Wednesday was craziest day of my mission, if not my life!!

Hey Family & Friends!!

This week has gone by so fast! It's insane how fast the days go by out here. Haha. It was a great week though. We had quite a bit of progress throughout the week. We have built up our teaching pool and we are still working with the members. The members don't help out as much as we need, but we are grateful for what they have done. Still trying to gain their trust and work with them.

Tuesday: We had a great Zone Conference. It has probably been the best Zone Conference we've ever had. I learned so much and felt the Spirit so strong. They focused on talking to everyone and teaching with the Restoration pamphlets. They told us some tips on how we can talk to a bunch of people. The Church has also started to have us teach using the pamphlets they give us. They want us to start using this method they taught us and start teaching shorter, but more powerful lessons.

They taught us to teach like the Angels teach in the Scriptures:

-"Look!"

-What do you see?

-We explain and teach the simple Doctrine

-Bear testimony and tie it into the next Doctrine

There's a lot more that goes into it, but it's pretty simple and easy and it really helps the people we are teaching learn and understand the most important parts of the message. It's pretty cool.

Wednesday: This was probably one of the craziest days of my Mission. Oh how I wish you guys could've been there!! Hahaha. So one of our members gave us this guy's phone number and said to give him a call because he needed help moving. So we called him on Sunday and he said that he would need our help Wednesday. So, we met him a this Coffee Shop. We go inside and we see a guy waving at us and he is wearing 2 dress shirts, basketball shorts and a rainbow hat!! He was a total hippie. Haha it was the best. We started talking with him and he is this famous poet. He had the craziest personality. He was all over the place when he was talking to us. Anyways, we waited for the rest of his friends to get there, then we headed to this one guys house. We still weren't sure what we were moving... Haha. We get to the friends house and we meet his friends who were also rich hippies who wrote a bunch of music for some artists. Haha. It was the craziest experience. They had so much energy and they were talking about one subject then moving to a completely different one. Then, we went up stairs to see what we were helping them move and it ended up being these huge mineral rock crystals. They were very rare, but super heavy! Haha. Elder Harris and I moved all of them while they just stood outside watching. I'm thinking to myself the whole time, "What are we doing?? What are these for??" Haha. Then, they decided to drive back, but we had to pick up this giant older generation TV. So, we get back to the main guys apartment and we move all the rocks and the TV again into his place. Turns out he has a bunch of smaller crystals in his apartment that are lined up around his whole place. He says he uses them to write poetry and songs. He also told us how he channels the Archangel, Michael through the crystals... Mind Blown! Like I said, the craziest day of my Mission, if not my life!! Haha. Then, later that day, we met a potential investigator that the Elders had been talking to in the past and he was talking to us about aliens and extraterrestrial beings and it was just too much. He was a nice guy, but just way off topic. Haha. Then, we gave a blessing at the Hospital. By the way, if you didn't already know this, there are so many Hospitals here!! Every other block is a Hospital. Vanderbilt isn't the only Hospital, but it covers most of the area!! Yep, that was my day.

Thursday: We all went over to Nashville and tried to find a bunch of people they were teaching in the past, but we didn't have a ton of success. We did have an awesome Dinner with the Bishop and his wife. They took us to a Southern BBQ place. It was super good! We had a great talk with them about the Ward and what we wanted to do in the area. It went really well. We came back and tracked in the pouring rain. It was awesome! We found this one guy named, Zach. He seemed really interested. We also talked to this guy who was really confused and we ended up giving him a Book of Mormon and he gave us 2 bananas!! Haha. We were walking in the rain eating bananas!! Haha. It was the greatest!!

Friday: We had a pretty good weekly planning. Then, around 4:00 we switched with the Bellevue Elders and went on exchanges. I went to Bellevue with Elder Lovell and Elder Randell went with Elder Harris to Green Hills. Elder Lovell is an awesome missionary!! It was so fun to be with him. We had so many people drop our appointments or cancel, but it was a great exchange overall. We had a great lesson with Jerry & his family that night.

Saturday: We had a lot of people fall through, but we had a miracle in the afternoon while tracting some apartments. We met his guy named Andrew. He was this big black guy and he was super friendly. He was telling us that they look up a new Church every Sunday and go to it cause they haven't found one that felt right. It was an awesome experience!! We talked to him about the Book of Mormon and Church. He said that he would come and bring his family.

Sunday: Had a great time at Church. I stayed with Elder Lovell and went to their Ward because it worked out the best for the all of us. Got to know their ward. Good relaxing day!!

Had a crazy week, but I'm having a lot of fun and learning so much! Thanks for all you guys do! I love you! I miss you! Have a great week!!

-Love Elder Cottam