Elder Cook is leaving me 1/28/2018

Hola todos!

Hope everyone is doing awesome. I'm super sorry I didn't send last week's email, I'll just cover the stuff in this one. I left the wifi before it actually sent, haha. But these last two weeks have been awesome! I also just got nailed in the face by a ball and am a little woozy, so this is gonna be a kind of short one, sorry. Elder Cook is leaving the area though, I'm going to miss him, his trainer is coming to be my companion though, and he is supposed to be super funny. So I'm stoked.

We have met tons of awesome people these last two weeks. A ton have been Spanish, and some are really interested. One guy we met is actually interested in coming out and teaching with us, so that's really cool. Another guy is named Jose, the English missionaries in our area knocked into him and called us. They just said, "contact this dude" and handed the phone to him. We talked for a bit about who God is to him and then he asked us to come by, so that was funny. All of the others we just knocked into, we have done a ton of knocking for elder Cook's last week, haha.

We have been meeting with the two old ladies Lisa and Becky a ton! They are both going through a lot with family issues, so we have been happy to be there to give them a shoulder to cry on. Lisa is super close to her baptism, so that's awesome! Quan and his girlfriend Stephanie have been doing good too, they have been asking tons of questions and are really interested in eternal families.

Well, I've gotta head out, sorry no Spanish practice this time. I love you all though and am grateful for everything you have done for me! In case you were wondering, the Gospel is still true! Have an awesome week, and if you can, please keep Lisa and Becky in your prayers, their lives are really falling apart, I have faith that they will conquer it though! With His help, of course! LOVE YALL!!! 

1/15/2015 The amount of my non-white friends has skyrocketed

Hola familia y amigos!

Another awesome week come and gone. I wanna start by telling everyone that sent me a Christmas present thank you (I have been trying to send thank you cards, but I'm bad at mail), due to fund issues, I will probably have to wait another week to send the thank you cards, sorry. Feels like I just wrote one of these, haha, sorry for no super fun stories.

We met a good amount of new friends this week, and none of them were white. Still kind of wierd just being amidst so many different nationalities...especially compared to Utah, haha. We met a few guys from Puerto Rico, they are all super cool and are really nice and patient with our spanish. Met a few other people from some other Latin countries. Best guy of the week though is named Quan. He is super cool, has a few young kids, writes raps, and is going to college for electrical engineering. Best part though, is that he is super excited and ready to hear the gospel! We met him Friday, and have come back every day since then. He's also just a really down to earth guy, super cool to talk too, good life advice.

Lisa got super sick this week, so we are going to have to move her baptism to  next week, but she has been doing so amazing! She has been through so much, but she has just put so much trust in the Lord (I'm aware of how cheesy that sounds, but she has gone through a ton of crap with a smile on her face for like a year)! We have been teaching this one guy for a while now, probably not for much longer because he isn't really progressing. He just has us over to tell us a bunch of reasons he thinks our religion is wrong, then we share some Bible verses (he doesn't believe in the Book of Mormon) and he just gets sad that we can back up everything we say with the book he thinks disproves us. We really hope he will start to make commitments and look into our church, he has two really sweet little daughters and a really nice wife, we can see how passionate he is about Christ, we just really want him to see what being a member of Christ's church can do for him and his family!

Other than that just been a pretty mellow, normal week. Knocked some doors,  met some crazy Floridians, butchered some Spanish, did a lot of biking, exchanged a lot of very dumb jokes with my companion, etc. Still love it out here though (minus the weather, of course)! Still love getting to meet so many awesome people from so many different backgrounds and watching how we can all relate to each other through Christ! It's so fun! I hope you all have a wonderful week, and once again, I am extremely grateful for everything you have all done for me! LOVE YALL!!!

<3 Elder Fox

Spanish Practice:

La lavadora y la secadora en nuestro apartamento fueron alquileres, y tuvimos que devolverlos a la compañía hace tres años. Se suponía que el hombre a cargo de nuestra vivienda enviaría a un hombre con otras nuevas para fines de esa semana ... no funcionó, jaja. Desde esta semana, hemos estado lavando todo a mano, porque él sigue diciendo que él lo resolverá, y nunca nos responde XD. Ha sido divertido. 

Bring it on Blackout year. 1/8/2018

Hola familia y amigos!

To explain the subject, the year on your mission where you are serving from Jan 1 to Dec 31 is your Blackout year, and 2018 is mine! So many good stories have happened since my last email, and sorry for not emailing the last two weeks, both have been holidays and I was super busy/distracted. It's been super awesome though! I hope you have all had an awesome start to your year and your Christmas was amazing! Don't want to make this email too much of a novel, so I'm going to start talking bout things now.

New friends! We met a good amount of cool new people these last two weeks. I'll just mention a few. One is Angel, he is from Puerto Rico and is a super smart dude. He has read like dozens or religious books, so was really excited to read another one.  He has been reading a good amount and it's been awesome to see how blessed he has been for it! Met a guy named Daniel he was forced into Catholicism as a kid, so is resistant to organized religion. He has a few young kids though, and really wants them to know God, so he has been excited to learn about what we think about fanales and stuff. One night, a bunch of wierd things happened, so we ended up on a random street at like 9:00 heading home. A guy came out and asked for money to take a cab home. We talked to him and found out he has been going through a ton. We talked and prayed, then asked for his address to come visit him. We showed up a few days laterand met his mom, Fran,  and he was accused of something and is now in holding for court. We were able to be there to talk to Fran and help comfort her and talk to him and stuff, it's been really cool.

Progressing friends! We have been meeting with Lisa for a while now, and she is almost ready to be baptized! She has gone through a ton since we have met her, but we have been happy to help her through it all. She has made leaps and bounds in progress spiritually, and if all goes well, she should be baptized next Saturday! We also have been teaching Becky for a while, she is super sweet. She has stage 4 cancer and a few other issues, so is dealing with a ton, and doesn't have a lot of time left. She has quickly made immense progress too!

Something I wanna mention is that, as I'm sure yall are aware, our beloved President Thomas S. Monson has passed. He was an incredible man with a constant focus on optimism and service. He was truly a man called of God, and I am so glad that I will get to meet him again someday. I want to stress something about him though, and that was his final message to the world: The Power of The Book of Mormon (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/04/the-power-of-the-book-of-mormon?lang=en). In a very quick, simple, strong, and heartfelt address he explained just how much strength we can receive through that little readable miracle. I could not explain in words him much I know this is true. The strength, love, peace, and joy I constantly receive from that book is unfathomable, and I know anyone who had read it with faith will say the same. If any of you ever need to feel Christ's love, just open the book and read a bit, I promise, and a Prophet of God promises that you will feel it!

I love yall! Thanks for all of the letters, prayers, and love you send, it really makes a huge difference! I love you all so much more than you know! I hope you have another incredible week!

<3 Elder Fox

Spanish Practice

En nuestra misión, hay un reto a comer 60 nuggets de pollo de BK en menos de 30 minutos y luego no vomitar durante 30 minutos. Suena mucho más fácil de lo que es, jaja. Y estoy muy orgulloso a decir que soy un miembro del "NUG CLUB"! Y soy en el alto de la lista con un tiempo de 13:10!!!

Christmas and New Years 12/25/2017

Brighton was able to talk to his family for 41/2 hours of Christmas Day.

They had so much fun opening presents, talking and eating dinner together.

Merry Christmas everyone.