Yes Mom, you're right.  Transfers are this week.  And sure enough, I'm getting trasnferred already!  Crazy stuff.  I'll no longer be serving in Maryvale with Elder Forson.  I don't know where I'm going yet, but we will find out this Wednesday!  Pretty crazy.  I know that I won't be training though, so that's a relief.  Most likely I'll have a different trainer in some other area.  Either that or I guess I could get someone else that's been out for the same amount of time that I have, and we train each other.  It wouldn't be the first time in the mission!  Everyone knew that Elder Forson would leave because he's been here for 9 months.  So it would be obvious that he'd be on his way out soon.  He became a Zone Leader.  The funny thing too is that at Zone Conference a couple weeks ago, they said they were going to make very minimal changes for transfers.  Well, that didn't turn out too successful, because half of our zone is going bye-bye.  Everyone is being transferred, it's insane.

 

So, I hope that no one has sent any letters recently, because unless I get them before Wednesday I'll have to wait many weeks.  Of course, I will let you all know what my new address is next week!

 

First off.  My legs are huge.  I bike probably 30 miles a day or something ridiculous, and it's awesome.  It's probably still around 80 degrees and at night it's perfect.  It's that "cool summer night air" that Dad always talks about.  It's awesome.  I have those awesome leg muscles where the muscle overlaps the knee-cap.  I'm so ripped.  Granted, absolutely everything else on my body is just getting fatter and harrier -- besides my head. My legs though?  Ripped.

 

Baptism this week!  Woot woot!  We baptized this kid Damean who's actually 8, but his Mom is inactive and works on Sundays, and his father-figure-guy-his-mom-lives-with is really not interested in the Church.  So we asked Bishop and he said since we've been teaching him and everything, it counts as a convert baptism.  So there you go!  Remember how a couple of weeks ago I went on my first transfer and I set Elder Zorne's investigator on date?  She and her son got baptized too.  So so sweet to see people entering into eternal covenants!  I had the opportunity to speak at the baptism as well about...baptism... and it was all good.  I never imagined myself being able to just teach lessons of the cuff, but Elder Forson and I taught about missionary work in Elder's quorum yesterday too, and it went well.  Needless to say,  being a missionary is amazing.

 

Can I just say how awesome the Priesthood is?  Literally being able to speak in behalf of God to support His children here on Earth.  What the heck.  I almost can't even comprehend how awesome it is.  The reason I bring this up, is because we had a sick streak of Priesthood-usage.  I used the priesthood 3 times in 24 hours.  I plan to try and set new records every transfer.  So awesome.  We gave a blessing to an Elder in our zone, as well as two of our investigators.  So awesome.

 

So, time for a humorous moving story.  We always share stories about terrible terrible experiences of helping people move, and this one is it.  We helped move this lady Synthia, who is an inactive member.  It originally was going to just be the other set of Elders in our ward, but they begged us to help them, so we did.  So we get to her apartment, and she wasn't there.  My first instinct would be just to leave because if you snooze, you lose.  But we waited for like 40 minutes and she finally came.  We were literally 1 minute away from leaving.  60 more seconds and she wouldn't have received the help.  Anyway, so she gets there and we go inside and as she starts talking logistics, she just starts crying.  She ushers us out of the house and just says "one second, I have to take care of some stuff..."  Uhh, okay.  So we wait for like five minutes and then she comes back out happy and smiling again.  So of course, she didn't really have anything packed up.  If I were a member helping her, I would just say "call us when you've packed" and then leave.  But I'm a missionary, so I get to be nice.  Not only did she not have anything packed up, but apparently she's getting evicted.  She was supposed to have her Dad come with a truck, but apparently he bailed or something.  This is where it gets really interesting, because she just tells us to put all of her stuff in the parking lot.  So we did.  Long story short, there was just a bunch of furniture, clothes, a giant mattress, a hooka, and junk all just in the parking lot of the apartment complex.  So weird!  On top of that, when we were taking her dresser down, we wanted to take out the drawers.  She kept insisting that we wait and let her take out the drawers herself.  Okay, whatever.  So we're all just looking at her taking out her drawers and she is quite obviously hiding "something" that was stashed away in her dresser.  Being the ssuuuuper "funny" guy that Elder Forson is, he asks her "what do you have that you don't want us to see?".  It was so awkward, and she very apparently had some drugs, and was very apparently using drugs.  I wish I could say that this ended up being a positive experience, but we ended up missing one of our teaching appointments, and the other Elders didn't even get a teaching opportunity from it.  So then we were done, and she said "thanks" and we left this crazy lady in her apartment complex parking lot with all of her stuff.  Weird.

 

Last story!  Did I tell you guys about the Hinkles?  I can't remember.  They're a member family that we have dinner with every Sunday.  They are super sweet people, and I'll probably miss them and the Foulks the most.  Anyway, they have non-member friends that they've been bringing to Church with them every week for a couple weeks now, and whenever we go over there we have the opportunity to teach them. (I'm pretty sure I've told you this before)  Well yesterday, they finally agreed to be baptized on November 2nd!  Elder Forson and I won't be around to see it, but it's super awesome nonetheless.  Sister Hinkle was crying again this week because she's just so shocked that we're able to get her friends and her mom to progress.  When you teach by the spirit, people really do understand.  The gospel just makes sense.  I don't know how anyone would not understand that it's just logical. 

 

Anyway, the mission is still super neat-o, and I'm having a grand time.  I'm really excited to see what transfers are all about, and I'll let you know about everything next week!

 

-Elder Cox