Family Bonds Mean Everything

Hey family! Sometimes I hear about how cold it is over there and get a little jealous because it is so humid and hot here. But then someone mentioned inversion in their emails and I realized that the real reason why the  cold is so bad there is because of inversion which will probably kill me when I get home.
This week was awesome. The highlight was definitely sacrament meeting. We had several investigators show up. One of them was someone that the members brought along and introduced us to so that was cool. We are excited to follow up with her.
So I'm pretty sure I've mentioned  "M" in previous emails but he has definitely made the most progress out of all the investigators since we have come into Commewijne. We had committed him early in the week to pray and ask the specific question of if  the Book of Mormon is true and on Saturday he had not done that. So we took the lesson to just talk about that. We had a return missionary member come with us and it was clear from the thoughts he shared that he had served a mission and had retained a lot of it. We talked with "M" about Moroni 10:3-5 and helped him to understand what the Lord's requirements are for an answer. The reason why we did this is because he said that he felt like he would need to finish the Book of Mormon before he could ask that question, also he felt like he needed to learn more before he could know. What was cool to see is how the Spirit just worked on him. He went from feeling like he could not ask that question specifically to that was the only thing he should be asking. The Spirit definitely helped him to realize that all other questions would fall into their place once he knew that about the Book of Mormon. At the end of the lesson he said he would pray on his knees and ask the specific question and listen closely for the answer. We are seeing him again on Wednesday so that'll be exciting to hear how it went. The Spirit was so strong.
One thing that has been kind of sad to see in the area is that several of our investigators have asked us to stop coming because of some conflicts between family members having different beliefs and feeling that it is not necessary for them to even investigate. It's really sad because it's clear to see that the adversary tries all kind of avenues to get someone from receiving the restored gospel. It has just been a big testimony builder  for me of how important it is to develop the kind of family relationship where righteous desires are supported. The family is definitely ordained of God. Seeing  how sad someone's life is made when their family relationship is less than favorable has shown to me how important it is to maintain family bonds. I don't know if that makes sense, but basically Satan is attacking  families and it is sad to see.
That's all the time I have, hope you all  have a great week!
Love,
elder Cooper

Morpho Butterfly

Hey family! So, in Suriname how it works is... the Chinese people basically run the show. All major grocery stores, auto and bike repair shops, multiple cybers and such are run and owned by Chinese people. Everything was closed on Monday for the Chinese New Year. So that's why I didn't email yesterday.
Please tell Joey I said congrats, that's awesome that he got baptized this weekend. I forgot that chapel was the chapel I was baptized in. I remember very little. Mostly how confused I was as a kid when everyone would bear their testimony and say how they knew that this is the only true church. For me, I understood that to mean that that church building was the only true church. Not completely knowing that they meant the organization as a whole and not the individual building. Haha good times. What I do remember though is how I felt on my baptism day. I know I have a journal that has a small page in very big letters that talks about how I felt.
This week was an awesome week! We had zone conference and it was amazing. President Egbert talked about the Atonement and narrowed it down into seven main points:
1. Forgiveness of sins
2. Ressurrected bodies
3. Justice satisfied
4. Resist Satan
5. Strength in trials
6. Power to change
7. Heals infirmities
All of these seem very simple and they are, but there are so many places in the scriptures that talk about what Christ has to go through in order to make these things possible, how we access it, all that fun stuff. He challenged us to find the scriptures we knew about  the Atonement and to put them into one of these seven categories.
A favorite example of mine that was shared in zone conference was the example of what is known as the Morpho butterfly. I wish I had a picture to show you about it, but basically it is an amazing example of God's creation. It is fairly large and is just this amazing bright blue. President Egbert used that example to symbolize the power the Atonement has to change us. We go from caterpillars to butterflies thanks to the Atonement it was a cool way of visualizing that for me.
I really loved a talk that a return missionary gave for district conference since that was also this past weekend. He talked about how the Book of Mormon gave him confidence as a missionary to answer people's questions and teaching. He talked about how he could go into a lesson and know that he would get to teach with Nephi or Moroni, or Lehi because he was using their words. Then, whenever the investigator had a question he couldn't directly answer he would jokingly think to  himself "Alright Nephi do you want to help me  out here? I think you've got this." Pretty funny plus I liked the visual.
I'm running out of time so I'll have to stop for right now. But I realized that of all the things I can say I've learned the most about on my mission, I have learned so much about the Atonement. I am so grateful  for that. I would not trade it for  anything. Obviously I still have a lot to learn about it and the rest of the gospel, but that realization came to me as I sat in zone conference this last Friday.
I love you all! Hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Cole Cooper

Don't Know What To Put In This Line Anymore

Hey family! Thanks for the email. Tell Tom I said hi, that guy is awesome. Man that's crazy to hear the Smith's moved. They will be missed. The ward is not going to look the same when I get back.
As for this week there is so much that I'm not sure I'll remember everything. So I'll start with what was probably the coolest thing.
On Wednesday there was a worldwide missionary broadcast, where several general authorities spoke; Neil L. Anderson, L. Whitney Clayton, David A. Bednar, Dallin H. Oaks and others. Apparently, it was the first worldwide devotional that the missionary department had held in almost a decade. They talked about how we as missionaries are to teach repentance and baptize converts. They talked a lot about the fundamental things missionaries get drilled into their heads all the time. I think my favorite is when Dallin H. Oaks spoke. He talked about how the ordinances of the fulness of the gospel are necessary in order to reach exaltation and that nowhere else can ordinances be found. He talked about how exaltation cannot be achieved by just simply "living a good life" not even living a good "Christian life" can do it. Basically the message was that missionaries shouldn't fear to raise a warning voice when they realize that eternal life, exaltation itself, hangs in the balance. If we don't tell people that then we deny them the opportunity to exercise their agency and change. That was a lot of paraphrasing and I'm sure more of it was what I learned from the Spirit but I liked it. I think it was a good reminder to go back to fundamental things. It reminds me of what President Uchtdorf said last conference about keeping things simple.
The next highlight involves a story. So, one of the investigators that we visit lives down a long overgrown road. It's overgrown because she is really the only one that lives down that road. On Friday we were biking down that road and saw out of the corner of our eyes what looked to be like a black  rubber hose, but when we turned around to be sure, it was actually a snake! I'm pretty sure it was an anaconda. Now, anacondas can get big, so to make sure my fish doesn't get bigger as I tell this story this anaconda was probably three feet long. As me and Elder Buehler pulled out our cameras to take a picture Elder Buehler jokingly said "Touch it" Now, most missionaries in order to assure their families that they are ok and that they needn't worry, would say something along the lines of "We laughed about that and then took this sweet picture and had a great lesson." But you guys haven't withheld any information about what is going on at home, (I'll use Keri's car crash as an example but there have been other things) so I will not withhold information from you guys. I reached down and touched this snake. Now I did not do this because of peer pressure, in my mind I was half-planning to do it already so the joke was just encouragement.  I must have held my hand there for about three seconds when he jumped back. I moved my hand out of the way in time so he missed. So the most important message from this story is that I'M OK! What this all resulted in though was a really good picture Elder Buehler got mid-jump! I'll send it to you guys in another email. Needless to say I got lucky and will probably, maybe not, be touching snakes in the future. JK, I won't touch any more snakes. Later on in the day there was a snake at an investigators house that got scared and ran away but still freaked out the investigator pretty bad. I felt bad for her.
Now for some spiritual stories. We found a less-active! Turns out he was baptized in Guyana several years ago and was just getting ready to leave for his mission when he got scared and the thought of a mission became too much so he did not go, and as a result, did not go to church from that point on. He moved to Suriname about three years ago and said that he wanted to come back but couldn't because the church was so far away and the services were only in Dutch. It was really cool when we tried to see how much he could remember  by sharing the Restoration. His neighbor sat in and I nearly broke down to see that he still remembered almost every detail about the Restoration and could explain it perfectly. We found out a little later in the lesson that he holds the Melchizedek Priesthood which is gold when you are trying to start up a group. It just goes to show that people more than likely still believe in the gospel when they go less-active.
Last story from the week comes from an investigator named "C." She recently had a co-worker die unexpectedly in a plane crash so when we came over she was still somewhat shaken. She broke down towards the beginning of the lesson and we took the rest of the time to have a really good lesson on the Atonement. It's the kind of lesson you live for as a missionary because  there is no doubt in your mind what you are sharing is inspired and is  what they need.
Well that was it from this week! Hope you all have a great one as well!
Love you!
Elder Cooper

Commewijne has officially begun!!!

Hey everyone! Well to start off the email this week I have to say that the first sacrament meeting in Commewijne was a success! It felt a little different because we were just sitting in chairs in someone's home. There was a total of 20 people there. So we just moved to form a circle after sacrament meeting and had sunday school with just the 20 of us. But it was still awesome! Everyone was very excited. The branch president wants to send the pictures he took to the local news of the Dutch Liahona and see if we can get in haha. If we do then I will be sure to get that magazine.

We also moved into our apartment. it's a very nice apartment. It may look a little small but I kinda like it that way. When it's smaller there is less room for clutter. That was always my pet peeve when I was in other apartments, because they were bigger. Missionaries in the past would just use the extra space to store things they didn't want to throw away or take the time to organize. Like the last apartment for example was just a closet full of stuff. There is no way that would fly in this apartment though. Dad, do you remember those times when you would randomly come into my room and try to help me clean off my desk and organize all my stuff and have all the things organized in draws with everything having it's own place? Well it worked. I've kinda become OCD about having a clean organized desk, so now I'll have to help my son when he gets his own desk, and then he won't learn until his mission just how true that was. The lessons you just have to learn on a mission are too many to count. Haha

We had a really cool day on Saturday. Just three back to back lessons meeting with sincere people. 

It has been really fun opening up Commewijne! People here have never seen missionaries. Many of them aren't even Christian. You can walk up to people and know they haven't seen missionaries or the Book of Mormon before and you can just talk about it. It'll be fun to see how next Sunday goes!

That was it from this week! I did get the package! Thank you guys so much for your emails! It really does mean a lot.

Love,

Elder Cooper

Commewijne is starting!

Hey family! Thanks so much for all the emails. Carson, I'm super happy for you that you got to bless the sacrament for the first time yesterday. That was definitely a very spiritual experience for me every time I did it. I enjoyed it. Sometimes I wish I got the chance to do it more often. I don't think I got to do it with Dad for my first time so that just makes it even more special. It was also a really cool experience to get to pass the sacrament to all the people in the ward that can't make it to church because of health issues. It's hard right after church because you're hungry and a little tired and you want to get out of church clothes, but it's worth it.
As for this week the big news is that by 5 o' clock Surinamese time tomorrow, we will be in a new apartment! It's been a long time coming, it's definitely taught me to be patient with things. I'll be sure to take a picture of what our study room setup looked like before I leave. As you can guess, it was quite crowded. Also, the first sacrament service in Commewijne is going to be held in this Sunday! Everyone is pumped, the group leader has been called and we are going to help him with setup this Wednesday or Thursday. Because there are only a small group of people guaranteed to come, church is two hours instead of three. Hopefully now that we are going to be moved in we will see the work just sky rocket.
This week was a crazy one. A lot of appointments that we had made with people fell through. Which was a little frustrating but we took it as the Lord trying to lead us to someone who is truly prepared and there were some cool experiences!
One of them was when we went to a guy named "M." We had made an appointment with him on Tuesday which did not work out and so we tried him again on Thursday. He turned out to be a really cool guy. We taught him about the Restoration and he had several good questions about it. He was asking stuff like how is the priesthood given, who is it given to, all that stuff. Best part of the lesson was at the end when we asked if there were questions and he just said, "Well no, it just seems like the ball is in my court now." It's little things like that that tell you someone is ready to act, which is sweet.
Another cool moment was when we got to go to the new group leaders home. He asked if we could share a quick message with him and his family and then he would take us to a couple of family members and friends that he knew in the neighborhood. It was sweet! We met them all and set up appointments with them. It's cool to see all the excitement members are having about the group getting started. It gets all of us excited as well.
I've been thinking a lot this week about how it has been going trying to start up this new area. It's hard sometimes because besides two or three families the only people you have to visit are the ones you find. A lot of the time you make an appointment with someone and then when it comes time for the appointment they bail and come up with an excuse. It's frustrating, but it's all part of the fun of starting up a completely new area. It makes me think about how a lot of other prophets and missionaries started their areas. Ammon came into his new area and simply served and loved the people. The sons of Mosiah went and taught the Lamanites and almost turned back it got so hard. Alma gave up the judgement seat and the comfort of his own home to try and call the church to repentance. In all of these cases though the Lord had something prepared for them, Alma found his companion Amulek, the sons of Mosiah and Ammon had the Anti-Nephi-Lehis, it would have been easy for them to say "This is too hard" and just turn back. But they didn't. They knew the Lord had something for them and they stuck to it. I think we all experience that at some point in our lives. We get thrown into a new environment and it obviously gets too hard and the temptation is to just give up, but I like what I heard Elder Buehler tell an investigator this week. "There is little growth in a comfort zone and there is little comfort in a growth zone." I know the Lord has something prepared for us whenever he calls us to do something that is new, uncomfortable, or foreign to us. It's been a fun lesson to learn that and I'm still learning a lot about the truthfulness of that.
Thank you guys so much for all the emails! Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Cooper
P.S To explain some of these pictures: McDonalds never fails to deliver and as you can tell by the picture, I was impressed with their new idea of adding the tomato sticker label to their chicken mac.
The next one is a house the sisters found in their area. Nicknamed the "Smurf house" haha good stuff.
The last one is a picture of probably the best mango I've ever had. Most mangos here are very stringy and you mostly suck on them. This mango though was perfect. Wish you guys could have tried it.

Happy New Year!

Hey family! Thanks for all the birthday wishes. Those skit pictures looked awesome.
Well for starters, never try to fly under the radar when it's your birthday. You will have people swoop in and make it the biggest thing haha. I had told one of the zone leaders (who we happen to be staying in the same apartment with)  a couple weeks ago that my birthday was today. I was half expecting him to forget and then when he saw me open up the birthday presents he would remember. Well, I was wrong. On Sunday night when they were out teaching he told one of the member families that they work a lot with, and who I know fairly well mostly from being in Paramaribo for awhile now, that my birthday was tomorrow. So. . . they made a recording of them singing the Surinamese version of happy birthday and that recording became the alarm we woke up to today. If that wasn't enough two of the boys from that family came over in the middle of studies and had bought a cake. So much for keeping it a secret. I told them all thanks. It was incredibly nice of them. They are a really cool family, (I don't say that just because they brought the cake either) The mother and the father want to be baptized but have to be married first. They are planning on getting married in 2016. All of them are incredibly nice and it's easy to see that they will make great members.
As far as what I do today, not that much. We are going to the mall to get Elder Buehler some things he wants, maybe I'll buy something as well if I see something. :)
Thank you guys so much for all the Christmas gifts by the way, I really enjoy the music, it's nice to be able to listen to music after going without for awhile.
This week was an awesome week. So many tender mercies from the Lord in finding people. One lady we found on Christmas was really cool. We were biking around trying to figure out what exactly we would do, when we heard her greet us really friendly, almost calling out for our attention. We decided to turn around and see why she was so nice and come to find out, the Lord has been somewhat involved in her life. She told us a story where her son had a car hit him at the age of 7 and it was not looking good for him. She shared how that was bringing him to the hospital, not only wondering if he was going to be ok, but if she was going to be able to pay for all the medical expenses. This part of the story was not so clear, but what we think happened is that elders were in the hospital that day probably visiting a member to give them a blessing, and they got asked to give a blessing to her kid while they were there. The elders left after that and while this lady, her name is "G", was wondering what was going to happen, the nurse came in and told her that her son was good to go home. She recognized that the Lord had healed her child but never really saw the elders again. It was really cool to talk to her and hear that story, she was just so excited.
Another cool miracle from the week was when we went and shared a Christmas message at the same family's house we Skyped at. They had invited a couple of friends and one of those families has a son that is doing a foreign exchange program in the States. This son is staying with a Mormon family while he is there. They take him to church every Sunday. I don't believe in coincidence.
Lot's of other things happened, but it's so much in one email. I love you guys so much. Please tell everyone I said hi! I hope you all have a great new year!
Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Cole Cooper

BIG NEWS!!

In the vast stretches of the flat greenland of Suriname there lies a river that bears the solemn name of the country. This river has a surprisingly rich history; a German WWII ship has been sunk and the remnants can still be seen from the shoreline. But this river is also a barrier. A barrier for missionary work. On the West side of the river the church is somewhat established and enjoys the blessings of five well-spread branches. But East of the river, there lays a city named Commewijne, (coma-wine-a) untouched by missionaries. All white, ready to be harvested. Missionaries and the leadership of Suriname counseled together for many a night and many a day to determine when the time would be just right to send the Lord's forces across the river into the untouched, unharvested city of Commewijne. Several events showed promise, a bridge reaching 100+ feet high was built and allowed the citizens of Commewijne and Paramaribo to cross the historic Suriname river and it allowed them to more closely interact one with another. But the time was not yet ripe, until December 12, 2015. A day when the Lord would declare to the missionaries and the church in Suriname to go. Go and cross the bridge and enter the untouched, unharvested city of Commewijne. "For behold the field is white already to harvest."

Ok, I had to type that up to give this news some context. It'll make more sense as I explain. This last Saturday we received transfer calls. Elder Hardy is partially leaving Paramaribo North and is going to be companions with one of the elders he knew in the MTC. Part of the Paramaribo North area will still be his area, but a part of the area that belonged to other missionaries is part of his area now. It's called Munder.
As far as what happens to me, well that's where the first paragraph of this email comes in. I have been asked to go and open up a group in the city of Commewijne. This area is across the Suriname river, over the Commewijne bridge. Missionaries have never worked there before, and up until this point there was not enough members living there to justify starting serious missionary work there. But now, there are several members and families living there and a sufficient amount of Melchizedek Priesthood holders that the Lord can now open up work in that area. I am really excited and it was cool to see how the members living in Commewijne responded when they heard the news. Me and Elder Hardy got to go with President Verway to meet them on Sunday to give them the news. Every member offered their home as a place to meet and were really excited to hear about missionaries finally crossing the river. One member went so far as to talk about building an apartment and buying a plot of land for a church building to be built there. He was excited. I am excited too!
I am going to be with an elder that has been in the mission field for about three months. His name is Elder Buehler. I've never met him so it'll be cool to get to meet him.
Don't worry about me leaving anything behind. We are driven in a truck/van for transfers so I don't have to pack up too much, or pack with the idea of losing weight. I will be able to take all of my christmas gifts and decorations, and belongings, etc. It'll be fun, it'll be an adventure and it'll be hard, but the members are willing to help and I'm excited to get to work with them.
I will still be able to get packages/letters that you send to Suriname so that's good as well.
I think I'll end this week's email with this verse in Alma 6
4: And thus they began to establish the order of the church in the city of [Commewijne]
5: Now I would that ye should understand that the word of God was liberal unto all, that none were deprived of the privilege of assembling themselves together to hear the word of God.
6: Nevertheless the children of God were commanded that they should gather themselves together oft, and join in fasting and mighty prayer in behalf of the welfare of the souls who knew not God.
I know this is a sign of the Lord hastening the work here in Suriname. This work is true. Thank you guys so much for the emails! I love you!
Have a great week!
Elder Cooper