******* LANDON J. COOK ******* Melbourne, Australia Mission April 2015

Just another crazy week in the land down under!

FINALLY GOT TO MEET TRACEY,

aka ELDER LINDSAY AGAIN!!!

We attended church history together last year

So that guy who believes in magic mushrooms and such? We went back to him, and his wife gave us a note from him, and it was talking about how he's done, and I quote "extensive research on Christianity and finds it all flawed... The whole religion thing is basically blind faith with crazy accusations and incorrect history...If you like wearing 'MAGICAL UNDERWEAR' wear them PROUD!! But don't be so gullible to believe everything you're told."....Like, what? I'm pretty sure having a belief in Jesus Christ is more realistic than having a belief in intensely strong psychedelic drugs. But whatever dude, believe as you will. At the bottom of the note it said to "Please come again :)", so for fun we decided to follow up on that. Well, he was actually happy to see us, and we stayed for about an hour and talked about government systems for some reason, but we had to go because we had another appointment soon. He said we should stay because it was going to "be an expanding night", which I'm pretty sure what he meant by that was that he was planning on doing shrooms later on...

We've met with some older people (and some crazy people) who are REALLY nice to us, but only want our company, not to hear what we have to say as missionaries. It's hard dropping them as investigators, but our job is to find those who are willing to hear our message and take it to heart, so we had to do what would be the best in the long run when it came to investing our time.

Elder Worsencroft being awesome

Elder Garcia Kempf has been having some problems with his arm lately, and we had to go do a doctor about an hour and a half away from our flat, so after our hours of morning study then lunch we went, so it was basically an all day thing. The city is HUGE!! Tons of small shops all crammed into small streets. We went on Wednesday, but we might have to go again because his arm might be from a spider bite, not from a basketball injury. We'll just have to see what happens. But while we were at the doctors office and the doctor hadn't arrived yet we walked around the city. TONS of Indian shops, and we found this place called "Anime World", so we had to go inside. Because c'mon, how funny is it that we found a Japanese shop with American merchandise in Australia?

The members down here are AWESOME!! Almost every night we've got a member family who is willing to feed us dinner, it's so great! And my weight seems to be at a standstill which is good, and I make sure to exercise my butt off as hard as I can during those 30 minutes in the morning. Elder Garcia is lighter than I am, but he's gained about 45 lbs on his mission: I've heard there's a missionary who's gained close to 100 lbs on his mission! I don't want to get even close to that kind of gain!!

Anyways, time for some spiritual insight....While driving we were listening to a talk by John

I and Elder Worsencroft

Bytheway about the war chapters in the end of Alma, and he compares Amalichiah in Alma 47:18 when he kills Lehonti "by degrees of poison" to the way Nephi compares Satan in 2 Nephi 28:21 and how "The devil...leadeth them away CAREFULLY down to hell". Key word is carefully. If Amalechiah were to stab Lehonti in the heart, you would think that would be noticeable, but no, he killed him slowly by degrees of poison, the same way that Satan doesn't start out with temptations in front of you by saying "HEY!! YOU!! GO BREAK THE LAW OF CHASTITY TODAY!!", but instead says "Hey, I'm not your enemy, in fact, I'm your friend. You know who your enemy is? It's that church: man you guys can't do anything. I'm offering you a shot at freedom! Woah, I'm not saying break the law of chastity, just... wear something a little less modest, go on that website you shouldn't go on." And that's how he gets you.

Anyways, that's been my week. I love you all, keep fighting the good fight everyone, and as always, God be with you till we meet again
-Elder Landon Cook

The following is a conversation between Landon and his mom :)

Mom: awesome awesome pictures and email. Hope you are not missing home and love what u r doing :)
Landon: not missing home in the slightest, I'm totally loving it out here, not crying myself to sleep every night, not hugging to computer monitor right now with tears down my face... nope
Hahahaha but seriously, I don't miss home at all, I love being here and doing what I'm doing! The weeks are going by incredibly fast, and everyone says that your first few months are the slowest: I'm just wondering how fast my last few months are going to go if my first few have already flown by!
Mom: Soo glad. Comforts my heart like no other. Was there ever a time you cried or hugged the computer missing us? If not ..don't worry.. that makes me happy. If so ..then the worst is behind you. Love the pictures. I am now seeing your wonderful sense of humor. Love the spiritual side and hope it soon equals your awesome sense of humor.

️
Landon: Never hugged the monitor once haha and not even a single tear. The only time I've ever cried was last night, because I was reading the scriptures and forgot to blink for literally like ten minutes
Mom: Haha! Super. I just LOvE YoU!!!! You look so handsome and happy xoxoxox
Landon: I look happy because I AM HAPPY!!! Okay, the computer is about to boot me off. Love you mom, see you next week!
Mom: Will do baby. Love chatting with you. Bye!!!!!! Mwwahhh!!