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Sunday, January 24, 2016

My my my how times fly. A lot has happened this week, but I'll only talk about a few really important instances. So a few weeks ago we swung by an investigator (whom, sadly, we later had to drop), but as we drove to her house we saw this older guy fiddling with a bush outside of his front yard, so quick thinking... I decided to pull over and see if he needed any help. He was REALLY happy to see us, and we had never seen him in our lives before. He knew we were Mormon missionaries, so he pulled out a few chairs in his front yard and we talked a bit. His name's Ted, and he's like in his 60's or so. We talked a bit about the church and how nice the Mormons were to him while he lived in the Philippines, and after just talking for a bit we invited him to church and gave him information about when church started and where it was, and then we headed out. Honestly, we didn't really expect much out of that encounter (other than we helped an old guy out) because we invite people to come to church all the time, but sure enough last week as soon as sacrament meeting started Ted walked in the front doors and came and sat next to us. We were REALLY surprised that he actually came, but not only did he come last week, but he came yesterday too! We've since met up with him a few times during the week to talk about the church and he has been taking the discussions. He is already a Christian which is good, but it sometimes gets a bit tough to teach him because he has a pretty bad speech impediment, but we still teach him anyways. He accepted to be baptized on the 6th of February once he comes to know that the Book of Mormon is true. It's great though, because although he is still waiting for an answer he keeps his commitments: He reads, comes to church, and prays to know if what we teach is true. Elder Casil and I, along with a lot of the members of the ward, are really stoked to watch him further progress.

At Jump Crazy
SOOOOO, last week P-Day! We went to this place called Jump Crazy with the Zone in Cranbourne, which is about an hour and a half train ride from Moe. It was heaps of fun, and I also got to see Elder Vaiouga again because he's in the zone as well! Lot's of fun, but not really too much worth emailing about.

Sad Elder Vaiouga isnt my comp any more



Our Zone having fun


At Jump Crazy with the bros


 
The Zone at Jump Crazy 
Elder Casil and I playing with the spider..
Wednesday we went to go do some service for Julie, and we just pulled weeds basically all day. She was REALLY appreciative of the help   All those years of weed pulling back home has prepared me for all the service I would do on my mission. Thanks dad for the practice!  We also found this BIG-AS spider there, and we played with it for like 10 minutes. Pretty fun, but luckily it ain't poisonous. 

Elder Casil and I playing with the spider..
 Thursday we went on exchanges with the District Leader. I went with the DL, but nothing really too exciting happened. BUT!, we did tract into a Russian dude with a THICK-AS Russian accent, and although he wanted nothing to do with religion, he invited us in for a glass of juice. We accepted his offer, and we just went inside and talked with him. He is like your stereotypical Russian: I mean covered in bullet and stab wounds, loves to drink, has broken his hands multiple times from fights, I mean this guy was RUSSIAN!!! I mean, his name was Vladmir, how much more full-blooded Russian can you get than that!? On our way out, though, he gave us each a handshake and a pat on the arm as a friendly goodbye, and he felt my arm and in his Russian accent said "Woah, you are big, like Arnie, you arm wrestle me". TALK ABOUT LOL!!! So yeah, I arm wrestled this Russian guy in his 40's, and we were at a pretty good stalemate when suddenly he said, in his wonderful accent "You might be strong, BUT YOU ARE NOT RUSSIAN!!", and I just completely lost all concentration at that and accepted defeat. It. Was. Awesome.

Birthday cake at the Ballantyens
20th Birthday cake at the Ballantyens
So Saturday, my birthday! We had a Zone wide fast Friday evening running into Saturday morning, so I didn't even has breakfast on my birthday! All goods though, because we were all fasting for our investigators and their spiritual progress. We had a worldwide missionary broadcast in Cranbourne again, and apparently there hasn't been one of those since the 90's, so we knew it was pretty big and important. A lot of missionaries were speculating on what it could possibly be about, and it turned out to be a great training for us. A few of the apostles spoke, including David A. Bednar, and that was cool.

Saturday night we had dinner at Sister Lise Ballantynes house with her husband Brother Chris Ballantyne. They knew it was my birthday, and they made an AWESOME dinner and birthday cake for everyone. So a lot of missionaries don't do much work on their birthday, and for a while I was a bit tempted to be lazy as well, but I was like "Nah, if I work hard, even on my birthday, Heavenly Father will give us a miracle or a life to touch", so we went out to work. Glad I didn't fall into that trap! Although we worked, we didn't find any miraculous golden investigator, but at the end of the day we met this woman in her mid 20's named Shaunie. She was severely hunched over and relied heavily on a cane, but she said she wasn't interested at all, but we were able to talk to her. Her back wasn't always like that though, and it was caused by an accident by a loose floor tile in a nursing home she worked in. She said the damage was permanent, but she said she was grateful that it was her instead of one of the old folks there because it could've killed them. Honestly, it touched my heart to see such humility. We told her of the love God has for her and committed her to pray, and although she never gave us a day to come back, I'm sure that the spirit touched her life.

Well that's about it everyone, love ya! Another week is ahead! And as always, God be with you till we meet again!
-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Doctrine and Coventants 42:42
We haven't gotten mail in so long that there are 
literally spider webs on the mail box. 
Alma 60-6 my friends, look it up

Adrianna B, a nonmember who has been 
coming to church with the Pollard family
for AGES, drew me a picture of me as
Blinky Bill
Lunch after the worldwide broadcast.


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