A WEEK OF ANSWERS

It's time to tell ya about the week.

COMPANIONS (Thanks for the picture Bairs)

To start it off we had to do some apartment checks for our apartment to see if it was up to "missionary standard".  The senior couple that came are the Bairs. They are so great!  His first name is Lyle (same as Grandpa Coopers) so it makes it even better.  He always says stuff and then his wife hits him and says "LYLE!"  I dont know, I think it is super funny, and makes everything okay.  I just love senior couples so much!  They add such a great dynamic to a mission.  If nothing else, they help the missionaries SO much.  Anyone who is thinking about going on a senior mission... do it!  You are so needed out here.

We had another lesson with D this week.  There is no doubt that he felt the spirit in this lesson.  I dont know how open he is to change... but he is defiantly searching.  He brought up an awesome analogy.  About a person looking for a certain store.  He is walking down the street really looking to find this store.  He is asking people on the way down for directions or where exactly it is.  He keeps going where the other people tell him to go and he still can't find it.  A lot of people give up and stop looking after a couple disappointments.  He knows the store is close and somewhere around the area he is he just cannot locate exactly where it is.  I then testified to him that we were in the "store".  That we have the directions and we WILL help him find it to.  Elder Whitaker then bore his testimony and it was a super awesome lesson.  We will meet with him in two days so I am stoked. 

Now this brings us to the main event of the week.  Our conference down in Bucharest.  Elder Whitaker and I stayed with Elder Jarmen and Elder Chatterton.  It is always so good getting to talk to my boy.  He is doing super good.  His

companionship is the first and I think only companionship in the mission to have ipads!  The time is getting close haha.. but that is besides the point.  We then got up the next morning to go to the conference.  Elder Kearon is amazing!  He is now one of my heroes and biggest examples.  It is so hard to explain how down to earth yet so spiritual he is.  He makes you participate out of your own desire to want to help and contribute.  Basically I dont think I have ever received such a exact response to one of my prayers before.  Literally almost every word that was spoken when I got to the conference to the time I left was a response to something I have been talking about with my Heavenly Father about.  It showed me that I have a lot I need to improve on, but left me hopeful enough to be happy and want to try just a little bit harder.  I don't think I have ever had such a good conference before.  It was SUPER long don't get me wrong, but overall it was great.  I wish I had time to go up and talk him personally but sadly I didn't.  So it was worth all the travel and what not we had to do to get there.  I also got to see a lot of people I haven't seen for a really long time!  I got to see my "baby sister" aka Sora Bird from my Arad transfers.  We gotta talk for a bit and catch up.  She is super awesome and she actually is serving in Panduri, exactly where I was before Sibiu.  She makes me laugh.

For the travel part this is what we had to do.  Leave

The joy of travel 

Wednesday at three on the 6ish hour train, then get into Bucharest around 9.  Then the next morning wake up at 6:30 and go to the meeting.  After that take a 3 hour train to the city of Brasov to get half way home.  That next morning wake up at like 5 to catch our train and get into sibiu at like 8 or 9 on Friday morning.  It was exhausting haha.

To top off the week we had 23 people at church!  We are being so blessed over here in Sibiu.  All of everyone's prayers and fasts are helping so much.  Doesn't mean that there might be some more dips into lower numbers, but three weeks in a row with numbers in the 20's is awesome!  So we are all pretty happy as a district.  We gotta keep working hard.

To end the letter I want to share an awesome scripture that was brought to my attention in an amazing new light.  Alma 62:41 "But behold, because of the exceedingly great length of the war between the Nephites and the Lamanites many had become hardened, because of the exceedingly great length of the war; and many were softened because of their afflictions, insomuch that they did humble themselves before God, even in the depth of humility." Basically it's our choice.  We all

have our own "wars" there is no avoiding it, but we get to choose how we will let it affect us.  We can become hardened and shut our friends, family, and God out.  Maybe the "war" will make us choose where we will be obedient and where we wont.  There are many ways to be "hardened".  We make ourselves miserable and blame it on the "war".  For those who have fallen into this category, don't give up.  You can stay hardened for a little while longer, I personally realize it is easier and more comfortable that way, but don't stay that way much longer. I beg you to start the softening process and just try and let it soften you. it's not fun, and change is difficult, but it is promised we will be happier.  So if nothing else rely on that to get started cause I KNOW you are not happy now.  The Lamanites and the Nephites both went through the war and people from both sides were hardened and softened.  Doesn't matter if you are a member of the church or not.  You get to choose.  Be careful!

Thanks for being so great to me and always having my best interest in mind.  I couldn't do this with out you all, so again, simply thanks.  Love you all, have a great week!

Love

The Nightwing!

ps:  Next week will be interesting with P-day, we are moving it to Thanksgiving.  So sometime Thursday I think is the plan to write home.  Also I received the package from Grandma, Grandpa, and Jacquilin  I was just about to run out of Skippy haha thanks so much from both me and elder Whitaker haha.  Love you!

THE LIGHT

It's been another week.  It's crazy how to describe time.  I feel like just yesterday I was on here writing, but at the same time, it's like been a month since I've heard from you! crazy stuff.

I think this was the last week where we are going over to that investigator's garden to farm and stuff.  He has been saying he is going to France to go take care of bees and get honey for the last like 6 months or something like that.  We'll turns out this week we actually think he left!  I am still a little hesitant because he just barely ordered 25 truck loads of dirt that was just barely dumped on his property this last Tuesday.  He wants us to continue to work for him... but he wont be back for a very long time... we are not really sure what to do.  I kinda feel bad for him.  We think some one jipped him on his dirt.  We were looking at and digging through it, and it is just

a bunch of clay (from what I hear, that is not good for farming)  It also has a bunch of random concrete pieces all over (kinda like a broken up sidewalk)  So actually what we think happened was he bought this stuff from some construction workers for super cheap or something like that.

Now comes the question why did he do that if he knew he was going to France?  Maybe we will never know.  Oh also while we were there, I thought it would be a good moment to use my ceramics skills.  I made a huge trophy/ goblet of some sort.  It was actually looking pretty good.... so I brought it home to put in our oven to see if it would harden enough to use it.  If anyone who is reading this knows anything about ceramics... I think they know how much that idea just simply would not work.  To say the least, it didnt make it.... but that's enough about that.

                              

So you know that audit I had to do for the branch over here?  Well this week I got 100% done with it!  All the hard stuff was over a while ago, I just had a lot of busy work to do with it.  It took a couple hours cause the printer wasn't working at the church, but luckily elder W is a genius and got it to work just enough so I could get it done.  Now let's just cross our fingers I didnt make any mistakes!

Something super cool happened this week.  We were able to meet with a less active member.  Ever since I was with Elder C we have been trying to meet up with him.  We finally were able to do a drop by his work and talk for him for like 5 minutes.  THE most productive 5 minutes I have ever spent!  It went super well.  It was really good to just put a face to him and for him to do the same for us.  Now the hope is he will be more open to meet up now that we are not strangers.  The best part is, he is super young and I still feel like he has "the light" in his eyes.  He asked for a whole bunch of our English cards that we hand out to people on the street to get to come to our courses, and said that he wanted to give a bunch out to his friends and also leave some at his work for customers to grab!  He is amazing and would have some great things to contribute to help the work progress SO much here in Sibiu! He is just a solid guy.  We are hoping he will be able to move back into Sibiu so things will be just a tad easier for him.  

 We have some cool stuff to look forward to this week.  A member of the 70 is coming over here to talk with all of us.  You might remember his talk he gave in general conference a while ago.  It was about when he was a boy and his parents told him not to walk around outside without shoes.  Well he does and then gets stung by a scorpion. I am super excited to hear from him, I really liked that talk he gave.  So this means Wednesday afternoon we are hoping on a train and heading down to Bucharest!  Basically the entire mission will be there so I am super excited to see all of them as well!  We then will either come back Thursday night on another 5 or 6 hour train ride or on Friday morning.  A lot of travel but it is so worth it.  I will let you know how it goes next week!

Love you all so much!  Thanks for your letters and all your support.  I couldn't ask for a better family.  I am so happy we can be together for eternity!  That info alone gives me so much comfort I can't express it in words.  Have a good week!

Love,

Cooper

Ps:  I bought a harmonica today!  I decided it would be good to learn how to play.  When I am old sitting on my porch with my big ol' dog... That'll be the best.  Hidden talent coming to the surface?.... I think so! :)

UP AND DOWNS, GOOD AND BAD

All right so the week. 

We were able to meet up with a member we haven't seen that much at church.  It was super great.  He was so nice and

really really wants to come back to church.  It's just hard right now because of his work schedule.  They literally give him no time on Sundays... it's super sad.  We are hoping to see that turn around soon.  That day was super busy.  We were running all over the place.  Right after we had a lesson with D again!  He is progressing, I think, but it is super slow.  It's also an interesting situation because he is fewer than 18.  Well during this lesson, we had a surprise visit.  M came to Sibiu to look at the church here!  If you dont remember him, we taught him a couple times when I was serving in Buc.  It was super cool to see him again. Life is just tricky sometimes, but we are hoping and praying that the missionaries in Buc will keep working with him on so that one day he can be a member. I have faith in him. 

All right so yesterday was probably the best Sunday I have had outside of America.  We had tons of people at church.  The group in Sebes was able to come down to Sibiu.  That consists of R (who we visited in the mountains) also this awesome family.  They have like 5 kids and they are all super cute!  The oldest son just had his interview to receive the Aaronic priesthood.  The rest of them are all younger so the sisters had to do a primary class!  Super awesome!  Then we had a less active family come. They brought their two little girls, so that just added to the primary. :) That's not all!  We then had a lady come with her little girl!!!  I am not 100% sure on her situation, but she knows a lot about the church... the members all know her... so I think she is less active as well.  So if you have been adding up we had 8 kids at church!  Also three full families!  So great! The C's, the less actives with the two girls, and the other Family C (that is the Branch president, they just got back from the temple in Madrid getting sealed!)  To say the least, it was the most amazing Sunday I have had in Sibiu.  There was so much noise, children laughing and crying it was so nice. I guess I've missed noise. :)   We wish the people in Sebes could come every week!  They help this branch out so much.  Everyone who came just felt so welcomed.  It was an awesome change to see.

To wrap up the week, we watched another session of general conference.  Only two more and we are done! haha

I know that no matter what life throws our way that Christ will

help. It takes patience, but he is there. The basics are what matter.  Pray always.  The Book of Mormon brings so much calm and peace that I know I literally can't afford to not read it.  Two days ago I had a feeling like I have never had before.  Of just the spirit of God confirming certain things to my heart, it was so strong.  It departed so quickly though.  Luckily I wrote it down to reflect on. Guess we have to hold on to the moments.  

Love you all so much!  Hope you can have a great week!  Talk to ya soon!

Elder Cooper