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