A pretty crazy week.......

Hey Family and Friends!!

  Man we have had a crazy week so far. haha. A lot of fun and a lot of progress with our investigators. We haven't had any new baptismal dates, but our investigators are making a lot of progress. As soon as we get somewhere to meet in Marion, we will be able to start family home evenings, sacrament meetings, and other fun activities. We really feel that once we get that, we will see a lot of baptisms and a lot of people learning about the Gospel. I love it!! You know, our weekly report to our zone leaders hasn't been the best we've done in a week, but it's not about numbers. Elder Roney and I are really making progress and we are really working hard. I feel an overwhelming sense of peace for the work we've done. Elder Roney has done a fantastic job. He has learned a lot and I have learned a lot from him. We both enjoy having each other around and we are getting a lot better at working in unity. He listens to my direction and he is obedient with exactness. I love him already. He is such a character sometimes. haha. I am having so much fun and I continue to enjoy being a missionary. I love sharing the Gospel with others and I love teaching them about the Book of Mormon. The more I read and study the Book of Mormon, the more I realize the truthfulness it contains. I have never come to understand the Book of Mormon more than I do right now. I have so much to learn and study and I love that I have so much to read and think about. Each and everyday I find more and more things to read and pray about. I love that I have a book that has endless things to study and ponder about. I love how it applies so much to me personally.

 

  This week was a pretty crazy week. haha. Elder Roney and I went on an exchange with Elder Short and Elder Lofthouse. They are in Princeton now. They replaced the sisters that were there. They are pretty funny Elders and they pretty unique. haha. Elder Lofthouse came up to Marion, while I went down to Princeton with Elder Short. We switched Friday night and we switched back at Church on Sunday. It's pretty funny, we all come from Utah and he lives pretty close to us. Elder Short lives in Herriman. It was a pretty cool "small world" moment when we first met each other cause he said that he worked at the District in the movie theather, so I asked him a couple names and he asked me if I knew a couple people and we ended up both knowing the Barlow twins. haha. We also knew Megan Judd. It was a pretty cool moment to talk about some people we knew. Anyways, the exchange was filled with crazy stuff. (More on Elder Roney's side haha) I helped Elder Short with getting the branch member list up to date. Elder Lofthouse ate a ton of my food... wasn't too happy about that. Now Elder Roney are trying to recover the crazy day. haha. Let's just say, Elder Roney and I are glad we are companions.

 

  Our investigators are doing pretty good, it will just take them some time until they know this Church is true. Hopefully they sincerely pray to Heavenly Father and find out soon. I love our investigators and I love the people of Marion. They are so kind and geneuine. I'm also finding a lot of success on Facebook. It's really easy to link others to different sources. The work is really moving forward!

 

  Thank you so much for all that you guys do. Keep the emails and letters coming. I love and miss you so much and I'm always praying for you guys. Thanks for all of your prayers. I can truly feel them and I can feel your love and support. You're the best! Love ya!

 

-Love Elder Cottam

Super COLD!!

Hey Family and Friends!!

  Man it's super cold in Kentucky!! haha. The weather was in the single digits yesterday. The library was closed yesterday, so we are emailing today. Thank you for being patient.

 

  We've had a crazy week. We had a fantastic New Year. We got to sleep in for once as well!! A whole 15 extra minutes!! YES!! haha. I know, not that much. We had to get up at 6:45 because we had to drive down to Princeton, then to Hopkinsville for a Zone Pday. We got to play a bunch of games and hang out with a bunch of missionaries. It was a blast!! The best part of the whole day was... PING PONG!!!!! Elder Smith (Senior Missionary) brought the net, some paddles, and some ping pong balls. IT WAS LEGIT!! The stake center already had a table. We need to get a ping pong table at our stake center!! haha. I just want all of you to know, I totally dominated on the field!! We had a ton of missionaries come and none of them could take me. Elder Smith was pretty good himself and he got pretty upset when I beat him. haha. It felt really good to play ping pong. It felt like I was playing grandpa when I was playing Elder Smith. I loved every minute of it.

 

  So most of the day we played games, ate food, and chatted it up. We are allowed one full day off as a missionary and they make New Years that day. It was pretty sweet. We were also allowed to watch one Disney Movie. They gave us 3 choices for all of the zone to pick from. I picked Wreck it Ralph, but the vote went to Monster's University. I was so upset. haha. But I loved watching it anyways.

 

  I also got to give my first baptismal interview as a District Leader!! The Hopkinsville Elders has a guy named Chris. He is super cool. He is has a strong testimony and he just got baptized on Sunday. I wish I could've seen the baptism, but it was too far away for us to drive. I got to talk to him about his reasoning for joining the church and it was such a cool experience. I loved it!!

 

  The rest of the week went okay. Elder Roney and I went on an exchange with the Zone Leaders. That was pretty cool. Elder Laufiso came to Marion and I went with Elder Weed to Clarksville. It was the first time that I have done missionary work outside of Marion. haha. All the other exchanges in the past have been my companion going to another area and I stay in Marion. The work is really different being in an area like Clarksville. Clarksville is really big!! haha. It was definitely a twist. Elder Weed and I had a great time. Elder Weed is so funny. He is a great missionary and a fun Zone Leader. haha.

 

  The next day we switched back and Elder Roney and I had a Trainer/ Trainee meeting in Tennessee. The only problem was, the morning that we were going to switch back and drive to Tennessee, I got super sick. I got this weird bug for the whole day. I couldn't keep anything down. We still drove down, but it wasn't fun. Elder Roney participated, but I just layed down in a classroom in the church. It wasn't a fun day at all. Luckily it only was for a day and I felt better the next day. President and Sister Anderson took such great care of me though. They did all they could to help. Even though they were still helping out with the meeting, when they switched to go to another room, they came and made sure I was doing okay. They are amazing. I love them so much.

 

  The next couple days went pretty good. Yesterday on Pday we wrote a bunch of letters, went to a couple stores, and just relaxed. It was a pretty good day. Cold, but good. haha.

 

  As you guys have seen, I'm a Facebook Missionary. The Church has found a lot of success when obedient missionaries are online. I have had the privilege to be accepted to use it. I hope to be friends with all of you. I can't message you or anything like that while I'm on, but I hope you enjoy my post. The work is really moving forward.

 

  Our investigators are progressing, but slowly. Jay is still working on Baptism, but he doesn't want to quit smoking. He has been coming to church and he loves it, but that's about it. Sheldon loves having us come over. He always feeds us something when we are over. haha. Elder Roney and Elder Laufiso saw him last Thursday and they said they had a great lesson with him. We love going to his house and sharing a message to him. It's a lot for him to take in, but he will understand soon enough. Kendra is still reading the Book of Mormon, but she is pretty busy. She loves having us over and she is learning a lot from the Book of Mormon. She is pretty awesome! I really enjoy her name :D haha. We just started teaching a kid named Dylan. We met his family a couple weeks back. He seems interested. Facebook has allowed me to give him links to Lds.org, MormonChannel.org, and other websites. I love using Facebook. It really helps move the work forward.

 

  Thank you so much for all the letters/emails. Keep them coming!! I love you guys. I'm having a lot of fun!! I'm learning so much about this amazing Gospel. I wish I could show you how much I'm learning. This Gospel is true!! I love being a servant of the Lord. I love having your support. It helps me so much!!! I love and miss all of you so much.

 

-Love Elder Cottam

Wow! What a week!

Elder Cottam will be on Facebook soon.  This is his profile picture. If he adds you as a friend you can see all of his mission posts.  

Hey Family and Friends!!

  Wow!! What a week!! I had a fantastic Christmas and I hope you guys had a fantastic one as well. I loved seeing you guys!! It brought warmeth to my heart and it has been a big motivation to do even better since that day!! Thank you so much for all the packages, and letters that were full of love. I truly enjoy everything you guys give to me and I can never repay you. I hope the letters that I send back to you tell you of my love for you guys. I am so blessed to have you guys in my life!!

 

  This week has been kind of slow because a lot of people have been busy, due to the Holidays. We had two really good lessons with Jay and Seldon. They are our top two investigators. We went to Seldon's house on Thursday and we had a really cool "Testimony Lesson". Brother Aherns was with us and he took up most of the time with his conversion story and his testimony. We feel Seldon really enjoyed it. Seldon is making a lot of progress. Brother Aherns had a great night. haha. We have also been teaching Jay about the Word of Wisdom. He likes to smoke a pipe and drink coffee. We committed him to keep the Word of Wisdom for a couple days and we would come back and see how he was doing. He did pretty good, but he could only go about a day. Sister Aherns gave us this substitute for coffee called, "Pero". Hopefully it works for him.

 

  By the way, we tracted into this really nice mom last week. She let us in and we told her about the Book of Mormon and told her some of our beliefs. We read some of the Articles of Faith. We think she has really good potential. The best part is, her name is Jenny. So now we are teaching a Kendra and a Jenny.... haha... Now we are looking for some Bradys and we will be set!! haha. I love it!!

 

  We had a pretty sweet week and are planning on another awesome week this week!! We have a fun Pday planned for today. We plan on going bowling. Then on Tuesday, we will go inside at 6pm because it's New Years Eve. Then we have the ENTIRE day off for New Years. We are having a huge party in Hopkinsville with our Zone. IT WILL BE A BLAST!! Then on Thursday, we have district meeting and I have a pretty sweet training planned!! Then on Friday, we are going to Tennessee for a "Trainer-Trainee" meeting. So, we have a pretty busy week, but it should be fun!!

 

  Thank you so much for all you guys do. I hope you have a fantastic New Year!! I hope your week goes well! I love and miss you guys!!

 

-Love Elder Cottam

Christmas Skype

We got to talk to Elder Cottam on Christmas through Skype.  We didn't have a very good connection so we didn't get to see him very clearly.  It was still so fun to kind of see his cute face and hear his voice.  We got to talk to him a few different times with different family members there.  It was awesome!!  It is hard though, so I can understand why we only get to do it a few times while he is gone.  It definitely makes us miss him so much!  At my grandpa's house we were able to hook it up to the big TV so we could all see him.  Here are a few of the pictures we got while we were talking to him.  

This is Elder Cottam's excited face!!

Here he is talking to his 

Grandma and Grandpa Beck!

HEY EVERYONE!!!!

  I love my mission!!! Like always, haha :D This week has been a crazy week, but we've had a very successful week.

 

  So you guys heard with my last email about me being District leader and being a Trainer!! I was so stoked when President called me and told me that I was going to train, then he also added District leader and I was blown away!! My new "Trainee" is Elder Roney! He is awesome! He is exactly obedient and he works hard. We've had a lot of success. It was a pretty crazy week trying to get into the swing of things, but we've got things started and now we are moving forward.

 

  Elder Roney is from Provo, Utah!! He is about 6'3". I always get the tall companions. He is a cowboy... haha. He even has an accent sometimes!!  I asked him what he thought about being called to this mission and he said that he loved it!! haha.

 

  The past couple days, I've been showing him the mission life and trying my best to teach him the life of a missionary. He is so funny and he listens really well to me. He doesn't question why we do things, he just gets up and does the work. I love it! He is a hard worker and we've got along really well. He is still a little shy at the door, but we are working to have "Comp Unity". Our lessons have been going really well and we are both learning a lot.

 

  I love training a new missionary and I'm grateful for the opportunity President Anderson has given. I'm learning so much and I love learning how others share the Gospel. I expect a lot of great things in the future!

 

  So, Elder Roney's first day was quite the experience. We started the day off with district meeting. (Every Wednesday is district meeting) I've got to know my district and we had a great meeting. Some of the missionaries were new and some of them stayed. We all learned a lot and felt the Spirit. The rest of the day I was introducing him to some of our members and some of our investigators. That night we went to Jay's house. Jay is an older gentleman that we found on one of the first weeks I was in the area. So, we've been teaching Jay for a long time. Jay is a little hard to teach cause he can't really see very well and he gets distracted really easy... haha. So, recently we've been going over and reading the Book of Mormon with him. Elder Roney and I went over and read with him and started talking to him a little bit. We ended up inviting him to be baptized, but he said that he has already been baptized, so we talked with him more and explained that the Priesthood is very important with baptism. Then he said that we wouldn't mind being baptized again!!!! We set a date with him for January 4th!!!!! It was awesome!!!! Jay still has a lot to understand, but we feel he can come to know the truth of the Gospel.

 

  Anyways, awesome week!! Thanks for all the support and love! I loved all the packages and letters that I've received!! It will take me awhile to write to you guys back, so be patient with me. haha. I love you guys!! I can't wait to see you on Christmas!! Thanks for being awesome! I love and miss you so much!! See you soon!

 

-Love Elder Cottam

 

P.S. Not too happy with all the presents you guys sent me... I told you not to send me that much... hahaha Thanks for everything, I haven't opened them yet. LOVE YA!

Transfers

Hey Family and Friends!

  Man what a week!! Crazy stuff has been happening!! This is the last week of the transfer. It is Elder Fincher's last few days as a missionary and he has taught me a lot. Elder Fincher has been a great missionary and a fantastic companion to me. I'm sad that he is leaving and I will miss him. He will do well with the rest of his life and I know that he will go far in the Gospel.

  Well Transfer Calls came on Saturday... and I've got some big news for you guys. But I'm going to make you wait. haha. So, since Elder Fincher is going home, I knew for sure that I was going to get a new companion. I didn't know if I was going to stay in Marion and get a new companion or move to another area. So, transfer calls are pretty intense stuff. My district got moved around quite a bit. We have 5 missionaries coming into our District. It's going to be a crazy adventure getting to know them. Our District has 5 sets of missionaries and 2 sets of senior missionaries. We have a really big District.

  We've had a crazy past week. Elder Fincher was super "trunky" this past week, but we've stayed pretty focused and we've accomplished quite a bit. We are making progress with quite a bit of our investigators. We are teaching a guy named Seldon. We have really spiritual lessons with him. He just needs time to take all the information that we give him and soak it all in. haha. We've asked him to pray to Heavenly Father and find out for himself. I love going to his house. The Spirit is so strong.

  We are still teaching the girl named Kendra. We had a really great lesson with her and her friend last week. She is reading the Book of Mormon and making a lot of progress. The only thing that's hard with her is we need members to be present. We don't have a ton of members in our Princeton Branch, but we are making a lot of progress. More and more people are coming to Church and it's so cool to see the progress of our little church.

  We are still teaching Jay. He is an older gentleman. He can't see very well, so we go over and read scriptures with him on a weekly basis. He loves having us over.

  I love seeing the progression of so many people. It feels me with joy to see them come closer to Christ. I love sharing the gospel and I love being a missionary. I love it all!! I'm having so much fun. I really am. You guys have helped me so much. I love all the support and I treasure everything that I get from you guys. I am received so many packages and letters!! Elder Fincher is super jealous!! haha. It will take me awhile to write everyone back. Please be patient with me. 

  Okay, I'll finally tell you about my transfer call.  I"M GOING TO TRAIN A NEW MISSIONARY!!!! and I"M GOING TO BE DISTRICT LEADER!!! AHHHHH!!! hahaha. I'm so excited and so privileged to train and be a district leader. I can't wait to get into the swing of things.

  I'll explain more later. Right now I'm at our Transfer Breakfast and we are about to start. Thanks for all the love and support!! I'll talk to you guys soon. Sorry I didn't get to write very many of you. It will be a crazy day today and we won't have a lot of time. I love you guys! I miss you guys. I'll see you soon!!

-Love Elder Cottam

P.S.  I'M STAYING IN MARION!!! Sorry, I forgot to add that! 

In Elder Cottam's last letter he said he was stuck inside for almost three full days because of bad weather!  These random and crazy pictures were the result of that!  Enjoy!
   

 Snow Fun!

Selfies

What is he eating??

Banana pancakes gone wrong!

Really Random!!

Driving around Marion

And the best for last..........

Hopefully they don't have anymore 

bad weather!