Zone Leader and a new Companion

Hey Family and Friends!!!
   Man!! What a week!! This has been one of the best weeks of my mission. My new companion Elder Shiner is the man and we have such a blast together!! My area is so sweet!! We have 2 Baptisms lined up for this week and the week after that and we will have a high possibility of 2 more!! Our apartment is by far the best apartment I've ever had!! It's 2 stories and it has wifi!! haha. I love being a zone leader! We also have a full time car. We have a solid ward as well. We have almost every night filled with dinners. I've never had this many dinners. This transfer is just too good to be true. I love it!!

Tuesday: We had an awesome transfer meeting. Lots of fun and I got to see a lot of the my friends. I'm getting to know more and more of the missionaries and I love it. I hope that these people will be lifelong friends. Drove to Cookeville after and got to know Elder Shiner and some other Elders in our zone. Got to the apartment and went to the Zitting's house for dinner. Then we went to the Barrett family's house. Megan the daughter is getting baptized this Saturday and her mom is getting baptized next week. They are both super excited for their baptism. The dad is a member and the other daughter is just beginning to take interest in the lessons.


Wednesday: Went up to Livingston to switch with the elders up there. Elder Fisher is the District Leader up there. I got to see him again and talk to him a bunch. Elder Fisher has one transfer left!! CRAZY!! He went with Elder Shiner to Cookeville and I went with his companions, Elder Blackburn and Hansen. We had a good time together. We taught a bunch of investigators and less actives. Livingston just became a Branch. It was awesome.

Thursday: We switched back in the morning. Went and saw a bunch of people throughout the area. We are teaching a bunch of really solid people. It's great!! We went to a part member house and we taught the mom the Plan of Salvation. The daughters are already members and the mom is looking to be baptized really soon. She just has a boyfriend and she needs to get married soon cause he is living with her.

Friday: We had a great weekly planning session. I got to know the area better. We were at the church planning when we got this call from a guy named, Ron. He was super interested and wanted to come by and get a Book of Mormon. We told him that we were at the church and we would love to give him one, so he just came by in like 10 min and we gave him copy and taught him the Restoration and gave him a church tour. It was awesome!! He is going to read it and we are going to set up a time to come teach him and his family. Later that night we had a super solid lesson with a less active family.

Saturday: It was a pretty good day. We tracted some houses and we talked with a bunch of less actives.

Sunday: Had a great first Sunday.  I was able to meet a bunch of the ward members. They are so great. Talked to a bunch of less actives and investigators after Church. It was a pretty great week.

Thank you so much for all that you've done. I love and miss you guys so much!! I love my mission!! Have a great week!!

-Love Elder Cottam

President Andersen's first baptism.

Oh I forgot to tell you that President Andersen baptized Peter!!President's first baptism on the mission. 

We feel special!! Haha

July 14, 2014

Hey Mom!!

I'm doing fantastic!! I'm super excited to be a Zone Leader!! I was so grateful to President for giving me the privilege to serve as a ZL. My new companion is Elder Shiner. I've only met him a little bit, but I've only heard great things about him. I have a really good feeling that this is going to be one of my most favorite areas. I'm not a big fan of Green Hills, but I definitely learned a lot and I'm grateful for the opportunity. I will miss Elder Peterson a lot though. He has been one of the best companions. I talked with the previous missionary today about the area and he said it's pretty solid. I feel that I was here in Green Hills for a good amount of time. For Zone Leaders, the mission has about 8 Zones and 2 ZL's per zone and they have a couple Districts in each Zone. So Elder Shiner and I help the District Leaders and we plan for Zone Meeting and Zone Conference. We work a lot with the Stake President as well. We also go on exchanges with all the District Leaders and the Assistants to President go on exchanges with us. It will be a great learning opportunity and a lot of fun. I'm stoked!!!

Peter's baptism went perfectly!! We were so happy for him. He was confirmed yesterday and you could see a glow in his eyes. It's sad to leave him, but I was grateful to see him be baptized before I left. Peter is such a great guy and he is so funny. He loves the Lord so much and he loves the church. 

So really sad news.... Elder Roney has to go home early... He was doing some service with a member and he got smacked in the head really good. Had to be rushed to the ER. His skull didn't get cracked, but it opened his skin up pretty good. If you go on Facebook to Elder Roney's profile you might be able to see the post about it. I was really bummed to hear about it. He said that he is going to come back for sure though. I said my goodbye today. We needed to go to the mission office in Brentwood to pick up his companion until transfers. He will come back though. 

Thank you so much for all you do mom. I love you so much!! I won't be able to get out that many emails today because we were running around earlier and we have a lot to do for transfers. I also got to write you a letter for your 21st birthday coming up ;) ;) I wish I could be there to party with you momma. I really do love and miss you. You're the bestest. I got the package!! Thank you!! I'll see you soon!!

-Love Elder Cottam

10 MONTHS DOWN!

We sure do miss this boy! 

10 MONTHS DOWN!!

Peter was baptized!

We got a text today from a member in Elder Cottam's ward with this picture of Peter and Elder Cottam. The text told us that Peter was baptized today!  It also said that Elder Cottam is being transferred on Tuesday to Cookville, Tennessee.  He is going to be a Zone Leader.  Way to go Elder Cottam!

Timmy

This is Timmy.  A fantastic guy!!

A Better Week!

July 7, 2014

Hey Family & Friends!!!

This week was a lot better than last week!! We were able to teach a bunch of lessons and help a lot of our investigators progress!! Peter is still planning on being baptized this Saturday and we are super pumped!! We had a fantastic lesson with him yesterday!! We had President come with us and be part of the lesson in the last hour of church. We feel that that was the changing lesson for Peter. We talked about Baptism after and we really helped him understand the importance of it and after that we were telling the whole ward and he was excited!! We showed him the font and he really enjoyed it. We still have more lessons to teach him, but hopefully we can get them all covered through the week. Peter is such a great guy and he really loves the Lord.

Monday: We did the normal pday thing and we tried to go out and find some people that night, but we didn't have any success.

Tuesday: I had a leadership training meeting to go to that took up most of the day. It was a fantastic meeting and I learned a lot!! We have solid leaders in our mission and we are really progressing. We have a bunch of goals for the mission for the year and we have been kind of low in the past couple months, but June we had the 3rd highest month in the history of the mission!! We see a lot of progress and potential in the upcoming months!! The only downside to the day was, Elder Peterson had to be with 2 new missionaries and since they didn't have bus passes, they had to tract a bunch of houses for most of the time. They got a lot done and found a lot of people, but it was rough. After dinner, we went up to area 4 and talked to a guy named, James. James has been progressing really well. We've taught him the first 3 lessons and he really likes it. He is just busy and his wife doesn't want to listen, so we have to kind of work around that. Hopefully we can help him come to church with his family. Him and Peter will be the biggest focus in the next transfer.

Wednesday & Thursday: We had a pretty solid District Meeting. I had a new Hermana give a training for the first time and she did a great job. We switched with the zone leaders after that for exchanges. I went to Antioch with Elder Harris (Different Elder Harris, we have about 3 in our mission haha). Elder Loveless came to Green Hills with Elder Peterson. We had a good exchange. It took up most of Wednesday and Thursday. Elder Harris is a great guy. He's from Orem, UT and he loves to play lacrosse. He had a couple mini lacrosse sticks in their apartment and we tossed it around a couple times. I learned a lot from him and I hope I helped him as well. Elder Peterson and Elder Loveless had a pretty good time in Green Hills. Elder Loveless was pretty impressed with how well we ran our area. They were able to have a pretty good lesson with Tyson.

Friday: We helped a member move to start of the day. It was pretty easy because we had a lot of help. We did our weekly planning. Then met some people down by the Green Hills mall. We went in for the night and we tried to see some fireworks, but couldn't see anything. Probably the worst 4th of July ever, but you know... whatever! haha. Elder Peterson and I had a pretty fun night.

Saturday: We went up to the North side of our area and we were able to meet a lot of new people. We met this awesome couple, Anthony and Winoa. We talked to them for a little bit about what we believe and about the Book of Mormon. They said they would use it for some of their personal studies. They also gave us a bottle of water... Thank goodness!! haha. It was pretty hot. Well, it's hot everyday!! haha. After dinner, we went up to area 4 and had a bunch of solid lessons. Met this one funny guy named, Tiger. haha. He changed Elder Peterson's name to Dixter because he thought he was a pretty funny guy. haha.

Sunday: We had an interesting Sunday. haha. Started off kind of rough because one of our members was giving us a ride to pick up Peter and bring him to church and they got a call from their grandson's boyfriend and he broke up with him and then punched him and it was a whole lot of drama... haha. Yeah there is too much to explain, so I hope you enjoyed that sneak peak. haha. Other than that, we had a great lesson with Peter. Met some cool people after church. Had dinner with the Myler Family. Tyson knows Bro Myler, so they invited him over for dinner. Tyson is so cool. We love teaching him. He makes us laugh every time we go over. haha.

Thanks for reading my emails. I hope you guys enjoyed! I love and miss you guys so much!! I hope you have a wonderful week!! Stay classy.

-Love Elder Cottam

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