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

TALK ABOUT A MIRACLE!

EMAIL Landon sent about 12 hours before his email below. This short message was sent Saturday evening. He didnt know if he would have time to write us a complete detailed email Sunday our time. Landon writes: "Hello family :) I am doing well, and my eye is recovering at nothing short of a miraculous speed. I can now see almost perfectly, and the doctor said that I will only have a small scar on my iris with no other permanent damage. I have been taken VERY well cared by the members, and the church has been able to provide me with the best of the BEST of medicine and doctors. I won't be able to email tomorrow because I have to go to a doctor early in the morning to follow up my eye, but I just wanted to email you tonight to tell you that I love you, my eye is doing great and my eyesight is recovering rapidly, and that I probably won't be able to email tomorrow. Love y'all's heaps, catch ya latah mate, and as always, God be with you till we meet again :D -Elder Landon Cook"
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EMAIL WRITTEN SUNDAY 4PM
Wow, so this week has been a lot different to normal ones. Monday night, just at the tail end of P-Day, my eye gets seriously red and starts getting painful. I didn't really know what was going on, but I just put some generic pink eye drops in my eye thinking it was pink eye and that it would go away in a few days or so. Big N to the O-P-E. I didn't sleep at ALL that Monday night, and throughout the night my eye just hurt worse and worse, and it was weepy and teary all night too. SO many times I got out of bed and on my knees to pray that the pain would go away so that we could work Tuesday. But I never did get any sleep that night at all, so it really was probably one of the longest nights in my life. I thought it was some kind of infection, and get this: it literally hurt so bad that I actually considered flushing my eye out with hand sanitizer thinking that it would make it feel better. I never did, but it hurt that badly that I honestly considered it.

Tuesday went to the doctor in Latrobe Valley, which is about a 20 minute drive from our flatt, and we went there because Moe is a pretty small community and the doctors here are pretty much useless. The drive was terrible because my eye was so sensitive to the light, and I had to pull over a few times to let my eyes rest from the sun, even though it was a pretty cloudy day. Long story short the doctor diagnosed it as pink eye, so whatever, I took his word for it. That day we spend the day inside because I could barely open my eyes in the light, but the next day it was worse.

Wednesday morning we had a member that used to be a nurse come look at my eye, and as soon as he saw it he said "That's not pink eye: you need to go see a specialist right now". So that morning we had a different member take us to a different eye specialist because I couldn't drive at all. He took us there and said I had an iris ulcer, so he gave my some drops and said to come back Friday.

As the day progressed the drops didn't help: in fact it made it worse. There was a point where I would wear an eye patch with TWO pairs of sunglasses on to keep the sunlight that was coming in out of my eye, and even with all that, I would look at the closed blinds with both eyes closed and cringe from the pain that was in my right eye. For about an hour I had to just sit in the bathroom with my eyes closed and my hands over my face to keep the light out. Towards the end of the day I had Brother Winfield take me to a hospital in Warragul, and we had to wait in the hospital waiting room for about an hour before I could see someone. The doctor I saw gave my some numbing drops, and HAULELUJIA those drops worked instantly!!! But they said what I had was very severe, so they referred me to a hospital in Melbourne where all the top notch specialists are.

So it was probably about midnight at this time, and the Zone Leaders drove us to the hospital about two hours away. Even in the dark of the night, the street lamps were blinding to me and I had to keep my face covered with my hands because of the sharpness of the lights.

That early Thursday morning can only be described as hell. Seriously, I was unable to see properly, I

Elder Steele is the man! He sacrificed so much to help me!

was exhausted, I was in pain, I just felt terrible. For the next few hours it was just test after test after test, and they were the ones where they shine the ridiculously bright light in your eye to see, and with the sensitivity I was experiencing, that was terrible. A few of the tests involved doctors numbing my eye and swabbing it for samples, and in order to get some of the samples they had to stick needles in my eye. About nine times. Even though I was numb, it was still crazy painful. The doctor chucked my previous eye drops away and gave me like three more that I needed to take, one of them being every hour day AND night. We spent the next few days residing at the Zone Leaders' flatt sitting and doing nothing because of the pain in my eye, and those days were mixed with a lot of calls from doctors, hospitals, members, and President and Sister Maxwell. But throughout those days at the Zone Leaders' flatt, my eyes improved significantly, and even now my eyes feel fantastic. One of the Zone Leaders, Elder Steele, was definitely amazing help!! The first few nights I had to get up every hour to put the drops in, and he committed himself to waking up with me and actually putting the drops in my eye for me. It was a huge example of Christlike love because I know that he was just as exhausted as I was, if not more tired. And yes, missionary work is going to have to be put on a halt while I recover, but that's okay because we basically have permission to chill with the members instead of just lounging around in the flatt bored stiff all day.

So Sister Maxwell is preventing us from doing any work until my eye is 100% healed and we have the doctors green light, so I don't think this week we will be doing much work either. Sunday we just hung out at the Winfields house after church and had dinner at their place. The end of the transfer was this Sunday, and I was surely convinced that I was getting to get transferred out so I could be closer to the doctor that I see regularly. Luckily I am staying in Moe, and because of some funny things that the MTC is doing this transfer is an 8 week transfer, so that's even better because I love it here!

So yeah, that's my week, just a lot of different doctors and what not. We actually have to go see ANOTHER doctor about two and a half hours away today, so out P-Day is basically shot. BUT!!! I am going to make a full recovery despite a scar on my right iris. But for like the next month I have to wear these ridiculous Lady Gaga-lookin' glasses to shade my eyes from light. But that's okay because I look like a bug. But I love you all, I really can feel the prayers that you have offered on my behalf, I appreciate and love all the love and support I am getting from near and far, and as always, God be with you till we meet again

-Elder Landon Cook