Super Hot and Almost Dying!

So it's been heating up here in Omaha and it was hard to adjust quickly to this change. and it was some kind of a week too! We had the opportunity to cut a yard of a sister in the church and so we did. It was like 88 degrees probably. It was pretty humid. We started with me mowing and Elder Jensen was working in the garden a bit. After a half an hour, it ended up being me mowing and Elder Jensen got mild heat stroke and had to stay inside while I mowed. It was pretty worrying but that day it quickly subsided and such. He felt fine later that day and it all passed. 

But then the next day, We had a nice huge meeting with like all the missionaries in the city of Omaha and it was so awesome! President Weston (our mission president, or the leader of all the missionaries in the Nebraska Omaha Mission) gave us a nice "last interview", because he is leaving this month and we will be getting a new Mission President, which is awesome! But another thing that happened, is that Elder Jensen like fell of of the stage in the church building we were in and it wasn't as bad as it could have been. But, his knee has been hurting ever since, which is a sad thing. He has a bone doctor appointment though, so this injury might help him prove to the doctor that his bones really have a problem. So blessing in disguise? I think so. 

Anyways, it's been raining the past two days and had a nice huge thunderstorm last night, which was awesome. Anyways, It's going really good out here. I have been really really really enjoying my time here and I know that This is the best work I will be doing! Have a nice week guys!

Elder Cox

Excellent!

This week was as the title says. I don't really have a lot to say about this week but we've just been working and having lots of success. I'll just update you guys on the a person that we've been teaching and some fun facts about missionaries and what we do together.

First thing, as missionaries, we have a meeting every week with a few other missionaries that are in a group called a District. There are like 3 Districts in a Zone. the weekly meeting is called District meeting. It's really cool and we get 2 Trainings, one from the District Leader and one from any other missionary in the District. I got to give a Training this week and it was really fun. I had to study a topic and help others understand more about this topic and stuff. It is a huge learning experience. this is my 2nd training that I have had the opportunity to give. fun facts.

New investigator that we have: Name: Pablo. He is living with his sister, who actually goes to an English congregation of our church with her husband and kids (usually). I mentioned Pablo last week in my E-mail, he was the one who just showed up at church that we taught. We had dinner with this family on Monday and taught him again on Saturday and Sunday (SO MANY AWESOME LESSONS). He's from Ecuador and has been here like a month now. He's taking English Classes and showed us his English ability (he's pretty good for 1 practicing class recently and studying for like 1 year in Ecuador). He's just a guy looking for the truth. He asks tons of questions and is really interested in finding the truth. His sister is like reallllllllyyyy good at explaining things in perfect Spanish! She taught like half of the lesson on Saturday, which is like perfect. Our Spanish is totally bad compared to hers, I swear. also, It's Spanish from Ecuador, which is ever so slightly different than Spanish from like Mexico, which is like mostly what we as missionaries learn. It's like the difference between British English and American English, but not quite as much as that. It's hard to explain.

Well that's about all I got for this week. The weather has been hot and kind humid this last week so I can tell that Summer is gonna be SO MUCH FUN right?! I don't like it too much XD I just sweat a lot, so it's not the most fun thing in the world :P.

HAVE A GOOD WEEK EVERYONE! 

Elder Cox

The Week of Miracles

This week had many miracles. A miracle isn't exactly like what you might think. A lot of things can be miracles. I'll begin listing them. (I think I even forgot some so yeah)

1. Tuesday: A member called us to help her husband who is feeling sick. He has a kidney stone and so she asked for a blessing of the sick for him. (him being sick isn't the miracle). We went there and they had asked a friend of theirs who is in an English church congregation (the member family goes to the spanish) and we gave the blessing. The miracle is that he is a bone doctor and Elder Jensen (my companion) has like 3 different bone problems that the doctor can help with. MIRACLE for Elder Jensen!

2. Saturday: We were tracting (which means knocking doors to try to find people to teach). It was an apartment building that was given to us by some other elders to try. We try like 12 apartments and like 2 people said to come back. We decided to try some other ones real close by and we then found a man named Caesar. He had missionaries visit before but I'd never seen him before. He welcomed us in graciously and we had an awesome lesson with him. He says that he intends to get baptized soon. So Awesome! Much Miracle! So Wow!

3. Sunday: At church, there was these two people, a man and a women that like no one knew. After Sacrament meeting, we introduced ourselves and found out it was a member that usually went to an English ward and her brother who just moved here from Ecuador and is searching for the true church of God. We taught him during church and have dinner with him and his sister's family tonight for our next lesson. Such a MIRACLE! This is like the biggest one because we have a huge problem with getting people to come to church. They are always working on Sunday or just don't come. 

4. Sunday: After dinner with an awesome member family, we tried a referral given to us by the sister missionaries of the ward. He's a man who wants to learn more about God and wants to come to church! He's gonna read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it is true and will be at church next week! MIRACLES EVERYWHERE! 

It was an awesome week! The Lord has given Elder Jensen and I many miracles and it's been awesome! I love being out here and all the ways that God is giving me to help and teach and serve the people here in Omaha! TTYL!!!

Elder Cox

A Day Late, Dollar Short Pt. 2 (feat. Elder Shipley and Elder Holman)

So yesterday was a federal holiday, which means all the Libraries are closed. In other words, we weren't able to e-mail yesterday. What makes it even better is that we forgot about that and were almost to the library when we realized that XD. It was really funny.

So this week has been quite... disappointing (although that's a pretty strong word to say). Four days out of this week have been cancellation after cancellation and it felt like there was no end to that. On the other days, only 1 or 2 plans didn't fall through, which made it even more discouraging. It was just one pothole after another on our journey through this week. And this had happened a lot the week before too! I was pretty discouraged and felt like giving up for a while but Elder Jensen helped me by motivating me and helping me see that even though we haven't had appointments, we've still improved ourselves throughout the weeks. This week is already off to a good start because we saw a family that we hadn't seen for like a month and a half (super long time man). I've really ready to work this week through and have a great time out here. 

So, the reason the e-mail subject says "feat. Elder Shipley and Elder Holman", is because last night, we had 2 elders by those names sleep over. They are just ending their missions and needed a place in Omaha to stay (Omaha is like the overall headquarters of the Mission). They were super cool and had some great stories and experiences to share with me and Elder Jensen. Elder Holman had served in Omaha Spanish like one year and a few months ago and had some advice for us on people to see. It was awesome to be able to hang with them for the night (although we went to bed a lot later than we should have). We played a game of Settlers of Catan and talked some Spanish. 

I'm doing good over here. Hope you are all doing good too!

Elder Cox

The Spanish Week!

This week there was something called Spanish Conference on thrusday! It's where all the Spanish missionaries in the entire mission gather and have some specifically Spanish trainings and such. It was awesome! I got to see basically everyone that I'll ever have as a companion (unless I train a new missionary or am with a newly train missionary later on). I have a picture of it that I will attach. You can see all of them and they are all super funny and awesome to be around.

This week was a bit discouraging. We had 3 days (not in a row luckily) where like literally all of our plans fell through one by one. The only plans that didn't fall through were dinner plans, which I'm super grateful for XD. But not all of the plans fell through without a back up plan working out in a way that was almost better than we hoped the first plan would be! It was really cool, but still, it isn't fun when things fall through over and over. but I know that if I trust in God to help me plan better and know who else I need to visit. It's not easy but I can do it with the Lord's help.

It's still going so good out here tho! Don't you guys be worrying about me at all! Hope you are all doing well too!

Elder Cox

Week of the Interview *dun dun DUN*

So, this week was the week where I had my first interview with the Mission President, who's name is President Micheal Weston (just like in burn notice, the USA channel t.v. show). He's a pretty tough cookie. It was an awesome first and last interview with him. He is leaving in June I think and will be replaced by someone else. Apparently, he went easy on like everyone this time around (I wasn't the only person getting interviewed; every missionary in the mission had interviews this last 2 weeks). It was awesome to get to talk to the person that is literally Called by God to be my leader and the leader of all the missionaries in this mission. He's a pretty busy guy so I don't get to see him often or talk to him face to face. It's mainly just the weekly e-mail he sends all the missionaries and through our missionary leaders in our district and zone. One thing I am going to start doing to accomplish my goal of becoming more healthy is to cut back (majorly) on my sugar intake and to exercise more diligently every morning for 30 minutes. It's something that he suggested to me to do and it's something that me and Elder Jensen want to work on. 

In other news, I got to Skype my family! 2 times a year, Missionaries get the opportunity to call or Skype their parents. This happens on Mother's Day, which was yesterday, and on Christmas. It was super cool to see my parents, one of my 2 brothers, my sister, and my dog. It is awesome! 

!Cool story! We were visiting this member who is having a lot of problems and that we want to help. We weren't able to talk with her long but when we returned to our car, some drunk guy across the street called us over. He told us that he had stopped someone from stealing our car when we were talking to the member. He also asked us the differences between his religion (he is a baptist) and our religion. I gave him a Book of Mormon so he could read it and find the differences. He said it was hot to the touch, which was super weird. We then said goodbye and went on our way. It was such a miracle to have some random guy stop someone from stealing our car! (especially a drunk guy!) 

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Cox

A Week in LA! (not really lol)

So, I say a week in LA because LA means Less Active. A less active family is one that hasn't been to church in a while. We were asked by to go to a lot of houses of Less Active members to see if they still live there. And there have been a lot of them (and a lot more to go!). We spent about all week trying to do this among the rest of our missionary work (we work with less active families but not like this otherwise). We have like 30 house to try and we have confirmed with like 13 that the person no longer lives there. It happens a lot because the people are basically all Hispanic, and they have to move a lot to find jobs (just a fact of life sadly). So there are a lot of addresses that are incorrect for the people and we have no idea how to find them. Pretty difficult situation. But, through doing this, we have found quite a few people who are interested in having us teach them who live at the house of the person we were looking for. It's really awesome to see that by doing one part of missionary work, another part was helped. 

Otherwise, this week was pretty normal. Been pretty fun because Elder Jensen (my companion) is super awesome and we are always having fun together. It's just been super great out here. Never have to worry much about food, we have a car to drive around the city, the people here are really awesome.

What I can tell you about was the Cinco de Mayo Celebration that was going on. There is a street called 24th street that is about the center of the Hispanic population of Omaha. They have a section about 6 blocks long (which is half a mile) that is entirely Hispanic stores. Names like La Unica (dress shop), El Conocritto (restaurant), El Rey (restaurant), International Panaderia (bakery), etc.and it looks like a little slice of Mexico in Omaha. For Cinco de Mayo, they blocked off this part for cars and had a carnival that ran for 3 days (not in the nights though). It had rides, performances by like local mariachi bands, people selling stuff at like every corner, IT WAS CRAZY. Tons of people there. We went there to try and pass out stuff but it wasn't successful. People didn't want to talk to us sadly. But it was cool to see just how many people there were and how much of a cultrual even there was. It was super cool to see. There was a bunch of members of out ward that went too but we didn't see them there when we were there.  (P.S. I didn't have my camera neither could I have taken pictures while I was there sadly. If it was running today, I'd go and take pictures)

Well that about sums up the week. Hope you all have a good one!

Elder Cox