Monday, October 26, 2009

Things are going well...

Hey how is everything going? Things are going well here. It is starting to get a little cold though, especially with the wind when I’m on my bike. I like my bike now, but we will see when it gets more into winter. We started to teach some new investigators this week and it has been going great. Yesterday, we went to go to an appointment and the guy we were going to teach wasn't there, but the roommate, who sat in on the lesson a little bit before, let us come in and finish the lesson that we had previously taught. He is in his 20's though so we will now have to hand him over to the zone leaders because they cover the college and the young single adults. This past week we were able to have interviews with the mission president. I don't know if I will be transferred or not, but I also didn't ask. I hope to stay in the area a while longer because I'm now becoming familiar with the ward and the work is starting to pick up. If I leave though, that is what I need to do. This week is starting the 5th week of my first transfer which means that this whole week I am going to be senior companion. We will see how that goes because now I'm pretty much in charge of everything. I'm glad you liked the pictures. Most of those are from the MTC. I need to take some more up here. It was pretty awesome to here from everyone this week. It’s a bummer that grandma and Diana had to go to the hospital. Allie should be the one going to the hospital. It sounds like she is getting close to popping. I don't know about back home but everyone is getting sick up here whether it is swine flu or the normal flu. I’m washing my hands all the time because of all the handshaking that I have to do everyday. It was also upsetting to here about the Chargers loss to the Broncos. Yes, I heard. It couldn't be avoided. Oh well. Well it was great to hear about everything that is happening and I hope all goes well.
Elder Cooper

Friday, October 23, 2009

Pictures from Colorado











Pictures!!
















I only got his camera disc. Sorry, no captions or explanations.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

10-19-09

Hey, how’s it going? Things have been pretty busy here in Fort Collins. Now that I have been out here for 3 weeks, I'm sort of beginning to learn the ropes, haha. This last week the weather shaped up and it was nice and warm, but today is all overcast and kind of cold.
This week we were able to get some potential investigators so we actually will have an opportunity to teach. We were going door to door and we ran into a man named Javier and we talk to him for 20 min. We set up another day where we could go and teach him, but when we showed up at his appointment he wasn't there. Apparently, his wife got really sick so he was at the hospital with her. We are hoping to meet up with him this week.
My bike is a Schwinn but it’s pretty nice. There is a shop called Recycled Cycles here in Fort Collins. It has disc brakes too so when it gets cold they will still work instead of my comps rubber brakes that harden and don’t work, haha.
Oh, so we definitely heard about the blimp thing in Fort Collins. The big hype, as you may already know, is that there was a possibility that a child was inside, but come to find out he wasn't and he was hiding in the attic in the garage.
That is crazy that Allie is so close to having her baby. I predict Halloween just because that would be cool. I heard about the Chargers being 2-2 and the Broncos 5-0. That’s a bummer and I’m sure I will hear about it after Monday night. We will see. Well I hope all is going well. Keep me posted on all the crazy stuff going on back home.
Love,
Elder Cooper

Monday, October 12, 2009

It's getting cold!

Monday, October 12, 2009

The coat came! Just in time, really. The weather started getting bad the day after I got it. Things are going great here in Fort Collins, besides the weather. It’s the windy days that really get to you.

(The following are some questions that I asked him to respond to)

Do you have a direct address or should everything be sent to the mission office? Our mission president has requested that all mail and packages be sent to the mission office, partly because that is the easiest way.

Tell me about Ft. Collins. Fort Collins is kind of similar to Santee. It’s a suburb area with a lot of families which is cool. The ward is full of families with young children. Yesterday was actually the first normal Sunday since I have been here because of General Conference. On the north side of Fort Collins is the College-Colorado State, but it is not in our area. The zone leaders cover that.

What kind of area do you live in? The area I live in is really nice and it is kind of like an area where all the houses look nice, but also look the same. There is really not much I can think about the area we live in because we are always gone.

Do you have a separate living area and kitchen or do you share? We live in the basement of some older members in the ward, and there is only one kitchen, but they have been out of town and they are leaving again this week so we will have the place to ourselves again.

I see from your bank account that you bought a bike. What do you think about that mode of transportation? It is really not that bad and it is a lot better than walking. It also keeps me in shape. I liked it up until this past week when the temperature dropped to the 30's. We have already had a snow storm and it’s the beginning of October!

You asked me to send your music. I assume that means piano music, not your ipod. I sent your white notebook and your hymnal. Do you need anything else? No that’s good. The people we live with have a piano and sometimes in the little free time we get I’ll play for a bit.

Describe your mission President and his wife (not what they look like). Um, he doesn't have a lot of rules that mission presidents usually have. He really just wants you to follow the missionary handbook and what it says to do and not to do. His wife is great. She always says that she has (in addition of her own children) 180 more children to look after (That is about how many missionaries are in our mission). They are both really nice.

Where is your companion from and how long has he been on his mission? My comp. is from Napa Idaho and he has been out 13 months. He definitely knows the ropes and is teaching me a lot. Before he went on his mission he wasn't really active, partly because his mom wasn't active(now is) and his dad isn't a member.

Who are you currently teaching? The mission president wants to focus a lot on less and inactive members, but just before I got here all of our investigators disappeared. So we are at square one, but we have several potentials we plan to see throughout the week.

What do you like best about missionary work? Seeing people want to change.

What do you like least? The weather and I always feel I could get more sleep.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

I'm in Fort Collins

Hey, how’s it going? Yep, our prep day was Monday so I didn't get a chance to email the day I got into Denver. So before we left SLC I took some Dramamine an hour before boarding the plane. Well, when it was time for us to get on, they couldn't find a crew! So I was really tired a bit too soon. I still slept the whole ride to Denver though. When we got there the Mission President was there to pick us all up. We went to the mission home and went through some orientation stuff and had lunch and dinner. It was pretty crazy. I had an interview with my Mission President and that’s when he told me that I was going to Fort Collins, Colorado and my trainer is Elder Daniel. So Tuesday was a travel day/unpack day. There were tons of things that put us behind schedule so we didn't really get much accomplished. We are one of the very few missions that has a 100% member housing, so we are living in the basement of some older members home. I haven't even met them because they went to Texas and they will not be back until tomorrow. We also get fed like crazy. We as missionaries only need to take care of breakfast and lunch. We always have a dinner appointment. Things have been going great the first week. It started out a little bit stressful, but nothing terrible. My first street contact, of course, couldn't speak English very well - haha. We have been focusing a lot on less active members and getting them to church because that is what the mission president really wants us to focus on. We went to the stake center for conference this weekend and it was awesome. My favorite was definitely Pres. Monson’s talk on anger in priesthood and Elder Holland’s talk on the Book of Mormon. Well, I have to go because I don’t have a library card so I only have 20 min. I haven’t got my coat yet. Hurry, it is getting cold! Love, Elder Cooper

About Me

My name is Jacob Cooper and I will be serving in the Denver North mission starting September 9, 2009 until September 2011