A memorable week!

This week was SWEET! I'mma tell y'all why!

So on Tuesday, we were in Omaha on exchanges with the Assistants to the President. It was an awesome time down there. I met a family that just had their 2 sons baptized last weekend and they are awesome. Then, something very special happened. We had dinner at our Mission President's house. It was a super special occasion, because he had some young men passing through from his home are of Bountiful, Utah. He took that opportunity to have them go with missionaries and spend 3 hours that night working as missionaries! The one that we (elder Olsen and I) took was named Rafael Guerrero and he was awesome. We had a blast doing the work and meet some people that really needed to hear us. For example, we met a nice man named Dante. He was just getting out of someone's car and heading into his house when we stopped him and talked to him. He said that he didn't believe in God. We asked him why and he simply stated that he has tried everything to reach out to God and didn't feel that he was there (he was even a monk at one point). I then simply offered the Book of Mormon and testified that it was the way that I knew God was real. He seemed pretty short on time but we were able to talk to him for about 20 minutes total and the whole time he was basically asking for more. It was a very unique and special experience for my mission. And there was about 3 other times were the same kind of thing happened of someone not being that interested at first eventually listening to our message for a while. I loved that day!

That very next day, Wednesday, we had an awesome lesson with a man named Jose Angel. He is an old man from El Salvador who is amazingly humble and really just wants to join our church. It's honestly awesome. He accepts like everything we say and then thanks us for the 5th time in 10 minutes for caring about him. He is going to get baptized, once his fiancee gets here from El Salvador and they get married. 

Then, yesterday, we were trying some people from a list of names from like 7 years ago and we met a man from El Salvador who took the missionary lessons just a mere 20 YEARS AGO AND STILL REMEMBERS EVERYTHING AND ALREADY KNOWS THAT IT IS TRUE! It's amazing!! and once he gets back from vacation he wants to get baptized! WOWOWOWOWOWOWOW.

And all these awesome things are happening while this is my last week here in Sioux City. It's crazy. It's like a 100% chance that I'm getting transferred in 2 days but I don't know where yet. I hope somewhere cool!

Love you all!

Elder Cox

This week was a GOOD week.

So, recently we have been really struggling with our finding of new people to teach. It's really quite frustrating sometimes. BUT! This week, we found a total of 7 new people to teach! That's awesome. It's something that we have really been trying to do. It's really awesome to see how the Lord has blessed us for trying harder and harder. 

One of the ones we met is named Ricky (well Ricardo but he goes by Ricky). He speaks both English and Spanish. And he is awesome. He loves talking to anyone of any religion because he loves learning more. He has met with us before and this time we were able to talk a lot about how we can know that the things we teach are true. He has prayed before to know but has not received an answer that they are true. So we are going to work with him on that. It will be awesome! 

An other one of the people we met is named Jose Angel. He lives about 40 minutes west of Sioux City in a little town called Wakefield, Nebraska, where the only stores are the gas station and a Dollar General (just built too! lol). His wife died 6 years ago and he is about to be married to a sister of one of our very active members. He is so excited to have a wife again lol and is just waiting . But he is soooooo willing to do everything we ask him to do. He loved church yesterday and the week before (that's where we met him) and he wants to keep coming. He is an awesomely humble guy. 

And I just recently passed 9 months in total that I've been here in Sioux City and a little more than a year since I've been really close to Sioux City. I've grown to love these people and it's been a really fun opportunity to learn and grow as well. 

I love ya'll! Have a great week!

Elder Cox

Buenos Dias!

Man, this morning we had to translate for 3 and a half ours because one of the Members of our Branch had to get an eye exam. so that's why I'm e-mailing so late in the day. so I need to be fast.

This week was honestly kind of frustrating. We had to go down to Norfolk again and then also go to O'Neill, Nebraska both to help the missionaries down there. There are quite a few missionaries here going through some hard times in their missions. But it's awesome that we are able to be here to help them. So that's good. 

So we had 2 days where we weren't in Sioux City like at all. Like only for 2 hours to visit people on Friday. It wasn't fun. And, because of this, we haven't really been able to find like anyone who is ready to listen to us for more than once. They love to have us over once but after that, they don't really want us to come back to badly. So it is frustrating. We are working hard but we seem to lack something. We haven't figured out what that something is.

The good news is that Pete, one of our investigators is reading and stuff! So it is really awesome! 

The Week of Stress and HAPPY AMERICA DAY!

This last week we had something really special: Spanish Conference! It's where all of the Spanish Missionaries in our Mission come together and get trained by the Spanish Leaders and usually a guest who knows a lot about Spanish and how to be a missionary. Surprise! I'm one of the Spanish Leaders that had to give part of the Conference and plan and coordinate it all. So last time I had ever felt so stressed out involved a week with Spanish Conference all on it's own. This time, I was not able to sleep well for 2 days before, we had a 4 hour Leadership Meeting before the Conference AND the fire alarm in the Castle went off at 1:30 AM that morning. I hadn't even fallen asleep and so I don't think that I even fell asleep before 3:30 am, making me have like maybe 2 hours of sleep (we had to get up at 5 to be in Omaha for the meeting). So I know that it was only through the grace of God that it all worked out and that I didn't feel tired at all during the Conference. Before: verrrrrryyyy tired. After: kinda. MIRACLES, i tell you, MIRACLES.

So yeah. That's the high point of the week. otherwise, yesterday was AMERICA DAY! WOOOOH!!! We had an awesome ward picnic and ate some good food. We can't light off fireworks as missionaries but we had a good time watching them from the castle window. it was awesome. Merry Independence Day!

I hope you all had a great week and that you all enjoy FREEDOM!!!!

Elder Cox