Elder Carson John Cozzens Mission Blog

 October 16, 2023 Season 7 ep 1 & 2 What's popping everyone? I'm kind of shifting to a bi-weekly update. It's hard to find time every week to write, so I'll probably start doing that. Anyways life is pretty good here in the West Valley of Arizona! After being here in Goodyear and the YSA for a little bit, I've learned that not just the people but the members too are kind of... interesting 😂  D on't get me wrong, they're great and super involved in the work they're just a bit wack. But that's why I love them! I have already made some pretty cool connections so that's sweet.  I guess a highlight for these last two weeks is we had mission tour! If you remember Elder Pingree from Conference, he is the one who came to visit our mission! It was pretty incredible. We talked about so much it's hard to pick something to share haha. There was a special devotional that night at the church by the temple and we were able go with our friend Deion,...

 October 4, 2023 S6 ep 5 & 6 Well here we are, and transfer number 6 is now over. Kind of crazy to believe but regardless, it is! A solid amount has happened since I last wrote, first off we had a baptism! We've been teaching Maggie for about a month now and she got baptized over conference weekend! I'm happy I got to see her growth, and I'm excited to see what the rest of the mission holds. Like so much has happened, I don't even know where to start 😂 On an exchange I was driving out in the middle of the desert and out of nowhere my left rear tire lost all its air in about 10 seconds, so I pulled over and it was completely flat. So I got down in the dirt in my nice Pros gear and proceeded to chuck the flat on. After I got the tire off I saw that there was a pretty big gash and a big chunk of wood imbedded in the tire. Yeah, it was toast haha. This guy we had taught just before had a ton of trash all over his property, so we figured we drove over something the...

 September 18, 2023 S6 ep 4 What's up everyone! Hope everything is going well for all of you. Sorry this is late, it's been a crazy busy day, so don't expect too much from this email haha. We were very blessed this week key-indicator wise, we were able to find quite a few people and get them to church! We met some really promising people, as well as a few interesting ones haha, hence the title. One of these people is named Gina! She is super sweet and really genuine and wants to meet with us again! Turns out she had already been reading the Book of Mormon and then we stopped by. Unfortunately she has also been reading "The Sealed Portion" of the Book of Mormon too that contains the Book of Lehi and stuff. Get this. It was translated by.... Christopher! No last name, just Christopher. No publisher either. I read some of it and wow is it interesting 😂 I t talks about Heavenly Mother and a bunch of other interesting things. It was kind of cool. After we talked...

September 11, 2023 S6 ep 1, 2, and 3 What's up everyone!  Sorry it's been such a long time since I emailed last, but I've been pretty busy haha. It feels like I barely have time to do anything these days, but that's a good thing! It's much better to be busy than bored. I don't even really know where to start to be honest though. I've had exchanges, zone conference, Scorpion and spider hunting (a rattlesnake is next) and just so much more. I guess I'll start with a few highlights. -Our 9 year old friend Magnolia is progressing really well and is going to be baptized on the 23 so that is really exciting! Her older brother is also a ward missionary and he's a lot of fun. He is currently preparing for a mission too. -A part member family we have been working with for the past 2.5-3 months have told us they want to go to the temple as a family, and they're 2 youngest daughters, 9 and 10, both want to be taught and baptized as well! -I had an e...

 August 23, 2023 S5 ep 5 & 6 Hey everyone!  Sorry this is so late, I'm actually sick so I haven't been doing a whole lot, so don't expect this to be too long. But man have I been so busy this month, it's been awesome. I officially hit 7 months today so that's pretty lit. Crazy to think about haha. A ton of the older missionaries that I know all went home this transfer so that's a little sad but it is what is right? So much has happened in these 2 weeks and there's definitely not enough time or space to write it all haha, but I will try to recap. I caught a Sun Spider the other day and chucked him in the freezer, so that was a mission bucket list item complete! Time for some Scorpions and wolf spiders baby. We finally moved into our new apartment and holy crap is it nice. It's brand new and everything is so clean and white 🙌 definitely gonna keep it that way. There is a lot of gangs and drug selling here but it's ok, it keeps things spicy ...

August 7, 2023 S5 ep 4 How's it going everyone! I hope you all are doing absolutely fantastic because I definitely am. It is so good to be out here in Buckeye serving the Lord, and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else, not right now. There is just so much good to be found on missions. So much. It's just that simple. I'd say I definitely learned a lot this week. Especially about mentalities. Your focus and mentality will effect your entire life and it will determine a lot of things. The best thing to focus on is Christ and the positive side of every single thing! Once again there is some great momentum going on here in Buckeye, and it's so good to see. I'm so grateful for all of the wonderful Elders I get to serve with out here, they're great examples. Our roommates had a baptism this weekend that we helped out a lot with, his name was Romaldo. I actually got to interview him, and he is just so prepared. His family and wife are going to be right after him ...

 July 31, 2023 S5 ep 3 How's it going everyone?  Hope you all are doing well. Needless to say, it's pretty hot. Apparently we've set the record for consecutive days over 110+ degrees, so yeah. It's hot. Anyways, this will probably be a shorter email, I'm pretty busy and frankly, I don't feel like writing an email this week haha.  I saw a lot of momentum in both my area and the district this week. We were able to have more success with our friends and working with our members. We have a couple of friends who are very promising and very ready, they just can't come to church yet because of very rigid work schedules, but we're praying and fasting they'll be able to make it. We have some pretty cool members out here, and board games ironically seem to be very popular out here in the wild west haha. One of our favorite members had us over today to hang out with him, it was a lot of fun. We also had zone conference this week and it was really good. Th...

 July 24, 2023 S5 ep 2   h ttps://photos.app.goo.gl/r5tLxKNAM3wMCKVN9   Hows it going everyone!  Just a heads up this will probably be on the shorter side, it's really busy here in Buckeye. Well for starters this week, I got the stomach flu so I was out for 2 days. I haven't thrown up in like 7 years, it wasn't very fun. So that sucked, I hated not being able to go out. That took up a lot of the week We have seen a lot of progression with our recent converts this week, we have been able to set up recurring meetings and almost all of them have been to the temple and gotten the Priesthood so that's awesome. One of them is Concepcion and she is a super sweet old Mexican lady. She's awesome! We are still working on finding people, everyone we find ends up dropping us after a couple days, but it's ok! They have their agency for a reason. I guess some cool things that happened this week, we had a ward party for pioneer day, and we got to spend some time ...

 July 17, 2023 S5 ep 1 Transfer number 5, here we come baby! Sorry I didn't email last week, my P day was on a Wednesday and it was before transfers, so I really didn't have much time 😅 Anyways, I'll be staying out here in Buckeye with Elder Peck, and my same roommates Edler Malphrus and Elder Randall. We're a fun quad that's for sure 😂 Elder Malphrus has this really really good board game called Dice Throne, and we all have some really sweet games in addition to it. P-days are super hype to say the least 😎 My comp and I have been doing a lot of driving, we've had go to Glendale twice to get our SIM card fixed, and also to go to the temple! We went to the Phoenix temple and it was really great. For transfers, I also got to assist in killing my grandpa (Elder Bass, he trained Elder Grant) meaning he went home this transfer. It was a lot of fun to be with him in his last days. Definitely was kind of daunting seeing I'll only be at 6 months in a week,...

 July 4, 2023 S4 ep 5 Google Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/r5tLxKNAM3wMCKVN9   Howdy y'all?  I'm just kidding. I won't turn into a cowboy. Probably. Also Happy 4th! My P-day is today. Anyways, last Tuesday I found out I was getting emergency transferred to Buckeye! Which is super west, a bunch of nothing, desert, farmland, and random civilization. But it is AWESOME! The Elder I replaced just swapped into my old area. He just needed to be me moved out of here and so President picked me to replace him, and I'll be the DL out here in Buckeye. Which has 0 sisters within like 25 miles. Kinda depressing. But it's also a party because these Elders are amazing. And crazy. And Chaotic. But they're incredible. We live with a trio. It's fun! I don't really know where to start. A lot has happened since my last email, like a TON 😂 My new area is the largest non-YSA area in the mission. We have 1 of 4 trucks, and we've got lots of random dirt roads a...

 June 26, 2023 S4 ep 3 & 4 Hey Everyone! Sorry I didn't email last week. It was a really busy P day, and I just didn't get around to it! But I'm working to send them earlier in the day like I used to. These 2 weeks have flown by. It's crazy. There are days where I'm like " Man, I've got so long to go" and others where it's like "I can't believe it's already been 5 months and I only have 2.5 weeks left in my 4th transfer." Time is so weird on the mission! 😂 But I truly and utterly love it out here. I know that this is exactly where the Lord needs me right now. Recently, I have created a really good friendship with some inactive members that live in the same complex as us! They are young and have been married for 3.5 years, and I'll call one of them T, he is so cool. He plays basketball with us (he's cracked) and we've introduced him to some people in the ward, and he's made some great friends. Some of whic...

 June 12, 2023 S4 ep 2 How's It going everyone? Life out here is pretty simple! It's a good simple. Even though I'm technically still in my third transfer I'm already almost 2 weeks into my 4th transfer because of the mission change. Time is definitely flying, it's crazy 😂 This was a pretty awesome week. First off, we had zone conference, and the topic was joy! At the end of zone conference on Friday we watched the concluding session as a district which was awesome. It was really fun to see and meet all the missionaries that are from the APM, and I'm excited to become one mission with them. It feels like we're in a little bit of a stall at the moment with work, but it is progressing. We're working to help our friends progress, it's just hard to set up lessons with them but it's going. We find new people all the time but it's hard to find committed new people. I know the Lord will bless us with those that are ready to progress one day t...