From the VC Blog Aug 2012

8-27-12

Training is ...a LOT of work... 8-27-12

Hola Fam!

It's been an exhausting week! Training is... a LOT of work. But it's good for me. I will send some pics of me and hermana Mendoza. She is from Eagle Mountain but her parents are from mexico so she knows spanish already. I made her set a baptismal date in her first lesson with me... (she doesn't need to know that the investigator already had the date) :) But she did it and she's already a better missionary than me. She's great. I decorated a new planner for her when she got here and she seems to be happy so that's good! Right when she got here I threw her in the work we only had like 3 or four hours and we had like 8 lessons. Every half hour. It was pretty crazy but I was glad I could keep up with our numbers without sister Sordes. I looked at my journal this week and i started it every day pretty much with "wow... i'm exhausted" haha Oh i forgot to mention.. Get this Hna Mendoza was a vegitarian for 3 years before her mission. I watched her take her first bite of chicken after 3 years. When she told me that I laughed and thought, "good luck sister" meat is like water to mexicans. I guess she knew that since she is mexican.. but she's had a pretty good attitude about it.

I think I tramatised her in a lesson. Like the second or third day we went into a lesson and there was someone there that we hadn't met. He was laying in the middle of the living room on a bed with a cross above his head. He spilt his guts to us and told us that he was a sinner and he needs to repent and he needs to pray to saints and stuff. I think he was on something. But he looked at me and starred and said to Hna mendoza and our member that they need to be really nice to me because I am an angel that is a saint that needs to be prayed to like the virgin mary. I was biting my lip trying not to laugh. I guess it didn't phase me at all because I talk to people all day like that in the VC.. but they were mortified, it was pretty funny.

We had stake conference this Sunday which was weird to hear church in english.. but it was good.

Anyway- that's pretty much it. I'm learning lots and seeing miracles everyday :) Love you all and hope to HEAR from you all soon :)

The chapter is Alma 56- about the strippling warriors. This one goes out to all the mothers who "know it" especially my mom!

Love you,

Hermana Cottrell

Trainer!

Hola familia

 

HELP! I'm prego with a greenie that is arriving TOMORROW!! Yeah.. So President called me Saturday night and said, "Sister Cottrell, you have been called to train" I sat there forever and then said, "uhhh... are you sure, President?" He said, "Yes, this is what the Lord wants." I was shaking. I'm really nervous. I am still new! It wasn't what I expected for atleast a few more transfers. Usually people don't train till towards the end of there missions from what I have seen lately except for Sister Fors and.. well.. she was born a missionary. It should be interesting. Our area is huge and I don't even know a third of the members. So Hermana Mendoza (born in Eagle mountain, utah but grew up with parents from Mexico) and I will learn together. It's a pretty big responsibility. Prayers will be much needed. I talked to Elder Beckstrand and he said, "I have absolutely no worries about it... you have had good companions" then I said... "HA.. yeah.. all TWO of them??" Probably not the most respectful thing I could of said, but I appreciated his confidence in me and he laughed.

 

This week has been really good. We have worked so hard and it's really payed off. I don't know if I said this in my other letter, but Sister Sordes and I have cancelled all our lesson plans and just taught baptism. We have seen sooooo many miracles from it. Everyone we have taught has realized the importance and wants to be baptized now. So cool.

 

We have been struggling to get people to church, this passed sunday we left church to gather people and as we were about to give up, I had one more person that I wanted to go try and they alllll came. We got sooo many people at church (well it's a lot from what we had been doing) anyway.. it was a testimony to me that when we do our very best the Lord will make up for the rest!

 

Sunday was so good. We had a fireside where recent converts get up and tell their conversion story and we have musical numbers. GUESS who gave their conversion story this time... MARTA! :) I wanted to cry. She did so good and I was so proud of her. I know she'll stay active.. makes me feel so good that I got to be apart of that.

 

Sister Sordes is going to Sister Larson! They will do awesome. Okay.. I don't really know what else to say.. sorry it's not very long this week, but it was a good week. I'm sure I will have a lot to say next week.

The chapter is 2NE 31 EL Bautismo!!!

Love you all

SFTE

Love,

Hermana Cottrell

Pictures Aug 2012

Got my nails done on p-day!

At the temple wearing the skirt sister Sordes made for me!

Miriam

Hermana Cottrell dish (that I can eat!)

Miracle after Miracle

Hello Family!

I hope I can remember what all happened this week. We went to the temple on Wednesday which was sooooo nice. We always do the 7am session which is hard to stay awake, but this time I was really alert and learned a lot. I am so grateful that I get to be so close to a temple and even work on temple ground on my mission.

We had a meeting with our zone and I was assigned to give a talk. I don't know what it is, but I have to either give a talk or a training at every one of those. I guess it's because we are the only sisters in the zone so they want to mix it up. My talk was on showing charity to our investigators and implementing how Christ would extend the baptismal invitaion. I learned a lot. I looked up a lot of stories in the scriptures where Christ is giving committments and he doesn't invite, He commands, "Follow thou me" "Be baptized in my name" Well... I know we can't command our investigators, but I think the reason Christ extended invitations in that way was because He always has an eternal perspective and He see's what we can become. Its like if you saw your brother or sister hanging off a cliff, would you say "oh.. I invite you to give me your hand so I can save your life" ?? You would plead with them, because you know if they just do their small part in giving you their hand, you have the tools to save their life. And the way Christ did it was he ALWAYS promised blessings. He never gives us a commandment if it's not going to benefit us. Pretty simple. Anyway.. I just talked about giving committments with charity. Learned alot.

We had Miriam, an 18 year old in our ward come out with us for 2 days straight. She wanted to see what it's like as a missionary to see if she wanted to go. She is amazing. Sister Sordes and I prayed really hard to let her see miracles and that we would have success. Well it started off in 120 degree weather knocking on a million of our investigators doors with no response. Great. We prayed and prayed and followed the spirit and as we were diligent the blessings pored in. Miracle after miracle. Even Miriam said, "I just had a thought come.. we could go to my exboyfriends house and try and teach his parents." She was super nervous, but said it would be okay. Well.. just shows that we always need to be a good example because they let us all right in and ate everything up! Turns out they had met with missionaries before too. Even the dad said.. "I'd like to come to church one of these sundays to see what it's all about" Cool. We were blessed with 6 new investigators in 2 days with a total of 11 for the week! Our problem definitely isn't finding, but organizing. It's hard to figure out how to get all our investigators to progress because we can't see them every day. We have about 40-50 right now and it's super stressful, but i'm so grateful that the Lord is putting peple in our path. This time we are NOT loosing our planners!!!!

Brandon called me at the VC and left me a message yelling on the phone. He said that he just had an epiphany and that he's getting baptized. Apparently him and his gf molly were fighting and she hadn't been talking to him.. so he said a prayer while he was driving (hopefully not with his eyes closed) and said "heavenly father please just help molly to forgive me and that she will talk to me and work things out" well right when he said amen, he got a text from her saying that she's sorry and that she wants to work things out. That's not all! Right after he got the text he looked over and there were two missionaries on bicycles! He couldn't believe it. So September 8th he will be baptized. That was such a testimony to me that technology is inspired. The missionaries had dropped him, but because I still kept in contact with him, he's getting baptized! I'm so excited for him.

We just got back from "mission tour" about an hour ago. It was AMAZING! We had Elder Marcus K Eidukidus from the 70 come talk to us. He was really inspiring and I know that we will see more baptisms from it.

As far as the allergies.. I'm gonna call another doctor I think and try and get another opinion. One of the sisters made me think when she said that maybe something else is happening to my body and this is just the way it's reacting to it? Anyway.. I don't think it's anything big, but I'm gonna see if another doctor says something different.

We had dinner with Miriam and her family and they were sooo cute! They figured out everything that I was allergic to and planned accordingly even though everything didn't go together. So I am being taken care of :) Thank you so much for your prayers! I really am fine.. no one notices that anything is wrong with me unless I tell them and it doesn't bother me as much anymore.

Love you all so much! The chapter this week is D&C 64. ALOT of good stuff in this one. I will be reading it this week too :) Love you

Love,

Hermana Cottrell

FOOD allergy too!

Hello Fam,

Happy Birthday to Mom and Laci :) Hope it all went well! It's been a really good week for the most part. It started off with getting our nails done on pday. Great start to my week. We had some really amazing lessons that I will never forget too. One on the Law of Chastity with Terressa. We had a member come with us from the ward and she shared her conversion story. She said she lived in mexico with her "not husband" only because they had children together, not because they loved each other. Her husband would cheat on her all the time and they would fight like crazy. She was miserable to say the least. They came to the United States, leaving behind one of their sons because he couldn't get papers and they get a knock at the door- the sister missionaries. Anyway- this was only just over a year ago and you would have ZERO idea that all this was going on in their marriage only a year ago. They had us over for dinner last week and the spirit is so strong in their apartment and they are in love and their kids are happy and learning the gospel. She said in the lesson, something like, "I know this might sound crazy, but I trust him with all my heart now." Wow. Terressa was crying and said that just before we had came, she just happened to be reading in the Book of Mormon and it was about the Law of Chastity and she didn't understand it and then we came and started explained it right after. I'm glad we were listening to the spirit as we were planning. 

I had a dream last week that I was teaching someone about the temple. It was weird because even though I work at the VC, I don't teach many people about the temple unless they are members. Usually I teach the very basics. But after my dream I have had the opportunity to teach soooooooo many people about the significance of the temple. Really cool. It was a testimony to me that we really can recieve revelation through dreams. 

We have started teaching Emilio and his two kids. My ears perked up as I heard his little boy say the first prayer and said, "please help me and my family go to the temple one day" Emilio has the strongest testimony of any investigator i've ever taught, but the only problem is that he's been smoking for 25 years and has prayed and fasted and has done all he knows what to do and he cant stop. We talked with him last night and we are going to the Addiciton Recovery Program with him on Sunday. I know he can do it. I'm excited for him. He'll have a cool story to tell after all this passes for him. 

I met with the allergist once again yesterday. This time I did the food test. They tested me for 40 different types of foods and I was allergic to 29 of them. Thank you so much for all your fasting and prayers. I have really felt it more than you know. I am able to get through my days just fine. I might cancel all my dinner appointments for a while to see if I can get it undercontrol and everything. I am fine though. They put me on another box of drops, so hopefully we should see a difference in the next couple months.

Love you all

This week is alma 37 :) Say a prayer before you read it and look for what the Lord is trying to tell you :)

Love,

Hermana Cottrell