Week #78  (December 5, 2016)

Quotes of the week (both were in Wal-mart, today):

1) me in Spanish: "Excuse me?"
lady in broken english:  "What?" 
me in English:  "Oh sorry do you speak Spanish?"
lady,  screaming in broken english: "NO I DO NOT SPEAK SPANISH!" (apparently I had poked

a nerve there)

2) me:   "Hey man can we give you a card from our church?"
 (man pulls back hoody with crazy look in his eyes) "What church are you from?"
me:  "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints"
man: "Oh, Iam way too extreme for you guys, hah."
me:  "Extreme, how?"
man:  "I am an extreme believer."

Nothing like a couple hours in the wonderful world of Walmart, right?
There is no mission as exotic as a mission that covers a Walmart
brothers and sisters.

Texas is an interesting place.  On exchanges in some English areas, we
were talking to people from probably 10 different countries - asian,
arabic, palestinian, european, you name it -  it was really cool.   I am
starting to really enjoy teaching Islamic people.

The work chugs along. Most contacts feel about the same, but there is
the occasional person who you can feel sincerity out of, and man, it is
hard not to get choked up bearing your testimony to them on the
street.

For Christmas we had Elder Robbins of the Seventy come in.  What a teacher!
Wow. He absolutely blew my mind about 14 times in the couple hours he
taught us.

After he left, the assistants put on a really funny singing/dancing show
(none of them being singers or dancers) in which Elder El-Bakri (my
trainer) had literally the entire mission just dying laughing.  If he
doesn't go to the NFL he can make it in stand-up in a heartbeat.

We had a couple tender moments this week where members just treated us
like family; it means so much out here. I just wish everyone could
meet the Perdomo family from El Salvador -  talk about salt-of-the-earth
people, jeesh.

As usual, impossible to contain all of the mission experience from a
week in one email without boring you all to death or just copying my
journal into an email. I am so excited for the sweet chance to share
some of my experiences with the family in person - the mission is a
miracle.

The Lord lives today, He loves us, He answers our prayers! I pray that
you all speak with Him some more this week. He will speak back! "Draw
near unto me and I will draw near unto you."

-Elder Cox

me and the bud, Elder Green

Me and Elder El-Bak .  . . I mean Santa.

That's right, Santa.