Monday, June 15, 2015

Hola Familia y Amigos

Wow, I literally have no time so this will be really short. This week was a roller-coaster of emotions. We had some really hard times when investigators we loved decided not to continue and accept the gospel, and then times that were so full of joy like when we found an investigator who is really ready and has a huge desire to change her life. She accepted to get baptized in the end of July!!!!!! Please pray for T..., I’ll write more of her story next week. Please pray for S... still, we invited her to be baptized for the third time and she said no. She knows it`s true but doesn`t understand the restoration and has a lot of fear of changing religions. Also for N... and R..., they have also accepted baptism but need more help preparing and knowing it`s true. I hope you all have a great week and enjoy Father`s Day! We get to spend it watching the dedication of the Trujillo temple so I’m super excited about that! We also get to watch the program they put on before too which will be awesome. Remember how much I love you all and how good the Lord is. That`s what I learned more than anything this week, that the Lord always sends miracles and blessings after the trial of our faith. Lots of good things happening here in Lima and we are seeing the Lord working miracles with the people and with us as missionaries. 

I thought I’d hurry and write my day to day schedule so Steven can kind of think about it and prepare. The daily schedule is in the white handbook but for days of the week:

Monday is Pday

Tuesday we usually have our District meeting in the morning

Wednesday we have our ward correlation with our ward mission leader

Thursday is normal day

Friday we have our weekly planning session in the morning

Saturday is normal

Sunday we have church and ward counsel and eat with families and then teach like normal.

Love you all! Have a great week! 

Hermana Cox

Monday, June 8, 2015

Hola Familia y Amigos! 

Haha so transfers were last week.....but I am staying here in Mayorazgo!!!! Wahooo!!!! AND staying with Hermana Davis!! Haha we are super excited and planning on having another awesome cambio juntos. :) This will be my third transfer here so almost 100% sure I’ll leave next transfer but I’m super grateful to have another transfer here with all these people I love so much. It will be a big test of my diligence to make sure I don`t get too comfortable with the work here and to keep searching, finding, teaching, and inviting everyone to come to Christ. It was a pretty normal week, nothing too exciting.

On Tuesday we were walking to an appointment and a man stopped us on the street and asked if we were Mormons. We told him that we were and he got super excited and asked if we could come visit him. He said he`d been contacted by the Elders and liked what he heard but didn`t know how to get more information. We told him we could come visit him after our appointment and talk to him more about the church. We went to his house and were just stunned. It was super nice and nothing like what we were used to seeing. We walked into his office to talk and on the walls he had a million certificates and awards and things all over and everything looked super professional and nice. We found out he is a lawyer here in Peru and is interested in religions and learning about them. So basically he just wanted information and facts about the church and it`s organization and everything which made it a little difficult to teach and feel the spirit, but we still invited him to read the information we left him and pray about it. We`ll see what happens. :)

We also had a lesson with a lady who we`ve committed to baptism, but we found out her and her "husband" aren`t married, just living together. So she can`t get baptized until she`s married or moves out but they already have nothing and 3 kids to take care of. It was hard to have to tell her but I hope she has the faith to work through it. It`s super hard to get married here in Peru, super expensive and tons of paperwork. So there are a lot of people that just live together. But the Elders in our ward had a baptism yesterday and she came to watch and got super excited so hopefully that will help her with her desire to keep working towards marriage and then baptism! Please pray for Ana. :)

Silvia is still amazing, we had a lesson with her yesterday. She has accepted really everything we`ve talked about but has a few doubts about the BOM -  what it is and why and how we got it. But we challenged her to read from it and pray to know if it`s true so we hope she will and can feel the spirit testify to her. She is super receptive to the spirit and every lesson is a spiritual feast. At the end of our lesson she just kept talking about how grateful she was that she found us and that God put us in her path. She asked if we can still stay in touch after we leave Peru. :) We told her that of course we could and that because of the gospel we know that we can be Forever Friends. :) It`s amazing to see the love I have developed for people I’ve only recently met and the sincere desire I have for their happiness and wellbeing. Keep praying for her. She knows it`s true, she`s just scared to leave what she knows. And she also needs to come to church...once she comes she`ll feel the spirit and it`ll be a huge step for her. :)

The members here are amazing and we`ve been working on inviting more of them to accompany us in lessons. We have a few youth that are planning on serving missions too so they`ve been with us a lot and it`s awesome! The members have such a huge influence for good. This week find someone with whom you can share the gospel, in one way or another. I promise you`ll be glad you did. It brings a joy and peace we can`t feel in any other way. :)

I`m doing so well here and love being a missionary. The Lord is in his work and I can see his hand every day. It`s incredible to feel and see his love for the people and see the change and the happiness that comes into their lives when they come to know Christ and accept his gospel in their lives. I hope all is well back home, sounds like everyone is having a blast with all their summer plans. Thanks for all the love, prayers, and support. Love you all so much! Hurrah for Israel!!

Hermana Cox

June 1, 2015

Hola Familia y Amigos!

Wow, I can`t believe we are finishing up another transfer! I have officially finished my training and am now a "Real Missionary" :) I have learned soooo much this transfer and have grown so much. I LOVE my area and the people we are working with so much. The ward, the investigators, the menos activos, and the recent converts. They are amazing and it`s incredible how much love I can feel for people I’ve only known for a few months. I officially hit my 4 month mark on Wednesday which feels super strange. Every month goes faster and faster. This week we have transfers again but we don`t find out until after internet time so I guess it`ll be a surprise for next week! I feel like I’ll probably be leaving my area since I`ve been here for 2 transfers but really anything could happen. Pray for me this week with whatever happens! It breaks my heart to think of leaving...I really love the people so much. We have so many people who we are helping and I have grown so close to. Good thing we`ve got eternity to be together. That`s the hope of the gospel. :) 

We had 2 lessons with S... this week and both were incredible! She is so amazing and I know she knows it`s true. She tells us every lesson that she believes it all and that she feels something incredible every time we come to teach her. She just is scared to make the change from all her traditions of her family. I know she will accept the gospel one day, I just hope it`s sooner than later. Yesterday in our lesson we read 3 Nephi 11 together and talked about Christ and his visit to the Americas. The spirit was soo strong. In that chapter the first thing Christ teaches to the people after they have felt his hands and feet is baptism and he lays out specifically how it should be done and everything. She has told us twice before that she is not looking to change her religion and we`ve told her that we will respect that, but she still wants to keep learning. After we were talking about everything I asked her if she had any questions. She asked if after baptism there was more. I was able to testify to her that Yes, there is more. Much, much more! Heavenly Father has soooo many blessings that he is just waiting to pour over us if we will just take those first steps. Baptism is the first step, then receiving the Holy Ghost, then the temple and all the blessings that come with that, and then when we continue faithfully, we receive the gift of Eternal Life, the greatest of all the gifts of God. I felt the spirit so strongly as I testified to her with all my heart of God`s love for her and that he was waiting with open arms for her to come to him. The spirit was so strong and she just sat there and couldn`t help but smile and I knew she felt the spirit testifying to her. We invited her to pray and really ask God if this is his plan for her and to give her strength to act. I love her so much and can honestly say I feel what real charity is. The pure love of Christ for another person. It`s not about the numbers or trying to get a baptism, it`s about truly loving a person so much that we want them to accept this first step and enjoy all the blessings the Lord has in store for them. It`s an amazing thing and I can`t wait to continue to learn more about this charity while I`m here. 

We also had another lesson this week with one of our recent converts, R.... We were finishing up our lesson and she had kind of been a little distant the whole time. We asked if there was anything we could do for her or if she had any questions for us. She began telling us of some experiences she`s had in the week that really put her down. She is from Los Provincias (the provinces of Peru) and a lot of people look down on them here in Lima. They are seen as a lesser, poorer, people because they aren`t usually educated and live self-sufficiently on farms and things with their families. Apparently a lady she ran into during the week had said some really hurtful things to her and she was pretty sad about it. But she told us that the thing that was the hardest was that a Hermana in the ward who lives close to her had also treated her poorly and made her feel really discouraged. Our ward is a mix of some pretty rich areas and some poorer areas so there is a little division at times and R... 

was explaining to us how the reason she has a hard time coming to church is because she just feels judged and ignored by some of the members. She just broke down and started crying and it tore me apart inside to see how sad she was. We just sat there with her and I cried along with her. She then bore her testimony to us that even though all this was going on she knew that she had made a covenant with the Lord and that she would follow through with that, no matter what others did or said. She doesn`t go to church for them, she goes for the Lord and she will stay strong because she made a promise to him and no one else. The faith of these members is amazing and it makes me want to be better and stronger. It`s so important to treat everyone with so much respect and love. Just because people are new in the church and don`t know a lot yet, or because they have less than others, is no excuse to think we are better. Usually they are the ones with the purer hearts who are truly closer to the Lord than we are. Being a member of the church is a huge responsibility that we must treasure, not an entitlement or a competition to prove who is the best saint. 

Wow, so many things I could share but I don`t have a lot of time. But it was a good week and I really learned so much. I love being a missionary. I wake up and just have a smile on my face because I’m so excited to see what the Lord will help us do today. I feel his hand in our lives and I feel the spirit guiding our words and actions. It`s truly amazing. It doesn`t mean it`s easy, but it`s an experience I wouldn`t trade for the world. I love you all so much! Have an awesome week! 

Hurray for Israel!!

Hermana Cox

 We had a primary activity where the kids acted out stories from the Book of Mormon. It was sooooo cute! I love it :) The pics aren`t the best but oh well :)

 The tall one is Elder Netzley, one of the Assistants who we share a ward with. He is also from Cache Valley! Super crazy. He went to Mountain Crest and knows a bunch of my friends. He goes home in July so maybe you`ll see him around!

 And then a cool picture by the wall. There is grafiti and paintings all over the walls here . :)

  A member did my hair all fancy while we were waiting for our dinner yesterday

A member bought us Dunkin Donuts this week which was awesome!

This is where we have internet time.