Despite Paul Alan Cox’s congenital illness, he was sent to Samoa as a young missionary. The service rendered to him by a Samoan man coupled with his love for the Polynesian people, charted the course of his prolific career as an ethnobotanist, and a life practicing the healer's art.

Paul read the Book of Mormon as a youth, and had completed reading it five times before leaving on his mission to Samoa on January 6, 1973

Ether 12:27

Mosiah 18:30

Mosiah 2:17 & 19

Alma 37:6