Week 65 The Spirit Will Testlfy

It has only been 4 days since I emailed but more things have continued to happen and be amazing!!

I want to start with the biggest miracle that happened this week. Dad you will love it!! Last week we had a family bring their cousins to church, Biatrix and Alexandra. They came last week and the week before.

As they have come with their family they have wanted to learn more. So we set up an appointment to teach in the member’s home. Here is where it gets fun. They are a family from Brazil. Bia speaks really good English but Alexandra does not. So when we came over for our lesson we had the members translate after we would teach. It was so cool because it gave us more time to think about what we were going to say. We even picked up on some Portuguese and would throw in a word or two every so often.

It was the most amazing lesson ever. The spirit was so strong and it was amazing to see that even though it was hard to understand, the spirit could still testify to them that what we taught is true!!

After our powerful lesson I asked if they would like to get baptized!! YES!! They got so excited and we are so happy that they could.

They are so excited and will be baptized on the 9th of December!! Bia is so amazing. She is 16 and you would think that she has been in the ward her whole life. The young women have just loved her so much and they are all the best of friends now. She has come to all the firesides that have happened the last 3 Sundays and she even came to the seminary graduation. Boy is she amazing and so prepared by the Lord!!

On that note they keep coming to church and so did the other people that came last week. We had 10 investigators at church again. It was amazing to see. We still could not believe it!! It has been fun to be in a ward for so long and have gotten to know the members!! We have such a great relationship with them and they are doing so much mission work for us. Bia and Alexandra are great examples of it. Things are happening and it is so great to be apart of it.

On the sad note we were out for 2 whole days due to a really bad sickness. It hit Elder Winter first and then Elder Lim and then me. It would have been nice if it was all at once but it went one by one.
With sickness though we still were able to see so much success. It is amazing to see that it is the Lord’s work. Being sick was not fun but seeing people feel the spirit was just so amazing.

I am so excited for the future and all that is happening. Tonight we are having a big party with all the recent converts at Bishop’s house. Haha that is so awesome! Sheila is just amazing still. It was cool that we got visited by the General Authorities last week. A big part of their message was that we don’t baptize less active members. It was a good thought. It made it even better to see Sheila and Celia at church that week. Oh man I just love it.

Well everybody have a good week.

Love,

Elder Cahoon

Week 64 Full of Ups and Downs

Wow where to start? This week again was just so crazy and full of ups and downs.

As I mentioned last week Elder Watson was put with us because of depression. That was really hard. He was really struggling. We tried our hardest to keep him happy and not anxious but nothing worked, so for 2 days we just stayed at the flat and read scriptures and played our golf simulator and went to the sauna. Because of the state he was in we took him to the mission home. It was pretty sad to see him go home. He was a strong elder who was so great!! He is going to try and get better so he came come back.

Since he is gone now we have yet again a new companion, Elder Lim. He is from Korea and while Elder Watson was with us Elder Lim was in Mudgee. He is so great and has made us breakfast every morning.

Elder Watson’s experience was the low for the week and it only got better from there. Ok actual wait, there is one last bit of sad news. Steven was doing so great. He was reading the Book of Mormon and keeping all commitments. He was so excited to come to church but on Saturday while we were in a meeting with 3 General Authorities we got a text from Steve. He had a big prayer and pondered all morning and texted us he would not like to further meet with us. He feels the dark angles are blocking our eyes.

It was pretty sad to get a text like that while in such a inspiring meeting. For a long time I could not help but wonder what I did wrong. After heaps of prayer and reminding myself it is the Lord’s will. I can’t wonder what went wrong. I just have to trust that it was the Lord’s will. Hopefully one day he can join back with us.

To get my happy self back I will write about the Lovelock family. They are doing so good!! They are a part member family who are letting us meet with them and teach their daughter. The mom is the only member in the family but she has been less active for her whole life. It has been fun to bring that spirit and joy back into her life. Minique is her 13 year old daughter who is preparing herself for baptism on the 15 of December.

On one of our many visits to their home we discovered that the mother (Beck) is a beauty therapist. She has the whole set up with everything. While she was giving us the tour of her "work" place some how I ended up in the hot chair. I got my eyebrows waxed. First off dang I look good. All the members and sisters have complemented me on them. I was not the only elder that got it done. Elder Winter and Lim did it. It was one of those ways to have fun and really get the family to like us.

As I sorta mentioned above, at the beginning of the week we found out that our mission would be getting a visit from Juan A Uceada from the Presidency of the Seventy. He would also have the Area Pacific President, Elder Hallock and Elder Walker. So on Friday we got to meet 3 general authorities. What an experience that was. It was amazing to hear from all three of them and gain revelation and insight on what they thought and saw.

When it was President Ucedas turn to talk he went on for 1 1/2 hours. The whole thing was whole every second. The end was the best part. He made a promise to us. The spirit was so strong when he said it.

"I promise that if you learn to get referrals from less active and new converts and properly work with the ward council you will double your baptism next year.” As a mission right now we are at 422 and our goal was 500. We will make it to 500 but to double that would be amazing. He gave us some really good insight and our mission is getting to work on it right now. It is just so amazing to hear what the Lord’s servants had to say to us and to let us know that it really is God’s work and He is full steam ahead.

Since the week did not get off to a great start we thought it was going to be rough on Sunday. We did not see the majority of our investigators or invite any one besides Steve to church. As we were welcoming everybody in we started to lose count on how many people were coming.

By the time everyone sat down we had 12 investigators come to church. It was the biggest number I have ever seen. To put it into the funnest perspective the most members we got to come to Ayr and Charters Towers branch sacrament meeting was between 10-15. So down here we could have started a branch with all the non members that came this Sunday.

We have seen a huge success in working with part member family's and yoking with the members. We have a Brazilian family that brought their cousins last week and this week they came again and became new investigators. Bia and Alexandra. They are so great. Bia is the daughter and she loves to come to all the youth activities. The members just love her and we are going to try and set a date this week for her and her mother.

Marty came again this week and we set up a date on Friday to play basketball and then have a lesson after. He is really comfortable around us and loves us. He has had lessons before but sorta fell away and is coming back!

Lots of the other people that came were part member family's and people we are slowly working with.

It was just amazing to see so many people.

To top it off we finally did not postpone Adrian's baptism. Despite the ciaos of the last 3 weeks we finally got it to happen. The family was so excited and the ward was so supportive. The only stressful thing was filling the font. It has a leaky drain so while the program was going we went to top it off just a bit more since it had emptied itself while the speakers were speaking.

When I pulled Adrian up out of the water he had the biggest smile and said, “I feel so clean.” He is a very hyper child but in this moment there was so much peace. It was quite amazing. He asked if the new elder, Elder Lim would give him the Holy Ghost. So that night we got to work and helping him do it in English. He has very good English but was struggling. It was his first time. He did amazing.

I have a bit more time left. We had the craziest P-day today. It was our zone temple trip and interview on the same day. We were swamped. By the time we got back to our area all the shops were closed and so was the library. So we got permission to email at the chapel tonight for 30 min and then tomorrow go to the library so we can all email.

It has been a crazy day. Oh I need sleep.

Again so much craziness in one week. I hope it makes sense and was good. It is 8:30 pm so I am a bit tired and hungry.

Love you heaps,
Elder Cahoon

Week 63 Loving New Comp Elder Winter

The stress is so real on the mission. This week was just as crazy but a bit less than last week.

I will start out by just saying how much I love Elder Winter. We worked so hard this week and saw so many miracles from it. For reals I am confident in saying that we will have not problems working together. I am not jumping the gun on this one. We just clicked and boy did things go amazing this week. We both are hardworking but have fun type of guys. The ward just loves it right now and as I said above, things took off this week.

The only bummer thing that happened this week was Adrian's baptism. He was all set Friday night  He passed his interview and was all ready to go. Again late that night after we saw them we got a call from them and they postponed it until next week. Their home teacher had a date that night with his wife and could not make it so they cancelled the whole thing. I was not mad that it got cancelled but I was mad when we had to tell everybody that it was not happening and after we invited everybody. Oh the stress of planning and having everything fall through is killing me.

The funnest none spiritual thing that happened this week was while we were GQing. We started talking to a man who looked a bit rugged. Long story short he took us to his car, which is like a small RV and he started to show us what he does for work. He is a gold prospector. So he had all this cool off road gear and camping stuff. When he got to his camera I pulled mine out and asked for some tips.

He said let’s go put it to action and I’ll show you. So we hiked up a big hill that over looks the city of Gold Coast and he put a new lens on my camera. Again long story short I learned how to take some really cool city photos and had some fun with it this week.

After taking the photos with him we went back to his car and edited them on a computer. While we were doing that he pulled out 6 or 7 pieces of GOLD. Not just your little flakes but massive nuggets. He let us take a picture of his smallest one. It was worth 500 bucks but to give you an idea of how big the biggest one was, it was worth 15-20 grand just on its own. The nugget was as big as my fist and he had heaps of them. It was a really cool experience. To top it off at the end he pulled out the new Mavic Drone and asked if I wanted to fly it. What a night this turned out to be!! I loved it!!

Now time for the real miracles worth more than all the GOLD we carried.

Right from the get go this week we have tried so hard to follow the spirit. Every time we went door knocking we either got heaps of potential people or new investigators. One day we had a man invited us in and we got to give the whole restoration lesson and he invited us back for more. It was amazing.

A while ago we were teaching Steve but have not seen him for a month or so. Elder Winter and I felt prompted to stop by one evening and he was free and we started going over and seeing what his intentions are again with learning more. Elder Winter and I are great teachers together. We are so good at it right now. As we taught him a lesson we committed him to be baptized on December 15. He invited us back the next day and we got to work finding the fellowship for him. The next day at his lesson we had a member there who really clicked with him and boy is he excited to learn and get baptized.

The miracles don’t stop there. We started to visit another part member family this week and on our second visit we asked Minique if she wanted to get baptized. She immediate reply was YES!! We set her for the 15th also.

But wait there’s more!!! At church we had a member grab us and take us over to Marty. He investigated the church right before I got here. Well he showed up to church and said, “I want to come back and start the lessons again and come to church. I know it is the right thing to do. My goal is to get baptized!!!"  We were in shock! We said great!! We set him on date for the 15th also.

I know this email did not have the best detail but too much happened this week to explain everything!! I just want to testify that this is God’s work and he is in charge. As we work hard he will bless us. I know it as I saw it this week!! It was amazing.

At the end of the week we got a new companion. His name is Elder Watson. He is in our zone but going through a hard time right now so President McSwain gave him to us and said show him how to have fun and work hard. Hence why there are so many pictures and miracles for this week. We are the best at working hard and having a great time. This work is so great!! 

We saw Sheila and did service for her. I still can't believe Shelia got baptized. It is weird. When we visited her it was not to get her off coffee this week. It was to see how she was doing and share a spiritual thought. That felt different.
She told us that she went to a coffee store yesterday and bought all of her friends coffee and hot coco for herself. How amazing is that. I was a bit scared when she said she went to a coffee store but she is great. Once she got the Holy Ghost she knew she did not need coffee. It was a miracle!!

We had dinner on Sunday with the Mission President. Elder Watson needed an interview and we ended up staying for dinner. Geez there is so much to write but no time.

Just know I work hard and have fun as always. I love all of you and hope all is well.

Love you Bye.

Week 62 Best Week of My Whole MIssion

Hahahaha ahhhhhh This was the best week of my whole mission without a doubt!!!!!! Hahahaha where to start!! 

Well we started at 4:30 every morning for the week to see Sheila. Yet some how I was never tired. It was so worth it.

I was on trade off with Elder Van Der Linden when we first saw her at 4:30. What a lesson it was. As you all know I have been working with Sheila for 6 months. She comes to church every week and is a dry Mormon.

Well I have had it. As we were giving the lesson we shared the iconic I will go and do the things which the Lord has commanded. Well I have been commanded to invite others to come unto Christ through baptism. Our lesson with her was so powerful and I was done with having coffee be the problem. I don’t know how we got onto it but basically I said you are getting baptized this Saturday and I will sit with you all day so you don’t drink coffee. To my surprise she loved the idea. But it only gave her a week to get off coffee. We called the AP's and got their advise on what to do. They loved the idea and we got to work. During the day we had lessons but every few hours we came around to have a lesson. She made it through her first full day without coffee but had the biggest head ache.

The second day at 4:30 she was really struggling and we had MLC all day in Brisbane. She put her faith in God though and prayed to him all day for help. We saw her that night and she had gone her 2 full days with no coffee. We talked to President and he was thinking have her go two weeks with out coffee. So the Saturday plan got shut down. Bummer. We were determined to get her off coffee though. So again Wednesday morning 4:30 no coffee. We made it a plan to not spend the whole day but rather a lesson in the morning and one in the evening. So 2 times a day. It seemed to work.

By Thursday she was still having headaches but was all in. She said she would never go back. I was on trade off with Elder Watson that day and we went and got a couple of Mountain Dews for the caffeine and headache. It worked and the headache left and has not come back to this day.

At this point I was just so excited that things were going good. I felt so good waking up early to help her and she was just doing great!! On Friday night at 10:40 we got a call from President McSwain and Elder Sharma had to pack his bags that night and go to the office in the morning. He got transferred. He is an office Elder now.

So at this point I was just still happy for what was happening. I was not expecting anything. In the morning the office elders drove down to a baptism in our zone and picked up Sharma. He went with them and I stayed with Elder Martin and Van Der Linden. I went to a few lessons with them that were just terrible. The people they are teaching just wanted to bash with us. So we made the call to drop them. Bummer. We even had a member with us. After the terrible lessons I got a text from Sheila that read,"I have prayed and asked God what his will is for me. I am getting baptized on Sunday at 8 am." What the heck where did this come from?????

Oh there is so much to say. Adrian dropped his date for Saturday because he is sick so we saw him and his baptism will just be next week. So that was ok. Sheila’s though was just not going to happen.

But some how the Lord’s hand was in this work.

I took over the 2 Elders and their member and we talked with Sheila. Coffee was not a problem anymore. She was going great!!! The problem was when we planned for Saturday President did not want it to happen. So we called him and spoke with him and he said I will interview her and IF she passes then she can. If it was not already crazy now it is about to. This all happened on Saturday. Usually we have weeks to plan and prepare a baptism. Well what the heck, lets just do it in under 12 hours oh and my comp is gone. I am on my own.

With it being the end of transfers President was flat out with interviews and meetings. So he could not interview until the afternoon but Sheila was going to a graduation for her grandson in the afternoon until 10 pm. The plan was to have a Skype interview at 10:30. All was going right to plan until Sheila realized she had to drive and drop everyone off because they were all drunk. She did not get home until midnight. So I was up going back and forth being the middle man to President on where she was and how much longer and the asking Sheila on where she was and how long. It was midnight when the interview finally happened. Geez she passed and we now had to confirm with every one that it was on for 8 am right before 9 am church.

Bishop and the people coming to the baptism were notified during the day but it was not set in stone. So texting them and calling at midnight was a nightmare. (oh it was Halloween too)

The best part about this is you could see the Lord’s hand in making this happen. At every baptism there is always a problem. This one just kept going perfectly. It was dang stressful but it was going!!

To make it even better, the elder that found her was going home the day she was getting baptize. So we called him at 1 am and he got permission to come down in the morning and baptize her. How cool is that!!

Oh my goodness it was the most beautiful baptism I have ever seen. She was so ready and when she came up out of the water all the stupid stress that I was going though was gone. Geez was I stressed out!! I hate planning!!!

Sheila was glowing. I have never seen her smile so big. It was so amazing to see how happy she was. The spirit was so so strong and it was the coolest thing that will ever happen. The joy, love, emotions... Everything was just perfect.

I got to confirm her a member and give her the Holy Ghost. I did not even know what to say but I testify that the spirit was telling me what to say. The words just came. I usually think of some things to say before but when I tried this time I just could not. I felt to just trust the spirit. I can’t even remember what I said but boy do I remember what I felt. Sheila was so happy and you could see the spirit in her.

I so testify that this is GOD’s work. These are his children and he will prepare a way for them back to him. I also testify that God likes a roller coaster ride. It was nuts. But it was God’s will for this to happen.

So that took up a big chunk of our week but does not even scratch the surface of what we did!!

So yeah big new. New transfer and new comp and guess what. He was my zone leader when I was in Charters. Elder Winter is his name. He is from Perth but lived in Highland, Utah and went to Lone Peak junior year. Guess what too. He was in my English class!! He was the Aussie kid that was never there.

Lets just say I already love him so much and we are going to work so hard!!

This work gets so frustrating too. This week I was ready to give up. We were deep cleaning and Adrian texted and canceled. We had prepared everything. Talks, program and bishop but it did not happen.

To me the hardest part is not that it did not happen but that we did so much for it and planned and had things going and it did not happen. The stress of will it work, did we do enough... It is driving me crazy. Especially with Sheila’s thing. It was so spur of the moment and crazy. I am so glad this week is over and done.

We had MLC and got the news that we were getting new AP's. I called it too. Right now the two that we have are both going home together so we were going to get two new ones. I just knew it would be Elder Puglsely from up North. He was my district leader. What an elder. MLC is just so great. The things we discuss and the inspiration we got was amazing. For the month of October we got 59 convert baptisms. That is a mission record!!

I almost forgot. We had Halloween this week too. We got recruited to set up all the chairs and tables. It was no biggie. The only problem was they were expecting a lot of people to come so we had to move it from inside to outside in the parking lot. Ben Hannet is the biggest radio guy here and is a member and he announced it on his radio. We were expecting a few people to come but no one could have predicted what happened.

We had over 2,000 people there. I will quote my stake president. "You can tell the non-members from the members because of what they are not wearing." The costumes were not terrible but not the most modest. We had the funnest night interacting with everybody. We had heaps of elders there from the Zone and would rotate from being at the missionary table to walking around talking and interacting. We got so many contacts and so many people said, “We love the Mormons.” It was the coolest activity I have ever seen. One of the best parts was the music. They had massive speakers set around and we got to listen to real music. I brought my camera but it got passed around to so many people. Hence all the photos of everybody.

The Gold Coast stake has some of the best members who are trying so hard to be member missionaries. It was just a huge success.

I am really excited to be staying another transfer to be with the members and yoke with them to see the work take off. It has been amazing to see it start to go and I am so excited to have Elder Winter as my comp. We are going to smash the work and have heaps of fun.

I know that this church is true. Look at what happened this week. I could not have done it if God had not been there helping. The Book of Mormon is the same way. It just is impossible to do it without God. It is so true and Joseph Smith is a true prophet!! I love this church. I know it is true and I know that God is running his work in the mission field. If it is his will and we are willing to follow it, it will happen. It might be at midnight with the most stress you have ever felt but it will happen if it is the Lord’s will. I know this to be true.

I told you this week would have a lot more than last week. Lets hope it happens again this week. Love you. Have a good one.

Love,
Elder Cahoon

 Halloween Party

 Sheila's baptism

Spencer with new companion Elder Winter