Happy New Year 2012!

Happy New Year everyone! Anti-climatic on the mission, but a new-year none the less!

12-28-11 Wednesday

I have had diarrhea since easters... not really, but for a long time anyway. I woke up with a head cold still. We went to do service with the old folks - i'll miss that when I leave here. We met with the district leaders and discussed January's zone goal. We are going to set A TON of baptismal dates. Thats the basic of the goal we are going to set. We are doing great in our area and in the zone over all - but the baptismal dates have dropped quite a bit in the last year. 'Leave the zone better than you found it' - i'm trying to do my best in fulfilling that wise counsel. We taught Mariana's dad - he's a great guy - says he believes in God and Jesus Christ - but also believes in reincarnation - we spent a good while clearing things up with him on the subject. We ate dinner with a member that lives by the beach - I 'accidentally' saw his rent check on the refrigerator... let's just say I don't plan of moving there anytime soon.

 

12-29-11

Today I went on splits with Elder Ratto - he's from Oregon and pretty new in the mission. We went to visit someone that he is teaching. He is older and has some sort of mental illness - I could not focus for the life of me. He rambled on for over an hour and I had just taken some cold medicine. It was the 2nd hardest time on my mission where I had to stay awake I had to litterally hold my eyelids open so that I wouldn't fall asleep. I don't believe this man was fully accountable so I kindly cut him off, gave him a reading assignment in the Book of Mormon and then we left. Austin's dad called and said that they would be leaving to primary childrens tomorrow to finish all of the work that needs to be done closer to family. So we went over to the hospital to say goodbye. We brought them some cookies and took some pictures. They want to come to my homecoming so I gave them the church address and the house phone number - he helped to start Sub Zero ice cream and said he would cater at the homecoming! That'd be cool. They are a really great family. We ate with brother martinez and then watched The Restoration with Mariana - she loved it. I think she is finally understanding what we do and why we do it.

 

12-30-11

We started off with some service down near the beach. A mother and her daughter from Jamaica were moving down the street and got in contact with the missionaries to help them move. They don't know the church and i'm not even sure how they found us, but we were sure happy to help out and they were so so grateful for us. They aren't in my area but the sisters will begin teaching them now. They seemed great. We had our district meetings afterwards - they both went well. We have alot of new things happening in the mission with the coming year. My job is to make sure that all of the missionaries in my zone understand it all! It's not always easy - it takes alot of follow-up. We visited Jordon tonight and had a good lesson with him about truth and the Spirit. He's doing well and said he will come to church this sunday.

 

12-31-11

We went to the westwood building and had a conference with half of the mission. The new years standards of exellence was presented by President Baker. It's similar to last years, but with an obvious few specific changes. We have a goal to baptize 555 people in the new year. We did about 435 this last year. I'm pretty confident we can handle that number. We ate with some missionaries afterwards and then contacted a couple of referrals. My teaching is changing. I'm being much more bold I have noticed. I am following the spirit and trusting completely in it. I'm a lot less timid to say what is on my mind - believing and feeling that it is from the spirit. There have been a few moments where people and my companion have just looked at me like 'did you really just say that?' nothing too incredibly awkward... just not beating around the bush so much anymore. My time valuable and short. We played basketball with some Elders from 6 till 9 and then went to the apartment and went to bed.

 

1-1-12

Woke up still sick - went to church. Hua, Jordon and Jordon's friend all came to church. There weren't very many people there today though - everyone is out of town. We ate dinner with the Ramos' and watched 17 Miracles with them. I really am super grateful for the pioneers and all they did for us. It made me want to go back on Trek or just go push a handcart or something. Really I just prayed and thanked God for everything my ancestors did for me. I can't imagine all that they went through. I'm grateful that mom and dad are so into geneology and have figured out where we came from - i'm excited to do more of that when I get home.

 

1-2-12

We don't have p-day today . We are going to the temple on wednesday. We worked all day in the sun - it was about 80 degrees and super sunny. Really weird for january 2nd. It was also the Rose Bowl and I guess a holliday.. so it was pretty difficult to talk to many people. We did find a few people that said we can come back though - I was satisfied with that. We ate with the Sanchez family - a ton of food. We've been super busy and sick so I haven't been able to work out in a while - hopefully i'm gaining some weight finally.

 

1-3-12

Today we had our zone leader counsel down in Torrance. It was a long long meeting with a ton of new stuff introduced. I got sort of overwhelmed with everything we talked about. I guess I gotta realize that it'll be spread out throughout the year and not just these next couple of months. It's still alot to communicate and get going with the other missionaries though. It'll be good.

 

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love, Elder Cottrell