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

Sorry for not being on yesterday, it was the Queen's birthday or something and that's a public holiday, so all the libraries were closed. It's been really rainy this week too, so that always makes going outside fun (not really because it's cold and wet, but we try to make the best of situations haha). So yeah, this week has been full of heaps of finding. HEAPS. And sometimes it feels like we are plowing as many seeds as we can not even into dirt, but more like a pile of rubble and trying to make it work. It's REALLY tough out here finding people who are genuinely interested in learning more about the gospel of Jesus Christ. But that's not to say that this week we haven't found anyone, because we have found a very few sprouts that show there is some progress here. And hey, at least we've gotten our hot water in our flat back!

Tuesday we tried our hand at standing in the busy plaza and talking to people as they passed by. At first I was hesitant in it, but soon it became a great thing for me to try to talk to people as they rudely pass by us, because in doing that sure we get heaps more rejection, but we talk to so many more people, so the chances of us finding someone actually interested is much more productive. We gave a Book of Mormon to a guy about my age named Chris, and he seemed really interested in actually knowing about our church, so we scheduled to meet up again with him the next day at the library, and he gave us his number. Well, the next day came and he never met us at the library or responded to our calls, and that was really discouraging because with no real investigators we put a lot of hope into Chris's interest, but when that happened we were back at nothing. Sure we gave him a Book of Mormon, but we wanted to teach him. It was a sad day. That same day, Wednesday, we had a Zone Meeting, and we had heaps of training on trying to teach member families at least three times a day, at LEAST, in helping them get in the spirit of missionary work to invite their friends to listen to the gospel. Member missionary work has always been emphasized in the church, but Australia is a REALLY anti-social country: I mean I have never seen so many people who are legitimately proud to say that they have no friends. Of course that's not with everyone, but most people we talk to don't know their next door neighbors after living next to them for "only" 20 years, nor do they want to. Some members tend to be the same, but Ching and I are doing our best to be diligent in working with members and working with the hand we are dealt. Shout-out to Moe though, because that entire ward broke that stereotype.

Friday was a pretty interesting day though. Instead of driving to the plaza to talk to people like we usually do, we were impressed upon that we should walk to the plaza instead. It's only like a mile, so it's not that far. As we walked we saw this lady in her early 20's holding heaps of grocery bags and a big box of diapers, so when the coast was clear we ran over to help her out, and as we walked to her house about 10 blocks away with her groceries she seemed really interested in the knowledge that we had of eternal families and eternal marriages. She was really enthusiastic to learn about the church and to have us back again sometime, so we gave her our phone number and a Book of Mormon and set a day to come back later this week. Hopefully she doesn't pull a Chris. We have a ward activity this Saturday night that we might swing by her house to invite her to, but we're really excited to teach her.

As we walked back to go talk to people at the plaza we saw this lady helping an older lady in her 80's trying to stabilize her, and as we got closer the older lady fell down and hit the back of her head in the concrete! We ran to go see how we could help and there was a gash in her forehead from a recently previous fall and blood on her face and the concrete. We called the ambulance and stayed with her until help arrived, but from what I last heard from her sister (who we walked into while street contacting) her face is all bruised up and she needed a few stitches in her forehead, but will make a full recovery. What an experience that was.

Later that same day we went to go teach a former investigator, Josh. He's really cool and always comes to us with a lot of really good questions, but most of them are questions that go back to "So what is your opinion on...?" instead of what is really important, such as "How can I know what you're teaching is true?" He's in his 30's or so and works as a pastor for the military. He makes a lot of money doing that and the military provides a house for him, so I think one of his concerns is that, and also that if we have the Bible, why do we need the Book of Mormon? It's a tough situation for us, but we will still do what we can.

After teaching Josh (it was a really busy Friday) we had Rafael, a new contact we found last week who made contact with us this week, take us out to dinner. It was really strange, because NO ONE DOES THAT!!! No one wants to talk to us, let alone be our friends (besides members), and NO ONE that barely meets and talks with us wants to feed us. But this guy strangely did. So he took us to an Italian restaurant, but Ching and I were pretty on edge about it all, and since it was raining I took my umbrella, but when we were under shelter I held it like a club. Seriously, he was kinda too nice to just want to feed us. Nothing eventually happened, and we got to learn a bit about him and his life, and yeah he's religious and works as a Catholic priest/organist. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he'd read it and everything. The next day he texted us saying that he was "so glad that he could talk with us and we could have an evening chat as friends" then ended the text with "next time we'll do sweets. Luv u xx", along with some other things that made us pretty creeped out. Lack of time means lack of detail, but if you were in our shoes you'd be on our side entirely. Thanks for the feed and all, but I think we won't establish contact with him anymore. *Shudder* There are some really weird people out there.

Well that's my week, and life is still going well. Josh is our only real investigator, so we do a LOT of finding, and since everyone is really well-off here they all think that God is just something that weak people do to find extra hope in the future. If they only knew what exactly it was they were missing out on and saying "not interested" to. I really do feel a deep regret for those who turn away the gospel so carelessly like it's just a strong opinion someone decided to just "come up" with. BUT I've been sent here for a reason, and I will continue to be strong in it! Love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Mosiah 7:29-33