Gary's funeral

(Editor's note: Cooper's wonderful uncle, Gary Duncan, passed away last week. He valiantly fought cancer until Heavenly Father called him home. This picture is of the pall bearers in the family, consisting of Cooper's brothers, dad, cousins, grandpa, and uncles. We will miss Gary, but we know he must have an important mission to accomplish on the other side of the veil.)

Hey family,

I´m really sorry to hear the news that Gary passed away, I have to admit I teared up reading about how everything played out and seeing pictures of the funeral. Mostly just because it seems like everything went perfectly, and I can´t help but think about what the reception on the other side was like for Gary when he arrived. Funerals in the church seem kind of funny, because when it´s a really great person that passes away there´s really nothing to be sad about, just that you have to part for a little while. The fact that we don´t have to guess where Gary is is a wonderful blessing.

This last week I did divisions with one of the Elders in my district and we taught a woman who had lost one of her sons recently and gone through lots of hardships. Teaching the plan of salvation to someone who REALLY wants to know the answers can be very powerful, and that woman we taught shed a few tears as we talked about where her son is and when they will be able to see each other again.

In other news from this week, one of the families in our ward taught us how the Argentine kids do drugs and how the drugdealers work, which was interesting. They were telling us about how some drug dealers moved into the house across the street from them. The police and judges in Argentina are all corrupt and involved with drugs as well, so what happened was eventually a bunch of people in the neighborhood just got together and threw rocks and tore down the house. I thought that was kind of cool. They said that in Buenos Aires there are neighborhoods that have started to do the same thing. The neighborhood all pitches in money, they rent a back-hoe or some big machine and just knock the walls down of the drugdealer´s house when they get tired of it.

Another good experience this week was a girl that came up to us and gave us a Book of Mormon. She said her family found it and had had it for 2 years and when they saw us they figured they could return it to us. We talked to her about what it was (she had never read it) and we gave it back to her and invited her to read and she accepted. So that was kind of cool.

Also my companion this week basically told me his whole life story, everything that happened before the mission, and that he wasn´t sure if he had a testimony. He said he didn´t have one before the mission, but that now he does from the experiences we´ve had over the last 6 weeks. So that made me happy, cuz that was one of my goals for the transfer with him.

Well I need to go, but I´ll tell you the transfers real quick. I´m going back to the province of Entre Rios to a city called Federal. My new comp´s name is Elder Harold, so it looks like I´ll be with an American again. I thinks it´s been like 6 months since I´ve had a comp from the states.

Alright well I love you family. I´m sure the week was emotional. It seems to me like there´s a lot of good that could have come from Gary´s funeral. It´s good to take some time to reflect and think every once in a while.

Hey I just had the thought, Gary and I are probably serving a mission at the same time. :)

Have a great week everyone.
Love,

Elder Boice