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

Literally feels like five minutes ago that we were just talking. These weeks are ridiculous because they just plan themselves: we plan nothing. Literally, we're so busy everything practically plans itself out: our days are filled up day after day after day in a row. I haven't knocked doors in ages! Well just kidding we did this week but that's because we were on exchanges.

So last week P-Day we did absolutely nothing. It was great. I was a bit bummed I don't get to skype Austin, but hey Mothers day isn't that far from the corner so I'm not too gutted. Tuesday we just a bajillion little things to do in order to prepare for the Zone Convention that we've got going on. We have to get trainings, food, P-Day activities, and other things all ready. It's great. Wednesday we went up to Finley to just do some work up there, and we had a District Meeting over Skype. It was pretty dang cool considering that that was the first time I think this mission has ever tried something like that, but the Lord blessed us and there weren't ANY problems at all with the connection or image or anything. It was pretty dang great, especially since doing it over the phone is terrible but doing it over video call is much better being able to see everyone. We reported to President Vidmar on how that went and he said that he might just join us in on one of them sometime in the near future, so keep your ears open for that! We had dinner that night at the Grenier family and hot dang they are such a great family. Literally one of the best.

Gettin' the Family History booth all set up..

Thursday was taking the whole day to prepare for our family history booth this Saturday. We have a laptop that luckily Eric Grenier was able to double the RAM on, and with that laptop (we have it with permission) we went out and bought a broadband network thingymajigger (basically a portable wifi thing to use with the booth to help people with family history). Then we went to check out where we should get it set up for the day, along with a million other things that we've got to get ready. Friday was fun because I went on exchanges with Elder Knight in our District, and even though he's only been out for five months he's training a new missionary and is the District Leader. He'll be a Zone Leader before Christmas I prophecy. It was great, we visited a couple of crazy members and did some tracting in the rain.

Saturday was the day of the Family History booth, and all we had to do was just set it up and sit there

Elder Van Wagoner and I

and wait for people to come up and talk to us. And we did that for a good six hours. We weren't allowed to go and approach people like "Hey come to my booth!" because that would constitute as a "public annoyance". So we just had to sit there. Sister Naylor helped out and she had the idea to bring a bunch of balloons that said "Families can be together forever", and I don't think it's publicly annoying to pass out free balloons to little kids! And because I haven't got a single idea of what to do when it comes to family history (I've tried and tried but I can't get the hang of it) I just went out and gave balloons to little kids. It was awesome. So we've got a few people who are going to hopefully come to our family history class on Tuesday night this week, so we'll see how that goes. It goes a LOT more in detail than that on what happened but hey I'd be here for a few years if I were to tell you all the details.

Elder Van Wagoner and I at the Family history booth

Okay so as far as missionary work is going we've still got Meredith set to be baptized this weekend and we're REALLY excited for it, and a lot of the members up in Finley are too. It'll definitely happen. She's awesome. Weird to think that time is flying so fast, but hey that's the way the cookie crumbles! I'm officially the oldest missionary in the Zone (both in missionary age AND reality age: I turn 21 next week and everyone is younger than me!!!) Love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again!