So much happened!! haha I just love mission work. It is dang hard when you just have to knock doors and it is 36 and 80% humidity but there is a special power behind it.
I want to start off with a fun thing that happened when I started feeling better. We had an appointment to go see Allan and read the Book of Mormon with him. He is slowly getting there. I wish we could do more but it is all up to him to want to get baptized. He loves the ward and everyone loves him. So on this night we thought it would be good to have Bishop come along with us. So I picked up Bishop and Elder Aspacio went with our ward mission leader to see a great family that I will talk about after this.
So Bishop Cumming and I went over and Bishop had prepared a bit of a message for our reading. We read about the people of Alma and how they were desirous to come to the waters of Mormon and be baptized. We shared with Allan that it is up to you, you have to desire it. We then read about Moroni and how if everyone was like him the devil would have no power over us. He just loved it. Allan is like Moroni. Large and powerful. We had a great evening talking to each other and just getting a bond between Bishop and Allan. I hope he gains that testimony!!
The other family is the Blake family. There is Mom, Dad, Maddy, Joelie, and Shade. Well long story short, Mom and Dad are less active and we found out not married. They arranged the whole thing and in a few weeks Bishop will be marrying them in their home. We also found out that the 2 youngest; Joelie and Shade are not baptized. We have been visiting them for a few weeks now and they have opened up and have started coming back to church. The whole family is super excited for the marriage and the baptism of the younger kids. They are a really keen awesome family!!
By Saturday this week I was feeling really good. Last week at church an old couple was there and they were going to be moving in this week. They asked if anyone could help. We said we might be able to and then the ward members said they would be there. Well we thought since I was feeling good and we had no appointments we should go help. When we got there nobody was there, not even Bro and Sister Kingsley who were moving in. We waited 20 mins and they finally showed up. The sad part is nobody from the ward that said they were going to be there was there. So we had 2 skinny Elders and 2 really old people who should not be lifting anything. All through the week they brought over all the little stuff. There were no boxes or little things for us to move, just all the big big heavy stuff. Fridge, laundry, couch, dressers...We thought we were going to die. It ended up talking a few hours but we got them moved in.
I am really excited to work with them. As we moved them in we found out they moved all the way up here from there old home south of Brisbane just to do missionary work. They were visiting our chapel a few weeks back and both looked at each other and said we need to move here to do missionary work. The rest is history!! How about that for dedication to the lord and his work!! I have known Brother and Sister Kingsley for a while now. They work in the temple all the time. Every time I have gone he has always been there. I am so excited to work with them.
To finish off this email I have a fun one!! On Sunday night at 10;25 Elder Puglsey, one of our AP called us as we were in bed. He said, “Elders I feel really prompted to come and do a trade off with you tomorrow, what do you think?” We told him we NO set appointments and no big plans. We were going to knock doors all day. It was going to be really boring. He insisted though that we have this trade off.
So the next day both AP's came around. Elder Pugsley was my district leader up north. I love the guy so much!! Both of our AP's are the best missionaries you will ever meet!! They are so hardworking full of love and obedient. I was excited!! All my time spent up north I never could go on a trade off with him since we were both drivers. Well now was our chance. We have been buddies our whole mission but now we were finally together!!
I looked through all our papers for people’s names to visit. I did not want to knock any doors!! It was so hot!! So we got on our way!! I put down every potential that we have ever gotten in Redcliffe, Our first stop was a family who have never had a spare moment for us. Susan and Levon are the parents and Grace and Rose are the 2 kids.
Levon came to the door and said, ok fine come in. You have 5 minutes. Just having that was the biggest miracle!! We sat down and instead of teaching as fast as we could we just talked and tried to get to know him. Susan was off and the two girls where doing school work. They are home schooled. We chatted with Levon and found out he is from Jamaica and has a very strong belief in God and family and respecting people!! Our 5 mins talked turned into 45 mins. He just loved us. The girls came out and just loved it too!! At the end we gave our 5 minute powerful witness that God has called a prophet on the earth. Man I wish I could record our visits some how. You should have seen how thankful he was for our message and to find out about the prophet. Get got his number, Susan's number and a day to come back to teach the whole family!! Man Elder Pugsley and I were like little kids full of excitement.
We would have been so happy for the rest of the day if that was the only miracle. I was so scared to have all the potentials fall through but the lord prepared a way for us man!! Some how every single person that I planned for was home and invited us in!! None of them were as amazing as Levon and his family but they were still really nice.
I knew we needed to go door knocking. We got to the street and Elder Pugsley said, “Hey Elder Cahoon do you remember up north when you used to run to doors?” ( the doors are really far apart up north and sometimes we would run to doors) I said, “Yeah you taught me that.” He said, “Let’s do it today!!” Geez I was so excited!! Haha we got out of the car and SPRINTED from door to door. They were a lot closer but it still worked!! It was such an inspired street too!! We taught so many people at the door!!
My favorite was Malana. She is 20 years old and is in love with Americans. Haha so she was so shocked that 2 handsome American boys were knocking her door. She told us to just talk so she could hear our accent. I guess I still sound American by the way. Anyways we just asked her questions like what she believes and thinks. After a great conversation we taught and testified that families can be together forever!! She already knew that, so we asked how it was possible. She had no clue. BOOM!! It opened it up to teach about temple and how we have the authority to seal beyond to death do us part!! Man I am so excited to go back and teach her!!
Again I was so happy and could have ended the day of miracles there!! But it did not stop!! We went by to see Dontay!! We have not seen him since my terrible lesson with him. So we were really excited. Yesterday night before Elder Puglsey called we had a mission wide conference call!! We started reading the Book of Mormon together as a mission and we were learning about that. At the end of the call President McSwain said he feels impressed to give our mission a promise from God. President McSwain said that if we do all we can to work hard this week that the Lord would bless our mission and every companionship would set someone on baptismal date!! That is quiet the promise when you think about it!!
Well to sorta go back in time, the whole time I was with Elder Pugsley his phone did not stop buzzing. Whenever someone sets a date we send the AP's a miracle text so they can keep track of who is on date. By 5 o'clock that day our mission set over 30 dates. I was so happy for everyone but it was getting annoying getting theses text! We went into Dontays lesson determined to teach him with the spirit!!
Boy that was a cool lesson. He actually knows way more about God than he thinks. He just does not know it. The best way to describe it is like when Alma is teaching and asked do you believe in God. The reply was I believe in a great spirit, is that God? Since he grew up out in the bush with all the native Aboriginal people of Australia he has grown up with their beliefs. So he knew everything just by different names. We also learned that they still make goat and lamb sacrifices and throw the blood on the people to cleanse them. It was heaps cool to learn about!! After testifying of the Savior and his sacrifice for us. Dontay set the date March 31 for his baptismal date. Our only problem will be overcoming smoking(he has already been trying) and not going to jail. He has to go to court for a class 1 offence. So we are hoping that all goes well for him. If he does go it will be for 4 to 5 weeks. So we could still reach his date even if he goes. Poor guy, but he is on the right track!!
Man how cool is that! But it gets better!! SAM was with Dontay!! Sam is in his mid 20's. He is a former investigator who moved out of our area when I got here. I have not seen him ever but have heard about him. He has moved back into our area and is living with Dontay!! We started to get to know him as we taught Dontay. Man he is keen!! He testified to Dontay that the Book of Mormon is true and that this church is true. I blew our mind that he did that. We had no clue he was so powerful. We found out he was about to get baptized but he moved. Again the only thing holding him back is smoking. He had given it up last time but got back on it when he moved. So when we got Dontay on date we set Sam on date too!! Same day. Together they are going to go over the Stop Smoking Program the church has.
The sisters in our area have a awesome investigator on date too who needs to stop smoking. His name is Pat. I have met him a few times!! He broke down this week and thought he could never do it. (give up smoking) so he got a priesthood blessing and started attending the Addiction Recovery program at our chapel on Thursday nights. We are going to try and get Dontay and Sam to go to it since they live by the chapel!!!
How cool would that be!! We could go too and help and have 3 investigators give up smoking and get baptized!! Man I love this work!!
Elder Pugsley is the MAN and we had so much fun with each other. I got some really good advice from him and we are going to smash it!!
Fun story time. Yesterday at 8:30 Sister Wengert and Sister Tamanivalu called us and left a message saying they need help. They said it was an emergency. When we tried to call back they did not answer. We thought crap!! What happened! They did not answer. We tried 3 more times!! So we thought we should swing around their flat and make sure things were ok. On our drive over they called back and said they were locked out of their flat. Man thanks for the biggest scare!! I thought something bad was happening to them!! Emma my sister had a scary thing happen a few weeks back so I thought crap... Man they were just locked out! So we had fun giving them the spare key we have to let them in!! haha
Well have a great week everyone.
Love you all,
Elder Cahoon
$20 box of Goldfish
Sleepover before area broadcast
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