October 30, 2016 - New Mount Pisgah Stake

Found out today that in 3 weeks they will be splitting the Des Moines Stake and creating a new "Mount Pisgah" Stake. When they announced it in sacrament everyone looked around like whaaaaaaat. Especially since we're one of the wards on the edge closer to Mt. Pisgah so we'll probably be part of the new stake!

And since the zones and districts are aligned with the stakes usually, that means our mission is probably going to be opening up a new zone or something so that will be fun :) If anybody is a wizard at Excel spreadsheets and formulas feel free to give me some pointers.

This week we got to go to meetings in Quincy (Promised land), Fairfield (Meditator capital of the world), and Ankeny (basically Utah). While we were down in Quincy I got to stop by one of my favorite family's of all time the Voelkels! The meetings were awesome I learned so much about The Book of Mormon and it's importance in missionary work and it's importance in the the the world! It literally changed history it's amazing. I've had the Spirit witness to me so many times on my mission that the Book of Mormon is true. I tell people on the doorstep all the time "This Book is the reason I am here in Iowa right now". Because if people know that the Book of Mormon is true: they know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that the Church and Gospel are restored and we have a prophet here on the Earth today! I love how simple it is.

Hope you all have a great week this week!

Love Elder Cox 

By: Emily Cox

My Greatest Accomplishment

As I waited on stage for the show to start, I could feel my heart beating in my chest and the humid air around me, as everyone was nervous about starting in front of a crowd.  When it was the song before Maddi and I were supposed to go on, we were both very nervous and very hot as we read over our lines again and again. The song before us ends and we walk onto the stage.

As we walked on stage, Maddi and I tried to be calm because we didn't want to mess up our parts.  We start to say our speaking parts before the song starts and it is very hard to speak with a tasty gummy worm in your mouth and with the feeling of butterflies in your stomach, but when I saw my parents, friends and family, I felt a little better and didn't mess up once on my lines. Then the music started to begin, and the butterflies started to come back. It seems like there are billions of people in the crowd now and that the lights are even brighter. As Maddi starts to sing her Timone parts, then it is my turn to say my parts. As I sing the slow part at the first of the song I can feel the squishy pillow in my costume to make me look fat like Pumbaa, and I start to lose the scared sensation because I am kind of laughing at myself now.  Then Maddi says her part, "When he was a young wart hog!" And then right at that moment I built up all of my energy and strength in my vocal cords so that I could sing my loudest and burst out, "WHEN I WAS A YOUNG WART HOOOOOGGGGG!"  I had just sang the loudest I had ever sung in my entire life! I was so proud of myself and the crowd laughed more then they had the whole entire show. The rest of the show went great because of that one moment that I was brave enough to show what I could do and I even made people laugh about it too. If I wouldn't have done that any louder than I had, I would have felt bad that I let the crowd down first of all and it made me feel great about all of the other different parts that I would sing in the rest of the show!

I had the time of my life as Maddi and I lead the little kids around the stage during the instrumental part of Akuna Mata ta and we both totally forgot that we were in front of a huge crowd of people and just had fun with it like we had at practice. Maddi and I were kind of sad that the song ended, but we both knew that it wouldn't be the last time that we sang that song together. And it also wouldn't be the last time I would sing that loud either.

I do not know what made all of the weird, scary, stressed feelings go away at just the right moment. It might have been because the looks on my friends and family's faces, maybe something else that I don’t' remember, or just my own self confidence, but, I am glad that I had done what made me memorable and the fun person. It was one of my greatest  accomplishments.

Dear Davis, 

I wanted to send this story about "My Greatest Accomplishment" because it taught me a lot more about how you can do great things when you are brave enough to do them and Christ and Heavenly Father help a lot when it comes to these kinds of things. The other day as I said my personal prayer at night, the questions popped into my head. "What would I do without going to church?" and "What would I do if I didn't know about the Plan of Salvation?" I am very glad that our parents had us grow up in the church, because without it things would be pretty hard, I think. The Gospel and the power of prayer have helped our family through so many hard things in life.  And with church at the begining of every week, it keeps me going throughout the week and helps me keep Christ in my mind.  And I am also very glad that we know when our loved ones pass on to the next life, that we will be able to see them again. This also ties into missionary work too! I am glad that you get to teach the people of Iowa so that they can get to know about the Gospel and they won't have to live without this wonderful gift that we already have.

I love you sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo(times never ending) much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hope you have a great Sunday!

Love,

     Emmi

 Hey Emmi!

That's an awesome story! Do I get to see a picture of you dressed up as Pumba? Sounds like you killed it and thanks for your testimony at the end too that was awesome! Those same questions that popped into your head the other night are the same questions that people all around the world have all the time, and questions that I've had. I love how in the Gospel and in the restored church there's an answer to every question we have here on Earth, and most importantly about Heavenly Father's plan for us. 

Love you little sister thanks for being a great example to me of happiness!

Love Elder Cox

October 23, 2016 - Heavenly Father keeps track of all of his children.

After a long, somewhat slower week of lots of cancelled appointments (19 cancelled appointments, 2 actually went through) and hours of finding and praying to find people to teach: another super cool miracle! God is so great and knows just we needed to make our week awesome.

So we were pulling out of a trailer park and stopped to let a lady walk in front of us. As she was walking I was thinking: That lady looks familiar. Then it clicked. Jakubczak started rolling forward but I yelled stop the car! As I rolled down the window and flagged down none other than Coreana G!

For anybody that has an amazing memory, Coreana was the very first person I helped be baptized on my mission. Only about 3 weeks out. Then a few weeks after her baptism she moved to Texas randomly and dropped off the face of the Earth and everybody thought she had gone to Mexico and didn't know what to do with her records to keep track of her. Then all the sudden, 19 months later, there she is walking across the road. 

She told me was that when she moved into her new house a few months ago the first thing she did was put the picture of Her, Elder Lords and I at her baptism front and center above her T.V. 

It was the greatest feeling ever and the Spirit definitely taught me that Heavenly Father keeps track of all of his children. 

We also took a roadtrip out to Dubuque on Thursday to drop off Elder Covington, a Marshallese speaking Elder who flew in a different day than everybody else. So in our 3 1/2 hours there and 3 1/2 hours back we had to pull over a few times and stretch and take some cool pics with the fall colors. Elder J has a nice photography camera :)

October 9 2016 - ELMO is Baptized!

I hope everybody can just FEEL the energy that is going into this email right now because I am just excited and happy out of my mind!

Elmo was baptized yesterday and confirmed today and it has just been a raining down of enthusiasm from Heaven. You kind of have to meet Elmo to understand but this guy is just ON FIRE for the gospel. So of course today I'm going to share his story. 

4 weeks and couple days ago our Ward Mission Leader who works with Elmo at felt prompted to give him a Book of Mormon. Elmo loved it. A few days later he invited him to Kay's baptism where we met him for the first time. He came and loved it and felt the Spirit, then after came to lunch at the Katzenbach's with us where he essentially was taught the basics of all 5 of the missionary lessons over an hour period including the Word of Wisdom, Articles of Faith, and at the end Bro. Katzenbach gave him a priesthood blessing. He had lots of awesome questions. He is hands down the most intelligent person I've ever taught and seen be baptized on my mission this guy remembers everything!

Over the next couple weeks as Elmo learned about the gospel Satan tried to do everything he could to stop him. Didn't work. Elmo's a stud. He knows the stories of Alma the younger, King Benjamin, Alma talking to his sons, Ether 12, and the tree of life like the back of his hand. He even ordered his own quad from Deseret industries last week but wouldn't open it until he got baptized. I'm telling you. On fire.

After he was baptized he bore his testimony at his baptism service and just talked about how awesome the gospel is. About how ever since he's had the fullness of the gospel in his life he hasn't been able to stop smiling. Even through all the crazy hard things he's gone through the past week he says he's been the happiest he's ever been his whole life.

AND going back to Elder Oaks talk about using technology to spread the gospel. Elmo's super big into snap chat and he's been sharing the gospel/Book of Mormon with all of his friends. He took snap chat videos before and after his baptism and put them on his story. He said by the end of the day he had 3 friends who want to be baptized! Watch out missionaries in Texas here we come with them referrals!

We also got to go to the Nauvoo temple and Carthage Jail this week. Carthage was super cool to go through the visitor's center and take a tour of the jail. You feel the spirit testifying of individual things so strongly it's hard to explain. I walked out of that jail with a renewed unwavering testimony that the Book of Mormon is true beyond a shadow of a doubt!

Love you all hope you have a great week. Thanks for all you do for me, especially the things you do that I can't see. :) 

-Elder Cox

Brother Katzenbach and Elmo

And this here is a new dance move Elder Devenport and I created on a
long and lonesome road trip. It's called the BAP! (Similar to the dab but cooler for baptism day)

Sister Katzenbach, me, Elmo, Elder Devenport, Brother Katzenbach

Back row, Elder Devenport, ELMO, Elder Cox, Elder Jakubczak, Elder Merrell
Front row; Elder Rocha, and Elder Gunderson

October 2, 2016 - Not much time!

Hey don't have very much time tonight, since it was conference today and we had a couple other appointments so email time just kept getting pushed back more and more! Then Elder Devenport and I went knocking to reach our weekly goal of talking to people. Now it's 8:30 :)

But it's ok because I have pictures.

I'll save most my thoughts about conference for next week because it was so good but I loved the focuses of MISSIONARY WORK, Joy, The Book of Mormon, Repentance. There was tons of great focuses but those were the biggest ones I got out of it. I especially loved the focus on always being amazed by the awesomeness of the gospel. President Uchtdorf's first talk Saturday morning was probably my favorite of the whole conference.

I got the BYU basketball player in our mission, Zach Seljaas, to eat a ghost pepper this week at a meeting that was pretty great.

Elmo is getting baptized this Saturday!! He is hands down the most prepared/enthusiastic person I have taught my entire mission. He's pumped to get the priesthood and help us pass the sacrament!

Since Elder Devenport is going home next week I found out who my new companion will be! It's Elder Jakubczak! I served around him in Quincy for 3 transfers and I'm super pumped to have him probably be my very last companion for my last 3 transfers. We'll pick him up tomorrow and be in a trio til next Friday.

Love you all here's some pictures. Enjoy.

Elder Cox

-Pizza with Elmo in a sick conference room on the 5th floor of Wells Fargo

Set up the projector in President Badger's basement to watch a session of conference. This picture somehow contorted everyone's faces?

-Exchanges with Elder Madsen and Jackson