General Conference

Hello familia

Everything is going great.  This week has been amazing, my new companion is great he is from Medellin, Colombia.  He is 19 years old and he likes business.  We are going to be business partners haha.  He is a great missionary and we are having a ton of fun in this area.  We are seeing a ton of miracles this week and I am super excited.  So he got here on Monday and we got to send all the new missionaries around to all the new areas in our zone we did that all morning.  Then we ate lunch and went back to our area.  That night we had a awesome lesson with the Vega family.  They are super great and you can see that doing the little things; for example having Family Home Evening each week is helping them reactivate and strengthen them in the gospel.  The little things that we do are so important.

On Tuesday we had our district meeting.  I had my interview for the University of Utah that was cool and it went by fast.  I guess we will see what they say about that.  So we had an awesome experience this week. Last week when I was on divisions with Elder Rosco one lady called us while we were walking and we went and started talking to her.  She is a member from Puno which is really far away, about 8 hours.  She has been living here for a year and doesn’t know where the chapel is.  She is living with her partner they are not married yet.  We started talking to her and got another a lesson with her and we went back but she wasn’t there.  This week we decided to go back again with my new companion.  She left but her partner was there and we decided to teach him.  So we started teaching him and he is ready to be baptized (Spanish version) and he told us that he wants to be baptized and get married (Spanish version).  He wants to change his life so he can be a better example for his little boy and help out his family.  Their names are Heidi and Arnon.  So we started teaching him; he was super excited and we were stoked.  Everything went really well that night.

On Wednesday we went and did service with Hermana Solidad.  It was up in the middle of nowhere.  We went and moved a ton of dirt but it was awesome.  We went with four other elders and had a great day working hard for a couple of hours.  Then we had lunch, it was a spaghetti bake with chicken.  Once we got ready we went out and started teaching people.  We had another awesome day; we found another investigator named Katie and her mom Abdulia.  After we had an awesome Family Home Evening with the Ocone family.  We taught them about the restoration (Spanish version), how the church was restored in these latter days, and how Joseph Smith (Spanish version) was a prophet and how he was essential for this restoration. 

Thursday we went and cleaned out a room because one area closed down.  When we came back we had to move another set of missionaries to a different room.  We had a really cool lesson with Jefferson.  We taught him for a while and he is doing well, he just has a lot of doubts.  It is good to have doubts but sometimes you just need to have faith.  When the doubts (Spanish version) outweigh the faith that is not good.  Your faith is everything.  Then we had an awesome Family Home Evening with the Alupanki family.  We taught about the atonement (Spanish version).  We were planning on teaching them about the family but based on what they were saying before the lesson my companion and I both felt that we needed to talk about the atonement, so we did.  It was a super spiritual lesson. 

We went and talked to Heidi and Arnon again on Friday.  Then we went and talked to the government place and got all the papers they need to be married.  They are ready to go they just need to get some more papers from Puno; they are going to travel this week to go and get them.  It is super cool to see their dedication.  Then we went and visited with the family and talked about marriage and how sometimes the blessings come right now and sometimes they take a little longer and sometimes they only come when we are in heaven.  It was really cool. 

General Conference! (Spanish version) How awesome was it?  I really liked General Conference this time.  It is cool there is going to be another temple in Lima.  That’s awesome and everybody is really excited about it.  I learned a lot about families, parents, children, the priesthood and the restoration.  It was super cool.  I really liked the priesthood session.  Elder Eyring (Spanish version) and Elder Uchtdorf (Spanish version) both talked in it.  They talked about the power of the priesthood and how this priesthood is the same priesthood that Jesus Christ had and how it can do the same miracles.  I really liked the talk (Spanish version) by our Prophet Thomas S. Monson about how the choices that we make today will decide where we go and what we become later in life.

Saturday I went and bought one kilo of peanuts and ate them all in one day.  My stomach hurt so badly.  I don’t think that I will be eating peanuts for a while.  After the priesthood session we went and got something to eat with the members and other missionaries and got some ice cream.  This week I realized that there are a lot of things that I need to do better.  There are a lot of things that I am missing as a person and as a missionary.  I had some pretty long prayers on my knees, long talks with God.  I know that He will help me and guide me in what I need to do to improve and be more worthy to represent Jesus Christ.  When a person understands the gospel more they will understand how far from perfection they really are.  That is why I love this gospel; there is so much that we need to do and so many things that we need to better in our lives.  We need to help other people.  To be forgiven we have to forgive (Spanish version).

I hope that you watched conference; I know that it is revelation from God.  It is like Jesus Christ is talking to us.  So if you didn’t watch it all go back and watch it (Spanish version).  I know that these messages and talks were meant for us; to guide us and help us becomes better people.

This week was awesome I am super excited and stoked to be here.

I love you so much,

Cho

Elder Cooley