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