Tuesday, April 14, 2015

First off, we had a baptism  yesterday!  Mardi got baptized and it was great.  Pretty funny because the water level ended up being really low so she practically had to lay on the ground to get fully immersed.  Sweet old lady. Anyway, it went well.  There was a musical number with singing and a guitar which was different, but I liked it.  We also went to a missionary fireside yesterday for the youth because Bishop invited us.  We didn't end up saying anything or telling any stories, but it was good nonetheless.
Anastasia is off date because she didn't come to church.  She hasn't even talked to us for quite some time.  We saw her  and she just cracked the door open and said "it's not a good time" and closed the door.  So... that's that.  
With Matt we watched Elder Holland's talk from conference with him.  He seemed to enjoy it, but I dunno how much is really penetrating through his thick skull.  He came to church yesterday which was good.  The focus of the block seemed to be about prophets and Joseph Smith which I'm sure was helpful for him.
We met this less-active family because one of the ward council referred them to us.  Apparently the dad of the family has lost his testimony and is super anti so he doesn't let his wife go to church.  Fortunately he lets the kids go with their grandparents at their ward.  We talked to the mom and we're going to go over there regularly and just share uplifting thoughts with her on their doorstep.  Super sad situation, but hopefully we'll be able to do some good there!
So this week the zone leaders found some gold in the newspaper.  We noticed that they have a listing of all the houses in Maricopa that were recently sold, how big they are, and how much they were sold for.  Basically a huge list of houses for everyone in our zone to go tract, because according to President Monson new move-ins are a good opportunity to rope someone into the gospel, so to speak.  So, they cut out the list and gave it to the companionships in their respective areas.  We were going around knocking on the houses and one of them opens up and says "Hey Elders".  Naturally we were taken aback.  My companion stammers something about how she obviously has had contact with the church.  Come to find out she's a member and she has a non-member fiance that was meeting with missionaries in Tempe.  Woot!
So we went on exchanges on Thursday and I went with Elder May in his area.  We were teaching their investigator Deron (pronounced Da-Ron) that night.  Deron has been back and forth for a while.  He has a baptismal date but still wasn't sure.  We prepare a lesson about prophets and the organization of the church backed with a bunch of scriptures from the Bible.  We get to the lesson and start into it.  Long story short, the Spirit was super strong and he said he felt the Spirit for the first time in forever.  Come to find out, he was thinking about dropping the missionaries and thought maybe it "wasn't for [him]", but by the end of the lesson his mind was changed (or should I say, heart) and he said he had a firm commitment to be baptized on his date.  Way sweet!
Also with that exchange, I drank like 104 ounces of soda, and ate Taco Bell and candy which rekindled my testimony of healthy eating.  I felt like garbage.  I've still been having green smoothies every day for lunch but... supplementing it with Easter candy and Dr. Pepper.  You know, the healthy stuff.  
Last week for p-day we colored easter eggs, so that was fun.  Apparently I'm the only person in the whole district who will even eat hard boiled eggs, so now I have tons of them.   

Anywho, the church is true and being a missionary is legit.

Love y'all!
-Elder Cox

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