Okay, so I guess I'll start off with the audition.  I was wiggin out on Monday night and essentially having a panic attack.  Okay... not that bad, but I was psyched out.  So I get to the place and it's this rundown "art school" for Junior High and High School kids in the middle of Tempe, which is pretty ghetto in and of itself.  I get in there and we end up having to wait for like... an hour or something because we were so early because I was so psyched out.  So they take me to the warm-up room and they actually had the "sight-reading" material in the practice room and they let you look through it, which was a blessing.  So I look through it and it's all easy stuff.

Then I go to the audition room.  It's dark.  There were two judges.  They asked me who some of my bass influences were so I told them.  I gave them the CD and played the song Almost 12.  One of the judges was a percussionist and I could see him trying to tap along with the beat trying to figure out what time signature it was in.  He couldn't figure it out.  I did pretty well with that, and right when I finished they said, "Alright sweet, let's jam". 

Uh, what?  Sweet!  So the one hops on guitar and the other on drums.  They ask me what jazz standard I want to play and I told them Donna Lee.  I was impressed to bring my Real Book with me, so I had it all ready to go.  They ask me if I can play the head (melody) and I tell them that I can.  So he tells me to play the head the first time through, then a walking bass line, then solo.  I felt pretty good about it.  Then they had me play some arpeggios, no problem.  Then they just had me play a couple different styles in a 12-bar-blues starting with Funk, then Bossa, and Samba.

Next they had me "sight read" the stuff that I got to look through in the practice room and It wasn't hard.  Then the guitar-man said he would sing phrases and I would have to copy them on the bass.  100% flawless.  Then he had me sing the phrases back to him.  100%.  Then he clapped complex rhythms that I also mimicked, 100%.  After that I was on my merry way!  There was an interview as well that wasn't too bad.  It was cool because for the first time on my mission instead of representing Jesus Christ, I represented myself.  The reason I say that's cool is because I could tell that Elder Cox and Dylan Cox aren't two different people.  I see a lot of times that it's almost like a switch goes off in people's heads when they're in missionary mode vs. non-missionary, or even gospel mode vs. not gospel mode.  I got to clearly see that whether I have a name-tag or not, I'm still a disciple of Christ and will gladly represent Him.  I even got to share a portion of my testimony about serving others during my interview.  Good stuff!

Whew, that was lengthy.  Anyway, other than that we've been picking up on the service hours.  It's been awesome! Saturday we helped pull weeds for a former investigator who we're going to start teaching again.  We did that from 10-12, and then from 12 to like 5 we helped someone move with our WML.  This was probably the hardest move I've ever had to do.  This lady had the nicest furniture I've ever seen.  And it.  Was.  Heavy.  She had a dresser that had a granite top and was made out of solid... really heavy wood-stuffs.  It took forever and I've been walking very gingerly since then.  But, we asked for service opportunities and we got some! This lady is a non-member too, and she invited us over sometime!  Service is legit!

Other than that, we're slowly getting this steam locomotive running.  Slowly but surely.  We have found a couple people and we're making progress!  Until next time, keep on keeping on!

-Elder Cox