The Change.........

So I'm still in Sioux City. And I have a different companion! It's not a new companion, cuz it's a companion that I had before again!!!!!!!!!!! 

IT'S ELDER WILTBANK! The one that I left to come up here to Sioux City only about 8 months ago! It's pretty crazy man. I'm including an old picture because I let Elder Jensen borrow my camera for a bit and he's gonna send it back to me. But yeah! He's my boy! The "Father and Son" are back together! (in the mission, when someone trains a missionary they refer to it as "having a kid" so Elder Wiltbank is my "son" lol)

So yeah, it's been an interesting week. I got him on Wednesday and that's when Elder Jensen left. We found some reallllllllllyy nice people while trying to contact someone that a member told us to go try and we got some papaya (which we both dislike) from this nice man named Esdras. He just let us in right when we knocked and fed us some mangoes too. He is awesomely nice. 

Then, on Thursday, we got a text from our Mission President asking us if we could go to Norfolk that day to do an exchange with a missionary who was struggling with motivation. We will call him Elder Doe. I had the opportunity to spend all day with Elder Doe and to help him through that time. The companionship had been majorly reject 3 times within 5 minutes and that just started a downward spiral for them. The other missionary had already started to be motivated and hopeful again but Elder Doe just said he kept getting caught up in doubts, fear of what others would end up saying, etc. so he wasn't motivated. We had a great day and we taught some awesome lessons together. One of the best occasions was when we pulled up to someone's house, we didn't really know what we needed to teach. So we just quickly talked about the family and made a little plan for the lesson. Elder Doe then said, as I was looking up a scripture, "I'm really glad we stopped to make this lesson plan. The husband of this family just got home, so now we can go in." It was awesome. Then, I gave him some advice to help him out during his prayers and studies, and this can help everyone. When praying, just start with 5 minutes of gratitude to God. Then, repeat a positive phrase 10 times to God. Then continue the pray how ever you want. When studying, begin with a prayer asking God for the answer to a specific question. Write down the question and pay attention to your feelings and thoughts as you study. By the end of the exchange, Elder Doe felt that the Spirit of God had touched his heart and he again had hope and motivation to go out and do God's work. He said that the prayer and study advice helped him the most and that is how the spirit of God was able to help him. He now feels that he has sufficient resources to fight off or prevent this lack of motivation the next time it comes, as this wasn't the first time that it has happened either. It was awesome to see that it wasn't what I said that mattered but what he was told by the Spirit of God. 

So yeah. That was a very key experience that i never want to forget from my mission. I truly saw the Atonement of Jesus Christ and The Spirit of God help that missionary to feel comforted and motivated. And I know that this can happen to all of us as we go through our lives. The Spirit of God can touch our hearts if we reach out to him and seek.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Cox