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

What another week it has been!! I mean, we have been doing a lot of finding here, but nothing is really showing up and coming forth. It's hotter than heck here, but it's all good because the days are swinging by. Can't believe it's P-Day again! We've done a lot this week, but most of it has been door knocking haha. A lot of people are pretty rude to us, but we can both shrug it off and go to the next house with hope, usually dozens of times a day are our dreams of finding someone, ANYONE, who is interested in learning about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ are dashed at the end of the day, but our agency to do work is what's being tested. Everyone else has their agency and we can't change that, but we can control our agency to do the work and find as many people as we can to tell about the restored gospel.

We didn't do really anything last P-Day except play a card game called Magic with some members for a few hours because there's nothing to do around here that isn't 100 km away, but that's okay because that Magic game, as nerdy as it is and sounds, is actually pretty strategic and really fun once you get into it. We did some service for some members during the week as well doing some gardening, and yes mom, I always make sure to put sunscreen on every day I know that we'll be out in the sun for extended periods of time. I ain't about that skin cancer life. The members here treat us amazingly, and we've had a feed every night for the past week, but with all these feeds it makes it hard to prevent gaining weight. I've been getting up at 6:00AM instead of 6:30AM every day to get an hour of exercise in the day, but it still just doesn't seem to be enough. Oh well I guess, bring on the fat man!!!! We have a Christmas breakfast appointment, two lunch appointments, and a dinner appointment, so that day will be fun!!!

As far as investigators go, we only have one person who is seriously looking into the church right now. Paul sadly dropped us, but hey, we planted the seed of faith, and maybe one day in who knows how long he might call up missionaries again, but all I know is that we've done our part with Paul. But, on the other hand, the sister of a member has just gotten out of a really tough situation with her husband (gotta withhold details for everyone's safety, including my own), but she is really interested, REALLY interested, in learning about the church. We met with her Thursday night and she wanted us to fast for her situation the next day, and we promised that we would. We had the Friday set apart just for tracting out a new area, and we knew it was going to be a hot, hot day because Thursday was a hot-as day, but we made the promise anyways. I went to bed praying that somehow the next day would be cooler, and Heavenly Father blessed our prayers with clouds, cold, wind, and rain all that day. Usually missionaries would be depressed by that, but on the inside I was rejoicing: how much harder would the fast have been had we had to do it in 110 degree weather while outside working all day!? Nothing short of a miracle, my friends.

Yesterday was kinda funny though, because my Ward Mission Leader from Hastings (my first area in Australia), Mark Gilbert, came to a baby blessing for his brother's baby, and we were able to catch up and talk, it was pretty cool.

So in general about Australia, you don't see too many Christmas lights hanging on people's houses. It's kinda sad, but hey, that don't bother me because I know back in home sweet home the Christmas lights are more abundant!!!

A lot of work has been happening, but not a lot of visible progress. That's okay though that's okay, because the "worth of [one soul] is great in the sight of God", and if it takes me two years spent to find that single soul, then so be it I'll do it, and I'm glad that my companion is on that same wavelength. I love you all, have a very, VERY merry Christmas season, stay safe and keep God in your crosshairs and you will always find happiness, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Doctrine and Covenants 6:13

JUST A LITTLE MORE RECENT INFO HERE IN AUSTRALIA:

-My current companion is from Samoa and has been out the same time as I have
-I am in Moe Gippsland, Victoria. My address is 9 Stamford Street, but don't send mail there because it's dodgy-as
-Our city in Moe is small, but we cover like 10 other towns, some of them about 130 km away, or about 90 miles, just in our area alone!
-No other elders live in our flatt, just us two in our hot-as flatt
-We're about 130 km away from the mission home, but not in the same zone. Funny that in our area we have places we need to visit that are as far away as the mission home is, sometimes even farther haha
-The only kangaroos I've seen are the one's I saw at the zoo in Tasmania, but I still have yet to see a koala bear
-Nothing else too interesting about the area. It's pretty bush (country side), but there is a sweet-as tram system that we use to get around from city to city so we don't have to burn through our km's. The church provides for the tram costs.