Meetings!

So, we had some meetings this week. First off, we had Spanish Conference! This is where all the Spanish missionaries in the mission come together and have some special training in Spanish and such. It is always an awesome time. We had to drive 2 hours to get there and 2 hours to get back. It was really far. Second, we had Zone Training. All the missionaries around a central point (Sioux City, Iowa for me) meet together and have some special training. It was really good and I got to see some missionaries for the last time, because they are going home. It was nice to see them and such. I'll include some pictures in this e-mail or subsequent e-mails.

So this week felt like it was only half of a week, because of the meetings but they were all good meetings so I didn't really mind it. But it was a pretty disappointing week. We had like at least 3 people that we had recently found or found a while ago "drop us". "Drop us" means that they decided to stop having us come over and teach them, or they tell us that through their actions, like being inside the house where we can see them and not answering the door (happened like 2 times this week). It's not very fun when that happens but what can we do about it? It's their choice, and we will respect it. Anyways, the bright side is that now we have more time to find new people to teach. 

I'm not really sure what else to say on this one. It's overall been a pretty great week, just without any stories or anything to tell. I guess I'll just close out by saying this: It doesn't matter if nothing works out; the thing that matters is that I am doing all that I can to serve my Savior and that is enough for me. The truly important thing is that I am striving to follow the Spirit of God in my day to day life and He will lead me where I need to go if I trust him and follow him.

Have a great week!

Elder Cox

P.S. Picture is of Spanish Conference

Zone Training

Week of Good

This week was almost awful. 

The end.

Just kidding! Ha, I don't think I tricked anybody. This week had some things happen that were pretty good and some that were less good. Overall, good week. The less good things: We found out that 3 of the people that we teach are not going to be able to see us anymore. They were 3 cousins who were all like brothers. The oldest, Pedro, was reading and praying and was gonna come to church. the other two, Pedro(2nd) and Jesus, were pretty much following his example. But, on Thursday we found out that Pedro had moved back to Guatemala to go to the hospital there for a heart condition and will probably be there for the rest of his life. The other 2 are now going to move out of state because Pedro moved to Guatemala. And that's gonna be like whenever they can find the right place to live, which will be soon apparently. It's crazy! It all happened like really quickly too! It's rough though. Now we gotta find a lot of new people to teach. 

The good thing that happened is what I really liked about this week. We had exchanges with our missionary leaders (who are spanish Elders!). The 2 of them came down to Norfolk and I went with an Elder named Elder Neuenswander. Imagine trying to a Spanish-Speaker to say that name. He goes by Elder Swan, to make it easy. We had a pretty fun day together. While we were working, we didn't have anyone that wanted to talk to us at that point in time, only got people saying that they were available on a different day or different time. Until after dinner. We found some Latino men moving a couch into a truck. We asked them if they needed help but they said no. So we headed into some apartments that were close by and headed up to the top floor to start tracting. We were followed up by a Latino women, which happened to be visiting the top floor apartment. Elder Swan and I talked to them and found out that she used to see the sister missionaries that used to be in the area. She moved and now we found her. That's not the end of the story!

This is the fun part. We were passed by a Latino man who was entering the apartment (we were talking just at the doorway) and the women became distracted by what was now coming to pass inside the apartment. The man had come inside to take quick measurements of the back screen door of the apartment. We soon realized that this man was one of the ones that we had seen moving a couch earlier. We came inside and asked if we could help. This time they said yes. They were gonna move the couch from the back of the truck up about 25 feet to the back deck of the apartment. there was only 3 guys and they were gonna try to do it. We helped them and were able to do it. It was hard, even with all 5 of us. I feel like we nearly saved their lives by being there lol. It was an awesome little experience cuz the women invited us to come to her home and talk to her about our message. 

Overall, it was a good week. Hope you all have a good week too!

Elder Cox

What is a missionary?

To start off, a brief explanation of how my week was. This week was pretty normal but in different ways. We have been meeting a lot of new people that want to listen to us and it's awesome. We've had some people that don't want to listen to us anymore and that is the opposite of awesome. Kinda really sucks when that happens. But, we've been able to find people to replace these people so it's all good. I've also completely gotten over my sickness that I had, which is super awesome. I hope that next week or so I will have a lot of information to tell you guys about the people we found and how they are doing. I figure I'll do that when we see them twice, just so I know them better. So yeah.

The reason I titled this email as "What is a Missionary?" because I kinda just realized that some people might not know exactly what a missionary is. So, I'mma explain it.

A missionary is a preacher. Straight up. In our church, missionaries go in Companionships, where there is 2 missionaries together to help and support each other. As missionaries, there are a lot of things we do. Here are some of those things:

1. We teach people about Jesus Christ, our church, The Commandments that God has given us, etc. We do this to prepare them to be baptized, which is the only way that one can be saved and enter into heaven. This is every day from about 11-9 p.m. 6 days a week. Mondays, we get to e-mail our family and friends (that's right now) and just have fun until 6 p.m.; then it is back to teaching and stuff.

2. We find people to teach. We do this in a lot of ways, like have members of our church tell us which friends they want us to see. But that isn't always how it happens. We subsequently turn to other ways of finding people. One popular way is to do what is called Tracting, which is going door to door and seeing if people want to learn. Not too effective, but It's not a waste of time. We try people that past missionaries were teaching but stopped for whatever reason. We find people on the street and talk to them about our church and stuff. We do this when we aren't teaching, cuz you can't teach if you have nobody to teach.

3. We study every morning. We have from 8-9 a.m. to read the scriptures and lessons personally to learn more for ourselves. Then, we have from 9-10 a.m. to study with our companion and to prepare lessons for people, help ourselves become better, etc. This is all to prepare ourselves for the day. For me and my companion, we have another hour of study from 10-11 a.m. to study Spanish, cuz we were called to our Mission to speak Spanish and we need to improve always.

I felt like I needed to summarize what I do as a missionary. So now you guys can know what I've been doing these past 8 months. Yeah, it's been about 8 months. 

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Cox

Little bit sick week

So I'm a bit sick but It's just a cough and a bit of a sore throat in the mornings. It'll pass. It wasn't as bad as one of the other missionaries here in Norfolk (there is an English set of Elders and us, the Spanish Set). He was so sick that he couldn't even do any work for like 3 or 4 days! It was really bad for him. But he's better now. I think I got a bit from him, since they come over to our apartment every day to have lunch (and because they live like 10 miles out of Norfolk in a town of 300 people). But I'm getting better, I assure you. 

It was a good week too. On Wednesday, we went to a small town called Madison and tried to find some people that were previously taught there. It's a small town but I'd guess that about 75% of the people there are Latino. This is because of a Tyson Meat Plant that is just outside of town. I kid you not, these meat plants just draw in the Spanish populations. These towns are in a lot of places in Nebraska and in those towns, there are Spanish Missionaries. There are at least 5 areas like that in Nebraska where I could possibly go to serve one day. In fact, Madison was once it's own area for missionaries, but that was like a year ago. 

On Thursday we helped someone move and on Friday, we met some people in a tiny town called Pilger. This town used to be bigger (like 600 people) but was hit by 2 huge tornadoes sometime last year. The town was demolished. Decimated. They had like 200 houses and now they have like 80 (it was a lot less when it was just hit). But now, this little town has 6 families that are members of our church all living like within 1 block! It's pretty crazy how many there are just right there. And 3 of the families just moved in! 2 of them said that they prayed to God and he told them to move to Pilger, Nebraska. It sounds pretty crazy, but I truly believe it. God has a work for them to do in Pilger, even if they don't know what it is. And it's all the more power to those families because they were willing to follow God's will, as we all should be willing to do. 

Have a great week, everyone!

Elder Cox

Information about the new area

So, to start off, my address did change, but if anyone wants to send me anything they can just slap this on their mail:

Elder Andrew Cox

Nebraska Omaha Mission

11027 Martha Street

Omaha, NE 68144-3103

This address sends the mail to the office of the mission and from there, they can forward it to me (or, in case of a package, give it to my leaders who will get it to me). This address is like the best one to send anything to because it never changes. Even if I move areas, the office will just send the stuff to me. It's a really easy and safe way to do it. anyways, on to the good part.

So, answers to questions about the area: My companion is Elder Pearson. (i can't believe i forgot to mention him in my last e-mail). He's been on his mission for like 2 weeks less than a year, so he's older than me in the mission. He likes to play sports (although he says he's more like a jack of all trades, master of none with sports), he likes to boating (which he misses), he likes a lot of the same music as me, and he likes hats. He loves hats (another thing he misses). 

More answers:The city of Norfolk itself doesn't have a ton of Spanish speakers (definitely not as much as Omaha does) and they cities around it have even less. Except for a city named Madison, which is apparently like a little mexico. I haven't been there yet but I'll go eventually.In our church congregation, we have like 4 Spanish families that come almost every week. There are a few that don't come to church that we go and visit but they are like either super busy or vacationing in mexico right now lol. I have been able to work with some of them in day to day missionary work like 3 times already (that's like quite a bit. In Omaha it was like 10 times in 6 months so yeah). The only problem is that there aren't too many Spanish speakers to teach currently and the ones that say we can come back often aren't there when we come back. Kinda annoying. 

I hope you all have a great week! I miss like all of you like 1% of the time :P

Elder Cox

TRANSFERRED!!!

July 13, 2015

So yeah, I got transferred. A transfer is when a missionary gets moved to a different area to preach. It is possible every 6 weeks and is a pretty big thing. I just got moved from Omaha (the biggest city/biggest population of spanish is the mission) to a town called Norfolk (pronounce by the locals as Norfork). It is in Nebraska, has about 24,000 people in it, and is awesome so far. There are also surrounding towns that we go and visit such as Wayne, West Point, Beemer, Pilger, Madison, etc. which are all smaller than Norfolk. It's a really awesome area so far and the people are great. We don't have a lot of people to teach yet but that's a work in progress. There are like 5 Spanish family in our congregation that come regularly and like 5 or 6 more that don't come. It's gonna be AMAZING HERE! My trainer, or first companion in the mission field, was here like a year and a half ago for 9 months, so I can mention him and get people's opinion on him lol. 

Anyways, I now get to find out about a different way of having an area. In Omaha, we covered a lot of different congregations' areas but they all came to ours. Now, there is only 1 congregation that we cover and it's a mix between english and spanish. We will have to translate when any of our investigators come to church and can't speak english. There is another set of elders in the ward that are english only and we ride together to the other cities to save miles/when we have dinner together with the members. It's gonna be a lot of driving. When we and another elder had to drive to Norfolk from Sioux City, Iowa, It took an hour and a half! and driving out to like half the cities I mentioned in the last paragraph takes like 30 minutes to an hour! It's pretty crazy. Some are only 20 minutes away but that's still like forever! 

IT'S SO EXCITING. This is my 2nd area and it's still so awesome just to be out here. I miss all of you guys but I don't miss just sitting at home doing basically nothing. I know that there is nothing else I could be doing that would be better than being out here, whether in Omaha or Norfolk. I know that I have been sent here for a purpose that only the Lord God knows. I trust him.

Have a great week!

Elder Cox

New President!

July 6, 2015

This week, we (being the entire Nebraska Omaha Mission) got a new mission president! It is something that only happens every 3 years! It's pretty crazy. I'm really excited to be working under him. He seems like an awesomely spiritual guy! He already started to make a few changes. Like one big thing that He said is that 30 days after someone gets baptized, our goal should be to go to the temple and do some baptism for the dead with them. It is an awesome idea! It's a great start to a great time with President Gardner! Also, we are to call him every time we set someone for baptism. Even if the call is just 30 seconds, he wants to hear from us. It's so cool!! President Weston, our old mission president, was a super good guy but now it's just a change. And I know that it will be for the better, because he is called of God to be our mission in this time.

Otherwise, this week has been interesting. It has felt like 2 weeks. Like seriously. And this Thursday, I will find out if I get transferred. I might, because I've already been here 6 months! I might stay here one more transfer (6 week period). It's crazy that I might leave. But I love the people here and, if I go, I'll love the people there too! I just know this thing of myself.

It's getting interesting here. We have a lot of people that have been taught all the lessons but are just dealing with difficulties and have to deal with those before they can be ready to be baptized. Like one lady we are teaching named Isela. She is 51 years old and really wants to be baptized. But she can't get sundays off to come to church. She has two jobs: Cleaning at the zoo and cleaning houses. If she finds more houses to clean, she can then quit her zoo job and be able to go to church on sundays and be baptized. She is also in need of a car to drive herself to work instead of her husband driving her to work. She needs that because her and her husband are going through a divorce, which also means that she will have to find a new house/apartment to move into. It's so complex. And there is only so much we can do as missionaries. But we have begun with her to make of list of problems to be solved and how to begin getting the ball rolling with them. We are realizing how important having help from the members is because there are members that can help with all of these problems. In our ward, we have 2 brothers that are lawyers (for the divorce), a brother who knows where to buy cars cheap (for car), and a sister who cleans houses and know how to find more to clean. It's really amazing how the Lord provides for us! The Lord makes up the difference when we can't do it all.

Well, That's all I got to say about that. Hope you all have a good week!

Elder Cox