March 9, 2015 - DeZ MoineZ

Spiritual thought! I really like this quote but I couldn't find it before:

“The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature. …

“Yes, Christ changes men, and changed men can change the world.”

Me and my 2nd MTC district 

(taken by a 7 foot tall dude so it was a good angle)

Iowa Des Moines Mission Arrivals were met by 
President and Sister Jensen 

Elder Olsen, Elder Lords(My comp), Me

#1 Lesson learned this week: Old people take their Bingo SERIOUSLY. And they have no filter. So we volunteer at this rest home every Tuesday and help them out with Bingo and setting up and passing out prizes and stuff. I was helping out this one lady who couldn't hear very good and showing her which numbers they were calling out. She was trying to talk to me the whole time about the randomest stuff, and since she can't hear very much she was basically yelling the whole time and I was sitting right next to her. Apparently you're supposed to be quiet during Bingo so everyone else can turn up their hearing aids and hear the numbers, so everyone was getting mad at her and telling her to be quiet. They were brutal! Yelling stuff like "Shut up you're annoying!" "You can't come next time" and "Get some hearing aids grandma" (that one coming from a 93 year old lady)

Also whoever it was that told me Iowa was flat as a pancake should have to pay me $1 or something. Cuz this place is the farthest thing from flat I've ever been in my life. You're either going uphill or your going downhill. There is no flat. And you can never see for farther than 1/4 mile in any direction cuz there's hills everywhere.

I had a few cool tender mercies this week. The first one was Davon. He's an African American guy from Chicago that has a little 1 1/2 year old son, DJ,  that we found while knocking.

Quick little side note: most interesting thing I've found out about myself while in the mission so far: I LOVE KNOCKING. Before I came out that was one of the things I was probably most nervous about, but I love it. I've decided there's 2 things that can happen. 1. They answer and you get to meet some of the COOLEST people in the world. or 2. They answer and say/do something really weird and awkard or really mean or something that you and your companion just end up laughing about as you walk to the next door. or I guess there is a 3rd. 3. Your companion or you says something really awkard.. Like Elder Lords asking this girl if her parents were home and she ended up being the mom(I'll give it to him she did look like she was 14 not 25) And those are the funniest ones

Anyway Davon. He didn't answer until we had walked away, then he finally answered and we got to talk to him. He said he was Christian and already been saved. But long story short we got talking to him and ended up teaching him the restoration. He was way cool about learning something new and had a ton of questions. By the end he told us he believes we were sent to him for a reason. That he was at a point in his life where he needed to decide to turn right or to turn left. We asked him to say a prayer at the end of our lesson and in his prayer he said "Thank for giving me the feeling to open the door, even though I never open the door. And be able to hear what I have been waiting for even though I didn't know I was waiting for it."

It is amazing how the Lord prepares people.

Coreana's baptism

Also cool end of the week. Coreana got baptized! It was super cool to see my first baptism while out here in the field and to see how much it meant to her. Right before it started she just started streaming tears and she didn't know why. The spirit.

love you

Love Elder Cox