We Need To Stop Counting Down :)

Hey family! That blood moon looks really cool, I don't think we even tried to see it, wasn't it at like three in the morning?
When I saw those pictures of the mountains I thought that was pretty cool.When we hiked Brownsberg I was surprised how much it can be like the Utah mountains in places. Just with a few more vines. Haha. Tell Jenny I said Happy Birthday, and tell Celeste Hi!
To start off, "R" is on a baptismal date! He should be baptized on the 31st of October. We feel like he is ready. But he is so hard to get an appointment to sit with him that we haven't been able to oversee his progress. But now that he knows what we're shooting for he should hopefully be a little better at appointments.
This week was also really good with getting members to come out with us. We have a lot of members in our area that were baptized at most three years ago and so a lot of them are always willing to do missionary work. What's funny is the investigator appointment falls through more often than the member coming with. I've had it happen a lot on my mission where it's the other way around. Either way the people here are amazing and I have grown to love them so much.
Being a district leader is a fun experience. I'm not sure if you did this on your mission dad, but here the district leader calls all the companionships at night, mostly to make sure they got home safe and to see how their day went. What that means is that immediately after planning for the next day I'm calling everybody and it stays that way right until I have to go to sleep. Basically I stay busy, which I like. I also like the opportunity I have to help the other companionships out. If they had a bad day then in that nightly phone call I can help to get them on their feet. At least that's what the nightly phone call did for me. So I like being able to be that for others. I get to teach my first district meeting tomorrow so wish me luck! Haha.
I don't have any pictures this week, but what I thought I would do for next week is just take a lot of pictures with the members here. They are some amazing people and I would kinda like to tell their stories a little bit.
Well, that's about all I got! Hope you all have an amazing week! Enjoy General Conference, tell me what you guys thought next week.
Love,
Elder Cole Cooper

Transfer Calls

That is a Koi pond at a new investigators house. 

Some puppies at a less-actives house. Elder Hardy wanted a picture with them.

When I got that package I read Maddi and Celeste's letter asking me to take a picture with the piñata. I  Pretty fun package.

Hey Family! Man I remember homecoming weekends. It seemed like such a hectic time for everyone else. Keri, I'm glad you got to go to homecoming. It sounds like your group was a lot of fun. I would have liked that escape game.
That's so cool Mat will have to learn Dutch to use his dog. Doesn't that just seem like a coincidence? :)
As I'm sure Dad can tell you guys, transfer calls are somewhat of an event for missionaries. Especially if you're Elder Carpenter, who has served in the same area since he came out here. (He did get moved btw haha). As for what is happening to me, I am staying with Elder Hardy in the same area, but I'm now the district leader! I'm pretty excited. There have been several good examples of district leaders in my mission which I will have to wait until I get home to tell those stories. It'll be fun.
As far as this week goes there were some ups and downs. "R" cancelled our appointment with him this last week so we couldn't give him a date. He came to church. He always comes to church, so I'm not too worried, but in all honesty he could have been baptized awhile ago. (You weren't kidding about Satan working on investigators leading up to baptism Dad). Having said that though there were several other successes this week. Mostly with less-actives who we have been working with like crazy to try and help them come back. We have had fewer investigators in the past while so it's allowed us to work on those less-actives we might not otherwise have time for. One of them named "G" came to church this week which was awesome and two others, Bro. "B" and "S" promised to be in church either this week or on General Conference so we are excited. So even though "R" will have to wait maybe one more week for his baptismal date we are still seeing success. One cool experience from this week is a member from Brazil came to church in Suriname last week and is staying in Suriname for at least two months. It was cool to see her faith and to have her still come to church even if it's not in Portugese. We are going to start teaching her English this week. She already knows a lot so it won't be too difficult but there is enough of a barrier that we will have some funny moments.
I haven't gotten Grammy's package yet, I will be sure to let you guys know.
Well, I love you guys so much. Thanks for all your emails and letters!
Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Cole Cooper

I Still Bleed Boise State Blue!

I think to start off the weekly letter I need to make one thing absolutely clear. . . I still bleed Boise State Blue. Haha. Even if it means being ostracized at my Alma Mater. It sounds like even though the result was a little painful it was a fun game to watch. Sounds like the type of game that keeps you on your toes the whole time. You can't really beat that x-factor that allows you to throw desperation bombs successfully even if your defense is crazy good. I still think Boise State will have a good season, with a defense like we have it's hard not to.
It also sounds like I wasn't the only one to go on an adventure through nature. Those pictures look fun. Especially the moose.
Today we went to a place called Brownsberg. If you remember we tried going there around May but the way there was blocked by a good sized over-flow of water. Well this time was a success. We took some cool pictures that I'll send. The hike led to a waterfall which was pretty cool. It was also just fun to be doing some form of exercise other than biking haha.
Sometimes I think it would be so cool to come with you guys and show you all the stuff I've seen and be able to give you guys a similar experience. But then I see things like this biting fly, and I think, there is no way I could bring you guys here. Haha. I'm just kidding. You guys would survive, but seriously those flies were about the size of a quarter maybe bigger, and had pretty good sized mouthparts, maybe a quarter inch long? Long story short, I wore very good insect repellant so I was fine, but others were not so lucky.
This week was really good! We went out with a lot of members this week and it was an amazing experience. This one member helped us to find a less-active we had no clue about. His name is "R." He seemed cool and said he was willing to sit with the missionaries again. We also got a very promising referral for some one that seemed very interested in the concept of eternal families, which we as missionaries love. "Ro" also came to church this week and gave us his schedule so that we could set a good baptismal date for him. I'll give you more details next week on that one. He seems like he will progress really fast. All in all, we have a small but very promising list of people I'm excited to follow up on this week. Also, Elder Mercier and I are getting back together to do his death tour. The area I'm in is his first area, and he wants to say bye to a couple of people. It'll be fun.
That's about all I have time for this week! Hope it was detailed enough. Tell Aunt Celeste and Maddy the picture of the pinata they wanted is coming next week. I read their letter again and realized I forgot to do that. Don't worry the pinata is not yet smashed so. . . yeah!
Love you guys! Have an awesome week!
Elder Cole Cooper

Miracle Week

Hey Family! It sounds like everyone had a good week. Our week was good as well.
We saw several miracles this week in trying to find people. I think the biggest one is when we went by a member's home at the end of the day. He is our branch mission leader so we meet with him a lot. He wasn't quite there so we started talking to his brother who was just sitting outside. To give this some context we had been talking to our branch mission leader about sharing the gospel with his brother for quite some time, never pushing anything too hard but always asking him about it. At first it wasn't yielding too much but on Friday night we started talking to him for the first time. Our branch mission leader had told him a lot apparently about the church. One of the first questions he asked was why they haven't built a temple in Suriname yet. It was quite a surprise to hear a question like that. Most people don't know about the temples until we talk to them. We asked him if he had a little bit of time to sit with us and he said only about 5 minutes. We shared Joseph Smith's First Vision and gave him a Book of Mormon. He agreed to meet with us again. It was pretty cool. We are excited for him.
We also got an investigator of ours to agree to baptism and the next time we see him we are going to set a date so that was also a plus. His name is "R." He has been to church several times, really cool guy. Basically was interested in the church and wanted to join right when he met the missionaries.
As far as how the year mark went it was great! It's tradition hear to burn a shirt on the year mark. (Don't worry, it was not one of the new ones! This one was actually already ruined). We went to Subway to celebrate so that was fun.
Dad, I don't know if you remember using those flipcharts, (I sent a pic). We were at the zone leaders apartment and I nabbed it. We had some interesting conversations about what it might have been like teaching with them. I was kinda curious if you remember anything about it? Either way I thought it would've been cool to take a picture and send it to you.
Besides that there was not much else. P-Day today was combined sports which is always fun. Hope you all have a great week! Love you guys!
Elder Cole Cooper

Zone Conference and District Conference

These pictures were from a couple of weeks ago...

Hey family! So for this week we had zone conference! As well as district conference in the same weekend so it was pretty chaotic as well as a lot of biking to get from place to place. It was amazing though. We had a member of the Seventy attend our zone conference. His name is Hugo E. Martinez. He gave a talk in the October conference in Spanish. Don't worry...he spoke English to us during the zone conference. Funny moment of the weekend is the zone leaders needed to come by to drop off some supplies we needed and they told us that they were having a difficult time getting Martinez a room in the Marriot so they were debating whether or not to have him stay in our apartment. Needless to say, we spent a little bit of time cleaning up that night. The next day the zone leaders told us they were just joking about Elder Martinez needing to sleep at our apartment. We all had a good laugh.
The Bakers also gave a class on bikes. Something our area is surely in need of.
I really enjoyed zone conference. We talked about what it means to be a disciple of Christ. Which was also the topic of conversation for my interview with President Egbert. We talked about what it means in the Bible when it says we become new creatures, and what it takes to do that. I always enjoy my interview with the mission president. Both President Egbert and President Mehr were really in tune with the Spirit. It was always awesome.
Elder and Sister Martinez talked about becoming full-purpose missionaries. It basically helped us all to understand how important eternal families are, which is what really influenced Sister Martinez to join the church. It was really cool when I talked with the both of them one on one for just a couple of minutes. They both are in the medical field and so I asked them about how that was. Elder Martinez explained that the years go by fast and how medicine was an amazing way to serve. He encouraged me to go for it, and to follow the Spirit and search for the will of the Lord. Pretty cool!
I think the thought that I'll share in detail from this past weekend is something that Elder Martinez explained in the priesthood session of district conference. We talked about the worth of souls as well as the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son. He shared with us what the three different parables represented.
1. The lost sheep: The lost sheep is the one that wanders off on their own, they fall away from activity in the gospel and in the church. So, we go looking for them, and when we have found them, we invite them back, and we help them in that process.
2. The lost coin: The lost coin is the one we offend and so they fall into inactivity. Elder Martinez shared a story about how he had offended a member serving as a stake president and when he went back to see him, he just simply said sorry. He didn't give excuses, or say he didn't mean it, he just said he was sorry. Then the member came back and was active again.
3. The prodigal son: The prodigal son is the member that starts coming back all on their own. When they come back we embrace them and welcome them back. We don't ask what happened while they were gone, because that is the job of the bishop. We just do our best to help them feel welcome and loved.
I had never heard that explanation before and it stuck out to me quite a bit this past weekend. I really liked that explanation.
There were so many cool things said this past weekend. I barely had time to write them all down while I was there, let alone to write them to you guys this week. But I really felt the Spirit. It was an awesome weekend, even though we barely knew how our schedule was going to work out.
It was awesome to hear from you guys! Hope you have an amazing week!
Love you,
Elder Cole Cooper
P.S I loved the package you guys sent me. Thank you so much for the shirts, as well as the so called camel piñata. Haha.  I thought it was pretty funny. Please tell Grammy, Pop Pops, Celeste and Maddy thank you!!! I love and miss them. I was wondering if in the next package you could send those v5 roller ball pens that you sent last time? I think Grammy was the one that sent it last time. They were black, red, green, and blue. Thank you so much! Love you guys!

Missionary Life is Like A Zoo in a Jungle

Cole and his new companion, Elder Hardy

Stinkin big caterpillar.

Trip to Zoo on P-Day

Hey Family! How is everyone doing? Sounds weird that you guys started school. School just ended here in Suriname so it feels like you guys were never on vacation. That's funny you guys mentioned how hot it was in St. George. It's starting to approach the dry season here so the heat is starting to kick up. Imagine about the same heat you felt in St. George but because of the humidity your clothes stick to you. Carson, the only advantage I had over you was that I get to wear short sleeves haha.
Our week was an interesting one.  Missionary work is definitely like a zoo in a jungle. We had so many appointments fall through. It was very discouraging. I just always have to remember to keep perspective and realize that one day does not make it the end of the world. Even on the rough days there are experiences that you will never forget. Someone once told me that there isn't a missionary out there who would trade in a heart beat to go back to the worst day of their mission. I always try to remember that when the times are hard.
There are some really cool people here. My companion and I are working with a lot of recent converts and trying to help encourage them about missionary work. We just tried helping one of them do family history the other day. I wish I was taking the class you guys are doing. I had no clue how it worked. Maybe some tips could help?
I'm sorry it's real short this week. I ran out of time. It took a lot of time to upload pictures to dropbox. I love you guys so much! Enjoy the pictures. We went to the zoo.
Love,
Elder Cooper

New Companion! New Trainee!

Hey family how are things?
I can't believe Keri and Carson are going to start school. It feels like summer just started. It doesn't help that it's summer vacation for the people here, so to me it's almost like you never went on vacation. haha
That family history class sounds really cool. I wish I would have done it a little more when I was back at home. You guys ought to talk to Brother "S." He is the family history nut of Suriname. Never hesitates to show you photos of all the temples he's seen in America. He was actually endowed in the Mt. Timpanogas temple so me and him had a good conversation there.
Our week was an interesting one. We had the transition into the new transfer which is always a good time haha. Mom, to answer your question, it is more than likely I will be with him for the next two transfers. It can happen to where his training gets split, but it's not likely. Elder Hardy is excited to meet all the people we have and he is excited to do missionary work. He did choir throughout high school and likes to play video games. (I don't think you'll meet a guy today that doesn't like to play video games, haha). As I was talking to him I found out that he is actually from Las Vegas and not Salt Lake City like I originally thought. He was living in Colorado when he left but he said his family moved back. He is an awesome missionary. I'm excited to see how far he goes in the next twelve weeks. I'm excited for this next week. We have some good appointments planned.
I hope you all have an amazing week! Love you guys!
Elder Cooper