Snow Before Halloween :(

Hi everyone, how's it going? I hope you are all having a fun Halloween! It is super cold here! we have gotten about 4 inches of snow this past weekend. people everywhere were telling us that we were supposed to get 8 to 12 inches but we only got 4 so that was good. This week was pretty good we did an exchange with the Glenville Sisters and that was really good we all had a good time and learned from each other. I went to Glenville so I got to meet some of there investigators and do some finding up there while Sister Hale and Woodmansee were here in Bennington. We have been doing a lot of finding this past week and we have come close to picking up some new people to teach. we have a referral that we are excited about we just have to find a time when we can meet with them. we hope that it all works out and we can teach them. Today we have P-day and then we have to stay in our apartments for Halloween. Halloween is not a good night for missionary work :( but we have a lot that we can be doing at home. we have to do the training in our district meeting this week so we have to prepare for that.... I hope it goes well! oh and this Saturday is transfer call. I am not sure what is going to happen with that but I am pretty confident that I will be staying here for my last transfer.The question is if I will be staying with Sister Hale or not. well, I guess we will find our soon. I hope you all have a great Halloween and I will write again next week! --Sister Cox

Fall is in the Air!

(e-mail from 10/24/11)

Hello!! how is everyone doing?? I am doing great!! The weather here is really chilly and crisp! it feels like fall! I just hope that the snow holds off for a bit. that would make me happy!! :) this week we had a funeral for one of our members here, it was good very spiritual. we also had to drive to Saratoga springs this week for district meeting, which we were not to happy about! We normally have our meeting in Greenwich, NY but now they want us to switch off every other week. It takes up a big chunk of our day, it is and hour and a half drive there then we have a meeting of and hour and a half and then it is and hour and a half back. it is a long day of driving! oh, well we are still doing good on our miles for the months so that is a good thing. we are doing an exchange with Glenville Sisters this week! I am excited for that. it is always good to work with others and learn from them! well that is about it. I hope you all have a great week! do forget to wish mom a Happy Birthday on Saturday! --Sister Cox

Fall is FINALLY getting here!

(e-mail from 10/11/11)

Hello everyone! How was your week? I had a pretty good week! Sorry about no email last week. I will repent. First thing is that we found some new people to teach this week so that was really good. one of them was kind of a miraculous that we found him. one day we were walking home and our mission pres. called us and told us he wanted us to look up this former record because he has just got off the phone with an Elder that has served here in 2007, well his dad past away and apparently his dad grew up here and new the former quite well. so this Elder wanted to get his information to tell him that his dad past away. so we ended up going over to the formers house and talked to him for about an hour. it was a good talk and we are going to start teaching him! it was an amazing experience I know that we were lead by the Lord to find him. this week we also has Stake Conference! it was really really good. A lot of the talks were centered on missionary work! :) This week we are looking forward to Zone Conference Elder Piper of the seventy is coming! and the leaves have finally started to change!! they are not that good this year some say that it was because off all the water and the flooding and some says its because of the warm and then cool and then warm weather we have been having. I am not sure which it is but they are pretty still, just not as good as last years. bummer :( oh, well still it prettier than anything I have seen in the west! well I hope you all have a good week! --Sister Cox

Starting to look like fall here

(e-mail from 9/12/11)

Hey, how is everyone doing? It is starting to look like fall around here. the leaves are starting to change! its crazy how fast the time flies! This week was good. We had an awesome district meeting with our mission President and then we also had interviews this week, that went well. We also did exchanges with the Glenville Sisters. I was fun. I got to go to Glenville work with Sister Woodmansee.I have gotten to do a lot of exchanges with Sister Woodmansee a lot on my mission because we always seem to end up in areas that are right be each other. it was good to catch up and work together again. its crazy because we actually live right by each other she lives right above Lehi and we ended up going to the same Jr. high and High school. we both lived in Orem area and then moved to Lehi area! What a small world. anyway it was good and we had a lot of fun. we found a new investigator this week so that was good and we are still working with some amazing people, we cant wait till they are baptized! I hope that Sister Hale and I are both here when that happens but if we are or not it will be great when they do get baptized! anyway I hope you all have a great week! --Sister Cox

The Gospel Brings Light and Hope

Hello everyone, how has the week been? I hear that it is getting colder there and it is getting colder here too. this week, as many of you know has been difficult. We had a recent tragedy in our mission. Last week 2 sisters in our mission got into a car accident, Sister Love and Sister Bentley. Sister Love and Sister Bentley were life flighted to hospitals in the area. Sister Love sustained injuries that put her in critical condition and Sister Bentley did not make it through the night. It has been very hard for all of us in the mission. Sister Love is out of the hospital and is now recovering at home. they say that her recovery will take 6 to 8 weeks. the whole situation has been really sad for all of us in the mission. Sister Love was my companions MTC companion and I knew sister Bentley from doing exchanges, we have been out on our missions about the same time, she came out one transfer after me. she was an awesome missionary and a wonderful person. I know that the Lord has a plan for her and she is continuing the Lords work on the other side. our prayers have been with Sister Bentley's family and sister Love and her family. Its things like this that you never think will happen so close to you. But it has given me the opportunity to stop and think about how much the Gospel brings us hope and light in times of darkness. I am so very grateful for the knowledge that I have. I can see so much tragedy and darkness in the world and it makes me want to share the Gospel more and help others find the peace and hope that it brings, especially in times of darkness. I know that our Heavenly Father has a plan for all of us. He has a plan for Sister Bentley on the other side. I am grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve next to such a great servant of the Lord. I am grateful for this time in my life to devote it to the service of the Lord. --Sister Cox

A Tragic Loss. Prayers Needed.

Two sister missionaries from Sister Cox's mission were involved in a car accident yesterday. Sister Bentley passed away, Sister Love is in the hospital. Please pray for Sister Love and the families of these sisters. I'm sure it is extremely difficult for the mission president, his wife, and the missionaries as well.

Here are some articles with more info:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700175258/Sister-missionary-dies-in-NY-car-accident.html

http://www.wwnytv.com/news/local/Arizona-Woman-Seriously-Injured-In-Lisbon-Crash-128705828.html

Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Tropical Storms... Oh My!

Hey everyone! How has your week been?!! Things have been really really crazy here!! we have been moving this week and it has been exhausting!!!! I was so tired and we still have to put our new apartment back together and clean the old one! some of the exciting highlights of this week was that I felt my first earthquake!!! :) It was awesome!! it was not a very big one apparently it was just a after shock from a earthquake that they had in Virgina. We were just sitting in the car waiting for district meeting to start and the car started moving like some one was shaking it. I turned to sister Hale and asked her what in the world she was doing, she said "nothing, it you! look your leg is moving!" I told her that my leg is moving because the whole car was moving but she insisted that it was me! we were joking around and we said maybe it was a ghost or maybe it was an earthquake. and as it turns out it was an earthquake! crazy!! It was exciting though, I have always wanted to feel one, not a big one or a scary one but just to feel what they are like! it was pretty cool.

So then as the week went on we heard that there was supposed to be a hurricane that was coming. at first I was really skeptical on if it was really going to be that bad. I figure we are not that close to the cost and the storm has to break up some what when it hits land. but people keep telling us that it was going to be really bad and that in Vermont they are mostly worried about all the trees. This hurricane winds it would cause a lot of damage. at the time we were more concerned about finishing the move than the hurricane. but by Saturday morning we though we better go get some drinking water to be prepared just in case. so we went to the store and the water was completely wiped out! all of it! so we went to plan B we filled all our pots and pans with water and put them in the fridge. and then we just stayed in and waited for the storm to pass. and then it rained and rained and rained and rained and rained some more. no wind though. we didn't know that it had down graded to a tropical storm at that point we were just thinking this is the lamest hurricane in history. so we spent most of Sunday trying to get our apartment back together. it was late afternoon when we heard some of our neighbors talking or more like yelling out side. we were listening in and they said something about evacuating and so we ran out there to ask them. they told us that a fire truck cam by and told them that they were evacuating our whole street because of the fear of flooding. that is when things got interesting. we were not sure where to go. we gathered a few things and put them in the car and then we called a few people. we finally found a place to go, one of the members in the branch and we ended up staying the night there. they were really nice and they live well above Bennington so we were good there. in the morning we cam back about 8 and drove around to look at the the damage. almost all the bridges are washed out or closed the Walmart is muddy and flooded and I hear some of the grocery stores down that way are covered in water too. there is talk of our water being our for a while because when one of the bridges fell it fell on a main water pipe. I really, really hope that does not happen. but other than that everything was fine. our apartment was fine nothing flooded and it could have been a lot worse that it was. I am sure life will be back to normal in no time. there are a lot of places that are in a lot more trouble that us. there are some place in New York that they are worried about dams breaking I am sure that everyone will be ok, they have already evacuated people. but yes so that was our exciting week. I hope you guys have a good week this week and I am sure we sill have a better week here, ---Sister Cox

Getting Ready To Move

Hello, everyone! how was you guys week?? Ours was pretty good, not too many exciting things going on. We are still preparing to move and we cant wait until its all over! we are moving this weekend so if any of you have our real address in Bennington DONT SEND MAIL THERE, you can send it to the mission office and I will be sure to get it. This week has been all crazy and messed up because it was transfer week and we had to have P-day on another day and we didn't have district meeting this week and we have been trying to get ready of move. This week we went over to teach a older member of the branch, he is 88 years old and cant come to church because he takes care of his wife who is sick. and he was working out side and we asked if we could help. so there we were two girls in skirts pulling weeds in his garden and mowing the law. it was good to do some service and he needed the help. he dose so much for his age, its amazing! well, I hope all of you have a great week this week and I will hopefully have something more exciting to write next week. ---Sister Cox

Rain, Rain, and more Rain! (And Frogs)

Hey, everyone! How was your week?! Ours was good. It has been raining a lot the past few days, like non stop!! We were driving home from one of the out skirts of our area the other night and all these frogs were jumping across the road and my companion was driving and we kept running over these frogs! it was soooooo gross!! it also has been a little chilly here, I mean come on people! we are still in August!!!! anyway, we met with two of our investigators this past week, we have been teaching them for a while, they are awesome! really prepared for the gospel! well, we set them with a baptismal date this week!! it is scheduled for September 10th! we are super super excited they are awesome people!! we are also excited to be moving very soon! we are moving not this weekend but the one after that, the last weekend in August! Yay! no more smoke smell!

This week... not too exciting.

(E-mail from today)

Hello! How are you all doing?? Did you have an awesome week!? Mine was ok, nothing too exciting happened this week, other than we had needy investigator and I got sick this weekend. we are teaching this one investigator who calls us up and says that they don't want to meet anymore but want to still want to keep in contact, we were like okaaay. and then like the next day they were like we can still meet I just don't want to go to church. and we said if you still want to learn then we can still meet so we set up a time to meet. and then they kept texting us and asking if we were mad at them. soooo, we went through that for a few days and then we finally met and had the whole our purpose as missionaries talk. we will see where things go in the next few weeks. I also got sick this week, that was no fun! we had to stay in all day Saturday :( it was kind of blah day cloudy, rainy, and muggy, I slept like all day! I felt bad for my companion though. I bet she was bored out of her mind! anyway, I hope all of you have a great week! I will write again next week, ---Sister Cox

Trip to the Top of the Mountain!

Aaahh! I haven't posted in about a month! Sorry guys! -Carrie

(e-mail from 8/1/11)

Well, I hope you all had a wonderful week! mine was good the weekend was exciting! we had exchanges this week so that was fun. I stayed here in Bennington so I really didn't know where I was going, but we had a GPS so that was good. It was really fun I got to work with Sister Stacy and got to know here a little bit, we had a good time. then the craziness started it all starts out that we got a referral and we had set up an appointment to meet with him. he lives far away so we left with plenty of time to make it there and we typed in his address in our handy dandy GPS. well we got going and we run into the first problem, the GPS wanted us to go on this toll road, it was frustrating because the avoidance for the toll roads was on! I guess that the GPS did'nt realize that the road it wanted us to go on was a toll road. so we tried to press the detour button but it would just take us up the highway and then make us turn around and go back to the toll road. so now we are getting even more frustrated and then we remembered that someone had told us that it was right up the road from there house so we put there address in and when from there. so we got to the going the right way and then we put our referral's address and it told us to turn on to this dirt road. it started out ok but then the houses started to disappear and the started to get really rocky, I mean really rocky. you could see where the water had washed out parts of the road. I was freaking out, where was this GPS taking us! I figured this road had to turn into a real road sometime. but as we kept going it just got worse. we finally had to get out an figure out how we were going to get out of this pickle! and as we are standing out side the car. about six 4-wheelers drive up and I ask them, "dose this ever turn into a real road?" on of them said, "no, this is a 4-wheeler trail, you need to turn around and go back down, I am surprised that you got this far. most people turn around way back there when they bottom out!" apparently we were not the only ones to be lead astray by the GPS! so we turned around and made our decent back down the rocky road, very slowly! so we finally got out of that awful road and then we still didnt know where to go. the guy in the 4-wheeler told us to turn right so thats what we did. (oh yeah all the while we had no cell phone service!) we drive and drive until the road we were one turns into another dirt road and then we keep going and once again the road looks like its turning into a rocky road so we pulled over and walked up the road a bit just to see if it gets better or worse and then here comes another 4-wheeler and he told us, "oh, you dont want to go up this way. you would never make it!" but he was nice and actually knew the person we were looking for so he pointed us in the right direction and we finally made it to this guys house! He was really nice. he is an older man who lives up in the middle nowhere. he really likes horses and we asked him how he got in contact with the church. it was pretty cool because he told us that his wife passes away about a year and a half ago and so he was going through some of here old stuff and he found a book of Mormon. he started reading it and found a number if he would like to learn more! he called it and he has been talking to temple square sisters for like 2 weeks. we are super excited to start teaching him! so that was our crazy adventure for this week! I hope all of you have an awesome week! --Sister Cox

VERMONT!!!

Hello everyone! I hope all of you have had a great week! I have had an awesome week! I am in Bennington, Vermont now and I love it! it is so pretty here! its better than NY I think. they have lots and lots of trees and mountains! I hope that I am here in the fall time. we are teaching a lot of people so that is a very nice change. we are teaching a lot of less active members. we are in a branch here but the numbers at chruch each week are starting to go up. we had 74 this past Sunday I guess that is a record here! so that was very exciting. we are also hoping to have a least 3 baptism this transfer. we are teaching this one couple that just walked into chruch a few weeks ago and they are soooooo prepared! we got to meet with them this past week and they are awesome! we are hoping that get baptized this transfer! I really like my new companion also, her name is Sister Hale. She is newer, she has been out for 6 weeks. things have been going well, just getting down to work here. I love it and I hope that I will get to stay for a while! I hope you all have a great week! --Sister Cox

Packing Once Again

(e-mail from 7/5/11)

Hello, I hope everyone had a good 4th of July! It was good here. we didn't do that much out of the ordinary on the 4th. we just had a BBQ at a members house for dinner it was fun. we also had transfer calls this week! So we found out that I will be leaving and going to Bennington Vermont. It is the only area that is in our mission that is outside NY. My companion is going to be sister Hale. I met her once last transfer she is brand new and has only been out 1 transfer. I am excited to go and work there in Bennington but I am not excited to pack... again. maybe I will be in this area for at least 2 transfers, we will see. Well I hope you all have a great week! -- Sister Cox

New People!

(e-mail from 6/13/11):

Hello everyone! I hope you are all having a great week! things have been going good here for the most part, it has been rainy some days and hot others. My companion and I have decided that everyone here has fake door bells. No ONE and I mean No ONE every answers there door! no matter if you knock or ring the door bell, no answer. no one answers the phone either! i cant tell you how many times I have tried to call some one and they just don't answer and don't call you back. Ok, so on a happier note we did find new people to teach this week! we picked up two new investigators! YAY! one is an 11 year old boy his mother is a member. and the other is a lady the elders met on the street. It was really nice to pick up a few people and have a few lessons this week. it looks like for now things are looking up. I am super excited about this week because we are doing exchanges with Ithaca and I get to go work there for the daY!!! I am so excited! well I hope you all have a great week and I will write next week. --Sister Cox

Learning Experiences

(e-mail from 6/6/11)
Well, this week has been another hard week. we still have not found anyone new to teach and we are down to only 2 in our teaching pool. we are doing everything that we know to do to find people to teach. I feel that right now the Lord is just helping us learn from this experience. I have come to learn on my mission that I am grateful for the hard times and the trials because they give us an opportunity to grow in ways that we could only grow thorough that trial. I am growing as a missionary at this time in my mission because to the circumstances of the area that I am in and I am grateful for that. I hope you are all doing well and that you have a great week!! --Sister Cox

Stress!

(e-mail from 5/31/11)

Hey, how are you all doing?? things are crazy here! this week is transfers and we found out that I will be leaving Syracuse and going to back to Endicott and Sister Duncan, my companion will be going with me! crazy! so we have been trying to get everything done that we need to and trying to say good byes and pack and clean. on top of all of that I got sick again, I have a sinus infection :( not fun. And my shoes broke this week :( I feel like its one of those moments when it rains it pours! I have been very, very, very stressed. a lot of it is that I am sick and I just don't feel good. I don't feel like packing but you got to do what you got to do. I know that It will all work out. I just need to make it through this week. it will be an adventure when we get to Endicott . I have only been there 2 weeks, 4 weeks ago! I have no Idea what our teaching pool will be like. I am sure that everything will be fine once we get there and get to work. anyway I have got to got but I hope you all have a great week! --Sister Cox

(e-mail from 5/16/11
Subject: Golden!
Hello everyone! i hope you all have been having a great week so far. things have been going really well here. We found two new people this past week one was a HQ referral and she requested that missionaries come and visit her so we went and she told us that she has just been looking for a new church and was interested in our church because she like that families can be together forever. we also got another referral that called the church he said that he wanted to know about all this "Mormon stuff" well we met with him and he was very interested and actually came to church on Sunday. all of that was very exciting we are excited to work with both of them and help them progress. so last week i didn't have to write an email because it took longer that i had expected to send pictures but last week we had to get our breaks fixed in our car. well it started out that when i got her i kept hearing this grinding noise and it was getting worse so we decided that we need to go take the car in. well, we found out that the breaks were bad and they need to get fixed the place that we went to quoted us a price that was too high. we ended up calling a member who is a mechanic and he volunteered to fix them for us, saving us a lot of money. he came in half way though fixing our breaks holding up the old ones and said " it really is an act of God that you were stopping in that car!" apparently the brakes were completely gone just metal on metal. Wow, the Lord really does look out for his missionaries. we are fine and our breaks are all fixed! well, sorry this is so short but i have to go, i hope you all have a great week and I will write again next week! --Sister Cox

Happy Year Mark!

Today is Sister Cox's year mark! I'm sorry I(her sister)have been slacking on posting her e-mails lately. I'll try to catch up soon.

Wow, What a Week!

(E-mail from 5/2/11)

Hey, everyone how is it going? is it warming up there? It is getting warmer here and the trees are starting to get leaves and its soooooo nice. So this week has been a crazy week. I realized that in 3 weeks I went from Watertown to Endicott to Syracuse and I have has 4 companions! crazy! Lots and lots of changes. the biggest of those changes are that I am now in a tri-companionship. well... I have to say that it has been going better that I expected. It's better now that I have been out for a while that I know what I am doing a little better but some things are still hard. Change is always hard. It forces you to grow in ways that you would rather not but Heavenly Father knows that you need to. I have just been trying to get to know the City the people in the ward and those that we teach and also get to know my companions. I still feel like i don't know what way is up and down but I will get to know everything sometime. this Sunday we has a family come to church all 6 of them the father was not there because he works on Sunday but it was still really exciting. I also found out that one of the investigators that I taught in Ithaca got baptized!!! YAY I was so excited! I had heard that he had had 6 baptismal dates and hadn't made it to any of them but finally he got baptized!!! I am so excited for him! well nothing much else to report. I hope you all have a great week! --Sister Cox

Goodbye...So Soon!

Ok, so crazy, crazy week!!! So I am getting moved to another area. I am going to be in Syracuse, NY. My companion, Sister Holmes got her visa last Friday and she is flying out on Wednesday. yeah, so that means that I am going to be in a 3-some in Syracuse for the next 4 weeks until then end of the transfer. Crazy!! I was not expecting her to get her visa so fast. I don't think any of us, not even president expected it so soon. so we have been going around crazy today packing and doing laundry and cleaning. I just got unpack last week and now I am packing again!! I don't know how I feel about being in a 3-some for 4 weeks, I kinda didn't want to ever be in a 3-some again. everything is harder and longer, in a three some. But I think that it will be good, its only until then next transfer and then we will have enough sisters again. I think I may come back to Endicott next transfer so that will be an adventure. we will see what will happen. Well I have got to go but I hope you all had a great Easter and that you have a great week this week! --Sister Cox

PS PLEASE SEND ALL MAIL TO THE MISSION OFFICE!!!!!! THANK YOU

Crazy Week!

Sorry to all who read this... I am way behind on posting on here! Quick update-Sister Cox got transferred last week. She's now in her 3rd area with a visa-waiter companion.

So this week has been Crazy! Crazy emotionally, physically, and any other way you can think of. I am still adjusting to the new area. Its a nice place it rains alot here at thins time of year. we cover more that just Endicott which makes things interesting, we cover Endicott, Endwell, Johnson City, West Corners, and Vestal all with out a car. the are all close together and small. but it make scheduling interesting. we cant get out to all the place we have people in, its crazy! my companion is really nice, Sister Holmes is a Visa waiter so she is waiting to get word to go to her mission. as soon as she gets it she is out of here and I have no idea what I am going to be doing.... so yeah we will cross that bridge when we get to it. so there was a baptism this week, it was the elders baptism, we share the ward with them. and they had new reporters come and interview him and tape some of the baptism talks and things, it some PR thing L Tom Perry told the bishop here to do. anyway the lady doing the report talked to us and wanted to know some things about missionary, I thinks she is going to call us some time this week! crazy! anyway I hope you all have a good week I have got to go bye! Sister Cox

One Year Older and Wiser too

So this week was good. I had my birthday! It was good. It was pretty much like a normal missionary day. We taught some lessons and then we had 3 hours of planning!! We do weekly planing on Thursdays. Then we had dinner at a recent convert's house we had cake it was really good! We have been doing A LOT of finding this past week! that made it a little rough. I love to teach! but its hard to find those people to teach, you know what I mean. I know that their are people out there the the Lord has prepared and are ready for the Gospel, we just have to find em'! we are excited because we have a few good potentials that we are going to meet with this week and we hope that goes well. We are also doing exchange this week! I am staying here this time and a brand new missionary is going to come here! this is her first transfer! I hope she likes tracting because chances are that is what we will be doing, not many people like to meet with us on Saturdays for some weird reason. Anyway I know that it will be good. I hope that you all have a wonderful week! thanks so much for all your birthday wishes! --Sister Cox

Rain, Ice, Snow, Lots of Snow, and Cabin Fever!

(e-mail from 3/7/11)
Hello everyone! How are you guys doing?! I hear that the weather is warming up there. Well, we were not so lucky :( it rained for like 3 days!! then it all froze and turned to ice and then is snowed and snowed some more. yeah, but i guess the only good part was that we were inside. my companions has been sick all week! yes we have been in the apt. most of the week! I had cabin fever really bad!! and to make matters worse Church was cancelled on Sunday because of the ice and snow! I was so looking forward to church. but my companion is feeling better and we are hoping to hit the ground running this week and find and teach! sorry this is so short but I have to go. i hope you all have a great week!-- Sister Cox

H2O Town- Here to Stay!

(e-mail from 3/1/11)
Hey, how's it going! I hope you all had a wonderful week! we did! we had a baptism is past week it was awesome. I love seeing baptisms! we also found out the results of transfers this week... well I am staying in Watertown!!!! yup I guess the people here better get used to having me around because i am going to be here for a while. my companion is entering her last 6 weeks of the mission so I will have to take over next transfer. So i am here to stay for at least another 12 week! that will be a grand total of 71/2 months of my mission!! wow! I am very excited. I love Watertown, I love the ward and I love the people. another exciting thing is that 9 months ago tomorrow I entered the MTC!!! I am just about half way through my mission! crazy how time fly!!! I am excited and looking forward to what the next transfers bring. last week we found 3 new investigators! one of them is a young single mom and her daughter. they are great! we are looking forward to meeting with them for the second time today! well I have got to go but I hope you all have a great week! --Sister Cox

O-burg... yeah... strange place.

(e-mail from February 22nd)

Hey everyone I hope you are all doing well. I hope the weather is warming up for all of you. its still pretty cold here but that's to be expected. this past week was good over all. we are still struggling to find new people to teach. we had a few potentials set up to meet with them but the all fell through, that was depressing. but we did have exchange this week! I went to Ogdensburg AKA O-burg, i worked with my old companion Sister *****! it was a lot of fun!! But Ogdensburg is a strange place... we worked in a little town called Hermon. where everyone knows everyone it was kinda crazy. it was fun to work with Sister *****, I am guessing this is our last time to work with each other because she only has a few transfers left until she goes home. this week I will get transfer calls so I will find out if i am staying in watertown for another 6 week or if I am getting transferred. I think I might be transferred this transfer. I wont know for sure till this Saturday. I will email you all next tues and tell you. we are also looking forward to a baptism this next Saturday! Janet is getting baptized! we are so excited for her. oh and one of our other investigators got baptized this past weekend in Kentucky, he is in the military and is on R&R so he decided to be baptized back home. he and his wife will be coming back on the 1st of March and then he get deployed in the middle of March. anyway, Sorry this is so short but I have got to go! I will let you all know if I am staying or going next week!! -- Sister Cox

Happy V-Day!

(e-mail from Feb. 14th)

So nothing to exciting happened this week, other than the baptism went well and we had 2 confirmed this past Sunday. We had to push back the baptism that was going to happen on Saturday because she came down with the flu so we are going to have her baptism on the 26th of Feb! It has been snowy and cold here but today it has started to warm up and some of the snow is melting but it is really windy here today. we had a hard week, we have been having a hard time finding new people to teach but I know that the Lord will bless us and guide us to those that he has prepared for us to teach. anyway I hope that you are all doing well and that you have a great week! -- Love Sister Cox

Flat Tire, Zone Conference, and Lots of Snow

Hello Everyone! How's it going? Are you all staying warm? I hear that it is pretty cold there. It has been cold here, but more snowy than cold. We had zone conference this week! It was really good but we sure had a hard time getting to zone conference. On Sunday we realized that we had a flat tire so on Tuesday we took it in and the people there told us that the hole was in the side wall and it could not be repaired and then they preceded to try and sell us a $208 tire. Our mission car coordinator said no way, and that they were just trying to rip us off, and to take it to another place. So we called around and found a place that had a tire for a good price but the only problem was that they could not take us until Wednesday but week needed to be in Utica by 9:00 Am on Wednesday. So we called the missionary Couple and they agreed to take us but then we found out that a huge storm was supposed to hit all that night into the morning and all that day! so we finally came to the conclusion that we were going to drive down Tuesday night. we didn't get there till about a quarter to 11 pm. so we got to Zone conference and that was really good! and when we got back we still had our car to fix, well the senior couple said that they knew a place that was good and that he would come get our tire and get it fix for us or buy a new one and then put it on for us. so as it turns out the tire was fixable and the other place was just trying to rip two girls off. what a sad, sad world we live in. anyway we had a baptism on Saturday and it was great! it went really well. then we got another huge snow storm and church was canceled yesterday, it was such a bummer :( We were looking forward to the confirmation and seeing our investigators at Church. anyway all in all this week was good! crazy but good. I hope you all have a great week. --Sister Cox

SOOO Cold!

(e-mail from 1/31/11)

Hello! How is everyone doing? I hope you are warmer that we are here! its has been freezing! like in the negatives! soooooo cold. things have been going well this week. we have been busy trying to get all the up coming baptism organized and getting our investigators ready for the interview and making sure the have been taught everything they need to have been taught. We have a baptism this weekend on Sat and then another on that following Weds and another on that next Sat. So a lot to do and not long to do it but we are super excited! I cant wait! they are all amazing! I feel every blessed to be able to have taught them and see them enter the waters of baptism. I hope you all are doing great and have a great week! --Sister Cox

Awesome, COLD week!

This week has been awesome! We have started teaching a new referral and we set another baptism date for the 9th of Feb! We are seeing so many blessings from the Lord! We are really excited and looking forward to having 4 baptism next month!! we just set a girl that we are teaching with a date, she is 13 and we are also teaching her mom. they are both doing great! and are way excited for the baptism. its has been really, really, really cold here. People keep telling us that it is -30 or in the -teens with the wind chill and someone told us to be careful when we go out at night because at those temps frostbit can set in within 15 min of exposure. We have been fine so far we try and make appointments at night first and that has been working out. i hope you all are staying warm and doing good. Have a good week! --Sister Cox

After Much Tribulation Come Blessings!

Hello everyone! How is it going? I hope you are all staying warm. It has been really cold here lately. We have had a really good week this past week! Like I said last week it was a hard week but the Lord is pouring the blessing down upon us this past week. We were able to set 2 more people with baptism dates this past week so now we have 3 baptisms coming up in February! We are so excited. One of them is a girl that we have been teaching for about 3 months we talked to her on the street just after I got to this area. We have asked her if she would like to be baptized 2 times before but this last week she pick a date and is planning on being baptized on Feb 13! I am so excited for her. The other person that we set a date with was a part member couple who just moved into the ward. They just got married 7 months ago and the husband is not a member. He got interested in the Gospel while he was deployed and someone gave him a book of Mormon. he read it and prayed about it and has a testimony that it is true. he told us that he wants to be baptized before he is deployed in March. we are very excited for all the wonderful things that are happening right now. I also found out that I will be staying here in this area for the next transfer!! YAY and my companion is staying also!! I am so happy about that! well, I hope you all have a great week and stay warm! ---Sister Cox

Hard Week

(e-mail from 1/10/11)

Wow you guys, this week was hard! We are struggling to find new people to teach and struggling to hold onto those that we are teaching. This week EVERYONE cancelled with us, yes everyone. I have never had a week as bad as this one. I felt like everything was falling apart! but on Sunday the Lord poured out his blessings on us! we were able to set a baptism date with one of our investigators for Fed 5th! I am so excited! I just hope I don't get transferred this transfer! they are coming up so please start to send all mail to the mission office! I think i will be staying but you never know so yeah send it to the mission office to be safe. anyway, we also had 2 part member family move into the ward and one of them wants to meet with us! and we got some really great potentials on Sunday also so that was good. we also did exchanges this week with the ********* sisters. I went to ********* and Sister ***** stayed in our area. It was really fun and I got to meet some real north folk. they are very different people in the north country. it was very interesting... yeeeeeaaaah. but it was fun working with Sister ******** for the day! anyway I hope you are all doing great! and I hope you have a great week! --- Sister Cox

Found Wallet!

(e-mail from 1/3/11)

Hello, How was everyone's New Year!? I hope you all had a good 2010 and are looking forward to 2011. I have good news this week! we found my wallet! i was found about a week later outside the house we ate dinner at on Christmas eve in the street. it was a miracle that we found it! I was so happy! thanks for all your prayers! we also had a baptism this week! it was soooo good! I love baptism. this week has also been a hard week. both my companion and I got sick this week. we both got colds and we had to stay in for a bit. we are getting better now but my companion woke up this morning throwing up... gross. she thinks that it was something that she ate and I hope so because I am tiered to getting sick! I can not get the flu! again! geesh. Satan has been working hard on us. good things are happening in the area but we have run into some speed bumps... sickness, lost wallets ect. we have been having a whole drama thing going with one of our former investigators. this particular investigator could be classified as "less accountable" she was always asking us to get her things from the store or find her rides places. we tried to help her out but she started abusing the situation and them members that were helping her and we just had to stop teaching her. well, yesterday she calls and said that she is all ready to go to church and if she can get a ride. my companion and I got her a ride and then she got up during testimony meting and started telling everyone that God had answered her prayers though a Lottery ticket that she had won money and that she needed to talk to the sisters after church because she needs rides places and groceries. yeeeeeah, it was horrifying. so we need to have a talk with her. we also are dealing with a boundary war in our ward. we have some members that come to our ward that are from Fort Drum but technically Fort Drum is in the Carthage Ward and is in the Elders area which means that it is out of our area. the problem is that there are members that like to have us over for dinner that live on fort drum and we have just been informed by our mission pres that we are NOT to leave our area. so we have to tell these members that we cannot come over and its just a touchy subject and I hope it doesn't blow up in our faces. Anyway other than that things are going well . I got to go. I hope you all have a great week. ---Sister Cox