-It's been a good week everyone - thank you for your prayers!

8-2-11 Tuesday

Elder ferrin and I drove elder cornelio and elder cruz to the mission home and dropped them off - they go home tomorrow. We visited some members in his area, said goodbye to some in my area and finished packing. At dinner I was petting a pretty big dog.. right when I left I patted it on it's head.. for some reason it freaked out and clamped down on my middle finger. It was weird and didnt feel great. Anyway, it was a busy day trying to get everything done for the move tomorrow.

8-3-11

Woke up today pretty overwhelmed with what was about to happen. Brother Muller picked me up and we took the hour drive to my new apartment in South Robertson. It's one of the more 'ghetto' area's in the zone - but it's still nice. My companion is Elder Maddox - we came out together - he's from Lewiston UT and worked with cows his whole life. He's a funny guy. We had a couple of lessons that went really well - (I have 0 time to write this email so i'm going to summarize everything)

8-4-11

Today we had a meeting with all of the new zone leaders, the A.P.'s and president. It was pretty good - learned some of my duties and what I need to do during this next... however long i'm a zone leader. We had a meeting with our district leaders and talked about a zone goal. The rest of the day we planned a zone goal. It's called 'if you believe you can achieve'... catchy right? It's all about using these 'standards of excellence' and getting a baptism for the month of august - every companionship. We gave a blessing to a girl in a jewish hospital in century city... or beverly hills.. i dont remember. It was an awesome experience. I wish I had time to share it.. She's from arizona and was reffered by a friend that saw that she was sick on FaceBook. She's really interested now and said that we helped to change her life.

8-5-11

Finishe the zone goal and went to Staples to print some things off for the zone members. We had the district meetings - in the 3 districts we have, we spent a half hour in each, presenting the zone goal. Our zone is multi-cultural. We have the korean program, english, spanish and the BRAND NEW - FIRST TRANSFER EVER - chinese program - it's pretty awesome. Like I said before, most of the members in the zone are sister missionaries because we have the Visitors Center. They've been great - they really just do whatever you tell them, don't whine or complain, etc. We took out 2 service missionaries with us after that to see some people. The lessons were great. We had ANOTHER district meeting (the shifts in the V.C. are different so every friday one of the districts cant have their meeting until 3) The zone loves the goal and we are way excited about it.

8-6-11

Long story short - went to beverly hills, everything fell through, got asked to do a training next tuesday at the Zone Leader Conference so we spent some time planning that. Had a meeting with the La Cienega (spanish ward) bishop. Things have been great with Elder Maddox so far - he seems to manage everything pretty well.

8-7-11

Church day - we went to La Cienega from 10 to 1 . It was their ward conference and went pretty well - nothing too strange happened. It seemed like a pretty normal ward. Then we headed over to the Sawtell building for the Santa Monica 3rd Singles Ward. - basically college all over again. There are some really big people in that ward - Kevin Prince - the quarterback for UCLA is in it as well as Chelsea Hightower from Dancing with the stars. Everyone in there is either doing some fancy-pants residency to be a dentist or doctor - or they work in the film business. It's sweet. Everyone wants to be in this ward... so I feel pretty priveleged to do so. We had a lesson with Allison after church - an investigator - she wants to be baptized. Awesome. We ate dinner with some college students and then met with the elders quorum president. It went great. We went to the apartment and collected all of the numbers for the zone and sent them in - it was busy but went cool.

That was the week - thank you again for everything - everyone. I love you! Keep praying for me and i'll do the same for you

Love,

Elder Cottrell

Hey mommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,

How's it goin? Thanks for the letter, it was great to hear from you. That's awesome you're in SF right now, what did laci do for her b-day?? i need to get something sent off to her, i've been so busy. The bet you have with Scott Lali is funny - i'm really excited to hear about college football - it's crazy to think that i'll be home right after college football ends - and it's starting up in just a few weeks. Tell grandpa cottrell that he is right, you almost ALWAYS have to be a district leader before being a zone leader, but not in this case - I promise I was never anything more than a senior companion haha. It's been the busiest week of my mission - hands down. But it's awesome. I hate to say it, but you get so much more respect in this position... from everyone. It feels good - but I will not let it get to my head. I know that i'm just like every other missionary in the world - this isn't even a 'calling', its an 'assignment'.. So I know i'm no better than anyone else, just have more responsibility. Hey what have you heard about the Book of Mormon musical? EVERYONE asks us about it.. you should listen to the soundtrack and see if it'd be appropriate to send me - i've heard it's pretty good. Share this part of the email with everyone will ya? - The zone I am over is the richest in the mission - we have Beverly Hills, Malibu, Venice, Brentwood, Beverlywood, Santa Monica, Bel Air, Marina Del Rey and West HollyWood - I drive down "ave of the stars" every day. It's really nice. Almost the entire zone is sister missionaries because of all of the ones that work in the Visitors Center - also they only put sisters in the really nice area's for some reason. It's been awesome - but like I said, super busy. We cover a spanish family ward AND a young single adult ward that's english in Santa Monica - i'll talk about that more later. I don't have much time so I better write the big email. I love you!

Elder Cottrell