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

Us missionaries doing apukana face in front of the old

church building, pukana meaning"ugly face" usually

where you stick your tongue out and make your eyes bid.

(Elder Wade said mine was pretty good)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!!!

Me putting up the punching bag with cords and duct tape

Again, another interesting week in the field. Tuesday we went to Devonport for our District Meeting, but the Devonport Sisters couldn't even come because they had something scheduled over it. Elder Jensen gave us a ride there, and we had to stop by their flatt to pick up the key for the church, and when we got to their flatt we saw a punching bag hanging from their roof! *angelic voice* aaaahhhh! We asked if they ever used it, and they said they didn't, so they gave us permission to take it. It was hanging by a bike lock, so in order to take it we just had to cut the tops of the straps because no one knew the code for it, so that was funny. When we got home after the meeting we found a way to strap it to the roof of the car port, and we have actually used it a few times since we got it.

Binalong Bay

Wednesday we spent most of the day doing service for Todd. He's got a house that he's renovating and is planning to rent it out to the church for us missionaries to use. It's WAY better than the flatt we have now, so we want to help him renovate it so we can move in there as soon as possible hahaha. It was really funny because there were parts where one of his friends who was helping him told him that he needs to take the boards of the outside canopy off carefully and starts using all these technical terms, and in the middle of him explaining Todd just grabs a sledgehammer and just starts bashing it. That's the kinda guy Todd is, he's legit.

Thursday was pretty interesting too. We went less active/part member family finding, and when we tried this one house a mom in her late 20's or so opens the door and before we could even get a word in she says "HEY!! It's good to see you again! Listen, my husband isn't here right now and my kids are running around everywhere, so would you guys be able to come back Monday night or so?", so we are planning on returning there tonight. But we had a dinner appointment that night, and before that we got a call from Sister Kaye, the grandmother of Maddi Williams, the girl who's supposed to get baptized this Saturday. She called us and asked if we could move the baptism to THIS weekend, or October 31 instead of November 7, because her uncle, the only priesthood holder in the family, was down and wanted to baptize her because he'd be back on the mainland by the 7th. Well, that was a problem, because Elder Wade and I were expected to be in St. Helen's two hours away to do a stake-wide missionary effort thingy on Saturday, so if that were to happen we wouldn't be able to be there. Because she now wanted to be baptized in TWO DAYS instead of ten, we had to make last minute plans to teach her the last lesson, show her how the baptism will happen, show her the baptismal clothing, call Bishop to schedule and get his permission, get Elder Jensen down to do a baptismal interview with her... and all this had to happen BY THE NEXT DAY!!! It was crazy, but over the next hour we were able to schedule how all of it would happen. After our dinner appointment, after ALL THE STRESS WE WENT THROUGH TO SCHEDULE THIS, Sister Kaye said we'd still do it next week because the uncle was leaving Friday, so now we had to call all those people back and tell them it was off. UGH, it was stressful.

Elder Wade and I as MIB with Arden Eccles

Friday though, we did some finding through trying to talk to the people on the street in the city, but no one wants to talk to us, and neither Elder Wade nor I are very good at it. After doing that for a good portion of the day we went to Arden Eccles 8th birthday party. Because we'd be in St. Helen's during his baptism we decided we had to go to his party to make up for it. Because it was Halloween we had to find something to dress up as while still being in our proselyting clothes, so we decided to wear our shades, suits, and black ties and go as MIB. We needed weapons, so we grabbed the Nerf guns in the flatt. Meh, they were all kids, they didn't know the difference.

Found this while tracting (only now do I realize that my eyes were closed)

The squad of missionaries (Two of them got a ride with some members)

Saturday though, that was a fun day. We went to St. Helen's, which is basically a beach resort on the eastern coast of Tasmania, and all us missionaries went in a bus with Brother and Sister Honey as the drivers. Our job was basically to invite people to a screening of Meet The Mormons that was happening at the school, but long story short no one showed up to it. 10 missionaries going around inviting people JUST TO A MOVIE, and still no one showed up. What a sad day it was. On the way back Brother and Sister Honey made a few side stops so we could take some pictures, including a cemetery with a church building where the first priesthood meeting was held in Tasmania. Us Launceston missionaries were expected to go on Sunday in case any new non-members showed up, but no one ever did. It's so disappointing, because EVERYONE thinks "Oh I know what you guys teach, I know what you're about, all you want to do is baptize me" blah blah blah! It's SO tough because people won't even listen, and if they just listened they would come to realize how important this church will be in their lives for the better.

Missionary tag in the sand at Binalong Bay

Well, Todd gave us a ride up to St. Helen's because he's the man, and because we stayed for the full three hours on the way back Todd said "Alright, I don't care what you say, since we did three hours of church we're doing three hours of beaches". Well, we were two hours away from home, so we really didn't have a choice. Todd is just not the guy you say no to. He took us to this place called Binalong Bay, and talk about white beaches and beautiful water! Took some cool pictures there, and then we went to Skeleton Bay, and took some really cool pictures there too. The wind was blowing pretty hard, so that made for some interesting photos.

Obviously it's been an exciting week, and I can't really put it into too much detail because I don't want people to feel like they're reading the bible every time I email home. But I love you all mucho, hope everyone stays awesome, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook