8/28/2018 Real Quick One

Hola Y'all!

Sorry, this one is going to be tiny. We had a bunch of stuff planned for P-Day today, and we had it planned to write our emails from 5:00-6:00, but about 30 minutes ago (5:10), a lady in front of us stalled out in an intersection, and she kinda freaked out, so we ran over and calmed her a bit, and pushed her to the nearest parking lot thing, and helped her a bit again. It was cool, she was pretty sweet, and was extremely grateful. Her name is Tammy by the way. Nice (kinda steriotypical) southern mama. But anyways, now its 5:40 and I need to drive us home (like 10 min), so I'm sorry mama, please don't hold it against me too long, love you!

This week was pretty casual though. Didn't really meet anyone new. My companion is going home tomorrow though, so this week was kinda hard for him, haha. One girl we are teaching (Karma) has sickle cell, and was in the hospital this last week, and we offered to come by and give her a priesthood blessing, shich she happily accepted. She was in for two days when we came by, and she was released the next day!!! That was huge, because she usually gets booked for a week or two when an issue like she had arises. It was awesome!!! I got to teach english class again this week, and we had like 6 people show up, 2 of whom want to come to church now!

Again, sorry for the short email, and no pictures again...forgot camera at home :( not sure when we gonna be at wifi, but I've gotta jet. I did wanna share a bit about service though! I got asked to give a talk this sunday (about 10 minutes before church started XD) on service, and it was perfect becasue we actually got to help a few people this last week with service. One family we found was moving, we offered help, got the usual "no, youre dressed so nice", finally accepted, and we helped her pack up the van, and afterwards she asked about our church and if we could come up and pray for her and her family because they just moved here from Venezuela (a very war-torn country right now), and she was worried for a few reasons. We were able to help a bit with that, taaght her a bit about prayer too! It was amazing, because that day was pretty long and hard, and that just felt so good! I know I've talked about service a lot in the past, but I'll just let these quotes do the talking:

"So often, our acts of service consist of simple encouragement or of giving mundane help with mundane tasks, but what glorious consequences can flow from mundane acts and from small but deliberate deeds! If we focus on simple principles and simple acts of service, we will see that organizational lines soon lose some of their significance. Too often in the past, organizational lines in the Church have become walls that have kept us from reaching out to individuals as completely as we should." -Spencer W. Kimball

"A true Latter-day Saint “is to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to provide for the widow, to dry up the tear of the orphan, to comfort the afflicted, whether in this church or in any other, or in no church at all, wherever he finds them” -Joseph Smith

and finally, the promise:

"When we concern ourselves more with others, there is less time to be concerned with ourselves. In the midst of the miracle of serving, there is the promise of Jesus, that by losing ourselves, we find ourselves." -Spencer W. Kimball

Love Y'all!!!

-Elder Fox

Fastest year of my life 8/20/2018

Hola Todos!

Hope y'all had another great week. Mine was quite the rollercoaster! Very interesting week. I also hit my year mark this week...that was nuts. Not that the day was crazy or anything, but the idea that a year has passed already is insane. Looking back, it still feels like I've just gotten out here. Still feel like a coomplete beginner at all this and have no clue what I'm doing, but at the same time, I'm more "experienced" than half the missionaries out here now...I fear for the future generations. That's another thing I've noticed, I always thought adults knew what they were doing as a child/teenager, and I've been super scared becasue I have never felt like I know what on Earth I am doing. Luckily, I have discovered, no-one else does! Anyways, I'm gonna explain the week a bit.

Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty normal. We had no-one show up to our English class, so that was lame, but otherwise talked with some people, but not too many interested people. Thursday was amazing. We had another member of the Seventy visit us: Elder Costa. He is from Brazil, and has been a General Authority for like 37 years now... little insane. He was amazing though, I dont have the time nor skills to share some of the things he said, but it was amazing! It was (obviously) missionary work focused, but he talked about marriage, work ethic, and the importance of always serving others a ton and it was really cool. Then the fun days. Thursday night, a member told us that another member was moving and may need some help. We called Friday morning, and she very happily accepted our help. She had to be out of the house (already sold it) by 10 that morning (we got there around 8)...she was not out by 10. We got there, and most of her house (4 bedroom, 2 bath, massive livingroom) wasn't even packed, and the youngest person there besides us was 60 (there were 5 of them), so we couldn't leave them alone, we finally all went home around 7 that night...not finished. She said she got an extension to noon the next day. We didn't want to spend another day there, but we figured we should help a bit, if she said she had to be out by 12, we could make that work. We finished at about 8:30 that day...I just wanted to crawl in my bed and sleep for a week. We felt pretty bad that we spent two days not going out and doing missionary work, but we knew she needed our help. That night tough, we got home to FOUR messages from people who want to learn about the Gospel! We usually only get like one every other week or so, and so coming home to that was an awesome re-affirmation that we were doing what we should have been! I'll tell y'all about them next week when we get to meet them!

Well I need to peace out, sorry for the rambly message, today was super busy. But I do want to leave y'all with at least a scripture: Alma 37:37 "37 Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day". The part I want to focus on is the first line. Such an awesome promise! Pray to your Heavenly Father about anything, and follow the guidance you recieve, and it will work out good! So simple, so powerful, so miraculous! Wish I could expound some more, but I've gotta head, I Love you all tons! Have an awesome week! Thanks for all the prayers, love, and support! They dont fall on deaf ears! LOVE Y'ALL!!!

<3 Elder Fox

Kids are nuts 8/13/2018

Hola todos!

I hope you all had another sweet week. Mine was solid again. Nothing really exciting this week again, but we did meet with and meet a few kids that was super interesting and worked as a form of birth control for me! Seriously, some of these kids were absolutely insane. Super nice and sweet, but off the walls psycho as well. Other then them though, we have been meeting a really cool guy named Matthew, I'm just gonna get into the friends section.

We have been teaching Ashley and Rachel (speaking of her, she tried to come to church yesterday, got lost, had an anxiety attack, and decided to turn around, it was super sad) still. But we started meeting with the Erilus kids again: Austin and Karma. They are pretty nuts, but suuuuuuper funny. As for the really crazy kids. We have been meeting with the Kiner family, the daughter, Caitlyn, is 110% insane. She runs around and just answers most questions with complete nonsense, but she's actually pretty smart and understands what we are explaining (able to explain what we told her at the end, and what we taught her last time when we come again). We have also been talking with her older brother Matthew. He was baptized when he was 9, but his family and him stopped coming to church when they were in Texas about two decades ago. He has cerebral palsy, and he's super cool. We are working to help him come back to church, and have been helping him prepare to recieve the priesthood! Then we have been teaching another young girl. She has like a 6 second attention span. Super entertaining. Really fun to try and teach, haha. It has kinda re-affirmed my testimony of the power of the simple truths of the Gospel too!

I dont have much time left, but I do want to share a bit about my testimony of those things. I love that the Gospel is a very simple thing in all honesty. Many of us have the problem and tendency to over-complicate it, but in all reality, its simple! There  are only five steps that we need to do: have faith in Jesus Christ, repent, be baptized, recieve the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end (which is just repeating the other four steps for the rest of your life: continuing to have faith in Christ, continuing to repent, taking the sacrament to renew your baptismal covenants, and following the promptings of the Holy Ghost). I love Alma 37:6 which says that "behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass"! God works through our obedience and efforts in the small things to preform miracles for us! So if y'all are ever feeling rather stressed or overwhelmed, just ask the Lord what small thing you can refocus on, and I promise, you will see a great change! I Love y'all! Have another awesome week!

<3 Elder Fox

V picture of all of the awesome ties I got from Skee and his fam, thanks a ton! working on my repsonses to your letters! V