So, surprisingly I'm actually back in my old ward in Maricopa. I've really never heard of missionaries re-visiting areas except for maybe the very last transfer of their mission, but now I've revisited TWO areas. I've been asked to step down as a zone leader and asked to be a district leader again. What they didn't mention over the phone, as I found out at transfers, is that I'll be second-half training. It's almost like deja-vu. Anyway, just in time for the warm weather coming in I'm back to biking all day.We had a baptism on Saturday! Obviously I didn't really know the kid because... I just got here. His name is Dierre. It's just like Pierre, only with a "D". He seems pretty cool though! His mom is still not a member although she was very supportive of him being baptized and was even crying and everything. We'll get her pretty soon I'm sure.
Apparently we have a couple more baptisms coming up too! One is an unbaptized daughter of an active family. I guess the family was just waiting for the dad to get the priesthood back before she was baptized so that he could baptize her. Makes sense. We don't really have to do much for it, but as far as statistics go...
There's this other lady that I only met one time who is on date sometime in april. Her name is Mardi if you want to pray for her!
Oh yeah, my new companion's name is Elder Mason and he's from Fairfax, Virginia. Seems like a pretty good guy.
Other than that, we have like a billion investigators, especially in comparison to where I just came from in Chandler/Gilbert area. After I left the Elders that were here were together for 6 months in this area so they were actually able to get things going. It should be looking good for the next few months I reckon.
I wish there was more to talk about, but I haven't really gotten my bearings on the new area yet so I'll have to be more informative next time. Sorry!
Jesus lives
Love ya'll
Elder Cox
Monday, March 16, 2015
Monday, March 9, 2015
Lessons! We got some! Woot! Only like 4... but STILL.
So the first was an older couple who are neighbors to our Bishop. The guy recently lost his sister in an unexpected accident. She was around 70 and she was carrying pizza up the stairs and fell backwards and broke...important stuff, her neck or something. Anyway, tragedy is a perfect opportunity for missionaries so we took advantage of it and was able to talk to them about opposition being a part of life, Jesus Christ, the Atonement, etc. It was superb.
So because of lack of teaching pool, we're trying different tactics to try and soften people's hearts. One of them is service tracting. Basically we dress up in p-day clothes and knock on people's door offering to do community service. We've only done it a couple times, but we actually found someone! She met with missionaries before when she lived in Mesa. She said she felt bad making us pull her weeds, but I was pretty persuasive and she let us do it. Long story short, we have some teaching opportunities coming up.
We taught this young guy named Mike. We're going to have to refer him to the YSA missionaries but first we're going to baptize him. Just kidding, we're just going to spark his interest a little more before handing him off. Not too much to talk about other than we shared a video with him and I'm pretty sure he was drunk. Woo!
We taught another couple yesterday about the importance of reading the scriptures. She tried to give us some crap about how she doesn't have time and blah blah blaah, so we told her that God recognizes the sacrifice when we make it, even if it's just 5 minutes and that he'll bless us even more. By the end, they committed to read the Book of Mormon as a couple every day and pray too! Pretty neat!
Still don't know about transfers, but I guess I'll let you know next week!
Love y'all
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Craziness, March already! Time just keeps flying by
Well, I wish there was more to report but sadly we literally didn't teach any lessons this week. 100% zeroes all across the board. We're pounding the pavement, mind you, but the fruits haven't quite been seen yet.
We did get a chance to stop by Rose, the lady that we helped move. She was really excited to see us and gave us hugs when we showed up at her house. That was pretty awkward. She's Italian so she's really expressive and funny. Anyway, her house is still an absolute mess from the move, and we got to just chat with her for a few minutes. We tried to slip in some Gospel conversation but for the most part she dominated the conversation, which is fine. She is interested in having us over although I'm not sure she quite understands the purpose for our visits. That can come over time, so I'm not too worried about it.
We had Stake Conference this weekend and had a visit from Elder Pino of the 70. The adult session was really interesting because they actually talked about Ward Council for the entire session. They even addressed the fact that it seems more fitting for a leadership training sort of setting, but that the direction given from Elder Ballard was to train the entire Stake about how to have an effective Ward Council. It was pretty interesting. President Toone was there as well standing next to our Stake President. It was pretty funny because our Stake President is probably around Rick's height, and President Toone is 5'24" as he would say.
We got to go on a couple exchanges which are always good. Still doing a ton of service which is pretty much the best thing ever. Hopefully it can soften some hearts and lead to some baptisms, but we'll see. Maybe the Lord has plans for us other than baptizing people.
Other than that, transfer calls are next week so we'll see what happens there. Our mission gets brand new iPads this Wednesday for... some reason I guess we'll find out. They're changing a bunch of stuff about how we do online proselyting and such. President Toone will also have god-like control over our iPads remotely, which is also pretty cool. He basically has a "big brother" program where he can watch our every move and turn off certain functions of our iPads remotely. So that's pretty neat!
I don't think I'll know by next Monday if I'll be transferred or not, so it'll actually be a couple weeks before I can let you know. They're changing a bunch of logistics about transfer week so... yeah. Anywho, have a good week!
-Elder Cox
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