Why wait?

One of the most challenging things about missionary work is the balance between bold and loving. Missionaries who are too bold come off as pushy or self-interested, and missionaries who are just love love love have a hard time getting anyone to do anything except hang out or have lunch or whatever. The senior couple in DeFuniak has it down. Elder Habel is all bold and Sister Habel is all loving and together you look and them and wonder how their marriage has worked out for 50 years, but you don't wonder why they are successful missionaries. Everyone they teach feels loved, as well as compelled to do things.

Sometimes us younger missionaries go through the boldness cycle, similar to the pride cycle in the book of mormon. We are scared so we are all love, then grow into boldness, then somebody gets mad and we go back to love. Haha, anyway that's what me and sister milne have been working on this week. We decided to be all love, church, and baptism. Bold and loving. I'm exhausted, but we set a baptismal date! Nobody we committed came to church, but the kingdom of god wasn't built over night, yeah? Probably could be, but instead God chooses to let us serve Him and build it slowly. How sweet. :D

I am super stuffy from all the weather swings between ice and frozen trees to short sleeve weather, plus all of the sick and stuffy missionaries I come in contact with. This morning my companion may or may not have tried clearing my sinuses by Breath Essential Oil  on my face and instead accidentally poured it in my eye. I shouldn't say "instead". My stuffy nose became a thing of little concern to me when I was washing the lemon juice-peppermint oil out of my eye.

I've got a book of mormon scripture for y'all. It's from Moroni 7

If a man be meek and lowly in heart, and confesses by the power of the Holy Ghost that Jesus is the Christ, he must needs have charity; for if he have not charity he is nothing; wherefore he must needs have charity. And charity suffereth long.

Basically, he or she who knows Christ and is a Christian should be willing to suffer long and be patient. That is charity, just like charity is love and kindness. Whoa.

This is why Charity is going to be my first child's name.

Love y'all
Sister Laura Cooper

Missionary Work 9 Days a Week

Welcome back, my people! P Day for us is today (wednesday) this week because of a sweet family history event we did on Monday. I had this funny experience at the event. We were working inside the Valparaiaso Library and couldn't exactly reach out and holler at people to come talk to us, but we could walk around quietly and invite people to our family history booth. So this guy comes in and sits down with a book. I wanted to talk to him so I kind of sneaked up and didn't know what to say, but suddenly he was like "Are you selling something?" and I was like "No we are giving people free family history help" and he just sat there pondering for a few seconds and then was like "Let's do it!!" and then me and sister milne took him through FamilySearch for like half an hour and he said he would come to our class and learn more haha.

So that's the contacting story for this week. Look awkward and people want to talk about the gospel. Y'all may have also heard that this mission froze over this week. That is true. A little ice and the whole south shut down. No one left their houses, literally every kind of work except for emergency services was closed for the day (the air force base, the schools, the stores, the restaurants--all closed) We went out and worked, but only for half of the day, when the President gave us permission.

Yesterday I had a cool spiritual experience actually! Some thing was given to me in the very moment to be meted unto every man, as they say. When we were teaching someone who didn't really understand why our message matters, or why we were there, it came to me to ask her what it would mean to her if the church Christ established was back on Earth and she ignored the question and went off on some tangent about teaching kids to tell the truth, and then Sister Milne asked the same question again and she actually thought about it and she is going to read the Book of Mormon to check it out! Sweetness. Thanks Spirit. You're a boss.

I love you sweet followers. Be awesome.

<3 Sister Laura Cooper

Experimental

This week in district meeting we started a new program that came from "an apostle or something" (where new things always come from haha)

 

It's called the experiment. We teach less-active members all of the lessons "for practice" and ask them to do the same commitments "for practice" and suddenly they are reading their scriptures and coming to church and things--awesome. This is new this week, but it's already helped some people in our area read their scriptures. :D

 

There are more cool missionary experiments happening in this area. There's church tours, family history booths, working on Northwest Florida State College (I've always wanted to be a campus sister!!) I'm excited about it. We are supposed to be an iPad mission too, but so far no.

 

I read something awesome this morning in Mosiah 14 an 15. Jesus-packed Book of Mormon chapters, yes please. :) Isaiah is not so bad after all, thanks to Abinadi.

 

Got to watch my mission president on TV this week and that is pretty sweet. I guess him and his wife once got lost on a boat in the Marshall Islands and when she started singing ''Master the tempest is raging" he started singing Gilligan's Island.

 

Missions are cool haha.

 

Love y'all! Peace.

 

-sister laura cooper

Transfer 5 Will Be Another Nice One

You know what that means! I'm staying in Niceville until March at least. So is Sister Milne. We are getting an Elder in this area named Elder Smellie! Yes, pronounced just like "smelly". I think. Maybe I'm just making that up, but everyone knows him calls him Elder Smelly.

So I am super excited for that new thing happening here. Haha just for the name. 

In President Smith's email this week he talked about our 2014 mission theme, to become a missionary of uncommon valor. I feel like it's an awesome mission theme because the mission is the perfect place to face fear and gain valor. When we walk up to someone on the street, we never know if they are going to be like "false prophets! go to hell! i don't care!" or "yeah, I actually want to join a church soon, but haven't looked around much yet!" and sometimes I just don't know what to say to anyone, but through the daily power of the Atonement, fear can be slowly replaced with faith. Slowly haha, but definitely possible.

Working after dark can't take us, and neither can opening our mouths.

Happy Transfers to my mission people, and mostly just have a sweet week everyone! I love y'all!

-Sister Cooper

Twenty-somethings

Niceville is a place of nice people. There is a sign that says "Nice folks, nice town, have a nice time" in the city center. I agree with all of that, however, I'm pretty sure they should just call this place "Youngville".

 

Everybody in town is a young, cute family, or a bachelor. Bachelors are fun to teach. Sometimes we get really interested, open minded bachelors, and sometimes we get young guys who want to meet up sometime, and maybe go bowling or to the lake, but hey that's what it's like in Youngville, and it's all good.

 

Now that my companion is a twenty-something, I really feel like we can get around in Niceville.

 

This week one of our bachelor friends got started on the Book of Mormon and came to all three hours of church. That was awesome.

 

We also had a crazy experience with another bachelor when we were eating lunch at chick fil a. If y'all have been there lately, you know that they have little metal poles that you stick a card on so the server can bring your food to you. Well we stuck a Mormon.org card in there and our server said he wanted to meet with us and ask questions. He did and it was fun. He said he would love a Book of Mormon, which is not a common response. :)

 

Another benefit of young people is babies. Just saying. We can't hold babies, so I just give them stickers instead. If anyone has a sticker they want to put on a baby in Niceville, send them please. :D

 

Everybody have a great week and be obedient forever. :)

 

-Sister Laura Cooper

It's Nice

For those of you who don't know, I have actually been transferred. For those of you who do know, I've still been transferred! (Credit to my dad for that joke. Mormons will hopefully get it. Think about the beginnings of testimonies and talks in sacrament).

Yes, it's true that in my last post I was thoroughly deceived and mistaken. I'll tell y'all the whole story. After finding out about transfers and emailing home, we went out to Sonic, as we do every transfer P day. After that we went to Walmart and bought food and stuff. Then we got in line for Walmart gas. I checked the phone.

Missed Call-- ZL Foster/Evans

1 New Voicemail

Now, people you gotta understand, we have seen this on our phone many times, usually accompanying a voicemail that says something like "make sure to send in your numbers tonight" or something like that. Occasionally though, I would see something like that on the phone and be like "Sister Bennion, the zone leaders called. They said something about emergency transfers!" and of course she would never believe me, but I still thought it was funny lol.

But on this occasion we listened to the voicemail and the zone leaders were like "Uh, there has been a mistake on the transfer sheet. Call us back ASAP."

And you know that look when I thought I was going to get called up to the Baptist Church Judgment Bar? Maybe you don't; ask me to demonstrate it for you when I get home. But anyway that is the face I made when we heard that. Sister Bennion and I were SURE that it was gonna be her leaving but...

Here I am. Niceville, Florida with Sister Milne. Crazy. It's been another roller coaster getting this area reopened (yep, just like when we got to defuniak, we are whitewashing again). Things are very different, and it is hard to feel like I've left home again 9 days before Christmas. But that is just how missions go and me and sister milne and everyone in niceville, we are all going to work this out together. There is potential for success here, if we can only tap into it. :)

Love y'all! At least I got to saying y'all while I was in the real south.

Anyone who wants to write me real letters should ask my peeps for my new address. Email are great too though.

Love,

Sister Laura Cooper

Take Aways

It's been a roller coaster of a week. After some consideration, I have decided that I am mighty pleased to announce that Sister Bennion and I will continue to serve together in DeFuniak. We, the Elders, and the Senior Couple are our own district now! Biking to district meeting?? I think so.

We had a baptism set for this past saturday, but that fell through on the morning of. The entire part of the ward that came to the would-have-been baptism saw me and Sister Bennion cry. That would be a sad thing, but they decided to make us stop, by taking us out to a restaurant called That Pizza Place. That was nice. :D

I called this post take-aways because this week has been a learning experience. And that's what I want it to be. Not a depressing experience, an angering experience, a discouraging experience, but a learning experience. A few take-aways that we have gathered from the almost-baptism of Tommy Joe.

1) Baptisms are to no one's credit, and when they don't happen, it's no one's fault.

2) God is in control

3) People don't say what they mean, but you can sense it.

4) Treat everyone like family

5) People understand that life is imperfect. It's nothing to be embarrassed about.

6) God loves everyone no matter what

That's what I've learned. Challenges aren't so bad I guess hehe. We can overcome, but only with the help of The Savior, who overcame all. Sounds like an Easter Sympathy card. Oh well. It's solid doctrine. I really love y'all. Talk next week.

Peace,

Sister Laura Cooper

16 days until Christmas!!