Monday, July 28, 2014
Hello Everyone!
I hope you all know that you are amazing! I miss you all so much! It is crazy that I hit my 5 months the other day.. Time really does fly out here. It is insane, the fact that I hit my 6 months out just next month makes me kind of sick…the mission is amazing and time is flying by a little too fast for me:) But anyways, it was so good to get your email mom and thank you for the pictures of my sweet nephew Ollie and my precious niece Lilly! They melt my heart, they are so adorable. So stinken precious..Man alive:) It was such a fun little video to get of Ollie. He is so cute all smiley, geeze I just want to kiss him and Lilly to pieces! Sounds like you guys have had a really fun weekend! I am sure it has been really nice having Court and Brett in town, super fun to be able to chill and hang out! JET!! You must be kidding! haha The good old days... Court and I would do stunts and try and get me up on her feet, that picture was hilarious... love it!! Seriously made me laugh so hard!
I hope you all know that you are amazing! I miss you all so much! It is crazy that I hit my 5 months the other day.. Time really does fly out here. It is insane, the fact that I hit my 6 months out just next month makes me kind of sick…the mission is amazing and time is flying by a little too fast for me:) But anyways, it was so good to get your email mom and thank you for the pictures of my sweet nephew Ollie and my precious niece Lilly! They melt my heart, they are so adorable. So stinken precious..Man alive:) It was such a fun little video to get of Ollie. He is so cute all smiley, geeze I just want to kiss him and Lilly to pieces! Sounds like you guys have had a really fun weekend! I am sure it has been really nice having Court and Brett in town, super fun to be able to chill and hang out! JET!! You must be kidding! haha The good old days... Court and I would do stunts and try and get me up on her feet, that picture was hilarious... love it!! Seriously made me laugh so hard!
HAHAHAHA Could you all stop hating on my shirt? Man alive..I like it buttoned
up to the top. (It prevents cleavage, and also I just think it looks cute that
way) Wow! Hating on me from far away! You are all little rascals! Super sorry
about the address mess up! Good thing you double checked Mom. Thank you for
getting me those records quickly and thank you so much for the fun package. I
enjoyed baking those cookies....and I did not even ruin them, (it was perfect
because all I added was water and chocolate chips, sweet sauce!). I love the
Canada shirt! It is the best; I think I have worn it every day to bed
since I got it. Love it! Thanks!
I AM SO GLAD YOU GOT YOUR CHEESE! Brother Briggs
told me that he was going to send you some Wisconsin cheese. He is so awesome!
I just love that family so much and I am sure going to miss being with them!
So, how was the cheese?? Was it yummy? Ever since coming to Fond du Lac I have
been eating more cheese because we have members that work at dairy farms, so
they just give it to us. I really like it; I think it is rather delicious:) I
am super glad that you got the cheese from Brother Briggs! I would love to see
the pictures for sure, so please send them. It is cool how he can
send them in that insulated box and that when you get the cheese it is still
good eh?!!
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| A photo of the cheese that Brother & Sister Briggs sent our family
So let
me give you a little run down on the investigators that we have and are working
with here in this area! So, one thing that is really common in our
investigators here is... they are all old. Nothing wrong with elderly people, I
love them! It is just hard because they have some health problems that are
stopping them from progressing. We have an investigator named Bonnie. She is
close to 90, and is struggling with some health issues. She really wants to
come to church but can’t because of some health reasons. We love her and are
praying that we can figure something out to help her get to church! We also are
working with a lady named Virginia, also elderly. She is 85.. BUT A
DOLL. She is so cute. We love her too. She has some sons who are members and
are active:) We have another investigator named Carolyn and she has some
serious sass! :) She makes me laugh lots. She freaks out when we
come over and she can’t find her wig to put on.. "Oh dear.. Where is my
wig??!!" {Said with a strong accent... ha ha she cracks me up!} She is a
newer investigator and so we have only met with her a couple times. Something
funny is that every time we go to see her... she says "Sing me
praises" So, my companion and I have to sing her a song before we teach
her. We start off by singing a hymn and it is actually neat to be able to
feel the Spirit come into the room and to see her face as we
sing. She loves it! It was neat because during the lesson
at the end she told us that she was going to read the Book of Mormon, come to
church, and pray to know if it is true through the Holy Ghost before we even
invited her to. She loves the bible and is very strict with it and at first it
was hard to teach her but it is neat to see her softening. It will still
be a long journey ahead but we are excited for her. We have also taught
her grandchildren to sing "I am a Child of God". I am excited to
hopefully see her progress! We are teaching a younger girl named Donna, she may
be a little slow and not accountable.. but we are not sure. We also have a new
investigator that we found this week (She is awesome!) Her name is
Tonya...{this is a cool story…} We were trying to go and find an old potential
and knocked on the door. The person that answered said that the
person we were looking for no longer lived there and that she had just moved
in. I was asking her some questions and she told us that she had met
with the missionaries 10 years ago! We were super excited and asked
her if we could come back and see her and she told us that we could:) We do
have a pretty good teaching pool right now, but unfortunately none of them are
progressing as much as we would like them too! We are going to continue to work
with them and hopefully we can see some progression!:)
My
first week in Fond du Lac has been good! The members spoil us like
crazy! We have a dinner appointment pretty much every night!
Something crazy that they do here is take us out to dinner. We meet them at a
restaurant and it is pretty sweet! This week we were able to meet with all of
our investigators. We had a really powerful first lesson with Tonya. (the
person who met with the missionaries 10 years ago) THE SPIRIT IS
AMAZING! It is so insane how incredible and important the spirit is in lessons.
We taught her the restoration and it went really well. We could see the change
in her from the beginning to the end. The spirit is a powerful thing and it is
incredible to be able to witness that in a lesson and to see the effect that it
has on the investigator. I am so grateful for my Heavenly Father who loves me
and blesses me with the spirit that touches the hearts of the people we serve.
Being a missionary is amazing! So, we also have this girl that we volunteer
with at the hospital. Her name is Nicole. She is 19 and super cute and FUN! She
has wanted to play the piano with Sister Prestwich. We decided to invite her to
a dinner appointment that we had last night with the Prellwitz family! She came
and it was really good:) As we were walking out we gave her a Book of Mormon
and talked to her a little bit about it! SHE WAS SO EXCITED and said..
"Yay! I love books!" We were excited. She did tell us that even
though she is Roman Catholic, she will read the Book of Mormon! Just a fun
little tender mercy that we had last night. You see, even though we see her
when we volunteer, we are not allowed to talk about religion when we are
volunteering unless someone asks us. So, because she came to the dinner
appointment we were able to give her the Book of Mormon and talk a little bit
about it! Hopefully she will read it, and have a desire to learn more:) Also, a
little side note: the family last night that we had dinner with had a border
collie. SO CUTE. I played with her the whole night. She reminded me and looked
just like Newman!!
Sister Prestwich and I decided to study diligence this week in
our studies together. We have been studying the attribute of
diligence and then we got a cool email from President Cutler about the mission
tour in August:
General
Authority Mission Tour-August 2014
Elder James B. Martino of the Seventy and his wife both converted to the church
in Texas as young adults. They knew each other in high school and Elder Martino
baptized his wife the week after he returned from his mission to Guatemala.
They raised their family in Texas and presided over the mission in Maracaibo,
Venezuela from 2000-2003. Since 2009 he has served in the Central America Area
presidency and in the missionary department. Elder and Sister Martino are
dynamic leaders and we will be blessed by their visit.
Elder Martino sent the following instructions: “Missionaries should come
prepared to learn, to participate, and to take notes. I would like the
missionaries to study the attribute of diligence in “Preach My
Gospel.” Each missionary should come prepared to give a three minute
presentation on what they have learned about diligence and how they have
applied it to their work.” It is amazing how things like that
happen! :) My week has been really good. I am so grateful right now! I am
always so grateful. I just stop and think about how much of a blessing it is to
me that I have this INCREDIBLE opportunity to serve my Heavenly Father and to
be a missionary. What a privilege it is to put on my name tag each day, and go
out and teach people about this wonderful gospel. I LOVE IT!
Before
I go I want to share a scripture that I came across while studying. [I am
almost finished the Book of Mormon! I am in 3 Nephi, almost to the part where
Jesus Christ comes and visits the people of America! So exciting.] I was
reading in 3 Nephi 9 and came across a scripture that I LOVE… 3 Nephi 9: 14.
“Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal
life. Behold mine arm of mercy is extended towards you and whosoever will come,
him will I receive, and blessed are those who come unto
me." How amazing is it that we have a Savior who invites us to
come unto Him?! I love how it says “He has an arm of mercy extended towards
you!” I am so grateful that I have a Savior. I know that He lives and that He
loves us all. It is such a wonderful reminder that we are loved, and that He is
there for us always!
I
LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! I hope you have a wonderful week:)
-Sister
(sass) Cosgrove
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