July 28, 2008

Arizona is awesome. Elder Aicher and I are having a blast and working hard. We're teaching a ton of people. We'll have quite a few baptisms coming up here pretty soon.

Patsy and Jake are the ones that I'm most excited about. They are so cool. Patsy has changed so much just in the few weeks we've been going to see her. She was having a tough time the first night we talked to her and every time we've seen her since then she's had a bigger smile and a brighter spirit. Jake is her 13 year old son and every time we see him he warms up a little to us. It's awesome cause he can see that his mom is happier now so he's more interested in us and Patsy loves the fact that he's asking us questions. So they're both feeding off of each others happiness. It's crazy! But it really is so awesome. We took them down to the Visitors Center this week and that was a great experience. I'm really excited for both of them.

We had a very odd but very awesome lesson on Wednesday. We taught a guy and girl named Max and Kat who live together but aren't married. Kat's husband doesn't want anything to do with us. But Kat was happy to see us and interested in what we had to say. Max was flipping awesome. He's thought a lot about things and come to some amazing conclusions on his own. He's a smart guy. One thing he said was 'I just don't see how a God that created us all and loves us all so much would want to send any of us to a place like hell.' Elder Aicher and I just kinda smiled and said 'We would love to talk about that next time.' It was so cool. Some of the things he said really made me wonder if he wasn't already a member and was just putting us on.

So Elder Aicher is from Idaho and loves potatoes. One day we got fed potatoes as a main course for lunch and it confused me cause I've never eaten a meal without meat. It just didn't make sense. So afterwards I just mentioned something about how I'm not too crazy about potatoes and he looks at me and says 'How can you not like potatoes? That's like saying you don't like girls.' It was hilarious. Some of these Idaho people I've met have funny ideas.

So, things are great and only look to get better. Hope all y'all are doing well.
-Elder Coffman

I got the most amazing compliment last night. It made my entire mission. Already. This lady said that I 'look like a Texan.' and that I 'have a big Texas smile.' Pretty much, that's all i needed. It was awesome.
We got haircuts this morning and it was amazing. The lady that does it is awesome and has a cool son that's 13. he's a fun kid. they had a whole wall upstairs painted with a picture from the book 'where the wild things are' it was so cool. and they had a room with a pingpong table and a pool table and an acoustic guitar so we were hangin out havin a party and it reminded me of Venezuela for a little bit. it was a lot of fun. and she gave us fudge bars. probably the greatest P-Day morning yet.
So we have talked to some awesome people this week. And some very interesting people. It's a lot of fun. We're taking Patsy and her son Jake down to the Visitors Center Tuesday afternoon. That's really exciting. She's awesome.
Well, things are fantastic here in Maricopa. Hope all yall are doin great.-Elder Coffman

hi momma, thanks for the letter. that's awesome that yall got to go see Vai take down Jose Canseco. I heard uncle Dull talkin to dad about that and i was upset i was gonna miss it. so thanks for lettin me know how it went. i'm glad it didnt last long. and that's awesome that yall met Reno Mahe. you remember who he is, right? he played for BYU in 2001 when they almost went undefeated. i'm pretty sure he still returns punts for Phili. that's awesome that he talked to dad about his car. you'll have to find out what the guys name is at Tech, i'm sure Jacob would know him. infact i think he already does. he was telling me about a Tongan guy that he couldn't pronounce his name.
tell elder pingle and elder wallentine hi for me. that's too bad they got poison ivy. it's no fun. yall should get a dog and have it lick it off. that's what i always did. and it works. roxy always took care of mine.
things are going great here. we're teaching a ton of people. we've got two baptisms set up for August 2nd and hopefully we'll have two more before the week's over. we're just gonna plan on stayin at the chapel all day long that day and dunk people all in a row. it'll be fun.
glad you got the pictures, thanks for letting me know. at walmart it's cheaper just to put them all on a CD rather than print them out so in a few weeks after i've taken some more pictures i'll do that and send yall one.

we get to go to the temple once every transfer so we went this morning. it was awesome. the mesa temple is way cool. but yeah, that's why i didnt write yesterday. it's closed on mondays so we switched our P-day to today. but usually you can plan on gettin a letter on mondays. good to hear from you. glad all's well.
love you-Elder Coffman(the obe-one)

So the domination has begun.I'm right here in Mesa for now. Word on the street is that up north is the place to be (Snowflake). But I'm lovin it here. I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure my area is Southwestern Mesa. It's close to the temple and it covers a little bit of actual Downtown Mesa. The area is called the Maricopa Stake. We have 5 different wards to take care of. It's pretty crazy. A lot of work to keep track of 5 different Bishops and Ward Mission Leaders. But we're workin on it. My companion is Elder Aicher from Idaho Falls and he's also the District Leader. So once again, I'm Assistant to the District Leader. It's pretty bom. He's a really cool guy. I like him alot. We're on bikes which is awesome. It really is a lot of fun. I'm pretty sure most people thought that coming to Arizona would be a breeze since there's already so many of us here, but it's definitely just like any other mission. We still go around talking to as many people as we can, knock on doors, and teach people. I'd say the only difference is that we get more honks and waves than usual.

We live with the Nielson Family who at one point were huge but now it's just the two of them and their 19-year-old son. They are awesome. We pretty much live like princes. We have our own room, our own bathroom, and our own study with a massage chair. He made us biscuits and gravy for breakfast the other day and then yesterday she had a whole roast dinner made for us. It was amazing. But it gets better. She heard how excited I got when Elder Aicher informed me that BlueBell ice cream recently came to Arizona so she went out and bought me a half-gallon of mint chocolate chip. Like I said, we live like princes. It is awesome. P.S. that is the greatest news of the century. There is BlueBell in Mesa.

A couple people were asking for my address. The lady at the Mission Home that deals with mail is old and herego somewhat Nazi-ish. She wants all the mail sent to the mission home and then she will forward is to us. So.... that mission home address that I gave yall at the beginning is the one.

We're teaching a lady named Chiquita. Yes. Chiquita. it is awesome. What makes it even better is that her little baby son is named Tooboii. yep. Two-boy, but she is way cool and really interested, it's a lot of fun talking to her. So yeah, that's pretty much the DL for now.