Hey everyone, it's ELDER COOK HERE AGAIN!!!! An intense week has happened, but the best place to start is from the beginning, so I'll start there.

Playing tennis with Ian, the man,

Using my really cook protective eye wear!

Monday was spent playing tennis with Ian Palmer, our investigator who's looking to be baptized in a few months. He's still going strong, but since he's still having a hard time quitting using the pain killers on an overage basis he's mind tends to get a little whack every now and again. He says the weirdest things sometimes, like usually he's pretty quiet, but when he's hyped up on an overage he talks nonstop about "the numbers" that he'll just pull out of thin air out of nowhere and makes no sense whatsoever. I really think that the only reason that he takes them is because he just gets really bored and has nothing else to do, but now that he'll hopefully be doing the community service more often he'll be able to take his mind off of it. We all agree, including himself, that it was a good thing he wasn't baptized because he still isn't ready yet because of his addictions, but he is working on it as much as he can.

Tuesday morning we headed up to Pakenham to drop off Elder Casil, and from there I took Elder Wi Neera, the Elder he's replacing, to the mission office in Wantirna South with me, and basically from there spent the day with the Maroondah Zone Leaders, and I got to go on splits with Elder Babneau. I was really excited to spend the day with him, but ever since he's become a Zone Leader he's gotten REALLY mellow, so it was a lot less fun than I thought it would be.

Elder Holt (my new companion) is just a tad taller than myself

Wednesday was the legendary day that I got to pick up my new companion, Elder Holt. In short we spent most of the day at the mission office eating lunch and then having a golden orientation. He's been out on his mission for eight months, but had to go home for a while but now is back, which means that out of all of Worsencrofts "posterity" in the mission, I'm the oldest of the three. On the way back to Moe Elder Holt was so excited to be my companion, and that's because both him and I have had some pretty bad companions after being trained, but now that we are together we have been working our absolute tails off in complete companionship unity, and the things we are able to accomplish because we have the same mindset are astronomical. But once we got back to our area we went shopping for food because we were out, using up the rest of my mission funds because Elder Holt has yet to receive his mission card. So we had food at this point, but it wasn't enough to last us until the rest of the month.

Thursday we got down to work, having amazing working time and awesome planning for the week. Nothing much came from it, but we worked hard and were nothing but just so happy and excited for this transfer because we are going to SMASH the missionary work here.

Yes I have successfully completed the one year mark

Friday was great because we did tons of finding and were able to find a few more people who want us to come back, and I will mention names as soon as we find out if they are really solid or not. But Friday night was my official year mark: my shirt burning ceremony. I was able to do it with the Winfields, and it was great to be able to do it with them.

Elder Holt holding the "1 year mark shirt" meant for  burning

Saturday was different because when we went out tracting we found multiple people for solid return appointments. As we tracted we met Alan and Bev, and they were a couple in their 50's who we will try to return to go do some service. They really enjoyed the time talking with us and ended up forcing us to take $20.00 from them to "go get lunch". It was such a blessing. Later we went to someone we found the previous day to teach them about what we believe. Long story short they, being a young married couple in their 20's, ended up feeding us a great lunch, and even though they didn't accept a Book of Mormon or a return appointment the spirit was strong. They asked some amazing questions that neither I nor Holt could answer, but when it came to a situation like that we bogged down in pure testimony of our personal witness, and that was the reason the spirit was so strong: so strong in fact that at the end, after each of us bore our testimonies to them, the wife then turned to bear her testimony to us about her love for Jesus Christ, and she did this "not really knowing why". THAT's how strong the spirit was! After that we went tracting again, and eventually meeting this guy named Joseph. He's in his 60's or so and from America, and he had a short white beard and stringy white hair, so when he let us in after about 5 seconds of seeing us I was a bit skeptical, but we went in anyways. Not a crazy dude, just very nice to us, and although he's Christian he didn't want to talk about the Book of Mormon. The reason he let us in so quick was because he had seen us working earlier in the day and was proud of the work we were doing. When we left his house he gave us a lot of different fruits and vegetables and some bread to have, and in my mind I just thought "What a blessing! We had no money and little food, and all throughout the day we were blessed with grocery money, lunch, AND take home food! Heavenly Father is definitely looking out for us." And he definitely is.

So we've been able to meet up with Bazil Rawiri's niece, who is now living with him for a time period while her aunt whom she lives with is away in London. Her aunt is a member, and Manoa, the niece, is 9 years old and not a member, but long story short after very simply teaching her the Gospel of Jesus Christ (with the help of Bazil and his family)  she wants to be baptized. She has been coming to church the past few weeks, and her aunt and uncle she lives with have recently moved from NZ to start life over and to get completely reactivated in the church, so there's no doubt in my mind she will be baptized within the next few weeks.

Got to help the Maroondah Zone Leaders clean the
    temple on Wednesday morning! It was great

So yeah, basically now that I have a companion with amazing work ethic, similar cultural backgrounds and personality, and a desire to be obedient, we will set this place on fire this fall (remember it's fall here in Australia). Already we have found multiple people to teach, and even though we are still struggling a bit with money we know we'll get through it: we always do. It has been such a great week and I am SO grateful that Elder Holt is my new companion: we've both been waiting for a companion like each other for a LONG time: and plus, he loves this area and the ward.

Love you all heaps, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Isaiah 1:19-20

Elder Holt found us a new Investigator

The one and only Elder Steele front and center

Golden Orientation and lunch with Elder Holt, the new companion

With Elder Poulson, an Elder I've ALWAYS wanted to serve with (hopefully right after Holt)

Lion King re-enactment maybe?

don't ask me what we are doing with this cat