3/16/2014. DUTIES OF BEING AN ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Coffman <david.coffman@myldsmail.net>
Date: Sun, Mar 16, 2014 at 12:32 AM
Subject: Re: Hola' Greetings from your family - We Love You!
To: Janel Coffman <janelscoffman@gmail.com>

Wow that looks fun in the gym. Well to let you know, my bag dropped and my camera kinda broke.  Like it still takes pictures, but it doesn’t show the screen too well...it was kinda weird but it still takes good pics. I won’t send any this week because its really late and I need to get to bed but I just wanted to write because today we didn”t have time to write but while we are washing in the presidents house our clothes we are writing.  Well I spend like at least 4 hours every day doing assignments like opening up areas and logros and stuff like that but some days like today and yesterday and Monday, we spend the whole day doing things.  We usually have to organize all the trainings we do as a mission and stuff like that so it is good stuff.  Well I am glad I got the pics from you, you look good. I am thankful for my body as well and I hope I can go to the gym a lot when I get home.  Oh yeah also today when we were driving back from a pueblo like at 10 thirty at night because we had special changes and we had to drop a sister off in her new area, we saw a dead guy in the road...it was pretty crazy but the first thing I thought when I saw him was say a prayer for his family so I did.  That’s gonna be rough for his family but I know God loves them.  Well, I hope you have a good week mother and I love you a lot.  Also remind daddy to sign me up for school. 

--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "David Coffman" <david.coffman@myldsmail.net>
Date: Mar 16, 2014 12:20 AM
Subject: Re: Hola Elder!
To: "Scott Coffman" <scottcoffman84010@gmail.com>
Cc:

Hey pops. Well it’s nice to hear from you.  Its kinda weird how you wrote me about not worrying about not being able to teach much because this week, the last 2 days, we got stuck with president.  We had appointments and everything set up but they kinda got put on second hand because we had to change people, plan all the transfers, and he asked me to prepare a slideshow about missionary work for all the stake presidents in the mission.  The crazy thing is that I only had about 2 hours to do it but it turned out really good.  I usually always prepare a slide show for my training  I give.  It is really good.  But yeah so we didn’t get to do much work in the field but yeah the mission would not run without us. So it’s alright.  I can serve the president and other missionaries a lot.  For example today was our p-day but we lost it and right now we are washing our clothes in the mission pres. home because we didn’t have time to wash it to day and now we are out of clothes. We had to do some crazy changes because some hnas were have problems in their ward. It keeps things interesting.  Well to answer your questions, we have 10 zones, 24 districts, and 155 missionaries. 55 are sisters. 32 are still in training. 20 get here in 2 weeks and only 2 go home so we have to open a lot of areas.  That is what we have been doing most of this week.  Really busy but its good and I am gaining a lot of management and people skills. I am still keeping a log of service although I haven’t done too much in the past couple of months. and you need to sign me up for the classes so I can study in the fall.  That is really important so don’t forget it please.  I need good classes and a good schedule and I think you will be able to coordinate one well for me. so help me out with that.  I will be home in August. Well what else, my mission is about 43495 squares miles so pretty big.  Most of the population is in 2 cites, Merida and Campeche and outside of them there are some little pueblos but not anything too big.  We don’t drive cars.  Before the assistants did but the area 70s took that away. We don’t even do bikes which is dumb but it is for our safety. I have done a trici though. It’s like a tricycle but it has a cart in the front and 2 tires in the front instead of the back.  That food sounds way good. I love head meat too. We have been eating good because we are with president a lot and I am getting recipes so don’t worry. Last night when we were with the president, we ate some really tender meat. It was so good. amazingly tender.  Well I will sign off too because I need to put my clothes in. We’ll be up early tomorrow because we have to go to church in our ward and it starts at 8 and we are about 45 minutes away so not too much sleep. Oh yeah I bought a good bag and so I will keep it for after the mission. thanks for writing. adios

3/8/2014. BE FAITHFUL AND TRY TO BE BETTER TODAY THAN YOU WERE YESTERDAY

 Janel's note: Elder Coffman didn't include any pictures this email so I added these pictures. 



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Coffman <david.coffman@myldsmail.net>
Date: Sat, Mar 8, 2014 at 10:37 AM
Subject: Re: 3/7/2014. Hola' Greetings from your family - We Love You!!
To: Janel Coffman <janelscoffman@gmail.com>, Scott Coffman <scottcoffman84010@gmail.com>

Hola.  So this week was pretty good.  We had 2 days of 10 hour conferences so that was pretty crazy, but we also had the chance to do some good work in the area so that was good. I had some opportunities to train all the leaders of the mission and it went really good.  Man it’s weird because I put a lot of energy into what I teach and what I learn and I love learning about how to be a good missionary and everything. And the good thing is that well at least I hope that somehow I will be able to use all this stuff I am learning right now about missionaries in my future. Maybe I´ll have a calling or something someday where I work with missionaries or in the church or something. It would be cool.  Well this week, probably the coolest thing that happened is we found someone I contacted in a convey a couple of weeks ago.  She is like 15 but she was really interested when I started talking about temples and families. We gave her some cards and proclamation to the world but then she had to get off before we could get her address. So when that happened, well I kind of forget about her, but then on like Monday or something we got a reference where the guy who gave it to us didn’t even know the name of the people but they just told us that the people in that house had had someone die in their family recently. So we went there and it was her again.  She said that she was so surprised when she saw us and she wanted to talk to us again but didn’t think that she would find us.  We will see if she can get her fam to listen but she is going to go to church on Sunday and accepted a fecha for su bautismo. It was great. It’s just crazy how the Lord guides us and sometimes we don’t even know it. this is a really good example of it. but I know that he will guide us only if we work and keep moving forward. Like if we wouldn’t have asked the guy if he knew anybody (because he wasn’t really interested in listening to us) we wouldn’t have gotten there or if we wouldn’t have talked to her in the convy, she wouldn’t have already had good feeling towards us and might have said no. So my way to make sure that we have more miracles like that is to talk to everyone and to ask referrals from everyone. Well this is how revelation works. We have to study it out in our minds, act and ask God if it is ok.  He won’t just let us put our lives on cruise control and take the wheel we have to truly exercise faith and then he will guide us little by little.  You guys should watch the videos that Elder Bednar has about light. They are called patterns of light. You can find them on the Mormon channel it is really good. Well I am happy and doing well I hope that all is well with you guys as well and I hope that you keep living the Gospel that is all I want. I want to be with you guys forever and I know that to do it, we need to be faithful.  A great responsibility lies on the parents, but there are also great blessings involved. The covenants we make in the temple are so strong and my mission president told me that if parents get sealed in the temple they are promised to have their kids forever if they are completely faithful to all the covenants that they made, even if their kids go on the wrong path, they will have them again. all we need to do is do our very best and then Jesus does the rest. He doesn’t make the difference, he is the difference. Be faithful and try and be better today than you were yesterday. Little by little we will all get home safely together. Well I love you guys lots and wish you una semana bonita.

elder coffman

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Coffman <david.coffman@myldsmail.net>
Date: Sat, Mar 8, 2014 at 10:06 AM
Subject: Re: Fwd: FW:
To: Janel Coffman <janelscoffman@gmail.com>

That’s great that you made that decision Brock. I am glad that you want to go. and I will read that chapter.  There is actually a video on that story that Elder Holland does. If you go to lds.org and then go to resources, and then go to media library, then go to videos and then go to pearl of great price and then you can look for the video that corresponds with that chapter. It is really good and Elder Holland describes it as well. So anyways, you should make little goals anytime you want to have a big one. Like going on a mission is a big goal. If you want to just go on the mission, all you need to be is morally clean and physically able to do it. You need to meet all of the requirements. Now if you want to go on the mission and have success, you need to start preparing yourself immediately. You need to start studying the scriptures and preach my gospel. I wrote a paper and I would like you to read it so that you can know what I felt like I should have done before I came out the first time and what I did before the second time I came out. I know you can have a good mission experience if you go, but that you will have an amazing missionary experience if you prepare yourself spiritually and physically. Especially spiritually.  Well I will tell my mom to give that too you so that you can know better what I think you should do. I love you lots.

elder coffman

3/1/2014. I AM THANKFUL FOR OUR FAITH AND OUR FAMILY.

"Tour of the Temple we did with students."  2/20/2014.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Coffman <david.coffman@myldsmail.net>
Date: Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 2:45 PM
Subject: Re: 2/28/2014. Hola' Greetings from your family - We Love You!!
To: Janel Coffman <janelscoffman@gmail.com>

hola family how’s it going well I have jps address so don’t worry about that one, and I sent Richard an email so thanks.  As far as the taska bag goes, I already have one.  It was in my closest in the old house. idk what happened to it but if it got lost, then I will just buy one here.  It is getting pretty hot here as well though.  Sometimes my shirts just get soaked with sweat haha.  Well this week went good.  Not a whole lot of sleep again.  We had another 2 hour sleep night and so that was pretty rough but it was all good because the conference we had went really good.  It’s nice because we can see a general increase of success in the mission. It’s really good to see people change and become better missionaries.  We see it so much and it’s interesting to see the reasons why people start to change, but it usually always goes back to family reasons. I am glad that we have an eternal family.  I love telling people that I am sealed to you guys. idk if it’s bad, but I feel pretty prideful about it sometimes.  Like it’s something that I have and no one can take it away except ourselves if we are disobedient or unfaithful. I had a dream last night where I went home and gave everyone a big hug and the last person to give me the hug was mother and it was definitely the best one.  Most of the time when I share my testimony about the family, I talk about how much I love my mother because it always invites the spirit.  I love you guys so much.  This morning I was reading something really interesting.  In Ether 12:4 it says that the people who have faith have a hope of a better world. You should read it and then compare that to how Mormon describes the nefitas as they lose the spirit.  It is amazing the difference.  It says it in Mormon 5 17-18 I think.  So read that and you will realize why we are so blessed to believe in what we believe in.  I am thankful for our faith and our family and I hope that you guys have a great week love you guys lots

Elder Coffman

From: David Coffman [mailto:david.coffman@myldsmail.net]
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2014 2:49 PM
To: Scott Coffman
Subject: Re:

Send this to Brock:

Hey Brock

How are things going? I am doing good.  I am working a lot right now.  The assignment I have in the mission is called assistant to president.  It is really hard and we lose a lot of sleep from it.  It’s kinda weird because before the mission I could stay up late and everything but now if I lose even an half an hour, I die haha well I hope you keep working on going on a mission.  The little decisoins we take in life or sometime the most important ones.  In every decision that you make, you should ask yourself how it will affect you not in the next week, month, year or decade, you should ask how it will affect you for the eternity.  Do everything you can to go out on the mission and do everything you can to prepare yourself to be a faithful husband who can provide your family with its basic needs.  That includes decisions regarding education.  Well I hope that with every decision you make that you can make it with the spirit of prayer.  Just like it says in 2 Nephi 32.  You should read it.  It give us some pretty good advice for making decisions.  Well, have a great week

elder coffman

2/22/2014. WE NEED TO BE ANXIOUSLY ENGAGED IN A GOOD CAUSE.

"Far away .... in the west."   Sunset in Campeche, MX.  2/13/2014.

Campeche, MX.  2/13/2014.

"First time I have seen the ocean in my mission.  It is in Campeche.  We saw it after doing a zone conference in Zona Ticul.  Then we went to Campeche to eat and to spend the night there.  The next day we had another zone conference.  2/13/2014. 

Elder Coffman & Elder Robison.  Campeche, MX 2/13/2014.

Elder Coffman & Elder Robison.  Campeche, MX 2/13/2014.

"We got some cocktails.  The shrimp were huge!!  It was really good."   Campeche, MX 2/13/2014.

"This is the Pan De Cazon.  You can't see my plate but I got the same as my comp.  It's really good they look like pancakes, but they are handmade tortillas, beans and baby shark meat smothered in salsa."  Campeche, MX  2/13/2014.

"Eguera family.  They are way cool.  Their daughter loves the missionaries."  2/16/2014.

"Really cool family that we had to say goodbye to in Pacabtun.  They would give food to 6 missionaries every Wednesday.  They are an awesome family and I am going to miss them.  They are the family Can, Can in Maya means snake!"  2/16/2014. 

"Other cool family.  Family Pech.  Pech in Maya is flee the brother is the ward mission leader."  2/16/2014.

"Breakfast with the new people and president."  2/17/2014.

"We had to go in the back of the mini van because there wasn't space up front. jaja." 

"Drop off at the airport."  2/20/2014.

"Tour of the temple we did with the students."  2/20/2014. 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Coffman <david.coffman@myldsmail.net>
Date: Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 11:54 AM
Subject:
To: Janel Coffman <janelscoffman@gmail.com>, Scott Coffman <scottcoffman84010@gmail.com>

Hello family.  Well this week was a little more tranquillo.  We had to end the changes on Sunday so we were up kinda late again but we got to stay in the presidents house again so it was worth it.  His house is really nice.  On Monday the new people got here and so we had to go the airport. 16 new missionaries got here.  Our mission is growing a lot. we just have to find places to put them. haha. Well after that we started working in our area we had to leave Pacabtun. Usually I feel sad when I leave a ward, but I didn't feel that weird or sad leaving it.  It was a good ward, but I never had a connection with the ward.  Well now we have a new one that we are opening.  Its called Dolores Otero.  It's a pretty good area but there haven't been missionaries there for a long time. Well they are definitely ready for missionaries.  There are 40 actives and 600 less actives there in this ward.  It is pretty crazy, we will help them out a lot.

Oh and on  Wednesday we went to the temple!!  Wow!!  It is so nice to go back to the temple.  I had a really strong experience there.  It was amazing to be there in the temple.  I guess that is one of the nice things about being assistant. btw the new movie is sooo awesome!  Wow  I really like it. I understand things a lot better.  I heard there are 2 new movies now or something like that?

I felt so peaceful there.  I felt so much love. I received answers to questions and my testimony was strengthened. you guys should go to the temple as often as possible. It will strengthen you so much spiritually.  If you ever have any free time, don't rest.  Keep working.  Go to the temple.  We have this really powerful video of President Eyring,  he is talking about how after the Savior died in the cross, he didn't rest. He kept working.  He went to the spirit world and preached to them and opened the spiritual prison. Well President Eyring invites us to not rest.  He says to keep working because it is what the Savior did.  He says even when we feel like we deserve a rest it is not so. We need to be anxiously engaged in a good cause.  Its a really inspiring video. well I guess I am just talking a lot about the temple because I haven't been for a long time but I really do miss going whenever I want to. when we left the temple, I felt like I was leaving to the lone and dreary world.

The next day we were planning things out in the offices and some college students came over and wanted to know more about the church. so we watched some movies and then went over to see the church and then we went into the waiting room in the temple and the spirit we felt was so strong. I asked them if they had felt that way before and they said they never had felt like that..it was an amazing experience. The temple is such a beautiful powerful place and we have the great blessing of living so close.  We need to take advantage of that opportunity so we can strengthen our selves and help other people to progress in the gospel. 

We helped a lot of people to feel the Saviors love. I love it when we are the anwers to the prayers of people. Try and do that. Try and be the instrument in Gods hands. you will feel happier.

Well I guess that is all I have to say this week. 

I love you guys a lot and hope you have a great week.

love elder coffman

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Coffman <david.coffman@myldsmail.net>
Date: Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 12:16 PM
Subject:
To: Janel Coffman <janelscoffman@gmail.com>

I got the vday letter thanks love you lots

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Coffman <david.coffman@myldsmail.net>
Date: Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 11:12 AM
Subject: Re: Michelle says Hi
To: Janel Coffman <janelscoffman@gmail.com>

Where are you working mc?  Well I hope you can work there.  If you do get the job, tell everyone I said hi. love you lots sis