Honest Seeker of Truth

Monday, July 29, 2013

     This week was pretty hard, well, at least Thursday through Sunday. I got a stomach bug and was worshiping false idols via the porcelain gods. However, "I'm feeling much betta".  I just need to teach my body that food is okay again. But from that experience, I was able to gain a stronger testimony of the power of the priesthood, just like in Zeezrom's story of conversion in Alma 15. While I wasn't "harrowed up" by the memory of my sins, I was still really sick and feeling really puny. So Elder Broby and the Tehachapi Elders came and gave me a blessing, just like Alma and Amulek did. And while I didn't leap upon my feet and begin to walk and do cartwheels, I still recovered a lot faster than I thought I was going to. So it was a great blessing in that regards; but, unfortunately, we were not able to do a whole lot in terms of teaching. And I'm really not in the mood for Doritos anymore...
     When I was on exchanges with Elder Flores (one of the Tehachapi elders) on Wednesday, we street contacted a man named John, who was one of those disciples of Christ that Elder Bednar described as an "honest seeker of truth" in his talk "Converted Unto the Lord." John had been studying the scriptures for years, and actually was only recently able to read them. He listened to everything around him and pondered long and hard about things that he had learned. Many of his ideas aren't quite true doctrines, but the fact that on his own he was able to get that close to truth is incredible. So many people have truth given to them and they take it completely the wrong way. But here was a man that started with nothing and continued building upon the knowledge that he had, seeking to understand Christ and the role that he has in his [John's] life. I pray that he'll take Elder Bednar's advice and exercise "...the necessary 'particle of faith' in Jesus Christ to 'experiment upon' (Alma 32:27) and 'try the virtue of the word' (Alma 31:5), to yield 'to the enticings of the Holy Spirit' (Mosiah 3:19), and to 'awaken unto God' (see Alma 5:7)."

     Another positive note was that we had what is known as Munday-Funday where we play sports with the youth and just have an excellent time. The whole district was able to make it up, so we had 10 Elders playing dodge ball. Then we went over to a member's house and just chilled and had dinner. It was great, even though it's exhausting at the same time. We were going to have a Zone activity up here, but through some hard feelings being exchanged in the zone, that was cancelled. I won't bore you all with the drama of the mission, so we'll just leave it at that. If you really want to know, you can write me and I'll explain more.

     Other than the being sick part though, this week was great. We are on week 7 of transfers now, so transfer calls are going to be August 5. So don't anyone send letters to my "personal" address this week, or it might not make it. If you lost the Bakersfield address, here it is again:

Elder Ethan L. Cox

California Bakersfield Mission

3512 Coffee Road, Suite B

Bakersfield, CA  93308

Love you all and hope you have a most excellent week!

 

Elder Cox