dad thank you AGAIN. Thanks. We plugged in my ipod to his computer to update it and somehow conviniently lost all of the pictures you had on there and just about everything else. We got most of the stuff back but not the pictures. BUMMER.

Well that was my week - today a man came to do some re-bath in our apartment and we had to stay the whole time. That was boring but I got some really good studying in. Thank you so so much for your letters and everything you do for me. Talk to you next week!

Love you

Elder Cottrell