Hey everyone,
Hope you all had a great week. There's been a lot of crazy stuff that's happened this last week. First of all I'm not in New Roads anymore and now I'm in a place called Mandeville. It was really sudden and unexpected. I was studying Wednesday morning when the phone started ringing and President Woods showed up on caller ID. I was like, oh man what did I do wrong, ha. I answered of course and he told me that I was needed in Mandeville and that I would be picked up by the assistants on Friday. I was taking the place of a missionary who was emergency transferred and he was going to go to New Roads. I was pretty sad to leave New Roads, because there was a lot of good things starting to happen. But, Mandeville is a really nice place and there are actually a lot of members in my area for once now. It's weird to go from a small town, to now a city that has all kinds of stores. I think New Roads made me appreciate more living in the city and having everything you need close instead of having to drive 40 minutes to get things. I did talk to Elder Waters last night on the phone and he said that they found a building to have Church in! He also said that Randy and Bridget are getting interviewed this week for baptism! So it sounds like everything is working out in New Roads. I'm excited for Mandeville though. They had 7 baptisms in the month of January! and there are a couple of people really close to being able to be baptized.
Oh yeah, my new companion is Elder Ruzicka and he seems pretty cool so far. He's from Las Vegas, Nevada and has been out for 4 months. So we're both pretty new still to the mission and President Woods had me be senior companion. I wasn't too excited to be senior companion because you have more responsibilty and you take the blame if something goes wrong or you don't have a good week. The only thing that I'm excited for is that I get to drive! Elder Ruzicka is a great missionary though and a hard worker and so I don't think of us really as junior and senior companion.
Luckily I did get the package you sent mom on that Friday right before I left. The cookies were really good and I shared them with all the other missionaries. I'm in a frat pad now, or in other words, there are four missionaries in the apartment in Mandeville. It's a lot of fun and it's good to be able to see some other missionaries. Anyways, I know that sometimes things happen that we don't really understand. But I know that there's a reason I'm here in Mandeville now and that this is where the Lord needs me. I love this gospel and I love being out here. I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Cooper
