Latest Random Comments

How was girls camp? Crazy as it usually is, I suppose? lol. That is good that Matthew got to spend so much time with Kristen before she leaves, I think. That blows my mind that he will be 14 when she gets back!

There aren't too many fires around here. It's too wet all the time. Although it has been so hot lately that a lot of plants have been dying. We stained a deck for like, 6 hours yesterday. It was wayy hot. I got sun-burnt, but not too bad. Did you know vinigar helps with sun burns? Crazy. Found that out last night. We had dinner with some members from a ward I was in in this same district. They came over to a member's house in this ward. It was nice to see them again.

Some member's here brought some people to church this last Sunday. It's his boss' son and his girlfriend. We're going to teach them in the member's home this Friday. I'm pretty stoked!

Leadership meeting is tomorrow. I'll be going 2 hours to Galesberg tonight, staying the night there, then tomorrow moring we'll drive to Iowa City. from Iowa City we go to Des Moines. We've got to be there by 11 AM. we'll be in the meeting all day then drive back to peoria that night. It's going to be a long day! lol.

I love bishop Martin too! He's pretty dang legit. And for sure I'm going to have to go biking with Welge when I get back! He's a beast. 50's and still going hard. What a champ.

Tell Matthew I love him and can't wait to see him either!

Love you and can't wait to see you too!

Coop

Nearly Done Updates

Hola.

What's up?

Things here are going pretty well. Had my very last zone conference this last week. It was pretty crazy thinking that I'm not going to be having another one again... ever lol. If it's your last zone conference they have you get up and bare your testimony, so I got to do that. It was pretty sweet.

This transfer has gone by pretty fast. This is the last full week of this transfer. I think I'll be with Monsour another one though. I'm happy about that. He's a really cool guy.

Things are going well in Pekin for the most part. We have a girl named Jericha that wants to get baptized. Just not sure when yet. We also Have a 14 year old kid named Brandon that wants to be baptized, but it's lame because his dad won't let him :( Brandon is friends with a kid in the ward, and they're going to work on his dad. So hopefully he changes his mind.

My going home temple trip is going to be tomorrow! I'm way excited for that. I haven're been to the temple in like 14 months. It'll be kinda bittersweet though. Everyone tells me that right after your going home temple trip time just slams the E-brake on haha. I think it will still go by quickly though.

So I don't know if you have already registered me for classes or not. But I was actually thinking it would be a good idea to do some of them online. So lemme know what classes are available for that. If you've already signed me up though, that's fine.

I dunno if you were confused with the father's day text or not. The member we had dinner with yesterday sent it from their phone. lol. That family is pretty awesome. 

Steve said he might have a job for me when I get back. Which is cool. He said business has been really slow, so I probably won't get paid all that much. But it's better than nothing. I'm just excited that I might have something right away.

Hope your week is amazing!

Love you!

Coop

Pekin, Illinois

So I got transferred to Pekin Illinois, which is in the district I was in when I was in Washington Illinois. There was a son of a member that we taught in Washington, and now he lives in Pekin. So I'm pretty stoked about that. The ward is pretty small. Like, 5 families are moving soon. It's looking more like a branch than a ward. People here are cool though. I like it here.

  

Things are going well here. We've got some good stuff going on.

 

Sorry the email is short this week.

 

Love you though!

I'll talk to you more about what's going on here next week.I'm just short on time today.  

Coop. 

Oops - Never Mind, Off to Quincy Illinois

Dang. there is a lot more snow in Reno than there is here! About 8 inches more! lol. I got moved to Quincy Illinois. In right on the Missouri border, and there is NO snow here. It's weird because my last area had snow, so it's a bit of a change. Yes, that is a sudden move. I was only in Ames for 2 and a half weeks, but they had to change up a few companionships, and so I get moved to this area.

Bishop Martin is a pretty cool guy. They sent me a package :) 

Well I plan on Skyping this Christmas instead of calling. But I'm not sure what time that will be since we have to go to a member's house to do that. I'm not going to email again until after Christmas, so I guess just be ready and I'll call you to let you know I'm ready to skype. You guys have a web cam right? I guess that would be necessary for the whole skype thing to work. I thought you guys skype Sarah all the time, so I just assumed you had one.

 

That's one thing about being a missionary, you always haveto be on your toes. When the teacher doesn't show up, a lot of the times they just expect us to teach with no notice, so I know how you feel. lol. How did the lesson go? 

Matthew is probably going to be taller than me when I get home! Maybe not, but it's going to be crazy to see how tall he'll be. he'll be out of primary here pretty soon. that's exciting.

 

you should feed Kristen lots of soda and candy so that she has to keep going to the dentist until about September :) JK

I got a letter from Dakotah, and I email Skyler. I haven't heard from Kevin since he left. That's nuts that he'll be comming home soon!

I heard about the missionaries in Romania. That's so sad. They put carbon monoxide detectors in all the apartments here after that happened. That's sad to hear that it almost happened to some other missionaries in Sparks.

Well next time I talk to you it won't be by email :) Pretty cool.

Love you. Talk to you soon!

The Next Area - Ames, Iowa

Sweet. We have a tree we're going to put up in our apartment :) Make it a little more festive.

I'm in Ames Iowa. It's just north of Des Moines. I haven't been here very long, but it seems like a good place. I like it. I miss my last area, but I'll get over that soon enough. Just gotta get this area going like the last one was.

Glad to hear you're doing missionary work. I read a talk by Oaks the other day about the importance of member missionary work. The statistics were pretty surprising. They analyzed what would have to be done in order to meet Hinckley's challenge of doubling baptisms. they would have to increase the number of people found by media campaigns by like 8 time, the number of people found by the efforts of missionaries by like 6 times, or the number of people fund by members by only 2.7 times.

Things are going alright here. The ward is very not missionary minded. But we have this case study going around the mission, and they're having everyone try to implement the principles in the case study with their own ward. It work really well in my last area, and so we're working really hard on implementing all of that stuff in this area now. So hopefully they'll be more missionary minded soon. Honestly, the way it is now there is a reason there haven't been any baptisms here in over a year. But that's gonna change :)

Love you. I forgot my camera, so I'll send pictures next week. Promise. 

Transfer Time Again

Yeah, trasnfers are tomorrow. And guess what... I'm gettting moved again! lol. At leat I was in this area for two transfers this time. My companion and I are getting transferred, so they're whitewashing this area with a trainer and a greenie. I'm pretty sad to leave. This area has been pretty amazing and I'm going to miss lots of people.

As far as what I want for Christmas. I don't really know. lol. Whatever is good. Not too many sweets if you can help it :)

 

It started snowing here last night. Nothing that stuck, but it's definitely a sign of what is to come soon :) I'm not excited haha. It's getting pretty bitter cold. Reno cold sounds warm right now haha

 

Glad to hear thanksgiving was good. Mine was way good too. PLayed disc golf in FREEZING cold weather lol. Ate myself practically to death. But it was way good. The family we spent it with is awesome.

 

I'm in a ward in this area. But as of tomorrow I'm not sure what I'll be in. lol.

 

About Christmas. I'm pretty sure you can call through Skype just like a phone but over the internet. If she can do that she can call me after 7 my time and I can also call you guys seperately.

 

Glad to hear the healthiness is going well :) I lost 6 pounds over the course of this past 12 weeks.

 

Love you and hope everything is going well.

Have an awesomely amazing week!

November 2010

Sweet. CAn't believe my birthday is already coming up. It doesn't seem that long ago that I had my last birthday. I still remember part of that day. I forgot completely it was my birthday, and I was at Dan Langstraat's house when president Talbot called to sing happy birthday to me :) That's the only part of that day I really remember.

I got a letter from Gabrielle the other day. It was pretty exciting. She was the wife of a member I got to see get baptized in Iowa City. It's been a year since that happened so she is no longer concidered a recent convert :) They got sealed in the Winter Quarters temple on the 13th. She asked if I could go, and if I was all the way on the other side of the mission I would have been able to :( I'm like 8 hours away from WInter Quarters though, so it didn't work out. Oh well, I'm still happy for them. Would have been nice to be there though.

That's sweet that the House has tilted back to conservative. Now watch the same cycle repeat.. People aren't happy, there is a majority in the House, so they vote all Liberal. Then people still aren't happy and there is a Liberal majority in the house so they vote all conservative lol that seems to be how it usually works out.

The weather here is getting blah. Gray skies pretty much every day from here on out. Until the end of winter anyways.

Hope everything for you goes well this week. Transfers aren't until Dec. 2, and I'll find out the SAturday before that if I'm leaving. But it looks like I'll be staying. I said that in my last 2 areas though :)

We got to go to our ward's trunk or treat too. It was pretty sweet. Definitely a lot more fun when you're a little kid. They had some pretty awesome trunks decorated though.

We had to be in at 6 yesterday and the day before (Halloween). There really isn't much to do for 4 /12 hours when you're a missionary lol.

Corn mazes are pretty fun. There was a hedge maze in Winterset that I went through. It was pretty lame though. Not very challenging at all. Especially when you can see right over the hedges lol.

Thanks for not sending me halloween candy lol. I've got wayyy more than I would ever need. I''m trying to give it away but that's hard to do when everyone else already has a whole bunch of candy lol. I was wondering if you could send me some more face wash though. That would be nice.

I haven't sent the ballot back in because I'm really not sure who to vote for. lol. I know not to vote for Harry Reid, but that's about it lol. When does it have to be in by? And I am definitely open for suggestions on who to vote for. :) lol.

Hopre everything is going well with you!

Love you and hope you have an amazing week! 

How to be healthy

Illinois is good. Yesterday was awesome! We had 5 investigators at church, which was all the members doing (so in other words it was done how it was supposed to :) lol). But things are really going well. We've been really trying to get the members focused on missionary work, and it's starting to pay off. We had 3 people tell us about missionary oppertunities they have had. And the Bishop in priesthood opening expercises talked about a missionary experience he had. So it was a way awesome day.

I am still here lol. Neither my companion or I got transferred, so we're both still here.

(so I was asking/begging for information, jokingly said tell me what you had for breakfast :)  For breakfast I had oatmeal :) yum. lol. Last night I had organic salad and eggs! We have a member that's a health nut, and he grows hydroponic lettuce. It's pretty sweet how it works. He has fish living in the water that the lettuce grows in, and the fish eat the lettuce, then the fish fertalize the lettuce. He said it's like nature in a box. lol. Then a member gave us some eggs from their own chickens.

I've stopped eating processed sugar and such. No more soda or anything. Just all natural. My companion weighed 400 Lbs back in the day. Now he's 6' 5" and about 215 Lbs. He lost all of it by just cutting out processed food entirely. Pretty sweet, huh?

 

That's nuts about the weather! It rained here last night, but not very hard.

 

That's so nuts to me that Matthew is going to be almost 13 when I get home. I was actually just thinking about how deep his voice probably is getting. It's going to be a shock when I get home.

 

I'm doing pretty good with money since I've cut fast food and soda out of my expenses. I don't really use much money aside from the $150 a month (allowance the Church provides for his food, etc). I know it doesn't sound fun, but the best thing to send me would be just plain money. I can buy the clothes here so it would be a lot cheaper. It's free to put money in my account. It's expensive to ship things. The shirt fits fine. My waistline is getting closer to 32 than anything else, and my inseem is the same. Haven't gotten any taller. But really the best way for me to get new clothes would be for me to just buy them here. It's not like I'm all depressed because I don't get packages in the mail. I'm too business minded (or miserly lol) to think that way. I just think, Geeze! It probably cost like $15 to send this package when just sending me the money would be free! haha.

 

That's pretty sweet that you guys are on a fitness kick. You should tell Matthew to start using my weight bench. I regret waiting to lift weights. He would be better off if he started now.  I'm still fairly skinny. I'm about 194 right now, but I'm still shedding ounce by ounce. Just remember. All natural food. No persevatives or processed anything. It works.

 

Love you and miss you!

Hope you have a fantastic week!

This week's e-mail

It has finally stopped raining here. yay! lol. It was a really wet summer. Lots of flooding in Iowa. Luckily not where I was at at the time. It started cooling off here, but then it heated back up. So it's been mid 70's to low 80's this week. It'll get cold soon enough though, then I'll be sick of the cold and won't be able to wait for summer! lol.

 

Yeah, conference was pretty sweet. A lot more people are watching it at home. It was broadcasted at our ward building as well as the stake center. We went to our ward building and during the first session on saturday it was only us and one other lady. Then for the second session it was only us haha. It was interesting having the whole chapel to yourself during conference.

 

 

I got a pretty sweet story. We went over to this one families house the other day because we're teaching the girl that lives across the street from them, and their son was there who isn't a member. I've met him a few times before. He's a really funny and sarcastic guy. So we asked him what his opinion of religion was. She started it off by saying "you don't even want to know what my opinion is" lol. So we started talking to him about all sorts of stuff. It was really like a bashing session, but it kind of was at the same time. More like a heated discussion with difference of opinion. So after going at it for like 45 minutes, the atmosphere in the room just completely changed, and it was a lot more peaceful. The conversation lasted about an hour and a half, and it ended with him committing to read the Book of Mormon. He said that he had started reading from it before, but got bored of it so didn't get very far, so he was excited that we gave him some suggested reading because no one had ever done that before. As we were leaving he told us that after seeing us put up with what he just put us through that there was something that interested him. So it was a pretty sweet experience.

No way?! That's pretty sweet. We got a new bishop in our ward yesterday too! I'm pretty excited that Martin is now Bishop. I don't know about that Zach guy though... haha. Just kidding.

 

No, I didn't know she (Mallory) was expecting. That's pretty sweet though. do they know if it's a boy or a girl yet? that would be sweet if they had twins again lol.

 

Yeah. I got it (absentee ballot), signed it and sent it back. There is this guy in our ward that's really funny. He's way political. Pretty much radical conservative. He said that President Monson gets his direction from President Obama haha. He was just joking of course. It was pretty funny though.

 

There is nothing I can think of right now that I need. I have a coat. There was one someone left behind in on of my other apartments. But I'll let you know what I need if I think of anything.

Finally here is my current address... 1405 Eagle Ave #4 Washington, IL 61571. I'll find out next Saturday if I'm moving again or not. Hopefully not. I'm getting tired of learning new places haha.

  

Thanks :) I was pretty darn proud of myself during that talk too :D  (President Monson's talk at the beginning of Conference about missionary work)

 

Love you and miss you.

Hope you have a fantastic week!

Love,

Coop

Illinois

Dang. That's hot! It's starting to cool off here a lot. It got back up to the 80s for a couple days. But now it's actually starting to get chilly.

That's awesome that they (Matthew's soccer team) won their game! Yay!  Too bad he had to play the whole thing in blisteringly hot weather though. They should keep them in the same positions most of the season. I think that's a big problem with how the coaches have been doing things. There is no specialization. They're trying to learn all the positions still, but since all the positions are different it just mixes them up. Yeah it sounds boring to play the same position every game. But at this point I honestly think it would be best for them.

I almost got to coach soccer in Washington, IA. For service there the missionaries volunteer at the YMCA, and what they have us do is coach like 8-9 year olds. It wasn't the season while I was there though  :( Shucks.

 

You could get a job. I think you would make a good employee :) 

 

That's funny that she (Sarah) cut his (David's) hair. It gets easier after a while. (I should know, I've been cutting my own hair for a year now lol). Skype is pretty sweet. Dan (one of my recent converts in Iowa City) did IT at the university. He talked about how awesome skype is, but the university wouldn't let them use it because it was too easy to hack.

 

Things are going all right here. I want to get back to the Iowa side of the mission. Things are different here. It's honestly like being in a completely different mission because, well, just recently it was a different mission. But you could also do some studying on the curses of Illinois and stuff... You know the history. Things in Iowa are better haha.

 

I don't know what I could really say about the mission president. He's different. Not in a bad way. He's good. But just, different. The feeling is different. Can't say who I like better. They're both good.

 

Awesome about the sisters having a baptism in the ward!

 

Hope everything is going well. Hope you have a good week!

Love and miss you!