November 27, 2016 - Thanksgiving

Man this week has been awesome! I'm going to start off with the confession that I forgot my camera at home today so don't have any pictures from thanksgiving to send but I think Sister Katzenbach already sent most of them home to mom :)

This week was crazy busy in a really good way. We had transfers on Monday, departing missionaries fly out Tuesday, and incoming missionaries come in on Wednesday. Then on Thursday for Thanksgiving we went to the Katzenbach's for lunch which was amazing. They invited 3 African Recent converts (Hannah, Fred, and Marshall) over and a solid African family (the Bundu's) from the ward so it was a party. Some of my favorite people in the whole world. 

Then we had dinner at the McPherson's, a Jamaican family in the ward, with a family from another ward and a couple other recent converts Alex and Phillip. Now that I've been in this ward for over half my mission these people are like family! After we finished eating there we went downstairs and as Elder Jakubczak and I lay on the floor unable to move. Literally if I would've tried to move bad things would've happened. Brother Pymm shredded some hymns on the electric guitar as we all sang along then went around in a circle and said what we were grateful for.

When we got around to Brother Pymm (who is a doctor) he said that he was grateful for Tracheal cilia. The things in our throats that protect us from getting things lodged in our throats apparently. He was grateful for that at the moment because his 1 year old had a cold and his tracheal cilia were getting the mucus out of his throat. I thought it was pretty funny and we all laughed about it but it's so true. There are so many things to be grateful for and every single thing is a gift from God. From how our amazing bodies are made to the gospel to a warm car to drive around to Jesus Christ. All given to us by a loving Heavenly Father.

Then to finish off the week Wes came to church again and is a STUD. He texts us to set up our next appointments if we forget to. Allieu came to church, sweet 9 year old kid who's mom was baptized 2 years ago but he was never baptized. And we had a random part member family show up who we will hopefully be teaching! Church was full of miracles! Plus Elder Jakubczak and I taught Sunday School on Eternal Marriage so that was a miracle itself.

Then right before we came here we knocked into an awesome Sudanese family of 6 who let us in to teach them and live right down the street from the church! So next week I'll tell you about how Mousa, Akir, Adout, Majok, Adaw, and Athiehg came to church!

Love you all have a great week!

And thank you family so much for the card this week love you and miss you all!

Love Elder Cox

November 20, 2016 - A visit from Elder Anderson - The Pride Cycle

This week was awesome! I don't think I've ever taken so many pages of notes in 1 week and learned so much in such a short amount of time. I'll share my favorite part in just a minutes but probably what amazed me most about Elder Andersen was just his ability to stand up and train for like 2 hours with no notes at all. He knows so many scriptures and quotes that the Spirit can just draw from his knowledge, it was amazing. 

We had the mission tour on Thursday in Iowa City, followed by an MLC with Elder Andersen, then the mission tour in Des Moines on Friday. When we got there on Friday I was expecting to learn the same things as I did the day before, but to my surprise Elder Andersen got up and gave a completely different training than the day before. Followed by  an hour and a half of open question/answer.

Probably the favorite thing I learned from Elder Andersen (and this fits in well with this week) was about how we can get out of the "Pride Cycle".

He drew the pride cycle on the board so imagine a circular clock: 12:00-Pride, 2:00- when we're prideful we alienate the spirit, 4:00- Failure, 6:00- Humility, 8:00- invite Spirit, 10:00 Success, 12:00 back to pride. 

But then he taught us something very important that I've never thought of, he taught us that there's 2 places in this cycle that we can get off: Success and Failure. 

Failure: If after failure, instead of being humbled we decide to be offended or angry, we get off the cycle and, as the clock-wise arrows are going at that point, we go down. And we all know what's down.

Success: However, if when we succeed, we give gratitude and are thankful for our success and blessings, we get off and, as the clock-wise arrows are going at that point, continue upwards. 

I thought this would be a good thought to share this week for obvious reasons. This is a time of year when we have thanksgiving and express our gratitude for the blessings we have. We are SO blessed it is unreal. And I hope this week and always we can express our gratitude and always continue upwards. 

I am grateful for you family and for all that you do for me and supporting me even though you haven't seen my face for 21 months! You're amazing! And I'm so extremely grateful for this gospel and for the brothers and sisters that I have out here in Iowa to spend these 2 years serving. They've touched my life way more than I could have ever imagined. 

Have a great week! Don't let your dads eat pie!

Love Elder Cox

Stake Conference split

Helping gather supplies to send to Liberia.

November 10, 2016- Heavenly Father knows His children.

Hey family, 

So we're on emailing today Friday because this weekend getting ready for transfers and mission tour is crazy busy :) Super fun stuff. Sorry to catch you all off guard.

This week has been awesome as we were able  to have exchanges in our area twice. We got to go and find some super cool people. It never ceases to amaze me how the Lord can place us in people's path, knocking on people's door who have had so many preparatory experiences in their life. And sometimes He even has us knock on someones door who is long-time inactive member but has recently started thinking about coming back... then Boom. Missionaries at their door. Heavenly Father knows His children.

Teaching Wes at the Katzenbach home!

I asked Heidi to geive Elder Cox an "Air Hug"for me-and it was caught on film!

We are still working with Wes, he is doing great we had an awesome lesson with him in the Katzenbach's home this week and have dinner in their home tonight with him and another lesson. He's into the Isaiah chapters of 2 Nephi so we're praying for him :) He is getting baptized December 17th.

Our favorite little African girl Reyna is also doing great and now has a baptism date of December 10th. (I told her it was 1 day after my birthday so we would throw a party together).

We also met a super sweet prepared family this week while I was on exchanges. The mom's name was Verna and while Elder Martin told her about the message we share about the Restoration and how we have a prophet here on the Earth she was amazed and just kept saying "Really?"  Their families are very faithful believers and have been bouncing around from church to church but said they just always feel something was missing. They're coming to church this week and I know that hole will be filled.

Love you all. Have a great week.  I'm sure next time I email you I will blow you up with all I learned from the General Authority coming to teach us this week Elder Andersen! (of the Seventy)

-Elder Cox

November 6, 2016 - The A-team, one-by-one.

This week we have been praying and working super hard to find people to teach and help come to church because for the past 2 weeks our teaching pool has been dwindling. But this week we were amazingly blessed and found some sweet new people. All from super different backgrounds but all prepared to receive the restored gospel!

Wes- I don't know what we did right to meet Wes. So he went to Basic training over the summer in South Carolina where a few of the people he met and became friends with were Mormon. He attended church with them several times and they gave him a small, pocket copy of the Book of Mormon. Fast forward 3 or 4 months, he's been reading his BoM and now in 2 Nephi and sees the Spanish Elders in a gas station and walks up to them and says "Hey I've been looking for the missionaries around here, I want to join your church."

Tender mercy the spanish elders don't teach English so they handed him off to us and we had an amazing restoration lesson with him then a church tour the next day. He basically knows everything and is super ready and will be baptized in about a month.

Reyna- Reyna is the 10 year old daughter of a Liberian lady who moved into the ward about 4 months ago. Her mom is super awesome and has a great testimony and we just found out Thursday that Reyna wasn't baptized! So we went over and had a lesson about baptism and Reyna is super excited to be baptized now!

Wilma- We were referred to Wilma yesterday and went over and met with her. Her story is very long so I'll shorten it. She's 79 years old, lost her husband 3 years ago to cancer, and lost a son to suicide 3 months ago, and is looking for her purpose in life. She's essentially been meeting with missionaries and been closely associated with the church for like 50 years, but was never baptized due to mostly her husband. But she has a Book of Mormon and has been reading it and I think the doctrine of eternal families means more to her now than ever before. 

This week I have been amazed that no matter what stage of life we are in, Christ is there. Instead of normal church today we had an area broadcast and we got to hear from Elder Rasband. He talked about how the gospel is on a one-by-one basis. We are baptized one by one, confirmed one by one, partake of the sacrament one by one. Jesus Christ suffered for us. One by one.

Heavenly Father loves each of his children one by one.

Love you family,

Elder Cox