Lots of News!

Branch Mission Leader

Gospel Principles Class

Cola-Creek

Hey family! I'm glad to hear how everyone is doing good, even if it wasn't the most exciting week. There is a lot I feel like I want to talk about so I'll get right to it.
About the music, I've been trying to figure out what options I had and what I could do. Basically, the policy President Egbert came out with makes my speaker ok. But not the ipod I use it with it because it can access radio and has a touch screen. The speaker works by bluetooth so I don't know how many devices are out there that can use bluetooth and at the same time not access the radio or have a touch screen. As far as what can be on the playing device, I feel like really only hymns, MOTAB, and some, not all, of music from EFY would be appropriate. The idea is reverent music, which makes even some of my classical music not ok. I would really just like the instrumental versions of the hymns, especially on guitar if that's even there. I appreciate you guys trying to help though, if it becomes too difficult please don't worry about it. I've gone three weeks without it so far, I don't think too much will change in a year.
As far as what happened this week...we had a convert of about two years get a calling that more or less makes him a ward missionary. We went to visit him a couple of days after he had received this calling and he challenged us to go out contacting with him to try and find 10 new people. He said he wanted to form a stake.  I can't tell you how much these people want that. We went out with him on Saturday to find these people and found a couple of really promising people. We are excited for them and for him with his new calling.
Another highlight of the week was yesterday during church where we had a good attendance for gospel principles class. There were members and investigators that spoke English, Dutch, and Portugese. The class was in English and one Portugese member who knows just a little bit of English translated the input they gave. It was really cool to see everyone participating despite the clear language barrier. I really feel like participation in Sunday school is what helps people to stay active in the church, it's so much more edifying when everyone gets to share inputs and experiences.
To explain some of the pictures,
The one of just me and a guy with a beard is a picture of our branch mission leader! Super humble, super cool guy, the church has helped to completely turn his life around.
There are a couple from gospel principles yesterday
There are also a couple from our P-day activity today. We went to a place called Cola Creek. So named because the water is said to look like Coke, I'll let you guys decide. We played a lot of volleyball and celebrated a sister missionary's birthday. Fun stuff.
I love you guys so much! The last thought I want to share is something that came from Elders quorum yesterday. We talked about how the welfare program got started with Ezra Taft Benson. The elders quorum discussed a lot about how being self reliant means doing as much as we can to help ourselves before the Lord and others would come in to help us. I felt very grateful when I realized how much my parents had emphasized the principle of hard work, not just by talking about it, but also in actually living by those principles. Thank you for helping me to understand that, I thought a lot about people here who do not always grow up in circumstances that allow them to enjoy the benefits of loving parents who teach their children everything. Thank you guys so much for that example.
I love you guys so much.
Have an amazing week!
Love,
Elder Cooper