Rain Out

This week the major story is The Festival. DeFuniak is so small. Y'all don't even know. It's so small, and no one has much to do haha. Soooo, one of the only hobbies people have is studying the history of 1) DeFuniak 2) Their families. That's where we come in haha. So Sister Bennion worked to get us a booth in the Fall Heritage Festival happening downtown. It was super exciting because the DeFuniak Heritage Foundation just loooooves genealogy and they put us in like the best booth spot. The mission president got crazy excited about it, and he and the office elders sent us all of the finding through family history supplies the mission has. We got the Habels and their iPad, plus a wireless printer from the mission set up to have people printing four generations charts and everything.

Wait, it gets better. So every week at district meeting, every district in the mission connects onto one conference call. The mission president was SO excited about our family history booth that he had the district leader hand off the phone to me and sister bennion and talk to the entire mission about our efforts.

Well, I just got told to leave the library computer soooo I'll come out and say where this is going. Saturday. Day of the festival. We got set up all pretty as you can see in the picture and then.

It. POOOOOUUUUURED rain!! We only got to be open for like 20 minutes, but it was going so well that we decided to get a booth at the county fair and just figure how to apologize for letting down the entire mission....

Hm haha. 

Well, good to talk to y'all. Talk more soon!

-Sister Cooper

The Keys

It's been a straaaaaange week. But, first things first. Me and Sister Bennion will be staying right here in DeFuniak for the next 6 weeks! That will be awesome because this ward constantly has missionaries transferred out after only 6 weeks, and this transfer news means me and Sister Bennion will be here at least 12 weeks total. 

Anyway, I'm afraid of the library people telling me to get off, so I'll get right to the point. This week has been full of running around the Fort Walton zone from rehearsal to exchange to meeting to everything else. The crazy things happened between Friday night and Sunday, so I'll just talk about that.

Friday night me and sister bennion had to go to Niceville to exchange me. The Sister Trainer Leaders go on exchanges with the new sisters once a transfer, and I was the very last one to go on one. Sister Bennion went back to DeFuniak with one of the Sister Trainers, and I went down to Fort Walton with the other Sister Trainer, plus one sister who has been tagged on with the STLs in a series of emergency transfers due to two people going home sick, both from our zone. So late Friday night, I joined up with those two and worked in my first trio (but it was actually so late by the time we got to Fort Walton that we didn't do any work before bed). Saturday morning I got to actually work with them. We had a missionary coordination meeting, which no one does in the DeFuniak ward. Then we got to study, contact a few referrals, talk to some guy that always sees the Fort Walton sisters on their bikes, and teach one, solid, sit down lesson aaaand we committed the guy to baptism! Ha! My second one of those, and he wasn't even my investigator. After that, me and the rest of the trio, Sister Hirst and Sister Jicha, went back to Crestview, where Sister Bennion and her exchange companion Sister Medlyn agreed to meet us.

So Sister Bennion and I had to go to a rehearsal for the musical performance the stake was doing, and that was in Fort Walton, so really we only came to Crestview to eat dinner (at which time I spilled meatball on myself, that will be important later), pick up sister bennion, and leave our car in Crestview to save some mileage. 

After the multiple hour rehearsal, the two of us caught a ride with the senior couple (our new parents, sorry mom and dad), the Baileys, back to Crestview, where they live. When we got back to our car finally at 10 pm... Sister Bennion realized she'd left the keys, our phone, and her wallet all at the church in Fort Walton. Too late and too far to go back, we had to instead stay the night at the bailey's house in our church clothes, and then ride with our senior couple, the Habels, back to DeFuniak early the next morning, arriving just in time for church wearing yesterday's makeup, and the same wrinkled, meatball-stained clothes that we had been wearing for the last two days. Finally, after church we got to go back to the apartment and change, then we bummed a ride from the Habels to do our Sunday afternoon prostelyting until that night, when we got the keys to our car back at the performance of the musical fireside we'd been rehearsing for. I sang and sister bennion played the violin, and the good news is we both got personally congratulated by the mission president after the musical performance, despite our strange, strange weekend leading up to it. 

Yep, and that story is about all I have time for. Look forward to six more weeks of DeFuniakan stories, everyone!

Love you all,

Sister Laura Cooper

The Keys

It's been a straaaaaange week. But, first things first. Me and Sister Bennion will be staying right here in DeFuniak for the next 6 weeks! That will be awesome because this ward constantly has missionaries transferred out after only 6 weeks, and this transfer news means me and Sister Bennion will be here at least 12 weeks total. 

Anyway, I'm afraid of the library people telling me to get off, so I'll get right to the point. This week has been full of running around the Fort Walton zone from rehearsal to exchange to meeting to everything else. The crazy things happened between Friday night and Sunday, so I'll just talk about that.

Friday night me and sister bennion had to go to Niceville to exchange me. The Sister Trainer Leaders go on exchanges with the new sisters once a transfer, and I was the very last one to go on one. Sister Bennion went back to DeFuniak with one of the Sister Trainers, and I went down to Fort Walton with the other Sister Trainer, plus one sister who has been tagged on with the STLs in a series of emergency transfers due to two people going home sick, both from our zone. So late Friday night, I joined up with those two and worked in my first trio (but it was actually so late by the time we got to Fort Walton that we didn't do any work before bed). Saturday morning I got to actually work with them. We had a missionary coordination meeting, which no one does in the DeFuniak ward. Then we got to study, contact a few referrals, talk to some guy that always sees the Fort Walton sisters on their bikes, and teach one, solid, sit down lesson aaaand we committed the guy to baptism! Ha! My second one of those, and he wasn't even my investigator. After that, me and the rest of the trio, Sister Hirst and Sister Jicha, went back to Crestview, where Sister Bennion and her exchange companion Sister Medlyn agreed to meet us.

So Sister Bennion and I had to go to a rehearsal for the musical performance the stake was doing, and that was in Fort Walton, so really we only came to Crestview to eat dinner (at which time I spilled meatball on myself, that will be important later), pick up sister bennion, and leave our car in Crestview to save some mileage. 

After the multiple hour rehearsal, the two of us caught a ride with the senior couple (our new parents, sorry mom and dad), the Baileys, back to Crestview, where they live. When we got back to our car finally at 10 pm... Sister Bennion realized she'd left the keys, our phone, and her wallet all at the church in Fort Walton. Too late and too far to go back, we had to instead stay the night at the bailey's house in our church clothes, and then ride with our senior couple, the Habels, back to DeFuniak early the next morning, arriving just in time for church wearing yesterday's makeup, and the same wrinkled, meatball-stained clothes that we had been wearing for the last two days. Finally, after church we got to go back to the apartment and change, then we bummed a ride from the Habels to do our Sunday afternoon prostelyting until that night, when we got the keys to our car back at the performance of the musical fireside we'd been rehearsing for. I sang and sister bennion played the violin, and the good news is we both got personally congratulated by the mission president after the musical performance, despite our strange, strange weekend leading up to it. 

Yep, and that story is about all I have time for. Look forward to six more weeks of DeFuniakan stories, everyone!

Love you all,

Sister Laura Cooper

The Spirit of Elijah

Just another bright, sunshiney week in DeFuniak. Our baptism plans have gotten a little complicated by a sudden inability to communicate with the investigator. We will probably have to put the baptism off from this saturday to next saturday, and that means after transfers, so we are hoooooping we'll both be around for it. Either way, if the Lord calls one or both of us away, I know the work where we are sent will be great as it is here. Me and Sister Bennion have been joking since the first week about me getting transferred to Pensacola. I hope it doesn't happen, but suddenly I'm thinking God might get me back for my sarcastic jokes and put me there haha. The tough thing about serving in this little backwoodsy town was come time for thyroid tests we had to drive 30 miles to get them and there's this huge hospital in Pensacola soooo. But, I'd take the 30 miles again to stay in my beloved DeFuniak.

I named this The Spirit of Elijah because, well, it's so strong! Family History has definitely been something I've been bleh about in life up to this point, but I'm just starting to catch on. So many investigators and less-active members are interested in it, but they don't want to pay for ancestry.com, so that's where we come in and have them go on Family Search with us at church and then they want to be at church more and bam. done. ;) Really, though, I think it's all so interesting. Maybe it's just because I'm deprived of passive entertainment. I couldn't sleep last night, and instead of my old-life solutions of getting out my laptop and chilling on Facebook, I had to read Preach my Gospel until I felt back asleep! With family history at least I get to touch a computer. :)

I can't wait to find out what's in store for me next transfer (next week!!) and I'm looking forward to meeting all of the new people that indeed will make me seem a little less green. I love all of you people and by next letter, you'll know as well as I do what's ahead. I'm thinking of and praying for y'all.

Yes sir, yes ma'am.

Love,

Sister Cooper

Mosquitos Feast, We Fast

It's Labor Day! This week seemed to go by very quickly. We just worked all day for seven days and now here we are at the computer again! 

We found a frog in the laundry this morning. That was exciting. I'm definitely not used to the amount of small critters around yet. Everyone at church likes to give me recommendations of miracle cures for my mosquito bites, but none have worked yet! However, now I carry all manner of creams,sticks, gels, spray bottles and more with me everywhere I go. The ward is always concerned about me and they give me a ton of little things that work for them to keep the mosquitos away. 

Doorstep lessons at dusk will be the death of me.

Fast Sunday went by crazy fast (ha! first time it hasn't been a misnomer). Me and Sister Bennion both fasted to find solid new investigators (without each other knowing what we were fasting for) and during the 24 hours we got 2 solid new investigators! It was great. I broke my fast during our lesson with the second one because it hit 24 hours since we started. I drank a little water and had a piece of candy and I just hoped we wouldn't suddenly be kicked out of the lesson because our spiritual power was gone haha! 

Okay, that's all the story time I have time for right now.

Love y'all

-Sister Cooper