Week 14 -- I hate shots

Wow the time is going by so fast. It feels like I just wrote the last email. Like I always say, every week is crazy!!

Last email I talked about getting bed bugs. Well the rash kept spreading and getting worse so I called the mission doctor and he found a doctor in Ayr that could see me. So I went there and they had never seen this before. It look 3 doctors about 2 hours to figure out what was going on. It was not bed bugs but I did get bite by a bug. I had an allergic reaction to it. They could not figure out which bug it was, if it was poisonous or not. Just little things like that. So I had to go in for a blood and urine test. Well for those of you who don't know me too well, I HATE NEEDLES! I hate flue shoots, vaccines, and anything that pokes me. I thought crap I have to be responsible and force myself to go since I did not have my parents to force me to go through with it. I was so scared. So we walked in and the nurse took me back and sat me down. I asked the typical questions, “Does it hurt? How long?” The nurse told me not to look but with her accent I thought she said look. Oh boy!!! Bad Idea. The needle was huge, the good part though was it was in and sucking away. So it did not hurt but I could see my blood being sucked out by a mini vampire. I about passed out. I went pale and limp. So the nurse picked me up and laid me on the ground for a good 15 minutes to get it back together. The results come in a week so I got put on some medication and I have a cream for the rash. It is doing a lot better and not itchy or spreading. I am gonna be just fine. It was quiet the experience though. I have to thank everyone that warned me about all the things that live in Australia that try to kill you. I had my first run in and it was not fun.

Anyway the mission work side of things went really good! The first day we got back to Ayr we were on the deadly treadlies biking to a less actives house. I noticed a big scary man standing on the side of the road and felt like I should talk to him. I did not want to talk to him. He was a scary looking guy but I trusted the spirit and walked up and started talking. He was the best!! We taught him a quick lesson. He invited himself to church and to be baptized so we did not have to do any of the hard stuff. Sadly, he did not come to church but we have his number and all his info so we are gonna work with him a lot when we come back to Ayr. After our lesson with the less active family we were riding home and another prompting came to us to talk to a man on the road. Turns out the same experience. He invited himself to church, did not come but we have all his info to follow up so we have some really promising people. It is just amazing how much the Lord blesses us and prepares people to receive this full knowledge of the gospel.

The wonderful Yip family had us over for dinner and they planned for us to go Christmas caroling. We recruited a few of the other branch members and had a good number of people to go around and sing. Not your typical caroling experience. No sleigh or hay bale to sit on. No snow falling down. No hot coco. Same music about the snow and Christ’s birth. We went around to all the less actives with a plate of cookies and sang a couple of songs. It really helped them feel loved and bring the spirit into everyone's home. It was so fun!!

During our district meeting the zone leader came on and told us we are gonna start implementing the invitations to be baptized into our key indicators. BOOM look at that. My idea made it all the way up to him and then out to everybody. He gave us our credit and it was just so awesome to have our little idea become a big one.

Since we have the car we go to all our surrounding areas to follow up with less actives. This week we spent time in Alva. It is right on the beach and quite the little beach town. Everyone has a fishing boat or sail boat or something for the water. So after our visits with everybody we had lunch on the beach. Nobody swims or plays on the sand because of sharks and jelly fish. So it was an empty beach and not to impressive. It was still pretty cool to see the ocean and the reef.

Charters Towers had their Christmas party for the branch. We drove over a day early to attend it. The only bummer about it was that we have a very strict 2nd counselor and the branch president is too mellow and shy so the 2nd counselor takes over. So the party was at his house and not the chapel. This meant we could not invite anyone that we were teaching to the party. We did invite Angus and he came with his family but we could have had so many other people come and see the church and the members but the 2nd counselor had to have it at his house. It was fun don’t get me wrong. There was just no room and no investigators to show around. In the end it turned out good and we had a fun time. Lots of laughs and love.

We had some really good lessons with some people that we have been teaching. We took more time in these lessons to open up and talk as friends and this made them open up to us and we got down to what is holding some people back. It was really good.

We visited Jose and his wife. We showed them the Christmas video and started to talk about my life before the mission. Juliette, the wife, found my YouTube channel and we ended up watching all my videos. The way they see me totally changed. Juliette wants to show her school this and have me come in and give a motivational speech and all this stuff. I talked with them about my dad’s saying. You have to have your main course before you can have your spice. They loved it. I also talked about trails in life and how we can overcome them. I used my bad back as the analogy. This caused them to really open up to us and it turned into the best lesson we have ever had with them. Usually Jose is always changing the subject or talking about something else but today when we were teaching he was backing us up. ( Jose is a member, his wife is investigating) Jose was bearing his testimony and the spirit was so strong in this lesson. I was praying so hard that we would get through to her but she does not see why she needs to change, she is good where she is. I got really emotional and teared up when asking questions and bearing my testimony. She is gonna think about it and wants some time. We understood. She still wants us over all the time because she likes how she feels when we are there. If only she could understand. In time she will come around.

I am getting so excited for Christmas and to Skype my family. I want to wish you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS. Enjoy the cold snow and be safe. I love you all.

LOVE,
Elder Cahoon

Week 13 District conference was amazing

G'day mate, How ya going?? I have been on my deadly treadly the last few days before hitt'n the frog and toad. Fairdinkum mate my shakes ponies have been sore!! I am not gamman with ya. AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE Oi Oi Oi

I thought I would start out the email in my native language. I will be impressed if someone can figure out what everything means. 

This was the funniest, craziest, laziest and, best week ever!! Since I had to drop Elder Talaipa off and pick up Elder Cadiang, the elder he was with was companion-less so we had to stay in Townsville until his new golden missionary came. We got a call that he would not be here until Wednesday night. It was going to be crazy.

Elder Cadeardo, the 3rd companion was having some doctor problems so for the first 2 days we were there we just sat in doctors offices all day. At the last doctor appointment he was told he would need a colonoscopy. He had no clue what that was. I did. I started to laugh so hard. When we got in the car I told him they were gonna stick a thing up his bum. He went from being ok to pure terror. So that next day we had to stay in the flat all day since he was being cleaned out on the toilet. It was not a pleasing day. To add the craziness that day that he was stuck on the toilet was the day his new companion would fly in. So at 10:00 at night we went to the airport to pick the new golden up. We got there only to find out his plan was grounded in Brisbane due to rain. So we had to call President and figure out what to do. He said, "Go back to the flat but stay awake until I text you when he leaves." So we stayed up until midnight then left to the airport very tired to pick up a new missionary. We got him at 1:00 in the morning. We were all so tired. It was so fun though to pick him up. I understood exactly what he was going though since I did the same thing. So I felt like a pro. It felt like, “Just follow me kid and you will be good.” We got him back to the flat. He showered, ate, then we went to bed. We had permission to sleep in. But I had to drive Elder Cadeardo to the hospital to get a thing up his bum. We got there at 2:00 and did not get out until 6:00. I had no phone, no entertainment. Well I did have a Book of Mormon for entertainment but that got tiring after an good hour. So I slept and sat in the waiting room for hours. This whole week has just been crazy!!

It was a good week though. It taught me to love Elder Cadiang. He is the best now. I love him so much!!! We are doing great together. We struggled getting along with Elder Cadeardo, but through the experience I grew to love Elder Cadiang so much more!!

District conference was amazing!! We had an investigator (Mariah) from Ayr catch a ride with the Yips to come. It was her first time at church and it was the best. We got to go to all the sessions. Priesthood, Saturday and Sunday. It was the first time in my life that I wanted to go to learn. I took 15 pages of notes and was on the edge of my seat listening the whole time. It only felt like 20 minutes of talks. Not a couple of hours. Every talk was so good and inspired. Our mission President is just so amazing and just lifts you up whenever he talks!!

On Sunday we headed back to Ayr for the next week. It started to rain. One thing that is so funny is whenever it rains, the day before someone always asked us to pray for rain. We do and then the next day it rains. Every time. The power of prayer is real!!

Speaking of prayers, in district conference my companion and I got to give the Melchizedek priesthood to a new convert in Townsville. He did not want Elder Cadeardo to do it for some reason. Hmm wonder why. haha so I felt so honored to participate in that. He was baptized in September and is already ready for this. He is amazing!!

I have heard about all the snow in Utah. Still not getting any here. It is gonna be a hot Christmas. So weird to see all the lights up and decorations but have it be 110 degrees out. 9/10 people here have never ever seen or touched snow. I feel so bad that they are missing out on it. Everyone has a dream of seeing snow and playing in it so I talk a lot about it and let them know what it is like.

It feels so good to be back in my area after not working for a week. Time to share the gospel. If you have not heard already, the church is doing a Christmas initiative. #LIGHTtheWORLD 25 ways over 25 days. Go look it up and start doing it. It is so fun to share with people here and get them doing it so you should too.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Love,
Elder Cahoon


Translation to the Aussie slang

G'day mate, How ya going?? I have been on my deadly treadly the last few days before hitt'n the frog and toad. Fairdinkum mate my shakes ponies have been sore!! I am not gamman with ya. AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE Oi Oi Oi

Hello, I have been riding my bike for the last few days before driving the car. Geez man my legs have been sore. I am not kidding. Go Australia.

 

 New golden missionary

 Mission President

 Bed bugs

Free fruit

Week 12 -- It is hot!!! But the work goes on.

Well I am done being trained. I have gone through my first 12 weeks and am doing great!! We had a great week up in Charters Towers!!

With all of our finding efforts from last week we had some great lessons with some of the people that we found. It was one of the hottest weeks so far!! It got up to 46 degrees( Celsius) not Fahrenheit
I wish it was 46 Fahrenheit. So if you convert that to F you get about 114 degrees!! It is hot!!! But the work goes on.

We had a sad day; one of the members had a heart attack and died. We attended the funeral and the wife asked if I would get up and read a few scriptures. I was honored to do so. It was the first funeral that I think I have been to where I was old enough to really understand it. It was a sad day. I don't think a normal funeral is that crazy! They put up a slide show of him and there was some nice classical music playing to it but out of nowhere it changed to really loud heavy metal music. Boy did that wake everyone up. Then when they were carrying the casket to the car the same thing happened, loud heavy metal music. It was quite the funeral.

Every morning we still go work out with Angus and help him understand what he read from the Book of Mormon that night. I said last week he shared it with his family and this week we got to sit down with the family. They are not as solid as Angus but the Lord has giving Angus such a strong testimony and he is going to be able to help his family come around. During the lesson he did more teaching then we did. We would start with Joseph Smith wanted to know.. and Angus would just step right in with so much energy," So he prayed and God came to him" and from there Angus just gave the lesson and we just helped here and there. It was so fun to see him share it and go through it with other people. On Sunday he got up and bore his testimony in front of everyone and he is not even a member. It was so great!! He also asked when he could give a talk. He was so prepared by the Lord.

We visited the Lowery's a ton this week. They make me feel like I am home. Just the way we talk and laugh and tease each other. It is so fun. They are a great family!! It is so good to have them in the branch. Brother Lowery gave us some gifts. One of the coolest ones is a bunch of hand drawn pictures of all the historical building in Charters Towers. They are really beautiful and super cool. They also gave me and Elder Talaipa matching Aussie shirts with all the Aussie slang on it. I have so much love for their family and for them.

We had to go back to Ayr a couple of days early to make it to a Christmas Party. It was really fun to be apart of. The members in Ayr have so much love for each other and they help us so much. Brother Yip gave me a referral during the party. Later in the week we went to contact him. He works in the police and we got to know him and talked for a good hour about things and then slowly brought in the church and he was open to having us come by again. So I am praying that this guy will be good. He has no smoking or drinking problems, which is the big thing that is holding us back from baptisms.

The Yips also had us over for dinner this week and they took us out to see all the Christmas lights. Some people here go really crazy with the lights but it is nothing compared to Hidden Oaks at night with all the trees lit up. Even though it is Christmas time and looks like Christmas, it does not have the same feeling with out the snow. I heard it snowed a little bit for you guys in Utah. That is so great!!

The transfer ended this week and my companion Elder Talaipa got moved down to McKay and I got stuck with Elder Cadiang again. We will see how it goes. It is crazy how fast the time is going by so I hope it stays that way these next 6 weeks. I drove Elder Talaipa to Townsville and picked up the Townsville elder so we could drop him off at the airport. So right now I am in a tripanionship until the Townsville elder gets his new comp.

Things are hot but going good. Thanks for all the love. Talk to you next week.

Love, 

Elder Cahoon

James Lowery

Working out with Angus

Sister Lowery

Angus and his family

Christmas party in Ayr

The Yips

Saying goodbye to Elder Talaipa