Below are excerpts from Dakota's weekly letters.
March 8, 2015
This week was pretty good but it felt really long for some reason...but first I am going to put all the scriptures up since I didn't last week so you get 14 this week instead. They are Alma17:28, Enos 1:10, Mosiah 2:31, 1 Nephi 21:1, 2 Nephi 1:23, Alma 58:10&11, ALMA 30:44, Helaman 5:8, Mosiah 4:30, 3 Nephi 12:30, 3 Nephi 12:16, Alma 31:10, 3 Nephi 12:6, and Moroni 7:46&47.
Ok so last Monday...we didn't really have much of a P-day because Elder Saurey wanted to say good bye to so many people...we didn't even buy groceries. Then on Tuesday was Transfer day and Elder Burgess is my new companion. He went to school with Taya, Mary's sister and we don't really have anything in common at all but he is pretty chill so it is all good. He is obsessed with Anime and video games...he would probably get along with Sam pretty well.
When we got back the first thing we did was go to a house that has a crazy lady there every once in a while. She was there this time so that was pretty fun. Then on Wednesday we had a pretty cool miracle because we had a Less Active that had to move and so we couldn't find her and then we found her because her dogs started chasing us and that was cool cause we might baptize her fiance soon.
Thursday was a pretty average day with nothing too miraculous other than us sharing the gospel with others which is a miracle in itself. Friday was super good. We had a bunch of fried oreo's for lunch and a fried twinkie and then we went to Tifton for a district meeting with president where he changed the Standards of Excellence and I have been hitting almost all of them for the past little while now so that is awesome.
Sunday was super good and we got a lot done but nothing super duper miraculous. It was overall a good week. Love you and miss you tons! Love Elder Cobler
March 2, 2015
So I wrote down all the scriptures but then forgot my journal so I don't have them last Monday for P-day we went and hung out at the Keys house with the zone leaders and that was super fun. They played with her pony and took a bath in her Jacuzzi while Elder Saurey and I hit golf balls into the woods so that was pretty fun.
Then we went and taught Miss Betty and she is your typical old black lady...it is really hard to get her to leave her church but she knows Joseph Smith was a Prophet and that the BoM is true so that is super hard. Then on Tuesday we had a District Meeting and the zone leaders took up most of the meeting so then Elder Saurey and I just gave really short trainings but I learned something cool. In Alma 31:10 it talks about how going to church helps avoid temptations so when we use the Atonement to repent that leads us to change and improve to the point where we don't have as much of a temptation anymore and we keep going to church to learn more on things we can improve on and then it continues to strengthen us and it is kinda like a cycle...I sucked at explaining it today but hopefully you figured it out.
Then we went and taught a kid named Joshua Sutton who is probably going to be baptized on March 21st. After that we went and finally caught this cool family the Altman's. Usually the dad is working but because it was pouring rain he couldn't work so that was pretty cool. We were able to catch a lot of people that day that we usually can't so that was pretty cool.
Then after Supper we went to help Tiffany quit smoking and she was on bored for quite a while until we took her cigarettes and so she freaked and it all went down hill but since then she has been smoking a lot less so that is good. It was actually a super cool lesson that was obviously guided by the spirit because she needed to realize what a problem she really had and then we read with her and the chapter that we picked that randomly popped into our heads was 3 Nephi 12 which neither of us have read for a long time but it basically condemned smoking and told her how bad her smoking really is so she will change soon.
Then Wednesday not all that much happened but we taught a super cool lesson with this new investigator we got and she keeps asking all the right questions so she should progress quite a bit. And in the morning we went to the Christian Kitchen like usual and it was their 20th anniversary so that was pretty awesome. Oh and I don't know if I have said what that is but it is just a soup kitchen. and it has been rated the best one in the state per capita so it is a good experience and it is cool to go twice every week. It is super fun and there is nothing like it anywhere.
Then on Thursday we went again but taught a crazy lady before but she is fairly cool so it is all good. Then we went and saw this crazy guy that eats at the CK all the time but he is super educated and has researched a lot about the church so that is pretty cool.
Friday we both felt pretty bad in the morning but lucky for us it was weekly planning so it was all good. After that we went and put Pine straw all over Miss register's yard for her which was pretty fun. Out here they use pine needles in their yards instead of Mulch and they call it Pine straw. You buy it in bales just like hay. Then at night we went to Tifton to eat with our Ward Mission leader and they made us do and wear all this weird Japanese stuff becasue they just got back from a senior couples mission there and there are pictures of that in dropbox.
Saturday we talked to these old people for like 3 hours and they are the ones we sneakily pick up their pine cones for them and they are super cool. They wanted us to eat lunch with them but we didn't have time so we went with them today and had burgers from this place. After we talked to them Friday we went down to Ocilla and got sister Williams to have a baptismal date of march 21st as well and she is super excited about that. It was cool cause this time we found out that she actually wanted to get baptized and not just because her husband wanted her to, so that was pretty cool and she already wants a calling and everything. Then we went and had a super cool lesson with this catholic guy and his wife and they were awesome.
Sunday we did the usual and went to Church and then ate with the Elders again and then we saw some of their gators So Elder Saurey could say good bye to them and then we ate dinner with one of their awesome Recent Converts that we always eat dinner with. Oh and on Sat we ate with one of our new gators that is super cool so we are actually getting fed now and she even sang for us. Oh and I have been baking and cooking tons. Well we gotta go to a dinner appointment so we gotta run. Hope you guys have a good and busy week. put God first and everything will work out and you will get everything done that you need to. All you have to do is take a leap of faith and trust and it will all work out how He wants it to and what is best for you guys. Love you guys and miss you tons!
February 23, 2015
So I am starting daily scriptures again. This week they are 2 Nephi 2:27, 2 Nephi 31:20, Jacob 2:18, 2 Nephi 3:12, Ezekiel 37:15-17, Moroni7:41, and Moroni 9:25.
I am pretty much remodeling our whole apartment because it is so poorly engineered. They laid tile with what seems like Liquid Nails and they tried grouting it with that too so that is what I did most of last Monday. Then Tuesday we had District Meeting which was pretty good and then we went on a super long exchange so I went to Tifton with one of the Zone Leaders, Elder Nelson. We got tons of work done in their area for the next 2 days so that was awesome and Elder Saurey and Elder Carlquist made tons happen in our area as well. It was a an awesome exchange.
Then when we got home Wednesday night at like 8:50 we taught 2 lessons somehow in that 10 minutes. Then on Thursday we went to the Christian Kitchen in the morning after we taught this crazy politic obsessed lady that thinks Obama is the Anti Christ. And that is pretty rare down here. Usually most people down here like him. The CK was crazy cause Miss Mary, the cook, got super duper mad at some guy for getting seconds and I was back in the kitchen making a bunch of grilled cheese so then all of a sudden she came back and she was really mad and I had no clue what was going on so I just kept my mouth shut and kept making grilled cheese...I made like 50 of them.
After that the Zone Leaders picked us up to take us to Ocilla so they could make an exchange work. They needed one more missionary so that there wouldn't be one alone. After we got back we went to Miss Betty's house and watched the resto dvd with her. Then we went and I made a peach cobbler to take to the Merritt's. That was super fun! Except we realized this time that they are for sure just trying to hook us up with their daughters so that is why they invited us on Thursday is cause that is when they have Family night so they were all there. Good thing they usually aren't all there or we would have to stop going! We taught them a super good lesson that was super duper cool.
Friday we mostly just weekly planned and made it so that the Zone Leaders and AP's could exchange back and then we went and cleaned Miss Register's pool for her which was terrible cause we got all wet and it was freezing cold. She took us to KFC after though so it was all good. Oh and when we got back she showed us a bunch of her husband's old records on this super cool old record player. After that we went and taught a few more people..
One of our investigators told us about how she uses weed for her seizures so that sucks now that we have to help her overcome that especially because she was actually starting to progress and take things more seriously. Saturday was the craziest and best day of the week! We went to a Holiness church...you know...the holy rollers? too bad for us there were only like 10 in the congregation so nothing crazy happened except for one crazy lady that was speaking in tongues. She was the piano player but we are pretty sure she couldn't really play cause she was just pounding on the keys...The music was pretty awful...and they had tambourines in the back of the pews instead of hymn books. After the music some lady got up and started preaching but she said hallelujah after every single word or amen so it was pretty hard to get anything out of that. At least when we went to crossview they had better music and good preaching that wasn't any false doctrine. Oh and the toilets were in the back of the chapel so we kept hearing them flush throughout the service which was pretty nasty. And at the end she brought out olive oil and offered to heal people and then she got out the tithe and offering buckets and when nobody added to the buckets other than the tithe bucket she said a prayer where she was basically just rebuking the congregation for not giving her money...it was quite the experience.
After We went and saw Vicky a Less active Recent convert and getting there was crazy cause we decided to drive through the sticks and we got stuck so we had to turn around and use a real road. Other than that we just talked to a bunch of people the rest of the day. Oh and Vicky dropped an F bomb in front of us cause she was talking about how she cusses people out when they talk bad about the church so it was Pretty intense.
Sunday was sweet. At church we had 3 investigators which is the highest I have had at church so far. we talked about making choices and how little choices and things have big and long eternal impacts in sacrament so that was pretty cool...then we talked about the holy ghost and this talk https://www.lds.org/general-
After that we headed back and got to work...we were tracting though and a bunch of kids wanted to try and beat us in basketball so we beat them really quick and then went to supper. After supper we taught a few more people and then we headed in so that I could collect the key indicators from the district and report them to the ZL's. Overall it was a pretty good week! Talk to y'all next week! Love you and Miss you tons!
Love Elder Cobler
February 16, 2015
This week was alright...on Monday we didn't go golfing and at night I got spat on by a little girl with Rhett's and she almost slapped me but I dodged it...on Tuesday we had interviews that was super good and I told President about Front end loading and he said he is going to start using that all the time now when it comes to goals.I didn't realize how much running helped me in the setting goals and accomplishing them area. When we got back from interviews we went to this new family we found. We taught them a really cool lesson and they are super cool and interested and sincere about everything too. we taught them around their fire and then we all ate...it was a super good lesson and it was super spiritual and tons of fun.
Thursday we had a super good zone training meeting by the Zone leaders then we went to Steak n Shake and then went and taught a couple really cool people, after that we went back to Fitzgerald and went to dinner with Sis Keys at Cirillos which was super fun and good. Friday all we did was weekly planning which is usually pretty hard because it is so boring but it is always super helpful and then we helped Sister Keys with a few things and then she took us to Huddle house to see a less active member that is a waitress there.
Then on Saturday not much exciting happened except for Miss Register our 77 year old 'gator got us crazy valentines stuff and then we got the pizza you ordered us and that scared the crap out of us cause he knocked so late and we thought the guy was going to kill us or something. Oh and we also taught 11 lessons on Saturday which was awesome caused usually we only teach like 4.
Sunday we had church and we talked all about scripture study daily as a family and individually and daily prayer and then we talked a lot about Adam and eve which our investigators that came loved!!! They loved church and we didn't think they would progress but they said they are definitely coming back so that was pretty awesome. We talked about why Satan would tempt them if that was part of the plan because he would try to spoil the whole plan of salvation and all of the sudden in class the spirit helped me understand it. I realized that if they wouldn't have partaken of the fruit we would not be here like it says in 2 Nephi 2:22-25 and then Satan could only make the 2 of them miserable and drag down 2 of them but now Satan can tempt billions of us so that is why Satan wanted to fulfill the plan as well. It was just super cool cause I have always wondered that. It probably doesn't make much sense in an email right now but hopefully you can figure it out :) Just go read it and then it might make more sense!
February 9, 2015
On Wednesday we went to the Christian Kitchen and volunteered like we do every week and then went toward Tifton a little early so we could teach people in one of our other areas that we cover. Thursday we didn't really do much exciting except see Sloan...you can pretty much always count on a crazy story from her but I can't remember what it was on Thursday. Oh and we met a cool couple that finally understood that what we are truly saying is that every single church out here is false.
We looked on the gps the other day and found 50 churches within a 1 mile radius of us so that was pretty crazy.
Friday was pretty good! we Weekly planned and then we went and taught a bunch of people and one lady even called us over and asked us to teach her so that was pretty cool. Saturday was a normal day
Sunday was really good. Church was awesome and there were a lot of cool testimonies about the power of prayer. It was cool to reflect on some cool past experiences with prayer and how powerful it really is. It is so cool that we can literally talk to God. If you Haven't read in the Bible Dictionary about prayer you should go read it! It is super cool! The BD has a lot a cool things and it helps so much. After church we ate at the Zone leaders house while they were still fasting and I made a super good peach cobbler. When we got back we knocked doors pretty much until it got dark and that was super fun and cool!
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