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

Elder Cawley Meets David Archuleta: 6/20/2011

Hey family! (and friends)

Sooo the first week of the new transfer is over! It was a blast! Our new companion is SWEET!   He looks and acts JUST like Brandon Crow.  Like its kinda scary how they are the same.  So his name is Elder Alex Thompson. He is from Eagle, Idaho (just outside Bosie).  It is just like talking with bcrow when I talk to him, and he loves "The Goofy Movie"... just like bcrow. haha.  Look him up on facebook, its awesome.  

So we have been trying to find a family to baptize this past transfer and this transfer.  We prayed for a date in the near future when we are going to baptize a family.  So we decided that on July 9th we are gunna baptize a family... and I have no idea who it is  (hahaha) but we got so much faith that its gunna happen :)  

The Sounds game (minor league baseball) was awesome!!  There were around 60 missionaries singing the national anthem and the owner (or whatever of the team/field - idk, some high up dude) told President Hutchings that the way we sang the anthem is how it should be sung every time. NEAT!  Go Mormons!   

While there I met David Archuleta.  I went to go buy a Sounds baseball hat (which totally rocks btw) and I was like "wow that guys short... WOW thats David Archuleta!!"   So I walked right up to him and was like "hey, can I get a pic with you?"  He said sure, so we started talking and I got him laughing and we had a jolly good ol time of about 45 seconds.

OH so today for pday, we went shopping. I went to Marti and Liz shoe store. Its like nice shoes that were sent back so they sell them for super cheap.  So I got a pair of those and then we went to the Nike store and I got a shooting sleeve and a shirt bcuz this huge buff guy found out that I like bball... so he challenged me today at 4pm. I will own him! hopefully. haha.

Other than that there is nothing new.  I'm trying to learn how to spin stuff on my finger.  I got a pillow and a binder and my study journal down.  I'm working on the book of mormon hahaha. But I don't do that in public of course... haha. We are still in the finding stage, its super hard to find and teach people in this area, but I love it.   It makes me work hard so that makes me feel good.

Well, I love yall!   Tell Lina to do good at her volleyball tourny in Phoenix! And tell Bert alert (Brittany) to keep makin the monnay! hahaha. I cant wait to be an uncle! ahh!!  Imma make that baby look so fresh in the clothes I get him and stuff haha. Its gunna be neat!  kay, love yall!

Peace out girl scouts.

Elder Cawley

p.s. Oh! Tell the Donaldsons thanks for the candy package. They sent me like 15 lbs of candy ahhaha. I'm getting phat!

Singing at a Baseball Game: 6/13/2011

Hallo there,

So this past week has been really hard. We have this rule in the mission, where we can't drive our cars until we find 3 new investigators. So on Monday, we found 3 right off the bat. It was sweet. Then, nothing the rest of the week. This was the last week of the transfer, and we knew that one or 2 of us was going to get transferred, so we tried to make it a good week. Throughout the whole week, we had a total of 13 set appointments fall through. It stunk. They were all like in the evening too, so we had nothing to do at all in the evenings. So we just walked around and knocked doors. Not the most fun I've had. 

But today should be good. Elder Wursten is getting transfered to Clarksvull, so him and I are going to play some golf today. We are gunna go to Goodwill and get some cool clothes :) Elder Boyack and I are staying here in Franklin, and Elder Thompson is coming with us. 

But the good news is, that our zone is doing really well. 2 weeks ago we had only 2 dates in the zone, and now we have 11 dates :D Thats pretty good for 7 companionships. It has just been really hard to go talk to people since we have had a really crappy week, but that's okay, there is always a trial right before a miracle right?!  

Well I love yall!! I'll talk to yall later. Sorry this was so short, but we gotta go pick up and take missionaries places. WE ALL GET TO GO TO THE SOUNDS BASEBALL GAME!!!! And a bunch of missionaries are singing the national anthem!!! And I'm one of them!!!! WOOHOO!! hahahaha

peace out girl scouts.

Elder Cawley

President's Last ZLC: 6/6/2011

Man time is going by too fast. I don like it. haha. So yeah transfers are next week, so on Saturday we will find out who is leaving and staying and what not. So crazy. I did get the package with all the Shotmaster stuff in it :D  That P-day we wore all the Shotmaster shirts when we played basketball. It was way legit. haha. 

So Thursday was ZLC. It was soo awesome. It was Presidents last ZLC of his life... and from 9-12 it was trainings and round the table discussions. Then we had lunch, and this is where it gets good. So we come back from lunch, and we sit down. President stands up and tells us some advice on how to be good priesthood leaders. He told us everything that helped him out in his life. He then opened it up to testimonies. No one was getting teary eyed until Elder Stringam stood up and basically said that President told us one day that he is the way he is because he met a person that was a man of God and tried to be just like him. He went on to say that President Hutchings is a man of God, and we are all going to look to him as an example forever. 

We all started bawling. It was awesome. So we all bore our testimonies and I seriously cried for about a good 3 hours straight. It wasn't like making the cry face and huffing and puffin, just tears were flowing haha. After that, President got up and expressed his love for us. He said that this group is the best group of leadership he has seen since he got there. Then we sang, "Ye Elders of Israel" (Sister Hutchings' favorite song) and that was the closing song. I looked up and President and Sister hutchings were just crying like crazy. I dont think any of us made it through the last verse. That was the strongest I've ever felt the Spirit. 

It reminded me of Grandma and how she can't sing the song "God Be with You Till We Meet Again." I shared that in my testimony, I told all of the missionaries that I want to see them all in the Celestial Kingdom and we are gunna get in this group up there, and I dont want anyone missing. Very cool experience. I'm glad I could be there to witness that. 

Well I love yall. I'm fixin to go back out to work pretty soon. This is just a mini P-day, we are going to the temple on Friday so that will be our main P-day.

peace out girl scouts!

Elder Cawley

Lemonjello the Turtle: 5/30/2011

Waddup family.

So, hi! This week has been exhausting. I am so dang tired. On Friday it was leadership training, and that went from 8am-5pm. It was so awesome, but wayyy long hahaha. We learned how we could help the missionaries in our zone, and also our teaching skills. It is always intimidating bcuz we role played for a good 2 hours, and President Hutchings was with me and my role playing partner the whole 2 hours. I got lots of advice and feedback haha. So that was good.  

Oh, so we went to district meeting in Linden (2 hours away) and on the way (I was driving) we almost ran over a turtle!  So I flipped a uee and went and kidnapped that bad boy!   He rode with us to the district meeting and I used him as an object lesson.  We then took him back home to Franklin. I named him Lemonjello (but you say it like a lay mon gel o) haha. cool huh!?  

But other then that nothing really has changed here. That is sad that Elder Shumway is leaving; sounds like you guys liked him a lot, and that he liked our familia a lot. I have those same feelings towards the families in this ward. Gunna be a sad day when I get transferred :( they are in 2 weeks. did that fly by or what?! haha). But we don't talk about that stuff, its still really far away.  

Sorry this email is really short, we have a skype call with President Hutchings soon. I love yall!  Tell Lina she is doing good in volleyball, but I can still beat her, and tell Bert to find a boy. bahahaha. But seriously, tell all the extended family and friends I love em!!

Peace out girl scouts

Elder Cawley