Elder Dylan Cozzens

January 28, 2019 Week 25       The only day that I sort of saw the sun this week was on Sunday. It has been overcast all week and raining half of the time. On Sunday, half of the sky was black, but it never came our way. On Sunday night, we had some thunder that shook the units we stay at.       Elder Hayes and I have discovered our secret nefarious sides, and we are doing all we can to deliver cookies to the members in the dark of night (late evening). Thus far, we have been successful in keeping our proceedings secret. Not easy to do in a white shirt!   Lean Not      This week we met a man who claimed to be athiest, and his whole reasoning was that humans created their own gods, that the earth is in fact millions of years old, and that humans put ourselves on pedestals even though we can't swim like a fish or fly like an eagle. Sort of interesting. He got me thinking. Why are there questions such as these...

January 20, 2019 Week 24     Good afternoon friends and family, for that vast majority of you, it is 8:30 pm right now. It is 1:00 pm for me.    We had trade offs with our zone leaders this week, and I got to go with Elder Masten, who also turns out to be my 7th cousin. He is a super good cook and an even better missionary. I have known him since I came to Darwin, and I have looked up to him since then. Love that Elder.    I am quite sure that God is protecting us because we drove for almost a week with a screw in our tire. I thought I was hearing some weird sounds from it, but couldn't see anything. We got back to our apartment Saturday afternoon, and found it flat and a screw right at the edge of it. I have no idea how I missed it. Anyway I had a good time changing the tire, getting dirty and sweating almost as much as it rained that day.    Somehow word got out that I am a good 'bass' singer, and all the missionaries just assumed...

January 13, 2019 -Elder Hayes: We are doing super well together! Sure it is a hard area, but we recognize that we are doing missionary WORK. A lot of it in this area. We bike between 3-5 hours a day. Anyway, Elder Hayes is from Brisbane, but has a half Aussie, half American accent because he has spent most of his mission with Americans. He only has 2.5 more transfers left in his mission, and he is the district leader. He is friendly, and the people enjoy talking with him. I cook him tuna sandwiches every day for lunch, he loves that, and on p-days I will make french toast. He has served in Adelaide, Mildura, Alice Springs, and now Darwin, so all over. We have a lot of fun, make some jokes, and rejoice in the Lord. He makes spaghetti every Friday for lunch.   -Apparently we have a "trough" in the weather which means we will be getting a lot more rain this week…we will see. Also on Saturday night we had a little "spin off" from a cyclone in Queensland. Out o...

January 6, 2019 -Well…new transfer, new week, new companion, new (kind of) area. Lots of surprises, but this is what I need.  Palmerston South area is kind of crazy. The smallest plot of land out here is 5 acres with the largest being 50. Most are between 5-10 though. We drive out to a road, bike between houses, and then end up biking 20-30 minutes to get back to the car at the end. We biked 20 minutes on a dirt road just to follow up with 2 people...we drove 30 minutes, parked, then realized we forgot our bike helmets, so we just walked for 3 hours...talk to about 5-7 people per day...we literally bike all day and it might not sound like it...but I love it! Lots of interesting things in this area and lots of people who need our help. We are their only chance to partake of the love that Jesus Christ has for them, and I will do all I can for them. Also our area now covers a few of the suburbs that I covered while in Palmerston in the beginning of my mission, so we are s...

December 30, 2018 Dear family and friends, 🎶 "Its beginning to look a lot like rain...everywhere I go..." 🎶   We may not have had a white Christmas, but we definitely had a wet Christmas. A lightning storm almost every night, and it has been raining a lot today. Maybe the locals weren't lying to me about Darwin wet season...       We got Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and "Boxing Day" off this week so it went rather quickly. Our mission president told us not to do any "missionary work" because last time they tried that, the people got mad and told the missionaries to go home to be with their families, which in most cases, is a hard thing to do. So we had lots of "time off" this week. We basically had meal appointments for every meal during those three days, and on boxing day, we went to Sister Backer’s again and saw her animals.       On Thursday, when we went back to work, there was a German cruise ship at the dock. 97% of the pe...

December 23, 2018 Week 20    This week was kind of fun. Week before Christmas, it is pretty good!        I learned that there have been some cyclones off the shore of Queensland, and they are taking our Darwin rain. Apparently they have died out now so maybe we will see some real rain. The past 3 nights we have had lightning storms all night but no rain. The lightning here is unbelievable, one "bolt" of lightning arcs across the sky then splits into a spiderweb of other bolts. It looks like God is flipping the day/night switch on and off when you watch it from the window at night.       Just so you all have an idea of Darwin heat, last night I was writing in my journal at 9:50pm, and it felt like 97 degrees F. Right now it is 92F feels like 107F at 3:30pm. Just your average day.        I also got pooped on by 2 birds yesterday. Apparently that is good luck.      We focus...

Monday, December 17 , 2018       This week I felt the love of God deeply, and I truly know that Jesus Christ is the "true and living God" of this earth. When you take the time to actually digest that, you will come out with some powerful insights.      This will be a short one, a lot going on today. On Thursday, I went on tradeoffs with Elder Johnson from Canada, who happens to be my 6th cousin. We make quite a powerful companionship together, and I was able to learn a lot about myself and him as we went about the day.  Perfect Faith     A scripture in the Book of Mormon describes Faith as this... "21 And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true." ~Alma 32: 21     Many people throughout the world will not accept religion or God because God requires F...

December 2, 2018 Week 17 -I have been in my new area for 2 week s, and the work here is different, but it is the same. My purpose is the same, and it doesn't matter who I talk to, or who I am with. I am here to please my Father in Heaven. -We don't have a ton of time to learn Chinese, so I still don't know a lot, just a few words. But I am learning the tones of the language, and the pronunciation of syllables and so forth. q makes a ch sound, and c makes a t, z makes a ts and e makes and oo or something. It is hard. -I am glad you all have snow now, and I am praying that we will get snow here...if we do, then that really means I have been a faithful servant, or it is just a sign of the times. -My 4-month mark will be this week . This life is fast, and we don't have much time to get a lot out of it, so we better use it wisely and get all we can.   This week there was a BIG car wreck outside the church on Wednesday afternoon, a lig...