Getting a New Companion: 11/28/2011

WHAT?! camille has a boo?!?!?! when did she grow up?! and who is it?! JT?! how old is he?! this is just too crazy... im fixin to jump on a plane and come do a PPI with JT... 

well tomorrow is transfers... and my companion is leaving. he is going to Fairview to be district leader. He isn't too happy bcuz fairview is pretty small like linden haha. but he is closer to civilization thats for sure!! 

im getting Elder _________. I hear he is a pretty good missionary. although he is the one that got in the crash up in Leitchfield when i was his zone leader. but its a good thing that i will be driving haha. im pretty excited to work with him though, prez told me to just make sure to continue to be exact in obeidence and the baptisms will follow... so i reckon ill hold him to that haha. 

This past week has been pretty slow... again. We had leadership training (which i saw bert alert, deenie, bil, and jakey) haha. and then district meeting the next day, in a town 1 hour and 10 mins away. so it was alot of driving... and it put us over our miles :( as of right now... we are over 400 miles... it isnt going to be a fun phone call to president... but it has to happen :( 

i loved the food that cristine and scott and bert brought me :) it tasted gewd! haha. and it saved us!!! we started to play bingo... but then just ended up eating all the candy hahaha. thank you so much!!! 

sorry this is so short... but i gotta get running. i love yall!!!! its fixin to snow here pretty soon :( uh oh haha.

Peace out girl scouts.

Elder Cawley

Happy Thanksgiving!: 11/21/2011

Well, this week is Thanksgiving!! :) and i hate to say it, but we are going to spend thanksgiving in our trailer. We didnt get invited to anyones house :( but thats okay. i think we will just do what mom said and buy some stuff and cook it ourselves. 

This past week has not been a good one really. I think its safe to say that we walked a good 5 hours each day... and didnt see a single person. its been frustrating lately bcuz of all the miles we have gone (zone conference, exchanges, district meeting) since we live out in the middle of nowhere. So we are basically stuck in Parsons and all we can do is walk around. its kinda funny though, bcuz we have 105 miles left for the month... and we just got informed that i have to drive to franklin tomorrow for a leadership training. so... bye bye miles hahaha. and we will for sure go over miles... not looking forward to that. 

On the bright side, our recent convert that we just baptized 3 weeks ago or so, basically already knows more then me in the gospel haha. its crazy. She was concerned that her husband isnt a member. But i think her husband will join anyway. he has heard the lessons a good 2 times now. so he knows his stuff too. 

A random thing... this person had this cool looking picture thing on their porch and i asked them what it was and they said they didnt want it and that they would give it to anyone. so i hinted if we could have it and they were like... "do you want it??" and i said, "sure!" haha. so we took it home to our trailer, and its a good 3 feet long and its a picture of a waterfall... and you flip a switch and there is a light in the picture that makes it look like the water is running. so we call that our TV now haha. and we put next to our beds hahaha. its great. 

OH! we did get invited to a baptists thanksgiving dinner though. its on wednesday at their church. we are tight with the penecostals and baptists here haha. but i reckon thats all that happened last week. nothing too exciting. that is way cool about grandma and grandpas fireside thingy. i would be super nervous if i had to do that. its gunna be pretty cool to have them working in the LA temple when i get married in there :):) haha :)  

i love yall!! HAPPY  THANKSGIVING!!

peace out girl scouts.

Elder Cawley

Good Things Happening in Linden: 11/14/2011

So this past week has been a pretty good one, kinda. There are both ups and downs. the Ups are... that we found a good 5 people that we could baptize next month. WOOHOO!! We were in Hohenwald on thursday, and we found this part member family, and the dad wants to get back into church, and he wants his two lil girls to be baptized :):):)

Another one is _______ ________. She has been taught for awhile by other missionaries, and then she called us about 2 weeks ago wanting a blessing bcuz her health wasnt good. So we gave her a blessing and she felt so much better she said in like 30 mins. haha. And we went overon wednesday and she had her quad out with the gospel principles book out and she was just studying. She told us that if she could just quit smoking, that she would be baptized! :):) 

And then the lady we just baptized last saturday, her husband is now interested. So we could baptize him :) and also, ______ and ______. They just recently got married, and their baby was blessed in church. so we could baptize the dad too :):) 

Lots of good things are happening in Linden. They havent baptized that much here, but we are going to start too! haha. i guess the downs are... that its only the 14th and we only have about 200 miles left haha. It takes us about 45 mins just to get to Hohenwald. and the other missionaries in my district are both 1 hr 30 mins away. so that makes exchanges hard... and district meeting too hahaha. but its all good. 

the Lord works in mysterious ways, bcuz we got a new car about 30 days ago, and our 30 day temp. lisence plate expired. so we cant drive our car until we get the new one haha. so thats a bummer :( and thats kinda hard bcuz we live in the middle on no where... and it takes us 5 miles to get into town.... so that is... no bueno! haha. i got all my winter clothes out :) i need some gloves though, these ones didnt do the trick last winter. i hate that I have bad blood circulation in my hands :( they are always cold hahaha. and idk where we are going to eat at for Thanksgiving yet, hopefully we find some place soon :) all the members just live so far from our trailer, but we will find a place. i love yall!! stay safe!!

Peace out Girl Scouts. 

Elder Cawley

First Time Confirming: 11/08/2011

So this past week was pretty interesting. I went on exchanges with the Columbia Elders. It was a lot of fun. I went with Elder _______ in Columbia, and Elder__________ came here to Linden with Elder _______ (my companion). 

So while in Columbia, we had the impression to go to the Mall... weird haha. And we are walking around and we run into _________ (one of their investigators) and we start talking to him and it turns out that he needed help working on his house. So we told him that we would stop by and work on his house with him. 

(oh btw, while at the mall, we were walking out of JC Pennys to the car and i saw this table full of ties that said all ties are $2.97. so i ran over and checked and they are usually 40 or 30 dollar ties, so i bought 7. hahahha. and saved $22 :):) woohoo!!)) 

Then the next day we went over to _________ (investigator we ran into at the mall) and just helped him haha. We were like his assistants. whatever he said he needed, i would just hand to him. So we did that for about an hour, then went and I got to do a Baptismal interview :):) I love those! Its my favorite part :) Except they had cats all over. And i got alot of cat hair on my suit hahah. Then I got back to my area the next day. 

And we had a baptism on Saturday!! woohooo!!! Her name is _____  _________, and she is the most golden lady ever. She was just a dry Mormon... but now she is fully Mormon :):) and the best part is... is that I got to confirm her on Sunday :):) woohoo!! That was my first time ever doing that (super scary might I add) So that was pretty fun. 

Then also on Saturday we had a photoshoot hahaha. With a member in the ward who wanted to take our pictures and put it on his facebook. So that was pretty fun :) I wish i could talk longer, but we gotta run to Lawrenceburg which is like 1 hr 30 mins away for exchanges. I love yall!!! Take care!!!

Love,

Elder Cawley....

Peace out girl scouts :)

An Eventful Week: 10/31/2011

So this past week, we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders :) elder ____ (one zl) came to linden to stay with me, and my companion went to franklin (my most favorite place ever) with elder ______. Elder _______ and i had a blast haha. 

on Wednesday after district meeting, we all went to Sonic as a district and had district lunch. then we were off. we went and saw some less actives that were in linden, and a couple appointments fell through, but thats otay haha. life goes on. so we traveled back to the trailer around 5 for dinner and it was a nice day outside. So we decided to take our table out on our porch and eat outside, while we played monoply deals haha. its a pretty fun card game. and people were driving up our hill just honking while we sat at our table on our porch hahaha. 

Then we walked around Parsons, TN for an hour and then at 7, we went to ______________ Church. it was nuts haha. people screaming, talking in tounges, it was not a very spiritual place haha. i felt the spirit leave me once we walked in... not a good feeling. but i did get a sweet pink and blue tie from one of the missionaries there at the church hahaha. 

then on thursday, we went to hohenwald... not holdernald mom haha. and that place is sketchy!!!! a cop was shot there, a kid was beat up and is bleeding on the brain and another guy was like stabbed 5 times... it was sweet!! haha and we just walked around knocking doors bcuz missionaries havent been in that area in about 10 years. so people were staring more then usual hahaha. we found a good 3 solid investigators. so we are just going to expand our teaching pool there. President promised us double didget baptisms haha. so we will see!! i love hohenwald though, its a great town.

that is crazzzyyyy that beau and katie are engaged!!! i plan on getting engaged soon after my mission too :):) so head up mom and dad :):) haha. 

on saturday it was the trunk or treat party... and we didnt have any halloween decorations... so i just hopped in the trunk and held a b of m while i passed out candy to the kids hahaha. it was great :):) oh and on sunday, we went to this church called "_________________" and the preacher totally preached against halloween and how it is of the devil and if you celebrate it you are going to hell. i was like wow... well i guess im going to hell. hahahaha.  

its P-day so we are going to go do our shopping at the one lil food store that we have here in parsons haha. it stinks being out in the middle of nowhere. i love it!! :):) i hope all is good in good ol' cali!! i love yall!! eat some candy for me!!

peace out girl scouts.

Elder Cawley

One Year on the Mish: 10/24/2011

hey family :):)

So this week is when i hit my YEAR MARK!! how crazy is that?!?! it sure doesn't feel like i have been out a year. I can truly say, that time flies when you are on the Lords errand :) 

So here in the Linden area, its super hard to find people. the place where we work, Parsons, has been over worked alot since it is so small. I brought up this concern to President McKee in interviews and made the suggestion that we move to Hohenwald, since there have never been any missionaries there, and it is the largest town in our area. (and it actually has fast food places and a walmart haha, all we have is hardes and a sonic, but that's not why suggested it... maybe haha) He came up with the idea that before we move he wants us to work each town in our area. We are going to be like traveling elders in our own area. Let the ward know what day we will be in what town so they will know. So we tried it this past week, and we RAILED our miles hahaha. its a good 45 mins to hohenwald from our trailer. That was without members help though, bcuz the week we decided to do this was stake conference, so we couldn't talk to our bishop or anything, but they know now and they are excited about it :) and we are going to start having dinner appointments now hopefully! :) haha. 

Like i said, finding in Parsons is quite hard, but when we do find someone... they are solid! We met this person named _______. He is an ex-body builder and a 3rd degree black belt and all this crazy stuff hahaha. and we taught him a first and he is totally dry Mormon. we told him about no paid ministry and he was like "YES! finally someone agrees with me!" and he thought it was awesome that we have more scripture to help us get even closer to Christ. just way solid, he even invited himself to church! but he didnt come :( so we are going over on Tuesday to talk more with him. but yeah... super solid. 

Oh!!! here is a crazy cool story that just shows the church is true. ready? ok here we go.... So there is this family here in the ward named the __________. and sister __________ has had brain surgery like 10 years ago bcuz she had a tumor on her brain. and she has been sick ever since and hasn't really been able to go to church, too much, but they are some of the strongest members i have ever seen. and yesterday on Sunday, we went to there home to give her the sacrament (idk why no one has gone by to give her the sacrament) so we bless it and give it to her, and once she drinks the water, she starts to cry. and we all just sat there feeling the spirit. and her husband goes on to tell us that when she had the surgery done, something happened to where she wasn't able to weep. He told us that what we just witnessed was truly rare. so she hasn't been able to cry for 10 years, but once we gave her the sacrament, she just broke down and cried for a good 5 mins. it was awesome. spirit was super strong :) 

The church = so true. i love it. eat some in n out for me! :) i love y'all!!

Peace out girl scouts.

Elder Cawley

Met an Apostle!: 10/17/2011

So, this week was awesome!!  I GOT TO MEET AN APOSTLE!! on saturday, we got up super early bcuz we had to be at the franklin stake center by 9am. and it takes like almost 2 hours to get there. But at 9am we took a mission picture :) it had all the missionaries, it was awesome! i put it up on facebook, so you can see it there. Then at 10, is when it all started, from 10am-12am, we had a meeting with Elder Christofferson. So it was just him, his wife, president and sister McKee, and a 70. i forgot the 70s name, but he lives in lexington, KY haha. 

anywho, Elder Christofferson is so funny!! he was craking jokes left and right!! He talked to us a lil about how we always need to be in tune with the spirit, and how we are all companions and need to help each other out. Before he did his talk though, he had each of us go up and shake his and his wifes hand. it was awesome!! I shook his hand and he was like "Elder Cawley" so i said "Elder Christofferson" hahaha. i said that his nephew was my neighbor at home and he was like "oh very interesting. tell them i say hello" and then he was on to the next person. i was like YEAH!! i had a convo with Elder Christofferson!!! hahaha. 

Then he opened it up to a Q & A. so he was asked certain questions and he the other people to answer the questions. and after Pres Mckee answered a question and sat back down, the pulpit was super short bcuz Sister Mckee is short, so he turned to Elder McDermott (who is an AP that was controlling the pulpit) and said "hey captin kurk can you raise this thing up??" and we all just started busting up hahaha. i almost peed my pants. and then Pres Watson came in with his wife. He is a counsler to President McKee. And Elder Christofferson knew Pres watson when they lived here and he said to him "i remember when they were teenagers, they married young, how young was she Pres watson when you married her... 13??" hahahahahhaha again, we all started laughing. It was just so awesome to see an Apostle of the Lord cracking jokes left and right, yet he knew when to be serious. 

Thats what im working on still, how to determine the line when to have fun and be funny, and when to buckle down and work haha. Transfers are on tuesday, but we are not going, we are staying the same haha. I have been made district leader over this district now though :) so that is exciting :):) Pres told me that i was going to lead this district and something amazing would happen. He told me that he recived revelation that our district is going to be a double didget baptizing district. We only have 3 companionships, but im not doubting him haha. he is super in tune with the spirit. That is about all that is going on in the mission right now :) i love yall!! stay safe and remember....

Peace n Blessings!!!

Elder Cawley

D. Todd Christofferson is Coming to Town: 10/10/2011

hey hay hey!! so this past week was pretty much like all the other weeks. We did A LOT of walking. haha. we did a couple cool things though this past week :)

so tomorrow we have interviews with President McKee and he told us to bring our Area Book and planners. my planner is good to go, but the area book... man that thing is HORRIBAD haha. there is stuff in there from like 2008 and all this stuff. so we went through it and just took out a crap ton of stuff that was useless. Almost all the past teaching records had their name, and stuff about them but no phone numbers or addresses or anything. so we cleaned it up... and burned the rest! hahah. it was pretty cool, we did it at night, so we had a lil fire in our front yard (aka. the woods haha).

Then another weird/crazy thing is that on the side of our trailer there are always at least 50 red wasps, trying to build a nest or something, and i keep throwing ice at em and they go all crazy and then i run inside haha. i guess the missionary before me got stung by one, and it put like a crater in his arm for 3 weeks. they are pretty nasty... but ill take the risk haha.

Yesterday, we went out with the 1st counsler in the Bishopric, Bro. ________, and he is the man! haha. he drove us out to the boonies of the boonies. We never have the chance to go out there bcuz its a good hour drive haha. our area is huge. But we managed to see about 5 recent converts/less actives. it was awesome, and bro. _________ and us just talked for like hours. we started at 4pm and got done around 9pm. lots of driving, which means lots of conversation :)  it was lots of fun.

i got some sweet pictures too!! bcuz the leaves are changing and we were out in the boonies, so it was just yellow/red/orange leaves for miles :) when i get the chance ill send them to you, or ill try the walmart thingy tomorrow when we go to walmart :) This saturday, D. Todd Christofferson is holding a special meeting for just the missionaries :):) so we will get some good advice here!! and he was the franklin stake president, so he is gunna love us for serving in franklin zone haha. and maybe if our investgator goes on saturday, we will hear him 3 different times!! the adult session is on saturday, then sunday, and the missionary session on saturday :) my mind is gunna be like jello from hearing him speak 3 times. its gunna be awesome!! its gunna be lots of driving though haha. but so worth it!!! i hope all is well in cali!! i love yall!!!


Peace n' Blessings!

Elder Cawley (or as they say here "Crawley" haha. the curse is everwhere!)

Watching Conference with the Homeless Man: 10/3/2011

woohoo!! yay for general conference!!! it was weird, me and elder _______ were the only people at the church watching conference. it was fun at priesthood session though, awesome session. then after, we played a lil game of ninja with all the priesthood brethern. haha i totally owned :):)

then on sunday, we had a kinda weird experience. it was the first session on sunday, and we were sitting 3 rows from the front, where the tv was. and i just looked back, and there was a homeless man standing there. at first i jumped, haha, then i went up to him and was like "hey sir, how are you doing?" and he was just looking if we had any cans or anything. of course we didnt :( we had like nothing in our kitchen haha. but we told him he could fill up his bottles with water if he wanted. and so he did that, and then we invited him to watch conference with us. So he sat down to watch the last 30 mins... and he was talking about how he was fighting his human nature recently... and then President Monson spoke about the natural man! it was neat!! and i was getting all excited and looked over... and he was sleeping....... hahaha. i was like... of course.

but then after conference was over we talked to him for a good 20 mins, and gave him a book of mormon and talked about that. and we walked with him to the door and on the way he told us that he has been walking for 5 years. he flew one day to dallas, texas, and just started walking. He said he has been up to Canada, and to New York and now he is in the South. i was like holy crap... we told him that we have some soda in the fridge, but we didnt know how long it has been there haha. so he took a sprite and off he went. but man... did he know his bible. i was quoting scriptures from the bible, and he would finish the scripture for me. i was like... yeah... you know it better then me thats for sure hahaha. idk if i could walk for 5 years... thats like totally Forrest Gump status. "i just felt like runnin'" haha.

but i gave him all the cash that i had... which was only 5 bucks. i dont carry cash too often as a missionary. and he asked me how far the next town was. i told him 10 miles, and then he started walking. it was crazy. but way cool at the same time. but that was the only person that showed up to watch conference with us at the church :( but im thankful that he did stop by and that he was able to hear the Prophet speak :)

its starting to get pretty cold here in linden. last night at 8pm when we were walking, it was 54 degrees. i dont like it haha. i like the heat, and the warmth :) i hope all is well in cali!!! yay for mom not gettin bit by the black widow! and lina you cant drive if the cast is on your right foot :O haha. bummer. dad is a beast for doing that triathalon haha. when i get home, we are gunna do one together! :):) i love yall!!


Peace and Blessins'

Elder Cawley

A Tuna Sammich: 9/26/2011

oh hey peeps :)


So another week down here in the good ol' country of Linden haha. i cant believe it but "yall" just comes naturally, and im pretty sure ive said "fixin" and "reckon" a couple times without knowing haha. im starting to become a southern boy.

So this week was a lot better then last week, for one reason, it was my birthday!! woohoo!!! thank you all for the packages and food and ties and cards!! i loved em all!! its crazy, i started my mission with only like 10 or so ties, and now im half way threw my mish, and i have about 30+ ties haha. its great. idk why, but missionaries love ties. so thank you for all the ties i got for my birthday :) i love em all!!

So yesterday after church, we went with Bro. ______ to go see some people in the nursing home. we go there and do the sacrament for them. it was crazy, i took the sacrament 2 times on sunday haha. They got special permission to do that. While in the nursing home, we went and visited other members of the church that were in there but couldn't come to take the sacrament. and there is a lady in there that is 102 years old!!!! it was crazy! and she was just sitting in a chair watching t.v. she can still feed herself and everything. but bro. _____ helped her and fed her for a lil, then we helped also. I fed her some of her tuna sammich, and while she took a bite of it i said, "do ya like tuna fish?" and she ate it and just yelled "NO!" hahahaha. i was like.. "oops my bad, sorry." hahaha. I forgot her name though :( but she LOVES the candy bar 3 Musketeers haha. after eating like all her food (she can put it away for a 102 year old lady) she woofed this candy bar haha. it was so funny. she is the oldest person that has lived in Linden her whole life. crazy.

That is all that im working with really in the linden area, old people haha. Our ward is basically 98% old folks and 1% young parents and 1% kiddos haha. so funny. but oh on sunday, sister ______ walked in and handed me a cake and a card and said happy birthday. she said she was sorry that she was late, but i looked at the cake and i was like "is this German Chocolate cake?!?!"  and she said, "yup!"  i told her that this cake is like my favorite cake ever, i almost have it every birthday. so i was pretty excited. Sister _____ is like a pro baker, no joke. she does it for a living. so every sunday we have like 3 loaves of bread, and some sammichs and all that. its great haha. there is good food down here in the south thats for sure. :)

i started to put on some pounds haha. but ive stopped drinking soda, and just drink water, and starting to eat more healthy haha. oh man what i would do for a chicken Cesar salad from corner bakery hahaha. its stinks though, the only thing we have in the linden area is sonic, and i can tell ya, im getting sick of sonic hahaha. but our trailer is packed with tons of food! so we are doing good. i hope all is going well back in cali!! i love yall!! everytime i wear my palm tree tie i think of cali :) haha. love yall!!
peace out girl scouts.

Elder Cawley

Elder Cawley turns 20!: 9/19/2011

oh hey family...


So, today i turn 20! woohoo!! although, i don't really feel any different, i guess that's what the mish does for ya!  i haven't gotten any of the packages/letters yet. but then again, they might be coming today! so woohoo!! haha. so i guess now that im 20, i have to put away childish things, bcuz I'm not a teenager anymore. dangit :( hahaha. but i can still be goofy and silly right?!)

This week is going to be a good week :) hopefully better then last week, bcuz that wasnt such a good one haha. so ill give ya the short run down. So we had pday and all that last Monday, and we just chilled, bcuz there is nothing to do here in parsons hahaha. then Tuesday happened. we start walking down the road (and mind you we are friends with all the pastors here haha) and one pulls us to the side and said that the one pastor that put anti in the newspaper (he is the only pastor we are not friends with, so i guess we ain't friends wiff ALL of em haha) did a second article. so we go and take a look at it, and it talks all about this anti stuff. so we were both ticked haha.

And then all week our appointments just cancelled left and right (then again we only have like 1 a day haha) so we ended up just walking forever. i think on average, we walked about 6 hours a day. And we weren't able to meet with _______, or ________ or _______ :( so we haven't seen our baptismal dates all week. _______ and _______ (a married couple) live super far and we need a member to take us, and _________ was sick and kind of avoiding us bcuz of what happened on last Sunday haha. but i guess i would do that too if i was taught the word of wisdom AND law of chasity all at once at church and i wasn't a member haha. crazy stuff.

So yup that's about all i did this past week, was just walk... forever. haha. Our bishop here loves how we are out just walking though. i call it bill boarding time hahaha. since its such a small town... EVERYONE sees us. like we were at Sonic in our car, eating some food, and this random girl comes up and is like "hey are you the guys that walk around all the time" and i was like "yup" hahaha. and so we talked to her for a lil and she wasn't interested, she just wanted to meet us. i guess we are famous here hahaha.

I am so excited for Wednesday though, bcuz we get to go to the temple!!! woohoo!! yay for temples! haha. they are great. oh and idk if i told you this already, but D. Todd Christopherson is coming to the Franklin stake conference!! its on Oct 16, 2 days before transfers!! WOOHOO!!! so i get to see him!!! that will be so shweet!

well, I'm pretty stoked for this week to just be better then last week hahaha. Oh, and yesterday, we went to the "Church of God or Christ" thats their name haha. it went for 3 hours and 30 mins! i was dying hahaha. so we got done at like 6:30, and we had nothing to do, except walk. and it was raining, then randomly we got invited to a new penecostal church. so we went there, and that lasted like 2 hours! i was super dead hahaha.  but yea, that was our sunday.

i love yall!! i hope yall have a good day!! im fixing to go to the store and by me some fatty foods haha. i reckon ill gain alot of pounds this week. oh well haha.

Peace out girl scouts!!

Elder Cawley

Linden: 9/12/2011

LINDEN!!!!

So first off... Linden is not even where we mainly work haha. We mainly work in Parsons bcuz we live closer to there. Our trailor is off the road in the hills. Closer to Parsons. So we mainly go there. Dumb limited miles haha. Parsons... is super small... just like Linden. In the week that ive been here, we have already walked up and down every street, twice. haha. And basically knocked on every door. 

But the cool thing is, is that my first night here, we set a baptismal date. woohoo!!!!! Then the following night we set 2 more baptismal dates! WOOHOO!! hahaha. So the first one, her name is _______. she is 18, and basically loves our church. We have taught her a first and a second lesson and she came to church on sunday and they taught the word of wisdom in sunday school, and then the law of chasity in relief society. dangit. hahaha. She came out and was like... "So I have some questions for you. and I was like, "kay we will have a lesson on those and it will make more sense." She is super solid. She is gunna get baptized on sept 24th :) 

The other two, their names are ________________. they live WAY out in the middle of nowhere. They lived in Massachusetts and moved here like 1 year ago, and they came to our church like 2 weeks ago. I guess the members didnt know if she was a member or not. so we took a chance and drove 40 miles to see her (our area is huge) and it turns out that her and her husband are non members :) They did food storaging up in Mass and worked at the bishops store house. So they knew lots of members. They went to our church up there and didnt like it. I guess they said no one said hello to them, not even the missionaries. So they never went back. But they promised their member friends that they would go to church here in Tennessee, so they did, and we went to go see them and set dates for them. They are gunna get baptized on October 8th. 

And Linden never baptizes, so President was freaking out when we called in 2 times in 2 days for 3 different dates hahaha. So great! But thats not the best news yet.... so... here we go. 

Since there isnt a lot to do here, we just walk up and down the streets and visit churchs haha. The missionaries before me visited a church called faith baptist. The pastor was super nice and all that. So we are walking down the street and this member pulls over and is like, "did you hear that you guys made the newspaper?" And I was like "what shweet!!" haha. So we go and check it out... and its this pastor!!! He put in the paper an excerpt of a book called "10 lies i told as a mormon missionary." I was like no freakin way. We read it and its just pure anti that he put in the newspaper. 

So yesterday, we went to his church again, in our suits, looking all fresh and what not. and we were just staring at him haha. He only has like 5 ppl that go to his church. But even in there he was like "just stick to your bible!!" "some 2 teenagers may tell you something... but stick to your bible!!" And I was just pissed. haha. But I didnt say anything. I just kept my mouth shut... like a good boy haha. 

Then in his prayer at the end he said "there are lots of crazy churches out there that americans fall for so easily" and just all this garbage haha. It was great. Me and Elder _______ started laughing during the prayer for a couple seconds. But then we kept our cool. And shook his hand and said good day. Man it was great. 

But yeah thats all that is going on in Linden. haha I love yall so much!! Have a good week!! Next time I email yall... I'll be 20. crazy!

peace out girl scouts!!

Elder Cawley

transfers: 9/5/2011

Well transfers are here... and I'm getting transferred!!! I've only been in Clarksville for 6 weeks. crazy. haha. So I'm getting transferred back to the Franklin zone, but not as a zone leader. I'm going to a small town called Linden. 

President said that he needs me down there to help the church. He said the church is falling apart down there, and that people are leaving left and right. So he said that I have leadership experience and that I need to go down there and fix it. Awesome... hahaha. The cool thing is... is that Liden is about as country as you can get. We live in a trailor in the middle of nowhere hahaha. The closest missionaries to us are about 2 hours away... im getting exiled hahaha. But its all good, im sure this will be a learning experience for me :) 

My new companion is Elder _____. I was his Zone leader when I was in Franklin, he is the man haha. I'm super bumbed that I'm leaving though, I love clarksville. The ward here is awesome. Its gunna be hard to leave here bcuz we have an amazing teaching pool. We had 8 people at church, and we have like 6 progressing investigators and we just had a baptism and we are about to have 1 more this saturday. His name is _________. He is from Hawaii and is way awesome! haha. His daughter was less active in the ward, but now they are all active, and he is super stoked! 

idk what I want for my bday haha. I guess just some sicky tight ties haha. And just lil toys. hahaha. But yeah, thanks for the shoes and all that :) I can't wait to get em! thanks for getting me a GPS. It will help alot :) haha. I'm so excited! I'm gunna be 20!!! How crazy is that!!!!! 

Well I love yall! tell lina to not drive bad. love yall!

peace out girl scouts!!

Elder Cawley

A Baptism and NO A/C: 8/29/2011

woo!! baptism!! so _______ _______ got baptized :):) it was so awesome. we found her at the beginning of the transfer, and she was so golden!  we taught her everything in like 2 weeks, and she brought her friends to come listen to us and all this jazz. the RS just took her right in (as the should haha) and she fell in love with the church :) it was awesome. Elder Hill baptized her. super cool experience. Her friend (who we are also teaching) came to see her get baptized and she was crying the whole time. it was awesome! its always good when someone cries hahaha. 

but yeah, now on the down side, our apartment is horribad right now. the AC broke last monday. so all week our apartment has been 95 degrees and higher, no joke. we called the apartment peeps and they sent a guy out, we come back and our door was dead bolted so we knew that he was there bcuz we just lock the knob thingy. so we go in... still super hot. all he did was put the filter in backwards hahaha. i think its low on freeon. but idk, im just thinking thats what it is haha. we noticed something was wrong bcuz i opened up the ac unit and the coils were frozen. it was like a good 4 in thick peice of Antarctica haha. i thought i was gunna see penguins running around in there or something. so we have been sleeping at Clarksville 1s apartment and the Logans (senior couple here, they are military relations) 

oh! yesterday at church, bro allen gave me and elder hill the army scriptures!! so they are super tiny and i have them all: the bible, b of m and d and c and the pearl of great price. im so using them. they are awesome!!! 

thats cute that charlie and caroline are twins with the boots haha. and ooh la la wiff camille holding hands!!! thats gross. well i gotta run, i got like 3 mins left on the timer hahah. LOVE YALL!

Peace and Blessins'

Elder Cawley

P.S. tell cristine and bil and jakey to come find me! hahaha. but seriously, tell them :)

Hot!: 8/22/2011

DAG GUM ITS HOT! haha. well not so much now, but the last couple of weeks have been :( 

so on monday i went on exchanges in Leitchfield, KY. (that is the place where the accident happened) the missionaries that got in the accident were ETd to different areas not in our zone. So Elder Ferre and Duke are up there. This is Elder Ferres first time being district leader. so i went up there and showed him the ropes and all that jazz haha. 

Prolly one of the scariest things happened to me up there though. So back track a lil, Leitchfield is 2 hours away from our apartment in Clarksville. the whole ride up there this random person was calling and texting us not so good things. kinda gross. i just asked this person to stop, and they stopped for a lil. so we get to Hartford where we were all meeting (like 30 mins from Leitchfield) and we played football with a family that is investigating. and when we are done, i go check the phone and we have like 20 texts and 4 missed calls from this person. i was like, holy crap! haha. so we called our mission president and he called the person and just said to stop calling my missionaries and so he did. it was weird though. 

so then i went to Leitchfield and had a jolly ol time just walking 24/7 haha. we found like 10 new inv in 2 days though :) so that was good to get them a teaching pool. bcuz they had nothing. 

So the Hartford elders picked us up tuesday night, and we drove down to Clarksville and we slept there. Then wednesday morning we had Zone Conference at 9am. so we got there at 8. turned on the AC and set everything up. it was good. The theme was on Commitment. So i did the training of "a man without eloquence" and taught that we need to be bearing our testimony frequently. just like it says in chapter 11 of PMG (preach my gospel). President loved the video haha. he said he might borrow that someday :) woo! haha. 

then right after zone conference, i went on exchanges with the Hopkinsville elders. it was so weird being back in my GREENIE area haha. Bishop _______ fed us (totally planned that haha) and they all hugged me and his lil girls just loved having me back. it was a good exchange :) 

i saw __________________ (person i baptized) and he is so active. the ward is doing a read the book of mormon in 100 days. so they have a calender they gave everyone, and he is like 3 or 4 days ahead of everyone. he is highlighting the book and everything. And the cool part is that he is doing all of this with the very copy that i handed him on the street when we first contacted him. so awesome how the gospel works :) i love it :) that was the highlight of the week,

oh and also that we set a baptismal date!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for this saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!! her name is______. she is 30, single, and loves the gospel!! haha. it was the most hectic lesson ever though bcuz her roommate wanted to come and sit in, and she brought her 3 kids and they were just all over the place. but somehow they felt the spirit and all sat down and we were able to set a date. and the roommate said she wants to get baptized soon too! yay!!!!!! i love when work pays off! haha. 

well i hope yall have a good week! i love yall!! 

p.s. CONGRATS SAM!!!!!! thats so awesome you got the aaronic priesthood!!! i love you!

Peace out girl scouts!

Elder Cawley

Investigators!: 8/15/2011

oh hi family :) and friends :)

So, this past week was fun :) It was a good one too. We went and saw this lady named ____. I guess the missionaries taught her and had a sweet first lesson with her, but she got into anti and called them and said that it scared her and to never come back. 

Well... I decided to go see her haha. So we stopped by, and it was about 8pm and I knock on the door and she says "who is it?!" and I'm like "uh... the missionaries." And she paused for like 1 min, then unlocked the door and opened it up. 

She had a big grin on her face and she thought that we had forgotten about her. She said that she has felt that she has gotten further away from Christ since we have stopped coming over. So we set up a time to come see her, and so this week we are gunna go see her :) I guess she has been through alot, bcuz she has the grim reaper tatooed on her arm. So that tells ya something. But she was so happy to see us :) So that was awesome.

Oh then at church, we had about 7 investigators at church, and they all loved it! So we are going to see them this week too and hopefully set dates with them :) We are teaching these 2 friends that are 24 and 23. They are roommates and they love when we come over. They want us to come over like 4 times a week, but they work haha. So we go over 2 times a week :) And they wanted to have meetings at the church so they could bring more people to listen to us :) yay! Its gunna be great :) I'm excited for what the Lord has in store for them :) 

Well I gotta get running :) We have a busy Pday scheduled. We are driving up to one of our districts to have Pday with them :) Oh and wednesday is zone conference, and I'm showing the "man without eloquence" :) Its gunna be great! I'm so excited. It's gunna be the best training ever! Well I love yall!

Peace out Girl Scouts!

Elder Cawley

Dinner with Mav Fans: 8/8/2011

Hey family :)

So another week in Clarksville. It's so different. But its aite :) I still think Franklin will be my farvorite area, I loved it there so much. But the work here in Clarksville is good. We found 3 families last week and we are teaching them :) 

Oh man, yesterday we went over to the __________ family's for din din. They are a young couple, that just got called to be ward missionaries, and they are HUGE Mavs fans. So once they heard I lived right next to LA, they gave me soo much crap for being a Lakers fan haha. In the middle of the table was a very nice Mav shrine hahahhaha. It had a Mav champ shirt, a picture of them, a fake lil trophy and just all this mav stuff. I was cringing! But they are an awesome couple, besides the fact that they are mav fans :) We did agree on one thing though, that everyone deserves a chance to win a ring, except Lebron hahahaha. So that was good. 

Man, Elder Hill and I are having way too much fun. I think its like almost illegal to have this much fun. haha. We are just going crazy with the music rule, I mean I can only take so much MoTab at one time. ZLC is tomorrow so we are trying to get the music rule changed to adding "The Nashville Tribuite Band" they are SOOOO good.A man named _______ (in franklin ward) founded it, and they are all members that are in the band. They have 3 CDs out now. They are called, The Trek, about the pioneers, the Joseph, about the prophet Joseph Smith, and they just came out with a new CD called "The Work" and it is SOOOO GOOD!! Its all about the missionaries! Go to http://nashvilletributeband.com/ and you can sample a song from the album. Its amazing. I think everyone will like it :) 

Well I love yall!!

Peace out girl scouts.

Back to Hopkinsville: 7/25/2011

So first off, this is going to be a short email, bcuz we are short on time due to transfers being tomorrow. so I'm running around like a chicky with its head cut off! haha. So yes, I'm getting transferred :( 

I'm going back to the Hopkinsville Zone to be a Zone Leader up there in Clarksville with Elder Hill (my long lost twin who came out with me :)) So that will be fun. But it is super sad that I'm leaving Franklin :( I love it here, I am totally coming back to visit here, and who knows, maybe I'll live here!! haha. It looks just like home, no joke. 

Man thats crazy that Beau is home. 

Oh geez. Well I'm sorry this is so short, but I'll email you a longer one tomorrow morning before transfers :)) I love yall! Stay out of trouble mkay??

Peace and blessings!

elder cawley

Elder Cawley eating breakfast with other missionaries at the Mission Home. 

Hola family!  

So, sorry about the short email yesterday - it was a crazy day running people here, taking them there, just all that stuff.  We did have time to play some bball and then the Germans took us to Buca Di Pepo as like our last supper haha - so that was fun :)   

Man, Sunday was awesome!  We had an NFL football guy we are teaching and his family came to church and he was sooo big compared to everyone else!   We also had a really cool Brother come to church. We have been working with him ever since I got here, and he just never came to church.  He served a mission and everything.  He is divorced, has a new girlfriend and he has 2 kids ages 18 and 14.  They are super cool!   This brother told us on Saturday that we wasn't going to come to church, but when we pulled in to the church parking lot I noticed his BMW and I was like NO WAY!!!  He looked super fresh in his suit and what not. He had a good time.   

During sacrament meeting, Elder Thompson and Elder Boyack and Brett Raymond (sings for the EFY cds) did a musical number, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing - it was super good.  People were crying.  It was a great last meeting before my transfer as we had about 3 investigators at church and 2 less active members that we have been working with. Made me happy to see that :)   

So now I am all packed up, and in about 3 hours I will be in Clarksville starting my work there. I am gunna miss franklin, I love it here.  I'm seriously considering moving back here later on in life :) It is way swank here!   

Oh so me and Elder Thompson are starting a new fad. We found these watches at the shell gas station called Slap watches.  They are like those slap bracelet thingys that are straight then when they hit something, they wrap around it. So it's just like that with a watch in it. I have a red, green and blue one haha. EVERYONE comments on them and are asking us where to get them. We are going to be famous someday. 

So I saw that beau is home - I love and miss that guy!  Oh man, good times. Well transfers is gunna start soon, so I guess I'll get going. I love yall so much!!  Tell Beau and Ben I say hello!   Have a good week!

Peace and blessings!

Elder Cawley

 note: Elder Cawley has now been out for 9 months!

New Families to Teach!: 7/18/2011

oh... hey family.

So this past week was pretty fun. I had to go on an exchange with the assistants, bcuz President Mckee and 2 of the other assistants were doing interviews around the mission. So me and Elder McDermott stayed in his area and worked it. We made a goal, that the last day we weren't going to come into the apartment until we found 3 families to teach. 

So we headed out at 10am and we skipped lunch and dinner and at about 7 or 8pm 3 families just fell into our laps. It was crazy! One came up to us, and said they wanted to be taught, another one was a former family that was being taught awhile ago but stopped. So we went by, and they were totally prepared. and the other one, we were just sitting in the car, thinking of where to go, and a family walked around the corner going to the playground next to us. So we got out and talked to them and I got them all laughing (that helps alot haha) and they wanted to be taught. 

So we were all happy that we met our goal and we were starving! So we go in at 9pm and they had no food in the apartment! Except like 3 lil peices of chicken haha. But we couldn't go be disobedient and go to McDonalds, so we went to bed hungry. And in the morning we took a run to McDonalds and ate a ton! hahahha. We earned it I think :) 

Well I hope y'all are doing well! Tell Uncle Brad happy birthday for me! Give all the lil cousins a hug for me! That story about Camille is way awesome! haha. And mom don't throw your back out... that's bad for joo! haha Get better soon. love yall!

peace out girl scouts!

Elder Cawley

Famous People: 7/11/2011

Oh man this was a fun week :) So, there are so many famous ppl in my ward here. There is a country band of a mom and her 2 daughters... they aren't too active, but I will change that haha. They are like 34 on the charts right now, and they gave us a free CD. They are also filming a reality TV show soon, and I told them that they should feed us one day so we can be on it, and they said they would! woohoo! haha. 

Oh so, get this, type _________ into youtube and watch the first video that comes up... that guy is in my ward!!! He now has a country band, and they are pretty legit too. We were over at his house, and he wants to donate a guitar to us so we can learn how to play. He also gave us a free cd :):) I love Franklin!

We are also teaching this guy named _______ ( I don't know his last name haha) and he is a florist. Super good one. He does all the flowers for huge weddings, for Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise, just to name a few. 

The work is going pretty good, we are still in the finding stage, as always haha. Oh a cool thing we can do now is pass a dinner calender around!! woohoo! Before we couldn't, our ward mission leader had to call less actives to have them feed us, and it didn't work too well, but now we got it approved to pass one around :) I love food!! hahaha. Well I hope all is well in Cali!! I love y'all! Tell Grandma Cawley that I love her!

Peace out girl scouts

elder cawley

Letter from a Ward Member: 7/12/2011

Dear Sister Cawley,

My name is ____________, and your son Elder Cawley has been serving in our ward here in Franklin for the past few months where we have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him. 

With transfers looming soon, I wanted to take the opportunity to share a few of our family’s interactions with him.  We have a son (whose name is Spencer ) currently serving  in Tempe, Arizona.  Getting to know Elder Cawley has been a sweet reminder of our own son as we have talked high school basketball and such at dinners.  Anyway, I recently received a phone call from a ward member in the area he is serving in AZ just to tell us about how he is doing.  It felt so great to know all is well, so I hope you will enjoy the same.

Just yesterday Elder Cawley spoke in sacrament meeting.  He gave a wonderful talk without any notes at all using the analogy of the minors trapped in Chile to those seeking the gospel being trapped in darkness.  He spoke from the heart and it was a powerful message.  With the exception of making the congregation chuckle at a joke or two, it was silent as everyone sat thinking hard about his powerful message of sharing the gospel.  Hopefully, that will lead to a few members helping them out with people to teach!

One of the things Elder Cawley and his companions spend A LOT of hours doing each week is contacting and visiting inactives.   He is always asking us what we know about this person or that person.   It is so great that he is not caught up in baptism numbers, but that he understands the importance of the rescue as well.  We are so grateful for his service in not just helping to grow the church in our hometown, but to help strengthen it as well.

My husband has cancer and has had three major surgeries since Elder Cawley has been in our ward.  Every time we feed the missionaries, they always ask what they can do for us.   One of these times, we asked them if they would join our family and fast on a certain day for the surgery to go well.  They of course said yes without hesitation. (it even happen to fall on their P-day when they likely would have liked to have not been hungry)   Later that next week, we found out that Elder Cawley had gone back to the apartment that night and on his own called some of the other missionaries in the area and asked for their help in fasting as well.  The surgery was a success and our family continues to be blessed.  We thought it was so thoughtful he went the extra mile in pleading with the Lord on our behalf. 

Lastly, on a lighter note I wanted to share what a SWEET young man Elder Cawley is.  It is tradition in our ward that every summer the activity day girls (and some of their non-member friends) put on a musical that is directed by a lady in our ward and some of the young women. (They call this drama camp).   Anyway, this year the play was The Little Mermaid.  The missionaries came to watch and support this humble production, and afterwards the Elders went around and had all the kiddos in the play sign their programs.  It made the little girls feel like superstars! 

Elder Cawley loves you and misses you.  He is so excited to be an Uncle, and choked up bearing testimony of seeing his grandfather again that just passed away.  You must be so proud!

All the Best,

Sister _______

New Mission President: 7/4/2011

Hey family. well another week went bye bye haha. This last week was pretty fun. We went to a Seventh day Adventist Church, and it was totally different, but we are friends with the pastors so that's pretty awesome. We met the pastors in the hood walking around saying prayers with people, and they were super nice to us, and invited us to their church, so we went. 

On friday, we had ZLC with President McKee. He is super sweet! Way laid back, and funny. Sister McKee is HILARIOUS!! She was making me laugh so hard haha. The 5 daughters they brought are all like super musicians. They sang for us, and it was bueno. The littlest girl, who is 9, is awesome. She is so funny haha. 

 Bill & RaNae McKee

Pres totally has the greenie fire, he wants half of the congregation to be non members when he is done being a mish president. His idea is to have every member family bring a non member to church. Which is good, so he is pushing that haha :) We will see where that goes, but I'll back him 100%. 

Today, we went to wallieworld (walmart) and bought a lot of candy and soda and chips and snacks bcuz we have to be inside by like 6ish. Saftey rule, so we can't go watch the fireworks :( haha. Well yall are the best! I love yall!! Eat some carmel popcorn balls for me! I miss those, you should send me some :) haha. love ya!

Peace out girl scouts

Elder Cawley

Woohoo!: 6/27/2011

IM AN UNCLE!!!!   Baby G is so cute!   I saw the pics on facebook, the best one is his first car ride - oh man!  The _________ (family in my ward) fed us and we had cake and ice cream to celebrate me being an uncle :D They are awesome! 

So this week was pretty cool. We visited a member in our ward, his name is __________. He performed many cover versions of the James Bond theme song and he arranged "These Boots Are Made for Walking" and tons of other stuff. He played guitar for Elvis and many other famous people and bands... how crazy is that?!  Oh and Sister ________ is an actress! She was in DUMB AND DUMBER!!!  She showed a pic of her in the background of when they have the orange and blue suits on haha. So awesome!  It is sad though as her husband, Brother _______ is dying, he can't really breathe on his own, so we gave him a blessing of comfort - pretty neat. I hope Grandpa Cawley is doing ok too. I heard Dad and Uncle Mike gave him a blessing at the hospital. I pray that he will also be comforted (and Grandma).

We were walking around in this apartment place, and the anti family that anti'd the crap out of us, saw us and we were like, "hey you should feed us sometime"... jokingly. And they invited us over right there, and we had taco salad. She was drinking wine, so we gave her a hard time about that. We kept joking with her hahaha. It was fun, and we are good friends now :D 

A cool thing that happened on Sunday is they split one of the wards that meets here, and rearranged the ward boundaries. So now we don't live in our area anymore, kinda crazy. I hope we get to move into our area, bcuz it would be easier to travel to places. But I guess thats the mission for ya :)  

Oh I can't remember if I mentioned this in the last letter, but I got the Donaldson's package, of a ton of candy!!!  It was sweet! haha. I think like half of it is gone, we munch on it all the time :D haha. 

Since the boundaries were switched, we have no investigators now which stinks, so we have to walk a lot now. As if we don't already do that haha. but, life's tough, so get a helmet hahaha (boy meets world anyone?!) Well I wish I could be there to see BABY G!! Garsh I just wanna kiss him!  Let me know what yall name him, hopefully its Mega Tron or something :D   Love yall!

Elder Cawley

Note:  Baby G now has a name - Jacob Scott Garrison