MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

This has been an amazing Christmas so far! We have a couple dinner appointments/parties that members have invited us too and they were so fun! I miss celebrating it with all of you so much but this Christmas has changed my life. When we watched the First Presidencty Devotional in Cebu a couple weeks ago, I had a thought come to me saying, "this Christmas will change your life." And its true this has been an amazing Christmas. I"m so grateful for the experiences I have had this Christmas. i'm so grateful for the chance I've had to really focus o the real meaning Christmas, and that is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I've been overwhelmed with the love of our Heavenly Father in giving us His Only Begotten Son. My heart is full of gratitude for Him who makes a Merry Christmas possible. I hope and pray that as I write this email that I will be able to put into words my feelings about the birth of the Savior. I've thought a lot about that night in Bethlehem and the thing that keeps coming to mind is our reaction up in heaven to the birth. I imagine us shouting praises. I imagine many of us weeping tears of joy and gratitude becasue we knew what His birth meant. We knew what He would do on earth. We knew He would save us and make it possible for us to become like Him and our Father in Heaven and make it possible for us to live together in perfect happiness and joy for eternity. I can't fully imagine how we felt when He was born but I imagine it was an amazing moment. There is no greater gift that has ever been given than the gift of our Savior. I know He lives and loves us. I know that through Him and His Atonement we can be strengthened, delivered, and healed. I know that if we remember Him always through prayer, scripture study, and service we will have His Spirit with us and through the Spirit we feel His love for us which is the most joyous to the soul. I love Him and am grateful to serve Him. I love you all and pray for you every day!! Merry Christmas!!!

Love, Elder Fox 

Christmas Party

Hello Family and Friends!!!

I"ve got a lot to write so I'll just dive in. The Christmas party was awesome last wednesday!! It was so fun! We woke up at 3:30 in the morning to drive to Tubigon and like I said last week I got to drive!! It was so fun cruising around again. Ah man it was fun stuff. We packed 8 people in a little toyota. It was crazy but it all went smoothly. We got to the port safely and took the boat over to Cebu. We had a little devotional at the start of the party where President Tanner said some things and then we watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. How aweosme was that!? I hope all of you got to see that becasue it was amazing! Wow. All of the talks and the music were powerful. I especially loved Elder Nelson's talk about the Prince of Peace. Probably one of my favorite talks from him. AFter the devotional we had a White Elephant gift exchange which was super fun. and then we ate a huge lunch and then the talent show started. That talent show was awesome. I'll have to tell you about it when we skype next week becasue I don't have a lot of time to write about it all. I did do a couple things in the talent show by the way. Haha they were pretty fun but I'll tell you next week on skype. That's about it for the party. It was really fun! EVerything went smoothly on the drive home too. Saturday we had Arman's baptism which was awesome! The baptism was combined with 3 others from Baclayon and 1 other frm Cortes so we had 5 baptisms in our district last Saturday! so I said that our district goal for baptisms this month is 13 and for the zone it's 18 and right now we have 7 in our district and 11 in our zone with more on the way! We all have faith that we will accomplish the goal set for the month! EldeR Wiscombe, our zone leaderk,said that they were up at there meeting with the ohter zone leaders and president tanner and thte ap's and they were all writing up their zone's goals for baptism. He said that everyone was putting 5 or 6 and then he and Elder Faustorella go up and put up the big one eight. Haha he said it was funny beacue it was a huge number but he said that they told everyone, I know this is a lot but we have faith that it will happen. And it is happening!! Ah so exciting. That brings me to two investigators of ours and the T. sisters. I"ve wrote about them before, J. and A., and how their parents won't allow them to be baptized. They aren't siblings by the way. Anyway they have a date for the 28th of this month and so we have been fasting and praying that a miracle will happen and their parent's hearts will be softened and allow them to be baptized. They are both scared to talk to their parents about it. I know that its possible for the Lord to do this. He has done a lot harder and greater things than this. I know that He will provide a way. But yeah so cool things are happening over here. The Lord is hastening His work. So I was studying today and decided to read President Monson's talk, "I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." It is an amazing talk. All of you should go read it becasue there is so much more than the things Im going to share in this email! He talks about how we all need trials to progress and how the Lord will always be there to help us. Here are some things from the talk. He says that we all need to ask ourselves, "shall I falter, or shall I finish? To finish involves enduring to the very end of life itself." He also shares this poem,

Good Timber does not grow with ease.

The stronger the wind, the stronger the trees. 

The further the sky, the greater length.

The more the storm, the more the strength.

By sun and cold, by rain and snow

In trees and men good timbers grow

He goes on to say, "my brohters and sisters may we have a commitment to our Heavenly Father that does not ebb and flow with the years of the crises of our lives. We should not need to experience difficulties for us to remember Him and we should not be driven to humility before giving HIm our faqith and trust., May we ever strive to be close to our Heavenly Father. To do so, we must pray to Him and list to Him every day. We truly need Him every hour, whether they be hours of sunshine or of rain. May His promise ever by our watchword: 'I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.' 

I've already learned so much on my mission. One of the biggest things I've learned a little bit about so far is these next two years are truly the best two years for my life. The reason is becasue I have already begun to learn how to rely completely on Him. I've realized from doing this, that I can do nothing without Him. I rely on Him and His strength every day, every hour, every moment. Without Him I couldn't be doing what I'm doing now. I love singing I Need Thee Every Hour. I sing it all the time to myself becasue it's the truth I need HIm every hour. so do all of us. This is something that I am determined to take home with me keep with me for the rest of my life. I love Him. I love Christmas becasue we get to celebrate Him and His birth. No greater gift has ever been given than when our Father in Heaven gave His Son that night to the world. I know He lives and know He will come again. I know that He will be by our side through thick and thin, through rain or sunshine, if we allow Him to be. I love this gospel and I love Him. I love all of you and thank you for all of your prayers! I pray for you all the time! I love you! Hurrah for Israel! Glory to God in the highest! Merry Christmas!!

Love, Elder Fox

Early P-day!

Hello everyone!!

We have our Christmas party on Wednesday so we are having pday today!! I'm super excited for the party. We have a talent show and I heard that it's always hilarious. I'm so excited! And guess what? So we are all going to Cebu and we have to pay our own way there and back so to make it cheaper we are driving to a place called Tubigon where the boat ride will be cheaper and guess who gets to drive!? This guy!! The Zone leaders are taking the big van but we need another car and the Senior couple is going to cebu early so they are letting us use their car and i'm the only one who has a valid license other than the zone leaders so i get to drive!! I'm so excited. It's about an hour and a half drive. Don't worry I'll be safe! So yeah that's what this week brings. Oh and this week also brings a baptism! His name is A. and he is awesome! He has been taught for a long time and the only thing holding him back was he needed to get married. The girl he was going to marry was waiting on her divorce to be finalized or whatever and it took forever for that to happen but it finally did and they got married so he's good to go!! So yeah that's exciting. Speaking of baptisms. Our zone goal for the month is 18! Usually it's about 5 or 6 but this month is 18 which is huge! Our district alone has a goal of 13. This last week Elder Murdock and I have been racing around to everyone's areas doing interviews which has been awesome. We haven't been able to do a lot of work in our area which isn\t good but baptismal interviews is a good reason for not working right?! Our district had two this last saturday and should have about 5 maybe more this saturday! We can totally accomplish the goal of 18 in our zone! It's awesome and it's especially awesome becasue it's the month that we celebrate the Savior's birth. I think it was Elder Ballard that said in conference, "there is no greater gift that we can give the Savior for Christmas then inviting someone to come unto Him." That's not the exact quote but he said somehting like that. That's so true though. There is no greater gift we can give the Savior than to share His gospel with someone and bring that someone to Him. I think it's so fitting that the goal has been set so high for this month. I have cool experience that I forgot to tell you about last week. So we were going to one our investigators house, the Torralba family and we got there but they weren't there. We were disappointed but decided to go visit another family instead. We passed by this house with a lady doing laundry outside and we kind of said hi but jsut kept walking. I felt the impression to go back and talk to her though. so I said to Elder Murdock hey should we go back? I feel like we should and he said yeah sure so we went back. We started talking to her and she wasn't interested. and then a old man came out and I thought okay this is why I felt like we should come back. Turns out, he wasn't interested either. We started walking away and i was thinking hm maybe we planted a seed or maybe I jsut got that one wrong. Just when I thought that we saw two of T. kids walk up the street and we turned to each other and said this is why. So we went and talked to them and then went and taught the family. The lesson went really well and we committed them to be baptized which was awesome! That date fell through this week becasue they didn't come to church but it was a cool experience. I'm so grateful for the Spirit in my life. What an amazing gift it is? The Spirit can and will tell us all things what we should do. We can know all things through the Spirit. It can guide us, teach us, comfort us, and testify to us. It's an amazing gift and it's something that we can always have with us. All of the people are really awesome and I love them so much but they just aren't coming to church. That's the only thing that is holding them back from being baptized. I wish I had time to tell you all about all of them but I don't. Oh and Sister A. l needs prayers. She is no longer our investigator, she is the sisters' but she is really struggling. She got permission from her dad to be baptized but her mom said that if she gets baptized then she we won't be allowed to go to church anymore. Her and her mom get in a lot of fights and A. is at the end of her ropes. It's a lot like the situation I was in a few years ago. i actually told her a little about my experience and I told her that the light will come. I think it really helped her knowing that there was someone who knew a little bit of what she is going through. She is really struggling though. I feel so bad for her becasue she is doing all she can to follow the Savior but she has so much adversity right now. The Lord has great blessings in store for her though and for all of us if we look to Him and keep His commandments. We can't comprehend the blessings that He will give us if we give our lives to Him. My time is up. I love you all and I pray for you constantly! I love this gospel. I love it. I love the Savior and I'm so grateful for Him and for the chance we have to celebrate HIs birth this month. I love Him. I love lal of you!!

Love, Elder Fox

How Great Thou Art

Hello everyone!!!

I hope everyone had an awesome week!! I can't believe Matthew is already coming home! thats amazing. tell him hi for me and Mckade too! so quick update on water and power situation. Power is still on which has been really nice and we have water for showering, dishes, and toilet, and we have drinking water so things are back to normal here in tagbilaran! Finally! this has definitely made me appreciate power and water a lot more. but yeah so things are good here. I forgot to tell you one thing about the typhoon and Elder Andersen. I can't believe i forgot this. I don't know if you heard from someone else but when Elder Andersen came to Bohol and spoke to the people he left a blessing on Bohol that the people here would be able to recover from the earthquake. as you all know, the typhoon was headed straight toward bohol. we were supposed to be destroyed but at the last moment the typhoon shifted north and missed the island. I was talking to an elder and he said that he heard there was like a bubble of low pressure air or something sitting over bohol and apparently typhoons can't go through low pressure air and that's what caused it to shift up. whether that last part is true or not, we know that bohol was spared by divine power. It was no coincidence that the typhoon shifted and missed us here. Pretty amazing. this is the power of the priesthood and this leads me into one of the things I wanted to share. On sunday, we taught brother J., the one we baptized, and his wife's sister M. we taught them about priesthood. the whole lesson my eyes were opened a little and I was able to see how lucky we are and what a blessing it is that we have the priesthood. How lucky we are that God would trust us enough to give us HIs power. He trusts me, a nineteen year old kid, to use it the way He would. It's so humbling to think about. so after the lesson, sister Mary Lou asked if we could give her a blessing as she is pregnant and is having a hard time with sickness and stuff. I was expecting her to ask elder murdock to give her the blessing becasue he has known her for longer and he does most of the teaching but she asked me to do it. I don't know why but I was meant to give that blessing. that morning I was scrolling through my ipod for talks to listen to and I saw "Healing the sick" by elder Oakes. I was like hm i bet thats good but I clicked on another talk instead. the spirit kept telling me to listen to that one by Elder Oakes though. the thought kept coming to me, "you might give a blessing tonight." I thought to myself yeah probably not, who am i going to bless tonight? but I followed the spirit and listened ot the talk. Haha and look at what happened. I gave a blessing. anyway, for some reason I was supposed to give the blessing. I think it was to teach me about the priesthood and to humble me. I learned that we are given the priesthood to bless the lives of others. that is why we are given it. It taught me humility becasue, well, it's humbling giving a blessing. you don't know what to say before hand and you don't feel adequate to give the blessing but then the spirit takes over and you then know what to say. It was a humbling and amazing experience. well i'm almost out of time and I didn't get to say a lot of things I wanted to say! Ill try to get through them quickly. Elder Ecohawk of the area presidency here in the philippines came yesterday for Mission tour. mission tour is basically a day of workshops or talks given by elder ecohawk and president tanner and others. It was amazing!! Ill have to write some of notes next week becasue  i don't have my notebook with me but it was an amazing day! ONe of the things we did at mission tour was we had a choir and we sang How Great Thou Art. It was so powerful. I love this song. I'll just end with the fourth verse. It says, "When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation, and take me home, what joy shall feel my heart! Then I shall bow in humble adoration and there proclaim, my God how great Thou art." Christ will and is coming. I know He lives. He is my Savior, Lord, and King. I know He suffered for each of us in the garden and on the cross. I love Him and I will forever serve Him. I know this gospel is true. I know that we can have joy in this life if we are obedient and serve Heavenly Father. I love you all and pray earnestly for each of you! I pray that you all will be supported in your challenges and trials and I know you will be. I know that we will always win if we trust in Him. I love you all!! thank you so much for your prayers and emails!! they help more than you know. I love you!!

Love,

Elder Fox

Power!!

Hello everyone!!

We have power back!! Well not completely but a lot more than we have had! I think they are finally figure it out which is good and I heard that by Dec 24 it will be completely back! Best Christmas present ever! Now our only problem is that we have no water. We are running really low on drinking water and we have no running water. Our land lady has brought over some water the past couple days so we could shower. Oh that reminds me. yesterday she brought over some water but it was looking like it was going to rain. I wanted to save water so I waited to see if it would rain and it did so I ran out and started showering in the rain in our backyard haha. then the rain stopped and so I had to use some of the water to finish. It was pretty fun though. anyway so that's our biggest problem right now but i'm sure it will be fine and we will get by. the Lord will provide for us as He has been already. so yeah that's the update on the power and water situations. We have two elders living with us now. I don't know if ive told you that but if not then I have now. They are both Filipino. One of them is awesome and really funny and the other one is awesome but he is a snooper. He is always looking through our stuff and "borrowing" it. I don't know it's super annoying but Elder Murdock and I are trying to just let it go and love him. It's been kind of tough so far. That's okay though! Elder Murdock is stil the man. We were talking last night about just how awesome our companionship is. We both just get along so well and we have so much fun. Seriously we have found the balance of working hard but having fun. It's the best. I'm sad that this will be my last transfer with Him. Dad you asked about my district too. My district is the best! I love my district. They are all so awesome. We have some new people in the district from transfers but we have a lot that have stayed. It's so nice to have a great district and so much fun. We have awesome zone leaders too! I'm super close to Elder Wiscombe and the other two are awesome too. We have three because one of them was the AP, Elder Cabrera and he extended his mission so he could work in the field but anyway they are awesome! our investigators are doing well. We found some rides to church for some of them so they should be coming now which will be awesome! We met a man that is super elect. He was so excited to listen to us and to learn about the gospel. He said that to us and he had so many questions. His excitement got us even more excited and at one point he was like "you like answering my questions huh!?" and we were like yeah we do! haha it was funny and awesome. He is really prepared. So I've had some really cool experiences in my personal studies the past couple days that I want to share with all of you. The biggest thing that I've learned so far on my mission is I've learned a lot about the Savior and our Father in Heaven. I've learned a lot about who They are and what They've done for us and will continue to do for us. this has now become my goal for the rest of my mission and for the rest of my life. That is to learn of the Savior and our Father and to know Them better everyday. I started the past week to pray for a deeper understanding of who the Savior was, is, and will be. Also a deeper understanding of what is going to happen in the future. My prayers have been answered as Ive desired, prayed, and studied. I'm beginning to see who He was, is, and will be and what is to come in the near future. I know there is so much that we don't know but that we can know if we seek diligently. The Savior said, "take my yoke upon you, LEARN OF ME, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and I will give you rest." He has invited us to learn of Him. I looked up the definition of learn and it says to gain knowledge of, or to study. so we must gain a knowledge of Him and study Him. That is the invitation and if we do our souls will have rest. I can't tell you the things that ive learned and felt as I've strived to learn of Him. My relationship with Him and with Heavenly Father have grown so much. I love Them. I love Them. I know They love me and They love all of us. I invite all of you to learn of Them. To earnestly seek knowledge of Them. There is no greater thing that we can do in this life than to know Them. We know Them by serving Them. just like the scripture says, How knoweth the man the master whom he has not served? We know Them by serving Them and by seeking to know Them through prayer, and study of the scriptures. The other thing that has been hitting me in the face during personal study is that the Savior is coming soon. Almost every personal study that ive had in the past couple months I've felt the Savior is coming soon, prepare now. He is coming sooner than we think. I can't wait for that day when He comes to reign on earth. The day that I get to see Him and fall at His feet and touch His wounds. The day that Satan is bound and we live peaceably with one another. I look forward to that day and that day will come and iscoming soon. So for now we need to prepare. We need to constantly fortify ourselves every day. We need to share the gospel with everyone we can. I was so touched and so excited to hear about all of you taking cookies around to the neighbors. That is so awesome and those are the things that make the biggest difference. Those are the things that the Savior asks us to do. I'm so grateful for all of you and for your examples of serving the Lord by serving others and hearkening the call to hasten the work. I love you all so much. I love the Savior. I love our Father in Heaven. I love this work that we are all a part of. What a great work it is! I love this gospel and I'm so grateful for it. I know it's true. I know that we will live together for eternity and I am so grateful for that. I love all of you and am so grateful for you! I pray for you daily! Thank you for your prayers and emails! I love you!!
-Elder Fox

 57 lb lunka (jackfruit) 

1st Transfer Week!

Hello Everyone!!!

Time just continues to fly here in the field! I can't believe it's pday again! This last week has been an awesome one! Before I tell you about it I'll answer some of your questions. Dad you wondered about emailing and laundry and showering and the weather. There are internet places all around the city and so we go to one of those and pay for two hours or whatever. A lot of them have been shutdown because of the lack of power so it's been harder to find a place to email. We are spoiled here in Tagbilaran and have a laundry shop place that we take our stuff to which is really nice. We can't take our garments though becasue the people aren't endowed so we have to wash those by hand. Its a pain but it's fine. Other missionaries have to wash everything. I'm sure I will later on in my mission. We shower everyday. We have a shower head which is really nice. But after the storm we havent been able to get water to shower until today so weve been showering in our backyard with rainwater. Haha it's actually kind of fun. But we have water now so it's all good. the weather is well... hot haha. It rains really hard and just random times. You can't every predict the rain here. It will be super hot and humid and sunny and then the next moment it's pouring rain and the next moment it's super hot and humid and sunny. It's crazy. I love the weather though. It's nice. Mom you were wondering Tacloban missionaries, power rationing here in Bohol and group email with my friends. Yeah Connor set up a group email so it's awesome. We just say a couple lines every week to everyone. Its way fun to hear from all of them. Some of us email each other outside of the group email too whcih is fun. They are rationing power here in Bohol. Our power gets switched on and off at random times. Right now we have power but tonight we wont. Its a pain but I'm just grateful that we get power once in a while. The other question I will answer in this email. Alright here's the update on the past week. Oh first of all i think I forgot to tell you about something a few weeks ago. Or maybe I didn't. i don't know. I can't ever remember if I told you guys or not. If i have I'm sorry but if not than here you go. Elder Rainey when he was staying with us bought a 57 pound jackfruit! It was huge!! I'll have to send pictures but it was gigantic! We are in a sketchy internet place so I'm kind of scared to send pictures from here so it might have to be next week but i'll sned pictures! It was awesome though. Alright now onto this week. We had zone conferene and zone interviews last thursday and friday which was awesome! Pres Tanner and the AP's and our ZL's gave workshops and they were all so awesome. President Tanner talked to us about maybe pulling all the missionaries out of Bohol becasue of lack of power and water but he said it was up to us. We all decided that we could survive and make it work here so we are staying. But anyway the workshops were amazing! I forgot my notes so I can't write some of them down but one thought that kept popping into my head the whole time

 was "I want My children back. I want them back." I know that God loves all of His children. i know that He wants all of His children, all of us, to be happy. I know that He will do anything for us to be happy. If we are ever suffering or feel like we are in bondage to sin, or sadness, or lonliness or whatever, I know that He can and will deliver us. I know that living the gospel and relying on Jesus Christ is the only way to have happiness. Christ is the way, the only way. I love Him and have learned so much about Him on my mission so far. So on Friday we had zone interviews which is interviews with Pres Tanner. He is so awesome. We were low on time so mine wasn't very long but he is just the man. He is so nice and so loving. He just told me that he is there any time I need him. he said I can call him about anything, about my joys, sadness, disappointments, anything. he said, you are never an inconvenience Elder Fox. The whole interview was like that. he talked a little about PMG. He said we are the last army to go out and gather His children and preach my gospel is the latter day tool that has been given to us to help us gather His children and so we must use it and use it often. I thought that was really cool. I have started really studying it and I encourage all of you to do the same. Read it and study it every day. So then saturday we had the baptism which was awesome!! The font water was disgusting so we almost got to do it in the ocean but then we didn't which was super lame. We were really hoping we could do in the ocean! the baptism was amazin though. The spirit was so strong. Jesse bore his testimony and got pretty emotional. It was an amazing experience. he was so happy. You could tell by just looking at him. It was so cool to see. So then Sunday I spoke in church! My heart has never pounded that hard in my life haha. I didn't even feel that nervous but my heart was going crazy. I could see it pounding through my shirt. The talk went well though. Sorry I'm running out of time so I'm racing through everything. Monday we had transfer calls! It was so exciting to see where everyone was going. The zone leaders put me on the board to mke it look like i was transferring but it was a bluff.
but we got some Tacloban missionaries in our district and zone which is cool! Elder Chamberlain, the one that knows the Olsens, is the new AP! He is so awesome. I love Elder Chamberlain. Alright well I have to wrap it up. I know this gospel is true. I know it is. I know the Savior lives and is coming soon. He is coming sooner than we realize. I know we need to do everything we can to prepare physically and spiritually for what is to come. We have to fortify ourselves, and our families. I know that if we trust in Him, we have no need to fear the future. Our Savior and our Heavenly Father will take care of everything. Everything works out for our good as we trust in Them. I love Them and I know Them. I'm so grateful for all They do for me each day. Im so grateful to have the chance to serve Them. I love all of you! Thanks for everything, your prayers and emails! I pray for you constantly! I love you!!

Love, Elder Fox

Typhoon and Earthquake Clean Up

After the Typhoon!

Hello everybody!!

I found a place that has a generator so I can email today! Our house is still out of power which stinks. Where to start? Mom you had some questions so I'll start by answering those. So the day of the storm we just stayed inside all day like i said before. We had our normal studies and the whole time just anticipated the huge storm we heard was coming. There was some strong wind from about 9 to 2 but not strong enough that it did any damage. There was one tree that we both thought was going to snap in half but never did. This is going to sound bad but we were kind of excited to see what 200 kph wind or whatever was like. Little did we know how much damage it could do. Now we wouldve been more scared I think but at the time we felt pretty safe and kind of excited. yeah so we just sat there and ate food and studied and talked and anticipated the storm that never came. When nothing really happened we thought that they had gotten the prediction wrong or whatever. But later we found out that it shifted up and just missed Bohol and destroyed Tacloban and northern Cebu. Yeah so no damage here in Tagbilaran which was a real blessing. We have plenty of food and water and it was only Elder murdock and I in the apartment. Lets see what else. Oh what we eat everyday. We eat a lot of pancit which is like top ramen. We eat that all the time. That and rice and peanut butter. I just got some homemade peanut butter which is insanely good. Were spoiled here in Tagbilaran because we have so many restaurants. So many good ones. We have mcdonalds, pizza hut, greenwich pizza place, jollibee, and a bunch of other good filipino restaurants. We are really spoiled. I usualy eat oatmeal for breakfast. I can't believe Savannah went through all of that. That's unbelievable. She sent me a nice letter a couple weeks ago. It was so nice of her. I hope she recovers well. That's so nice of Aaron to do that! And his mom! Can you get his email from her so I can email him. Okay James are you for real!? Pick almost freakin six at a clutch moment in the game! That's my bro! and you are playing in rice eccles! Gosh that is so sweet! I wish I could be there so bad! Youre killin me bro! Go destroy East! Light them up! You can do it. You should send me the vidoe of your pick and the video of the crazy last second play! Oh mom or dad will you pay my tithing on the money we got from all of the people in the ward? I don't think we did. And I LOVE the picture of Christ you gave me. Seriously that is one of my favorite pictrues. Thank you so much! 

Sorry I'm just going down a list of things I wanted to remember to write about so sorry if they are random and not connected. Oh I saw Jeffrey Barton in conference! I don't think I ever said taht but I saw him in priesthood and it was so awesome! I loved seeing him! I've gotta tell you one last thing before the spiritual and investigator update. There is an elder in my mission named Elder Wiscombe. He was AP and now he's my zone leader. he is awesome. Anyway we made a crazy connection. He came up to me and asked me if I did scouts and I was like yeah. And then he asked what camps I went to and I named bear lake and the others. and then he said that he was a camp counselor at Bear Lake aquatics and we think that he was one of my teachers! We both recognize each other from somewhere and taht must be it. It's so crazy! That was so long ago. I can't believe we met there and then here in the same mission! Anyway pretty cool. So we have my first baptism on Saturday!! I don't know if i've told you about him. Maybe I have i don't know. But he was supposed to be baptized like 5 weeks ago but hasnt been able to becasue of conference one weekend, district conf. another, the earthquake, and the typhoon! It's been crazy but it's finally happening! He is an amazing man. He was a heavy drinker before but instantly gave it up as soon as he learned the word of wisdom. AFter he learned about the Sabbath day he went and asked his boss if he could just have the day to go to church. Not just part day for church but the whole day to spend time with his wife. And his boss said okay. He just humbly does whatever we teach. i can't really take credit for him becasue he was taught before i came but still it's been amazing to see. He has great potential to become a great leader in the church. While we were emailing last night i met some guy so speaks really good english so that's why i could talk to him haha. But he asked why I was there and what we do as missionaries. He said that he is searching and testing religions to find which one is true or right or whatever. He said he hasn't tried out ours and so I invited him to come to church and then asked if we could visit him and he said yes! Elder Murdock and I are really excited about him becasue he is searching for the truth just like Joseph Smith and he will find it and recognize it on Sunday and when we teach him. It's amazing how the Lord placed him in our path. Oh speaking of sunday guess who is speaking? I am. yep and all in Visaya. I'm speaking on strenthening the missionary work. I've pretty much written it now I just have to translate it. The work is good here and it's going to get better and better as we work harder. The investigators we teach are all awesome and have committed to baptism but they still don't come to church. We are praying and we continue to commit them to come. We know that the Lord will answer our prayers and they will come. One last thought before I have to get off. I have a couple scripture references that I've come across the past couple days. One is Mosiah 7:33 and the other Alma 36:3. I don't have time to write them in here so go read them but I testify that they are true. I know that if we turn to the Lord and if we trust in Him that He will support us through our trials, challenges, and stresses and in His time, He will eventually deliver us. I know that that is true. I've seen it many times in my life and I'm seeing it now on my mission. I know that through Him all things are possible. I know that if we can just trust Him and believe Him, we will live happy lives. It's true. I'm so grateful for Him. I love Him and I know He loves me and all of you. I know that becasue I know Him. I hope and pray for the best for all of you all the time! I love you all so much! thank you for your prayers and your support in your emails and packages. I love you!

Love, Elder Fox

 "I bet you all didn't know I'm iron man and Joseph Smith? haha"

A man climbing and cutting the trees without any ropes!

Typhoon Haiyan

Hello everyone!!

Wow what a first month in the philippines? Crazy! So quick update on the past few days. We were all told that the storm would hit friday and to prepare by getting extra food and water which we did. We stayed in our house all day friday. They said that we were expecting winds up to about 200 kilometers per hour here in Bohol which was crazy and pretty scary. We weren't too worried though becasue we felt like our house was solid.  If i knew how much damage that kind of wind can doi wouldve been more scared. Anyway the storm never hit here in Tagbilaran. I don't think it really hit too hard anywhere in Bohol. I heard that the storm shifted north and just missed us which is such a blessing especially after hearing what happened in Tacloban. Oh man I can't believe how hard Tacloban got hit. So sad. We heard that 78 missionaries and the mission president have been found and they're okay but that means there are about 120 missionaries that they havent been able to locate yet. Please continue to pray for them and their families and the people in Tacloban. I think northern Cebu got hit hard too. But yeah so we are all safe down here. We went a couple days without power and people are scrambling for water but other than that there wasn't any damage. So I'm safe and there's nothing to worry about! When I heard a typhoon was coming I didn't know it was this dangerous or could do this much damage. I'm sure you all know from the news but Tacloban got hit with winds up to 315 kph so about 200 mph. Thanks for all of your prayers and emails! continue to pray for those in Tacloban because they need it. i love you all so much! 

Love, Elder Fox

Typhoon!

Hello Everyone!!

So just when we thought an earthquake was all we were going to get, we have a typhoon!! Well we haven't yet but we are expecting one within the next day or two. How crazy is this? An earthquake and now a typhoon! Dont worry I'll be safe. We are going to get a bunch of food and water after this just in case we are stuck in our houses for a while. We might be stuck in our houses for a day or two. I'm not telling you this to make you worry. Please don't worry. I'll be safe inside our house. But it's crazy that we have another big thing like this! The Lord is really helping us out here by humbling the people. Hopefully they are humble and receive us. Okay so Jimmer heck yeah on the win man! Are you for real!? That is the sickest play that Ive ever heard of and 17 tackles! Man that is so awesome! I got chills and little bit of tears when I read that. I'm so mad I couldn't be there but I'm so glad that you tore it up and got the W! I hope you double tapped that helmet of yours all 17 times! haha. Go get Logan this week! I'll be praying for you. So I know youve sent a bunch of packages so no pressure in sending another one soon okay? Seriously you don't have to becasue it's expensive to send and I'm not in a rush to get this stuff. but when you do send a package instant food stuff would be awesome. Like Mountain House stuff or instant potatoes. Instant potatoes is the big one but things like that would be awesome. But again no rush in sending them okay? Oh and pop rocks becasue the kids love pop rocks. So a quick review of the past week. Nothing that big has happened. Elder Murdock and I got hammocks though! They are sweet. We hook them up in our house and just chill when we get home at night. Its awesome. We also got pants made and they are sweet!! they are a light gray and have a tint of blue and they are so thin and so awesome. What else. Oh we got to ride on the top of a multicab! It was so fun! Don't worry I was safe! It was so fun though. Oh yeah we were walking around one night and we saw a group of kids so we went over to them and they were freaking out. They were all trying to talk with us and trying to get us to do magic and asking us questions and giving us high fives (they love high fives here). Anyway so we said we would come back another day and when we said that they all screamed "yay!!! yay!!" It was so funny. We started laughing so hard. it was like if santa said he was coming back to a bunch of kids. So i think that's it for the quick overview. Dad you asked in your email if we have been able to teach and if we have promising investigators and we have been able to and we have quite a few! It's been awesome. We;'ve  been able to find quite a few new peole to teach lately. yesterday we were walking down a road and a family yelled hello to us so we went over to talk to them. they were catholic and they invited us to sit down. We talked for a little bit and then we asked if we could share a message with them. they said we could and so we taught them the first lesson. I actually taught some of it too. ive been able to teach the first lesson a couple times actually which has been scary but cool. Anyway so they seemed super interested the whole time. We asked them if they would come to church this sunday and they said yes and then started asking questions about what they need to wear, if their little kids could come, and what we do in the meetings. so yeah they seemed really interested and really great. We are teaching them on Friday. I hope they work out because it would be a family and a whole family is rare and it would be so awesome! Their last name is Torralba. We also have a couple other investigators that are very promising and have committed to baptism. the only thing keeping them from being baptized is they need to come to church. but the work is hastening here in Tagbilaran as it is all over the world. Elder Murdock and i talked about the second coming this past week. Christ is coming and is coming soon. The time is now. It's hit me so hard out here how soon He is coming. We have to preapare and fortify ourselves. Alma 9:26 is one of the scriptures that Elder Murdock shared with me. There will be a lot of things that start to happen and have already started happening here, like this earthquake and typhoon. The Lord has promised us thousands of times though that if we keep His commandments, we will prosper in the land. I studied Mosiah chapter two today and King Benjamin talked all about this. Go read it and study it. It's a powerful chapter. I'm almost out of time so I have to wrap it up but I know this gospel is true. I know it with all my heart. I know that Christ lives and that He is coming soon. This work, this fight, this gospel, God's plan for us is real. It's all real and true. I know it is. D&C 122:9 "Therefore, hold on thy way, and the priesthood shall remain with thee; for their bounds are set, they cannot pass. They days are known, and they years shall  not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever." I know that the Lord is with us and will be forever and ever if we love Him and follow Him and keep His commandments. I know that He is the only way to true happiness and eternal life with our Heavenly Father and each other. I love and pray for you all! Thank you for all of the emails! I love hearing from you! I love you so much!
Love, Elder Fox

Elder Murdock

 Zone

 Balut

 Riding on top of a multicab 

Cebu, Philippines Temple

Week 3 in the Philippines!

Hello Everyone!! Maayong Buntag! Or I guess it's maayong gabii where all of you are!

This week has been an awesome week. First of all I can't believe it's already pday again! That was a really quick week! Things are awesome here. So again the first part of the email will be random stuff and the last part will be spiritual. One of the highlights of this week was I ate balut! yes I did it. I didn't think I could or would but I did and it wasn't horrible. It looks way nastier than it actually is. It's like a worse tasting hard boiled egg so it's not great tasting but not terrible. I dumped a bunch of vinegar and salt on it which made it a lot better. It was crazy though. I forget what I write in my journal and what I email so if I repeat things I'm sorry. Elder Francom and Elder Rainey are still staying with us and its so fun. It's so fun to have them with us. Oh speaking of awesome people we went to dinner with the zone leaders in Cebu, Elder Croxton and Elder Chamberlain, and I found out that Elder Chamberlain knows the Olsens! He went to high school with Liz! He was like oh yeah they are so awesome! so that was cool to make that connection. He is hilarious. Him and Elder Croxton. One of the best things so far is just how close we as missionaries are and get. It's so awesome. Anyway what else. Oh I'm sick again! Haha how great is that? It's probably jet lag but yeah it's not fun. I just a cough again and congestion stuff. I feel like i'm recovering pretty quickly though which is good. The Lord is definitely strengthening me and blessing me. Oh in response to your email mom. Yeah you can add Nate to the email list or give him my email. Either way works. And I'll have to ask around for a Sister Carol and make the Knaphus connection. That picture of me with my mouth open is a winner haha. I think I might have been about to sneeze but I'm not sure what I was doing. Maybe yawning? I don't know those are the only things I can think of. I'm so glad that one's on Facebook though haha. I'm glad you got the picture of me and President Nielsen! He said he would send it to you. I had some nice hat hair in that picture. We all got hats for the service project and I was the black team so i got a black hat. EAch team had a different project. Ours was to clear out the district presidents house and a school in Loon. Anyway he was awesome though. He asked me where I was from and then we made the connection. Oh that reminds me, EVERYONE has seen the video of me opening my call. So many have come up to me and said that they saw me on the video. Its funny. I don't know what to say back other than oh yeah that's pretty crazy haha. I didn't know that everyone saw the video over here but I guess they did. Oh so guess who was literally five feet away from me in that picture with President Nielson. Elder Clayton and Elder Andersen! How cool is that? Elder Clayton was talking to Elder Murdock while i was taking the picture. Elder Clayton is impressive. And right after that Elder Andersen talked to us and one other elder. We talked for a couple minutes. The first thing he said was "Elders, go to work." And then he laughed and said no I know youve been working. he was great. We just talked about the destruction that happened and stuff. Really cool to be able to talk to him!Anyway so I'll tell you about the weekend I had! so Saturday was the day he spoke to all of the missionaries. We all met in a chapel and it was amazing. We all stood up when he walked in and then before the meeting started he said he wanted to shake everybody's hand! So he, Elder Clayton and others lined up and we all row by row went down the line and shook their hands. It was so cool. I went up there and he said, "Elder Fox, how are you? Nice to meet you." It was amazing. Seriously he did it so genuinely. I felt so important and that's how we need to make other people feel when we talk to them. We need to make them feel of our love for them and feel important like he did to me and we didn't even know each other. So before he spoke, Elder Clayton spoke and he was awesome. He really is so impressive. he knocked it out. He quoted someone and I can't remember who it was but the quote is, "If the world could see you (missionaries) as you really are, how clean you are, not perfect, but clean, they would all join the church." How amazing is that statement. This is what you have to look forward to James, Nathan, John, and Anna. Being a missionary is such a great blessing and privilege. Prepare now becasue the more you prepare now the better it will be when your time comes. Read and study PMG and the Book of Mormon. Especially you James. Your time is so soon! It will come so fast so prepare now as I'm sure you already are. Anyway Elder Clayton was awesome. He gave us some things to do to be better missionaries. I don't have to time to write all of them unfortunately. Elder Andersen did a presentation on The Merits, the Mercy, and the Grace. Some of my notes of what he said are he said, "We know the Savior of the world." He said how other chuches believe in the Savior but we know Him. We know the true Savior of the world. One of the things he emphasized to us was that we have to learn how to see the unseen. We have to see the unseen as missionaries. Like discerning the thoughts and words of the people we teach and talk to. he repeated it so many times. he testified of life after death and it was amazing. he simply said through sacred personal experiences, I know that life continues through the veil. I know that. He also said this about the Savior in the meeting with the people of Bohol on Sunday. He said I know the Savior lives. I know He does. I know Him. Powerful testimony from one of the Lord's apostles. Some other quick notes I took: "This isn't an easy road but it's a glorious road." He said "be more contemplative in your prayers about who Christ is." "As you seek Him and His will, he will make Himself known unto you in more ways than we know Him now." I know this is true because I've tried it. I've really tried to ponder and contemplate who Christ really is and my understanding, my faith, my testimony, and my foundation has been strengthened so much. I know Christ lives. I know He is our Savior and Redeemer. I know that He is also our loving elder brother and our best friend if we allow Him to be. I know He weeps with us during our suffering. I know He rejoices with us during our triumphs. I know He loves us. I know He lives. I am so grateful to represent Him. I hope and pray that we all can continue to follow Him, to learn of Him, and to know Him better than we do now. I'm so grateful for Him. I love Him. I love all of you! I pray for all of you all the time! Continue to press forward. Feast upon the words of Christ. Hold to the rod. Watch and pray. I listened to Elder Hollands talk he gave in April 2009 called Safety for the soul. He talks about the Book of Mormon and its incredible. Watch it! I testify that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know it's true and that it leads us to the tree of Life, to God's love. Hold to the rod, the iron rod. Tis strong, and bright, and true. The iron rod is the word of God, twill safely guide us through. I love you all! Have a great week!!

Love, 

Elder Fox

P.S. It's Christmas already in the Philippines so I'll just open the package now! haha just kidding I wont but it is Christmas. It's Christmas here from october to like january or february or something. Crazy huh!

Recovery Week

Hello everyone!!!!

So it's been recovery week here in the Philippines and I'm sure the next few weeks will be recovery weeks too. Here's a quick update on the earthquake. I'm sure all of you know probably know more than I do from the news but here's an update anyway. There continued to be aftershocks throughout the week but they've died down now. I don't think there's been one weve felt in the last few days so that's good. We have two elders from Loon (the place that got hit really hard) staying with us now. Elder Rainey and Elder Francom. Elder Francom is in my batch and Elder Rainey is Elder Murdocks batch. Batch is the people you arrived here in the Philippines with. Anyway so that's cool! They are awesome. We all get along really well. We play basketball everymorning at 6 before studies which is super fun. Elder Rainey is super good. Well all of us are good so it makes it fun but yeah he is good. So they are staying with us for awhile and we are going to get about 10 more elders with us this weekend which would normally be awful but the reason they are is awesome. And that reason is Elder Neal L. Andersen is coming to Tagbilaran!! He's going to be in my branch chapel! How sweet is that? He is the first apostle to ever come to Bohol. Pretty cool. So to tell you quickly what I'm doing this weekend. Saturday all of the missionaries in the Cebu and Cebu East missions are going to Cebu to hear from Elder Andersen. Then all of the missionaries in the Cebu east mission are coming to Bohol. That's about 120, maybe more, missionaries coming to Bohol! Sunday at 3 Elder Andersen will hold a special mtg until about 4:30. I'm really hoping I get to meet him but we'll see. So then on Monday we have a big service project up in Loon and Kalape and all the missionaries and Elder Andersen are going. We'll all be wearing our yellow Mormon helping hands jacket shirt things which will look really awesome because there are so many of us. Pretty sweet weekend coming up. Oh I heard there was an earthquake in Logan? Is that true? Any damage? so some quick things before I get to my week and some spiritual thoughts. Packages- They said not to send drinks because the packages get thrownaround and stuff and so just no drinks they said. But I would love candy for the kids and of course for myself. Also Fiji deodorant and other snacks. I mean these things aren't urgent but when you do sned a package these are some of the things I would like. Oh my missionary plaque. I think I found a scripture for it. Jacob 5:72. I love it because it says that the Lord labors with us in the vineyard. We aren't alone in this work. He is in charge and He works with us. Okay so this last week especially the last few days have been awesome. We have gone to the Bohol Cultural Center and have done service projects. We load huge bags of rice and organize food pack things for the people in Loon. It's been awesome to help out and to spend time with other missionaries. We have awesome missionaries in our district and zone. They are all awesome. We are like a family out here. We all hug (well only elder to elder of course haha) whenever we see each other and joke around and stuff. It's the best. So weve done that a couple of the days and the other days weve just gone to work proselyting. Elder Murdock and I have had some really good success and cool experiences, as well as some hilarious experiences this week. I don't know where to start. I'll just tell you about the past couple of days because those were the best, especially yesterday. A few days ago we were walking along a road and there was a group of people off to the side but their houses. There were a bunch of kids and teenagers and moms. The kids yelled to us and so we decided to go talk to all of them. There were about 18 people total. so we talk to them and get to know them a little bit and then we asked if we could visit them to teach them. They asked us if we would teach them right there and we weren't going to say no to that so we sat down and they all gathered around. A few of them left so there were about 10 that stayed. It was crazy. Rarely does anyone teach 10 people at a time especially just on the spot like that. It  was awesome. So we taught them the first lesson. The lesson of the Restoration. They all seemed pretty interested while we were teaching. They were all listening but some of them would get distracted you know? But as soon as we started talking about Joseph Smith and the first vision all of them were glued to what we were saying. they all huddled around us even closer and they didn't get distracted at all. The spirit flooded the area. It was amazing. It's amazing how the story of the first vision can do that. And that wasn't the only time this week that that's happened. There have been a few times where weve been teaching and people are kind of listening and then we get to Joseph Smith and everyone around zeroes in on us and the story. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that he saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I know he did. The Spirit has testified to me that he did and it testified to me again this week that he did. If any of you aren't sure about any part of your testimony or even if you are sure about your testimony, pray and ask for the Spirit to confirm or reconfirm the truth to you. It doesn't matter if we have a strong testimony, we can always ask for a reconfirmation and we will receive it. something that I've really come to realize so far on my mission is that we can ask anything of the Lord and we will receive if we have faith, if we desire, if we sincerely ask, and if the thing we are asking is of worthy cause. I know this is true. I have come to realize that we live so far below potential in a lot of things especially prayer. The Lord tells us to ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you, seek and ye shall find. I know this is true. I know that the Lord will give answers and guidance to those that ask in faith. He knows all things and He loves us more than we'll ever know. He loves us so much. Would He not answer the prayers of those who ask sincerely in faith? No of course he's going to answer. He wants us to become like Him. He wants to give us everything He has. All we have to do is ask and then be willing to act on the things we receive. We have to act. That's the other thing ive learned we must act. Act on the words of God. Speaking of the word of God. Look up Jacob 2:8! It's awesome and so true. Ive felt that so much so far. My soul has been strengthened so much by studying the scriptures and by conference. so back to the week. Yesterday was awesome. We taught about 8 lessons and had 52 FTEs! FTE is find the elect and it's talking to people and sharing a simple doctrine, testifying of it, and inviting them to church. You all might not know this but those numbers are big for a day! The mission standard for FTEs is 100 in a week and we got half in one day so if we keep going we'll have a really good week.  the Lord blessed us so much yesterday to be in the right places at the right times so we could teach and talk with all of these people. So some funny and fun things happened yesterday. One of them was when we were teaching a lesson and there was a five year old kid in a room right next to us. He said he was going to take a shower outside. Anyway so we were just about to start the lesson with a prayer when the kid lets out a battle cry and streaks naked right past us haha. It was hilarious. We were all laughing so hard. Good way to start off a lesson right? Other fun things we did were we did some magic tricks for a group of kids. I did my invisible string lip thing for them. you know how I pull up my lip with the "string". I hope you all know what I'm talking about but maybe not. Anyway they loved that. We played a little basketball and football with another group of kids and Elder Murdock did some cool soccer tricks for them and they were freaking out. They thought it was so cool and it was. Those kids took pictures of us which was really funny. anyway so yeah it's been a great week and an awesome last couple days. Some investigators that could use your prayers are Abigail and Jolina. they aren't sisters but have similar situations which I think I told you about in my last email. Shoot I'm running out of time. Thank you for all of your prayers and all of your support! They help so much. it's hard work out here. Fun but really hard so thank you for the prayers. I'll end with this quote from President Hinckley. "What we have experienced in the past was all foretold, and the end is not yet. Just as there have been calamities in the past, we expect more in the future....the Lord has said, 'If ye are prepared ye shall not fear'." I know that this is true. I know that as long as we prepare and fortify ourselves and trust in the Lord that we have no need to fear the present or the future. I know that Christ lives and loves us. I know our Father in Heaven loves us and wants us to be happy and has given us the path to happiness. I love and pray for you all!!

Love, Elder Fox

Week 1 in the Philippines!

Hello everyone!!

Wow so its been one crazy week! I'll try to get everything down in the email. Hopefully I remember it all! So first I'm sure you all wondering about the earthquake that hit so I'll start there. It hit about 8:15 in the morning here. Elder Murdock and I were just sitting down to some personal study and we heard some quaking and the ground started moving a little and we both looked at each other like what is going on, is this an earthquake and it was! So we both got underneath our desks which seemed pretty solid and just chilled there. It was insane. It lasted a minute or two. We were both pretty calm, I mean we were both kind of shocked that it was happening. I remember just crouching there wondering how long it was going to go and how big it was going to get. That was the scary part but I felt pretty calm and at peace. I know that Lord was watching over us. I just prayed that it wouldnt get too big and go too long and it didn't. Becasue it wasn't massive where we were it was actually fun haha. Scary but exciting. And after it stopped we were pumped. I mean we survived an earthquake! We had a bottle and picture shatter and I'll try to sned the pictures of them. So the rest of the day was recovery. Oh so in Loon, about 40% of the houses went down and a bunch of Catholic churches went down all over Bohol (coincidence? haha). But yeah almost all of the members gathered at the church and chilled there the rest of the day and spent the night. I think the next few weeks will be full of service and trying to help people get back on their feet and stuff. I'm sure there will be a lot more that will listen and turn to the Lord. At least hopefully they do. Helaman 12 talks about this sort of thing i believe. All of the members in our branch were okay though. There have been small shakes here and there ever since the big one. Nothing big though. If any of you are worried don't be! I'm fine and will continue to be fine. I don't think they are expecting anymore big hits. Oh and here's a tender mercy, yesterday was everyone's day off of work and school. So glad because it would have been chaos if families weren't together and everyone was trying to get to each other. Everyone is off work and school today too. Oh prepare a 72 hour kit!! I think you have mom but if not then do it! So many people were unprepared and a lot of them said oh now I know why the prophets tell us to prepare and we were like yeah! Haha so do it! It's pretty crazy being in an earthquake though. The ground just shakes haha and yeah I can't really explain it. Alright on to other stuff. Elder Murdock is my new companion! He is from Ogden and he is awesome. He's been here in the Philippines for about 7 months but on his mission for about 8. He went to Weber High School and played soccer. He plays basketball and is good so that's awesome. He was just made district leader too. He's the best tatay in the world! I don't know if they do this in all missions but they do this here. Trainers are the fathers or tatays and the trainees are the sons or anak. And they have this whole genealogy thing so Elder Murdock's tatay is my grandpa and if Elder Murdock trains someone after me then that elder is my brother and so on and so forth. People have brothers and uncles. I have a great grandpa in Cebu Mission and I get to meet him and my grandpa when Neal L Andersen comes in a couple of weeks! Yeah Elder Andersen! How sweet is that? Not as good as Elder Holland but still! So yeah Elder Murdock is awesome. We get along really well which is so nice. Our house is pretty sweet. I mean as sweet as it can get in the Philippines. It's supposedly one of the nicest elders' houses. I took some pictures and I'll send them to you. The food is good. I haven't had any real authentic Filipino food yet but I will. We have a McDonalds and a Pizza Hut and stuff which is sweet. The grocery stores have basically everything we have back at home. Different brands and not as good but still good. Their peanut butter is really sweet and good which is awesome. I pound graham crackers and peanut butter all the time, a classic dad snack. Transportation is pretty crazy. We usually take trikes around. A trike is a motorcycle hooked up to like a I don't know something you sit in. I don't have a picture of one yet but I'll show you later. The people are amazing here. I love them. The kids are so cute and it's so fun to play with them. There was a group of kids that kept coming up to us and they would hold onto our arms and we'd lift them. I probably lifted the same two kids up about 50 times. Haha it was tiring but it was so fun. We also played basketball with some of them. The weather is well.. hot. It's super humid all the time and super hot but i'd much rather have this than the cold so I'm fine with it. It's really really hot though. My whole body is constantly sweating. It's just something you have to accept here. I havent really seen any bugs. I mean they are everywhere but not really any big ones yet. We had one cockroach in the house but Elder Murdock killed it. Hopefully we don't get anymore. I don't think we should. Little ants and bugs are everywhere though. They aren't too bad though. The language is pretty frustrating. Not going to lie, its hard to look forward to teaching people because I know I won't know what they say and that I can't help them. I bear my testimony in every lesson but I dont know it's hard. I love the people and I do like going to lessons but it's hard to like it sometimes because of the language. It's okay, I know the language will come in time and that right now I just have to do my best and do other things to help. We do have one investigator who is really good at english and we were able to teach her in english. They did it for me haha. She is sixteen and she is amazing. She has a stronger testimony and faith than most members. The reason she isn't a member is becasue her parents won't let her be baptized and she's only sixteen so she can't sign the papers herself. In the lesson she told us about how she receives a lot of persecution from people because of her interest in the church. She is having a really hard time. Oh her name is Abigail by the way. Anyway the Spirit really took over the lesson. it was amazing. I told her that Heavenly Father was so happy and so proud of her that she desired to be baptized and follow Him and that He would provide a way for her to be baptized. I promised her that and Elder Murdock did too. I know that the Spirit completely took over and it wasn't me or Elder Murdock speaking, it was the Spirit. It was a really cool experience. I just wish that we could always teach in english. Oh well it's okay. So to wrap things up I'll end with some general conference and district meeting stuff. both of these things I'm going to say have to do with fortifying ourselves in these last days. During Kevin S. Hamilton's talk, he was talking about the decision between a sunday family drive or sacrament mtg. I'm sure you all remember it but if not look it up. Something came to me though. This is what I wrote down. "We cannot ease up at anytime. The devil doesn't and so we shouldn't either. We must keep the accelerator down at all times. we can't affor to ease up. AS soon as we do we will be slowly run over. I don't care how small the action or lack of action is. We can't afford to give Satan any advantage." Kevin S. Hamilton said, "the devil uses good activities for substitutes for better or even best activities to cheat our souls and carefully lead us down to hell." The last thought is from district meeting. Elder Murdock said,"We fought before this life to bring as many souls here to earth and now we are fighting to bring as many souls as we can back to God." Do we really realize we are literally in a war? This is the time. We have to be like the stripling warriors and "obey every word of command with exactness." There is no other option. The prophets and apostles have given us such great council and warning and commands. We need to review their words every day just like the scriptures and prayer. We need to choose not good choices, not better, but the best choices. I love this gospel. I know it's true. I know that through the Lord that everything is possible. Everything. I know that Christ lives and loves us. I know that He will have mercy upon all those who repent and desire to be better. I love you all so much!! Thanks for all of the prayers and for being the best family ever! I'm out of time but thanks for all of the updates on everyone dad and for all of the emails everyone. I love you all!!

Love, Elder Fox

Earthquake!!

Hey everyone!

Wow so I'm a little disappointed I don't have any emails from you about the earthquake we just had! I don't know if President Tanner has called you yet. He called us and said that he was going to call you and let you know that everything is alright. I'm in Bohol right now and that's where the earthquake hit. It was a 7.2 on the earthquake scale thing!! It hit this morning at 8:15 during personal study. Haha it was so crazy. I'll tell you more about it tomorrow in the weekly email but everything is fine. Our area didn't get hit too hard. Some other areas got hit really hard though. Anyway don't worry about me! Our house has a few cracks in it but we are staying here at the church tonight so we'll be safe. It's been a pretty crazy and exciting day to say the least. We're expecting some more aftershocks so keep us in your prayers especially the people because there are a lot of people suffering from this. Really don't worry about me! Im great! Let me know any questions you have about this whole thing! I love you all so much and I'll email again probably tonight and tomorrow. I dont know we'll see. I love you!!

Tagbilaran, Bohol

Arrives in Cebu, Philippines

I made it!!

I'm in Cebu!!! I can't believe it. It's so crazy. The flight was great. I slept literally 10 to 11 hours out of the total 14 hours from LA to Manila. haha I was out cold. It felt amazing but I am still dragging right now. It is so hot and humid here. I love it though. President and Sister Tanner are amazing. I love them so much. They really are the best, most humble and kind people ever. We are in the mission home right now and it is so freakin nice. Holy cow I want to stay here so bad. It's awesome and right on the coast. Anyway I don't have a lot of time to send this but I had to let you know I made it safely! Everything is great. We get our new comps and get assigned areas tomorrow morning which will be exciting. We are staying at a hotel tonight and they are going to give us a lot of time to sleep so that's good. Well I have to go! I love you all and I pray for you all the time! Hurrah for Israel!!! Oh and the people are amazing and I have met only a few. Love you all!! Thanks for all of the prayers!

 

Love, Elder Fox

Last MTC P-day!!

Pamilya!!!

I can't believe the next time i email all of you I"m going to be in the Philippines! Thats so crazy. We had to say goodbye to all of our teachers except for one yesterday and it was actually kind of sad for me. They were all so awesome and helped us so much and we won't see them anymore. I'll show you a picture of all of us. They were the best teachers ever though. Seriously they were so awesome. I can't believe it's already here. So I did get the phone mom so dont worry. That's lame that that guy was being mean about it. I got it though so that's good! I can't wait to talk to all of you on Monday!! That's going to be so awesome. I think I'm going to buy a phone card at the mtc so I can call in manila. Unless you figured the international stuff out which would be awesome. Ill buy one just in case. Anyway this week has been awesome! Just like all of the other weeks! I'm loving it here especially here at west campus. It's so much fun. I see Elder Mathie, Elder Caine, and Elder Murphy all the time well I guess not Elder Caine and Elder Murphy becasue they left but I used to see them all the time. So crazy story! We were playing basketball and there was a loose ball and Elder Howell went running after it and two othere elders did the same and they accidentally tripped him and he fell and fractured both of his elbows. They aren't really bad fractures but it's a five week recovery and the doctor and disrict president decided it was best if he went home to recover and then straight out to the philippines after. How crazy is that!? Don't worry I don't go after those loose balls for that reason. Too many stupid injuries could happen just like that. I can't believe he's going home though! He's going to see his family and stuff. Anyway so that's the crazy story. So I have a bunch of great things to tell you. Here in the mtc it's like having general conference all the time. It's so awesome! We have devotionals and meetings all the time. I mean nothing can compare to general conference (which is this weekend and I'm so excited!!) obviously but it's pretty awesome. Oh so they watch general conference in the Philippines a week after we do so I'm going to be watching it two weeks in a row! How awesome is that?! Alright so I have a lot of spiritual things to tell you so here I go. So we had mission conference which is basically stake conference. We get to hear from the presidency of the MTC and it's really good. Some notes I took are "You will never know the amount of good you did while in the service of the Lord."-President Hinckley. "The Book of Mormon is the most correct book on Earth."- Joseph Smith. We hear this a lot but do we realize what he is saying? It fiinally hit that he is saying it is the most correct book on earth. That there is no other history book or anything that is more correct. How amazing is that? My love of the Book of Mormon has grown so much. I love it. I love it. It feels my soul with peace joy and happiness and with an fire from the Spirit. That leads into another one of my notes. President Nally, the mtc president said, "there is a power that will flow into your life as soon as you start a consistent study of it(Book of Mormon)." That is so true. If you study it everyday you will feel a power come into your life. I know it will because it has in mine. I love the Book of Mormon and I love Joseph Smith. Sunday Devotional was great. We had the provo temple president and his wife come and they talked about the temple. She quoted President Hinckley who said, "I promise you, come to the temple and life will be better for you." She also quoted President Monson who said, "Come to the temple and place your burdens on the Lord and you will be blessed with a new spirit and new courage. He will take you by the hand and walk you step by step to happiness and to Celestial glory." Pretty amazing quotes about the temple by two prophets of God which means by Heavenly Father himself. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ promise that if we go to the temple life will be better, that They will give us courage and a new spirit, and that They will lead us by the hand to happiness and back to Them. No matter what we do in this life. No matter how faithful we are or how many people we've served, or whatever, our Father in Heaven and our Savior will bless us more than we put in. We can't ever repay Them for all that They bless us with or have done for us or continue to do for us. I testify that They love us so much. I know They know us and love us. I know it and I'm so grateful, beyond grateful for all They do for me. I will always be indebted to Them. The president of the provo temple, President Daines, quoted I believe Elder Neal A. Maxwell who talked about three ways you can tell if what youre doing is important. He said," 1. Is what youre doing true? 2. Is what youre doing important? 3. Is what youre doing urgent?" President Daines said missionary work and temple work are those three things. These are the things that should be most important in our lives. For sunday night film I went to President Uchtdorf (yes he was awesome) but I don't know that title of it which i'm mad about but that's okay. Here are a few notes I took. He said magnifying your calling is going beyond your talents. You go beyond your talents becasue the Lord is with you. He also said "never tire of the first principles of the gospel." He then said this about Preach My Gospel. He said,"read, study, and share as an investigator, as if you are converting yourself, and you will." He then promised this, "I promise that if you do this, Satan and his attacks will have no power against your testimony." Preach My Gospel isn't just for missionaries. It's for everyone. How amazing is that promise from an apostle of the Lord that if we read it and study it and share it Satan will have no power over us. He ended with an Apostolic blessing, blessing us that we will be protected and we will be guided. It was amazing. Tuesday Devotional was also awesome. We had Elder DAvid S. Baxter come and speak to us and he was amazing. He had a Scottish/British accent and it was so freakin awesome. Haha it was so cool. Anyway he was converted to the church at the age of twelve by two missionaries and the first thing he said was "thank you...thank you...thank you for choosing to serve." You could tell that he was so grateful to those missionaries that brought him the gospel. I'll tell you more about that in a sec. He said, "there should be a light in your eyes from the burning in your soul." That gave me chills and it just did again. That was so powerful to me. I can't explain it, I just hope that it hits all of you like it did me. "There should be a light in your eyes from the burning inside your soul." He went on to talk about how the world doesnt think we are christian and the reasons they don't and the reasons we are. He just layed it down. It was awesome. He took all of the views of the world and disproved them with scripture after scripture and with his testimony. It was amazing. I wish I could write all of the things he said. So he ended with this. He said (and I'm paraphrasing) "for the last few moments I would like to talk to all of you as if i'm talking to the two missionaries that taught me the gospel." I wish I could repeat everything he said becasue it was so sweet but this is what I have. He said "thank you, thank you, thank you." And then he got really emotional. "I could never repay the debt I owe you, I will love you forever. Thank you, you truly have changed the future." This touched me so much. this is the reason I'm out here. This is why, to change the future of someone's life. I can't tell you how nice it is to feel appreciated as a missionary. It feels so good to have someone thakn you like that, or just talk to you on the street, or wave at you, or honk, or anything. Its a lot of work and we are away from home and it feels so good to be noticed. So whenever you see a missionary talk to them!! Wave, smile, honk, thank them for their service! there is nothing better than it out here. But yeah it was amazing to hear how grateful he was for the missionaries. I can't wait to go out and serve the Filipinos. I love this gospel. I'm so grateful for it. I know it's true. I love my Savior and my Heavenly Father. I am so grateful for Them and all They do for me. For Their mercy and love that They've shown me. I miss you all and I love you so much!! "Watch and pray!! Vanquish every foe today!!" I love you and pray for all of you all the time! Love you!!!

-Elder Fox