Mission Field of Dreams 2015-2017: November 20, 2016 - A visit from Elder Anderson

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