We are working hard!

Hey everyone, it was a pretty good week - hopefully you have all seen the pictures I sent last week -

11-1-11 tuesday

One year ago today, I chased a rooster around Wilmington for a couple hours. I miss that. We had zone leader council today - with the 2 new zones, there are 18 zone leaders in the meeting now - geez. It's pretty big. We learned alot about some things we'll be training on in zone conference in the next couple of weeks. We put together some things for our zone goal. It's called "Torchin Tommy" - we are cooking turkeys... by heating our ovens.. by doing missionary work haha it's hard to explain, but it's really funny and we hope it gets the zone motivated to baptize. We had a great lesson with William tonight at a members' house - he is SO close to receiving an answer.. I wish he'd just get it already. He'd be an awesome member - he WILL be an awesome member.

11-2-11

Happy aniversary Cami and Erik. I bet it was sick. Anyway, we did our service today with the old folks - awesome as usual. I took around Maria - she's from Egypt and super rich. She gave me money right off the bat so that I could buy something for myself. Bonus. She bought a ton of stuff. We finalized the zone goal and then ate with the Guarnero's - they are such good people. Really humble and always willing to help us out in any way possible. It's people like them that make this work that much more motivating to give it my best. We had an awesome lesson with a new investigator and her grandaughter near our apartment. She accepted to be baptized - we didn't set a date with her, but she said that she will. We went to "Milky's" frozen yogurt on the way home and some members hooked us up. I love eating for free.

11-3-11

Today was really stressful. President wanted to do team-up's with us so we had to make sure our plans were going to follow through. We were super late for our 6 o'clock appointment - the traffic was ridiculous. President, cristen and the investigator were all waiting for us till 6:30. It was a first lesson - we taught the restoration - it was very bouncy and rushed. I didn't feel comfortable at all. My comp threw out the baptism invitation and got shut down hard. Bummer. We had an appointment with Sam - a member that was baptized in NY because of Mitt Romney - we were supposed to meet with him at 7, and william at 8 - both at the church. We showed up at 7:40 with president... Sam pulled up and so did William. We decided to just have a group lesson - 2 members showed up to help out. There was like 8 of us. It turned out to be more like a class. We are to call william 'hua' from now on. (the way grandpa john says 'what'... without the T... aint got no T..) That lesson went alright - President complimented us alot on our teaching - I was still really stressed though. I always seem to be more stressed AFTER the fact.. that's how it always was if I was performing with my band, in a musical or for an audition - It's the same way with teaching the gospel. I always am more nervous and stressed afterwards for some reason. Although I was stressed, I still felt the spirit so strong in that last lesson with Hua. He is such a great guy.. he needs to be baptized so bad.

11-4-11

District meeting day - it rained - I loved it. We presented the zone goal - everyone seemed to like it! We really hope it goes well. I went on exchanges with elder Langi afterwards. He's from Tonga and has been out for about 6 months. He's serving in Malibu but I took him to my area today. He doesn't speak spanish so I did all of the teaching - but he did carry the spirit with him for sure. It was great - we taught Maria - she just wanted to bash when we showed up - but we talked for a while and she said she would come to church, read and pray this week. Awesome. We contacted a referral and then I treated him to some fancy McDonalds - only the best for the Lords' servants.

11-5-11

Highlights of the day - Hua came to the visitors center and we had a great lesson - one of the sister missionaries really hit home with him. We walked around the temple grounds with him afterwards and just tried to help him recognize any answer he might be getting from God. He now believes in God - awesome! That's such a huge step. I'm so grateful to have a temple and especially the visitors center so close - it really makes such a big difference for investigators. Then we ate at an all-you-can-eat brazillian pizza place for the rest of the night with some members - tomorrow is fast sunday - gotta load up.

11-6-11

Awesome day today - we had 3 investigators at church and 2 of them were brand new - they just came with friends. The singles ward here is amazing at fellowshipping and spreading the word. Seriously - they are so organized and focused on missionary work. They make this work so much easier. Hua came as well - I'm praying for that guy more than i've ever prayed for an investigator before - he has GOT TO GET AN ANSWER.

That was the week - Elder Matheson is a cool Elder - we are working hard. Have a good week! Happy birthday dad

Love, Elder Cottrell