Letter #47 (June 26th, 2012)

Hey all,
This week has been great! we have had some success with learning how
to help out our branch to progress with working with the leaders. And
we are also now working with some investigators who are progressing,
even though slowly... We hope to see some baptisms this next month.
Our new flat is amazing and so easy to keep clean. We had the Croppers
(the couple missionaries for Negros) come and do an apartment check
yesterday and we got celestial rating for cleanliness. They gave us
icecream and mangos for that and i was happy! They also participated
in our companionship study in the morning which was great as well to
hear from their reserves of wisdom.

We had zone interviews this past Sat with pres. schmutz and we went t
dumaguete in the evening before and had this amazing dinner provided
by an americano member who lives here and his philo wife who cooked
the whole zone dinner!

We have been working with the less-actives again this week and have
recently found out that some of them are just shy to come back because
they have been away from the church for so long. So we are working on
getting members to come with us to the visits there to help out.

Terri here: I told Taylor we'd celebrate his birthday without him,but take photos for him and send them to him!! haha
We'll be celebrating here as well on my birthday with some of the
members at the beach. There is this one sister that has a house right
by the beach and we are going to do lunch there on that day probably
with the whole zone.

I got some funny stories from this week as well. One evening we were
walking down this one street and there are these to guys that look
like they are from construction about 40yrs old and as we walk past
them we notice that they are holding hands! We laughed soo hard... and
then when we made it to the highway one of the buses passed by and we
saw this one guy asleep on the window seet about to fall out the
window... he was basically hanging out the window asleep!
hahahahaha....

others things that have happened... Last night we came down the one bukid road that is 7km long... IN THE RAIN... we got wet even with our rain coats on...and at one point the bike slid out from under us but luckily the driver caught it cause we
weren't going fast, cause it was wet... but it was an experience all
right...

We have been caught by the rain about 3 times this week and got stuck
in members houses waiting for it to stop being the
"the-instant-you-walk-out-you-are-drenched-no-matter-what-you-use"
type of rain... fun times...

All things are great,
Miss you all,
Love you all,
Elder Taylor Addison Cox

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

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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.