Dearly beloved family,

This past week has been quite amazing.  It's been getting chilly here every once in awhile, as always the weather is bipolar and so it varies from day to day.  

Thanks for sending the Christmas tree in a box; it is already up in the apartment, along with 2 other trees that we received in the meantime.  We have lights strung up around the apartment and we are constantly listening to Mo Tab Christmas music.  

There sure is a lot of growth in these wards, in November there were about 8 people who were baptized and confirmed, the majority of that being a family who continues to stay strong.  I am continually amazed at even though these members have very busy lives with work and family, they are always willing to come out with us to teach so that they can share their awesome testimonies.  

As for Lilian, we've had some great lessons with her and she was able to come to church with her boyfriend and daughters, along with some other kids she takes care of.  After church they told us how much they loved the testimonies of the members and how they felt loved and accepted, something not found too often.  As we taught the Word of Wisdom she knew that it was a commandment from God and was willing to live it.  I've seen her change so much in just the little time that we've been teaching her.  

I love missionary work, especially during the holidays.  I hope you all have a great week full of Christmas cheer.

Con un abrazo fuerte,

Elder Cooley

Como Estamos?

So this past Wednesday I arrived to my new area, Houston 1 West with my new companion, Elder Sheridan. He's from Roy, UT and went to Weber State before coming out. We are in the Houston West (Spanish) Stake and in the Houston 1 ward. There are a total of 6 companionships in this ward because there are so many people in the boundaries. It's one of the most downtown areas of the missions and so it's pretty easy to find people to talk to on the street and there are a bunch of apartment complexes also.

As for the people, we have an investigator, Lilian, from Uruguay. The way she came in contact with the missionaries was that she looked up her name on Facebook and only found 1 other person. As they became friends and started to talk, the other (Brazilian) Lilian began to share her testimony and asked if she would mind having missionaries over. She accepted and we received the referral. Well it turned out that the other Lilian is the wife of the Brazil Salvador South mission president. She came to the Christmas Devotional and felt the Spirit. She tells us about the inner peace that she sees in members of the church as she's come in contact with the church over the years. We also have a Brazilian family that we teach in Spanish and they respond to us in Portuguese. We were also able to teach some less active families and they made it to church this past week so that was cool. We have seen many instances in which the Lord has guided us to find those who are ready as we strive to follow the Spirit.

Anyways, hope all is well, have a great inspired week!

Love, Elder Cooley

November 29, 2011

Howdy!  Sounds like everyone had a good Thanksgiving full of food and good company. Mine was very similar and I have since recooperated from being sick.  After emailing last week I asked Elder Riley and some other elders to give me a blessing, then we went to work and I ended up throwing up in someone's yard while contacting them but he was nice enough to offer me some water (the man we talked to had been suffering from memory loss so hopefully he's forgotten about that incident).  I started feeling a little better and then we went to a member's house to eat and not to be rude I ate what I could, then when we got home that night I was feeling really cruddy and threw up again. Sadly, I had to stay in for the first time on Wednesday but we were finally able to go out and work by 6 pm.  It was no fun but now everythings great.  By the time Thanksgiving came I still wasn't feeling great but I was determined to eat.  So we ate with the Portillo's, that was pretty much a traditional thanksgiving dinner.  Then we went by the Guzman's, didn't eat with them but they gave us some fajita meat and salchichas.  Then we went to the Flia. Rodriguez, and they fed us some sandwiches from El Salvador (kinda like a torta) with turkey.

As for transfers, turns out my time here in Mo City has come to an end, at least for now. I love this ward and all the members and investigators I was able to work with.   I was finally able to take some pictures with Joaquin and Maria (recent converts) so I'll send those next week a lo mejor.

Anyways, love y'all, hope your week is full of peace and blessings.

Love, Elder Cooley

November 22, 2011

Dear family,

It's good to hear about the birth of Carson, I hope everything is going well with him and Alicia and I hope Dad is doing alright all by himself at home.

I'm not feeling too good, health wise, right now (probably due to something I ate) so I can't really think straight but we had a good week of work and we've found some pretty cool people. We went by to visit a member that was on the ward list that we had never met and it turned out they'd moved. But as we were at the apartment complex we saw a couple on the second floor and decided to talk to them. As we talked, we found out that the wife's brother is a member and is coming to stay with them for a month through the holidays. They told us how they'd seen the gospel completely change his life and how he quit smoking and drinking. We have an appointment to go by and visit them this Saturday.

Once again President Saylin has asked that we all strive for a "Weekend in White" on Dec. 17th and 18th by baptizing and confirming someone so that we can have a White Christmas. These past few weeks the chapel has been filling up and that's been really awesome to see, especially when about 20 of them are investigators. This past Friday we had the ward party for thanksgiving and the turkey was definitely cooked a little differently than usual, but it was really good. Last night we had a Noche de Hogar with a part-member family and they loved it. For thanksgiving we will be having dinner with the stake president and his family so hopefully I will be feeling better by then. That's awesome to hear about Sis. Sharp's baptism, I would imagine that being an epic event with much waiting. Well, I hope y'all have the rest of a great week!

Thanks to everyone for the prayers and support, hope y'all have a great thanksgiving full of thanksgivingfullness!

Love, Elder Cooley

Howdy!  This past week was great being able to hear from Elder Rasband, a lot of what he spoke about had things to do with "The Divine Call of a Missionary" talk that he gave in conference a few years ago.  He spoke of the love of the Savior for all those engaged in His work.  He also shared another tidbit of what happened in that experience with Elder Eyring.  He told how Elder Eyring asked the representative from the Missionary Department how many senior couples were needed and he said,"300".  Then he asked, "how many do we have to assign today?", to which the representative replied,"36".  The Lord needs a lot of senior missionaries too and they definitely help out a lot.  A senior couple in the mission that has been here for 2 years is going home at the end of this month and a new couple has come to replace them but it's great to have their awesome examples in this work and the Lord definitely needs more.

This past week we were biking down the road when a car pulled up beside us and the lady inside said she wanted to talk to us.  As she pulled over and got out she told us how she had been researching a lot about the Church and had many questions.  She was genuinely interested and we committed her to come to church to see for herself.  We then told the English elders and they have been teaching her.  Also, with our communications with the English elders I found out that a man I had first street contacted and referred to them had gotten baptized.  I had OYM'd him and during the process bore testimony to him of the Book of Mormon and left him a copy along with a reading assignment.  When the English elders went to teach him he said he had read and he is currently keeping up with the ward's Book of Mormon reading schedule by getting up every morning and reading from. Now to describe this man, Rodney, the best thing that comes to mind is Mosiah 14:2, he was definitely not a pleasing sight.  One thing I've seen that helps me approach random people and talk to them about Jesus has been when I imagine that they are a long lost sibling that had never heard about the gospel, and of course to always remember Christ and his atonement because that's when the Spirit comes and we are lead to know what to say.  

Well, I love y'all, hope all is well and have a great week!

Con gran amor,

Elder Cooley

Dear Family,

This past week was great!  The weather in Texas is pretty bi-polar, one day it'll be hot and the next it'll be cold.  That's pretty crazy what happened to Adam, that's great that he's alive and all.  I really need to repent for not taking as much pictures and I need to get better at writing in my journal; it's fun to read it sometimes and look back at how much the Lord has richly blessed me.  Ethan Jones is home!  I need his address, porfa, or if you could just have him write me that'd be great too.  Hace mucho que he escuchado de el!  

As for things this week, we had zone conference yesterday in which we received a lot of training on the Restoration and how to teach the first lesson better to investigators.  It was pretty awesome; my testimony of the restoration was increased as President Saylin taught it to us and then shared with us the First Vision.  This Friday, Elder Rasband is coming to speak to the 3 Houston missions.  

As for this past week, on Tuesday we decided to try some people on some old potential investigator forms we had in the Area Book from a few years back.  We knocked on the door of a family and after a little talking they let us in and we were able to teach them. We were also able to teach a family that we had been wanting to teach since about a month ago.  All in all, we found and taught some great people this past week.  I know this work is true and that we have been commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ to do this work, I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and that since then God has continued to call prophets to instruct us.

I love y'all and hope you have a great week!

Con gran amor, Elder Cooley

Que hay de nuevo?

Alicia's baby is coming pretty soon, crazy!  This past week was great! We did have a Halloween party; it was a 3-ward trunk or treat event. We were able to get some investigators to attend and they really seemed to enjoy it. 

  

On Tuesday night we were able to teach the nephews of a less active couple that we have been reactivating, they were baptized about 4 years ago and sealed soon thereafter but had fallen away due to the hardships of life. We were also able to teach the mother of the husband. She had come to church a lot about 20 years ago and loved it but had never felt ready for baptism so we're excited to help her resolve her concerns. Our bishop has asked us to go visit all the less actives and see how they're doing so we've been doing a lot of that recently. I've been reading a lot from the General Conference talks, and they are really good, there were a lot who spoke of opening our mouth and sharing what we know. We also had the primary program in our ward and it was pretty impressive how these little kids memorized their parts and how funny it was to watch the younger ones wave at their families and try to keep still.

Here are some pictures from the temple trip and some other things. Anyways, hope you all have a great week.

Love, Elder Cooley