October 5, 2015 - The Spirit of Nauvoo/Conference weekend!

This week I finally got to go through the Nauvoo temple!!!  It was worth the wait, and seriously one of the best days of my life.   There is so much church history there that the temple workers know about and in the lobby they have temple clothes from 1846 and pictures of Joseph and Emma. When I went up for the Pageant that the spirit in Nauvoo is super strong. That spirit is magnified more and more the closer you get to the temple. And when you get inside you just feel amazing!

I had a lot of very strong personal insights and revelations gained from the temple visit, but one of the biggest truths I was reminded of was that this is a gospel of love. The love you feel from the temple workers is always tangible. The love for my fellow missionary brothers that were there with me is unbreakable. And when we all got dressed in white and were waiting in the chapel to begin our session, I looked around (we sat on the very back row) and saw that everyone but the missionaries was a husband and wife couple. And every single husband, whether in their 20's or 90 years old, had his arm around his wife as we sat there listening to softly played hymns on the piano.

It hit me so hard that this is it. This is the goal. Families being together all dressed in white. The love of Jesus Christ drawing us all closer to each other and closer to Him. That is the purpose of missionaries, to bring others this joy. That is the purpose of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to bring happiness. That is the purpose of life! To have joy and happiness with our families and prepare to have eternal life with our Father in Heaven and our eternal family.

On the drive home from the temple it was me, the other 4 missionaries and Brother Bair. Someone randomly started singing Savior Redeemer and we all joined in. We ended up singing hymns for the next 45 minutes and the spirit was just flooding the car.

CONFERENCE: This weekend has been so amazing and fulfilling. I want to start off by saying I don't know if I can pick a favorite talk because there were so many awesome ones, but one of my favorite parts was the children's choir for the Saturday afternoon session! That was so cool! They were so little but they sang with the spirit and with so much power!

I also really loved Elder Lawrence of the Seventy's talk about "What Lack I yet?". What is keeping us from progression. Since that time I have prayed and asked Father what I need to improve on and I got a few very customized answers from the spirit that I didn't really expect. And I hope I keep receiving more things I can improve as I keep asking because I love being rebuked so that I can grow more.

Elder Bednar's finishing thoughts remembering those apostles who had passed was a perfect way to end the conference and remember those great men of God. Those last messages they shared had decades upon decades of experience and wisdom behind them, yet they were so simple. 

God delights in plainness is probably the biggest thing I learned this conference.

Love, Elder Cox