What a beautiful week in every way! Thank you thank you for your love and prayers. It really means a lot to me. I can just feel the love and support from my family. Its so overwhelming. Thank you!
...(oh my goodness, I am having trouble writing in english right now. haha it is taking me a little to think about what I want to say! Never thought that would happen...haha)
We had such a fun, crazy, and extremly spiritual week...The adventures of the "Supersisters" Hermana Cox y Hermana Coon continue! We began our week, last Monday (pday) by traveling to Acegua, the border of Uruguay and Brazil! It was so awesome...people were talking to us in portuguese and we could understand a little bit of what they were saying. What was really weird is when people began talking to us in spanish...it felt like home. I love the spanish language. What a blessing to be able to understand and speak. We ate our lunch in Acegua and as they Brazilians prepared our food, we tried to talk to them. Dont ask me how we read the menu. Just kidding, portugese and spanish are really similar.
Wednesday was the WEDDING DAY of Monica and Richard! I cant believe how much they have progressed just in these past 6 months when Hermana Montenegro and I found them. After living together for 10 years, they finally decided to marry because they want to follow the Savior and be baptized. It was marvelous. We went to the courthouse to watch their wedding. All we can say is there is nothing like a temple marriage. It doesnt even compare. Hna Cox and I left that wedding completely grateful for the temple and an even stronger desire to be married and sealed in the temple for time and for all eternity. I thought about Jenifer De los Santos. When they got married, four days before they found the gospel, she told Richard that that didnt feel like her wedding, that there had to be more! What she didnt know was the great blessings that would follow. Now, Richard and Jenifer, and, Richard and Monica, will go to the temple in a year and be sealed for time and for all eternity. There is nothing like it. For-ever! Eternidad!
This week was also wonderful because Gianola had 5 baptisms! Rocke was baptized as well! This baptism was such a testimony to me of the power of the Atonement. Rocke was such a miracle because we found him in the street one day talking with everyone. We invited him to be baptized right then and there and he accepted. It was a struggle to find his poor little house, but we found it. The more we taught him, the more we felt like Heavenly Father had really put him in our path for a reason. He has lived such a sad and lonely life. He has never met his parents, has lived on the streets his whole life, has never gone to school and doesnt know how to read. Now he is 54 years old. rresident Cook came up to Melo to do a special interview with him on Saturday. As he entered into the waters of the baptism, without his neck brace, we saw a filthy Rocke, but as we entered out of the water, completely wet, we met him. "Rocke! Como se siente?!" we asked him. He just had the biggest smile on his face. Its just something that you cant explain. This was a testimony to me that the atonement of jesus christ is real. Even the sinners of all sinners can be clean and forgiven.
I felt like I needed to be clean as well. I was desperately waiting for sunday to partake of the sacrament and have my "mini bautismo." There is no such thing as a perfect person, or perfect missionary. A mission is a great place in life to see all of your weaknesses. Hna Cox and I pray each day that we may learn the things that we are suppose to learn on the mission. I guess this week I learned even more how much I need to rely on the lord. I felt like Sunday, I was so happy, full of joy, but also, I felt like I had a little carga, or burden. But, as I partook of the sacrament, my weight was lifted off of my shoulders. Everything is made right through the atonement of the Jesus Christ. Then, I looked over at Rocke who was sitting a few seats over take the sacrament. It amazed me, a man who had a past like he has had, is clean. Jesus Christ has already taken care of it. It makes me think of a scripture...D&C 19:16-19.
The baptismal service was so spiritual. President Cook stayed for the service and shared a few thoughts at the end. He is an inspired man. What is so fun was it was Richard and Monicas dream to meet the president of the mission and for him to be at their baptism. The Lords hand was definitely invovled so that President was able to come. He is a special, inspired man that I love dearly. He is so sincere and so close to the spirit. After the baptisms, bishop invited all of the newly members to share their testimonies if they so felt they should. Rocke immediately stood up and began to share his feelings. Rocke was in a moto accident two months ago. This is why he has a broken neck. The paramedics rushed him to the hospital almost dead, but he told us that he saw a light. He told us that he saw Christ and he spoke to him and this is why he is alive today. His miracle life was saved. It was saved so he could have a second chance to know the gospel and to be clean from all of the sins he has commited in his life. The spirit was SO POWERFUL. There was not a dry eye in the whole congregation.
Heavenly Father has blessed me so much in my mission. The experiences that I have seen and witnessed are indescribable. I will forever be thankful and I know that Heavenly Father gives us weaknesses so we may be humbled and then he will make our weaknesses become strengths. I just hope that I will be a worthy instrument in the hands of the Lord. I love him.
I love you all! The Christs Atonement changes lives.
Hermana Coon
brasil and uruguay!
At the wedding of Monica and Richard!
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This is our sweet family! David and Dahaina! We are helping them get married and then get baptized! Someday they will be sealed in the temple!
My sweet convert Mariana!
They are a miracle!!!!
Hermana Cox's letter to her family
we love Hermana Cox!
Hello! How is everyone? I hope all of you have had a wonderful week! I hope you had a great birthday Romney! It sounds like it has been a crazy week for you guys too! Thank you for your letters and your pictures. I love you lots!!!
This week has gone by sooo fast! I can`t believe it was a week ago that we went to Acegua. We had a really good time. We made our bus and everything. It is about a 1 and 15 minutes away. And while we were on our way, we looked at each other, and thought wait what are we doing? We are going to the border where we have never been before, where pople speak a different language. We don`t have a tour guide, we just up and decided to go just the two of us and got permission from the zone leaders and ta we were on the bus to go to the border. But for some reason we weren`t worried, but we were thinking about how worried our moms would be :) haha but it was really fun. We took lots of pictures on the border. They have a bunch of shops there called free shops where they import things from other countries. They had a lot of perfumes and candy that I haven`t seen for a long time. We just looked around, but we bought lunch and some ice cream there. They speak a weird type of Spanish there. I don`t know if they were speaking straight Portuguese or a type of mix but they could understand our Spanish and we could understand their Portugese. It was really beautiful there. It was fun to look out to Brazil. The whole time I was just wishing that Dad was here with me. Between my Spanish and his Portugese we would have a blast. But yeah, it was a really fun day!
On Wednesday, Monica and Richard, (Hermana Zelaya and Hermana Leiva`s investiagtors) got married!!!! I don`t know if you remember but Monica is Dahiana`s mom. Anyways, Monica and Richard had been living together for 10 years and Monica`s son died about 6 months ago and the next day, the day when he was burried, Hermana Coon and her companion knocked on their door. (this was back in March or April when Hermana Coon was in the other area). And since then, they have been receiving the lessons and they always give us lunch and rides home in their car. They are so sweet and loving to us! Back in June, they set the date to get married in September so they could get baptized. I remember that day back in June when they told us they set a date, I felt like it was forever away. But it was this last Wednesday. We were able to go to the marriage. All I can say after that experience is that I will never let anything get in the way of my goal of getting married in the temple. Oh the feeling there in that room was awful and it was so cold. They were all making jokes and making light of something so sacred, a marriage. Anyways, nothing compares to the temple and it just reminded me once again of how grateful I am that mom and dad got married in the temple. What a blessing! I am so grateful for the temple!
Well this week we have been working with Rocky and Maria del Carmen a lot. We found out last week, that Rocky had a problem with question #4 of the baptism questions, which means that he would need to have a special interview with President Cook or one of his counselors in addition to the normal interview with the zone leaders. This question has to do with legal issues and such. But on Thursday, he was scheduled to have his interview with the zone leaders, because on Friday we were going to have an intercambio in 33. But we passed by Rocky`s house about 5 or 6 times all day long and he was never home. And he doesn`t have a cell phone or anything. So we just had to keep passing by all day. His neighbor told us that he had gone to campaña (country) with his horse or something like that. Anyways, we couldn`t find him all day long. Before going home, we decided to check to see if he was there and he was! He got home after 8 on Thursday night. We decided to cancel our intercambio with 33 so we could help Rocky have his interview on Friday. The zone leaders came the next morning and Rocky had his interview. But apparently, his past was a little bit more complicated than we had thought. Poor guy, he has had a rough life. He doesn`t even know who his parents are. But President Cook came up to Melo on Saturday afternoon and Rocky was able to have an interview with him. He passed the interview and was really excited to have all of his past wiped clean and start a new life through baptism. After his interview, he had to go to a doctor`s appointment. The time for the baptism came, and he still hadn`t returned. We didn`t know what to do. We went and looked for him at his house and he had barely made it home. We had to start the service a half hour late, but he made it! On Saturday, there were 5 baptisms in the ward! It was a powerful baptismal service. There were many people there that were not members and President Cook stayed for the baptisms. Richard de Los Santos baptized Rocky and one of the other investigators. It was an incredible experience. Richard felt so important! The whole afternoon before the baptism, he was praciticing the prayer over and over again. Anyways, it was a super spiritual baptism. My testimony of the atonement has grown so much. It is incredible to see a rough man like Rocky be made completely clean through the atonement of Christ. After his baptism and his confirmation yesterday, he was just beaming. He and Richard also got the priesthood yesterday. Jose Martin was able to ordain one of them yesterday. That was so awesome! But the atonement really is so incredible! I love being able to see people like Richard, Monica, and Rocky totally turn their lives around.
We have been working with maria del Carmen this week. We have been visiting her with a lot of members and she has been making great progress. We committed her to go to church this week, but she couldn`t come and she had smoked a lot the day before. So that was kind of disappointing. But we are going to try having a lesson in the church with her to see if that helps.
We are also working with David and Dahiana. Last night, we had a family night with them. David has changed so much and is now reading the book of Mormon. He is still looking for work and says that once he finds work then they will start thinking about getting married and set a date. We are excited about the progress that they are making.
Anyways, that is our week in a nut shell. It has been quite the week filled with many humbling experiences. It is interesting how humbling missionary work is. It really is the work of the Lord. It is a unique experience where you are placed face to face with all of your weaknesses. I often have many feelings of inadequacy. I have so much still to learn and become. I am just so grateful for the atonement and that the Lord makes up for our weaknesses and that despite all of the weaknesses I have, the Lord is allowing me to have these experiences. This is the Lord`s work and I love it!!!! I never want this time to end. Time is going by so fast!
I am so grateful for each one of you and your prayers and support. This is the Lord`s church and His work! Enjoy conference! I love you all! Have a wonderful week!
-Hermana Cox :)
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