Festival Season

F is for Fall and Festivals and Finding down here! This week took us all over the place sort of unexpectedly as we travelled to interviews with President, around town trying to get our Halloween/Snake themed Family History Booth together, and down to Munson to do finding. We cleaned a very cluttered house and conquered the Froot Loop mountain therein.

The highlight of the week was definitely when we finally got to do our booth down in this little corner of the Jay Sisters' area... Munson. There isn't anything there really, except a campground. That's where we reported to do our finding. It reminded me of my middle childhood days, camping in Chester, CA. We dressed down and worked in the dirt, meeting people from all over the Panhandle and Alabama. Since our booth was Halloween themed, our sign said, "Are there any snakes in your family?" and we had a skeleton, and a skull that laughs and chatters it's teeth when you talk to it. All of that really caught everyone's attention. A lot of children ran over because they thought we would have real snakes. It's a good idea for our next booth.

While there we saw the best "_____ Life" sticker known to man. Better than all the others we have seen, which now includes Salt Life, Mud Life, Bama Life, Country Life, and Christ Life. On Saturday we saw one that said ETERNAL LIFE. It was the best thing ever. Every missionary had to sneak a picture with it while hoping the owners of the vehicle did not come around.

I love getting to talk to a bunch of people I've never seen before and for most part will never see again! Not only are we going to meet the whole town of Brewton, but the whole population of the Pensacola stake. :)

Peace until next week. Read your conference talks! :O

-Sister Laura Cooper

Spiritual Confidence

I will theme this post around my favorite talk from Conference-- Elder Klebingat's talk, more than likely soon to be titled "Spiritual Confidence". I loved that talk, and it was a unique answer to a question that I had. You know those questions that everyone brings to conference, looking for a sermon just for them? This was the answer to mine. I wish the talks were already printed on lds.org, but alas they are not.

What I liked about this talk is the reflection about how we would feel if we had a personal interview with the Savior. I think I would be excited, and nervous, hoping that He wouldn't bring up my weaknesses, or how I have not always answered promptings, or how I have unrighteous desires to be on Pinterest right now, even though I am on the mission. The talk addressed what we can do to have spiritual confidence in ourselves, and know that we are doing our best. They are the basics-- prayer, scriptures, repentance, forgiveness, ect. If we faithfully do these things, we cannot believe the voice of the adversary in our heads saying we are not good, we are not accepted of the Lord, the reason we are going through trials or are not successful is because we are bad. If we do the basics of the Gospel consistently, we can know the Lord is pleased.

Much of the conference was about the prophet, am I right? I was noticing that the whole time. Also, Elder Callister's talk about parenting stood out to me-- yikes! I must be growing old!

The best part of Conference Weekend was that Billy, who has not been to an LDS church service since he was referred to the missionaries five years ago, came all the way to Jay to watch Conference! And he loved it. We have a few talks from the other sessions we want to watch with him too because one of his concerns is about prophets. Hopefully just coming and watching Conference, regardless or the topics of the talks, will help him resolve that. We are so excited for him. He makes both of us glad we are still here.

Interviews with President are tomorrow. Hope I have spiritual confidence haha!

-Sister Laura Cooper

Heaven's Eyes

You know what is crazy? The fact that God is watching over Brewton. It must difficult with all of them trees in the way, but somehow he does it. I have two evidences for the week that such is happening.

First, we had this most wonderful and strange day on Friday. We live right by the high school... and it's Homecoming. We held Weekly Planning because our street was blocked off for the homecoming parade and it would have been hard to get around. So in the middle of our planning session we went downstairs to watch the parade go by. Our house was aparently ahead of where spectators were allowed to stand, so we were the first people on the parade route, and we got SO MUCH CANDY. :D

You may be thinking that was the tender mercy I am referring to, but wait, it gets better. After the parade, we finished our planning session and got ready to go to a lesson with Billy. The parade had been over for like an hour, so you would think we would be able to get out of our neighborhood in a reasonable amount of time. Ha. Not so. Our usual 20 minute journey to Billy's place turned into an hour journey because of the backup running through not just our neighborhood, but all of Brewton.

Finally, we arrived and knocked on the door. He was down for having a lesson, but said the Bowlers (senior couple) were coming to visit him in just a few minutes. We sat down with him, and started to watch Lord, I Believe, in hopes it would help him work out some doubts he has, while emphasizing how we learn from the prophet and apostles. In the middle of the talk, the Bowlers showed up and joined our lesson.

When the talk was over, Sister Lloyd asked Billy what stood out to him, and he said that when we came over, he had just finished reading the story of the demon-possessed boy out of Jesus the Christ. (Yes, he is reading JtC). He said that when Elder Holland started telling that story, he knew he really needed to pay attention. He emphasized that it had not been like an hour or two since he read that, but "no more than five minutes". And then he told us that it helped him realize he needs to investigate more seriously, and that he feels God is leading him to do something about what we are saying.

Sister Lloyd and I are so excited for him, and the Bowlers are just tickled that they got to be there to see that. We were all timed just right by an inspired parade traffic jam! That is the real tender mercy I am talking about.

Second, we learned this morning that God must have some very important plan for us and Brewton... because we found out we are staying together for our 5th transfer. At first I was upset a bit, because I've been here so long, but there must be a super good reason. Can't question, just got to figure out what it is.

Now, why call this "Heaven's Eyes" of all things? Because how do we deal with having to wonder why the Lord does what he does? We listen to a song Sister Lloyd just recently introduced me to, from The Prince of Egypt, called by the same title of this blog.

Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai! It fixes everything. Listen to it.

-Sister Laura Cooper

Salt Life, Mud Life, Christ Life

I don't remember if this is really a thing out west or anywhere else in the country... but everyone around here like to have stickers on their trucks that say Salt Life. No one is really sure what it means, or why they have it, but everyone wants one on their truck. Unless they want a Mud Life sticker instead, which I am guessing means they like the backwoods more than the beach. And then there's the people that have "Christ Life", usually accompanied by a giant cross on the back of their truck, and I am thinking that means that they have forsaken outdoorsy fun and instead like to engage in intensive southern worship. This week, it's fair to say we have earned all three stickers.

Salt Life... we went to the beach today with some of our favorite sisters in the P-cola zone. It felt good to have the good old slightly sunburned face, sandy skin feeling. All that was missing was the salty hair. Guess I will have to save that for my future RM life. The water was warm and very blue, and Sister Lloyd got to experience the sugar sand for the first time. I saw it in Destin, but she has always served in landlocked areas, and has never gotten to see it. We also learned that it makes great sandcastles.

Mud Life... we earn this every time we go visit the Howells after a rainstorm... their parking area is all dirt and floods like none other. However, even with not much rain this week, we still got to enjoy some mud life because Sister Nelson and I on our exchange went walking to an appointment to save some mileage and get out to meet people. We got a little off track on the backwoodsy road, and ended up having to cross a little ditch where a stream had once been. I stepped on the bottom and sank with my brand new shoes about a foot deep into wet clay mud. They survived though and we still made it to the appointment.

Christ Life... Of course, being a missionary I would have to select this sticker to place on the back of our Maliboat. We are just trying everyday to help the people of Brewton learn more about Christ and following Him, even though most everybody thinks they have that figured out. Usually, we can at least get them to enjoy the Book of Mormon as a book that talks more about Jesus. See one of my favorite scriptures, 1 Nephi 19:9. Our lessons this week were a little challenging because people just aren't seeming to want to make commitments, much less keep them, rather just sit and hear the word of God. But it's all good because we get to live "Christ Life" everyday and try to help others do the same.

Peace til next time. Love ya happy followers!

-Sister Laura Cooper

New People to See

I'm going to make a semi short post this week! Having a case of writers block like I sometimes do. This week all of our investigator lessons were a result of the family history street contacting we did last transfer. That was great to see. Sometimes it feels like we are never going to get to see anyone new in this area, but somehow people come around.

That lady that I talked about in last week's email let us see her twice this week and she has started reading the Book of Mormon. She has a lot of random questions about our believes, and like most people, sort of gets the mission rules confused with the commandments (I don't blame her, missionaries do seem a little Amish!) But she is looking to gain hope and she wants to start turning more to Christ and to religion so we are looking forward to helping her.

We also got in to see the lady, Pam, that we've been doing family history with and had recently given her a pamphlet about the Plan of Salvation. She read it and said it helped her understand why she likes family history so much. She has many Mormon hobbies and beliefs (she wrote a little essay on America being a blessed land where a lost tribe is). She also teaches Sunday School at a local church. We just found that out. That can be hard on the mission. People are prepared to hear the gospel, but just don't think they are!

Well, I hope my writers block let's up next week. Love y'all!

Here's a scripture from my studies.... Proverbs 9:6. 6:9 is good too.

-Sister Laura Cooper

Kids in Charge

We aren't sure what it was about this week, but we spent a ton of it running around seeing members. It's funny because we don't have very many members (and like most areas, half of the members on our branch roster don't even exist at the address listed), but we teach as many lessons as every other area teaches to recent convert and less active or returning members, because like every member in the group is one of those 3 things. And they all like to see us... a lot! We've been asked by more than a few members if we can come see them everyday. 

We have a joke of sorts going on between the missionaries that we can't leave Brewton for anything without receiving some call from members like "oh no where are you!" But this week it's no joke, because the Bowlers have gone home for a short time, a the whole group is like in a slight panic. And that is how us, the Elders, and the Relief Society President (thank goodness for her), are back to running the Brewton Group like we did between the reigns of the Jenkins and the Bowlers. Attendance was a little skimpy at church this week, but we didn't have any major crisis, and Sister Elliott got there so yay for that.

One of Sister Lloyd's nightmares was fulfilled this week when we had to go get a canker sore of mine burned off at the infamous Brewton hospital. We've decided that if we were allowed to go contacting there we wouldn't even have to work the rest of the day. The whole town is there even though everyone hates it. Sister Lloyd heard several life stories of individuals in the waiting room, as well as many stories about people's plans to get out of Brewton to somewhere with something better to do than sit around in the hospital.

Oh we had a meal appointment this week! We usually have one a transfer. It was a spontaneous one where Sister Elliott's nonmember husband (Britney's dad) was like "let's feed the sisters pizza" and then did. Maybe he's starting to like us!

Last story... we met up again with this lady named Chastity that we street contacted a while back. When we met her, I was like "it would be so funny to have an investigator named Chastity", but she wasn't too interested. We saw her outside last night and decided to stop by and check on her. We ended up hearing a life story, but more than that, she wanted us to tell her how she can have more peace and how she can help her daughter have a stronger family, and that kind of stuff which we happen to be able to help with. She said we can stop by in a few days, so we may well soon have an investigator named Chastity after all.

Appreciate yall! Keep prayin for Brewton!

-Sister Laura Cooper

Beach Vacation

Before I came out on the mission, I think I had a limited idea of what a fun vacation is. Usually, it would have to involve swimsuits, theme parks, airplanes, and sand. This week we had our zwick vacation! And even though we had to stay dressed up the whole time, we had to drive there through backwoodsy roads, I slept on the floor, and it involved about 9 hours total of hearing old people talk, I thoroughly enjoyed Zwickcation! 

The half mission conference was held in Fort Walton Beach (hence the title of beach vacation, although we only saw the beach from a passing distance), and the night before we got to go to a member-missionary fireside as well. Not sure how long that was supposed to be, but we didn't get back to our one night residence of the Niceville apartment until like 10. Elder Zwick was basically calling on unsuspecting members to share missionary experiences like the whole time. People were scared haha.

At the conference the next day, the four west mission zones gathered to hear Pres and Sister Smith, and Elder and Sister Zwick. Elder Zwick told a lot of stories from his mission like the time he was training a new missionary and opening a new proselyting area. In order to do this, he and his trainee had to buy some horses in Argentina and swim them across the Bolivian border (which was illegal), and use them to haul materials to build a chapel in this little Bolivian villiage. He stayed there for 17 months, trying to finish the chapel and build a water well so that the people had something to drink instead of the corn liquor they were dependent on. I was like "whoa and I thought I was cool when me and sister bennion were the first Defuniak sisters."

And then in his after lunch talk, he was going on about working with members and I asked him how we could help a branch do missionary work on others, when they are still returning members or recent converts themselves. He ended up directing like half of the rest of his talk to me. It was too funny and a little awkward.

I had better move on to the rest of the week. We had a special experience with one of our family history contacts I've mentioned before. We have been just fellowshipping with her and doing some family history for her, but this week she asked us if we are in school or anything and we said no, we are nothing but missionaries right now. She was like wow you have it easy, you get to do family history all day, and then we got to be like, actually this is what we do! And I gave her a Plan of Salvation pamphlets. She said she would read it. :)

Another sweet thing that happened is we got to meet with the new relief society president for Jay and explain Brewton in its fullness to her. She told us all about her crazy younger years and how she feels like she can help the members of Brewton who struggle so much with addictions and hardships. She is going to be like our best friend up here. 

Okay, I've got to get on sending some pictures home from this members computer that will give me who knows what argument when I plug my camera in. Wish me luck lol!

Love y'all!

-Sister Laura Cooper