Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Note from a member in Arvada
I have to tell you how much we love having Elder Cooper in our home. He is the funniest young man and really gets me and my husband smiling! He's a super district leader and takes all of his responsibilities seriously, he is also very obedient, works super hard and you can tell that the rest of the elders also enjoy his great sense of humor too! I am a huge picture taker so I will definetly keep the pictures coming. You take care! Sandy
Hey Everyone,
Crazy news! This transfer... I'm training again! So, I stayed in the same ward in Arvada and Elder Woodfield went to Louisville which is in the Boulder Stake. A lot of crazy stuff happened last week and it all started right after email. We were biking back to our place and Elder Woodfield got into an accident. We were biking along and Elder Woodfield went off a jump and ran into a trash can that was chained to a stake. He flew over the handlebars of his bike and landed on his hand. We spent the rest of the day in the Emergency Room and come to find out he broke his hand in three places, his pinky and at the base of the bone for his ring finger and pinky next to the wrist. Yea, it was pretty bad. So, we didn't get much accomplished for the rest of the week because we were unable to go see a hand specialist to get it looked at. Now he is in a different area and will see the hand specialist today. He might have to go home for surgery.
Today I met my new companion. His name is Elder Wall and he is from Virginia. He went to BYU Idaho as well for communications and he is actually graduated already. So, that gives you an idea that he is a little bit older than me. He is 25. We will see how the transfer goes. It should be exciting and it was totally unexpected. Pres. Ely called and I thought it was to talk to Elder Woodfield about his hand and it was, but then Elder Woodfield turned to me and said that Pres. wanted to talk to me too. You never know what to expect on a mission. I'm now a district leader/trainer and also crazy news.....we got a TRUCK! I drove for the first time yesterday in a year and a half. It felt so weird but was rad. It’s a Chev. Colorado. I will have to take a picture in front of it and send it next week.
As far as the work is going, it has been great except for a slower week due to the broken hand. We still have an investigator with a baptism date for April 16th and she is progressing really well. Exciting things to come!
Elder Cooper
Crazy news! This transfer... I'm training again! So, I stayed in the same ward in Arvada and Elder Woodfield went to Louisville which is in the Boulder Stake. A lot of crazy stuff happened last week and it all started right after email. We were biking back to our place and Elder Woodfield got into an accident. We were biking along and Elder Woodfield went off a jump and ran into a trash can that was chained to a stake. He flew over the handlebars of his bike and landed on his hand. We spent the rest of the day in the Emergency Room and come to find out he broke his hand in three places, his pinky and at the base of the bone for his ring finger and pinky next to the wrist. Yea, it was pretty bad. So, we didn't get much accomplished for the rest of the week because we were unable to go see a hand specialist to get it looked at. Now he is in a different area and will see the hand specialist today. He might have to go home for surgery.
Today I met my new companion. His name is Elder Wall and he is from Virginia. He went to BYU Idaho as well for communications and he is actually graduated already. So, that gives you an idea that he is a little bit older than me. He is 25. We will see how the transfer goes. It should be exciting and it was totally unexpected. Pres. Ely called and I thought it was to talk to Elder Woodfield about his hand and it was, but then Elder Woodfield turned to me and said that Pres. wanted to talk to me too. You never know what to expect on a mission. I'm now a district leader/trainer and also crazy news.....we got a TRUCK! I drove for the first time yesterday in a year and a half. It felt so weird but was rad. It’s a Chev. Colorado. I will have to take a picture in front of it and send it next week.
As far as the work is going, it has been great except for a slower week due to the broken hand. We still have an investigator with a baptism date for April 16th and she is progressing really well. Exciting things to come!
Elder Cooper
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Hello Everyone,
Sounds like things have been getting pretty crazy at home. It’s good to know that everyone is doing better for the most part. Things have been going great in Arvada, Colorado. I can't believe another transfer is coming to a close. A lot of things are going to start changing. We will have a new mission president soon. I think that he comes in at the end of June. That is going to be weird considering that Pres. Ely has been my mission president this whole time. I'm excited to see what happens this next transfer. I'm pretty sure that I will be staying here and I want to stay. We still have a baptism date set for the 16th of April and that is part of why I want to stay. At first I wasn't sure that she was going to be ready by that date, but we met with her last night and I am more confident now that she will. We have 3 1/2 weeks to continue to help her reach her goal. This week we also have some potential investigator appointments set up so we should be getting some new investigators for sure which is always awesome.
This past week we also have been going through a lot of media referrals from about 2 years ago. So what happened is that these referrals came in and the missionaries in the past never updated them. We haven't had a whole lot of success and the people we do end up talking to don't even remember anything about it. It’s better than knocking doors though because these people expressed some interest at some point.
Oh, and of course I did hear about San Diego State. Mostly all you hear in the church is about BYU, but I did find out that they are in the sweet 16 playing against Connecticut later this week. Actually, a former bishop of another ward here in Arvada keeps us posted. HAHA.
Elder Cooper
Sounds like things have been getting pretty crazy at home. It’s good to know that everyone is doing better for the most part. Things have been going great in Arvada, Colorado. I can't believe another transfer is coming to a close. A lot of things are going to start changing. We will have a new mission president soon. I think that he comes in at the end of June. That is going to be weird considering that Pres. Ely has been my mission president this whole time. I'm excited to see what happens this next transfer. I'm pretty sure that I will be staying here and I want to stay. We still have a baptism date set for the 16th of April and that is part of why I want to stay. At first I wasn't sure that she was going to be ready by that date, but we met with her last night and I am more confident now that she will. We have 3 1/2 weeks to continue to help her reach her goal. This week we also have some potential investigator appointments set up so we should be getting some new investigators for sure which is always awesome.
This past week we also have been going through a lot of media referrals from about 2 years ago. So what happened is that these referrals came in and the missionaries in the past never updated them. We haven't had a whole lot of success and the people we do end up talking to don't even remember anything about it. It’s better than knocking doors though because these people expressed some interest at some point.
Oh, and of course I did hear about San Diego State. Mostly all you hear in the church is about BYU, but I did find out that they are in the sweet 16 playing against Connecticut later this week. Actually, a former bishop of another ward here in Arvada keeps us posted. HAHA.
Elder Cooper
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Hello Family,
This past week went pretty well. I must say that the middle 2 weeks of this past transfer have been way more difficult than the first 2 weeks. This past Sunday was extra difficult because nobody decided to show up (daylight savings time doesn't help). We were expecting 2 of our investigators to show and one woke up in the middle of the night with the stomach flu. The other one was just lazy and tired.....teenagers...haha. As far as less active members that should have been there we only had one. It is a little disappointing because I know, especially now, how important church is, and how it can bless their life, but they just don't go or they go with a wrong attitude and get nothing out of it. On the flipside of things, this past Sunday we were able to set up an appointment with one of our investigators who we haven't been able to get in contact with for the past 2 weeks and we set up an appointment with her dad for next Tuesday.
This past week I also did my first baptism interview. It was weird. Maybe because when I think of interviews I think of a bishop, stake president, or a mission president. That is just one of the things that I had to do as a district leader. I thought I would have been nervous, but when the time came I was surprisingly fine.
This past P-day I did something else that I haven't done on my mission. We went bowling. What was rad is we had a coupon for unlimited bowling for 10 bucks. We got there at 1pm and didn't leave until 5:30pm. We bowled around 13 games! I must say I was getting a whole lot better by the end, but now my arm and back are sore.
Elder Cooper
This past week went pretty well. I must say that the middle 2 weeks of this past transfer have been way more difficult than the first 2 weeks. This past Sunday was extra difficult because nobody decided to show up (daylight savings time doesn't help). We were expecting 2 of our investigators to show and one woke up in the middle of the night with the stomach flu. The other one was just lazy and tired.....teenagers...haha. As far as less active members that should have been there we only had one. It is a little disappointing because I know, especially now, how important church is, and how it can bless their life, but they just don't go or they go with a wrong attitude and get nothing out of it. On the flipside of things, this past Sunday we were able to set up an appointment with one of our investigators who we haven't been able to get in contact with for the past 2 weeks and we set up an appointment with her dad for next Tuesday.
This past week I also did my first baptism interview. It was weird. Maybe because when I think of interviews I think of a bishop, stake president, or a mission president. That is just one of the things that I had to do as a district leader. I thought I would have been nervous, but when the time came I was surprisingly fine.
This past P-day I did something else that I haven't done on my mission. We went bowling. What was rad is we had a coupon for unlimited bowling for 10 bucks. We got there at 1pm and didn't leave until 5:30pm. We bowled around 13 games! I must say I was getting a whole lot better by the end, but now my arm and back are sore.
Elder Cooper
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Hey everyone!
Sorry this email is a day late. We didn't get the opportunity to go to the library yesterday. I was at a meeting all day. Because I'm a district leader I have to go to the leadership training meeting that they have once every three months. The meeting was 7 hours! We got there at 9 and by the time that we got home it was 4:45pm. It was a long day. The first part of the meeting was just elders giving different trainings. We had a 30 minute lunch and after role played for 3 1/2 hours. So, yes, my head was hurting by the time that we left. There were some good parts too. I was able to get some new ideas on how to work with our investigators. The other funny thing about those meetings is everyone is trying to suck up to the leaders. It is like if a really nice college was recruiting and everyone wants to be on the team. It was so funny to watch.
Another thing that is new that I'm doing is I have to go on exchanges with the other elders in our district. So, today I'm with Elder Smith (former companion), and his companion for the day. It is pretty fun being with Elder Smith again. He goes home in 3 weeks.
As far as our investigators go, last week we visited with a couple of the high school kids that we have been teaching and we tried to commit them to baptism. They both said no and one of them kind of freaked out and we have not been able to contact her in the last week. I think we will still end up teaching her because she has talked to the member family about it. I think she thought that we were going to baptize her even if she didn't know if this was the true church or not. We will have to go back and clarify that we were inviting her to take the next step, which is baptism, when she came to know that the church, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon etc. were true. The other girl that we tried to set has an appointment today and she might get set. I won't be there for the appointment though because I will still be on exchanges.
There is another family of kids that we are working with too. They are all in their 20's and got baptized and fell off the map right away. The brother really wants to turn his life around and start coming to church. He told us he has smoked weed since he was 8 years old! He's now trying to quit. For all those people that say weed isn't addictive it is a lie. It is still habit forming.
So, that is what has been going on lately. I can't believe today is the big 18. It is scary. This transfer is already half over. So much work, so little time!
Elder Cooper
Sorry this email is a day late. We didn't get the opportunity to go to the library yesterday. I was at a meeting all day. Because I'm a district leader I have to go to the leadership training meeting that they have once every three months. The meeting was 7 hours! We got there at 9 and by the time that we got home it was 4:45pm. It was a long day. The first part of the meeting was just elders giving different trainings. We had a 30 minute lunch and after role played for 3 1/2 hours. So, yes, my head was hurting by the time that we left. There were some good parts too. I was able to get some new ideas on how to work with our investigators. The other funny thing about those meetings is everyone is trying to suck up to the leaders. It is like if a really nice college was recruiting and everyone wants to be on the team. It was so funny to watch.
Another thing that is new that I'm doing is I have to go on exchanges with the other elders in our district. So, today I'm with Elder Smith (former companion), and his companion for the day. It is pretty fun being with Elder Smith again. He goes home in 3 weeks.
As far as our investigators go, last week we visited with a couple of the high school kids that we have been teaching and we tried to commit them to baptism. They both said no and one of them kind of freaked out and we have not been able to contact her in the last week. I think we will still end up teaching her because she has talked to the member family about it. I think she thought that we were going to baptize her even if she didn't know if this was the true church or not. We will have to go back and clarify that we were inviting her to take the next step, which is baptism, when she came to know that the church, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon etc. were true. The other girl that we tried to set has an appointment today and she might get set. I won't be there for the appointment though because I will still be on exchanges.
There is another family of kids that we are working with too. They are all in their 20's and got baptized and fell off the map right away. The brother really wants to turn his life around and start coming to church. He told us he has smoked weed since he was 8 years old! He's now trying to quit. For all those people that say weed isn't addictive it is a lie. It is still habit forming.
So, that is what has been going on lately. I can't believe today is the big 18. It is scary. This transfer is already half over. So much work, so little time!
Elder Cooper
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Yay for baby number 2 born while I am on my mission. It looks like that will be the last of them until I get home. That is good that everything is going a little better. Sounds like things were getting a little crazy. Kennedy....any reason behind the name?
Things have been going well in Arvada. We have continued to have success in our ward. We seem to keep finding new investigators and we have been teaching a lot. Unfortunately we still don't have anyone set with a date. We have been trying to be bold. Earlier in the week we extended a baptism commitment to an older lady that we had been teaching, but she flat out told us that she didn't want to be baptized. We ended up dropping her for now. We also tried to set a couple high schoolers that we have been working with and they said that they want to get baptized, but they just don't feel ready to set something in stone. We are still working with them and they both came to church this week so we will see.
We had zone conference this past week. I can't believe that it has already been 3 months since our last one. It went well. They are always really long. I think that by the time we left the church we were there 7 hours. Too much sitting for me. I also had a huge headache for the rest of the day.
That’s about it. Oh, the weather has been awesome too. This week is supposed to be sunny across the board. We played tennis yesterday for P-Day. There is a guy in the stake that is a dentist and his house has a personal tennis court so we played there. Good Times.
Elder Cooper
Things have been going well in Arvada. We have continued to have success in our ward. We seem to keep finding new investigators and we have been teaching a lot. Unfortunately we still don't have anyone set with a date. We have been trying to be bold. Earlier in the week we extended a baptism commitment to an older lady that we had been teaching, but she flat out told us that she didn't want to be baptized. We ended up dropping her for now. We also tried to set a couple high schoolers that we have been working with and they said that they want to get baptized, but they just don't feel ready to set something in stone. We are still working with them and they both came to church this week so we will see.
We had zone conference this past week. I can't believe that it has already been 3 months since our last one. It went well. They are always really long. I think that by the time we left the church we were there 7 hours. Too much sitting for me. I also had a huge headache for the rest of the day.
That’s about it. Oh, the weather has been awesome too. This week is supposed to be sunny across the board. We played tennis yesterday for P-Day. There is a guy in the stake that is a dentist and his house has a personal tennis court so we played there. Good Times.
Elder Cooper
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