Hola Familia

Tuesday 11--8-11

Last night we picked up an elder from the Ogden, UT mission - he is from spain but had to fly here to renew his visa. He spent the night with us - Elder Tuesta - he's serving in Hyrum. It was cool to talk to him and see how his mission is compared to ours. I'm gonna take him to lunch when I get home. We taught Mariana - she was on the Mexico version of American Idol - 'La Academia'. She's super super nice and wants to learn more about the church. We ate with the Guarnero's and convinced Cynthia to come to church in a couple weeks - she even signed a paper saying that she'll come. We taught Hua about fasting and the importance of Christ's ressurection - he's really moving along - he's even going to feed us on Monday. He's basically a member.

11-9-11

Service day - I pushed around a lady in her wheelchair that doesn't speak english - it was a quiet walk. She was super nice though. We had a lesson with Aphrodite - she committed to be baptized on Dec. 4th. I'm way excited for her. Plus it'll be our first 'black-tism'... we aren’t racist, we've just wanted to baptize a black person. Blessing: given.

11-10-11

We had zone conference today - we trained 3 zones on having an effective nightly planning session - one at a time. It went pretty well I think - President seemed impressed and we got alot of compliments from other missionaries - I got a cupcake from sister baker for my birthday next month - boss. We taught Israel afterwards - the missionaries that baptized him did not go in depth on the word of wisdom... so he's struggling. He is so solid - he just needs to tune it up a bit.

11-11-11

11 11 11... didn't even make a wish today. Bummer. We interview the district leaders and found out about the zone goal and how it's moving along. Everything else fell through today - I went on exchanges with my buddy elder Simmons - he's going home dec. 7th - we had a good time.

11-12-11

We saw the christmas lights being put up today - it was pretty exciting (at the temple) - as a reward to some sisters for winning 'torchin tommy' last week, we called them out of their apartment and gave them something real nice. I played the guitar and sang a chorus that went something like 'put it in the oven and then turn it on, just for a couple hours though don't leave it too long. Now go and tell your brother, go and tell your sister, go and tell your mommy that you torched tommy'... and then the DL's rapped. It was awesome and the sisters loved it. We taught Hua about tithing - he really understands everything we teach so well and commits to live it if there is any chance it will help him get his answer.

11-13-11

Happy birthday dad!

Hector and his son Brian came to church - bonus! We had to go wake them up though - do what it takes. After church at the singles ward we taught Noke - a less active member that's way cool. We are just going over all of the missionary lessons with him. We ran to dinner with bro. martinez and then drove down to the santa monica building on the beach to watch Hua perform in the stake recital - he is so amazing at the piano - asian... go figure. He's awesome. WE won the zone goal this week - torched our tommy 380 degrees... we gave the companionship that came in second place pancakes.. made with sprite. I'm sure they loved that.

That was the week - stay warm I love you all

Keep reading, keep praying, keep the faith!

Love, Elder Cottrell