Happy Leap Day From Cookeville!

Outside his new apartment in Cookeville

Buenos!

Well, this has been quite the week! I apologize, because this email will probably be really long. New area, new comp, white washing, it's been great. But before all that, let me tell you about my last day in Clarksville. So, a few days earlier we had tracted into this guy named R. He'd investigated the church before, done lots of research, but just had a couple of disagreements with some of our doctrine. But, he loves having missionaries over, so he invited us over for dinner. Fast forward to Monday, we're having dinner with R, and I notice a bunch of instrument cases lying around, so I asked if he did music and stuff. Turns out, this dude was a pro trumpet player. It was sick! R used to live in New York, and he played with every big name trumpet player out there. He kept naming em off, Alan Vizutti, even Maynard Ferguson! He had us listen to a CD of him playing with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra accompanying him. (Side note, he was also nominated for a Grammy, no biggie). It was sooooo cool. The music nerd inside me squealed a little. Here is this former pro, just living out in some crummy trailer park in the middle of Tennessee. Man. You meet the most interesting people here in the South.

Tuesday was transfers. I said goodbye to Clarksville, and met up with my new comp in Nashville. Elder C is pretty great. He's from Vernal, Utah, came right out of High School, he's been out one transfer more than me (so he's at 8 and a half months now). He loves basketball, big surprise; he's like 6'5. It definitely is weird being the shorter companion. Going to be something I have to get used to. So far, it's been pretty great. We get along pretty well. Elder C is a diligent worker with a desire to be obedient, and overall is just a real solid missionary. Unfortunately, he hasn't had much opportunity to practice his Spanish. He was trained in Paducah, and then was in a zebra (one Spanish, one English) companionship in Winchester, and there just wasn't much Spanish work in either of those areas. He's a pretty easy going guy though, pretty funny. I like him so far.

So, we got to our new apartment, which is pretty nice, a little creaky though. The Hermanas left a lot of stuff behind, including makeup, nail polish, an old bra, so...fun stuff. But, they did leave some food behind too, which was nice. The Hermanas left us some notes, but not a whole lot, so we just got right to work. Elder C and I have been working real hard this week, trying to contact a bunch of people in the area book, calling everyone we can to set up appointments, and lots of tracting as well. We actually saw quite a bit of success this week. We ended up teaching double-digit lessons this week, which I've only ever done once before. We found a lot of new investigators this week, and two of them seem really promising. We'll see what happens with them. But, the work seems like it's ready to flourish here in Cookeville. Hopefully we'll be able to get members involved soon as well. There's a little university here, Tennessee Tech, so there's a lot of apartment complexes in town. We've actually been able to find lots of Hispanics near campus, so we do lots of tracting in apartments. It's fun stuff.

Sunday was good but looooooooong. We were at the church from about 8:30 to 5:30. Since there's no Spanish branch here, we attend the two English wards, Burgess Falls and Cookeville. Also, the Burgess Falls ward does their order backwards for some silly reason. So we had the BF priesthood and then Sunday school. Then, we leave the middle of the BF sacrament meeting to attend Cookville's Ward Council at 11:30, then we have the BF Ward Council at 12:30, and then Cookeville's Sacrament meeting starts at 1:00. It's a little crazy. We didn't have any Spanish members show up this week, but if any do, then we get to translate (whoo...). Then this week after church, Cookeville had a Ward potluck, which was pretty fun. Real good food too, which was great because Elder Cushing and I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. The ward had a good time though. Quick story, so in the BF ward, the Bishopric member that was conducting said, "Brothers and Sisters, Easter is coming up soon. We celebrate Christ's resurrection. Christ Won the Day." That made me think of the Oregon Ducks #wintheday and I thought it was funny.

Cookeville Ward Potluck

Whew. So my ponderizing scripture this week is Alma 37:33, "Preach unto them repentance, and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ; teach them to humble themselves and to be meek and lowly in heart; teach them to withstand every temptation of the devil, with their faith on the Lord Jesus Christ." Pretty simple missionary application. We teach people to repent, to be humble, to come unto Christ. We have to teach our investigators about opposition, and help them to build their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yup. Hope y’all have a good one this week!

Love,
Elder Mitchell

A pic for their ward bulletin

Pictures of Tennessee Tech