We are now in a little town called Coffman Cove, home of around 200 people. It's a very isolated place. It took a 3 hour ferry ride then a two hour drive through the middle of nowhere to get here. I've never seen any place like this. There is a "gas station", which is a little shed with an old time-y gas pump. There's one store called the Riggin Shack, pictured here. Me and Turner are staying in the church and the guys are staying with the Pastor and his wife. As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is no cell service out here. That's a little bit of a bummer, but I'm living. We have wireless internet, so I can't complain too much. This week got off to a rocky start when all 4 of us got sick with a stomach bug that was ridiculously unpleasant, but it has definitely taken a turn for the better. Our job this week is right up our alley. The past two weeks we have been sort of taking a back seat and doing random things that needed to be done. While that's been nice and all, we get to do a lot of hands on stuff here. We start our mornings at the school gym doing a few hours of inflatables with any kids that want to come. We thought that about 4 or 5 kids would come, seeing that it's such a small population. Boy, were we wrong, and glad of it! We've had about 20 kids each day. Now I know we shouldn't get too caught up in numbers, but I'm pretty excited because that's 1/10 of the population of the town. Not too shabby. After a few hours running around like crazy in the gym, we take the kids over to the church and give them a snack and do a Bible Study. I've actually been in charge of snack this week. As in, I have been baking brownies and making Kool-Aid for these kids. That's usually not the role I take. For whatever reason, I got offered that role, so I've done it. I've enjoyed it. Anyway, all four of us have taken a day to do a Bible study with the kids. Yesterday Aaron took the kids through what Jesus did for us on the cross and his resurrection. Today Turner took them through the ABCs of becoming a Christian. Tomorrow Jake is taking them through what it means to live like Jesus wants us to, and Friday I'm doing why it is important to tell others about Jesus. It's a very broad span of topics, but we wanted to hit on all of the important stuff with them while we can. Since this is a community wide thing and not just a church thing, there are plenty of non-churched kids. We are aware of that and want to make the most of this opportunity we have with them.

Today I had a pretty cool opportunity. The school that we are doing the inflatables at only has one teacher, and he opens up for us. He's a Mormon. He brings all 5 of his kids to play and his wife comes too. Sadly, he won't let his kids come with us when we do Bible study because they only want what they teach to be heard. They are super nice people though. I had been praying yesterday and this morning that God would somehow give us an opportunity to talk to one of them and God opened up the chance for me to talk to his wife pretty extensively today about her beliefs. She was incredibly open and super nice about all of my questions. I got to ask her all about what she thinks salvation is, how she thinks it is attained, how the Mormon church works, the importance and origin of the Book of Mormon, what Jesus means to the Mormon faith, and tons of other questions. I got to share with her what I believe and how it differs from what she believes. We ended up talking well over an hour. The conversation was really good, but quite frustrating by the time I was done. I don't mean that in the sense that we were arguing about beliefs or anything, but instead that there are tons of similarities between Christianity and Mormonism, so I'm pretty sure she thinks they are basically the same. They are definitely not, because there are some major key differences, the biggest being that they believe works are necessary to obtain salvation. There are some other things she talked about that I'm unsure of, so tonight I'm planning on doing some studying and digging to find out what the deal is. They have a big belief in some priesthood stuff. Not sure what all that is about quite yet. Hopefully I can figure some of it out and have another chance to talk to her. Please pray that I get that opportunity and that her heart will be open to God's Way.

As for what we do around here at night, we are hanging out with youth. There are 4 that show up, and we do a Bible Study/Discussion with them and play a game or watch a movie. We figured we would take a different approach with them as far as Bible Study is concerned. We found out that they are all Christians, so we are each taking a night and teaching them and discussing how to live out the Christian life. Last night Jake taught on 1 Timothy 4:12-13 and the importance of using our spiritual gifts to make a difference for Jesus. We also got into a really great discussion about worship and the different ways people do it.

On a side note, we have a sweet ride for the week! Here's a picture:
I've been really excited to get to drive this week.





Prayer Requests:
-As of now, we have nothing to do next week. We were supposed to go out to a kid's camp, but we aren't able to because of some ferry scheduling. Please pray that God will open up an opportunity for us for next week.
-More opportunities to talk to the Mormon family, and that they will let their kids come to our Bible Study
-Energy
-Team Unity and Good attitudes (We've seen each other everyday for 4 weeks...but we still love each other!)
-Good health
-Opportunites for my fellow summer missionaries

Thanks for all the prayers!