Weekly Email

Hello Family and friends!! 

This week was super good!! It's always good but this week was a good one for sure!! Also I am actually surprised about how other people besides my family actually read my emails!! So that's cool! I hope they help you throughout the week and that these are also enjoyable as well!!  I was waiting to get a letter from my mom before I wrote but I guess she got back too late from the Spring Break trip to write.  That 's ok because I am going to talk to her soon!  I am so glad I am able to call her weekly!  She tells me she loves hearing my voice. hahaha   I am loving Florida.  It is a little hot and I am sure summer will be brutal but it is so pretty here.  It is really green; I love the palm trees; I love the different animals I see. I still love NM (specifically Farmington) better though.  I love all the things I am able to do outdoors right outside my door!  I have only been in one area though so I will see if that changes.  

Well to start off this week we had some really good lessons and we were able to find some good people. We met some great people this week that were excited about the Book of Mormon. We met a man named Luis this week that goes to church but also has a desire to learn more! So we taught him a little of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and he loved it. We are going to be following up with him on Wednesday. 

We also met another man named Barry. He has been going through a really hard time and talking with him was a great pleasure! He has been struggling to find a good job for him.  He is a good man. He loves church and loves Jesus Christ. We told him about how Christ visited the people of America and taught them. He was so excited!! He said "The Sermon I went to today was good, but man this right here is real (talking about what I said).  I have learned so much!" He was really overcome by the Spirit. He was so astonished and loved every second of what we were teaching him!! He looked me straight in the eye for a second or two and then  he said, "I don't know if you know this but you have spirits in you! I can see it in you! I can just feel it!"  I could feel the Spirit too but have never had anyone say it like that before.  That was definitely cool to hear! I am excited to learn more about him and help him! He was a great man and were going to be seeing him tomorrow!! 

Also yesterday we had a one of our people come to church that we really wanted there!! I was so happy!! He just surprised us and showed up!! His name is Jason. And he is amazing! He really enjoyed church and has been reading from the Book of Mormon as well! He has been progressing really good!! We are going to be seeing him this week again! We will teach him about the Plan of Salvation and were going to draw it out to help him understand it a little better! So I'm excited for that! 

This week I had my one on one interview with President Cooper, my amazing Mission President.  I love him so much.  I know he will be an Apostle or Prophet one day.  He is so spiritual and so is Sister Cooper.  They have had such amazing experiences and they provide such great trainings!  They provide great insight into everything they teach us missionaries.  I also love the missionaries in my District. They are great guys!  

I love the time I have in the morning and at night to study and learn and grow spiritually! I absolutely love the scriptures and I have been able to learn so much from them!! I have been studying a lot on the Spirit/Holy Ghost! Also I have been studying faith! I feel people have forgotten how powerful prayer and faith are!! It's crazy how powerful faith is!! We can know anything! ANYTHING!! if we have a real desire to know something!! God can't hold anything back from us if our faith is strong!! The Spirit teaches us truth and gives us knowledge from God! How amazing is that??!!!  We, as a people, can receive knowledge!! Not just belief but a sure knowledge of truth! (Alma 32) (Moroni 10) (Alma 17: 2-4) (Mosiah 5) (2 Nephi 32 1-5) (John 14:26) (1 Cornithians 2:11) (Doctrine and Covenants 6)

I don't know if any of you are searching for answers to questions but these scriptures have sure helped me understand what I need to do to receive answers to my questions.  I have also had the Spirit testify and teach me and I He will testify and will teach you all things you desire as well. Search these diligently with a question in mind and then thoughts and promptings will come into your mind. I try to act on the promptings of the Spirit and I urge you to also.  Whatever the spirit asks of you- DO IT! I try to be a "first responder" by acting on the promptings the first time I feel/hear it.  

I know that there is a Heavenly Father. I know that He is a real being and loves all his children. ALL OF THEM.  I know Jesus Christ is my Savior. He really did perform the Atonement and I know that through him we can be strengthened and we can feel His great love. I struggle with many things but because of my Savoir, my teacher, my healer, my peacemaker, the Son of God, my best friend, I can be made a worthy servant to the Lord.  I definitely try to be the best missionary I can be.  I try to be the best trainer I can be.  When I fall short, I know Christ still loves me and helps me to be better.  I know Jesus Christ lives and guides His church. 

I love you all and thank you for your support and kindness. I need to get the car washed and go to the grocery store so I need to go.  Have a great week!! 

Elder Cahoon 

Brandon, FL Missionaries

More Animal Pictures

Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

"The Army of Helaman"

Hello friends and family!!

We had a great week this week!! The lessons we had were amazing and we taught a lot this week!! It also flew by super quick! I feel like I just emailed! It's been 4 MONTHS ALREADY!!! How the heck did that happen??!! Super weird but I'm just glad I have 2 years!! Because it's going by quickly. 

We taught this awesome guy this week that we haven't had a chance to meet with in a couple of weeks! It was super great! We then had a church tour as well with him and it was super good!! He felt the spirit a lot and he should be coming to church with us next week! He has been starting to read the scriptures and has been praying a lot more!! He used to be an addict with drugs and now he is changing his life! It's been amazing to see him grow!! We are seeing him again this Wednesday! 

We also taught this amazing lady this week! She can't be baptized right now but she has a great desire to be baptized. She knows the church is true and she wants to be sealed in the Temple and loves the Temple! She has come to church a lot! She says it will take some time for those things to go away so she can be baptized. She said, "When the time comes and I am able to be baptized, I will be. No matter what."  Hey faith is pretty sweet!  We read the vision of Lehi with her from the Book of Mormon. It was great and the member that was there bore powerful testimony of the scriptures! It was great! I love that vision! I challenge the people reading my email to read that chapter. These two chapters are great to study and to learn from. 1 Nephi 8 and 11. 

We are also going to be setting a date with another lady this week and we are really hoping she can be baptized on the 30. She wants to be baptized soon. So that's really exciting! 

The members here are really great and we had some fantastic lessons with them. We have been doing some good things with them that hopefully will lead to increased missionary experiences.  When we talk to them we ask them what people have come to their minds.  We ask them to write the names down and then after a bit we pray for someone on their list and what specific thing they could do for them.  This list is just for the individual member and we let them know it is not for us to contact them.  Hopefully, eventually we will come into the picture but this is just a way for increased missionary experiences for the members.  I have loved doing this with the members we have visited so far.  

We also were able to meet with the one man who had an amazing experience with the Book of Mormon. We cut some cactus for him in his yard! It was really fun! We will be going back this week! And teach him about faith and repentance and baptism. 

We had a super amazing exchange with the zone Leaders this week! I love those guys!  I love the learning opportunities I have had so far on my mission! Some have been tough and hard lessons to learn but I have grown a lot from them and I really hope I continued to learn! 

The Zone Leaders

During personal scripture study, I have been studying a lot of things this week! I love the scriptures so much! Before I came out on my mission, I loved the scriptures and I loved reading them.  But since being out, I have studied them more diligently and spent more quality time with them.  I just love digging deep into them!! I have been studying a lot about faith and receiving answers to prayers. There are things that I have been studying that I want to know more about. I know I can find the answers to questions in the scriptures.  The Brother of Jared is a great example of faith and prayer so I began to study about him in more depth.  His faith is truly amazing! I have been pondering daily on his experience of when he prayed to get an answer to how to light the ship.  Not only did he get an answer but he also saw the finger of the Lord.  Such faith!  I need that kind of faith as I serve.  Also I have been studying Moroni's teaching about receiving answers. The scriptures are so great to help me (and ll of us) to learn and to grow! I'm so grateful for the truth that I have and that I get to proclaim it to people.  Thank goodness I have another 20 months left!  

By the way, I have gotten my Jamba Juice fix here!  I have gone there two times since being here!  You know the Razzmatazz is my favorite so yay me!  Have a great week all!  Thank you all for the letters and packages! I really appreciate it!! Love you all! Have a great week!! If you have questions about the gospel I would love to talk with you! 

Elder Cahoon

The Dog Whisperer

Tampa Mission is a BEAST!

Hello Family and Friends!! 

Beautiful Brandon, FL

Thank you all for the wonderful letters and packages!!! I really appreciate it!!  Mom, if you haven't sent my package yet can you please send me my flower tie? They are not disobedient and I really like that one!  Also don't send me socks! The ones you sent me are nice and I wear them when I'm chilling but they are disobedient and I can't wear them out proselyting.  The Marcums sent me a letter this week.  They said they missed sitting behind me (and our family) at church.  They are such nice people.  I miss talking football with Brother Marcum.  

I took a picture of more Florida wildlife.  My favorite thus far has been the alligator.  I haven't seen any flamingos.  I love all the interesting wildlife here.  It is so different than at home.  

Florida Birds

I am riding my bike again this week.  Last week we had the car.  We share the car with other missionaries so we get to do both driving and riding!  That last long ride was pretty toasty and Elder Allen got pretty sunburned.  Definitely need to wear sunscreen.  My knees were killing me during the ride and the next day was pretty bad but they are just fine now and don't hurt when I ride.  Today we are with our District Leader (I did some splits with him this past week- he is awesome).  His apartment complex is awesome!  Actually, lots of missionary apartments in this area are really cool.  They have ping pong and pool tables in  them.  I haven't played ping pong yet but I hope to.  I am going to kill it with my skills! lol  

This week was super good!! I just want to tell you that the Tampa Florida Mission is the BEAST!  We have some really amazing missionaries!  We are also an "experimental" mission (not sure that that is the official term but it is what I call it). lol  That means that when the Church is wanting to try new things with missionaries, we get to try them and test them before all the other missions and missionaries!  It's pretty cool!  We have a different kind of companion study and I really love it!  It is a little quicker but what how you learn is amazing!  It is more direct and visual and learn a lot from this method!  I really enjoy companion study!  There is another thing we do with people that are gathered in large groups.  I haven't used this approach yet because I haven't been in a place where there are large groups but I will let you know how it goes when I do use it.  

We also taught some pretty sweet lessons!!  We had a member lesson with a family and it was really great.  It reminded me of when we had the missionaries over.  The family shared some good thoughts and that was good for us missionaries to see how willing they are to help us.  

So we got a text from a guy this week that said he was willing to be baptized!! He is a Catholic and doesn't understand the apostasy (the apostasy is a loss of authority from the earth to baptize and to have a Prophet of God on the earth).  And he said he didn't want to be baptized by water or immersion. So we are going to be teaching him and the importance of Priesthood authority and baptism. So that will be fun! I have learned a lot about baptism studying the scriptures and have chosen portions for him to read. I started with the question, "Why is baptism really important?" As I studied I received answers to that question. 

The first, which is easy, is because God commanded it!  And even Jesus Christ was baptized! Only by being baptized can we enter heaven!! (John 3:5) (Mathew 3:15) ( 3 Nephi 27:19-20)

Secondly, the person baptizing has to have the authority from God!! That is very important to understand! A lot of people think we all have the authority because we have the Holy Ghost/spirit. But that's simply not true. The Holy Ghost is a gift from God to help us personally in our lives.  Christ got baptized by John the Baptist who was very far in physical distance from Christ. And Christ went a long distance to be baptized by him! And why? There were Sadducees and Pharisees all around him. It's because Christ knew that baptism meant nothing unless it was by someone holding the authority of God to truly baptize. (Mathew 28:19) ( doctrine and Covenants 68:8) (Luke 7:30) (acts 19:2-6) (Mathew 7:21-23)

Third, the symbolism is very important! Being immersed in water is as of burial and coming up is as of new life or being born again and a remission of sins! What a great blessing I have to know of these truths! (Mathew 3:16) (John 3:23) 

So it was pretty fun delving into the topic! I love doctrine and studying scriptures! We have a lot of people out here that like to bash. Now I don't bash but I will always defend the faith and tell them I know what I say is true. A testimony of truth can never be shattered by anyone! I completely stopped this one guy yesterday who tried to bash me and I just bore my testimony of prophets and Christ Church and he was so stunned he had no idea what to say and ended the conversation. Poor guy thought he would destroy me. 

But I really do love Christ's Gospel and I know that He restored his church! I love the scriptures and from reading them we gain more faith in Christ and we can receive help as we put Christ into our lives!! I Know that his authority to baptize is again here on the earth. And that there really is a prophet of God on the earth!! Again thank you all and love you all so much!!! 

Elder Cahoon

Elder Allen and I

I Love Christ's Gospel So Much!!!

What is up family and friends!!! 

Thank you all for the emails and letters. I really do love and appreciate them!! So thank you!! I also got news that we (missionaries) can have other family members in our phone call/skype as long as a parent is in it!  So, I will try to call today and see if you can get McKay there!  If not, try Tyler and Hannah.  But it's been a great week!!! We had some amazing adventures this week!! The weather was a little crazy at times and that made our biking experience really fun!! 

So to start off we met some great people this week!! And we had some more cool experiences!! We met some great families and we met some great less active families as well! We are so grateful to do the Lord's work and see it change peoples lives! 

We tried to meet with that one man again who had an amazing expedience with the Book of Mormon. His wife isn't quite sure about us and with us meeting with her husband so we weren't able to talk to him. At least we prayed with her so that was good. I hope she lets us talk with him soon!! I hope he is still reading the Book of Mormon. 

And the Lady that is planning on getting baptized is doing great!! She has had a really tough life and is working to get a home! She is living with her mom and she has had a lot of problems there. But she recently got a job and only about 3 days into working she got offered the manager position!  She is able to make more money as manager!  She works at Dollar General.  She doesn't want to be baptized till she has her own house so I know the Lord is helping her out a little!! 

We had some crazy weather down here and it was super fun!! So we got to bike all this week! And our area is pretty large!! At the beginning of the week we got a Book of Mormon request!!  The guy lives all the way out in Ybor City which is like right next to Tampa! And you remember, we also cover Tampa!!  Well, we bike from our apartment all the way to Ybor City (which was a hour and a half to a 2 hour bike ride)!! My legs and knees were on FIRE!  But it was a lot if fun!! We got to see Tampa and all the big buildings!  We were able to talk to a few good people on our way! Biking is good for that.  Another day this week, while we were biking again, it poured rain!!! I mean POURED as in buckets!!  We got absolutely soaked!! That was a fun day!! It was kinda chilly being so wet though! 

I love my Companion Elder Allen- he is an amazing missionary!! And he has only been out 2 weeks!!! It's crazy how good he is!! I have learned a lot from him!! 

I know the Lord NEEDS us on his side!!! We choose everyday which side we are going to be on! And we need to choose His side!! The score is lit up on the score board.  Christ is going to win no matter what!!  We don't want to be on the losing team!  We can either have joy and happiness or sorrow and sadness! Living the Gospel of Jesus Christ makes us happy and builds us up!! So don't be taken down by the evil craftiness of man and of Satan!! Satan only wants you to be miserable like himself!! Don't fall for his tricks!! Remember that Halloween Family Home Evening lesson you gave Mom about Satan's tricks?  He is tricky for sure but the treats (or rewards) of the Savior are so much better!  Continue to strengthen your faith and repent daily!! I know Christ lives and he really does love each and every single one of us!! Go to Him!!! PLEASE! He loves you!! 

Alright love you all!!! I have to go because I am going to a strawberry festival with the Hursts and some other Elders!  It is really big deal here.  I am going to get to see some animals so I am pumped!  Have a great week!! 

Elder Cahoon 

Biking in Brandon, FL

Biking in the Sun