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| BEAUTIFUL Tasmanian sunset (this place is definitely one of Heavenly Father's greatest secrets) |
Oh my goodness gracious, oh my golly, oh me oh my, it has
been an amazing week of
legitimateness! So first of all, Elder Wade and I have
been going really gung-ho for eating healthier, so we've been switching out our
terrible lunches with a hardboiled egg and a fruit smoothie with kale, and
we've also been telling the members that we're trying to eat healthier and that
they don't need to make us dessert, and they're really accepting of that. In
the past week I've shaved off about three pounds, and I feel really good about
it. Totally cutting out all fat, sugars and bread during breakfast and lunch:
dinners aren't really in control haha. But this week during the Saturday Park
Run I was able to beat my 5k personal best by over a minute!!! 5k's in 24:05!
The members we run with were really pumped for me that I did so well.
So before I get to the miracles this week, let me just kinda
skim by on what's been going on. Maddi Williams is still set for having her
baptism in December so she can be baptized by her uncle, the only priesthood
holder in her family, so that's really good. Thursday we went to go check up
with a less active family, but they weren't home, so as we've made our own rule
is to knock five doors around the house. One of the houses had a man named Greg
in it, and he answered the door and although he wasn't too interested in
hearing our message he was still very gracious and kind to us. He invited us to
his Free-Life church services that was happening Sunday morning, and because we
have afternoon church we definitely considered it. We gave him our number so he
could contact us with more information, but as we left we realized we never got
his phone number, so that was a mistake on our part.
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| Boutta do a mean-as cannonball |
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| #MichaelPhelpsStatus |
Friday we went and did some service for Todd, but we weren't with him for too long because his Sister from Utah came down to see him and they want to spend as much time together as possible. When we got home we were still in our street clothes, and all at once the rain just started POURING down in buckets, so just like any two normal teenage boys would do we took our shoes off and went out and played in the rain bare feet. The gutter was gushing with water, and since it's a commonly known rule that missionaries are NOT allowed to swim, we decided to kinda make a loophole for ourselves: we decided to sit in the gutter, play in the water, and pretend to swim in the 3 inch deep river. It wasn't even close to swimming in the least, but it was still heaps of fun. We took lots of pictures and videos of us dorking around in the rain, so I shall send those over!
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| Boutta go rowin in my umbrella boat with my golf club oar (didn't go too well) |
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| Elder Wade also duplicating a cannonball |
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| Just keep swimming, just keep swimming |
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| Me running back from playing in the rain |
After that we went and did some work, and because we
were close to Jason Worsley's house we decided to swing by him and see him. For
like the past two months we haven't seen him at church, gotten contact with
him, nothing. It's been really depressing. A few days prior to this we got a
text from him, so at least we knew he wasn't dead, but he was talking about how
after two years of fighting, he's finally gotten full custody of his 5-year-old
daughter Alexia from his abusive ex-girlfriend. I was excited to hear that like
nobody else, and it made me happy to hear that.
Anyways, we went to go swing by his house, hoping he was
there, and we could see a little girl with glasses riding around on a scooted
behind the house fence in the backyard. She saw us and went to go tell her dad,
and Jason came out and gave us each huge hugs. We went and hung out with them
at the park for an hour and a half, and Jason was probably the happiest I've
ever seen him now that he had his daughter back in his hands. Alexia is
honestly just a ray of beaming sunshine, and she loves the heck out of us!
After him we went to go to the store to get something, and when we came out a
member of the other ward stopped us and gave us a HUGE bag of day-of bread they
received from the store. We had no use for this bread, so we went around to
members in the ward and gave bread to them. All of them were thankful, and a
few of them even gave us referrals for us to go deliver bread to some of their
friends, so we did that. We didn't teach the gospel to their friends, but just helping
them out in their time of need was such a great feeling, and I'm sure that
makes a great first impression of Mormon Missionaries to them. Planting seeds
my friends!
So early Sunday morning comes around and we still haven't
heard anything from Greg, but at about 9:00AM we get a call from him saying
that his church starts in an hour and he gave us the details for it. I don't
think that he was actually expecting us to show up, but when we did he was
really happy to see us! It's a Free-Life/Pentecostal church, so inside the huge
building was a disco ball, dimmed lights, and a band playing and singing about
Jesus Christ. It was still very loud, but the music was much more enjoyable
than the one at Mississippi hahaha. At the end of it, about two hours later, we
met the pastor and talked with him, and talked with quite a few people
afterwards as well, some of them even inviting us to a feed sometime this week!
HOW FRIGGIN COOL IS THAT!?!?!? Greg and his wife Linda also invited us to
dinner at their house Sunday night too, so that was really cool of them to do.
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Sunday night rolls around and we go to Greg and Linda's
house at 6:00PM. Dinner wasn't ready at this point, but they just LOVE us. Even
though we're not in the same religion, they love us and the work that we do to
try to bring people unto Christ. They're both really into fitness, and when I
first saw them I thought they were in their early 40's or so, but Greg said he
was approaching his 59th birthday in a few months! Wow man. They decided to
invite their 19 year old friend Darcy, who they told us was really big into
fitness as well. At about 6:45PM Darcy shows up, and this guy (yes, Darcy is a
dude) walks in, and let's just say this guy is basically Superman. He's really
big, super cut, has a friggin 8-pack, skux-as (Aussie for good lookin' [I'm not
gay, I swear]), is super religious, and VERY friendly and polite. The five of
us had a GREAT time getting to know each other, and Darcy is just awesome.
There was never a quiet moment in the house, and even though we spent over
THREE HOURS at their house it wasn't in waste. We got to know Greg and Linda
well and Darcy too, and we talked a bit about the Book of Mormon and they said
they'd read it and give it a whirl. Darcy seemed extremely interested in it, so
keep them all in your prayers! Since Darcy is huge into fitness, we invited him
to go running with us this morning, and he did! It was sweet. He runs the Park
Run too, and I thought my 24:05 was good, but Superman over here runs a 5k in
just over 19 minutes!!! He's also invited us to go to the gym with him, so we
will definitely take him up on that offer!
Well, this has been my miraculous week everybody! I love you
all, keep up what you're doing, and as always, God be with you till we meet
again!
-Elder Landon Cook
Ponderizing scripture: Matthew 21: 28-31
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| Albino deer we saw on the side of the road |
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| HUGE-AS spider we found and captured in our flatt on Saturday |
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