Great Week

This week was pretty awesome. The weather was pretty cold most the week but the last few days have warmed up even though they've been rainy. We found a pretty good number of new people to teach again this week. But we've been having the problem that we will have one lesson with someone and then we can't get in contact again with them. But that is a very normal thing. The best though was that yesterday Alex and Anthony came to church. They are two black kids we met a while back. They were at church last week too and their sisters and cousin were there but this time it was just them two. After church our Ward Mission Leader Bro Lakip brought them and us back to his house and we had lunch and a lesson. It was so awesome. We have had a really hard time getting into Alex's house to teach lesson's cause it's never a good time for his parents or whatever but when we were able to sit down in an environment where the spirit was there and there were no distractions it was great. They comitted to be baptized on Dec. 21. They are awesome kids and are really excited to keep coming and to be baptized. So cool. I really think if everyone would just do those small things like invite investigators to dinner or something it would help the work hasten so much. They also went to mutual on Wednesday and loved it.

That's about it though... I mean nothing really funny or crazy happened. This ward is so bombastic though man. They are so awesome and I really hope I stay here another transfer. Transfer calls are supposed to be this Saturday i think so I should know already when I email next. I'll be bummed if I am cause transfers are the day before Thanksgiving so if I had to pack up and go somewhere new for the holidays I'll be mad. But I mean it's really whatever the Lord wants. The work is going great though and I love this area and the missionaries I am serving around right now. Love you all

um bye

Elder Cooper
O I totally forgot to say we performed a special musical number in Sacrament meeting. It was an arrangement of Nearer My God to Thee I wrote. We had the 4 sister missionaries and my comp singing. It turned out pretty good. I keep forgetting to include things. Man life is hard when you have brain damage...

Great Week full of Miracles

This week was pretty amazing. We had 12 new investigators! We were expecting 9 at church and got 6 so that was very exciting too. We definitely experienced some miracles. We had one where we planned to go to one area to tract in the morning but Elder Pasa's bike broke down so we went to the bike shop. By the time we were done with that we only had about 20 minutes before we needed to head back so we decided to go to an apartment complex close by. The second door we knocked on there was a 17 year old kid who let us in right away for a harvest blessing. He only happened to be there because he was sick home from school that day. We left a blessing with him and then came back later in the week for a lesson. He's awesome and accepted a soft commit to baptism. We were a bit dissapointed when he didn't come to church but I am very hopeful for him. The Lord really leads us to his elect if we trust him and show our faith by working hard every day.
We also had a couple of mormon.org referrals we taught that were great. And we've found some more investigators by tracting and passed off from the sister missionaries. We have a great ward and they have been very supportive and helpful this last week in fellowshiping and in being willling to come to our aid when needed.
We had zone conference and I enjoyed it a lot it was a very spiritual meeting and I realized how much more I need to rely on the spirit in everything. Most of the trainings were on relying on the spirit and finding those who will recieve you. There was also one on flirting hahaha. With all these new sisters they gotta make sure we stay focused I guess. Also I've been playing a lot of special musical numbers recently it seems. I played one last week for a baptism with a ward member. It was actually the song Make Me Whole from The Lamb of God. But I wrote an arrangement of Nearer my God to Thee that we are doing next Sunday. All the sister missionaries and Elder Pasa Vaili are going to sing for it. Our sister missionaries are pretty bomb singers and Elder Pasa Vaili's Samoan so of course he can sing. And I'm playing one Tuesday for another missionary meeting. It's been good I love the ability to still play.

For Christmas.... well I love hot chocolate..... and that carmel zebra popcorn was awesome! But I dont really know. I guess whichever MoTab CD has If You Could Hie to Kolob on it. Really food is good though. Or just money as boring as that is but there are some clothes I could definitely buy. Oh and nice ties are always good. Plaid and stripes are my favorite for that. And my favorite brands are Chaps and Penguin but whatever looks good. Anyways I'll keep brainstorming.

Anyways I know this church is true and I love the Gospel so much. i was rereading conference this morning and I really kept seeing them say that God's Love is Always there, no matter what we go through, and no matter what we've done. I love my mission so much. Man it's the best. Even though Georgia traffic SUCKS and there are no street lights at all I swear. But really it's the best I'm starting to realize how much I love GA and how much I will miss it.

Loveyoubye

Elder Cooper

Good Week

It was a pretty good week.Sounds like your Halloween was pretty sweet. Ours was great for a missionary one. We got special permission to go to President Ernst's house and play scripture chase and have a big dinner and ping pong and foosball. It was us, the Spanish elders and the two sets of Sister Missionaries in our area. We also had a great ward Halloween party. It was at this members back yard. They have a MANSION.

 

 We had an awesome experience with a member family. We asked them if we could pray for their inactive children by name and had been doing so for a week. Then we met with them again this week and they said that their son is getting re-baptized and their daughter has agreed to meet with visiting and home teachers for the first time in years. It was great.

 

Our main investigator didn't come to church again so he's off date. I was pretty discouraged about that and I've just been getting down on myself lately because I haven't had a baptism since Woodstock (my first area). But I heard a great testimony yesterday that really inspired me and I bore my own which probably helped me more than anyone else. But anyways I've been doing real good and I've been having a great time in John's Creek.

 

Anyways love you all and I hope you are all doing well!

 

Elder Cooper

Pretty Good Week

This week was pretty good. Got to play some racquetball last Monday, finally! There's a member in our ward who has a racquetball court in his house. Yeah we definitely live in the richest part of Atlanta... Played more Ultimate Frisbee too, which was fun. A lot of my missionary friends have been transferred into this zone so I get to see them a lot now which is great! Today we are planning on going to the stake center to play some basketball, which is good cause I haven't played in forever.

 

Tuesday was amazing! We met with Steve and we had an amazing lesson. He recognizes the spirit so well. We read 1 Nephi Ch. 1 and 2 with him. He committed to baptism on Nov. 16th and is so excited. He wasn't able to come to church though and that was super disappointing. But we'll get him there next Sunday. But he has been reading every night since our visit from the Book of Mormon. I've been so blessed to be able to work with him. And we only found him because we diligently went out to work when we didn't want to. We actually have to do 2 hours of tracting everyday, I don't know if I told you that.

 

We taught an early morning seminary class on Jacob 5. That was good... except I was tired the whole rest of the day.

 

On Saturday, we got to go see Elder Oaks!!!!!!!! It was awesome. His wife was hilarious. She gave a really good talk. Elder Oaks talked about a ton of stuff. He was really chill though it was cool. Talked about the sacrament, setting goals we can achieve through our own agency, becoming a true missionary, and what we should take home with us from our mission. It was really cool to see all my old missionary friends too.

 

Well that's about it. Oh and we also got an amazing steak dinner this week. It was great.

 

Love you guys

 

Elder Cooper

Slow Week

Man this week dragged on forever. Just really, really long. Probably because we didn't have any dinner with members in their homes until yesterday. Yesterdays dinner was with the stake President though and it was awesome! They are the coolest people ever. We're going there for Halloween. That's awesome you got to talk to Sis Ernst mom. I played my jazz arrangement of "I Hope They Call Me On a Mission" but I played pretty terribly.

Anyway we did a lot of tracting and had a lot of appointments fall through. We didn't meet with Steve this week but we're seeing him on Tuesday. Dino the guy we met is going through a lot right now and so we won't be seeing him for awhile. We had a really powerful experience where we went and gave him a blessing though. And John is just simply not progressing so we will probably drop him soon. But we did find a lot of solid potentials that we are hoping to meet with this next week.

This week we had stake conference and we were able to also go to the adult session. It was awesome. We had Elder Aidukaitis of the 70 come and speak. He was hilarious! He told the nonmembers who attended the adult session, "This meeting is actually for members so you have two options; either you join us and get baptized after, or we will kill you!" So funny. He talked all about missionary work and how easy it actually is. he's from Brazil so he had a great accent... and a crazy laugh.

Well this letter sounds really downer but I do want you to know how much I love my mission. it is the best thing I have ever done. I have really come to not only know the gospel is true, but to love it.

Elder Cooper 

Staying in John's Creek

Yes! Transfers were today and I'm staying here in John's Creek! Thank goodness. I was really worried I would be getting 6 week transferred out. Elder Pasa Vaili is staying with us too. I'm glad about that too. We get along good and he's been working harder and harder. We even got 100 contacts this week! Our goal is usually 70 so it was pretty cool.

We had a great week with some great miracles. We were able to meet a new investigator named Dino. it was a miracle how we were able to find him, because he was in the area book and we referred him to the sister missionaries because he was in their area, the they visited him right when he was praying for guidance, and referred him back to us and we taught him. He's going through a really hard time, just lost his job and is struggling with a lot of things. We are really excited to see him again though. Steve A. is doing well. We were really worried because we couldn't get in contact with him all week but he called last night and said how he had read a bit and wants to read more of the BoM. He said he could tell we were praying for him and was excited for us to come back. What a boss.

We are getting another set of sisters in this area on Wednesday. 6 missionaries in one area! and a senior couple! Crazy

We are not able to use any technology such as ipads or facebook yet. Haven't heard any mention of it either... all we got is stupid Tiwi. Tiwi is a dumb little box that yells at you when you drive too fast or aggressively.

Anyways great to hear from many of you and I hope you have a fantastic week. Remember, the church is true.

Elder Cooper

Great Week

This week was amazing. Filled with miracles. Mainly meeting and teaching Steve.  You remember when I was talking about how we were really unmotivated that one day but decided to go tracting and found a really awesome guy who was prepared? That's Steve. We had a lesson with him on Friday and he is amazing. The member we took with us testified perfectly about eternal families and he was attentive to everything we shared. The spirit was strong the entire time. We were rapping up our lesson and I started to say, "Will you read this book and pray about it?" but he cut me off and said, "Listen. I'll promise you one thing. I'll read... this entire book and pray about it." I was like, "...okay!" Then we invited him to conference. And he came! To the Sunday Morning session. Everything that was shared that session was perfect for him. He has a son and a wife who have addiction problems and so Pres.Eyering's and Monson's talks were sooooo great for him. He enjoyed it and we're meeting with him again on Thursday or Friday.

But anyways conference was legit. I've said this about all the ones I've viewed on my mission but this was one of the best I've ever seen. I especially liked the very first session. My favorite talk was probably President Eyring's. I also loved Ballard's of course about missionary work. That was so awesome he talked about how there could be a million members baptized before Christmas. Also Uchtdorf's talk Come, Join with Us was great. Oh and both of the women speaker's were great! Bonnie Oscarson had an amazing talk about conversion too. Every time I watch conference I just find myself saying, "How could this church not be true?" I know it is.

Elder Cooper