Good Week

This week was interesting. We had a lot of success and amazing spiritual experiences. Not gonna lie though... my Christmas was kinda mediocre. Well the first part was great cause I got to talk to my family. That's always great. Sorry I was so tired during the call, I felt really out of it that whole day. But thanks so much for the package with all the treats and the hat and CDs and everything it was really appreciated. That recording of you guys singing How Great Thou Art is amazing. Who wrote that arrangement?

We were able to put the rest of Witherspoons on date! Well, actually Laueddia, the mom, fell off already cuase she missed church (got called into work) but the daughters Nat and Nala are solid for January 11th. They are so cool we are going bowling with them today for pday. Also we put this guy Danny on date. We've been working with him for a while but had a great lesson and committed him for Jan. 25th. There was one experience where we were way behind on everything so we prayed where to go. We only had like 20 min before dinner but headed to this neighborhood. When we got there we had 10. But the spirit led us there exactly where we needed to go so we were excited. Knocked the first door and met hard rejection. Knocked the second door and another rude person who rejected us. and the next one. And the next one. We were giving up heading back to the car cause we were out of time when we saw this man playing with his kid and wife out front. We didn't really feel like going over there cause we were so late but finally just headed over and started talking. He was so prepared. Awesome man who has so much truth and was ready to receive a Book of Mormon. We were able to meet with him again on Sunday and he's awesome.

Well I'm running out of time but I love you all and I know the Gospel is true and love it.

Elder Cooper

Awesome Week

This week Anthony and Alex got baptized!! It was an amazing service. They are the most awesome kids ever. During their interview we asked why they wanted to be baptized. They said they would pray to have us come over and we would come, and when they prayed about being baptized they felt like it was right. Our Ward Mission Leader and his family got really close to them and he was the one who baptized them. We got real sad news this morning though that they are going to move out of our mission. Tomorrow! It must be some kind of emergency we are going over there tonight. But they are super cool kids really happy for them.

The Christmas Party was really fun. Elder Coleman and I bought presents for a ton of different missionaries from the dollar store and wrapped them up then handed them out. We had a good meal and then we watched a slide show of pictures from the mission. They do a talent show every year. This years wasn't as cool as last years but was still alright. I performed in 5 different talents! Felt like a kept getting up and down the whole time. It's just because they needed someone to accompany them for singing. And I did one solo of jazz Christmas medley, that turned out alright. More than anything it was just really fun to get together with everyone else in the mission.

That's about it this week. We should be skyping around 1:00 our time which I think is 11 or 10 yours... I dunno.

Elder Cooper

Crazy Good Week in John's Creek

This week was pretty great. Man the days go so fast right now... We've been running around like crazy; so much faster paced than any other time on my mission. I feel like we just run from appointment to appointment to some Zone Leader responsibility to ward activity to appointment and try to squeeze tracting in the cracks. I am soooo tired too. Like man I thought I was tired earlier in my mission, and I was, but way more now. Bleh.

We had a sweet zone meeting on Tuesday. It's hard to organize and plan out a meeting to train missionaries who all have different needs. They are all super fresh too. We planned the meeting out to be about efficiency and effectiveness in missionary work; then the spirit took over though and we ended up having most the meeting being on overcoming discouragement and working by the spirit. It was great though I think all the zone learned a lot and we did too.

This week we had a meeting with the Stake President, Mission President and one other stake leaders and one other set of zone leaders who are in the stake. It was amazing to see how they plan and work at a stake level. The church is stinkin organized! It was a great experience though and I learned a lot from that too. Pres. Ernst said something I really liked. "We've been taught how to do missionary work over and over and over again... now we just need the faith."

Oretha was baptized on Saturday! It was so great. Baptisms rock, so much spirit. Our investigator Kevin was there and he loved it. We're still planning on having the baptism for Anthony, Alex, and Ajiatic on Saturday, but there is a ton to do before then so we'll see. I'm pretty sure on Alex and Anthony but Ajiatic is a little more iffy. Also, in case you were wondering Ajiatic is pronounced A-jee-atic.

Christmas is almost here! Crazy sneaks up on me fast. Our mission Christmas party is this Thursday and I'm stoked on that it was a ton of fun last year. I'm actually not sure where or when we will be skypeing.... but we'll figure it out this week, promise.

So I hope you know I love you because otherwise I wouldn't write these emails.... seriously I hate to say it but emailing is like the bane of my existence. But I love you so much that I do it anyways. I hope your week preceding Christmas is awesome and I love hearing about your missionary experiences they are so uplifting. Keep inviting and loving everyone. Man I really stink at writing good emails and I'm sorry for that... but have a great week!

Elder Cooper

Pretty good Week

This week was pretty good. Oretha is progressing towards baptism this Saturday so well. She is such a funny lady. She is really excited about being baptized and we're excited for her baptism. Alex, Anthony, and Ajiatic are doing well too. They all came to the ward Christmas Party. Alex and Ajiatic missed church which was annoying but they're still on date and I am sure the 21st will work out. We also have 2 new investigators who are awesome. One came to a church tour and to church and loved both! His name is Kevin. He was praying to find a church to go to and the sister missionary knocked on his door. They referred him to us. We also had a lesson with this guy named Brian who is really seeking truth. He said he researched when Lehi left Jerusalem and found that it lined up perfectly with the Bible. Super cool.

So I am out of time and to be frank I am really unmotivated to email right now... But more I'm getting kicked off the computer so sorry this is short.

Elder Cooper

Great but Weird Week

Man this week was strange. Started off really slow. On Monday we had Alex, Anthony, and Ajiatic (the Witherspoons) come with us to this members house who has a raquetball court in his basement. That was fun, played mostly basketball instead of raquetball. The rest of Monday and Tuesday consisted of E. Pasa Vaili saying goodbye and packing so not a whole lot got done. We ate so much food on Tuesday. Like we had a meal at 1:00 one at 3:00 and one at 5:00 with desert and man I was full. Then we obviously ate a ton on Thanksgiving too. I was like sweet I've been eating so much food maybe I fatten up a bit!... nope. Not a single pound gained.

My new companion is pretty awesome. We get along really well and he's a fantastic teacher. He's from S. California and has been out for like 11 months. We have been working really hard to help this new zone get moving. There are 20 missionaries besides us in the zone, which is tiny, but 11 of them have only been out for 4 months or less. All of the District Leaders have only been out for 3 months. It's crazy. But the work in our area has been going great! We put a lady named Oretha on date for baptism this week. Her date is for Dec. 14th and she is very excited. I guess she has relatives in AZ who referred her and so we went and started teaching her. She is from Lyberia and her English is okay. But she feels the spirit and is very excited about the church and her baptism. It's so cool to see how the spirit can comunicate things we can't. The W. brothers  are doing awesome too. Alex, Anthony, and Ajiatic are all on date for Dec. 21. We need to check with the Mom though and make sure it is okay. But we had a couple great lessons with them and they are funny awesome kids. We also had a very short amount of time to tract this week but it was amazing to see how the Lord led us where to go and our efforts were effective. We found many new investigators who we have appointments with for next week.

Thanksgiving was bomb. We got to play in the Ward's turkey bowl. That was real fun, I hadn't played football forever. Then we went to two different members houses and ate tons of food. Then we did a coordination meeting with the other zone leaders who our zone was split with. There's a ton more planning that goes into our work now that we are responsible for all these other missionaries.

Well I love you all and hope everyone had a sweet Thanksgiving! Oh and as far as winter clothes I need a sweet cardigan... but I might just buy one anyways. Other than that I inherited a GPS this week so no need to ask for that for Christmas... I don't know,  I'll keep thinking. But man I love my mission so much. I don't want to go back to normal life now... the thought is just depressing;  everything out here is just awesome and tons of fun.

Elder Cooper

Interesting Transfers

So we got transfer calls this morning. I found out I'll be staying here and Elder Pasa Vaili will be going to my last area, ha ha. He's gonna have some crazy times in the boonies... But the weird thing is they just split our zone so I'll be in the new zone. President Wolfert actually called and asked me to be the new Zone Leader here. Sigh... I'm excited, I guess.   I know I'll love the experience it's just the extra responsibility on top of everything else that will be happening.  I'm really glad I'm staying here, and my new companion Elder Coleman is a boss. He's really cool and a super good missionary. I'll miss Elder Pasa Vaili though and one of the sister missionaries from our ward who was really cool is getting  shipped out too so that kinda sucks. But overall good news.

This week was a lot slower than the last couple. We only had one of the W. boys come to church, Anthony the 12 year old. He's the most solid too he's so cool. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and he loved it soaked it right up. Our awesome Ward Mission Leader Bro Lakip has a son that plays football for Clemson and Bro Lakip took Anthony and Alex to the game. So cool they really enjoyed it and because of their circumstances they probably never get to do things like that. What a G. We also met this old lady named Oretha from Liberia who we are teaching. She came to church and seemed to enjoy it. She is very hard to understand though... and we might pass her to the sister missionaries I'm not sure yet I want to see what Elder Coleman thinks.

Other than that it has been slow though. We dropped a couple investigators who aren't progressing at all and knocked some doors but had a hard time finding people this week. The holiday season makes missionary work a lot harder than usual because people are double busy. I forgot about that...

It got a lot colder this week holy cow! It's freezing out right now it was like 34 this morning. The last few days have been like that but it's supposed to warm back up in the next couple days. We are going to a couple different houses for Thanksgiving should be pretty awesome! The families feeding us are really cool.

Well I love my mission so much and I hope you all have an awesome Thanksgiving!!!

Elder SR Cooper

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...