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

Christmas decorations at the shopping mall with Elder Van Wagoner

Sit down and stahp talkin' everyone. My email has just arrived. So basically it's been another pretty awesome week just being the two of us. It's great because we're a normal companionship again, and now we don't have to deal with Elder Faanunu. I want to talk positively about him but man he was just so racist towards Americans, it seemed he didn't like people who were in leadership, and so him having two American Zone Leader companions just drove him up the wall no matter what we did. It was the dumbest thing ever and he felt like ball and chain for us. He was a good guy, but being around Americans he just completely shut down and quit. And he did that for a whole transfer. But now that it's just me and Van Wagoner without the ankle weights anymore we're runnin' full steam ahead without too many hindrances.

Awesome water fight with a few Elders

So this P-Day we spent it at the Mason family, which is basically a family in another area that's really close to Elder Van Wagoner because he served in their branch for about eight months. We had an awesome Nerf war and a water fight which was pretty awesome (because President Vidmar's real and even though there's no swimming he has no opinion on other water activities when it's about as bloody hot as it gets here). And Tuesday was basically just all day in the car. Literally, we spent about seven or so hours driving to and from places in the car. Wangaratta Zone!!!!!

Here's the massive storm that basically flooded

Shepparton & the rest of the mission in about 45 minutes' time

Thursday was pretty interesting because we had our first real sit-down weekly planning session since I've been here because we actually had TIME to do it, and we continuously go down to the hospital to play the piano there because let's be honest, hospitals are pretty dismal places and us being there to lighten the mood always gets people smiling or thanking us. It leaves fantastic impressions on people about the church better than tracting does. Basically all of the mission was hit with a massive rainstorm Thursday in the evening, so it was pretty fun going boating down the road in our Corolla. Fun times in Australia.

Right now we're working mainly with a couple of part member families and getting them active and back to church. Adrian and Rebecca are the main ones right now, and even though Elder Van says they always come to church I've never seen them come yet, so we've got to get them activated and married too. They've got three little kiddies with them so we're really trying to help them, but they are making some fantastic progress in the gospel. We're also working with a less-active member named Jared, and he's about as sincere to coming back into activity as one can get. He hasn't come to church in about 20 years or so but really wants to join back with the Saints, and all of his questions are about like "What is fasting and how do I do it?" or "What does this mean in this chapter of the Book of Mormon?" He's come to church for the past two weeks (luckily he didn't come the week the all out brawl happened), but his family who's all inactive are really creating stumbling blocks for him and making it harder for him to return to activity. He's still working on it, but it's definitely not making his life any easier.

Church was interesting, as always, and points of doctrine are thrown around all the time that are just absolutely stupid to put out there. I don't even have the patience to give an example, but it's questions that go along the line of "What if an asteroid strikes the chapel on a Saturday night and the building is burnt down with a dozen orphans in it? Which orphan would you give a priesthood blessing to first???" and just the most ridiculous questions I've ever flippin' heard. It's no wonder there's so many inactive members: it's an hour of spiritual feelings in sacrament meeting, and then for two hours it's just arguing and bickering doctrine that doesn't even matter. So dumb, I could rant about it for hours if I wanted to, but I wont. Silly silly, just silly.

All of us having a great time with Brother Mason

and his son Makai. Elder Christensen is the one

wearing the light blue shirt and Elder Van Wagoner

is wearing the dark blue shirt

So that's my week, and I'm glad that's it. Today we're going to have a do nothing day, which will be great considering that we've been running around at breakneck speeds the past seven weeks including P-days. I love the heck outta my mission, and it's so sad to know that tomorrow marks the official day where I only have four months left. That's it. Really weird, and Elder Van Wagoner and I woke up yesterday and thought "Wow, so we go home this year. That's fascinating, never thought this year would actually come." And now it's here. I've still got a good chunk of time left but President Vidmar is concerned that all missionaries who go home soon (and I'm in that category) are comfortable with going home, because so many missionaries have the mindset of "If I just work my hardest now without ever thinking about home then it'll all just fall into place like a magical puzzle when I get home." That couldn't be farther from the truth. He wants to make sure that the sooner we get to going home, the more comfortable we are with the idea of returning to normal life and resuming where we left off. And I'm happy to say that I feel comfortable with that idea. No I'm not trunky at all, there's no time for that, but I am okay with accepting the fact that my mission is beginning to wrap up at the corners. Faith always points to the future. Love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook