The Miracles Keep Coming!

Well howdy there family and friends! 

This is HUGE!

Hope all y'all are doing good! It's been great to hear about the your lives and all the fun things that are going on. I will have to say I am probably having more fun though! It's been a great week! A lot of tender mercies from the Lord! 

Soooo to start off this week, Elder Hatch and I fasted for some of the people we are teaching. Melanie is the young mother with 3 kids (I say young because we are in a ward of older people). She is doing amazing! We had a church activity, Octoberfest, this week and she brought her kids and it was a blast!  It was a chili cookoff and trunk-or-treating.  They had a lot of fun!  We had a great lesson this week with them about Repentance and the Atonement of Christ. We decided to teach about the Atonement because she told us she was trying to stop smoking.  We haven't even talked to her about this or taught her about the Word of Wisdom.  She just feels like she shouldn't smoke anymore because she doesn't feel like she feels the Spirit when she does.  She continues to be consistent in her reading and she is reading in 2 Nephi right now! Her husband likes to read the Book of Mormon with us but doesn't really read on his own at this time.  He says he feels so good when we read together and when we are in his home.   

We also met this really cool guy when we were out tracting this week! When we knocked on his door, he came out; he had a bunch of tattoos and was big and a scruffy-looking guy.  He also wasn't very happy to see us. I immediately thought, "I have to say something about his tattoos or else he will throw us off the porch."  I saw a Joker tattoo and began talking about it.  We talked about superheros and the different villains for about 3 minutes. He then told us he used to go to church but he hates Christians and he doesn't believe in God. We continued to talk with him but turned the conversation to spiritual things.  We talked for like 30 more minutes on his door step! Toward the end of the conversation, we asked him if he would just pray 1 time.  He said he would try praying but just 1 time! So we were pumped!  We then left.  Two days go by and I feel prompted to go back to see him.  We return and knock on his door again. 

He was there and came out and talked with us about his prayer!  He did it!  He said he would and he did! :)  He said it felt weird and he probably wouldn't do it again.  But then something happened. I don't know what we said to him to make him open up so much but after about 10 minutes, this guy just opened up to us and told us all about his life and why he hates Christians so much.  After that, we asked him if we could go into his home and talk with him.  He immediately let us in!   About 5 minutes after we walked into his home, his wife walked into the room where we were. She is a strong believer and is a Baptist. She looked surprised and asked, "Who are you guys?"  We, of course, responded happily, "We are the missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!"  Her eyes got HUGE!  She was so astonished that her husband let in Christian missionaries! She kept saying, "I can't believe you're in my home right now."  Well, she joined us for a few minutes and we taught them both about the pre-mortal existence- where we existed before we came here to earth. The guy thought it was really cool and his wife was really interested in that.  She asked where that is found in the Bible and we told her.  We all turned to the scripture and read it together.  We then taught them more about God's plan- about judgment and the after-life.  We had him read a verse from the Book of Mormon and after he read he was quiet and sat with his head down, looking at the Book of Mormon. He then said "I am taking this book."  Elder Hatch and I were taken aback by his response.  We then had him read Alma 32:28.  It's a great verse and chapter about gaining a testimony of truth! We will be following up with him tomorrow! We are very excited!  This experience was a miracle for sure.  It also reminds me (and hopefully you) that you follow-up on all promptings!   

The Terrific Twosome!

We received transfer orders this week and we found out that we were staying in Lecanto and we will be continue to serve together!!  Yippee!!  We also received word that Elder Hatch and I will be taking over the whole ward here! The Lecanto Ward where I serve previously had two sets of Elders because it was such a large area.  President is kicking the others out (hahaha) and having us take over the whole area- which is a whole county!!  Super crazy!! We are excited to receive some awesome people though! I will also continue to serve as the Zone Leader.  

I had an interview with President Hollingsworth this week.  It was wonderful.  I love him so much!  I wore the flowered tie that you got me Mom.  We just love our new converts!  JoAnne, the lady that just got baptized, got me and Elder Hatch ties! That was really nice of her!!  The tie goes with the suit you sent me, Mom.  I wore the tie with my suit on Sunday.  Thanks for the package by the way.  

I have gotten asked many times during my mission how I know the church is true.  I have told them my story of how I didn't rely on what my parents taught me.  Heck, I didn't believe what they said sometimes.  I read the scriptures; I tried to keep the commandments the best I could so I could have the Spirit with me.  I knew the Spirit would testify the truth to me and I learned how He talked to me as I listened to Him and acted on the promptings I felt.  This was a process.  I prayed specifically to know certain things and my prayers were answered because I came to know FOR MYSELF that the Book of Mormon is true and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is on the earth today. I love my testimony.  I love that I know for myself and that I don't need to rely on anyone's testimony/experiences to know this.  

I love you all and I'm so grateful for all of your help and for your prayers for me!! Have a great week!!! 

Elder Cahoon  

Trying To Be Like Alma

This week was awesome!! Bringing people to Christ! What a blast! And hello family and friends! Y'all are the best! I appreciate all the support! And man this week was a good one! 

So we had the baptism for our friend JoAnne- she is so great! We had an awesome week with her.  We had a dinner appointment with her but I wasn't able to go because I was on exchanges in Ocala with another missionary from my Zone.  But it was wonderful to meet with her this week.  And it was great to see her be baptized! She is so happy! There was also another baptism by the other missionaries.  How great is that?!  There were some people that showed up for the baptisms that were not members of the Church! They had a wonderful time! Hopefully we will see them again! 

We had some super good lessons with Justin and Melanie! They are the ones who we gave the Book of Mormon to and helped them bring in groceries! We had 3 lessons with them this week and they was amazing! Melanie is reading in 1 Nephi chapter 19! She wrote down a bunch of questions for us. It was so cool!  For our second lesson, we taught about the Restoration and then third lesson we went over the Plan of Salvation and eternal families! She was so excited! She said "If I find out this is true I am going to be baptized and I'm going to the Temple!" She is so great! We talked to her about receiving personal revelation and what the Spirit is and how to feel His promptings.  She has such sincere prayers! We are excited to see them progress! 

In my personal studies, I have been studying some super good things lately. The cool thing about the Holy Ghost is that He helps you to understand so many things at a deeper level. It's amazing the things I'm learning that I wasn't able to understand before! 

I have been reading in Alma and I absolutely love it!  Alma is such a beast Missionary! Sometimes I wonder what the old prophets from the Book of Mormon and Bible would be like in this day and age.  What would they do and say if they were knocking on doors like us missionaries today. It's kinda funny to imagine.  Also, it would be way cool to have Alma as my companion! Maybe one day! 

Well I love you all and it's been a great week.  Hopefully you have a great week coming up! Love y'all!! 

Caving with Missionaries

Elder Cahoon 

Missionaries staying with us

A Super Saturday For a Beautiful Baptism with a Wonderful Woman!

Hello Family and Friends! 

It's Elder Cahoon! I'm still out here! 😂 I'm probably becoming a distant memory but, no worries I it has been great out here! This week was awesome!! It was full of some fun times and some great lessons learned for good ole Elder Cahoon! We did some good service around here as well! Love doing service! It's pretty awesome! 

Thumbs Up For Service!

As for our service opportunities, we helped out at a local charity center here. We stocked some food in fridges and helped move boxes for them! The people of the Center love the missionaries because previous missionaries have gone there and helped.  We also helped make food and then serve it to the young men and young women in the Ward! They were going on a Temple trip and we got to serve them lunch/dinner before they left! 

As for a missionary learning experience, I went on am exchange this week with a missionary who is from Mexico!! His name is Elder Martinez! He is super cool! We talked a lot about Mexico and he taught me some good Spanish! I then taught him some Mandarin! I know a small bit of Spanish and I am trying to learn some Mandarin- just because I think it would be cool to know some phrases! 

As for the best missionary experiences, JoAnne is doing great and we are so excited for her to be baptized THIS SATURDAY! We had some great lessons this week and we read a little bit of the Book of Mormon with her!  She is also super excited to her Baptism! She no longer drinks caffeinated coffee so we took her some Tang to help her through this change.  She loves Tang so she loved our gift!  She has her baptism interview on Wednesday.  We have some great things planned this week for her Baptism on Saturday! 

We also had a really cool miracle this week! So a few weeks ago I stopped by a house and a woman answered the door.  She told us to come back because her husband might be interested in talking to us.  Well, it didn't seem like she was really interested but I decided I would go back when I was in the area again.  Well, this week E. Hatch and I were in the area and I told him we needed to stop by.  When went to their house, the husband and wife were taking groceries into their house.  We knew that was the perfect opportunity to help so we help them take the groceries into their home.  We talked for about 10 min about life and where they were from and how long they have lived in the area.  They were really cool.  We then talked to Justin (the husband) about what missionaries do.  We asked him if he knew anything about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  He said no but that "I have been to a bunch of different churches.  I'm just trying to find the truth."  Oh yeah!  My companion and I got pretty giddy after he said that!  We told him we would love to talk to him more about the church.  We asked him if he knew anything about the Book of Mormon.  He said no.  So we asked if we could read the first chapter with him and his wife.  He excitedly said yes!  Before we began reading with him we told him we would be reading about a family.  We likened Lehi's family to his family so he could understand that Lehi's family is like his family (all of our families really)- there is love, there are disagreements, sometimes you don't understand the actions of other family members, along with a lot of other similarities.  They loved reading the first chapter of Nephi with us!  It was super cool to have them recognize the Spirit as we talked to them!  We should be seeing them Tuesday afternoon so we are really excited! 

We asked them how much they could read before we met again and they said 2 chapters.  So we committed them to reading Nephi 2 and 3 and told them what they would be reading about- receiving revelation from God, how the family responds to revelation from God, family arguments and how to respond to disagreements and contention.  I love teaching about the Book of Mormon in this way.  Introducing the Book of Mormon this way is what we learned in Zone Conference and I have been able to implement this type of teaching a couple of different times so far.  

There is a cool, young ward member that hangs with us and his name is Logan.  He just received his mission call and will be serving in the same mission as Sam Lucas!  He will be going to Rio!  I told him about the crazy miracle Elder Lucas had with his baptism!  He leaves in February.  I think he should be there before Elder Lucas leaves!  I Love you all and I'm so grateful for your prayers and support! Have a great week! 

Elder Cahoon

Lovin' Mission Life!

Personal Scripture Study Rocks! 

Our Zone Is Rocking! This Week Was Rocking!

Dear Family and Friends,

What a great week it has been this week!! The Zone is blowing up baby!!! It's been great! So we have 7 Companionships in the our Zone and we have 8 baptismal dates set!! So I'm pretty excited!! We (my companion and I) also set a baptismal date with one of our friends we have been teaching!! She is awesome!! Her name is JoAnne and she is so excited to be baptized! 

The Zone has been doing great and we have been seeing great success and miracles! It's been good to see so much success because the Wards here were in my Zone have come from different parts of other missions.  In other words, the Tampa Mission absorbed some parts of the surrounding missions of Jacksonville and Fort Lauderdale.  Some areas in the Zone were struggling some but we have been working really hard and now all areas are doing well!  The Wards in all areas are working with us and it is so great to see! 

We had some amazing lessons with JoAnne this week! We had a great lesson where we set the Baptismal date and also taught her about prayer! We talked about the nature of God and how he has asked us to pray and how we can have a 2 way communication with Him. It was awesome to hear her prayer after the lesson! She has been praying everyday since and has been seeing the difference in her life. We had an awesome lesson on the Book of Mormon and the Holy Ghost and it was so powerful! We had a recent convert to the lesson to share her expienence and it went amazing!! She has been recognizing the Spirit more and more! We are very excited to see her Baptism! 

We had a fun Zone Activity today- we played Volleyball and carved pumpkins! So that was pretty fun! I carved a Dragon Ball Z character into the pumpkin! It turned out better than I expected! 

I also loved General Conference!! It was amazing!! The Apostles today are such a huge blessing to our lives!! I loved how they talked a lot about Joy! I know pure joy comes from following Christ and His commandments!! We talked to a Baptist guy this week about modern-day Prophets and Apostles. It was fun to teach him doctrine. I love being about to teach the true Gospel of Jesus Christ! 

Thank you so much for your support and prayers!! They are working and I really appreciate them! Have a great week and I love all of you!!! 

Elder Cahoon