Christmas WEEK 12-21 to 12-27-10

Samuel Cottrell

show details 12:52 PM (1 hour ago)

Merry Christmas last week everyone, It was good to see alot of you on Skype! Thank you all for your love, support, cards and gifts. It all means so much to me. Looking forward to a new year here in L.A.

 

Tuesday 12-21-10

Today after Email I went on splits with Elder Bluth over to the same area I was with Elder Weir - Watts/South Central L.A. We tracted quite a bit and had dinner with a member. We taught some odd people in Watts that had questions about "666" and having a micro chip placed inside of you in order to be able to buy or sell things... ? In spanish none the less. That was fun. We went to the South Gate building and had the baptism interviews for Sister Recinos and her daughter. They passed. Bonus!

Wednesday-

After I got home from splits, Elder Ferrin and I went to visit and eat lunch with Sister Rivas. Her two grandkids were there and it started to storm really hard. One of them, Daniel (9), got scared and asked us to make it stop. We told him that we could - and it stopped. He got pretty scared after that. It started up again and once more he asked us, "make it stop please". We asked him if he had faith that he could make it stop. At first he said no, but after teaching him about faith, he agreed and said yes. We told him to pray and ask God to make it stop. He did. It stopped. It was pretty awesome. But the moment that we left the house, it started again. Really really hard. Probably harder than i've ever seen it rain anywhere. We had the joy of riding our bikes home from there. There were rivers in the streets - everyone was looking at us like "what are those two white kids doing in the rain?". We were completely soaked within 20 seconds of being on our bikes. It was fun. We talked to Dennis and then went home to make sure our ceiling wasn't leaking harder than usual.

Thursday-

Today it finally stopped raining. We ate lunch again with Sister Rivas and she gave me a tie for Christmas. That was really nice of her. We talked with Sister Recinos and I bought some new church shoes - mine were completely soaked. We visited a few more people and then ordered a pizza at home. Not alot of people were available today - they all went back to Mexico to visit family for the Holidays.

Friday-

Today we woke up way early and the Sisters came to pick us up. We went to the Westwood building behind the temple for a Christmas devotional with the whole mission. It was all musical numbers and really nice to just listen to. I said goodbye to all of my buddies leaving next week - they'll do good in life. Jennifer cut my hair after . We were riding to our next appointment, running late, and my chain snapped. We had a long ways to go and were going to have to walk. I looked up and right there was a bike shop - open at 6 pm on Christmas Eve - definitely a blessing. I was able to buy a chain and be back on our way in less than 5 minutes. We ate dinner with the Pena's and had ponche - basically what you boil at home to make your house smell good - and then headed to Jave's. Mexicans celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve - so we thought we were eating with them on the 25th... but they meant the 24th. So we had two dinners. It was really good. I called home to set up a time to call tomorrow and Dad answered - they were in a movie. Nice.

Saturday-

Christmas today - I woke up and opened the presents I got in the mail yesterday - I got a good load no doubt! After messing around with it all, we got ready and went downtown to the same place we went for Thanksgiving and sang again. That has been a really good experience both opportunities i've had to do it. We ate lunch with the Sisters at Denny's and saw Maria there. We went to the Arana's next and I was able to use their computer to Skype home with the whole family. It was awesome to see them all! The kids are getting big... it's nuts. After I talked with them for an hour we ate at Jave's again and then headed home so Elder Ferrin could call home.

Sunday-

The day after Christmas is always kind of a bitter sweet - sad that the holiday is over, glad that you're not stressed anymore. Lucky for me, we had two baptisms today that I was focused on. The printer in the church wasn't working so we weren't able to print a program for the baptism - that was a real bummer. We just wrote it on the chalkboard for everyone to see. I baptized Sister Recinos and Elder Ferrin baptized her daughter. It was the first one i've done in Spanish so it was pretty awesome. They were so happy - I can't even describe the feeling you get when you have that experience. Afterwards we ate AGAIN with Jave. Tonight after planning we played table football. I beat Elder Ferrin 102-21. It was really funny.

Monday-

P-day today. We went to Tom's Burgers for lunch so I could get another Colosal burger and then went to Radio Shack. We both bought remote control helicopters. We went home and figured them out until 6. They're way fun. I flew a rude note to Elder Ferrin while he was writing a letter, he read it and was about to say something mean when I turned the helicopter on again from across the room and it flew up, the blade chopped him right on his... chest. I laughed for a good while. We took Joy to the World to a referral that asked for it. He seems like a really nice guy - I hope we have the chance to teach him.

 

Well tomorrow is transfers - guess we'll see what happens. I'm not expecting anything to change. I love you all and hope you have a fun and safe New Year's!

Love, Elder Cottrell

 

Merry Christmas from Elder Cottrell & Elder Ferrin

Elder Cottrell & Joshua! Congratulations!

Quick because it got deleted?!

Wow I just wrote the whole letter and it got deleted. I don't have a lot of time to write so i'll just send you the main points.

12-7-10 Tuesday

I went with Elder Weir to his area in South Central/Watts. He didnt know his area very well so we were just riding around everywhere and did alot of tracting. We chased down one of the many 'nieve men' who go around on their bikes selling ice cream or tamales or whatever. We were eating the ice cream on a curb and taking a break when a bunch of black dudes came outside of the house we were in front of. They were about 40 or 50. They were really nice and gave us water - all except one who said something like "well i'll be, ... Mormons. What are you two doing in an all black neighborhood? do you know where you're at?" ... "no, we're actually kind of lost.." .... "you're in WATTS!". me in my mind 'yeah we're actually just leaving'... he started to talk about the scripture in Nephi thats about the black curse - blah blah blah. He wanted to bash but we wouldnt let him. Within 5 minutes he was thanking us for doing what we do. nice. We ate at the bishops house. I got into a competition with the son - about 30 yrs old - eating chili's. They were super hot. Elder Weir cried when he ate 1. I ate about 15 and called it good. At about 10 pm my stomach hurt so I went to bed - woke up at 3 30 with the same feeling as my 'death sickness'  - Elder Weir gave me a blessing and I sat in the shower for an hour. Finally around 5 am I started feeling a little better and got some sleep. Probably shouldnt have eaten those.

12-8-10

Went to lunch at Sister Rivas' house - I have been calling her sister munoz the last two times I was over that - that was an awkward realization. We taught Jave's family about families - they've been struggling lately - I hope it helped.

12-9-10

Ate at Sister Rivas' house again then helped Sister Rodriguez put up Christmas lights - that was a fun service. We ate with the Penas for dinner - their son Jair is leaving to Indianapolis on wednesday on his mission.

12-10-10

District meeting day - I gave the spritual thought on diligence. I think it went pretty well, I felt the spirit alot. I got a bunch of mail today for christmas and my birthday - that was sweet! Thank you everyone! We went to Denny's for lunch - we're teaching a girl that works there. She only made us pay $10 instead of about $25 - that was sweet. She works on sundays so hasn't been able to be baptized but starts a new job next week so hopefully she'll follow through! Jennifers son Denito said that when he's a missionary he wants to be called "Elder Cottrell' too. he's 5 - funniest kid ever besides Gabe. We met with the Aranas and will go to the Visitors Center with them on sunday.

12-11-10

After corellation we ate with some Elders at a pizza place. We ended up helping Brother Recinos for 4 hours putting up thousands of christmas lights on and around his house. It was like the Griswalds house in christmas vacation haha. It was way fun though. We're working with his wife - trying to get her baptized - we set a date with her for the 26th of this month. Woo hoo!

12-12-10

After church today we went with the Arana's to the V.C.  - we watched the J.S. movie and one on Prophets as well. They really liked it! We were able to see the lights for a minute - it was a nice night but they were in a hurry so we couldn't stay long. That was a bummer.

12-13-10

P-day

We went to the Compton Fashion Center for a while - that place is huge. It was pretty cool - they have everything you could think of there. We went to the park and threw the football and bought groceries. It's nuts to see people EVERYWHERE you look out here. 7 million people in my mission. There's always someone outside selling something or going through someone's recycling to try and make some money. It's crazy. I'm so grateful for the quiet in Utah.

Well that was basically it. Sorry it's so short. I love you all so much. Thank you for the birthday wishes, cards, money, etc.! I wouldn't be able to do this without you all.

Love,

Elder Cottrell

Dec. 7 2010

Hey how are you doin everyone? It's been a pretty good week so i'll just jump right in.

Tuesday - 11-30-10

After email today we went into a neighborhood tha reminded me alot of Wilmington. It was a little nicer compared to the rest of the town. One thing about it though is that there were dogs EVERYWHERE. I think we counted 20 on this one street - just wandering around outside. One in particular took interest in my companion - it was a big white dog - my companion just stopped and got behind my bike. It then looked at me so I took off as fast as I could - mistake. It ran after me - peddling as fast as I could it was biting at my heels - ha - terrifying but really funny. It chased me for an entire block down the road and then gave up. After we tried to visit a couple of people there we headed over to Dennis and Jennifer's house. Jennifer was recently baptized but her boyfriend Dennis is not a member. We've been teaching him quite a bit but he has some problems with the W.O.W. We will work through them.

Wednesday-

Today we went back to the South Bay to find out the results of my procedure. Dr. Cohen said the biopsy's all came back negative and so he diagnosed me with Irritable bowel syndrome caused by stress... I don't believe it but I guess you can think what you want. I guess I should be grateful that they didnt find anything but I still feel at a dead end with it all. Today we tried something different besides tracting. We took a big stack of pass along cards and stuck them on every car we saw that was parked on this block. We talked to everyone that was outside as well - it turned out to be allot more effective than regular tracting. We got a bunch of return appointments. We taught a members' friend who was over at their house for the night - i'm sure she wasn't expecting that. She is 21, single with a 2 yr old. There are SO many young single women here with babies. It's so so sad. It makes me miss Utah a whole lot ha. We had a phone-conference lesson with a member and his girlfriend in Hawaii - he'll be moving there this month. Elder Sung called me tonight and told me that Sister Dial in the Carson ward whom Elder Mitillo and I helped reactivate wanted me to come back on saturday and baptize her son Joshua who is almost 9. Sweet!

Thursday-

We spent the morning at the Dr. office in marina del rey for Elder Ferrin's knee. He had an xray done and they found its probably just a bruised bone but if it still hurts in a couple weeks then they will do an MRI - hopefully he didnt tear anything. Afterwards, Jave - a member here - took us to ACE and we bought ourselves a Christmas tree - a real one. It's about 5'6. Our apartment smells really nice now. We went back to teach Dennis about the W.O.W - my spanish was very broken but it was a really spiritual lesson.

Friday-

District meeting today - afterwards we ate at subway and in-n-out and all just talked for a while. I met a guy there that was really interested in the church - too bad he lives out of my area and I had to pass him along to the other Elders. We decided to walk our area today. From 2 to 9 we just walked and talked to everyone we saw. It was very tiring. There was a Christmas parade through our area - we were able to see some of it - that was pretty neat. We decorated our tree - you'd be impressed no doubt.

Saturday-

We had correlation with the zone - afterwards we ate at panda express with the sisters. We visited a less-active family and saw about 50 yard sales. I've never seen anything like it - every other house has a yard sale on saturday. Elder Bluth and Elder Weir picked us up and took us to Carson for the baptism. It was so nice seeing everyone from the ward even though i've only been gone a couple of weeks. As I was sitting with Josh I asked him if he had a middle name - he said no. So we I baptized him and went to change. I changed and then the bishop knocked on the door. Turns out Josh DOES have a middle name. So I got dressed again in wet clothes and baptized him again. It was awesome. Sister Dial was so grateful that I was able to come back and do that for her. Her husband still wont come to church but she was determined to get her son baptized and wanted me to do it since I was the one that helped her get back to church. I was talking to her afterwards and she told me that Josh said after the first time I baptized him "mom, I didnt feel the warm feeling you said I would get when you get baptized"... and then after I did it again with his full name he said "I felt it that time mom". It's so amazing to me how in tune kids are with the spirit. That was such a great experience for me. After the baptism we taught the Arana family and had dinner with them. They haven't been to church in almost 8 years. We committed Carla and Jackie - the two teenage girls - to come to church tomorrow.

Sunday-

Jave picked us up for church and we drove to the Arana's to pick up Jackie and Carla - I didn't really expect them to come. They were there and waiting though! That was awesome. They sat next to us in Sacrament and asked questions about the bread and water, about heaven and the pre-earth life. They're really good investigators - except that they have already been baptized. ha. Jave took us up to the temple and we saw all of the lights there - it was very pretty. We had a lesson with him in the rain outside the temple that was really spiritual. He's a recent convert (name pronounce ha-vee) and is going through some struggles.

Monday-

P-day finally here. We had a zone activity at the church that was kind of lame - a relay that lasted 20 minutes - the church is 20 minutes away. Oh well. Afterwards we printed some pictures and did some grocery shopping. The day went by super fast. At 6 o'clock we went to Jair's missionary farewell party at the church - Elder Ferrin talked and a bunch of us sang 'bring the world His truth'.

That was my week! Hope you enjoyed it. I love you all and am grateful for your example to me. Keep reading, keep praying, keep the faith.

Love,

Elder Cottrell

Senior Companion Adventures 1st Week in Lynwood, CA

Hey everyone, hope you had a happy Thanksgiving! Can't believe tomorrow is December already.

Tuesday 11-23-10

Last night I found out that i'll be leaving Carson and Wilmington and heading to the 'hood'. Lynwood. It may be ghetto but I hear it's the highest baptizing area in the mission - that's something to look forward to. I'm going to miss the people here for sure, but I guess it's just part of the mission. We did alot of packing and saying goodbye to people today. I realized that I have way too much 'stuff' out here and need to get rid of it or send it home.

Wednesday-

Bright and early we helped each other load our stuff into members' cars for the long haul. Brother Holt gave me a ride up to Lynwood - just above Compton. The area didn't look too bad as we drove through it, I was surprised at how nice Compton was actually. He took me to my new apartment on Carlin St. and I met my new companion. Elder Ferrin from Plain City, UTAH. Born and raised on a farm, played basketball in highschool, drove a tractor everyday and graduated from Freemont High in 2009. This is his first area - he's been out about 6 months. We visited a few people after I unpacked - it's all Spanish. Good thing I don't know any... That's alright i'll learn. On our way home from our last appointment we were riding our bikes on Atlantic - going pretty fast- my companion in front of me- a woman opened her car door (that was parked) and Elder Ferrin plowed into it. Somehow he stayed on his bike. The lady was in shock but just glad that he was ok - she was visiting from Oakland for Thanksgiving. Her door is broken - he bent it about 15 degrees the wrong way when he hit it. Everything else is fine - his knee has been bugging him though so we're going to get it checked out on thursday of next week. My new apartment is pretty nice except that we can't get our heater to work and it's been way cold here lately. Good thing we have an oven.

Thursday-

As a zone we went to a convilesent (sp?) home Downtown and sang songs to them for an hour. That was really nice and they were very appreciative. We had a lunch appointment afterwards with a recent convert Sister Rivas - we had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I was surprised because she's Mexican - it was a pleasant surprise though. Then we had our weekly planning session for a few hours and headed to another dinner appointment in South Gate. We had beans, rice, (yup), a mexican soup called Pusole and tostadas. It was all very very good. It was a good Thanksgiving but didn't feel like a Holliday at all. Guess that's a good thing while you're on your mission.

Friday-

District meeting today - it all went very well - just got to know each other. We studied most of the day due to Elder Ferrin's knee injury. A member picked us up for dinner at his house. We had Thanksgiving dinner again - we eat alot here.

Saturday-

We had ward correlation in which I understood almost nothing because it was all in spanish. Afterwards we ate lunch at Wingstop and then we went tracting for most of the night. We got 5 return appointments.. 5... I didn't get even close to that many in a week in Carson/Wilmington. I was amazed at how nice the people were at their doors. Very grateful for that. We're working with a recent convert and going over the Christ Like Attributes in PmyG. He's doing good.

Sunday-

We had church at the Huntington Park building - ours is being renovated until the end of the year. There were 2 wards there and it was packed. I didn't understand much - again. But it was very good. It's really cold here with the humidity - not fun. We at lunch with the Morales family. In lessons I try to just jump in and speak what spanish I can - God always helps me out with that. We did some more tracting and received similar results as we did yesterday - more return appointments. We talked with a former investigator and got him interested again - he's an older guy and really excited to learn more about our message.

Monday-

P-day today. Still pretty cold. Went and looked at 'snuggies' at CVS (funny blanket thing) but didnt get one. We're saving up for a Christmas tree. We went to this Mexican shopping mall that was pretty cool, ate some taco's there and then headed to a dinner appointment at the Penas. They're such a cool family. The two youngest kids are the grumpiest little mexican's i've ever seen- 1 and 3. They're super funny. I spoke a ton of spanish tonight - i'm amazed at how much i've learned already.

Well that was my week - i'm safe and loving my new area. Who know's how long i'll be here. I really feel like i've known some of the people here forever - they're so kind and loving to the missionaries. I know that God has really touched and humbled these people. As missionaries we have to learn to love the people - that's not a problem here. I love you all and hope you have a good week!

Love, Elder Cottrell

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