Hello Family
This past week was pretty good. I'm in Berthoud, Colorado. So, technically I'm not in Loveland, but it is in the Loveland Stake. It is a way small town. It is kind of like one of those towns where a lot of people know each other and are related if you catch my drift. Okay, so maybe not the related people part but it is a super small town. The Berthoud Ward is pretty nice. The people are kind of on the older side. We have an awesome ward mission leader though which is nice. As far as investigators are concerned we have a few that have been investigating for awhile. We definitely are out knocking on doors everyday though. Being a small town a lot of the people that live here are pretty comfortable with where they are at. The place we live at is really nice and it is about a mile or so out of the main town so we have a little biking trip every morning and evening to get back to the place.
So, Elder Porter. Elder Porter has been out on his mission for 2 months including the MTC and its been interesting but fun because he has the greeny fire. He lives in Eastern Washington...I think the name of the town he lives in is Zilla. Apparently its an even smaller town than Berthoud. So, we are pretty much opposites in just about everything. He went to BYU Provo and likes the drama thing and he wants to go into film. Even though we are completely different it’s been good so far. I'm not going to lie though, Greeley has been my favorite area so far.
So, couple awkward experiences this past week. They pretty much all happened this weekend.
1. We were tracting and we talked to this lady who wasn't really interested but wanted us to pray for her son that was having a rash or something so I got to pray on the front porch of this lady’s house.
2. There was a baptism of an 8 year old girl this weekend that we went to and the extended family of the girl that got baptized found out that I lived in San Diego and they kept trying to set me up with their daughter afterwards. They live a couple hours away from SD I guess.
3. The singles ward meets in the same building as our ward does and I recognized(he did too) this kid from the dorms up at BYU Idaho during winter semester. Awkward thing about it was he was one of the kids that got kicked out of BYU Idaho.
Strange things happen in Berthoud....
Elder Cooper

I'm being transferred!

Hey everyone,
So drum roll please.....I'm being transferred! Yep I was pretty much positive that it was going to happen. I will be serving now in Loveland with Elder Porter. So, I got a call from President Ely on Saturday and was asked to be a senior companion. I haven't met Elder Porter yet and he has only been out on the mission one transfer so this next transfer is going to be interesting. I will be in the Berthoud Ward. That is about all I know as of now. One of my companions, Elder Tuiasosopo, is going to Longmont and Elder Bean is staying in Greeley. I'll see him and the rest of the other elders next week at zone conference though so that will be cool.
As far as money goes, I should be okay now. The problem with the singles ward is that we would never get fed so we had to buy a lot more food. Now I will be back in a family ward where we will get fed every day! Oh, and the other thing that I know about my new area is that I will be on a bike again, but that is okay. To answer your question about plus 1's. Plus 1's are the weekly lessons that we do with members each week. They are usually object lessons and they are called plus 1's because the member is suppose to invite someone to go with them to the lesson, hence plus 1.
It is going to be kind of sad leaving Greeley. I'm going to miss the ward and the farmhouse. I am also pretty excited to see what this next transfer will be like. The weather is pretty weird lately. It has been super hot, in the 90's, and about mid afternoon the weather gets cloudy and it sometimes rains. I don't know if that is normal or not but it has been like that for awhile. Oh, before I forget. When you send something in the future can you send me back my planners that I sent home. Apparently I'm going to need those in the future.
Other than that, not much is going on. The work in the University Ward in Greeley was going pretty well so I hope to hear some good news in the near future with some of the people that are being taught. There is this one girl in particular that we have been teaching for the past month and she set a date for baptism just yesterday. It was rad and we were all pretty pumped.
Elder Cooper

It has been great serving on a college campus...

Hey,
It was good to hear from you this past week. I'm kind of ticked because for some reason I wasn't able to log on to my email and it took 30 mins just to try and fix it. Anyway, I'm on now. Last week of the transfer. Most likely I will be moving this transfer as well so we will see what happens. I'll know Saturday. This past week was great though. Nothing real major happened, but it was still a pretty solid week. My birthday was great. It was pretty much the same as any other day of the week. Some members in the ward did make a pretty sweat cake for me though. It is weird thinking that I'm not a teenager anymore.
We went to the church farm again this past week. This time we were pretty sure that they forgot that we were coming because when we got there they told us that we were going to go to our place where we live and do a little yard work. It is okay though because our place really needed it. There were so many mosquitos that day and I think cutting things down helped because mosquitos like that tall stuff. I have also noticed they haven't been as bad just because it has been pretty warm lately. After we did some yard work though they took us back to the church farm where we went to the grain silos to clean out this pit thing. It was pretty bad. My companions and I definitely ran into some mice and frogs.
As far as the work, it has been going pretty good. One of our investigators we feel is so close to baptism. She feels that she has not received a confirmation yet that this is the one true church. We feel that we have done all we can, but she still feels the same. We are all pretty stumped on that one but we will see. She came to church this past Sunday so that will probably help. It has been great serving on a college campus even if it is during the summer and not as crowded or busy.
Hope things are going good.
Elder Cooper

Thank you everyone for the gifts

So Saturday night after a long day it was so exciting to see a birthday package on the table at the farm house. Thank you everyone for the gifts. The new scriptures are sweet and super light. Some extra spending money helps too. Thanks again. I actually just went and bought a backpack today because my other one is falling apart, but the back pack that I got is too big so I'm going to have to take it back and find another one.
This past week was great. The Denver temple closed today and will be closed until the 20th so President let me use my temple trip early. We went down to the temple on Friday. We spent the whole day down there. We arrived in time to make the 11am session and after we did the session and got something to eat we did some initiatories. It was sweet because it just so happens that 30 or 40 other missionaries from our mission came as well. They all probably had the same idea I guess. The temple was amazing and we had a great time. After we left, we spent some time at the Deseret Book and then went to Red Robin for dinner. One of my companions knew the guy who owned the place and we ended getting 50% off. That was a good day.
The work has been going all right. The ward is picking up as far as inviting and doing missionary work. This past Sunday was the first time that I did a little smack down in our meeting in the morning. It is just frustrating because we have investigators that need fellowship and we feel that there isn't much. This past week we found an investigator though, taught the first lesson right on the porch. The baptisms that we did have scheduled for the 10th of July are not going to happen. We had to bump those dates back. I think that younger people that are investigating sometimes don't know what they are committing to. Only 2 more weeks in the transfer. This transfer by far has gone by the quickest.
The 4th of July, I must admit, was kind of lame. President Ely didn't let us stay out to see fireworks mostly because it was Sunday. Plus, yesterday night there was a freak storm and it rained really hard. Probably the heaviest rain that I have ever seen.
I did hear last week that Scott got his call to the Houston East Mission. Is that the same one that Tommy went to?
Elder Cooper

So, to answer your questions......yep I got 2 brand new pairs of shoes a while ago. It is pretty sweet I must say. My toe is doing a little bit better. I am no longer on crutches. It isn't broken, but the toenail fell off, well, I pulled it off the other day and it looks like I will never have a toenail there ever again! We still have 3 set for baptism and they are all around 18 years old. It is going to be hard for some of those to reach their dates and some have been switched already. They were all set for within this transfer but now it looks like they will be sometime next transfer. Something else that is exciting is that we got a new investigator this last week and she is awesome! She is christian and believes that it wasn't just random that we showed up on her door. We were tracting when we found her. We met with her 3 times this last week! She doesn't have a baptism date because she still wants to pray about it, but I think that she will.
Also this past week we were able to do some serious service at the church farms. They are right next to our house and they grow beans, corn, and wheat. So, we showed up on Saturday in the morning at around 7 and we ended up laying pipe for watering alongside the crops. It is these huge pieces of PVC pipe with holes in it every couple feet that hook up to a water main. We laid that down pretty much the whole time and it wasn't so bad until it started getting hot. After we did that we went to painting the inside of a huge shed which was like a break. We were rewarded with an awesome BBQ for our hard work that made up for everything. I have to admit that it still was probably the most tired that I have ever been on one day on the mission. We went tracting a bit that day too so I was just spent by the time we got home.
This next week is interviews already and we will see what happens. I probably will go this next transfer because most tri-companionships the junior is usually only there for a transfer. We will see though. Last time I thought that I was staying and look what happened.
Elder Cooper

Three baptism dates!

Hi everybody,
How has it been? Things have been going well this past week. So, the first thing that happened this week just so happened to be on Tuesday morning when we were doing our morning exercises. We were using the bench and I was taking off the 45 pound plate on one side. Well, I set it down on the wall and it just so happened that it slid off onto my middle toe. I didn't think that it was that bad, but as I was lifting I realized it hurt a lot more than I thought. I stopped and took off my sock to see that I completely smashed it. We don't think it is broken. It is actually a lot better now that it has been a week, but the toenail is definitely going to fall off. The downfall for the rest of the week is that I was using crutches.
Friday we had our zone conference. That is when my box from missionary mall came. I got two new short sleeve shirts that are name brand so now I have 6 short sleeve. That is plenty. It was just in time too because you are right, it has been way hot lately and being right next to the cattle farms where we live has brought up some smells that I have never thought existed. Zone conference was great! The way it is done is completely different now and it is cool because all of the missionaries are now being taught the same thing. It still was quite a bit of sitting.
Saturday we had to go up to another zone conference. We were recruited to help the senior missionaries with car inspections up in Cheyenne. I was still on crutches then, but I got a job of going through all of the papers that the missionaries were supposed to have in their glove compartments. I couldn't believe how hard it was to get all of there info together!
Sunday, Elder Tuiasosopo was sick so we went home early and that left Elder Bean and I thinking of something to do for the rest of the night. Well, as I have mentioned we live in a dump and so we cleaned out the kitchen and the bathroom and man was it bad! It took us three hours and it looks awesome now, well as awesome as it can get!
So some other awesome news about this past week...Last Sunday( June 13) we had a missionary fireside where we watched Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration and we were able to meet with a couple of the investigators that showed up for that. His name is Christian and he brought his friend to the lesson and now they are both set for baptism! We also taught someone else who is set. Three baptism dates! Let’s hope they all go through. It just goes to show how many different tools we have available to use to bring others into the gospel.
Elder Cooper

Greeley has been awesome!

Well, this past week was my first time outside of Fort Collins. Greeley has been awesome! The one bad thing about Greeley is that it smells like cow poop. My companions and I live in a farm house right past where all the cows are.....So the place that we stay at is owned by the church. We are right out next to church farms so literally it is a farm house. It is so ghetto but its also fun. We have the house to ourselves, well we share the house with the Spanish elders here in Greeley. Being in a singles ward is awesome. Its way cool to work with people that are my age, but also it is really different so it is taking a little while to get used to. We have our own special office at the institute. So, we work on the UNC campus. It is pretty rad, but there are not a ton of people considering that it is summer break. I will probably be here the rest of the 5 weeks of the transfer too. Oh, and for the first time we are in a car, truck actually. So, because I am with the zone leaders we cover all of Greeley but just the young single adults. The ward is pretty cool, bigger than the branch back home. Oh, speaking of that, I met an Andy Rogers(Elder Rogers) who served in our ward like 6 years ago and he remembers us from the Fanita ward. He remembers talking to Tommy as he was getting ready to serve a mission.
My companions are Elder Bean and Elder Tuiasosopo (yep another poly for a comp). Elder Bean is from the Seattle area and has been out like 21 months! He is a pretty cool guy. He went to BYUI for a year before he left as well but I don’t think while I was there. Elder Tuiasosopo is from Hawaii and has been out 18 months. I feel young still but the Spanish elders that stay at the farm house are both younger than me. Elder Tui's (for short) dad played professional football for like 12 years I think on the Redskins. He has 2 cousins that are playing professional football right now as well, one on the Raiders and I can't remember the other. That’s what he wants to end up doing I think. He is like 315 pounds and can bench like 500. Yeah.......
This past week was great. I think that the best thing about the week was that we had a missionary fireside on Sunday night and we watched "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" The semi new one they play in the visitor centers. It was so good even though I have seen it 5 times. We had like 4 non members and several less actives and I think that they really enjoyed it and we will see good things come about.

So, new address....
25707 County Road 60 ½
Greeley, CO 80631


Elder Cooper