This week brought new challenges as well as new friends. (Dryers, cars, toilets, showers and door locks) I’m learning that things like birthdays and Thanksgiving isn’t really about a cake or a turkey.  It’s about the people that we share them with or the memories of times past.  My sister came to visit and reminded me that I can have confidence in myself because I’m surrounded by people that want me to succeed.  The success is not mine alone but my friends, family and my Heavenly parents.  Thank you all so much.  Lorelei

This week was a good week for us, it sounds like it was an interesting one for you as well. Your were right when you said we cant do anything by ourselves, no matter how good we are at something. Its just like Michael Jordan, he didn't win all of those championships by himself, he had a whole team to back him up. Its the same thing here for us because we can have all the investigators we want but if we don't have the support of the members and their help then we wont get anywhere in our missionary work. I'm glad you have so many people there to help you when you need it and when you don't need it.

This past week for us was pretty good, we had changes and i have a new comp from Guatemala. His name is is Elder Vasquez and he is sweet. I'm really glad we had changes, things are looking up for us now that we get along really well and the members can see that. This past week we found a lot of people that are ready to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I'm loving it. I'm was ready to change areas but its ok being here another change, i think ill be here a change after this as well but we will see what happens. Nothing really big or funny happened this week, well we did have a mission conference and changes which means that two days in a row we had to wake up at 3 am to take 3 buses to get to the chapels where we were having the conferences. In one day we had traveled about 7 hours in buses, it was an interesting experience. I'm not sure if i wrote this last week or not but ill say it again, a member of our ward that we helped reactivate and baptised his family gave me a coin from El Salvador from the year 1911! Its really cool and really old so that was something cool that happened.

Im glad you had a good visit with Kimberli and you had some good experiences. I think thats about it for me this week so i hope all goes well for you and you stay safe.

Love you lots,

Cole

Dear Coleicious,

 

Well, honey, what one thing did you learn this week?

    What were you most grateful for this week?

 

I think these questions should be asked of each of us each week.  This week I learned that I cannot do everything by myself.  I had to rely on lots of different people this week.  I tried things myself but then had to call in reinforcements.  Brother Taylor to fix plumbing, tow trucks and car repairmen, sisters to engineer plumbing connections and friends to complain to, and children that call to check on me. At one point Kimberli were in the bathroom, wet and laughing because we had just made three projects into even bigger messes needing "professional" help.

 

I am thankful for your dad this week.  The owner of Highway garage was helping me with my car situation and he called me at work about your dad.  He told me that Dad was well regarded in the auto body industry and they had a write up about his contributions in their newsletter.  He offered condolences, and took a little off my bill. Can you imagine what the consequences could have been if he had been unethical or mean?  Because of him, I can be proud of my name.  People are watching and making snap judgments about us all the time.  When people at work find out that I'm Mormon they bring up other LDS families in Aurora.  I'm thankful that they are people I am proud to be associated with.  Think about it......I'm also grateful for orthodontia.  I am a smile, people (at work) can't believe I'm still smiling through every weird thing that happens to me.  But, they don't know what we do, do they?  If I had yucky teeth I wouldn't be comfortable smiling all the time.  So thank you Dr. Pizza (my orthodontist) and my parents for paying the bill.  So, find something to be grateful for and share

 

Take care of your name!

Love, mom

This last week was really cool for us, we had two baptisms! One was Friday night and one was Sunday right after church. We planned one right after the mutual on Thursday and one right after church to have a good assistance at the baptism and we for sure had it. The baptismal room is really small so we didn't all fit in there it was cool. The people who were baptised bore their testimonies and it was really powerful, one is really sure he wants to go on a mission and he doesn't really have the support of his family, which is kind of sad but its really cool. We just got news about our chances and i found out ill be in my same area again but my companion will be leaving. This means that ill have 4 changes in my area, about 6 months and in this zone ill have about 10.5 months. I was really hoping for changes because ill have 16 months with only 3 areas which is very very unusual but i just have to keep in mind there is a higher power telling me where i need to be so i just have to accept it. I took a picture of the shoes i am using now and have used all my mission and they are still going strong, they have 16 months! I hope you like them mom ;)

This last week was a good week for us, it was interesting. Nothing way out of normal happened, no one died in church....did i ever mention that? In my last area a woman died in Sunday School and 5 minutes later she came back to life...it was an odd experience. Anyways, We finally got all of the paper work worked out for one of the families to get married, Ive been working with them for 4 months, but she has her baptism planned for this next Thursday. We also have another baptism planned for Sunday, for a future missionary! We talked to him last night and he really is serious about serving so that's really cool. He was asking who will be there in the church to support him because his best friend is leaving for his mission the 24 of this month so he is a little worried about that, he will be the only member in his family. After talking with him for a while we cleared up his doubts and he is really excited, i cant wait to see this baptism. I’ll be sending some of the pictures of the wedding.

Ya my last letter might have been a little tough but it was a good one huh? I have dealt with a lot of things here in the mission and somehow am able to keep going, I'm not sure how but I'm doing my best. I don't always feel like its enough but its the best i can. I do have a mosquito net, i got bit in the street near a huge tank of water and had a really bad rash but its almost gone. Sometimes it goes away then comes back its really bad and i didn't have any bleeding so it wasn't bad dengue. As for the medical insurance will it cover all or will we have to pay because if we have to pay then i dont think i will want to do it, ill feel bad.

That's a funny story about the sandwichIs the house on the market? Is all the stuff moved into the new house? When you started off that story i thought you were going to end it by saying that you left it in the shed for weeks and it collected mold and had rats and you had to call someone to come clean it up...your ending was a better one. :) That's awesome about Chris Anthony got is mission call, has he sent in his papers yet? Maybe by the time he fills them out, sends them in and goes ill be home so i could say by to him. That's awesome that he can, he will love the mission!

Things here have been good for us this last week, we had a lot of interesting experiences. On my hour and a half bus ride here to write i was thinking of some of them and ill share a couple with you. My area is really really big and we don't have cars or bikes so we have to take buses, which cost a lot, or we ask rides so we were asking for rides on the high way and an 18 wheeler gave us a ride, that was cool at first. So we were going normally and all of the sudden one of the tires pops and that was a little scary but everything was good. Recently they started paying the police again which is good but that might have been too much to ask for because now they aren't paying the postal workers...so sorry to the people that wont be getting my letters right now haha One of the families we were teaching and were going to baptise this week is not doing so well. The man came home drunk a couple nights in a row and now the woman doesn't want to marry him so that is just a little problem. We are trying to get things worked out with them so we will see how it goes. Other than that things are well, I'm getting healthier and still attempting to lose weight but its just not happening.