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

Dear everyone out there,

This is gonna be a really dang short email because a lot has happened and yet it feels like nothing happened. And plus today we're having Zone P-Day with the Zone, and basically this Zone is full of some of the greatest missionaries in the mission. Seriously, like every Zone has at least two or three headache missionaries, but President Vidmar said that he's only sending the best missionaries out here because we're a District and not a Stake and he really wants Wangaratta to be a Stake. So I've probably got one of the best Zones in the mission to be honest. So as far as my companionship goes, Elder Wi Neera, Van Wagoner, and I are ZL's, and Faanunu, an Elder from the Tongan program who's been out for 7 months, is also our companion. So we're literally in a quad-panionship. It's really weird and none of us really know why President put us that way. Wi Neera goes home mid-transfer, so maybe that's why Faanunu's here, so that way we can have at least two functioning companionships right now instead of a trio. But all in his inspiration. So this Zone literally takes up about a quarter of the mission, so as the ZL's we do a TON of driving. It's not uncommon to plan a next days activities and find out "Oh what are we doing tomorrow? Well we're driving to Swan Hill for such-and-such, then to Wagga Wagga for such-and-such, and then we'll get back to the flatt at 9:00PM. Perfect." Lots of driving. But the missionaries in this Zone are so amazing! About a third of the Zone has only been out for three months or less, so a lot of young missionaries, and we've also got three missionaries going home in December, so we've got a few old missionaries as well. But everyone is awesome and has great personalities and ACTUALLY HAS THEIR HEADS SCREWED ON RIGHT!!!! IT'S A BEAUTIFUL THING!!!!!

So Elder Van Wagoner has like five bajillion amazing ideas for how he wants this Zone to be run, and I am REALLY glad that he gets to train me as a ZL because he HATES boring Zone Meetings and so do I. Of all the Worsencroft children he's the most serious but he's still a really funny guy. Just more mature than me and Holt. He's basically had this revelation to have a family history booth out in public on certain days, and he's already gotten permission from President Vidmar, the Area Presidency, and for a few things he's required and obtained permission from the First Presidency. If this thing works out as well as we want it to, then he'll probably change the way that we do missionary work in the mission, if not throughout Australia. It's really exciting, and he's just the man.

This week is no exception to the way of driving. We've probably spent a total of 30 hours in the car driving in between areas this week because so many of the areas are literally HOURS away. And plus this week has just been working a ton to make sure that this next Zone Meeting is as inspirational as it can get, because a boring Zone Meeting isn't a meeting worth having. And also, this Zone P-Day we're in the middle of is the first Zone P-Day this Zone has ever had: with President Maxwell he wasn't too keen on the idea of missionaries spending 3 hours to drive just for a P-Day, but with President Vidmar he's just like "Elders, get this Zone more unified. Let's fire up a Zone P-Day!" And plus we've got Zone Meeting tomorrow, so it'll be good.

My companions are amazing, and holy moly it's hot up here! And this one'll be a scorcher at around 98F on average, but we'll survive! Luckily we've got a house, like a legitimate house, and we've got a few AC units throughout it. We're like three hours away from the mission office which makes going to Zone Leader meetings a bit of a drag, but all goods! Basically this Zone is awesome, and I love being here! So that's it from this week, but I loves loves LOVES you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook