Letter #79 (6th Feb, 2013)

Hey all,
Things are doing great here in the city. After a 4 hour planning session last week everything just went so smoothly this week (with a few normal hiccups along the way). Just back from the temple... it was great! I miss the temple. It feels great every time I go there. Elder Harris and I have had an interesting time trying to fill up our teaching pool again this past few weeks and its been great to see the  blessings from our Father in Heaven as we have received referral after referral this past week. Even just yesterday and again this morning. Our work has been filling up slowly as we continue to look for all the less-actives on the ward list. But we also have some frustrating days every now and again. Just this past Monday we got punted at every lesson except for our last one... so we went looking for the less-actives in  the area, and ended up getting led around in circles until we met this one guy who actually knew people from the area, and told us this brother had been dead for 9 years now (where were his home teachers?...) but we are having success with the list finding those members that have been lost for a long time and want to come back. These past two weeks we have contacted over 10 individuals that we had never heard of before (or even the members have heard of for that matter). We still haven't found that guy that's 107 years old, but when we do ill let you know... jujuju
We are having some more success with the members in the ward again, with lots of appointments actually being confirmed, and the people actually being in their houses waiting for us when we go to  visit. Also the youth are really pushing the rescue the one in the ward and are leading the other quorums and auxiliaries in fulfilling their area goals. We have some young men been helping us to visit the less-active youth in the ward and it has really helped. The ward mission leader has really taken it on hi m to really help out with coordinating our work with the ward and we are beginning to see some really good progress in terms of information getting to and from the auxiliaries and quorums. Speaking of which, San Nicholas ward has really started to pick up their game with preparing for missionaries, getting their ward mission plan started and trying to get the home teaching and visiting teaching up and running. It will be good to see the progress they begin to make this month and this next transfer, to see if they are really prepared for the missionaries.
Oh, by the way, this next transfer is the short one when we sync with the other missions for the transfer day. We will be preparing the Basak house this week and furnishing it for the incoming missionaries and moving in ourselves... yup! moving house again... it sucks... but the new house is huge...  send you pictures when we furnish it up. The house is still in our area though.
Elder Ernstrom, the office elder (hes absolutely hilarious), said we should put in Elder McHale and Elder Afu in the area so no one will mess with the elders... cause these two elders are huge beasts of pure muscle... no joke... ill try and get you photos... jejeje. We are excited and so is also the Basak ward for the new missionaries. Basak ward has put forth so much effort to get missionaries back in the ward and even have 5 investigators or so, coming to church every week and being taught by the ward missionaries. The bishop has really pushed the leadership to really get into gear to help the ward to progress, and we have really seen his efforts this past month. We are excited for the progress we will see in the Basak area this next transfer.
The boundaries for the zone are all figured out... they just haven't been updated by the area yet... and they are planning on changing them again but haven't put the changes in for approval... typical problems in the pines.
Having a great time in the city!

Not much else happened this week that was exciting enough to tell you... just the normal missionary work. Looking forward to that package... ^.^

Miss you all,

Love you tons,

Elder Taylor Addison Cox

Letter #78 (30th Jan, 2013)

Hey all,

We are all doing good here in the city and in central zone. This week has had some interesting experiences. We started out getting punted a lot in the work, but we learned a lot of patience and perseverance... then we had some fun looking for more people on the ward list of 646 members. We found this one guy while we were searching for less-active members, that we thought was a member and started visiting with him only to find out from members that he was never baptized and is still an investigator. Yay! Investigator! He seems to still be really interested in the message and we are trying to visit with him more to teach the Restoration again. Then we had a really weird experience on Monday with trying to visit with this brother. We went to his house because we had scheduled to come back but it turned out that he wasn't there but had taken his son to the hospital. So we sound out which hospital and decided to go there and visit. We even felt strongly that we should go there. So when we get to the hospital and start looking for where his son is admitted, it turns out they aren't even there! We went from on ward to another in the hospital being led around by the nurses trying to find this man and his son, but they just weren't there. We were so confused about why we were there and why we had felt so strongly to go, but as we were walking back to catch a jeepney home we both acknowledged how we both felt a sense of peace. We have no idea why we were prompted to go when they weren't even there but maybe it was to keep us from something else. Also that night while we were waiting for a jeepney to catch home, this one lady who looked like she was homeless walked up to us, reached into her cooler bag and pulled out a perfectly ripe banana and handed it to Elder Harris, saying (in perfect English mind you) "One for you". Then after walking away about 20 feet or so, she turned around, came back and gave one to me also saying "And one for you too" (or something very similar which i cant quite recall). It was a very strange experience and we both just looked at each other and the bananas we had both received. That night before I ate that banana I prayed for that lady that she would always be fed by the hand of the Lord for her act of kindness to us that evening. The strangest thing though, was that she didn't give a banana to anyone else that was sitting next to us or near us, but just passed them all by. It was an interesting day that one.

Then while we were having sacrament meeting there was some jeepney driver who tried to pick a fight with a member who was coming in during the opening prayer. The member had told the jeepney driver off for stopping in the middle of an intersection to let off passengers (which is bawal jud), and the jeepney driver was so boang he followed the member down to the chapel, go out of the jeepney (leaving all his passengers sitting inside) and started to yell and scream at this member and try to fight him. I don't know what was on this jeepney drivers mind, cause he was this scrawny little dude and the member was a big fella, with long hair in a ponytail, who rides a motorbike. I wouldn't even dare to pick a fight with this member... especially if i was that jeepney driver. So that was a strange day as well.

Elder Harris and I are having some great success with the members as well. We are getting the young men working with us as well and have found so many less actives from the ward list... at the moment we know about 290 members on the list. We still have quite a bit of work to go but we are excited with the progress we have made. We have met about 10 new individuals this past week and have return appointments with some as well. We are really focusing on the rescue mission at the moment and involving the members in the work so that they can begin to work on the area goal of rescue the one. We have been teaching the active members at church about reading the scriptures everyday, and about how to become effective fellowshippers and we have begun to see some improvement in the efforts of the ward.

Elder Harris and I have worked so hard this past week to get everything happening in the ward and the zone, encouraging meetings to happen and explaining more to our ward mission leader about his role and responsibilities. We had the greatest weekly planning ever and went for almost 4 hours planning everything for out work, working with members, meetings, the needs of our less-actives, how to get more investigators in our teaching pool, and so much other stuff. It was an amazing experience. Elder Harris and I have also had some fun trying to find a house for the Basak missionaries and had some great success with that on Monday also, right after district meeting. We have definitely seen the efforts of the Basak ward to prepare for the missionaries and feel that they are very much ready for missionaries to be put in the area there. San Nicholas ward has also begun to progress with the ward mission leader in the ward coming up to us and talking to us and asking us about what he needs to do to prepare for missionaries to be put in their ward. It came as a surprise as we had heard from the bishop that the ward mission leader had not been going to the ward but then he comes up to us on Sunday and asked what he needs to do to fulfill his part. So it will be good to see what begins to happen these next coming week in terms of the preparation of San Nicholas ward in getting ready for missionaries in their ward.

The city is definitely a different experience, but the biggest shock for me was going from the bukid where you talk about "the acacia tree", and the "big rock", to the city where its all streets and route 12L and 6B and 10G... it just took some getting used to and having to switch my mind back over to street names and things like that. So the "city" i am in right now is probably the same level of "cityness" as Blacktown... down the road we have our "Westfield" and similar traffic to Richmond road, except Pinoy style (more samok). Then if we need anything, we can get it. It makes it so much easier than living in the bukid, with everything so close and available. I can definitely see the benefits to both ends of the scale. But other than all that crazy stuff nothing much has gone on this week... jejeje... just the typical missionary work.

Miss you all,

Love you tons,

Elder Taylor Addison Cox

 

 

 

 

Letter #77 (23rd Jan, 2013)

Hey all

Both Elder Harris and I have been sick for the last couple of days... it sucked... it messed with our work a little bit as well, as much as we both tried to keep going everyday. But just these last two days have been great as we have had our energy come back we have been staying on track for our goals and we are having some good success in the area. Just this last week we pulled out the master list of the ward and started going through it marking off all the members we are working with and the ones we haven't met yet. We have 648 members on the list. Yes! 648! That's like tons! And I made it my goal to find out about every one of these 648 before I transfer, whether they are active, less-active, in-active, have moved or have passed away (we have one that says the guy is 107 years old... either he's dead, or I really want to meet him!). We have started sorting them into areas so we can work on finding them all. We have already started with some success, and have found quite a few.. and realized that the task ahead of us is quite daunting. But we are excited with the new energy it is giving us especially when we are punted from our lessons and when people are not home, because it gives us something we can done with our time that is really productive, and gives openings for FTEs as we go around asking where these people live. We have been taken round in circles in some areas looking for people and even ended up asking at the baranggay hall if they have a record of the person as well. It has really helped me to see the importance of constant home and visiting teaching. The immensity of this task is exciting for me and I feel like it will really help me to gain a love for these members in really getting to know every individual.

Another thing that Elder Harris and I have been focusing on with the less-actives we are teaching is praying everyday, reading the Book of Mormon everyday and gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith and of the Church. I has had some amazing results with members coming out with their true concerns, and even some who have no testimony, who we are trying to help to gain such. Its like having to start all over again with them. We have even began focusing this towards the active members too, that whenever we have an opportunity to teach them we teach reading the Book of Mormon everyday. We have found we can count the members in the ward that read daily on our fingers... and that's pretty sad to be honest. We would like to see that the members are reading from the Book of Mormon daily and with their families too. We have a determination as a companionship to not move on to any other doctrine until those we are visiting are reading from the scriptures daily. We have come to realize unless they are reading there is no point teaching other doctrine because they have no foundation without their reading. It has had a profound effect on our teaching that has really helped us to help the people we are teaching.

We had a meeting with Pres. Mondig the stake President, this past Sunday about the missionary work in the stake and about how the wards are doing in preparing to receive missionaries. We told him about the progress or lack of in some of the areas and he said he would work on some of the issues we talked about, such as PEC happening every week. There are some wards that are still only doing it once a month... and still have in-active ward mission leaders. So they will not be ready for missionaries yet, but we feel that Basak is ready, and are going to look for a house this week. We also have some big problems with the ward boundaries in the wards... we don't know what they are... when we checked on the church website with out clerk and printed them out, and showed them to the Capitol and Arlington elders in our zone they told us that it is a big problem for Arlington ward, because half of their leaders are actually in the Capitol ward according to the maps on the churchwebsite maps. So we're gonna have to check them some how with the stake and get them fixed.

Miss you lots,

Love you tons,

Elder Taylor Addison Cox

 

Letter #76 (16th Jan, 2013)

Hey all,

Just to let you know I got my license today from the LTO. It was an interesting experience to say te least... first was some lecture by this woman who kept telling the people that when the results of the written test were checked, they could argue about it cause it was checked by a machine. She informed us about some things to do with the rules of the road here, then we started the written test. 40 multiple choice questions with a 30 correct pass. So I got my license.

Things have been doing pretty well this last week. The area is very slowly improving and is very different to what I was expecting. The work is harder than I expected but I received some inspiration and ideas from the workshops yesterday at our zone interviews (just the 6 of us elders in the zone...jejeje) of how I can improve and make things a little easier in terms of teaching.

Elder Harris and I get along really well, and have some times when we get depressed a little about the work, but we try to help each other to push and stretch ourselves. We had this one night that we hadn't reached our goal for FTE's and the people were all being wa'y claro when we tried to talk with them. So we stopped under this street light, and weighted for about 5 mins and we had 4 people basically come up and talk to us, and we were able to FTE them. It was an interesting experience.

I have started studying more in the Doctrine and Covenants, and using my old seminary scriptures as well, so I have been learning quite a lot and coming up with many questions which I have been asking President Schmutz.

I have been feeling a bit under the weather but i think its just getting used to the city air. My throat has been a bit raspy lately, but i think it may just be the pollution from all the sakyanan's. But things are all good.

We have been working a bit with te other areas, especially the PEC in each of their wards and we are excited for Basak ward with all the work they are doing to prepare for missionaries to be assigned in their ward and we feel that their ward could really be helped by some missionaries. We are looking forward to the incoming missionaries into the zone and for being able to continue to strengthen the areas in central stake.

Don't know what else to say this week...

Miss you,

Love you all tons,

Elder Taylor Addison Cox

 

Letter #75 (9th Jan, 2013)

Hey all,

I have never been so tired in my mission before! The city has really pushed me and I feel exhasted every night. I feel like I am giving my all everyday and then the next morning somehow find extra strength to continue pushing forward. Not to metion we walk so much! Been trying to get to know all the places and routes here in the city, and am still really confused... hopefully this week will be better and i'll start to see some familiar landmarks.

The work has been kinda fun here, but there are so many hard-hearted LA's here that you can lose hope petty quickly if your not careful. You really need to have ethusiams in the work and a desire to enjoy it even though there are all these really depressing people around you. The dicussion we had in ZLC will really hit home with some of these people. We talked about how will inherit a glory according to the law we are willing to obey in this life, and that those who dont follow the celstial law dont get there, so its gonna be hard for te LA's to take that, cause they are definitely NOT living a celestial law, or even a terrestrial law for that matter, in some cases. We have a really good RM who has been working with us every second day. Its been really good as he helps out in the lessons and with finding new LA's to visit.

O yeah, I think I forgot to tell you my comp is Elder Harris from my senior batch. We are having fun tearing it up in the city! Elder Harris and I are doing great. I have never heard or spoken so much English for 6 transfers now, since I was with Elder Seumanutafa. I has been interesting trying to make that adjustment and I find myself thoroughly confused sometimes, trying to say things that make no sense what so ever. It has also been interesting working three areas, and attending the PEC's in each of the areas. We cover three areas here in Labangon (our area) and Basak and St. Nicolas, as the other two don't have missionaries yet but are trying to prepare to be ready to receive them when the bigger numbers come in. It is good training for working with ward and stake leaders. We both have a good feeling for Basak ward, that they are ready for missionaries and we are exited for the work they are doing to ready themselves in that ward to be able and ready to help the missionaries in the work there. They had an incident there before when the members were like "we don't need missionaries here..." so President Schmutz was like,"is that so... well..." *missionaries pulled-out of area*. So its good to see that the attitude has changed since then and members are looking  forward to missionaries being back in their ward.

things are doing great. Miss you all,

Love you tons,

Elder Taylor Addison Cox