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

Hello amazing Americans! Yes, it is I, Elder Cook, with another amazing news report about my mission! We've got Maddi Williams still with a date for November 7th which is cool, but a few concerns are arising for her considering how her friends will look at her after she's baptized, so we will work on that. There is also a less active family we are working on getting to church, and their name is the Stone family. Their 9 year old son, Sebastian, wants to be baptized, but the parents aren't working with us at all with it. We even organized a ride for him and his sister to come to church, but the parents said Sebastian would be "busy". He's 9, let's be honest, how busy can a 9 year old's schedule be? Oh well, all about coping with other people's agency and letting them make decisions (even if it means that the parents don't allow their child to be baptized :/).

With Aaron Bailey after opening up his Mission Call

So our last P-day wasn't as great as we thought it would be. We finished up the museum, but it wasn't near as interesting as the war and dinosaur stuff, but there were TONS of awesome photographs in this one gallery, and that was way cool. After that we still had three hours left before our P-Day ended, so we went to the Bailey's house to ask if we could borrow the movie Meet The Mormons (it's an approved movie because it's distributed by the church), and we watched it like twice. After we watched the movie we went to our dinner appointment, then we went back to the Bailey's to watch Aaron Bailey open up his mission call. We were felt really loved by them that they would want us to come to such a special event, and it turns out that he's going to the Leed's England Mission, and he reports in February, so not for a good while. Did I mention that the Bailey family is one of the best families in the ward? If not, then please excuse me, because they are without a doubt one of the absolute BEST families in the ward.

Elder stokes last Sunday with Kylie Baileys family

Wijeya, as sudden of a decision it has been, decided to make a move for Ellendale, about 200 kilometers south of where our area is, so as of yesterday he is no longer our investigator. He said it's because the house gives him "bad vibrations", and something about how a pendulum of a clock always moves, so should he. Kinda weird, but okay.

Sad to see him leave because he was slowly but surely making progress in the gospel, but the Elders down there are the Zone Leaders, so they'll make a lot more progress with him than we did, I'm sure. It wasn't a wasted effort though, because his prayers have become a lot better and he has learned what we pray for and why we pray. Before he left though, HE LEFT US HIS CAR. We're not too sure what to do with it now because we aren't allowed to drive anyone else's car besides our own, but sure enough he left us a car. Not a brand new one, but sure enough he gave us one of his cars. We'll probably end up giving it to a member, but the thing is he left it with us and absolutely no paperwork was done with it, so now we're not quite sure what to do with it. It's still technically under his name, but it's in our guest parking space in our flatt. Interesting. Well, missionaries always talk about how their investigator gave them a phone or a nice pair of shoes to take home with them, but ours got us a car, so there is no missionary that can top that (unless a missionary claims someone gave them a better car. Or a house.) He also gave us these really nice-as speakers to go in our flatt, so that was cool. Too bad they have to stay in the flatt when we leave, but hey, sharing with other missionaries is caring.

But he did come to sacrament meeting yesterday before he left, so that was really cool. I gave a talk yesterday, and I did slip up a little bit at the beginning, but it was good because it got a really big laugh from the ward. Eli Atkinson, a ward member in his 30's who's basically a scriptorian GENIUS came up to me after my talk and said "That was one of the best presented talks I've seen a missionary ever give. Well done." I look up to Eli heaps because of his vast knowledge, so him giving me a compliment like that made me feel awesome.

Thursday Todd literally kidnapped us from our flatt at about 9:30AM so we could go help him at one of his houses. He does that to us pretty often, but I think it's hilarious. He literally shows up at our flatt and says "Get in your P-Day clothes, you're gonna help me today", and Todd is just the kind of person you do not say no to, it's pretty funny. We helped him clean out and renovate one of his houses, and that was almost an all day project.

My gloves

A few days ago Elder Wade and I went to K-Mart to buy some boxing gloves to use for exercise, and we borrowed some hand pads from the Eccles for practicing. It's great exercise, and on the days that we don't run in the morning we do boxing exercise regimes, so hopefully doing that will help me to keep my weight maintained. I can start to see that my face is starting to get just a bit rounder, and it's because every night we have a dinner appointment with members (anywhere between 5-6 nights out of the week) we have huge desserts, and when it comes to being a missionary, you just don't say no to dessert. It's rude. But it kinda sucks because Elder Wade and I are both trying to stay away from sugar, but that definitely isn't helping us out at all.

Elder Wade burning his tie...our 6 month mark!

Friday Elder Wade and I both hit our six month mark, so as tradition states we burned a tie. The

Bailey family, who is the best family ever (not even saying that because they may or may not be reading this through the blog) had us over for dinner and our tie burning ceremony that night, and because the fire was still burning after we torched our ties we had our lesson around the campfire, it was pretty legit.

Just finishing up burning my tie :)

This weekend all the missionaries in my district are going to St. Helen's all day Saturday to work with the stake and youth in the stake to do heaps of missionary work there in a day, so that will be a lot of fun. Each missionary goes with a member about our own age to do missionary work, so it'll be a lot of fun. Unfortunately we have to miss Arden Eccles's baptism as well, and he was really excited for us to be there...

Slowly and surely I'm helping Elder Wade be more and more obedient to the rules. It's a bit tough though, but he has hampered down heaps with his music choices which is AWESOME!!! He still does love his lengthy naps though, but keep the prayers coming guys, I can see the things that come from them. If anything, working with Elder Wade is only to teach me: it has taught me how much my parents have succeeded in raising me as a young man, and every day I work with Elder Wade all I can say to myself is "Man, I'm glad my parents instilled me with a desire to work through the tough times to know that it gets better from here", because that's what is happening every day in the mission field. Your testimony is bashed, your faith is beaten, and sometimes it feels like your knowledge of the gospel could be crushed to rubble, but it's that faith in Jesus Christ, knowing, KNOWING, that he knows what's best for us and will lead us through tough times that will make you a tool for righteousness in His hands.

This email was long, sorry, it's been eventful. I'm not sure what we will do this P-Day because we have no kilometers/miles left for the month, like AT ALL, so we have to keep our travel to the bare scrap minimum. Might get a haircut or sumthin'. Anyways, lot's of things are happening, and luckily I get to be a part of building His kingdom on earth. Love you all, I miss you and love the work, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

(Ponderizing scripture: 2 Kings 13:23)