Rough Week.....

June 30, 2014

Hey Family and Friends!!
This week has been a rough one, but you have those every once in awhile. Haha. We're all good now!! The Green Hills area is moving forward. We are finally starting to see a lot of progression in the people we teach and we love it!!

Monday: We had a great exchange. We went on splits with Bro Aros and Bro Myler. Bro Aros was the only one we were supposed to go out with, but since we had a set appointment with a guy named, Tyson, we had Bro Myler come with us because he knew Tyson from work. Great connection!! Elder Peterson went with Bro Myler to see Tyson and they had a great lesson with him. I went all over Nashville with Bro Aros. Too many people weren't home of course, but we were able to have two lessons with Fred and Victor. Victor and Bro Aros really connected because they are both Hispanic. It was a good day. On the way home, I asked Bro Aros if he had ate at the "Mellow Mushroom" (pizza place) and he said he hadn't, but then he was like, "Should we grab a pizza??" I was like sure!! Haha. So we came back to Elder Peterson and Bro Myler with a giant pizza. It was pretty great.

Tuesday: We met this awesome lady named, Ellie. (Wow!! I'm finding a bunch of people with similar names) We went to the bus stop and she was sitting there. We start talking to her and it turns out that she had a bunch of Mormon friends and she had 2 copies of the Book of Mormon. We start talking with her and getting to know her. She is really sweet. She speaks English perfectly, but she is Hispanic.  She is just super busy with work because she is a nurse at Vanderbilt. We got her information and we told her about the awesome Spanish Sister missionaries. She was super excited. The sisters called us yesterday and said they set up an appointment with her and they are excited. After dinner, we had a super powerful lesson with Andrea. We taught her the Plan of Salvation. It went really well!! She really enjoyed it and she said that it makes sense.

Wednesday: We had a really great District Meeting! Elder Peterson gave a fantastic training on using the scriptures when we teach. It was so funny!! Then the rest of the day was pretty slow. We had an interesting lesson with Peter. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it went well, but then he had a struggle with understanding Adam and Eve and God's plan for them. He wanted to move his baptismal date to he 12th of July. Hopefully everything will iron out.

Thursday: We met this really cool guy named, Jacob. (God is pretty funny with all the people I met). Jacob is in his 20's and he is a gamer. Elder Peterson really connected well because Elder Peterson loves video games. Elder Peterson needed to go to the dentist, but that was a bad situation because he guy was a jerk and they couldn't really help him. Then we went to California pizza with a couple members. It was pretty good, but super expensive. Lucky we had the member with us. Haha. We had a good exchange with Bro Lambert. Saw some cool people and taught James the Plan of Salvation

Friday: Worst day ever. So the past couple days, Elder Peterson an I have been getting these red bites on our legs. We didn't know if they were mosquito bites, or spider bites, or bed bug bites, or what. We talked to Sis Andersen the night before and she told us to call Sis Johnson. We called her Friday morning after we got done with our service project. She we thinking it was most likely bed bugs. So she had us go home and clean the place and take all our sheets and clothes and put them in a bag. Elder and Sister Johnson went to Walmart and got a bunch of stuff and grabbed a couple things and then came over to evaluate the situation. We spent most of the day cleaning and washing laundry, and getting supplies and all that junk. The Johnson's were so nice to us though. They helped us with everything. We've been watching closely and we haven't really had more bites. We weren't even sure if they were bed but bites. They looked like them, b we looked really closely on our mattress and couldn't find any. It was just a mess of a situation.

Saturday: We did our Weekly Planning session since we had to run around all day. We found a lot of new people and had some decent lessons later that night.

Sunday: We had a good Church service. We spent the last hour of Church with Peter and a member. We showed him the Restoration video. He enjoyed it, but he is still trying to figure out some things.

Crazy week, but we made it through it. Thanks for reading my emails and for supporting me. I hope all of you are well. I love and miss you so much. Have an awesome week!

-Love Elder Cottam