Week two in Tennessee

March 24, 2014

Hey Family & Friends!!

This week has been a crazy week, but it has been a lot better than the week before. We're still getting used to the area, but we are making progress. We have been focusing on the members a lot and we have been trying to get as many visits as we can with them. This area is still super different than Marion, but I'm learning to love it. We found some really cool people this week and hopefully we can help them progress.

Monday: We had a pretty good Pday last week. We woke up early to go to the Church for the Mission Choir. Elder Harris wanted to be in the choir, so I just emailed the whole time he was doing the choir, so I was happy. I was so glad that I was able to get a lot of emailing done. I'm pretty sure I'm caught up with responding to everyone. If I haven't responded to you, please forgive me and resend your email. Haha. Thank you so much for all the emails you guys send me. I love each and everyone of them. Anyways, after the practice was over, we played volleyball with our District at the Church. We had a lot of fun! We played a couple other games, then we went to lunch. Elder Harris didn't get to email yet, so we went to the library. He broke his iPad already and he supposed to be getting a new one. haha. After the library, we went back home and wrote letters and relaxed. We ended our Pday with dinner. We tried to see a couple members and investigators after dinner, but no one was home. It was a good Pday overall.

Tuesday: We headed up to the north part of Nashville to see a couple of people the previous Elders had seen. We call the north part of Nashville, "The Sticks" or "Ghetto". Haha. It's pretty crazy up there. It's completely different than Brentwood. That's for sure. There's a lot of good people up there. We tried to see a previous investigator, but he wasn't home. So, we started to tract the area. We found two potentials, Margaret & Steve. Not sure how interested they are, but we will see. We spent most of the day up there. We came back for dinner. The Jones Family fed us dinner and we shared a message with them. They are super nice. We had a great lesson with them and we talked a lot about missionary work and how we needed their help. Most of our success in Green Hills comes from, member referrals. Tracting doesn't work as well as it does in Marion. Sometimes it does, but most of the time it doesn't. The whole Mission wants us to focus on member referrals. After the delicious dinner, we tracted some houses around the Jones Family and found a really cool guy named, Neil. After that, we had an exchange with a guy in our ward, Bro Myler. We didn't have a ton of people to see because we are still new to the area, so we helped him with some home teaching. We went to the Westbrook Family (already knew them a little bit because he is the assistant ward mission leader). They are great! They do so much for us. We also saw this less active member. She was wasn't feeling good, so she didn't want us to stay too long, but we got to know her a little bit and invited her to Church. It was a good exchange!

Wednesday: We had a great District Meeting. I like my District a lot. We went to Sweet Cece's after. It's pretty much Yogurt Land. We like to go there because a member owns it and Missionaries eat free!! Haha. Love it! Afterwards, we met one of our progressing investigators, William. He works at Home Depot and he sells newspapers. So, we were heading to the bus and decided to text him and see if he would be in his normal spot of selling newspapers. He was, so we started to talk to him and get to know him better. We talked about what the previous missionaries had taught him. He has pretty much been taught all the lessons, so we asked him if he would be Baptized on April 5th and he said yes!!! We were so excited!! It was awesome. He said he was going to come to Church on Sunday, but we texted him yesterday asking if he was going to come, but he said he had the stomach flu. So, we are probably going to postpone the date. Then, the worst part was after Church, we were heading back to our place and we saw him selling newspapers again!! :P We were really mad that he lied to us, but hopefully we can meet up with him this week and talk about it with him. Hopefully we can get him to have a desire to come to Church and be Baptized when he is ready. Hopefully it goes well. Anyways, we talked with William on Wednesday and after that, we headed back up to see more members by our apartment. We didn't have much success, but we are doing a great job at updating our Ward Member List. We then headed to Cheesecake Factory and had dinner with a member of our ward, Sis Tanner. She is an older lady who is retired and she loves to feed the Missionaries, so she took us to Cheesecake Factory. It was super delicious!! It's so nice to have members that will feed you. That's the only thing that sucked with Marion was the low amount of dinners. We went tracting after and met this really cool guy named, Mark. He is golden!! He had so many questions and so much energy! It was an awesome lesson! He let us inside and we told him more and it went really great.

Thursday: We tried to see a bunch of members that were by our apartment again. (We found all the members that lived in a good 2 mile radius of us and started with them. That's what we've been doing this whole week) We didn't have much success, but we were able to meet the Wright family and get to know them a little better. Then we went to the Westbrook's house for dinner. She fed us a great dinner and we had a great lesson with them. We went out with Bro Westbrook on exchanges and tried to see a couple less active members. We were able to see Bro Joel Hardin and had a great talk with him. He has been inactive for quite some time, but we invited him to Church. He was really cool and super nice to us. It went really well.

Friday: We headed up to the North side again and had a pretty good lesson with a guy named George. We talked about what he has learned from the previous Missionaries and had a great discussion about the Book of Mormon and the Priesthood. We were also supposed to meet this guy named, Don, but we didn't have time, but we called him and we rescheduled for this Wednesday. Don was saying he saw this documentary about Joseph Smith on the History Channel and was really interested, so we are excited to see him. He sounds golden! We came back and had a great lesson with the Perry Family. They are members that lived close to us. Talked about Missionary work and the area. We came back to our place and started Weekly Planning. We pretty much Weekly Planned the rest of the night and Bro Aros cooked us dinner and brought it over. It was super good too! All of the meals that I've had on my Mission, I've loved! Except this one time they just fed us beans :P but other than that, I've loved it all! I'm trying a bunch of new things too. But, NONE of the food taste like Grandma's cooking!! Nothing will ever compare. Haha. It was a pretty good day.

Saturday: We had correlation with our Ward Mission Leader, Bro Rob Smith. (Hahahaha I couldn't believe that his name was that!!) We talked about our area and what we needed and it went really well. He was excited with our progress. We also got to see the Green Hills YSA have Baptism. It went really well. After that, we tracted around the Church and found this awesome lady named, Casey. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she said it was on her top list of books to read because she knows a lot of Mormons. It was pretty sweet. We went to the Thomas Family for dinner. It was way good! We had a nice lesson with them about Missionary work and we got to know them really well. We found this really nice guy that lived by the Thomas family. Gave him a Book of Mormon and had a great discussion with him. We also went over to the White Family and had a lesson with them. They are disabled and it's so sad, but they are amazing and they do so much for us.

Sunday: Had a great time at Church! Got to know the Ward a little bit better. Most have them have been gone for the past 2 weeks because of Spring Break. It kind of sucks, but oh well. Haha. We met this girl named, Bonnie while tracting after Church. We also had the Lambert Family drop off dinner. After dinner we tried to see some more members. Had a pretty good chat with a less active member named, Evan. It was a good a Sabbath.

Today we have done laundry and we will go to the Mall with the bellevue Elders after we get done with emailing. It should be a good fun day!

Thank you so much for all that you've done! I love and miss you guys so much!! Have a fantastic week!!

-Love Elder Cottam