Letter #46 (June 19th, 2012)

Hey all,
We are doing well out in Zamboanguita! Elder Padilla is super nice and
humble and just amazing. We are having a great time working together
and have had some good experiences this last week. with the new
apartment we have been able to really focus on helping the members in
the Poblacion area in town. We have really focused on helping the
members resolve concerns this week and have had some success with more
members coming back to church and staying for all 3 hours. We have
also had some challenges this week, starting with the rain, which made
it impossible for us to go up to some of our areas because the road
becomes impassible because of the water that is rushing down it from
the mountains, so a lot of our attention this week was the members
close by. We received a whole heap of referrals this week from all
sorts of unexpected instances, and have been following up with these
people to start teaching them. We have quite a few new potential
baptisms for this next coming month, and hope to work closely with the
members who gave the referrals too.

I just love the 12 week program... it is just awesome! I continue to
learn so much from it and I think some days Elder Padilla is a little
overwhelmed by all the things we cover in the 2 hours. Some days he
has very little to say and then others, so much to share! But we enjoy
our study time each morning even though sometimes it can be really
tiring. I have personally started to focus on my memorization skills
and have begun to try and memorize some scriptures each week as a
personal goal. I have found it really helps me to always be thinking
about the scriptures and the doctrine we are teaching. I have found
great strength in doing so. Also I have begun to study the New
Testament in my spare time and am trying to gain a greater knowledge
of the life our Savior and a stronger testimony of Him and His
mission.

We have 5 investigators at the moment, two guys aged about 18, two
really shy girls aged 9 (cousins), and one 18 year old girl who needs
to get married to her member boyfriend because they have a 1 year old
kid. So 4 of them will probably be able to get baptised next month all
things going well. The other one, after she gets married. All of them
were at church last Sunday which was absolutely great.

Hope you enjoy the gifts in the package tomorrow...
Miss you all lots..
Love you,
Elder Taylor Addison Cox

**************************************************************************************************************

Terri here: Taylor sent home a package to us. He got some scripture covers made. We just had to tell him what colour, and size. Apparently almost any colour is available. He also sent Reilly a wallet. They look pretty cool. He also is slowly sending home a Mahjong set. Too heavy to send in one package, so sending it in batches!! We were pretty happy to receive a package from him.