Serving in Kentucky: A Lot Happened This Week

May 18, 2015

Dear Family,

Time for the big letter. A lot of stuff has happened this week as with every week so I'll just dive right into it.

5-11-15 Monday

Highlight of today was my meeting with the RLDS guy we know. He's interesting. As before, he brought up his concerns with the LDS church. We again tried explaining them and going over other things that make us who we are but he simply wouldn't listen. He won't even try to think that what he's heard about the LDS church is wrong. He used to be LDS but he switched to RLDS when he heard about the whole "blacks not getting the priesthood/plural marriage" things. He's forgotten a lot. So much so that we asked him to close with a prayer and he closed the prayer with an "amen" only. It's weird though. I still feel like there's at least a spark of hope somewhere.

5-12-15 Tuesday

Today's a big one. I learned a lot. I had a couple of big concerns of mine answered today. Here's the story. Early in the day we met with a man who was super prepared. He's believed everything we told him and he believes everything in the Book of Mormon can be proven. He had some pretty cool exotic birds with him. He even offered me 2 cokes :). Later in the day we met a couple. They also are pretty prepared and willing to hear more of what we have to say. The wife absolutely loves the Bible and likes the idea of the Book of Mormon. The couple of concern's I mentioned earlier were #1: I wasn't sure If I was being led by the Spirit as strongly as I could have been and #2: I've been at war with myself about contacting people on the street. Now I tried writing the details out in this email but I realized that it would take me forever to do it. Instead I'll refer you to an MTC talk Jeffery R. Holland gave titled "Feed My Sheep". That talk answered the concerns for me. It helped me realize that I was being led by the Spirit and that I was doing what I am supposed to be doing. If you want details on the stories let me know and I'll write them out.

5-13-15 Wednesday

Today marked the 1 month mark of my flying out to Louisville. Our next door neighbor moved out, Pres. Sodders took us out for lunch and bought us chocolate, I talked to a few sisters about drums and I'm going on exchanges with Elder Sharp tomorrow.

5-14-15 Thursday

Well, Grandpa Cox passed away. A lot of the missionaries have been notified of Grandpa Cox's passing. A lot of people have expressed their condolences. Whenever I talk to missionaries about it, I ask them to pray for Dad more because he lost both of his parents within the space of 4 months. I am a little sad at Grandpa's passing but I know that he was pretty much suffering after Grandma died. But as I said before, I'm more concerned for Dad.

On the other hand I found out that mom knows Elder Lynch's mom. That's kinda insane that Nana and Papa K know Elder Lynch's grandparents.
During today's District meeting one of the Spanish sisters handed out copies of her drawing of how she imagined everyone in the district (including me) were in High School. I got her to sign my copy. (I WAS STUPID AND DIDN'T GET A PICTURE!) I spent the day with Elder Sharp and it was pretty interesting. A few things fell through but we still met with some good people. I'd say the highlight was the dinner appointment we had. It ended with them burning stuff in their back yard with gas. Enough said :)

5-15-15 Friday

After I got back with Elder Lynch, Pres. Sodders asked us for a favor. He asked if we could watch over a group who were going to fix up the church a bit. We accepted and they never came. We basically slept in the church for an hour. After that, we went to a soda/ice cream/candy shop called Emery's. I wish we had one in Utah. They had candy all over the place. I bought a Neopolitan cone and the ice cream was extremely well made. It tasted amazing. They also have a bunch of old timey sodas. I bought one called "Red Rock: Golden Ginger Ale". It was also amazing but it was spicy. Like drinking it caused my throat to burn as if I ate a pepper or something. It's not alcoholic. It doesn't even have caffeine. I don't know what it was but it kinda hurt to drink. The Spanish sisters gave us a referral that was down one of the 4 streets that Elder Lynch and I were inspired to check out forever ago.

5-16-15 Saturday

I met a drunk guy. He was too accepting of what we were telling him. I was concerned by the fact he was taking word of mouth too seriously. It was also Stake Conf. today. It was really good. One of our investigators showed up and one of the talks felt like it was almost directly aimed at him. When we left, Elder Lynch and I got Arctic Circle Blizzards before we went to bed.

5-17-15 Sunday

The 2nd session of Stake Conf. was today. It was really good as well. The picture they had on the program was the same picture we have in our living room of a little girl on Jesus's lap. We were fed TWICE by members today. We met some really good potentials as well. 3 of them were outside of an atheist's house that we tried earlier. They were super interested and one of them even had a copy of the Book of Mormon she got a long time ago. They're really interested to learn more. Later in the day, Elder Lynch again, got a prompting to go down a road (that happens a lot). As we drove down I saw a man outside his house and I had a prompting to "go talk to him". We talked to him and he showed a lot of potential. We're really looking forward to meeting with him more.

This was a big week. I did leave out a lot of details especially on Tuesday. So anything you want to hear more about please let me know. And any emails I send to you I want you to use as blog material if you can. That includes the emails I send to Dad.

As far as how I've grown... It's kinda hard/weird to describe. I almost don't feel like the same person anymore. I don't do ANYTHING like I used to do. I don't play drums, I don't play games, I don't hang out with friends, I don't work for money, I don't go to school, etc. etc. etc. I've changed a lot but at times I still feel like the same person. I decided before I came out that the mission wouldn't change me personally and it hasn't. I'm still the same person but I've learned so much more. I've learned a lot about people, the gospel, Jesus Christ, God, faith, the Holy Ghost, the Bible and Book of Mormon, working hard but not so hard where I hate everything, living on my own (which sucks), and many more things. I grew up with the gospel but I never really applied it until I came out here. I'd say the biggest change/growth I've gone through is how to apply the Gospel of Jesus Christ into my life.

I'm still the same person, but so much more now.

As always here come the pics.

Love Elder Cox

PS - On P-Days, we either explore the town, stay in and watch Mormon videos, or both. The last two in a row we've just stayed in and watched videos. Later today I'm planning on going to this ice cream/candy/soda shop called Emery's. We went there a couple days ago and it was really good. There's also a blown glass shop near the apartment I want to check out.