Wow what a week it's been! Last P-day we went to a place called Stike, which for $20.00

Us at Stike

you can do all day bowling and laser tag, so that was wickedly cool. We went as an almost complete District: two of the other Elders weren't able to come because they were doing service. Wednesday we went on exchanges which was quite an adventure. We actually found somebody who said they would read the Book of Mormon in just a few days! We were going to give her a specific few chapters to read, but when we gave it to her she took it in her hands and said "Yeah I can have this read before we meet again on Tuesday", WHAT!? Hopefully she pulls through on that, that'd be something!

Conveyor belt sushi place

Yesterday we went to the big city of Melbourne with the 1st councilor of the Bishopric, Brother Steny. He's the man. We toured the city for about 8 hours, and he took us to this awesome Japanese Sushi place, where you sit down and there is literally a conveyor belt in front of you and you pick and choose the sushi you want to eat, it was awesome! I've never had sushi before because the idea of raw fish on rice wrapped in seaweed didn't really appeal to me, but MAN as this stuff good. He really spoiled us yesterday by taking us out and feeding us, it was so cool.

Sushi

Anyways, the missionaries here always talk how there's not enough money for food on their cards each month, but the three of us get through each week no problem on about $85.00 split between the three of us.  That's about $29.00 a week per missionary ... no sweat.  It's because I was raised by money smart parents, which is SUCH a blessing,  thank you mom and dad.  But yeah, it rains here about every third day, but only a light drizzle.  Today as I write this I get to use my trench coat because it is raining cats and dogs right now.  i love the rain, love it..love it..love it!!!  Plus I look like Inspector Gadget when I use it and put it on, its funny.  Ill have to send a picture of me in it one of these days.  but i am doing really well in Australia:  I sleep like a rock because we do so much work during the days even thought there's no pad on the mattress.  Elder Worsencrot is SO awesome and we get along great, but Elder Garcia Kempf really gets on my nerves sometimes, but i wont go into detail about it.  

Julie, the lady with the baptism date for the 25th.. She did "extensive research" on the church (which means she googled anti-Mormon propaganda) and dropped us, out of the random.  NOOOO!  We swung by her house one night randomly and talked about and discussed it all, and she said we could swing by one a week still, but NOT to covert, JUST to learn about the church.  We're fine with that.  So sSunday the 12th we confirmed an appointment we had scheduled on Tuesday, because we really wanted to keep her as an investigator.  Well, she sent us a MASSIVE text about how "She knew we were servants of the Lord," and how she "loved our lessons", but "the church just isnt for me".  Well at this point we just decided to let it go and keep her teaching records so hopefully the next missionaries will have better luck with her; maybe be able to harvest fruit from the seeds we planted, because there's not much to do for us.  

I think the greatest thing (or one of the greatest things) about this companionship is all the cool stuff we do on P-Days!  I'm in Australia!  I'm not gonna do the same things over and over again, what a waste!  What we did today was go to this Discount Factory Outlet 30 min. away, but what it is is this GIANT mall with never used stuff, but since its not "The Newest" thing, its on way discount, which is AWESOME!  We got some matching ties, but just walked around the rest of the time seeing this and that.  Elder Worsencroft also cut my hair which was awesome!  Hes gonna have to teach me before we split apart.  

I'm trying my hardest to maintain my weight right now, and it's tougher considering we don't have any weight sets of any kinds, so just plyometric exercises, I think that's what they are called.  If I gain weight, meh, it is what it is.  Elder Garcia Kempf has gained about 40 lbs. on his mission so far, but ironically still weighs less than I do, but then again, he'll do like 5 push ups and 10 crunches for our 30 minutes of morning exercises and call it good.   
   

Us trying to get a cool picture of us walking

down an alleyway (didn't quite work out as planned)

But the main message of the story: I've been transferred to Tasmania! That southern island of Australia on the southeast border is where I'm going! Elder Worsencroft served there for 7 months of his mission, and talked nothing but positive about the place, he loved it. It's every missionaries dream to serve there, and now I get to go to the promised land, the land of flowing milk and honey, I'm excited as crap!  My flight leaves tomorrow morning, Wednesday July at 7:00AM, and I can't wait for it.

Well, I know this is another short email, but hey, busy busy missionary life! Okay, now it's time for the bulk of the pictures to come flowing through! I love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again

Elder Landon Cook

Elder Worsencroft, Me and Elder Kempf

BEAUTIFUL PICTURES OF THE CITY OF MELBOURNE

Elder Worsencroft and Elder Garcia Kempf

futuristic toilet in the middle of the city

Funny artwork down Graffiti Alley

Graffiti alleyways are a huge tourist attraction in Melbourne

 

there was a guy there who let us paint our      

names on the wall on his artwork. WAY cool!

we saw a didgeridoo street performer, it was WAY cool!

A picture of a Ute truck like dad requested

Elder Rock taking a picture of Elder Worsencroft

Elder Rock pouring up a cup of Lindt hot chocolate (Courtesy of Bro. Steny)

Spider-man sausages

 

Elder Garcia Kempf passed out on the way back from Melbourne

This place called ACMI in Melbourne was

WAY cool, tons of visual effect stuff and movie props.

Ned Kelly, look it up. 

He was basically an outlaw with the first

prototype of an Iron Man suit about 100 years ago !

Awesome street signs I found in Melbourne

Hey everybody! I'm doing well down here! This email will most likely be shorter than usual because my fingers can't type as fast because the library here is pretty cold and my fingers are stiff hahahaha.

Brother Gilbert, the ward missionary leader (he is the man)

Last P-Day Brother Mark Gilbert took us three and two other Elders in the ward down to Point
Napean, which is basically this huge place which was a WWII battle station or something like that and a quarantine station. We toured the WWII stuff because that's tons cooler than dealing with sick people haha. We took tons of pictures there which I plan on sending out.

Point Napean (Beautiful peninsula, honeymoon vacation spot when I get back home hahahaha)

McDonalds I've come to learn is CRAZY expensive here! Nothing on the menu is less than $2.50 except for the $0.50 ice cream cones. No such thing as a dollar menu there. But I guess that's what happens when the minimum wage is somewhere near $16.00 an hour.

Coming back from Point Napean on the shuttle bus

We went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders on Wednesday and I went with Elder Prettyman. We went GQing which is basically standing at a busy train station and greeting people and hoping they stop by. We weren't in my area, but it was a lot of fun. I had to get out of my comfort zone, but I was able to do that pretty quickly, thank goodness. We also had a lesson with a family who is planning on all getting baptized, and we had the kids reenact the first vision, it was a lot of fun. I got to be the pastor who was putting the hate on Joseph Smith for having the vision, it was funny.

It's usually cold and rains pretty hard in the mornings, but by the time we get outside to do our work the rain stops and it heats up, but not enough to not need a jacket. On Thursday we did some service for a lady who isn't up for lessons, but hey, doing service in our street clothes is always fun. We actually tracted into an older lady yesterday who is in need of service as well, and we plan on going back to her this Wednesday.

This week we were able to set an investigator named Julie with a baptism date for July 25th! She seems pretty solid, so just pray that she will be able to keep the faith she has gained and that Satan doesn't start working on her the same way she's worked with investigators in the past.

The 4th of July was pretty awesome, except for the fact that Boyd K. Packer died. What is up with this? We had dinner with some members, the Stinchcombes, and they are a super awesome family. In fact, this whole ward is just awesome, seriously.

Anyways, we've gotten some pretty diverse reactions from people who see us. Some guy pulled up as we were walking down the road and shouted "AT LEAST YOU'RE NOT PREACHING (______) ISLAM!!" I mean, if you don't like Mormons, I guess that's one way to look at it... We've had people flip us off, curse us out, SLAM the doors, give us nasty looks, all that good stuff. We always just laugh it off whenever that happens, except for yesterday.

our delicious Samoan feed last night

Since yesterday was fast Sunday we couldn't eat or drink water until dinner, and when we got out of ward correlation meeting at 2:00 we really were not in the mood to go door to door knocking: we were feeling really tired, hungry, thirsty, had headaches, and we all just had a low morale. The first door we knocked on said " *blank* off, and get the "blank" off my porch before I count to five" and started counting down while looking at us like he REALLY wanted to kill us. The second guy basically did the same thing, and the third guy looked at our name tags and said "Don't bother, get out". Not a good way to start out the day. But we kept trucking on hoping that something would come out of our work. And if not... at least we were doing the Lords work. When we got home at 6:00 for dinner we were really ready for food, and luckily a member family, the Samuelos, were dropping off dinner. Since they're Samoan, they dropped HEAPS of food off at our place, enough for the next three nights or so, it was AWESOME!!! We were pretty wiped out from the day, and Elder Worsencroft went to bed a little earlier, we were flat out exhausted. One of the investigators we went to go see said that I was looking pretty pale, so yeah, that's what happens when you're starving and go out to do physical and spiritual work hahahaha

I might be in Australia, but I'll always be an American at heart

Anyways, that's basically my week perfectly wrapped up in a tortilla, hopefully all y'all's week has been going just as swaggy as mine has. Love you guys, stay strong in the faith, and as always, God be with you till we meet again :)
-Elder Landon Cook

Some kind of fuzzy flower

More beautiful birds

Elder Worsencroft and I posing next to some WWII helmets

Hydro-pneumatic gun barrels

Hydro-pneumatic gun mount from WWII in its original position

I don't know what it's called, but Australians used to drop Japanese enemies like flies from this shooting position

Information on hydro-pneumatic guns, or disappearing guns

Posing like a total stud next to some Ausie soldiers (not really, but it's fun to pretend)

The beaches are still dangerous because there 

are undetected land mines still in the ground

WWII underground tunnels in Point Napean 

(With 380lb ammunition shells for hydro-pneumatic guns)

Some sticker we found on a door while tracting

Gnomes we saw while tracting,

Elder Rock getting ready to hand out some pass along cards