Elder Dylan Cozzens

January 28, 2020 Every week is just the best as a missionary. It just is. There is no substitute for it! Everybody in Broken Hill is just a little bit on the strange side but they are so awesome! Our first Sunday, the branch President pulled us into his office and said he needed us to prepare and bless the sacrament, give the opening and closing prayer, each give a talk, teach a boy about the Aaronic Priesthood, teach a new member about the Melchizedek Priesthood, and the list continues. We are kept really busy here, but we still have plenty of time to go out, fulfill our purpose and find, teach, and baptize. One friend we found is a trucker and is so simple but is a seeker of truth. He loves Jesus, his bible, but he also loves the Book of Mormon now too! He trucks on Sunday, which is too bad but the Lord will provide!  We also had two friends at church. It was the little boy's birthday and his birthday wish was...to come to church, so he did and dragged his mom and s...

January 21, 2020 Well. Let me tell you a bit about my experience here in Broken Hill. The closest missionaries are a 3 hour drive South from us. It doesn't rain here, it hasn't for 3 years, but IF it does, it rains mud, not water because there is so much red dust in the air that the drops collect it on their way down. I'm sitting in my first dust storm here. They happen 1-2 times per week. Just heaps of dust get blown in from the desert and it creates a big ominous cloud of red. Really exciting stuff! We have a little earthquake every night at 6:45pm because they do a mine blast at that time. Not only is there lots of environmental excitement here, but in my interview with President Marquis, we discussed how he felt that missionaries absolutely are needed here. After being here for a week, I will say that there is a great need for missionaries in this town and in this branch. The members are so keen for missionary work, the people we are working with are pretty so...

January 15, 2020 I know that I used this title for an email a few months back, but now I feel that it is even more applicable, considering the fact that I drove 2 hours on Monday, 5 on Tuesday, and 3 today to shake myself from 5 transfers (over 7 months) in Hackham West to my new area of Broken Hill, with Elder Jenkins. The Broken Hill Branch has between 10-25 active members and is located about 700 kilometers (435 miles) from Adelaide. We left the state of South Australia, to Mildura (a city located in the State of Victoria, then crossed the border of Victoria into the State of New South Wales.  Very exciting. Lots of red sand, white sand, orange sand, dust devils, little bushes, and trees that magically grow out of the red sand with no water. Also the boundaries of the  Broken Hill Branch stretch to the South border of Queensland (about a 6 hour drive) and a 3.5 hour drive East.  So...Yes I have been thrown into the wilderness, and I love it. In my intervi...

January 7, 2020 Week 74 With the holidays and partying coming to an end in Australia, missionary work is nearly back to normal! It has been a bit of a struggle finding anybody that is willing to take a few minutes and have a chat with us, but we have felt it shift back to the way it was in the past few days. We love the holidays and the Christmas season, but it would seem that when others overstress it, it becomes a hindrance rather than a blessing. In the past 10 days, I have been with 5 other missionaries. Elder Erdenechimeg (my assigned companion of course), Elder Beisemeyer, Elder Goodrich (my last companion), and Elder Cope. It is really exciting to change things up and see how other missionaries work in different ways, but at the end of the day, we are all doing the same saving work. The Happy Valley Sisters had a Baptism last Saturday, and our friend Angel came again (this is his 2nd baptism attending) and said that it was a very good experience. We hopefully will ...

January 1, 2020 How blessed am I to be able to email you all from the future! For me it is already 2020, but for most of you, you are all just beginning your celebrations for New Years Eve in 2019. Pretty cool right?  We had a few cool experiences this week. If any of you have served missions with a smartphone, you know that the area book is electronic, and it has glitches every now and then. One such glitch came while we were doing our daily planning. A street name was appearing and then disappearing. We took that as a sign from the Lord that there was somebody on that street that needed our message, so we went and knocked the street. Nobody was interested until the 2nd to last door. A man in his 20's opened the door, and as soon as I made eye contact with him, I knew that he was the reason we were on this street. After a short conversation with him, we learned that he had been meeting with the missionaries in another location in Australia. He had since moved to our...