Action This Day

During the Second World War, Sir Wintson Churchill, the prime minster of Great Britain, would label memos and other papers with the words "Action this day," to indicate the urgency of certain actions and when they should be performed.  The phrase can be a reminder to us to not put off to tomorrow those things that should be done today.  Some actions may need to be performed daily until a goal or dream is achieved.

In mid-December 1988, near the end of my first year in the mission field, I hit a rather rough patch.  As December began, there were clear signals that the work was going to drop off because of the upcoming holiday season.  I went ten days without writing in my journal, and when I finally did, the only thing I noted about the work was that the previous week we had had ten appointments set, and that all ten had fallen through.

As the work fell off, I became discouraged, and succumbed to temptation.  I have always liked the way Nephi put it, "Tempations which so easily beset me."  It doesn't really matter what the tempation is, and what it is is nobody's business but the individual who is struggling with it.

In any case, after succumbing to this temptation which so easily beset me, I found myself yelling at the image in the mirror.  I mean, I really laid into myself.  The good Elder Cox was fed up with the bad Elder Cox.

I remembered all that I had learned on my mission and realized that I had not done a very good job of applying those lessons.  I said that I was tired of the things I was doing to myself.  I said that I was tired of my weak and inferior attitude.

All in all, I came to the realization that it was time to get control of my life.  I needed to do some evaluating and set some serious goals and exercise some serious faith.  The next morning I started reading Drawing on the Powers of Heaven by Grant Von Harrison, for the second time.  The mind can overcome the physical and the time had come to turn my life around.  I had every intention of doing that.

The following day I fasted, and it gave me a lot of strength.  That evening I wrote in my journal that:

I have come up with some goals that I think are good:

1. Coming closer to and developing a personal relationship with my Heavenly Father and with Jesus Christ. This has been a goal I have had for most of my mission and now I reaffirm it. Plan of Action: Prayer, scripture study, monthly fasting, hard work, obedience to the mission rules and the commandments, and kindness and love to others.
2. Overcoming shortcomings in communication and conversation. Another long time goal. Plan of Action: Take advantage of opportunities to communicate.
3. Keeping and improving the knowledge and attitude that I am loved and needed and that I am not unique because of my challenges. Plan of Action: Reminding myself of evidences of my family’s and friend’s love and need for me. Remembering the stake missionary in Seaside and his postive attitude in the face of his challenges.
4. Improving my words and actions so that they may portray the love and need I have for those who are close and also to investigators and contacts. Plan of Action: Practicing and doing acts of kindness and charity. Putting myself last on the list. Remembering and looking for others’ needs and challenges.
5. Overcoming my tendency to get angry during rough times. Plan of Action: To strive always to be humble before the Lord. When the trial comes, to look to Him with a prayerful heart rather than raising my voice in anger towards Him. To learn and exercise patience at all times. Reminding myself daily of his love for me and of the evidences thereof.
6. Continue to put the bad things in my past behind me as well as to overcome attitudes of inferiority. Plan of Action: Always concentrate on good things in past, present and future. Remind myself of the good that has been spoken of me (without letting it go to my head, of course). Remind myself of friends who do indeed care. Remind myself that “all things are possible to them that believe.” Remind myself that everyone has challenges.
7. Restore to myself the need to get out and go to work that I had in my first area. Plan of Action: Hard work, obedience, prayer and fasting, and scripture study.
8. The all encompassing goal of becoming the best Elder Douglas Paul Cox ever to serve in the California San Jose mission. Becoming the best missionary that I can be and making happy memories. Plan of Action: Work on goals 1-7, obedience, hard work, love and meekness, prayer and fasting, scripture study, practice and learn and use missionary skills.

These are my present goals with their plans of action. I know that if I exercise faith and pray and fast as I work on these goals, they will be accomplished.

What struck me as I read all these years later the goals as recorded in my journal, is how much I have changed.  I don't say this to brag.  Rather, I can say that as I followed through on the plans of action to reach these goals, not just on my mission, but in the years since, that I was able to find some success.  Setting goals can work; the Atonement really can change lives; and the grace of Christ really is sufficient to make weak things become strong.

The Second Baptism

I wrote back in January the story of the first baptism of my mission (see:  http://thewholemissionary.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-first-baptism.html).

The day after we baptized Trudy, we door tracted into Elizabeth.  Sometimes it can be a good idea to slow down in missionary work.  Had my Elder Friend (yes, that really was his name) and I been in too much of a hurry on this day, we would have missed finding this lady who would become the second person I participated in teaching who was subsquently baptized.  It is not always necessary to hurry to the next door; don't dawdle, but don't be in such a hurry that you miss a blessing.

We knocked on this door with a no soliciting sign.  Typically we did not knock on doors with such signs, but we did knock on this one -- stay in tune with the spirit so you catch the prompting to break the routine.  We waited about a minute but no one answered.  So we started off toward the next house, which was across the street on the next corner.  I lagged behind a bit to close the gate to this house’s yard.

As I turned to follow my companion, I happened to look back at the front door of this house, and in that moment I saw that someone had finally answered it.  I looked at Elder Friend and saw that he was stepping onto the curb across the street.  I signaled the person at the door to wait and then tried to get my companion’s attention.  Elder Friend, by now realizing that I was not catching up, turned around, saw me and then saw the person at the door.  He turned around and came back and we went up to the doorstep.  I gave the approach and this lady let us in.

As we sat down in her living room, this lady mentioned that her back was giving her trouble.  My companion talked to her about priesthood blessings and we ended up giving her one.  Then we taught her the first discussion; she was very receptive and also very open.  She agreed with most of the things we talked about.  We got her phone number and were going call her to set up a return appointment.

About a week later we called Elizabeth to set up an appointment for the second discussion.  We asked her if she had started reading The Book of Mormon.  She said that she had and that she knew it was true!  I am not able, even now, to describe the joy I felt when I heard that.

A few days later we taught her the second discussion and committed her to pray about a date for baptism.  A week and a half later we were surprised to see Elizabeth at church -- if I recall correctly, an invitation to church typically followed the third discussion, which taught about the Sacrament.

Despite these pleasent surprises, we occasionally had some difficulty getting a hold of Elizabeth.  One day we were ten minutes early for a teaching appointment with her and we hopped over for what we hoped was a quick visit with Trudy – who lived like a block away – but we were twenty minutes late getting back to Elizabeth’s and she did not answer the door.

Nonetheless, we were surprised again, after not teaching her for a couple of weeks, to see Elizabeth at church a second time.  Now we just needed to finish the rest of the discussions.  I felt certain that we could baptize her before another month had passed.  Two days later we taught Elizabeth the third discussion and set a date for baptism.

When we taught her the fourth discussion a few days later we ran into a problem over the Word of Wisdom.  Elizabeth would not commit to giving up coffee.  She said she only had coffee three or four times a year for health reasons.  She said it is better than eating when you have gastritis.  She could not promise that she would never have another cup of coffee sometime.  That was very discouraging.

In any case, when we went back to teach Elizabeth the fifth discussion she did not have any more concerns and we were able to resolve her concerns from the fourth discussion.  But we had to push back her baptism date about a week.  We also gave her another priesthood blessing.

We had a member of the ward fellowshipping Elizabeth and he was doing a great job.  She had called him a few times and had also told him that she was determined to be baptized.  This is the only church that she had attended and felt comfortable with.  She felt that the members there were very kind.  Oh, what joy I felt when I heard that, and with it came tears.

Elizabeth came to church for a third time on the date we had originally set for her baptism, so everything looked good for the following Sunday.  That is, except for exactly where we were going to hold the baptism.  The water heater for the font at the stake center had not been replaced and we were calling every member in the area that had a pool – baptizing in the ocean was not allowed.  We taught Elizabeth the sixth discussion on Thursday, but we were still having trouble find a pool for Sunday.  As it turned out, we had to delay the ceremony until the following Tuesday.

On Sunday, Elizabeth came to church for a fourth time.  This was unprecedented!  In my experience, investigators typically only came the required two times before their baptisms.

Tuesday was the day transfer calls came out, and we found out that my companion was being transferred.  Fortunately, we had the ceremony that night.

At 6:00 p.m. we went to Elizabeth’s and she followed us in her car to the member’s home, the one with the pool.  The service went great as Elder Friend baptized her and I confirmed her – after baptizing Trudy, I decided that I didn’t need to be the one doing the actual baptism and was quite happy letting others have the honor.

The member who was fellowshipping Elizabeth was supposed to give the talk on the Holy Ghost but he never showed, so I volunteered to wing it.  There was one hiccup as my companion and Elizabeth were getting out of the pool after the baptism; she slipped and fell on a wet spot.  But compared with my first baptism, this one was rather uneventful.  Still, one of the ward members commented to me about the safety factor of my baptisms.

The next morning we took my companion to meet the transfer van and later in the day returned to pick up my new companion.  So that was pretty good timing for Elder Friend.  I thought we had a pretty good companionship, this elder and I.  We worked hard and we had more things going on than I had with my previous companions.

We were also tested, as most of the appointments we set ended up canceling on us.  Elder Friend was discouraged one day, and he said that his previous areas had been better.  I said that he should count his blessings, as he could be in Palo Alto, my previous area, which was extremely slow.  We perservered, and we were blessed, not only with the baptism of Elizabeth, but with other things.

In many companionships, each elder has things they do that the other could potentially find annoying and Elder Friend and I certainly had those.  I thought that, for the most part however, we were more than just companions, but also friends.  I still look back on those two months as a happy time.

Waiting Until After Your Mission

Not long after arriving in the mission field, I was studying at the kitchen table of my first apartment.  My district leader, who lived in that apartment, was also sitting at the table and eating some dates.  When he offered me a date I replied that I had come on a mission to avoid that kind of thing.

My last post talked about giving up things like television, the Internet, video games, and social media while serving a mission.  Today I am going to write about givig up something else.

When I was in high school, the bishop of my ward, one of his counselors, and my priest quorum advisers counseled me to wait until after my mission to have a girlfriend.  I have to confess that I was slow to heed this advice, and experienced some heartbreak because of it.

When I started high school there was one girl that I really liked, and I thought, perhaps, that she might also like me.  I had become acquainted with her two years earlier at a stake dance; she was always nice and friendly to me, which was not something I experienced from other girls I knew.  I think it was the second day of my sophomore year that we met up and walked home together.  I can still see her blond hair as it was highlighted by the mid-afternoon sun, and I can see her smile.  Every time I was around her I had this wonderful feeling, and I think I may have started falling for her.

But there was a small problem, I had decided to wait until I turned 16 to start dating -- another bit of counsel often given by church leaders -- and that was still a few months off.  Alas, the day finally came, and I asked this girl to the Junior Prom.  On reflection, it was probably not the best idea to make such a big event like a prom my first ever date.  But I asked her, she said yes and, for me at least, it was a magical evening.  I waited a few weeks before asking her out again, but this time she said she was busy, and from the way she said it I did not feel encouraged to ask her again.

She had always been so nice and friendly, but that changed after the prom.  Sometimes she was still friendly, but other times she was distant, even cold.  When she was friendly, I might have felt a little encouraged, perhaps that she might still like me, only to then experience the cold.  We went for a walk one day in the spring, and I thought we both had a good time so, again after a couple of weeks, I asked her out.  Once again she said that she was busy.  At that point I probably should have walked away, but I was experiencing some very strong emotions that I just didn't know how handle, and for the next two years I continued to bounce back and forth between hope and despair over this girl.

Even as I did, I tried to move forward.  I met another girl, and this time I told myself that I would be more careful.  I wanted to build a solid friendship before I asked her out, and I did, waiting until the following winter when I asked her to . . . the Junior Prom.  She didn't answer right away, and I started to worry that she might not answer at all.  Finally, however, she called me to say that she would love to go to the prom with me.

The following day I asked if she would help me with an assignment I had that week for my photography class, which was to take some outside portraits.  I thought we might also talk about plans for the dance.  While she agreed, she later told me that she did not like having her picture taken.  That night she called me again, only this time it was to say that she only wanted friendship and that she could not go to the dance with me.  I was stunned, and devastated.

The only good thing about this was that I knew where I stood with her.  After a few months I called her up to ask if we could talk.  As we did we learned something about friendship and became better friends because of it.

In the aftermath of this experience I finally decided to heed the counsel I had been given repeatedly to wait until after my mission to have a girlfriend.  As noted, I was still experiencing some difficulty with the first girl, and sometimes we would have trouble just trying to be friends.  I still had those strong feelings, and I kept telling myself that I couldn't just walk away.  In the end, her family moved away, and only then could I begin to forget about her.

If I had it all to do over again, I would have heeded the counsel sooner of waiting until after my mission.  I would have gone on as many dates as I could have with as many different girls as I could.  No strings, no expectations, just a date.

While it has been heard of, very few actually marry their high school sweethearts and live happily ever after.  As the motivational speaker Hyrum Smith once said, "Only one in a hundred wait."

Apparently the one out of a hundred was reserved for my last district leader.  I made the mistake one day of pressuring him to read a loud the Christmas card she sent him.  I was by then just a few weeks away from returning home, and I wanted a girl to say the kind of things to me that she wrote to him.  On my birthday a member family made me a cake, complete with lighted candles, and before I blew them out I wished that I would soon have a girlfriend.

As it would happen, there were still some difficult days ahead, but that's another story.  Since only one out of a hundred wait, many missionaries get Dear John letters, and their broken hearts may interfere with the work.  Some may never really recover while in the mission field.  How much better it would be to avoid such a possibility in the first place.  There will be time enough later for relationships.

Now, there are some who might not need the same counsel I needed.  Some may be like my last district leader, and may have already found that one girl in a hundred.  Some may be more mature than I was in high school, and thus better able to handle the strong emotions that I could not.

I really thought I loved that girl, but eight months into my mission I had an experience which made it clear to me that I never had.  A lunch appointment with a stake missionary, who had some health challenges to deal with, got me thinking about love, and the spirit taught me something.  If you love someone, you will put their happiness ahead of your own.


Link to post about that stake missionary lunch appointment: http://thewholemissionary.blogspot.com/2012/10/love-one-another.html

A Different Kind of Fast

Smart phones and social media were designed to make it easier to connect with people, so it is ironic that the opposite seems to be happening, which is the case this video makes:

“This media we call social is anything but, when we open our computers and it’s our doors we shut”  But it isn't just social media that can cause this kind of problem.  There are a lot of good and worthwhile pages on the Internet that can have the potential to use up much of our free time, even as there area a greater number of less good and less worthwhile pages that can do the same.

When I left on my mission, car phones existed but were extremely rare.  When I came home, cell phones were beginning to appear, but they were rather large, simple, and very rare.  Personal computers had been out for several years, as well as some video game systems that were rudimentary by comparison to what exists today, but the Internet was still a few years off.  It was possible, even back then, to become addicted to electronics.

While I played a few video games, I spent most of my time reading books.  When I left on my mission I knew that I would have to give up reading my favorite subjects for two years.  Fortunately, I could still read books, they just had to be related to the gospel.

Could you, if you left on your mission this week, give up playing video games or surfing the Internet?  As a missionary, you might have a cell phone, but only for the purpose of calling investigators.  Each week you will send an email home, but writing it will likely take up most or all of your computer time at the library on P-day.  Even if you could surf the Net a little on P-day, there are still six other days when you could not.

Some missionaries, upon entering the MTC, have found it difficult to give up social media and video games.  How could a prospective missionary prepare to give these things up for two years?

Today is the first Sunday of the month and, thusly, is Fast Sunday.  As you will teach your investigators, on Fast Sunday we go without two meals and donate the money saved -- plus more out of generosity -- as a Fast Offering, which is used to help people in need.  One benefit of fasting for two meals is the ability to learn self control.  Elder Russell M. Nelson addressed this in the October 1985 General Conference:

"Another step toward self-mastery comes when you are old enough to observe the law of the fast. As funds are contributed from meals missed, the needs of the poor may be met. But meanwhile, through your spirit, you develop personal power over your body’s drives of hunger and thirst. Fasting gives you confidence to know that your spirit can master appetite."

If we can master our appetite for food, perhaps we could master our appetites for other things.  Elder Nelson added that, "Fasting fortifies discipline over appetite and helps to protect against later uncontrolled cravings and gnawing habits."

To prepare for this aspect of a mission, requiring the abstention of social media and video games -- or television and certain kind of music -- you can try a different kind of fast.  Pick a day, once a week, or once a month if that is too hard at first, where you abstain from certain activities like surfing the Net or playing video games.  Sunday is a perfect day for this, as it allows you to keep the Sabbath Day holy -- Sunday is also the perfect day to go home teaching and teach a mock discussion to your families.

You learned as you grew up to fast two meals once a month.  You overcame the difficulty of doing without food for half a day.  By applying what you learned in your monthly fast to a different kind of fast, you can gain self control over other appetites.  With this self control, you can enter the mission field with confidence.

Some activities and appetites can be harder to overcome than others.  One day the apostles approached Jesus and said that they had tried to cast out certain devils but had been unable to do so.  To their question of why, Jesus answered:

"Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.  Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting" (Matthew 17:20-21).


Remember that God gives us weaknesses that we may be humble, and that if we do humble ourselves and have faith in Christ, then is His grace sufficient to make weak things become strong (Ether 12:27).  If we find it difficult to give up certain appetites -- food, television, social media, video games, etc. -- then we can humble ourselves, exercise faith, and fast and pray, and be lifted by His grace.

As President Dieter F. Uchtdorf would say, "You can do it now!"


Link to Elder Nelson's talk "Self Mastery": https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1985/10/self-mastery?lang=eng

Link to Chapter 25 of Gospel Principles on Fasting: https://www.lds.org/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-25-fasting?lang=eng

Link: to President Uchtdorf's talk "You Can Do it Now!": https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/you-can-do-it-now?lang=eng