The Willy Wonka of the Ghetto: 2/28/2011

Well there are a lot of thunderstorms here. Its pretty neat! I want a tornado to hit so bad! It will be like the movie Twister with the cow getting flown all over the place. I keep telling our recent convert, Dougie Fresh, that a tornado is going to hit, and he tells me "NO! I hope it doesn't!" - pretty funny. 

This one night, I think it was friday, Elder Hall and I just stood on our porch, and watched all the lightning and it reminded me of the movie Poltergeist. Then I said jokingly, "Smite me oh mighty Smiter!" and right when I said it, this HUGE lightning bolt hit, I was like... ok time to go inside. hahah. it was crazy. 

We are still working with King James, he is pretty close to getting baptized. We went over to his house about 2 days ago and he showed us all his "phat beats" he made. They were actually really good. Then he did something amazing... he gave me his last orange soda!!! Once he did that I was like... I'm in. Oh and also he called me his "brotha" haha. 

Every time we go into the ghetto, the kids come up to us and want us to play basketball, and give them candy. I'm like the Willy Wonka on the Ghetto. haha  I find it pretty funny. So I found out that if you go out into the country a little, you will find tons of Amish farms. Speaking of the Amish, I don't know if you saw on the news, but 4 Amish kids were killed on Friday/Saturday because of the storm. Very sad :( I guess the mom was in the buggie with 6 kids, and there was a big puddle, and the mom decided to ride through it, and I guess it was really deep, so the current swept them away, and 4 of the kids drowned [this happened about 70 miles from where Elder Cawley is serving]. 

Anyways, now to a positive note, we were sitting in PEC on Sunday morning, and Adam, one of our investigators that we dropped, texted us saying, and I quote (mind you he is like 45) "HIYA! I want 2 come 2 church today!" I was like WOOHOO!  It was pretty amazing. He came and loved it. We have 3 investigators at church on Sunday and the sisters had 2. Our district is rocking it!  The sisters have a date for March 5, Rose Andrews, and we have Ron Wadlington for March 12. Do work! haha. 

Well I gotta go. Love yall much! Stay safe!

Elder Cawley

Answers: 2/22/2011

*our parents had asked these questions in an email to Elder Cawley:

Dear Elder Cawley--  So how is your southern coming along?  What words are you saying?

Questions:

1.  Did you get the package?

2.  Are you going to send us pictures!?  Did u get the walmart info?

3. How is ur companion?

4.  How is the facebook thing going?

5.  Do you know how much we love you?

6.  Are you eating at members homes very much?

*his email/answers:

HALLO... this is the russian space station! (name that movie...) (Armageddon :) First off... yes I'm saying weird things. The most recent one I picked up is.... "fixing." I say it like "I'm fixing to leave pretty soon" weird stuff like that haha. 

Answers:

1. yes I got a huge package wiff fewd inside! yay! haha

2. I'll try to send pictrues, I haven't been able to go to Walmart this week. We were down in Clarksville for one of the sisters bday.

3. my companion is good. He is still short, BURN! haha

4. facebook is weird, I add all of my investigators, and members and less actives and I have lessons with them on facebook haha.

5. yes I noes you lubs me, you noes I lub yall?

6. members don't feed us too much here haha, maybe once a week. Brother Fears took us to a restaraunt yesterday though, I put that place out of bidness!

Woo thats awesome for Michael! (Michael Scott--friend-- is now a missionary.)

My hobbit (Will Hearne--friend) is coming home on wednesday!? what!?? thats crazy! haha tell him hello and give him a big hug for me! haha.

Well, on Sunday our main investigator that we have been working with came to church, and he loved it. We set a date with him for March 12. He is pretty excited haha. Bishop Craig is blown away because this area has been "dry" for awhile, and we came in and we have been baptizing every month so far, except for december... grr. So far we are tied with the sisters in our district for the most people baptized in the zone. So our district is kicking bootay! haha. I guess we saved our Zone Leaders hinny, because our Zone had 21 people at church this past Sunday and only one date was set... us! woo! haha well I gotta go, I'll talk to yall next week!

WHAT IS UP WITH THE LAKERS LOSING TO THE CAV'S?!?! GARSH! 

Another Baptism!: 2/14/11

So this past week was pretty neat. I had another baptism, Doug Haby. He is 16 years old and pretty legit. He totally changed his life around, his mom is a hard liquor drunk, and his dad is on dialasis 3 times a day. So he doesn't have too much longer. Which is sad, but I'm glad he made the right decision. 

So, we had a really bad storm this past week. We were at District Meeting, and the Zone Leaders were there as well. We finish, and we go to leave, and there was 8 inches of snow on the ground. It snowed 8 inches in like 2 hours... what the poop. So the cars were parked, so we were stuck at the church. We decided to walk to Bishop Craig's house, it was like 4 blocks away. So we went through the YW's room and found scarfs and blankets to wear haha. I was way stoked to go on like a trek. 

But bishop ended up picking us up. So we chilled at his house and watched "Prophet of the Restoration" (good mobie by the way) and played Life with Bishop's lil girls haha. I PWNED THEM! It was so funny, because Haylee, the littlest girl who is 5 I think comes up to me and says, "Elder Cawley... do you think I'm cute??" I looked at Bishop and he started busting up and said, "Well... do you??" I was like, "... uhhh sure." hahahah. She got happy and ran to her mom. Awkward. 

The Zone Leaders just showed up at the library and said they got chewed out by President. I guess the numbers the mission turned in were the lowest he had ever seen them, and Zone Conference is on Wednesday. This is gunna be fun. No bueno. haha. 

I'm craving In-N-Out. Can you send me some?? I'm really random today, because I'm so stinkin tired haha. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep typing for a little, because I laid my head down on the desk while typing (becuase I can type without looking) and I looked up at the time and 10 mins went by hahahha. I wish I could have seen myself 10 mins ago. I'm sitting here in my lil cubbie typing, and this huge black guy is sitting in the cubbie next to me, and his baby is crying like crazy and he keeps saying, "Jamal... SHUT UP!" I'ts making my ears bleed. I gave the baby my pen to play with and it stopped crying. I looked at him like, that's how it's done. hahaha. Imma man I'm good, and I'm humbe too :D 

Well I think its about that time to say bye bye. I'm going to go play bball in my full Lakers get up, I bought some Lakers socks so I have Lakers socks, shorts and a shirt. ppl hate Kobe here, which makes me play even harder hahah. 

Love yall! Stay safe and try not to get too hot in the awesome cali weather! And how did the Lakers lose to the Magic??? garsh!

Love, Elder Cawley

Missionaries on Facebook?: 2/7/11

So we got transfer calls on Saturday. Usually President is finished calling around 6 pm. We didn't get a call at 6. The day before we had a missoin wide conference call and basically President said the Lord is making tons of changes in this mission. He said to "expect the unexpected." Once I heard that I pooped myself of curiousity haha. So anyways, 6 pm rolls by, nothing. 8 pm comes and goes... nothing. 10 pm!... nothing. Me and Elder Hall were peeing our pants because we wanted to know what was going on. Elder Hill (elder in my mtc district) and Elder Dietz served in Hartford and we heard that was closing, and they heard nothing about their transfers either. So all four of us were freaking out. 

Then Elder Hill calls and said they found out and he is a District Leader in Bellview, TN. And he is District Leader over the Assistants and the Zone Leaders. BURN! haha. Naw that's way cool, but we still didn't hear anything! So 10:28 comes by and we get a call from our Zone Leaders, saying that our area was getting white washed. I was like "what did we do wrong?" haha. He went on this huge explanation on where we were going and stuff and then he says... "Naw I'm just kidding you're both staying the same." So that day ended WAY anti-climatic haha. 

But President did close around 10 or 12 areas. All the Zone Leaders are in a tri companionship, so that's way crazy. And my district grew a little. At first it was just 2 sisters and 2 elders. then it went to 4 sisters and 2 elders. Now it's 5 sisters and 2 elders. haha crazy! 

OH our mission was chosen to try out this new idea from Salt Lake. Missionaries on Facebook. It's crazy! Only 12 missionaries will be invited to this in our mission, and President said I was the first one he called. So basically I spend 2 hours a day on Facebook contacting ppl in Hopkinsville and answering questions. Weird huh?! We have a training conference call tonight about it. Oh Sister Stubbs and Sister Austin (sisters in my district) were invited to it too. It's wayyy weird! But someone has to be the guinea pigs haha, might as well be me! 

Yesterday was the worst day ever. No one was on the streets, and every door we knocked, they didn't want to talk, they wanted to watch the Superbowl. It was way crazy, everyone was for the Steelers here, and I told everyone that the Packers were gunna take it by 6. And I was right!!! I was like "yeah I don't even need to watch it, I already knew who was going to win." It's a gift I have haha. Just kidding, but maybe, I don't know. Well I love yall! It's snowing like crazazy here! woohoo! Have a good week!

love,

Elder Cawley

A Baptism: 1/31/11

Well I had my first baptism yesterday. It was way awesome! (someone pointed out that I say "way" a lot, must be a western thang) Anyways, so after church, we had a "Linger Longer/Potluck" thingy so the whole ward was mu-mu-munching on some grindage (haha son-in-law) and after that we all moved to the Relief Society room where we held the baptismal service. Our ward mission leader told me that he tried to turn the hot water on, but only cold water was coming out... yeah. so it was freezing!! haha. I'm pretty sure I saw some ice floating around.. haha just kidding. But there should have been! So I dunked him and I guess when he went under, water rushed up his nose holes, and when he came up he started coughing haha. He was busting up, what a good spirit.

After that we had some talks and people welcomed him into the ward. He was grinning from ear to ear, neat! I had to talk about the Holy Ghost, and I gave the analogy of this... So lets say you're walking down the street, but its pitch black. You can't see anything, you don't know where the road is or anything. Suddenly, a lightning bolt strikes, and you can see 5 ft in front of you, so you walk 5 ft, then its pitch black again. Another bolt strikes, and you can see another 5 ft in front of you, so you walk 5 more ft. So that is like before you're baptized and recieve the Holy Ghost. Now after you're baptized and given the Holy Ghost, its like you're walking down the road and its noon day. You can see everywhere you're going, everything is lit up. When I told that, everyone was like, "wow thats pretty good" hahaha. neat! So it was a really awesome day, not to mention, it was sunny clear blue skies, perfect day for a baptism.

So on Thursday, we went over to King James' house. We get there and there are 2 cop cars in front of his house, I was like "Oh geez! Lets go see whats going down!" So we are walking and he walked out and waved to us, so we go up and talk to him. Turns out, his wife had their baby that night, he went to go get her some McDonalds (only in the south) and he stopped by the house, and someone had broken into his house, stolen his TV's, his Xbox and PS3 and his computer. He went from being so happy, to devestated. I felt so bad for him. I told him that we will do anything to help him, and that we will come over sometime and play ping-pong. He laughed and said "aite nig nog" but the real word haha. I'm in. Neat!

Super bowl this Sunday I think right?? Thats gunna be a horrible day to go tracking. I can see it now:

Us: "Hey we're missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of..."

Person at door: "yeah umm... you know the super bowl is on right??"

Us: "yes"

Person at door: "exactly" *slams the door*

woo hoo... cant wait! haha. Oh well, can only lead the horse to water, not force it to drink. But still! garsh! haha. Kay well I gotta get going, gotta go bball it up in the ghetto with Koolaid. No joke thats a guys real name, hahaha. Love yall! Stay safe!  Oh... mom told me about the game...whats up with the Lakers losing to the Celtics... THAT'S UNACEPABLE!

Elder Cawley

Setting (& Keeping) Dates: 1/24/11

GO PACKERS!!!!!! Oh man everywhere we went yesterday, that game was on. It was nuts. Well last week was pretty frustrating. We haven't been able to get in contact with Willy for about 3 days, so we don't know what's going on with him. Last time we saw him he was with his friend doing bible study. Turns out his friend is a J dub. grr. 

On thursday I got sick. It looked like everyone in our Zone has been getting sick. Elder Wall came to Hopkinsville for Exchanges and the day after he left I got sick... hmm. So we couldn't work Thursday I just stayed in bed all day. Then on Friday, it snowed like crazy!! President texted us all saying to stay indoors, the weather was too bad to work. So we only had a total of 18 lessons last week, no bueno. 

On the positive side, President came to our ward last week and talked about how the ward council should be finding people for the missionaries to teach also. So we went on exchanges with Dustin Buckner, he is 18 years old and preparing to go on a mish. He took us to see 3 people, 1 of them bonked but we set up appts with the other 2. We saw one of them yesterday, Doug. Who is 16 years old. We taught him the restoration, and read 2 Nephi 31. oh yeah... the baptism chapter haha. We got to I think its verse 10, where it says "Follow thou me" and we asked him what "follow thow me" means. He said to follow all of what Jesus Christ did. So then once he said that I asked him if he wanted to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God. And he said yes! WOOHOO! So we have 2 dates set now, and the sisters also have 2 dates set as well. 

I have to call President Hutchings every Sunday and give a report on how the ward council is doing by taking us out to "rescue." Only our ward is doing this too, President is experimenting. So I gave him my report and I said, "Oh President, Elder Hall and I have something to tell you... WE SET A DATE!!" Then we screamed like lil girls haha. I can make President laugh so hard it's hilarious. He always is nice to me, and then like rebukes Elder Hall. I find it pretty funny. President said he is impressed with what is happening to the Hopkinsville ward. They havent had a baptism since april 2009, and now we have 4 dates set just this transfer. oh yeah!

So my district always tells me that my trainings give them revelation and inspire them. I always think I do a horrible job on trainings, but the spirit must help me out. Oh this Elder in my last district, Elder Pantelakis, wants me to marry his lil sister. haha. So he wants me to write her, so I did last night haha. I drew a LEGIT picture of me and him bible bashing with this guy it was so funny. 

Well this week should be a good week. The ward council has us going on splits on Tuesday and Thursday. So we will have 4 ward council members taking us to appts they set up. Neat! Oh so basketball is starting up here for the stake, I asked if we can play and they said if we have an investigator there we can, and Doug wants to play on Thursday! Woohoo!! Time to dominate. I guess this ward is horrible at basketball, so this is gunna be awesome possum. But what is gunna stink is that I have leadership training down in Clarksville Thursday-Saturday from 9am-4pm. NO BUENO! haha. I'm sure I will learn a lot there though, its gunna be weird though, being the youngest one there. Wish me luck! I've been talking so much smack about the Laker vs. Jazz game tomorrow. Its gunna be legit. Kay time to go to Walmart. WHELP CYA LATER!

love yall.

Elder Cawley

P Day: 1/18/2011

Hallo, from Kentucky! Sorry I didnt email you yesterday, the Library was closed because it was Martin Luther King Jr day or something like that. Hmm werid, where am I? 

Well yesterday for Pday, we went down to Clarksville in TN and our zone was there. We played basketball (which by the way, I perfected my fade away. I'm unguardable, like Kobe. NEAT!) and I dominated. Won every game on 21, and my team won every real game we played. 

After that we had a Nerf War. We got a bunch of PVC pipe and used them as blow dart guns. They shoot so stinkin fast!! We turned off all the lights and set up barriers everywhere and played capture the flag. It was intense. We played that forever and the games were tied 7-7 so this last game decided who could brag. So it was me and Elder Wall alive and they had 3 alive. We were acting like spys haha it was awesome. I was hiding in the gym and there was this open door across the gym, so I launched this dart at the open door, bcuz I wanted to haha. And it was perfect! Elder Campbell walked through the door and it hit him! I screamed like a lil girl in excitment haha! He accused me of cheating and I just said, the spirit told me to shoot there, and I did. hahahaha. 

So after that we went to Zaxbys for some chicken and it was the last supper for Sister Salazar. She is going back to Temple Square for the last bit of her mission. She knows Sister Hicks, small world.

Anyways, Willy Allen (the person who is getting baptized) is still golden. Still smoke and coffee free. It was so crazy to just quit like instantly. I wish all of my investigators could do that... grr. He came to church on sunday and he looked so FRESH!! He had this awesome suit on, and he had this cane, and the handle was a cobra with red eyes. I called him Indiana Jones. He is way awesome. We were going to baptize him on the 30th and confirm him the following week, but I realized that he can't go 1 week without the Holy Ghost. So we gotta figure that one out. haha. 

But other than that, HopTown is pretty awesome. I go to sleep to gun shots every night - its awesome, I love it. Oh guess who I'm on exchanges with... Elder Wall!! He is sitting next to me, he says hi. He is way cool, he is so stinking funny! 

Well we are going to go to Ferrells for lunch. Its the best hamburgers ever!! This lil old lady makes them all day every day. She talks with us everytime we go in there. I like mustard on my cheesburgers now. I dont know what happened, I was just sitting there and I thought to myself "I wonder..." and I liked it... ALOT! (sandlot quote) 

I'll talk to y'all next week! love y'all!!!

Oh and happy birthday to my Grandpa Cawley who lives in Nevada!!! (and hello Grandma Cawley!)

Elder Cawley