3rd week in Marion!

Hey Family!

  The past month has been a crazy adventure! I couldn't do it without your help and your prayers. Thanks for all the support and letters. I wish that I could take a whole day and write to each one of you, but I just don't have the time. I am trying my best to write you guys back. Thanks for all the emails and letters. They warm my heart!

 

  Well Missionary Life is pretty intense! I am trying my best to be Obedient with Exactness and I have a fantastic trainer! Elder Fisher has taught me so much and I am so blessed to have him in my life!  We get along great! He is the best! I am so grateful to have a trainer that is so obedient! I have learned so much from him. We teach each other and we have a great time together. He is so funny! The Lord knew that we would work well together.

Well right now, we are just trying to contact the less active members in Marion, but we aren't finding very many of them. Either they aren't home, wrong address, or they have moved. That's okay though cause we are finding a lot of people to talk to. They are full of love in Marion. They just have a hard time changing, but we have a good feeling about this area. We don't have a ton of progressing investigators, but we are just starting out with the basics. It is cool to see how the Church expands. I can't wait to get a Family Home Evening started. If we can do that, we should be set. We are finding a lot of potential investigators. The prayers from you guys have helped a lot. I pray for you guys all the time!

 

  The food is... well, we don't have a member in Marion, so we haven't had too many members feeding us dinner. But that is okay! We have $125.00 per month to spend on food and every PDay we get to buy groceries for the house. I have to watch what I get, but I can find a lot of basic foods. I am using my money well and I am getting 3 meals every day. We also ate at the local restaurants in Princeton since it took awhile to get a place in Marion. The places are pretty much the same as in Utah. The members also take us out to eat when we are in Princeton. They have given us so much and we are so blessed to have them in our lives. 

  We recently went to the Ham Festival in Cadiz, KY. We had a TON of success. We had so much help and support from the Ward and so much help from other missionaries in the District. This was a 2 day Fair. The results are:

 

-95+ Copies of the Book of Mormon

-3500 Pass Along Cards

-222 Surveys given out

-15 Lessons Taught

-20 Members

-8 Sets of Missionaries (4 Sets each day) (Elder Fisher and I did both days..Tired... haha)

  We had a lot of success with that. Salt Lake contacted the First Counselor and he told us that the Church was so proud and so blown away with the numbers we produced!

 After the first day, the members that helped with the booth also took us out to Cadiz Restaurant. It was a buffet style restaurant and it had SO much food. That was the first time I had "real" Kentucky Fried Chicken. haha. It tasted the same. haha. So you don't have to worry about the food. I also tried my first Deep Fried Pizza!!! and Deep Fried Candy Bar!!! (Snickers) The candy bar was so DELICIOUS!!! haha. Don't worry Lauren, I still weigh 150 and I work out every morning. We also walk a lot!  SO I'M NOT GETTING FAT! haha.  I love you guys! I miss you!

 

-Love Elder Cottam

These are the only pictures we received from Tyson this week.  I guess Elder Fisher had to sleep on the floor the first few nights.  Now he has a bed!  The Senior Missionaries made sure they have everything they need. Tyson said it was taking too long to upload pictures, so he is sending us his photo card.  Hopefully we will have more pictures by the end of the week!