Week 81 With the right comp and mindset nothing can be more powerful!!

Wow another week has gone by!! Elder Tewes and I were talking about it this week and how fast it has gone!! We are already half way through the transfer!! That is really crazy to think about!!

We had a great week again!! It started off with a big mission leadership conference!! Boy that was just so great!! Our mission president is great at explaining things and helping us see his vision!!
He shared some really good thoughts on what it means to be a leader and how we need to be hero's for the missionaries. An elder told him that he does not feel like the leaders are hero's right now!! So we got a really good training on how we can improve and be "better".

Since Elder Tewes has gotten here we have been struggling to get the work to progress. With my last comp we had stuff going for us but not a lot of it was great!! We still have people to teach like Dontay but they are struggling to progress!! So we have to sorta started fresh and really working hard to build it up!! It has been so tiring. We work diligently all day. Sometimes it is so frustrating but other times it is so rewarding.

On Saturday nobody we tried to follow up with was home. Nobody was home!! It was so frustrating. We were praying to do good and help people but we could not even meet anyone.
But then we had days this week when everyone was home and we had no time for door knocking. So getting the balance of teaching and finding is hard.
I don't know if I said it last week but the sister training leaders challenged us for the next three weeks to a contacting challenge. Whoever gets the most in the next 3 weeks wins and the loser will get the winner a t-shirt!! haha We are up by 80 people right now but they are persistent!! So time will tell.

With all the finding we have done we have not been blessed with immediate people to teach but the blessings will come with time.

We had ward councils on Sunday and sometimes we get frustrated. It is not a party planning committee. Luckily we had a training on it and this week they were a bit better!!
One of our Bishops is from Tonga and has really broken English but big goals!! In this ward council nothing changed until the end. Bishop announced that the ward conference was coming up on the 21st of April. To celebrate he wants the ward to baptize 21 people. Hahah I was cracking up!! I have been in this area for 4 months and have been working hard but nothing is happening!! I thought 21 was just a crack up goal. As the ward council talked, Bishop said, "Ok we will have 10 on the 21st of April."

I left the meeting thinking it was impossible. There were no names of people for us to work with but our bishop and everyone in the meeting has no doubts that we would get them!
Well I have cause to repent for my unbelief!! While we were at church Bishop set a baptismal date. A family has been coming to church and everyone are members except for the youngest daughter. So we have one for nine right now!! The next day after this meeting we got a referral from SLC. As we followed up with this referral it turned out to be a returned missionary and her family is all Methodist but want to learn more!! She has aunts and uncles and cousins living with her!! Over ten people that want to learn!!
The only problem we have is they have really bad english. The good news is that our ward has heaps of Samoans. So we already have all the Samoan members excited and ready to help!!

I really grew in testimony of priesthood keys and goals. Nothing is set in stone yet or even close but I have faith that it is possible with hard work. I know it was no coincidence that this family referred themselves on the day that Bishop set this goal!! Well who knows but with a little faith all things are possible!!

I am really excited right now to work!! Things are really picking up and I only have so much longer left!! The months seem to go quicker and quicker!! Soon it will be 4 months left!! Today we had a temple trip and after had interviews with the Mission President!! He challenged me to set 5 big goals for the last bit of my mission. Ones to make me stretch!! I got really excited about that!! I want to go out with a bang and not slack off. It does get really hard at times but with the right comp and mindset nothing can be more powerful!!

Last p-day we had a District Trivia Challenge. It was companionship verse companionship. Over the last few weeks we have been planning this with Elder and Sister Richins. Quick side note. On Sunday we were back at the flat at 6 for dinner and then call ins for the rest of the night. At 7 Elder Richins texted and asked if we could stop by!! We got so excited and described the feeling like going to our own grandparents home on Sunday evening. They are just so fun to work with and have right down the road!!

Ok so at the activity for Trivia we got really into it. It came down to Elder Tewes and I and the STL's Sister Wengert and Watene. We were neck and neck the whole game. The questions were random but it made it so fun!! We got to the last question and won it. As we counted up we had 15 1/2 and the Sister had 16. So they beat us by .5 of a point!!
Sister Richins said there was a grand prize and had the sister stand up!! After getting really emotional she announced that they would be having Nigerian pygmy goats named after them. It was so funny!! We had such a great time and grew to love everyone so much!! This is truly the best zone in the mission and we are all so close!! I love them!!

I love you all and hope you are having just as much fun as me right now!! Life is too good not to enjoy it and be smiling all the time!!! Have a great week!! Love, Elder Cahoon

Week 80 Baptisms for the Dead With Shelia

There are two types of missionaries. There are ones who are proactive and work hard and ones who follow their companion when they work hard. The best is when you have two proactive hard working elders who want to get stuff done!! That is Elder Tewes and myself right now! We never want to waste a minute!! Our planning is so detailed and full of things to do!! We are smashing it.

I would say this was one of the happiest weeks of my whole mission. I did not baptize anyone or set a date but I did see miracles and did one better than baptizing someone. Sheila invited me to come with her to do baptisms for the dead for the first time. Elder Winter worked with all of the recent converts down in Gold Coast to come with her. So it turned into a big ward activity. Bishop was there, the elders quorum president, all the great people I knew, but more importantly Sheila, Ceila, Marty and Alex. All people that I either set on date or baptized or worked with!!

Wow, the spirit that you feel when you are in the temple with all those loved ones is just so strong!! I have not done baptisms for the dead in a few years!! I will never forget the happiness that I felt. Celia went first and did 10 or so baptisms! She was so scared. She did not know it was her that was getting baptized, so she had on so much makeup but in the end knew it was more important to get it messed up. She just loved it and had the biggest smile!!

Sheila was up next and I could not be the one that baptized her so Bishop Nawaka was the one doing it. There was the strongest spirit!! She was being baptized for her mother!!. Sheila, as the prayer was being said, took in the deepest breath and you could practically see the spirit that filled her!! She went under the water and came up and just kept her eyes closes and stood there. It is so hard to describe the spirit that was felt and seen!! It was powerful. I was up next and asked to stand in place for her father.

Boy I can’t say it enough, the spirit was so strong. Bishop said as I walked into the font, “You don’t get baptized to much on your mission.” It was a touching moment!! I felt so peaceful!! It was the happiest I have ever been on my mission. I kept looking at her and thinking look at how far she had come. This gospel is the best thing that ever happened to me!! How blessed are we to have it in our lives!! I challenge you to share it with everyone you know!!

From there our week only got better!! Elder Tewes is such a hard worker and great missionary. We used every hour we had to find, teach, and follow up!!

I am really struggling planning for two wards and what to do, but Elder Tewes is so supportive and helpful as we go!! It has made it such a pleasure to work with him. We have both talked about the companionship and how we can make it grow!! Boy do I love him and he loves me. We are just smashing it!! He is a very serious guy!! German made!! But deep down he has a funny bone and we are really loving it. In lessons he can clearly teach with love and the spirit. The best part is we teach together. Just naturally we both teach together. One never does it all by himself. One will talk for just a bit and then pause and the other will jump right it. It comes from a good comp unity and knowing the lessons. We have great studies and really grow in teaching together!!

At the door we have seen so many tender mercies. We taught 20 lessons just at the door. Not quick little ones but 5 to 10 minutes going to the whole lesson. Out of those 20 lessons about 10 invited us back and I would say 7 could become solid investigators as we come back. We are really growing our teaching pool and doing what the Lord would have us do!!

One Sunday we were invited to attend a bishop’s training meeting. The stake president had us come and hour early and he spoke with us on how he wanted us to help in the meeting. He wanted us to talk and train. That was scary. We were going to train bishops on how to have good productive ward councils. President McSwain gave us a power point to go through with the stake president and the meeting was such a huge success!!

We were also able to have another trade off with Elder Pugsley. He is one of the APs. Boy we just love working with him. He was sharing with us the whole time how great we are and he just made us feel really good. I love him!! He also shared how we can work with such a big zone now!! I am not going to lie, it is so hard. We never have a spare moment. Always on the phone, always getting texts for permission or questions. It is so fun but draining... On Sunday night our calls ins got pushed back so we turned on the movie Ephraim's Rescue. I was in tears. If you have not seen it go see it. It is like 17 Miracles but with such a great main character. At the end of the movie I prayed and told God I wanted to be just like Ephraim and do whatever it takes. He took me up on that this week. We were able to give so many blessing and also just be on the rescue. It changed how I see people at the door and those in need. We have the blessing of being God’s hands and feet here on the earth. How cool is that!! Let’s use it!!

I just want to bare my testimony that I know that this is Jesus Christ’s church. He is in charge and fully knows what is going on. He has provided everything we need. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that it is the evidence of Him!!

I love my mission, I love my family!! Bring on the next week!!

I love you all and hope all is well!!

Week 79 New Companion

I got a new companion. He is from Germany and is one of the best missionary in this mission!! He works hard and is very wise!! He knew English before the mission so his accent is not that strong!! We both knew each other and had talked at a few of the meetings when we saw each other!

We are still getting used to the new companionship but my favorite part is how well, we are working together!! The yoke between us is very strong already. On our first day we were together we saw Dontay!! Sam happened to be there too. (Sam was on date) We began to teach them and the power we had as a companionship was perfect. We knew where to speak and how to teach a lesson together. He testified of me so many times. That was one thing I did not have with my last companion.

Even just in our simple prayers before a lesson we thank the Lord for each other. It is so simple but it makes such a difference. I have loved it and do it too.

Our dinner canceled on our first night together so we stopped by our senior couple’s home to joke with them. I died laughing when they invited us in. Elder Richins answered the door and as we stepped into the home he stumbled back and said, “Sister Richins can you feel the power from these too!!” It just made us feel so good!! We are off to a great start as a companionship. I know it won’t be perfect all the time but boy right now I am so excited to serve him and love him!!

Along with getting a new companion I got a new zone. I did not get transferred but rather got merged. My zone went from having 10 missionaries to 22. We are now covering what we had plus the Sunshine Coast zone. Well it is a district now. Brisbane North is a district also and together we make up the biggest zone in the mission.

As we did transfers we had to drop an Elder off at the airport and we noticed that we could catch a flight to the furthest area in our zone. Bundaburg. It is an 8 or 9 hour car drive away!! We are only allowed to do trade offs up there if we get a ride up or go when we need to be up there for our stake correlation meetings once a month. Either way it is going to make it hard!! We are going up on Sunday to see a baptism. The senior couple is going to give us a ride.

Our To-Do list is getting very long. Today we are going to plan and prepared how to work and help such a big zone!! It is going to be so fun but very interesting. Just since Wednesday we have had no spare time to do anything for ourselves when we get back to the flat. We go straight to calling people, reporting, and preparing... it has been a struggle but I love being busy and engaged in a good cause!!

The one fun thing we did this week while I had Elder Aspacio was getting permission to watch a movie. The Spirit of the Game. It is about the Mormon Missionary's in Melbourne. I highly recommend it.

Dad, tell Bishop Millar about it. He would just love it!! Our ward was having a ward activity and watching that was part of it. We got permission and just died of laughter from the movie. I will warn you it is not the best acting or sport action or filming but the story is amazing and the church side of it is very funny!!

From the day that I got Elder Tewes, (you say it Teves) I bet my grandpa Cahoon can say it the best!! Anyway since day one it has been go go go!! We had to wake up a 5:30 our first day and have brekkie with our Stake President. While we had brekkie we discussed the new zone and how we can help but more importantly the people that are on baptismal date in his stake. He knows and has been to lessons with a lot of them but wanted an update on how everyone is going.

During this meeting we also discussed the things we want to talk about in a Bishops Training next week. He has invited us to come and train and participate to help the bishops catch the vision of mission work. In our meeting we found where things are struggling. The mission trains the missionaries so well on what they need to do and also the stake but from the stake it is hard to get it to bishops and past them to the ward council. The driving force is the ward council in missionary work but none of them in the stake are functioning properly... We called it the trickle effect. Primary leaders do see how they can help and never get trained on what the stake and mission vision is for the work.

I am really getting excited to help the bishops figure out how to help there ward councils see the vision and feel the hastening of this work!!

After a great breakfast with President Zeisel he came with us to our district meeting. We had all of the Brisbane North district there and we heard from our Stake President about realizing our true identity. We pretty much went over the Plan of Salvation. I am so glad my Dad put that into perspective with our quorums as we grew up. Every lesson we would start out by drawing the Plan of Salvation. What a help it is to always remember whose we really are and the plan he has for us. 

I followed after President Zeisel and spoke on the spirit. We had some cool things happen when preparing for the meeting that only came from listening to the spirit. It was such a blessing.

I am just so excited for this work to take off here in this area and now what we are calling the XL zone.  (extra large) Haha it is so great!

I love you so much and hope all is well back home. Mom, don’t worry a bit about me. I could not be happier right now!!! What a blessing it is to have such an amazing comp right now!! This will be one for the history books!!

Love, Elder Cahoon

Week 78 Eight Investigators Showed Up to Church!!

Whew this week was one to look back in the journal and laugh and wonder how I made it through. We struggled this week but still went on working and trying. Lets just say I can’t wait for a new companion. haha

I wish I had something great and fun to write about. This week was pretty normal. We knocked on doors for a few hours a day, we followed up with some great people, and we taught our investigators.

I guess a big miracle that happened was we had 8 investigators show up to church. Janna and her 2 girls and partner all came for the second time. We were super excited just for that. Then right as we started singing for the sacrament the WHOLE Blake family walked in the very back. Joelie and Shayde are really progressing. We went over the interview questions for them and asked if baptism is something they really want to do. We said you passed the questions. So this week they are going to pray and talk with their Mom and Dad to see if it is something that they really want to do. There baptism will be soon. Same with Janna and her 2 girls. We set them on date and both girls are really really excited to follow Jesus Christ’s example.

We got put into the most awkward situation this week. About a month ago our Stake President told Elder Aspacio that he was thinking of making a Philippines branch our in a city named Kilcoy. It is an hour from the chapel and about 14 active members live out there. They are all Filipinos. Well in this meeting he told us not to tell anyone. The first thing Elder Aspacio does is call his branch president who lives out there. He moved over right after Elder Aspacio got here. Well he told him and said don’t tell anyone. Well word got around within a minute and every Filipino knew about it. Well the catch is that it is not approved yet but Elder Aspacio said it was... So a month passed and no one talked about it or heard anything from it.

This week they were having a big get together for a Family Home Evening and were wondering if we would like to join. They had all the Filipinos there and the sister missionaries. The only purpose of it was the be FHE. We let the stake president know we were going to meet all of them and he asked if he could join to come check it out.

This is where it gets awkward and why I struggle with my comp. After we talked to the Stake President Aspacio called the Filipinos and told them the Stake President was coming. They all took it the wrong way and thought from how Aspacio told them he was coming to open a branch... Awkward!!!! When we got there President was right behind us. To open the FHE they had us give a message and then they all started to thank President for coming out to make a branch. He looked at us really confused and oh it was so awkward. He had no intentions to open a branch but everyone thought that was the only reason he was coming out. Far out I am going to kill Aspacio for this. They turned the time over to President to make a few announcements and he got up and just thanked them for their love and dedication to church even though they all live an hour away. Everyone started to joke about who would be the next branch president or bishop. I laughed at President reply. Oh is Bishop Kerr. Boy it was just super awkward the whole time.... The worst part about having a comp is you both take the bad rap for everything. So it made me look bad. I told him to stop telling people. It will still be a long time before anything happens out there and these poor people got so excited over NOTHING!! Ahh I hope you can feel my frustration!!

Our visits with Dontay are going really well. The clothes fit him but he was not able to come to church. His mom won’t let him. We went over to figure out why.... Dun dun dunnn..... Dontay's mom is the daughter of a devout JW. His mom is not a member or believes in it but won’t let her son join the Mormons because of what her mom tells about us. It was a really hard thing to sit with Dontay and his mom and have his mom yell at us an say all these nasty things about the Mormons. We apologies that she felt that way and said we would love to share what we really believe. It is hard when people try and tell you what you believe and it is totally wrong. One thing she said that I don’t know how anyone could believe is that if you were to ask any old person in the Mormon church they would tell you there is no Jesus. She said once you go home you never talk about him again or share it with anyone. There is a slight truth in all of the things that she said but the whole thing is just wrong!! It was so sad. Luckily Dontay has really felt the spirit in our lessons. So once Mom left we taught the WoW. He loved it. Smoking will be hard to give up but he wants to change his life around and be like "me" We testified in the end that he is free to choose what to believe. We talked about how he needs to pray to God and really rely on the feelings that he gets. People will say everything to get you to not believe but you have to ask yourself what were those feelings... He totally understood and is a solid guy!! He will come around and this week we are meeting with the mom and going to bring an old guy with us so they can talk.

Beyond that the week was so great!! Haha man sometimes I want to strangle my companion. When he answers the phone and the member says are we still good for tonight. He will look at me funny and say we were wondering if you are still good for tonight. I just face palm myself. He is so clueless. Haha it can be fun but frustrating to watch. But hey I do love him or am trying to love him... I should take out the beam in my eye before saying too much.....ok now that it is out, hahah nah just kidding I don’t need to go on and talk about that stuff.

Aahhhhh hahahah I just got a text from SHELIA!! She is going to the temple soon. She is planning the trip right now. Oh what a pick me up from this week. She wants me to participate in baptizing her mother and father!! Oh what joy this brings to my heart!! AHHHH I am so happy right now I don’t even know what to say!! I love her so much!! I saw firsthand how much joy the gospel brought into her life. It was so worth every set back and heartache to get her baptized, now look what is coming from it! I just know her family is on the other side of the veil cheering with all their heart!!

Oh this gospel is so true!!

I forgot some of the craziest stuff this week. Last night at 10:30 the sisters in North Pine called us. They were having departing interviews with President McSwain. They got back to their flat and realized they were locked out. So we had to drive to their flat way late and let them in. Haha it was fun.

We were also called upon for 3 days in a row to give blessings to the Centenary Lake sisters. Along with giving them 3 blessings in a row we had to cast a devil out of their flat. They had been having a really hard week and keep seeing a black figure in their flat. The night before we cast it out they recalled that it grabbed them and held them down on their bed. They could not talk or move. So President McSwain had us go over and bless the home and also cast it out. Freaky stuff. At one point in their flat as we looked around we did not feel or see anything weird but out of nowhere we both got chills and goosebumps up our arms. All of my hairs were standing up. The good news is all is good now and they are safe. It was pretty scary stuff though.

I just kept singing this week, “Fear not I am with thee oh be not dismayed, for I am thy God and will give thee strength...” It worked miracles for me!!

Sorry this email was all over the place. I love this work and find so much joy and happiness in learning and growing more!!

Love,
Elder Cahoon