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

Standing on corner in Tasmania Australia.
Ooops.... apparently breaking the law. I better start moving

Wow, let me tell you about this week. It's literally been a week like none other, full of blessings and miraculous encounters like I've never experiences on my mission before. So for the past few weeks I've been doing absolutely everything that I can in order to try to help Elder Wade get pumped for working and trying to work hard in the missionary efforts, but no matter how much tracting or other means of finding we just weren't seeing any progress. We would tract for literally hours and hours a week, but just... nothing would happen, not even a new contact, and a real investigator was a rarity. Thursday night we were laying on our beds and wondering why our efforts don't seem to be working at all, and that we must be approaching working in Launceston at the wrong angle, and we decided from then on to start to put our efforts in working with members to gain their complete trust and friendship to receive referrals from them.

Well, we couldn't have gotten a bigger slap in the face from God that that was the right decision, because literally the next morning we got a call from the mission office up in Melbourne that we had a referral that has been trying to contact missionaries for the past few days. His name is Tim, and he's about in his 30's and is an awesome guy. He's actually met with missionaries in the past about a year ago, but when we talked to him and met up on Sunday before church he said he had the "sudden urge" to talk with missionaries again. Wow, just wow... amazing. He wasn't able to stay for church because he was sick, but that's alright. He wants to be taught again, and he LOVES how family oriented the church is, and thinks that the Word of Wisdom is brilliance. He's going back up to Sydney next week, so we want to meet with him a few times and try to convince him to come to church next week before he goes.

Saturday afternoon we played basketball with a member and one of his friends who are our age to see if we can eventually get him interested in what we have to teach. We played basketball for about an hour and a half and got to know him really well. His name is Jai and he's 17 which is awesome, so it's really easy to get on a personal level with him. It's funny, because the member who made friends with him is about 45, and they just became friends through playing basketball out in the open parks. We swung by Emma and Brendan's house, and they're a really keen young couple with a few kids that we actually tracted into. We saw that both of their cars were there at about dinner time and we swung by to see how everything was going. Brendan answered, and he said "Hey boys good to see you again. Why are you out so late?". Well, we be workin'! He said that they were having dinner, and that if we came by at an earlier time during the week they'd be more than glad to have to hear what we have to teach. He also said that both he and his wife read the Plan of Salvation pamphlet we gave them, so that was AMAZING to hear! Elder Wade and I are both pumped to teach them at the soonest time that we can.

Sunday after church we went to the a new contact we found also while tracting, and his name is Ray and he's about in his 50's or so. We went back when he said to come back but he wasn't there, but his 18 year old daughter was. She saw us when we were talking with her dad on Wednesday, so she was already more familiar with us than just normally tracting into her. We talked on the doorstep for about 20 minutes about this and that, and she's actually pretty chill. Her older brother actually knows someone in our ward who is on a mission in Japan who gets back in December and they're like BEST friends, so that's way cool too. She said that her parents work out of the house and that the she and her brother live at home, so she said we could probably swing by any time and teach the whole family. Awesome, awesome, AWESOME!!! And get this: she does weightlifting. She's not like buff or anything, but you know all those stories of people baptizing someone and then later getting married to them after the mission? Yeeeeaaaahhhhh... Jokes, jokes.

Sunday night we also had two lessons with member families: one a dinner appointment with the first counsellor of the bishopric and one with the previous stake president. We explained the Family Mission Plan to them, which is a way to get referrals from them and they both love the idea. They each gave us two referrals right there on the spot, and the way they explained them to us they are as good as active members they say. Wow, such an amazing week of blessings.

Not sure if this boy of mine can take a serious picture :)

So for weeks on weeks we've been working with almost no sign of progression, and literally in the past three days all of this comes pouring out on top of us. The Lord works in mysterious ways everybody, and there's no doubt about it that He is starting to show his miraculous wonders to us. Elder Wade and I are both extremely pumped to see the work continue to progress here in Launceston, and I know that as long as we work both smart and hard we will see the ward continue to see more people drawn unto Christ by entering into the waters of baptism to make that covenant with Him.

Everybody, the church is true. If it weren't then the work would never progress around the world at the rate that it does. I love you all, I love my mission, and I can't wait to see how this next week turns out. And as always everybody, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook