one chapter closing

Hey ya'll...

Transfers are this week, and after 6 months of toiling and serving in Gaffney, I will be leaving. I won't find out where I'm going to until Wednesday during transfer meeting. I couldn't have picked a better place to start off my mission than Gaffney, and I'm so grateful for the chance I had to serve the wonderful wonderful people here. I'm going to miss them, but I know I'm leaving the area in the very capable and humble hands of Sis. Kloepfel. She is very happy and excited to continue serving here. We both feel that great things will happen here in the coming weeks.

The Lord blessed me with a last minute miracle during my time in Gaffney. My first convert Thomas has been inactive for several months. He's been going through a lot, including a crazy work schedule. Over the weeks we would stop by every once in a while and try to talk to him, but we usually only stayed for a few minutes and he wouldn't open up very much. He wouldn't even look us in the eye. It was hard for me to watch. I knew he was struggling and wasn't letting us in to help him. Yesterday we stopped by after church to try and see him. To my utter surprise, he pulled some chairs onto the porch and sat down with us and explained a lot of what had gone on--and he looked us in the eye! In short it came to the point that he had made some mistakes and now was being emergency evicted (because his previous roommate's dog did a lot of damage to the house he was renting). He was at his wits end with no phone and no one from work available to help him. We reassured him that we would make a few phone calls, and he went back inside to get ready for work. We promptly called the bishop. The reason why I'm late emailing is because we went over this morning with Bro. Martin (who was the main friendshipper when we were teaching Thomas) and helped load Bro. Martin's truck so everything could be moved to a small trailer one of Thomas's friends helped him find. Through it all I just can't believe that the Lord allowed me to see this window of opportunity open and the people who were most important to Thomas were able to help. I am not so worried about him anymore. After months of trying to talk to Thomas, I finally saw the man I knew when we first met him, and it filled my soul. He is getting back on the right path, and he is going to do many great things in the future.

I love you all. Take care. I'll let you know next week where I will be serving for the next 6 weeks. Oh, and I'm sending a couple pictures :) of Florenda, the spring season, and that really hard rain fall that leaked into our apartment.

Love,

Sister Cottam