Latest Random Comments

How was girls camp? Crazy as it usually is, I suppose? lol. That is good that Matthew got to spend so much time with Kristen before she leaves, I think. That blows my mind that he will be 14 when she gets back!

There aren't too many fires around here. It's too wet all the time. Although it has been so hot lately that a lot of plants have been dying. We stained a deck for like, 6 hours yesterday. It was wayy hot. I got sun-burnt, but not too bad. Did you know vinigar helps with sun burns? Crazy. Found that out last night. We had dinner with some members from a ward I was in in this same district. They came over to a member's house in this ward. It was nice to see them again.

Some member's here brought some people to church this last Sunday. It's his boss' son and his girlfriend. We're going to teach them in the member's home this Friday. I'm pretty stoked!

Leadership meeting is tomorrow. I'll be going 2 hours to Galesberg tonight, staying the night there, then tomorrow moring we'll drive to Iowa City. from Iowa City we go to Des Moines. We've got to be there by 11 AM. we'll be in the meeting all day then drive back to peoria that night. It's going to be a long day! lol.

I love bishop Martin too! He's pretty dang legit. And for sure I'm going to have to go biking with Welge when I get back! He's a beast. 50's and still going hard. What a champ.

Tell Matthew I love him and can't wait to see him either!

Love you and can't wait to see you too!

Coop

Nearly Done Updates

Hola.

What's up?

Things here are going pretty well. Had my very last zone conference this last week. It was pretty crazy thinking that I'm not going to be having another one again... ever lol. If it's your last zone conference they have you get up and bare your testimony, so I got to do that. It was pretty sweet.

This transfer has gone by pretty fast. This is the last full week of this transfer. I think I'll be with Monsour another one though. I'm happy about that. He's a really cool guy.

Things are going well in Pekin for the most part. We have a girl named Jericha that wants to get baptized. Just not sure when yet. We also Have a 14 year old kid named Brandon that wants to be baptized, but it's lame because his dad won't let him :( Brandon is friends with a kid in the ward, and they're going to work on his dad. So hopefully he changes his mind.

My going home temple trip is going to be tomorrow! I'm way excited for that. I haven're been to the temple in like 14 months. It'll be kinda bittersweet though. Everyone tells me that right after your going home temple trip time just slams the E-brake on haha. I think it will still go by quickly though.

So I don't know if you have already registered me for classes or not. But I was actually thinking it would be a good idea to do some of them online. So lemme know what classes are available for that. If you've already signed me up though, that's fine.

I dunno if you were confused with the father's day text or not. The member we had dinner with yesterday sent it from their phone. lol. That family is pretty awesome. 

Steve said he might have a job for me when I get back. Which is cool. He said business has been really slow, so I probably won't get paid all that much. But it's better than nothing. I'm just excited that I might have something right away.

Hope your week is amazing!

Love you!

Coop

Pekin, Illinois

So I got transferred to Pekin Illinois, which is in the district I was in when I was in Washington Illinois. There was a son of a member that we taught in Washington, and now he lives in Pekin. So I'm pretty stoked about that. The ward is pretty small. Like, 5 families are moving soon. It's looking more like a branch than a ward. People here are cool though. I like it here.

  

Things are going well here. We've got some good stuff going on.

 

Sorry the email is short this week.

 

Love you though!

I'll talk to you more about what's going on here next week.I'm just short on time today.  

Coop. 

Oops - Never Mind, Off to Quincy Illinois

Dang. there is a lot more snow in Reno than there is here! About 8 inches more! lol. I got moved to Quincy Illinois. In right on the Missouri border, and there is NO snow here. It's weird because my last area had snow, so it's a bit of a change. Yes, that is a sudden move. I was only in Ames for 2 and a half weeks, but they had to change up a few companionships, and so I get moved to this area.

Bishop Martin is a pretty cool guy. They sent me a package :) 

Well I plan on Skyping this Christmas instead of calling. But I'm not sure what time that will be since we have to go to a member's house to do that. I'm not going to email again until after Christmas, so I guess just be ready and I'll call you to let you know I'm ready to skype. You guys have a web cam right? I guess that would be necessary for the whole skype thing to work. I thought you guys skype Sarah all the time, so I just assumed you had one.

 

That's one thing about being a missionary, you always haveto be on your toes. When the teacher doesn't show up, a lot of the times they just expect us to teach with no notice, so I know how you feel. lol. How did the lesson go? 

Matthew is probably going to be taller than me when I get home! Maybe not, but it's going to be crazy to see how tall he'll be. he'll be out of primary here pretty soon. that's exciting.

 

you should feed Kristen lots of soda and candy so that she has to keep going to the dentist until about September :) JK

I got a letter from Dakotah, and I email Skyler. I haven't heard from Kevin since he left. That's nuts that he'll be comming home soon!

I heard about the missionaries in Romania. That's so sad. They put carbon monoxide detectors in all the apartments here after that happened. That's sad to hear that it almost happened to some other missionaries in Sparks.

Well next time I talk to you it won't be by email :) Pretty cool.

Love you. Talk to you soon!

The Next Area - Ames, Iowa

Sweet. We have a tree we're going to put up in our apartment :) Make it a little more festive.

I'm in Ames Iowa. It's just north of Des Moines. I haven't been here very long, but it seems like a good place. I like it. I miss my last area, but I'll get over that soon enough. Just gotta get this area going like the last one was.

Glad to hear you're doing missionary work. I read a talk by Oaks the other day about the importance of member missionary work. The statistics were pretty surprising. They analyzed what would have to be done in order to meet Hinckley's challenge of doubling baptisms. they would have to increase the number of people found by media campaigns by like 8 time, the number of people found by the efforts of missionaries by like 6 times, or the number of people fund by members by only 2.7 times.

Things are going alright here. The ward is very not missionary minded. But we have this case study going around the mission, and they're having everyone try to implement the principles in the case study with their own ward. It work really well in my last area, and so we're working really hard on implementing all of that stuff in this area now. So hopefully they'll be more missionary minded soon. Honestly, the way it is now there is a reason there haven't been any baptisms here in over a year. But that's gonna change :)

Love you. I forgot my camera, so I'll send pictures next week. Promise. 

Transfer Time Again

Yeah, trasnfers are tomorrow. And guess what... I'm gettting moved again! lol. At leat I was in this area for two transfers this time. My companion and I are getting transferred, so they're whitewashing this area with a trainer and a greenie. I'm pretty sad to leave. This area has been pretty amazing and I'm going to miss lots of people.

As far as what I want for Christmas. I don't really know. lol. Whatever is good. Not too many sweets if you can help it :)

 

It started snowing here last night. Nothing that stuck, but it's definitely a sign of what is to come soon :) I'm not excited haha. It's getting pretty bitter cold. Reno cold sounds warm right now haha

 

Glad to hear thanksgiving was good. Mine was way good too. PLayed disc golf in FREEZING cold weather lol. Ate myself practically to death. But it was way good. The family we spent it with is awesome.

 

I'm in a ward in this area. But as of tomorrow I'm not sure what I'll be in. lol.

 

About Christmas. I'm pretty sure you can call through Skype just like a phone but over the internet. If she can do that she can call me after 7 my time and I can also call you guys seperately.

 

Glad to hear the healthiness is going well :) I lost 6 pounds over the course of this past 12 weeks.

 

Love you and hope everything is going well.

Have an awesomely amazing week!

November 2010

Sweet. CAn't believe my birthday is already coming up. It doesn't seem that long ago that I had my last birthday. I still remember part of that day. I forgot completely it was my birthday, and I was at Dan Langstraat's house when president Talbot called to sing happy birthday to me :) That's the only part of that day I really remember.

I got a letter from Gabrielle the other day. It was pretty exciting. She was the wife of a member I got to see get baptized in Iowa City. It's been a year since that happened so she is no longer concidered a recent convert :) They got sealed in the Winter Quarters temple on the 13th. She asked if I could go, and if I was all the way on the other side of the mission I would have been able to :( I'm like 8 hours away from WInter Quarters though, so it didn't work out. Oh well, I'm still happy for them. Would have been nice to be there though.

That's sweet that the House has tilted back to conservative. Now watch the same cycle repeat.. People aren't happy, there is a majority in the House, so they vote all Liberal. Then people still aren't happy and there is a Liberal majority in the house so they vote all conservative lol that seems to be how it usually works out.

The weather here is getting blah. Gray skies pretty much every day from here on out. Until the end of winter anyways.

Hope everything for you goes well this week. Transfers aren't until Dec. 2, and I'll find out the SAturday before that if I'm leaving. But it looks like I'll be staying. I said that in my last 2 areas though :)

We got to go to our ward's trunk or treat too. It was pretty sweet. Definitely a lot more fun when you're a little kid. They had some pretty awesome trunks decorated though.

We had to be in at 6 yesterday and the day before (Halloween). There really isn't much to do for 4 /12 hours when you're a missionary lol.

Corn mazes are pretty fun. There was a hedge maze in Winterset that I went through. It was pretty lame though. Not very challenging at all. Especially when you can see right over the hedges lol.

Thanks for not sending me halloween candy lol. I've got wayyy more than I would ever need. I''m trying to give it away but that's hard to do when everyone else already has a whole bunch of candy lol. I was wondering if you could send me some more face wash though. That would be nice.

I haven't sent the ballot back in because I'm really not sure who to vote for. lol. I know not to vote for Harry Reid, but that's about it lol. When does it have to be in by? And I am definitely open for suggestions on who to vote for. :) lol.

Hopre everything is going well with you!

Love you and hope you have an amazing week! 

How to be healthy

Illinois is good. Yesterday was awesome! We had 5 investigators at church, which was all the members doing (so in other words it was done how it was supposed to :) lol). But things are really going well. We've been really trying to get the members focused on missionary work, and it's starting to pay off. We had 3 people tell us about missionary oppertunities they have had. And the Bishop in priesthood opening expercises talked about a missionary experience he had. So it was a way awesome day.

I am still here lol. Neither my companion or I got transferred, so we're both still here.

(so I was asking/begging for information, jokingly said tell me what you had for breakfast :)  For breakfast I had oatmeal :) yum. lol. Last night I had organic salad and eggs! We have a member that's a health nut, and he grows hydroponic lettuce. It's pretty sweet how it works. He has fish living in the water that the lettuce grows in, and the fish eat the lettuce, then the fish fertalize the lettuce. He said it's like nature in a box. lol. Then a member gave us some eggs from their own chickens.

I've stopped eating processed sugar and such. No more soda or anything. Just all natural. My companion weighed 400 Lbs back in the day. Now he's 6' 5" and about 215 Lbs. He lost all of it by just cutting out processed food entirely. Pretty sweet, huh?

 

That's nuts about the weather! It rained here last night, but not very hard.

 

That's so nuts to me that Matthew is going to be almost 13 when I get home. I was actually just thinking about how deep his voice probably is getting. It's going to be a shock when I get home.

 

I'm doing pretty good with money since I've cut fast food and soda out of my expenses. I don't really use much money aside from the $150 a month (allowance the Church provides for his food, etc). I know it doesn't sound fun, but the best thing to send me would be just plain money. I can buy the clothes here so it would be a lot cheaper. It's free to put money in my account. It's expensive to ship things. The shirt fits fine. My waistline is getting closer to 32 than anything else, and my inseem is the same. Haven't gotten any taller. But really the best way for me to get new clothes would be for me to just buy them here. It's not like I'm all depressed because I don't get packages in the mail. I'm too business minded (or miserly lol) to think that way. I just think, Geeze! It probably cost like $15 to send this package when just sending me the money would be free! haha.

 

That's pretty sweet that you guys are on a fitness kick. You should tell Matthew to start using my weight bench. I regret waiting to lift weights. He would be better off if he started now.  I'm still fairly skinny. I'm about 194 right now, but I'm still shedding ounce by ounce. Just remember. All natural food. No persevatives or processed anything. It works.

 

Love you and miss you!

Hope you have a fantastic week!

This week's e-mail

It has finally stopped raining here. yay! lol. It was a really wet summer. Lots of flooding in Iowa. Luckily not where I was at at the time. It started cooling off here, but then it heated back up. So it's been mid 70's to low 80's this week. It'll get cold soon enough though, then I'll be sick of the cold and won't be able to wait for summer! lol.

 

Yeah, conference was pretty sweet. A lot more people are watching it at home. It was broadcasted at our ward building as well as the stake center. We went to our ward building and during the first session on saturday it was only us and one other lady. Then for the second session it was only us haha. It was interesting having the whole chapel to yourself during conference.

 

 

I got a pretty sweet story. We went over to this one families house the other day because we're teaching the girl that lives across the street from them, and their son was there who isn't a member. I've met him a few times before. He's a really funny and sarcastic guy. So we asked him what his opinion of religion was. She started it off by saying "you don't even want to know what my opinion is" lol. So we started talking to him about all sorts of stuff. It was really like a bashing session, but it kind of was at the same time. More like a heated discussion with difference of opinion. So after going at it for like 45 minutes, the atmosphere in the room just completely changed, and it was a lot more peaceful. The conversation lasted about an hour and a half, and it ended with him committing to read the Book of Mormon. He said that he had started reading from it before, but got bored of it so didn't get very far, so he was excited that we gave him some suggested reading because no one had ever done that before. As we were leaving he told us that after seeing us put up with what he just put us through that there was something that interested him. So it was a pretty sweet experience.

No way?! That's pretty sweet. We got a new bishop in our ward yesterday too! I'm pretty excited that Martin is now Bishop. I don't know about that Zach guy though... haha. Just kidding.

 

No, I didn't know she (Mallory) was expecting. That's pretty sweet though. do they know if it's a boy or a girl yet? that would be sweet if they had twins again lol.

 

Yeah. I got it (absentee ballot), signed it and sent it back. There is this guy in our ward that's really funny. He's way political. Pretty much radical conservative. He said that President Monson gets his direction from President Obama haha. He was just joking of course. It was pretty funny though.

 

There is nothing I can think of right now that I need. I have a coat. There was one someone left behind in on of my other apartments. But I'll let you know what I need if I think of anything.

Finally here is my current address... 1405 Eagle Ave #4 Washington, IL 61571. I'll find out next Saturday if I'm moving again or not. Hopefully not. I'm getting tired of learning new places haha.

  

Thanks :) I was pretty darn proud of myself during that talk too :D  (President Monson's talk at the beginning of Conference about missionary work)

 

Love you and miss you.

Hope you have a fantastic week!

Love,

Coop

Illinois

Dang. That's hot! It's starting to cool off here a lot. It got back up to the 80s for a couple days. But now it's actually starting to get chilly.

That's awesome that they (Matthew's soccer team) won their game! Yay!  Too bad he had to play the whole thing in blisteringly hot weather though. They should keep them in the same positions most of the season. I think that's a big problem with how the coaches have been doing things. There is no specialization. They're trying to learn all the positions still, but since all the positions are different it just mixes them up. Yeah it sounds boring to play the same position every game. But at this point I honestly think it would be best for them.

I almost got to coach soccer in Washington, IA. For service there the missionaries volunteer at the YMCA, and what they have us do is coach like 8-9 year olds. It wasn't the season while I was there though  :( Shucks.

 

You could get a job. I think you would make a good employee :) 

 

That's funny that she (Sarah) cut his (David's) hair. It gets easier after a while. (I should know, I've been cutting my own hair for a year now lol). Skype is pretty sweet. Dan (one of my recent converts in Iowa City) did IT at the university. He talked about how awesome skype is, but the university wouldn't let them use it because it was too easy to hack.

 

Things are going all right here. I want to get back to the Iowa side of the mission. Things are different here. It's honestly like being in a completely different mission because, well, just recently it was a different mission. But you could also do some studying on the curses of Illinois and stuff... You know the history. Things in Iowa are better haha.

 

I don't know what I could really say about the mission president. He's different. Not in a bad way. He's good. But just, different. The feeling is different. Can't say who I like better. They're both good.

 

Awesome about the sisters having a baptism in the ward!

 

Hope everything is going well. Hope you have a good week!

Love and miss you!

Transfers - Again

Elder Cooper is being transferred from Washington, Iowa to Washington, Illinois - which is just slightly east of Peoria, smack in the middle of the state of Illinois.  He said they had quite a few people they were working with in Iowa so he is sad to leave and that there has been very little successful missionary work in the area he is going to so it will be hard work.

Keep sending the mail to the Urbandale address and it will be forwarded to him.

His one year anniversary is September 16th if anyone wants to send an anniversary card or whatever.

Snippets from misc. letters

...I don't get to do any water stuff as a missionary - no swimming or boats for me.  Although there was a fountain that I ran through.  We were at the park on p-day, playing basketball, and it was really hot outside.  So there was this fountain there that has a lot of jets shooting water up and you can run through it.  Since we were all hot from playing basketball in that miserable heat, we decided to run through the fountain to cool off. It was pretty fun.  The only problem is since it's so humid here, even though it was way hot it still took us a long time to dry off.

After being in the city for my whole mission, they have finally decided to move me out to the country.  Or as I like to call it, the middle of nowhere.  There really isn't too much out here.  I live(ed) in a tiny little town.  The only thing they really have out here is farms.  It is weird to look to the side while you're driving and see...nothing! Just lots and lots of big open space with a few houses here and there.  I miss being in the city, but being out in the country is kind of nice in it's own way.  There really isn't too much traffic, things are pretty quiet usually and people are pretty friendly here for the most part.  I didn't really like it at first, but it's definitely starting to grow on  me.

Things have been pretty interesting around here lately.  We do a lot of yard work for people, so some of my activities lately have been scaling a house to get on the roof so I could clean the gutters out, then jumping off of said roof because that was the only way down.  And also cutting a branch out of a tree 15 to 20 feet up with a chainsaw.  And that one was done in a white shirt and tie.  I got covered in sawdust doing that one.

Transfers are going to be on the 9th. I can't imagine I'll be moving this transfer. But they have talked about putting Spanish missionaries in where I'm at now, so you never know. But more likely than not I'll be staying here. And that's good, because things are going well here (in Washington). We have several people that are really progressing. They still have word of wisdom issues to overcome, but their testimonies are definitely growing. We found this one lady and have taught her twice and almost set a date with her during the second visit. We decided to hold off though. It just didn't feel right just yet. We still need to teach her the commandments. But she definitely feels the Spirit when we're there, and she is reading and praying. Just as long as they're doing those 2 things they'll get there eventually. There was a sign out in front of a church someone was telling me about. It said "Don't pray about the Book of Mormon. That's how they get you!" hahaha. 

Sorry I don't tell you more. It's all just everyday life to me, so it's hard to think of interesting stories since to me those stories are just another day lol. My companion is Elder Spaulding.

I didn't know it only said it in Luke, but I did know that an angel was there to comfort Him during the Atonement. I love that story. Just goes to show you how hard the thing he had to do for us was. He even asked if he really had to do it. Give you a much deeper appreciation for what He did. 

Well I'm glad you think we turned out okay :) Thanks. 

Hope everything is going well for you. 

Love you,

Coop    

How to Convert the World

Thank you so much for sending that stuff. That's good that it will be there on Friday because that's when we do weekly planning and we don't leave the apartment until 2 PM that day lol. Everything I need should have been in the bag, so it should be all right. Thanks again so much :)
That's so awesome that Kristen is with the missionaries! :D Are there sister missionaries in the university ward, or are there Elders? The percentage of people that get baptized increases dramatically when they are taught with a member, and it goes up even higher when they are taught in the member's home. So that's sweet that Kristen is with them. Helps out a lot! Just to put things into perspective about how important member missionary work is... We have a goal in this mission to talk to about 80 people a week. Since that goal isn't always reached, and there are other missions (like in Utah) that don't really tract at all, I averaged the number of contacts per week to 30. If there are about 50,000 missionaries in the world, missionaries talk to about 39,000,000 people every year. The average number of baptisms per year is around 200,000 and a third of those come from part member families... so yeah lol. Us talking to people isn't all that effective. That's why it's essential for members to find people for us to teach. 130,000 baptisms (that's counting that all baptisms other than part member families come from contacts... and they don't) out of 39 million isn't a good average lol. So that's why member missionary work is so important. Because all in all according to the statistics, missionaries are lousy finders haha.

It's supposed to be cooler this week than it has been lately. High 70s low 80s. I'm excited for that!

That's a bummer about the school thing dwindling :/ That's amazing that Matthew is so far ahead though! :D That's awesome. What a smart little dude.

Love you too! Hope your week goes well!

Talk to you next week.

Coop
 
~ and he promised there are pictures coming ~

New Area

Yeah, being senior companion really isn't a whole lot different than being junior companion. Unless you're a power hungry jerk. Then you can abuse it. But I'm not, and none of my other companions have been so far. So in my case it really hasn't been much different for me.


But yeah, I got transferred. I'm in Winterset now. Birth place of John Wayne. lol. Pretty exciting huh? It's a tiny little town. Probably like around 5,000 people. It's way spread out though. There are so few people that our area covers almost an entire county. And this isn't even the biggest area in the mission! Not a lot here though. No Wal-Mart, no nothing. Pretty quiet town. Our building is pretty ridiculous. It's not even it's own building. We meet in this rented space in one big building divided up into smaller ones. Kind of like a strip mall. Think of the UPS store being converted into a chapel. It's kind of like that lol. So we have church right next to a hardware store and a bar haha.

I gave a talk on Sunday. It went pretty bad. At least I though. Elder Stockdale (my companion) said it was pretty good for really no preparation at all. I found out on Thursday that I was giving a talk on Sunday lol. But whatever. It wasn't completely horrible. I just wish I did better.

So I was totally sleep walking the other night haha. I remember doing all of it, but I wasn't really in control since I was still asleep. So I got out of bed in the middle of the night, folded up one of my shirts and put it into the refrigerator haha. I really have no idea what enticed me to do that, I just thought it was really important that I fold my shirt up and put it in the fridge. It was pretty funny though haha. I woke up the next morning all like, why the heck did I put my shirt in the fridge? haha.

Winter Quarters TempleThe river was high so how does a missionary cross?

The new mission vehicle...Nauvoo at Christmas

Sunset in Des Moines

Now there is the Brendan we know

P-day

Look how a mission can change you - Brendan never played basketball, Elder Cooper is really into it.

Des Moine in winter - blech

They learned how to make sushi - I think from a Japanese woman they are teaching

The finished product - looks yummy

They went to the library to do emails and ran into (President - I wish) Romney on his book tour.

Update on Missionary Work

Glad to hear the trip to Idaho went really well.  I got three letters about it and can tell they were really excited and happy.   I'm not sure if the Nauvoo temple is like Idaho Falls. We just did a little bit of work. But I do get to go to the Winter Quarters temple on the 17th!
Hey, please tell everyone thanks for the letters and packages for me.  I really appreciate them!


There is NO snow here! Whoot. I'm loving it. I'm not even wearing a suit coat right now. First official day of no suit coats until next conference.


Yeah, things have been going really well here as far as missionary work goes. There have been a few hiccups in how things have been going, so not as well as I would like them to be. But things could definitely be worse.

We're teaching this girl named Sanae. She's from Japan and she teaches Japanese at Drake University. She came to the US and went to school in Oregon then moved here to teach. A member in Oregon referred her to us. The first time we contacted her was before I got here. And she really wasn't interested. But then when I get here we decided to go back and try again, and this time she was. Things went really well teaching here. She's been keeping all of her commitments. She's read at least until chapter 15 in Gospel Principles. She had place markers all over her Book of Mormon and every time we read something out of there, she would mark that specific scripture. She was coming to church and everything. So things were going really well. Then Spring break came and she went on vacation. Since she left we haven't heard from her since. She doesn't answer the phone and won't call us back. We're going to stop by her house here soon. I'm not sure what the reason is. If she's avoiding us purposely or is just really busy right now. (she does teach 18 hours of class a week). But that's one of those "hiccups" that have happened.

The other is with Peter. He lived in Utah before he moved here. He is an amazing soccer player. He started playing for Real Salt Lake in his teens. But he got involved in some stuff, so he moved to Iowa to get away from it. He's very solid, and really wants to be baptized. He was on date to be baptized when I got here. All he had to do was come to church one more time. But that proved to be more difficult then it sounds. Every week he said he was coming, but then when the time came for him to be picked up, something came up and he couldn't make it. He recently went to South Dakota to visit his sister before she went back to Africa (He's from Sudan). But the problem is he got a ride there without having any way for him to get back. So he's still there.

I got to give Gatluak the priesthood! That was very awesome. Terry also was baptized. He was homeless, but now he's living at the YMCA. We had everything set up for his baptism, and 30 minutes before it was supposed to happen we got a call from the member that was picking him up telling us that Terry was taken to the hospital because his heart rate went up over 200! So needless to say, we had to re-schedule his baptism lol. But he was baptized the week after. He even put off getting a pacemaker so he could be baptized :D

So yeah. Sanae and Peter are giving me grey hairs. But overall things are going really well.

While I'm in Des Moines, it's no big deal to send UPS to the office. I see the office missionaries like 3 times a week . One couple is in our branch, so they would just bring it to me on Sunday. Plus we're usually at the office sometime during the course of P-day anyways. But here's my physical address:

708 16th Apt 206 Des Moines, IA 50314

Love you and hope all is well.
Coop

Sushi and Baptisms

Thanks! :D Nothing much is going on around here either so... I love you. That's about all too.


Oh yeah. We had a baptism. That’s what was going on. Forgot to tell you about that. We baptized Gatluak. It was awesome. He's way cool! And we also set a soft date with a Japanese girl named Sanae.

I was going to send you pictures today... But I can't find the cord for my camera. Don't worry. I still haven't forgotten. I'll send them.

Oh yeah. I also learned how to make sushi!!! It was good. We're like, very pro now. I'm very excited about that because now that I'm poor and can't afford to go out to sushi, I can just make it. So that means I still get my sushi fix :D Awesome.

How are the Olympics? We have a member that keeps us slightly updated. He told us that the US lost to Canada in hockey last night :/ bummer. But then again, it is Canada.

So yeah, I guess there actually is a lot going on. Had a baptism, have two more with a date set, and two more that are getting close. I've already doubled the average for baptisms. Maybe I should just come home now. Just kidding.

Oh yeah. Elder Jergensen. I've never met him, but I know of him. He was the ZL in the zone I'm in now right before I got here, and he's a ZL with Elder Ware right now. That's nuts that his relative is going to be the new president! That’s going to be a change. Almost a full year with one president, and over a full year with another. That should be interesting.

Hope everything is well with you.
Love you.

Coop-a-loop

p.s. - I forgot to tell you. I gave a talk in church about hope two Sundays ago. And... my companion, Elder Waldrop. Well, he started his mission in Washington, went home, and is now finishing his mission here in Iowa. So he was talking about Bellingham, Washington, and I was like "Hey, do you know the Barlows?" and he was totally like "Yeah dude. I totally know the Barlows!" Isn't that nuts! He was in the same ward as the Barlows, so we were talking about them. You should tell them that I'm serving with him now! Anyway, thought that was a crazy story. Small world, eh?

There was a little information about the new mission president and how they are redividing the missions, this is from the Church News website:

Laurle Z. and Dirk O. Jergensen


Dirk Orme Jergensen, 59, and Laurie Zwick Jergensen, six children, Lake Poway Ward, Poway California Stake. Brother Jergensen serves as a temple ordinance worker and a Church Service Missionary for LDS Social Services and is a former counselor in a stake presidency, bishop, ward Young Men president, gospel doctrine teacher and missionary in the New Mexico-Arizona Mission. Founder/general manager, Omnicare of San Diego. Born in Rexburg, Idaho, to Orme M. and Ludeen Waldram Jergensen.

Sister Jergensen serves as a temple ordinance worker and a Church Service Missionary for LDS Social Services and is a former stake Relief Society president, counselor in stake Young Women and Primary presidencies, ward Young Women president and counselor, ward Primary president, counselor in a ward Relief Society presidency and ward Primary teacher. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to William Evert Zwick Jr. and Audrey McDonough Zwick.



 then this little note about where he is now.

So, I'm now in Des Moines 7th branch. It is wayyy ghetto. We work with a ton of refugees mostly from Burma and Sudan. Des Moines has a refugee program, so that's why there are so many here. Not a lot of people speak English very well. And it's actually a surprise to knock on a door and get someone that actually does speak English. Most of the time it consists of "Jesus Christ? We missionaries. Jesus good!" haha. Not really exactly like that. But you get the idea.


It's really interesting here. I like it. It was kind of a change going from a ward of 200 people to a branch of about 50. But I still love it here.

Hope everything is going well back home.

Love you!

Elder Cooper

I needed a letter from Elder Cooper to read to the Ward - this is what he sent:

Dear everyone that is going to hear this letter,

When I think about how my mission has been so far and I look back on the expectations I had about how my mission would be, I realize that it is nothing like I expected - it's better than I expected.  Although I have only been out for 4 months, these 4 months have been packed full of amazing experiences and I can understand now why so many  missionaries claim their mission as the best two years of their life.  The thing that's important to understand though is that your mission will not inherantly be the best two years of your life.  The fact of the matter is that this time in your life has the potential to be the worst time of your life if you let it.  You are asked to give up so much to serve a mission.  Basically, you sacrifice your life for two years.  But, it has equal potential to be the greatest time in your life.  The  key to knowing which way it will go is you.  No one can decide what your experience will be like except you.  Expect to work hard, expect to be frustrated.  Count on asking yourself "why am I here?".  There will be times when you want to go home.  There will be times when you'll just feel like giving up.  But, it takes energy to accomplish anything.  It takes energy for a bird to fly, a ball to roll, or even something as small as a feather blowing through the air.  As you put energy into your mission, expect that energy to accomplish something.  Be thankful when it is hard because you know you're getting somewhere.  I wouldn't trade the frustration I've experienced in the past 4 months for anything.  I've learned too much from those experiences, and they mean too much to me.  When it is hard, ask what you can learn and walk away from the experience a better person.  You can't stop bad things from happening, but you can control how those events will affect you.  I can't tell you what it's like being on a mission because it will be different for everyone.  As you approach situations with the right attitude, turning to your Heavenly Father, it will become the best two years up to that point in your life.

Christmas

Not a letter from Elder Cooper - just a transcription of some of the phone call.

There is a lot more going on in Iowa than he is telling us in his letters and e-mail.  Go figure.

The weather - we know it is cold but he also talked about freezing rain and lots of snow and really bitter coldness and big dry snow flakes.  The weather is very extreme.

The people - he is living in a college town with a medical school so there are a lot of people planning to be doctors and going to med school and a big turnover at the end of the school year.  Everyone is nice and he hasn't had any trouble but he is also become very positive and there was no bashing or gossip of any kind.  He was running an errand for the sister missionaries while talking to us and wouldn't complain about it but only say, "well, isn't that what Jesus would do?"  That's my boy!  We are so proud of him. 

There was some talk about the local lingo and he found himself using some old farmer colloquialisms the other day.  It was pretty funny to hear him talk mid-west farmerese.

They took a day trip to Nauvoo and Carthage, went to the Temple in Nauvoo and did the tour of Carthage.  He was impressed with the staircase in the temple and the font (which apparently is huge).  Told a nice story that he learned there about how the stain glass in the temple came to be.

He is pretty sure he won't be transferred when changes come up the end of December, based on some things the mission president said in their last interview.

Played hero with his companion to a neighbor girl.  She was being abused by her boyfriend, a lot of yelling and screaming and pushing going on and they went over and insisted on seeing her and asked if she wanted to come with them.  She said she would be OK and a few minutes later the boyfriend left after a good talking to by the missionaries.  Brendan said his companion knocked on the door with the force of God when they first went over there, and there is no way they were going to leave her there with the guy.

They also do volunteer work at a veteran's hospital on Tuesdays - running errands and stuff - and at a group home on Wednesdays - washing dishes and visiting with people and such. 

He is still driving a mini-van.  Finally got an answer about why.  They use the vans to transport the missionaries on transfer days and don't want to leave them just sitting in between so they assign them to companionships to drive.  It is silver.  In Brendan's words "I drive a mini-van and spend my time asking people if they want to learn about Jesus"  Cool is far, far from his mind at the moment.  Much bigger priorities.

As far as I could tell after talking to him, he really is happy and having a good time and adjusting well and doing his best and making friends and helping people. 

But, May and the Mother's Day phone call can't come too soon...