Elder Cox Needs a Slice of Humble Pie
Monday, May 27, 2013
Tehachapi
has way...too...much...flipping...wind!!! Three out of the four Elders stationed up here have gotten the worst case of hay fever I have
seen in a while. Poor Elder Garrett basically has the flu, it's so bad. I
just wish the wind would stop, then the area would be pretty much
perfect.
This week was a little slow as far as teaching was concerned, however. Our schedule got thrown out the window because we needed to accommodate Elder Broby's new responsibilities as District Leader. Poor guy! Not only is he a trainer of a missionary fresh out of the MTC, but he also has to be DL in the middle of a transfer. But we are adjusting well (because I don't need that much training), and were able to do a lot of service this past week in Bear Valley Ward. One of the projects we did was help a single sister (non-member) put in some fencing to help keep her dogs in. As payment, she's willing to have a gospel discussion and we're hoping that will go well and we can continue to teach her.
There was an awesome experience on Thursday when we had to go down to Bakersfield for Elder Broby's training. I got to go on exchanges with Elder Alvarez, and I learned a valuable lesson from that: we visited an older sister that the missionaries have been visiting for a while, but only really as a "good will" kind of thing. She's very faithful to her religion, but still cordial to the Elders and they share scriptures and uplift each other. When we went over (Elder Alvarez and myself), she shared many experiences in her life where the Lord has blessed her with miracles. Then she asked me to share some experiences, and I'm ashamed to say that I couldn't think of any specific events in my life. But I was only looking for large miracles, such as a life-saving prompt from the Holy Ghost or an impossible priesthood healing. At the time, it had never occurred to me to think of the little things in my life that the Lord has blessed me with.
I learned this later when we were tracting, we met two wonderful people, Daniel and Cindy; the first gave us some water when we were really parched; the second was "coincidentally" walking by on the trail when we were passing by and stopped to listen to our message, and was touched deeply by our knowledge that we can have eternal families (she had lost her son last year). Both cases, Elder Alvarez identified them as miracles, that the Lord would place those people in our path at just the right time. It was then that I realized that I had been failing to recognize the small miracles in my life, spoken of in Alma 37: 6-7 saying, "Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise. And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls." I was thinking myself very wise indeed and that I was an awesome teacher (hence, I had no lessons this week), so I am grateful in the opportunity the Lord gave me to humble myself. Every day now, I strive to identify the small miracles in my life and thank the Lord when I do find them.
That was about it for spiritual stuff this week. I have also
been thinking a lot about Memorial Day; and, when you get
at chance, I want you all to read Alma 56-58 and to think about not only soldiers
fighting and have fallen in wars past and present, but also how the
story pertains to missionary work. I love you all, and want to leave you
with this quote from the Bible Dictionary entry on Miracles: "Miracles
are a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If miracles cease it is
because faith has ceased." SO KEEP THE FAITH!
This week was a little slow as far as teaching was concerned, however. Our schedule got thrown out the window because we needed to accommodate Elder Broby's new responsibilities as District Leader. Poor guy! Not only is he a trainer of a missionary fresh out of the MTC, but he also has to be DL in the middle of a transfer. But we are adjusting well (because I don't need that much training), and were able to do a lot of service this past week in Bear Valley Ward. One of the projects we did was help a single sister (non-member) put in some fencing to help keep her dogs in. As payment, she's willing to have a gospel discussion and we're hoping that will go well and we can continue to teach her.
There was an awesome experience on Thursday when we had to go down to Bakersfield for Elder Broby's training. I got to go on exchanges with Elder Alvarez, and I learned a valuable lesson from that: we visited an older sister that the missionaries have been visiting for a while, but only really as a "good will" kind of thing. She's very faithful to her religion, but still cordial to the Elders and they share scriptures and uplift each other. When we went over (Elder Alvarez and myself), she shared many experiences in her life where the Lord has blessed her with miracles. Then she asked me to share some experiences, and I'm ashamed to say that I couldn't think of any specific events in my life. But I was only looking for large miracles, such as a life-saving prompt from the Holy Ghost or an impossible priesthood healing. At the time, it had never occurred to me to think of the little things in my life that the Lord has blessed me with.
I learned this later when we were tracting, we met two wonderful people, Daniel and Cindy; the first gave us some water when we were really parched; the second was "coincidentally" walking by on the trail when we were passing by and stopped to listen to our message, and was touched deeply by our knowledge that we can have eternal families (she had lost her son last year). Both cases, Elder Alvarez identified them as miracles, that the Lord would place those people in our path at just the right time. It was then that I realized that I had been failing to recognize the small miracles in my life, spoken of in Alma 37: 6-7 saying, "Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise. And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls." I was thinking myself very wise indeed and that I was an awesome teacher (hence, I had no lessons this week), so I am grateful in the opportunity the Lord gave me to humble myself. Every day now, I strive to identify the small miracles in my life and thank the Lord when I do find them.
Love,
Elder Cox
Elder Cox
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