Nate is doing great! And that's not a big surprise!

Nate IS doing great! 

If you know Elder Cox -- you know that he is NOT a big sharer. His letters are clever, but short and there is a definite lack of specific details. That is all fine and dandy -- because we love him anyway.

I will be sharing some tidbits from his letters from the last 4 months -- but first I have a request.

Nathan will turn 19 on SATURDAY, October 31!!!! Happy Birthday Nate!!

The mission has discouraged us from sending packages, so I'm waiting until Christmas to send snail mail. 

THAT means that he won't GET anything for his Birthday -- but we can send ALL the emails we want to:

ncox@myldsmail.net

He doesn't need a long letter or even a paragraph -- just send him a quick Birthday Message -- starting today would be great! He would LOVE that and really make his first Italian birthday special.

Anziano Cox reading a role play scenario at Taranto Zone Conference

Now on to the tidbits… which I'm going to do chronologically backwards and NOT all 4 months -- just October. You are welcome. :-) I was pondering shortening them -- but when you read them, you can hear Nate's happy sass and it's hilarious.


October 26 - The long week in the wrong city.

Ciao Belli!

Oggi, pensavo che sarebbe bene se scrivo questo email in italiano. O forse, soltanto l'inizio.

I'm still not sure how much Italian you guys want.  I can give a little bit at a time, or I can just full out send only poorly phrased Italian.

Eh. You guys can't tell it's bad.

So this week was lots of traveling.  On Monday night, I think, the office called us and told us that Anziano Covalt's permesso is ready! So that meant we had to go to Catania! Catania is in Sicily, which is about a 6 hour train ride away.  So this was a three day excursion.

We left Thursday morning.  Technically, Thursday afternoon because Italians don't know how to properly organize public transport, but we made it in the end.

We called Catania beforehand to let them know that we were coming. The zone leaders (who is Anziano Pope - Anziano Covalt's trainer-, and Anziano Kawai -my trainer) told us that they would be out of town on a scambio.

Liars.

They picked us up from the train station in the fancy car, and we spent the night in Catania. There is also another companionship in Catania right now whose training, so everyone was either the trainer of one of us, or the trainee. It was a nice three days.  I got to see a new city, how the missionary work is there, see Anziano Kawai, and taste some super good Arancini. Also some Sicilian pizza, and American ice cream.  Think McDonald's. That's basically what it was.  Yummy soft serve.

Did you guys know they have McDonalds here? I don't know if I told you or not. They are on just about every city.  And they are fancy.  Not American fast food.  Classy fast food. I'll take some pics of a McDonald's sometime (if I remember) and show you how swag McDonald's is here.

Friday morning, we went off and picked up Anziano Covalt's permesso. This was probably the simplest permesso pick up I've ever heard of. We walked in, waited in line for ten minutes, got his permesso, and left. Usually it takes a super long time at the police station for them to call you up, and then about a 15 minute process of verifying who you are. But this was super simple.   Not complaining at all.

In the afternoon, we went with the other Catania Anziani to a new converts house and taught a lesson about the restoration to him.  It was pretty cool.

We left the next morning to head back to Catanzaro, but not before eating ice cream for breakfast at this little stand next to the train station.  They sell these brioches for €1.50 that are the size of my

fist. Yum.

That was most of our week.  Being in the wrong city, but still trying to do stuff.

Spiritual thought! In Italian!

Oggi, ho letto nel libro di Mormon sulla qualità di pazienza.  Sono in secondo Nefi. Lui ha tanta pazienza per i suoi fratelli.  Loro sempre fanno le cose male.  Mormorano. Vogliono uscire Nefi. Ma sempre, Nefi ha pazienza e carità per loro.  Ricordava che loro sono i suoi fratelli, e hanno la stessa opportunità essere pure tramite l'espiazione di cristo. Anche quando Nefi aveva una visione che loro andranno via e fare tutte le male cose, aveva amore.

Now in English.

Today, I read in the Book of Mormon on the attribute of patience.  I'm in 2nd Nephi right now.  He had a bunch of patience for his brothers. They were always doing the wrong things.  They murmured. They wanted to kill Nephi. But always, he had patience and charity for them.  He remembered that they are his brothers, and they have he same opportunity to be clean through the Atonement of Christ. Even when he had a vision that they would go away and just be bad, he had love.

Anziano Cox

October 19 - Facciamo la spezza e poi andiamo al parco.

**we asked him to write in Italian more -- because it's cool.**

Should I put English translations next to the Italian, or should I leave it to google translate? For now, I'm a bit lazy with not so much time, so google translate will have to pick up my slack. I may have forgotten an accent in there somewhere.  Sue me.

Did you know that Italians don't have the following in their language?

K- it's always a c.

J- it's always a soft g. Such as ginormous.

The "th" sound. I tried getting an Italian to say he was born on the thirtieth this pass week in English course.  The poor guy.

Any other questions about the language? No?

ANDIAMO AVANTI.

So first, the week. We had some sick lessons, some super cool people, and some awesome

sights to see this week.

Lessons, you ask? On Friday, we did a lesson with our neighbor.  She wants to be baptized in the church.  She likes the doctrine, she's reading the Book of Mormon, asking all those great questions, BUT her parents don't want her to join another church. SO, we are probably going to go over to their house next week and teach them the restoration, and show them that the Mormons are a'ight!

That was probably the most memorable lesson this week.

Also this week, we were waiting for a contact in a park.  We had about 45 minutes to kill, and there was no one in the park.  So, we went to the museum that is in the middle of the park. It's a military museum that has stuff that goes all the way back to the napoleon era. Crazy stuff. The funny thing is, it's open every day of the week except for Monday. Our p-day.  So we can't go and explore it more in depth.  But, it was a super cool museum.

Another thing..... We finally have internet in the church again! And running water!! You never realize how much you take these things for granted until you don't have them anymore.

Now..... Spiritual thought! Woohoo!

So, this morning in fact, I was reading the Book of Mormon.  Go figure. Right now I'm in 2 Nephi, chapter 4(ish), and I just finished it. Chapter 4, for those of you who don't know, is when Lehi dies and Nephi mourns for a while. In his mourning, he isn't really sad for his father's death.  He knows

the plan of salvation.  He knows where he's at.  He's sad, but not devastated. He's mourning a lot about his shortcomings.  About his weaknesses. About his struggles. I mean, he was only human.  He made mistakes too.  He may have been a prophet, but he wasn't perfect.

But the thing that he always brings it back to is his trust in God. He recognizes his shortcomings and relies on God to help him overcome them. And he knows that God can help him overcome anything.

Anziano Cox

I love this picture from August with his cheesy grin. Anziano Cox & Anziano Kawai
with the Mission Pres looking on…

October 12 -- Waves shouldn't be that color.

So this week has been full of some fun stuff!

I am loving the little emails from you all.  They are super fun, and I wish I could send some in return.

**we have been trying to send him SHORT emails everyday for his Birthday Month -- since we can't send a package of Birthday stuff.**

Alas, I got one day to write and send. So let's get to it!!!

First off, this week has been super stormy. Hence the title.

Because.....

When it gets stormy it Italy, it gets windy too.

When it gets windy, a lot of stuff gets blown around.

When stuff gets blown around, some of it ends up in the ocean.

When enough gets in the ocean, it starts to get dirty.

When it gets dirty, the water turns brown.

So we had brown waves this week.

It was a bit startling to see that, but cool nonetheless.

It's been a fun week showing Anziano Covalt the ropes in Catanzaro. We've had some cool lessons with some super cool people.  And I'm hoping that we will continue to work hard and succeed.

So, this week in English course, we had a cool experience happen.

We have an investigator who has started reading the Book of Mormon who comes to English course,cans we've been meeting with her a bit before every English course to answer any questions she has. While we were doing that, a couple other English course students came in and started asking questions about the Book of Mormon too. We ended up have 2 different lessons going on at the same time for these students.  It was a cool class.

Anziano Cox

October 5 - I'm in charge?!?!?

This week was cray!

I meant to type crazy, but I'm gonna stick with that. So Thursday was my first real transfer.  I said goodbye to Anziano Kawai, and said hello to my new companion, Anziano Covalt! He's closer to me in age, but I'm still younger.  He's 19, and he's from San Diego.  He's been in the mission six weeks less than I have. So I'm in charge. It's pretty interesting being in charge. My pride is growing tremendously (not really) and I'm completely independent (again, relying heavily on the Lord in this case.)

It's been a good first three days on the transfer.  We watched general conference with some members, because the Internet in the church still isn't working.  So we watched conference in Italian. It was nice, but I'm also DEFINITELY gonna download the talks in English and put listen to them. It's gonna be a while before we have a regular Sunday here.  This week is conference, and next week all of the Ranieri's are in Bari for some seminary thing.  It's gonna be interesting have half as many people in church.

I'm totally loving the email a day thing for October.  I'm a fan of this birthday month.

Now for the spiritual thought.

So in my last lesson with Anziano Kawai, I had the spiritual thought. And I decided to talk about the first point of the restoration.  How God is our loving Heavenly Father. This is one of the points that I've been learning a lot about on my mission.  It's definitely a foreign concept for a lot of people. That He isn't just our Creator.  He's literally our Father.  And being our Father, He loves us as children. Because we ARE His children.  We should always remember that, no matter how we feel, how good or how bad, we can always turn to Him for help.

We need to remember this basic truth.  Everything in the gospel is because of His love for us.

Anziano Cox

The update that is titled: Mary is a slug and not keeping up on this blog very well!!

It's true -- not slug as is "not doing anything" OR "doing everything at a super slow pace" -- because neither of THOSE are true. Slug as in -- "Can't find enough spare moments to gather all of Nathan's random thoughts together." AND "If he would write more than 5 sentences per week then the update would be worth it!"

AND -- I've discovered that I have to gather information from multiple letters to multiple people -- (insert some fun Italian slang for sheesh - oh boy - goodness -- or something like that). :-)

So the following is my attempt to extract important info -- from all sorts of letters -- and let you know how Anziano Cox is doing. He's doing great by the way!

This might be long -- but it's a pretty fast read -- and Anziano Cox is so clever -- laughter will ensue.

And in the future -- I will NOT wait as long to update -- my bad. But you'll only get about 5-7 sentences. :-)

The email address for Anziano Cox is ncox@myldsmail.net.


June 1, 2015

So we woke up at about 2:30 in the morning to head out on a plane at 8:30. Somehow, we used up all that time and had about 30 minutes before boarding to call our families. I didn't have any time. My bad. 

The flight was without problems, but the part while we were not flying, aka our layover in Atlanta, took about 2 hours longer than it should have due to a mild thunderstorm in our way. After that, everything was smooth. 

We got into Rome at about 9:30-10:30 (which was more like 2:00 in the morning to our bodies), and met President Waddoups. He's a very tall man. He's also very kind and a great mission president. 

We went to the temple site, took a quick photo, and went to the mission home, aka the villa. This villa was built by Mussolini's son. Interesting stuff. We then met Sister Waddoups, who made us lunch. 

Then we went into Rome to do some sight seeing. We saw the Spanish Steps (eh?), the Colosseum (pretty cool), and the Vitoriosa (a palace with a bunch of statues on it. It was more impressive than the Colosseum to me). 

After we got back, it started pouring. Later in the evening, we had dinner and met lots of senior couples. One couple was in the MTC with us. I can't remember their names, but they are super cool and are in Rome right now. 

After that, we had interviews, and then the exciting reveal. Where will we be spending the next 3 months of our lives. And with who. I'm currently in...... Catanzaro! It's this city really south in Italy. We can take a train for half an hour and get to the beach. This is the part where I really regret not having pictures on this. It's pretty impressive. Our branch is 15-20 members strong, and they are the coolest members I've seen. They are all so kind, and often slow down when I look at them with a confused look. My trainer is.... Anziano Kawai! He's 21, has been in the mission for a year, and is super cool. 

So far, it's been lots of adjusting to everything. Lots of paperwork so I'm not thrown in jail or kicked out of the country. Much more exercise that what I did in the MTC. Much more learning too. I really am enjoying myself. I'm learning a ton, my companion's great, and Catanzaro is pretty good so far.

June 8, 2015

Italy is treating me well. In the words of my trainer, my goal is "to get swole." Aka, ripped. Toned. Muscular. So far, I haven't moved in that, but I haven't gotten fat either. Stuck in this body. That just

means I need to be more diligent.

There's a bit of Italian culture I think you would really enjoy. Every day, the entire country takes a lunch break at the same time. From 1-3, stores close, people go home from work, and the city stops so people can eat and nap. Even stores that sell food close. It's a really weird thing that happens every day. But I have to get used to it.

SPEAKING of diligence, I have starting reading the Book of Mormon looking specifically for Christlike attributes. This go around is Diligence. I'm marking it all up, and I'm hoping that by the time I'm done with all of them, my Book of Mormon will be fantastic. And I too will be...fantastic. As well as humble.

This is so real now! In the words of many Italians," WOW!" I'm not sure what to say happened this week, so it will be lots of tangents and stuff like that. 

Let's work backwards. 

Yesterday, I taught Gospel Principles in church. By myself. Anziano Kawai was teaching another investigator with a member, so I was teaching with a member who didn't know English. It's a difficult path I tread. It was about Faith in Jesus Christ, and I think it went well. I tried to let the member and investigator talk as much as possible, since my comprehension is much better than my speaking. I think that they felt the Spirit when I gave my testimony, and they said I did a good job. Granted, they were also being very nice, but it was still a confidence booster.

I went finding for the first time this week! And I can see why we don't do it that often. It is lots of work with very poor results. Walking the streets hoping to find someone that is willing to stop and talk is hard, especially when you know that your time could be used in other ways, like teaching or meeting with members or basically anything else. 

What's funny is that at the beginning of his mission, my trainer did finding almost every day. He would go out and do that because that's what the mission did. Later on, he realized how working with members works so much better. They live here, so if they invite their friends to church, they already have a friend in the ward. And converts who come to us through members are much more likely to stay in the church. It's interesting.

On Wednesday, (I know I just skipped three days. I'm low on time. Highlights people.) I had my first DDM, or District Development Meeting. It was great, because my district is baller. We have us, two sisters in Cratone, two eldesr in Cratone - one of which was in my MTC group - and a senior couple in Cratone. Everyone except for us in there. Va beh.

The sister missionaries are some of the best missionaries in the mission, and I know half of the elders already, so they are pretty cool. And I haven't met the senior couple yet, but I've only heard good things about them.

Slightly awkward missionary moment: There was one guy we found while walking around that stopped us because he said that we were two cute men. Yikes. Then, we ran into him again in the store. Double yikes. I'm pretty sure he followed us to the store too, so that's a triple YIKES. Luckily, we lost him on our relentless search for BBQ sauce. That actually was definitely an awkward missionary moment.

I miss the simple things in life, like BBQ sauce, or tortillas. BUT -- We are going to try and make them tonight, and if everything succeeds, I will have an endless supply of tortillas, aka, manna from heaven. 

June 15, 2015

The branch I'm in right now has about 14 members in it. 6 of these members are one family, the Ranieri's. They are super cool, and have us over for dinner every Sunday. 

This Sunday, we shared the Restoration after dinner, and my companion made me take the wheel, aka, I'm the one giving the lesson. It went better than expected. I know a lot of Italian, considering that I have known the language for two months. I just think that they are baller people and are so fun and kind. 

Just about every week, we go and get pizza from this little pizza shop below us. They always give us a ridiculous discount, as in 2.50 euro for a 5 euro pizza. We wanted to see how much and how good this giant pizza would be, and it was the same thing. Half off. 5 bucks for a huge delicious pizza. Italy is beautiful.

Transportation? We mainly take the train around town. It runs from Catanzaro città to Catanzaro Lido. Lido (it's the beach, but that's not the word for beach.) has another train station that runs to other cities, such as beach, but that's not the word for beach.) has another train station that runs to other cities, such as Crotone or Soverato. We go to Crotone for District meeting, and to Soverato for Sundays. The train that runs through Catanzaro doesn't run on Sunday, so we take the bus. Mainly, we use the public transportation, like most Italians. They use it over here much more than "The America".

Living Situation? We live in an apartment about 30 minutes from the church. It's pretty decent. Second floor, two bathrooms, but only one toilet seat. Stove, but no oven. It's pretty good.

Hilly Land? Arizona can't really compare to the scenery. Once I get an iPad, I can send pictures to express this, but Arizona is terribly flat. Italy is hilly, and it makes it look good.

Food? Come on. It's Italian food mom.

Area? Do we stay in Catanzaro area? So Catanzaro is a pretty big city. There's a train that runs from Catanzaro città (the city) to Catanzaro lido (the beach). From Lido, we can ride the train to other towns, but we only do that on Sunday to go to members houses because it's very time consuming.

Church building? It's a rented office space. About as big as our apartment. It's quaint. Again, pictures share more than my words.

Language? I've been told I'm doing very good. I can understand a good amount of the time. Most of the time, unless they are old, speaking painfully quick, or using dialect. Speaking, I just need to do it more.

We have an investigator whose about to be baptized! She's a super cool mom whose has completely accepted the gospel. Her baptism is probably gonna be on July 4th. Woo Hoo! We are also probably gonna have a BBQ then too, since it's the Fourth of July and we are big headed Americans.

I've been doing lots of reading. Of Gospel Principles (In Italian), Book of Mormon (both English and Italian), and ltos of General conference talks (mostly English.) So much gospel. It's pretty good so far.

Remember that this church is true, and that it's incredibly important that we let others know that. Remember the importance of this gospel and its glory.

June 22, 2015

Eating? Every Sunday night we go over to the Ranieri's house (the big family in our branch) and have lunch. Then we go around Soverato and visit less actives. 

Branch Area? It's the Catanzaro branch, but it covers a lot of land. It covers a smaller city called Soverato, and I think it's about a 30-40 minute train ride. And other cities that don't have any members in them.

E-mail Plan? This situation changes a lot. Usually we go to the church building and take turns of the slowest computer in Europe. BUT, we will have email on our iPads soon, and we can check our email throughout the week. We just can't email back. We can only email on P-day. 

For crazy stories, I don't know if this is crazy, but it's humorous. On Wednesday, we needed to go to the Questura (police headquarters) for my permesso stuff (fingerprints, signing, the works). We thought we knew where the Questura was, but when we got there, it turns out that it was the wrong one. 

When we asked where it was, they told us "that direction," pointing to the right. So we trekked around the city for ten minutes asking people where this Questura was. It turns out that it was on the other side of the bridge that divides Catanzaro in half and is the second largest bridge in Europe. So after we ran across that and hiked for another 20 minutes, we finally got to the correct Questura. 

We were about 30 minutes late for my original appointment. However, when we got there, they instantly called my name. Tiny miracles.

Another interesting thing is that when we were doing that, people wanted to talk to us. When we asked for directions, they freely gave them and then asked us about our church. It's amazing how different the results can be if you change your approach just a bit.

Story! This is by no means a reality yet, but it's still an exciting thing. So the missionaries of Catanzaro recently moved apartments about 3 transfers ago -- aka, 4 1/2 months. The neighbors above us adore us - for what reason I have no idea - and are probably the kindest people I've ever met. The father was talking to us yesterday and wanted to put together a conference of sorts so that we could explain our beliefs to a bunch of people. The crazy thing is, is that it's totally within the realm of possibility. His daughter's job is to put together things like that. Preach my Gospel encourages us to take opportunities like that. He even said he would pay for a bunch of stuff. Granted, this isn't real yet. But it is a super cool thing to think about.

Another crazy thing that happened (different kind of crazy) is that I gave a talk in church. It was on keeping the Sabbath day holy. It was supposed to be 10 minutes, but I ran out of material in 5, so we got our slightly early. My bad. 

I feel like I'm getting better at Italian every day. I can understand lots. However, as the day goes on, translating becomes more and more difficult. I go from understanding 70-80% to about 40%. And that means I have no idea of what's going on. 

Speaking is also very different. There's a reason there's a gift of tongues and a gift of interpretation of tongues. Two separate and distinct challenges. And I'm progressing differently in both of them. I finally understand conversational past vs imperfect past, but there is still much more that I need to learn. Give it a week. I'll be fluent. Ha Ha!

**This is the family letter we got today** :-)

Sorry, this will not be nearly as long as I would like. 

Actually. I have no time. 

We are getting iPads tomorrow, so that will be exciting. 

This last week was lots of stuff.

Monday, We met with a less active and got a new investigator out of that. 

Tuesday, DDM. I really like my district. 

Wednesday, Questura. I hope I sent a story to one of you. Share it. 

Thursday, Finding. we had more success on Wednesday asking people where the police station is than that day.

Friday, I honestly don't remember what happened. Saturday, met with the investigator who will soon be baptized. She's awesome. 

Sunday, met with our neighbors upstairs. They are cool. 

Today is Monday. Zone soccer. Woo hoo.

Love you all and miss you all!

The Journey Begins

While Elder Nathan Cox is on his mission, his musings and thoughts will be posted here.

I'm not sure how often he will be able to send a "mass email" letter, so I'll include important tidbits that he writes to me.

I'm sure the format and such will be changing as we go.

4/22/2015 (this is part of the letter he sent me)

It's been a long week, but it also flew by.  The MTC has a fantastic spirit here.  Everyone is so kind and wants to serve the Lord.

I am really loving it here.  I've learned SO much more Italian than I would without the Spirit here guiding my words.  We had to teach an investigator on the THIRD day IN ITALIAN.  But the Lord provides a way. 

My teachers speak mainly in Italian.  They are returned missionaries who went to Rome as well! They speak it wonderfully, and it gives me an idea of what to look forward too.  But they definitely speak slowly and simply to us.  I can't understand a third of what the investigator is saying, but she is so kind.  I am truly excited to preach and teach the gospel in Rome. 

The church is true!

- Anziano Cox

4/22/2015 (this is the "mass email" letter he sent on 4/22 - so there is a little repetition)

So this first week at the MTC has been fantastic.  My companion's name is Anziano Krogue.  He's from Utah, enjoys snowboarding, and has a fantastic testimony.  

On our third day here, we had to teach an investigator in Italian!  It was lots of tripping over words and pausing, but we got better and better every lesson we did.

There's only one thing that I can complain about.  The food.  It tastes pretty good, and I like it.  However, my stomach does not.  I don't know if that's just because I'm away from home and my body is in panic mode, or if I just am pathetic, but I think I'm starting to get used to it. 

Yesterday, half of my zone went to the Italian consulate over in Salt Lake.  I didn't go because I never got the ok to go.  I don't know if that means they didn't get my papers and passport yet, or if it means that I already did the stuff and didn't realize it.  I hope it's the latter.

I really enjoy the spirit here.  Everyone can learn about the gospel and their language in such a great environment. I am excited for the next week to come.

Io so che Chiesa e Vera!

- Anziano Cox

4/29/2015

Being the music coordinator has been not as difficult as it could have been.  I really just need a musical number every week for sacrament meeting.  The first week I just did a piano solo, the second week I had three Elders sing The Spirit of God, and this week I'm having one of the sisters sing a solo.  It's pretty simple.

Something else very music oriented happened on Wednesday.  I walked into the classroom and there was a note on the board for me.  An Elder Reynold was asking me to accompany for him for Thursday morning.  Usually, there is a list of available accompanists, but the MTC is very small right now (in comparision to the past -- t has about 1000 missionaries right now, but it can hold I think 6000), so there was no one on the list.  He found me through the music librarian, who heard about me through my Branch President's wife.  He was singing "Oh That I Were An Angel".  I had an hour before class and 15 minutes before the audition to practice.  He sang beautifully.  I definitely had some major help with playing.  But they loved it.  We performed at the departure devotional Monday night (which was why it had to be this week.  He was leaving on Tuesday).  I did great!  Again, I doubt I could have played it without some significant help from the spirit, but it was beautiful.  He is such a cool guy.  He's from New Zealand and is the only missionary in the entire MTC going to Madagascar.  Definition of a Cool guy.  That was a really great part of my week. 

The MTC has overall been great.  I found out I can play volleyball fairly well, and I can't play soccer very well.  It's an interesting array of activities that they have.  In the gym, we can play basketball, volleyball, and..... four square. Yup.  I haven't played it since elementary school, but it's not too hard to catch up to.  Out at the field, we  can play soccer, frisbee, or beach volleyball.  Again, strange last one, but that doesn't mean it's not fun.

That's It! I love you so much! Il Vangelo e Vero!

- Anziano Cox