Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone, I wish you the best!

 

Tuesday 12/28/10

Today after email we had a lunch appointment with the Arana's - the family that let me use their computer to Skype. We had KFC and answered a few of the many questions that Jackie had for us. They've been inactive for a long time but have been so nice to my companion an I. They committed to come to church this next Sunday. Tonight we got our transfer call and found out that Elder Ferrin will be leaving to Huntington Park just down the road and i'll be companions with Elder Watkins - an Elder that came out with me on the same day - I never knew him though because I wasn't in his district in the MTC. I've heard he's a really hard worker. Guess we'll see - hopefully I know the area well enough by now to get us around.

Wednesday-

Elder Ferrin left and Elder Watkins came - it's always super awkward when you get a new companion for the first week. We took his stuff into the apartment and then headed out on our bikes in the rain. We went and ate lunch with Sister Rivas, she's always very nice to us and makes sure we're well taken care of. We did some tracting around the Recinos' home and met a couple of really nice ladies. They both really felt the spirit, - one of them said she thought she was looking at Angels on her porch - what a good compliment eh? ;) We talked to Sister Recinos about the confirmation for her and her daughter this coming sunday. She's very excited. We visited Jave for a minute - I don't think he likes my new companion much, he's a more relaxed guy & my companion is super up tight. We ate with the Penas tonight and then wandered around the city, looking for houses of members/investigators - guess I didn't learn the area very well after all. Good thing we have a map.

Thursday-

We went out and tracted around Sister Rivas' house at about 11. We met a girl with a Halo attatched to her. It was nuts - she was really humble though and wants to learn more. We're going back there on monday, i'm really excited! We ate lunch and then went to see Brennette - her mom and little sister are members but she hasn't been baptized yet. We're really trying to get her to take the lessons again, she's really nice to us- just not interested. We had a lesson with Dennis and Jennifer tonight - Dennis isn't really progressing. I don't feel that he's really 'ready' for more.. we'll see. We tried about 10 people after them - none of which were at home. While we were riding home I looked down at my bike chain and the word came into my head "Cadena"... I thought, "what does that mean?" I asked Elder Watkins if he knew the translation of Cadena or if it's even a real word. He didn't know so when I got home I looked it up in the dictionary - sure enough 'Cadena' means 'Chain' in Spanish. That was awesome! The gift of tongues is legitimate afterall ha.

Friday-

After the District Meeting today the Sister that Sister Philipy is training, straight out of Provo, UT, wanted to eat somewhere 'not American'... So we took her to a little Mexican restraunt near by. Hope she got what she was looking for ;) we'll see how much longer she craves Mexican food for. We visited another inactive family today - the Galeas' from Honduras. They're very nice - they've been sealed in the temple and say they want to come back to church. We ate dinner with the Penas again, they always treat us very nice - i'm really close with one of the kids - Allen - he's about to put his papers in and go on a mission! After that we went home - we had to be in at 6 due to the Holiday. Between 10 and 1 there were gun shots every 5 minutes - I guess they can't afford fireworks and guns are the alternative.

Saturday-

We had a New Years devotional with half of the mission at the Carson building. - I really miss it over there , i'm going to ask to finish my mission there. President Baker told us that we had 751 baptisms this year and beat our goal of 500. We set another goal for 2011 - 850 baptisms. I'm pretty confident we can do it. President Baker told us that we will no longer report tracting hours in this mission and that he wants us to tell EVERYONE about Mormon.org. Should be pretty fun. We got dropped off at our apartment afterwards and I realized that our phone fell out of my pocket and was in their car.. That was a trick to get back. We ate Menudo at Jave's place for dinner - I don't reccommend it. Then we went back to our apartment by 6 o'clock again for the Holiday.

Sunday-

We got to church late because the Sisters had a family follow us there- we got to the building just in time to help with the confirmations of Sister Recinos and Victoria. It was awesome! After church it started to rain again - we finally got a ward list in order to find the members in our area better. We went out on our bikes and tried to visit a bunch of people - none of which were home - again. It's really frustrating when that happens, you've got a long ways to ride your bike, and it's raining hard. Oh well. We visited the Recinos - we didn't have a dinner appointment and somehow they knew and fed us a great meal. I'm super grateful for times like those. We taught them the Plan of Salvation - the new member lessons. Still raining hard we went to a former investigator's house. A guy answered the door with a BYU beanie on - turns out he was just leaving to get on the plane to go back to provo. He's in the accounting program there but isn't a member of the church - all of his friends are though and he's even been to Conference in SLC - crazy. He'll be baptized soon i'm sure. We met a guy near a member's home - I gave him a Book of Mormon and told him to read and pray - he seemed very interested. I'm excited to go back and teach him more. We taught the Galeas family again and made goals for the new year. It was great! They're a very cool family. On the way to our next apointment I managed to run into a fence that was blended in with the grass (it was dark) - it bent my handlebar and I went over the top - pretty much impaled myself on the top of the fence. I just hopped down and laughed - it was really weird - it honestly came out of no where ha. Then on our way home, in the rain, my back tire popped - I carried my bike about 3 blocks and stepped in a big puddle, soaking my leg up to my calf. If I was anywhere else, doing any other kind of work, I would have been super mad and frustrated. It was great to be able to just laugh it off though. I know God blessed me in that moment.

 

Well that was my week, I love you all - i'll talk to you next week! Be safe. Keep reading, keep praying, keep the faith.

Love,

Elder Cottrell