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

This has been by far the fastest week of my mission. Monday was P-Day and we literally just did the normal routine and lifted weights in the flatt, Tuesday we went on exchanges with the Elders in Bendigo, Wednesday we had interviews, Thursday we had a mission-wide training regarding the Book of Mormon Broadway musical that's coming to Melbourne in January, Thursday to Friday afternoon we had exchanges with the Glenroy Elders, and Saturday we had a Branch activity. It's been really cold and rainy this entire week, which is really weird because this time last year it was pretty dang warm down in Tasmania.

So yeah it was pretty full on, but I'll get into more detail about each.

Monday not really much happened, but we just worked out in the flatt and did some op-shopping (and for all you yanks back home, op-shopping is thrift shopping). Got this skux-as suit for like $8.00, but then I got it dry cleaned for $20.00. It seems practically brand new, so I'm happy with it. Admittedly the pants are a bit tight, but all the more encouragement to lose weight so I can fit it better. I ain't about to get it tailored. Ain't nobody got bank fo' dat.

So as far as exchanges go I went with Elder Summa, and him and I have been in the same District

Making cookies with the bros

(the cookie recipe came from my mother

and is absolutely delicious)

periodically throughout our missions for like nine months of our missions. He's the man. So what they do is to help less-active and inactive members be more accepting and nicer to us as missionaries, we made cookies and brownies to go and deliver them, and they swear that it works. None of the people ended up answering that we went to go deliver them to so that was a bummer. But it was a good exchange nonetheless. And I gave him a haircut too. Not too shabby, but all I can say is you get what

Giving Elder Summa and hair cut

you pay for.

Wednesday we had interviews and that was really good, and I love the heck out of President Vidmar. He's definitely a lot different that President Maxwell because he's a lot more bubbly and bouncy and very smiley, but we all love him and his wife. The church sends us Ensign magazines every month, but this month they accidentally sent us a box of Friend magazines instead, so while waiting to be interviewed we took the magazines and did the crossword puzzles in them with Sister Vidmar, it was pretty dope.

Thursday was definitely the big day though. We had Brother Droubay, one of the high rank members in Utah who deals with the church's advertising or something, came to the mission and gave everyone a HUGE training on how the Book of Mormon musical is going to mean that a LOT more people are going to find interest in the church and what we believe, and since the musical is hitting broadway January 17th (tickets are already booked out until the end of April) the church will be hitting up the Southern Cross Station, which is a MASSIVE train station with lots of foot traffic, with TONS of ads and flyers encouraging people to go to Mormon.org to learn about what we really believe. It'll definitely be an exciting time for the mission. But the thing is that we have to prepare members to answer questions people might have NOW instead of when the play comes. When the time for action comes, the time to prepare has gone.

Friday was exchanges and I went with Elder Seru, a Fijian Elder who goes home at the end of the transfer. He's funny as, and him and Elder Chen are a crack-up companionship. Nothing really much to talk about as far as exchanges go.

Saturday we had our Branch activity, and it was supposed to be a branch BBQ at the Thomsons farm, but because of the rain it was moved to the chapel. It was a good activity, and to get on the Branch Presidents good side and try to get on some kind of common ground we played a really fun board game called Risk basically the entire activity. We also made some more cookies to go deliver to an inactive member named Josh we found a couple of weeks ago at the beginning of the transfer, and he told us that he wants to start coming back to church. We met with him and taught him the restoration, and that went really well and the spirit was strong. Right now he's our main priority since we really have no one else to teach.

This Sunday we were supposed to have the last two hour blocks to help the members in doing roleplays and in helping them out in preparation for this musical coming out, but good ol' Seymour branch has done it again! NOTHING was done in preparation for it. The Branch President and Ward Mission Leader were supposed to go to these massive regional training's regarding it and how to conduct those two hours, but nah, neither went, and because of that we weren't able to do it. To be honest I'm not surprised. As far as missionary work goes, the branch has been caught in the thought of "I'm raising my kids in the gospel, so that's missionary work enough" (not being racist, but the only family that helps out and is concerned with missionary work is the one American family in the branch). It's pretty frustrating considering there's not a lot of time to prepare for this play coming out, and there's a VERY short window in how much time we have for this massive opportunity. I read other emails from other missionaries about how amazing it was this Sunday to have that two hour block, but I guess the only option right now is to work with the members on an individual basis. Oh well, what can you do?

Burning our celebratory 18-month mark

pants at the Thomsons farm

Burning our celebratory 18-month mark

pants at the Thomsons farm

Elder Vaiouga and I also burned our pants on Sunday since it was his 18-month mark. Mine was on Saturday, but so we could do it together I waited to do it until Sunday.

So that's my week, and this week looks pretty full on but not as much, so I'm glad that we'll get some time to breath this week. Love you all, keep going strong, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Articles of Faith 1:8

PS: I got the information of when I go home, and because my visa doesn't expire until May 28th I get to go home May 3rd: and extra 10 days of my official two-year mark! It's a dang good thing that I had to visa wait in Mississippi, or else I would be like some other missionaries who came out with me who have to go home in March or even April