Hello everyone,
I'm here in New Orleans in a public library e-mailing. I can't believe I'm actually here. It seems just like yesterday that I was getting on the plane in Arizona to go to Salt Lake. I arrived in Baton Rouge last Tuesday. My mission president and his wife met us there at the airport and took us to stay at the mission home for that night. My mission President is President Woods. President and Sister Woods are two of the nicest and coolest people I've ever met. They're from Mesa Arizona, so they were happy to have another Elder from Arizona. There are actually quite a few missionaries from Arizona and President Woods says that the Arizona missionaries are his favorite.
Wednesday I woke up early and drove out to my new area. My area is Gentilly which is the east side of New Orleans. It's way cool. I love it already, the people are so nice even if they don't want to hear about the gospel. It's funny my companion and I are the only two white people pretty much in the area. I love it though, like I said early the people here are so nice and generous. My companion is Elder Hale. He's from a small town in Wyoming and has been only out here for about 6 months. So it's pretty surprising that he's my trainer since he's only been out for 6 months. He is way cool and a really good missionary. We've gotten along pretty good so far.
My first day we went out knocking doors to start off the day. We actually have a car in the area I'm in, so I haven't used my bike yet. But yeah, so the first person that opens the door lets us come in and we teach him the first lesson and commit him to baptism on the 30 of October! It was awesome!, I couldn't believe it, that the first person we talk to accepts it and commits to being baptized. He did call about two days ago and say that he didn't want to get baptized anymore, but we haven't gotten to talk to him yet. Also, he didn't have a Book of Mormon because we had left the box with the new ones at the church so once he gets that and starts reading it he'll want to get baptized again.
This week has been pretty good. I've just been taking it all in and getting used to everyday mission life. The weather has been really nice since I've been here. Especially the last two because it was in the low 70's. One thing that was discouraging though was that we had 5 invetigators that said they were going to come to conference but none of them showed up. Oh well it's alright, hopefully next week we get some of them to come to church. General Conference was way good. I enjoyed it so much. I can't wait for this next week and all the work that my companion and I are going to get done. I love this Gospel and the Lord. I know this is where I'm supposed to be and that I'm going to love it. I love you all.
Love,
Elder Cooper
