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

Monday, February 27, 2017

Hey guys sorry I wasn't on yesterday: busy busy Zone P-Day! But I'm on now! But you know what makes me mad? You know what just gets my water boiling? You know what just grinds my gears? You know what really flips my nine year old? When people we meet on the train never get back to us or never answer their dang phones!!! A bit of back story, but I'll get to that. Monday was pretty dang great because we were actually able to go out with the Stinchcombes. They're like an hour away from us so that took out a chunk of our monthly mileage, but that's alright because hopefully we're able to make up for it. Somehow. Anyways, it was totally worth it. We picked strawberries at this one place where you could eat as many as you wanted and then fill up a small plastic container with them, and they were sweet too. Sister Stinchcombe went to some forbidden area of the picking farm and said to all of us "Come join me over in the great and spacious building!" That was pretty dang funny, and what was great was that we even had to jump over this small river in order to even get there. We also went blackberry picking and to an awesome beach, and then we went to their home to turn our berries into syrup and eat buttermilk pancakes that were GREAT!!! All in all it was a greatly utilized P-Day.

We have our berry pickin' booties on!

Tuesday and Wednesday was basically just going back and forth on the train trying to talk to people about the restored gospel. Tuesday was fun because we went to go visit a nine year old recent convert who lives with her returning-to-activity aunt. Her aunt was a LITTLE bit drunk, so she and her niece were having fun and then suddenly she carried her niece over her shoulder. And, you know, being drunk and having no coordination, she fell and slammed her niece's knee into the concrete. WWE Superslam status. It looked like it hurt and I felt pretty bad it happened, but at the same time I couldn't help but laugh and what happened after the matter. And as far as contacting people on the train goes, I have no clue why, but literally in the past week I've had four guys who are absolutely off-their-rocker nutso come up and talk to me: all of them probably on ice. None of them talked to Elder Theurer, just me. I don't know, maybe I just attract the crazies.

Just street contacting on an empty train car. The best..

We had a pretty funny experience though while on the train. There was a couple of feet between Elder Theurer and I, and he got on the train before I did. Well, right as he got on the doors closed, and I was only right behind him, but the doors locked and went without me. I just kind of waved goodbye to him as the train slowly took off with Theurer in it, and so I was on the train platform by myself. Haha, sweet. I wasn't worried or anything, but I just asked this girl about my age if I could use her phone to call Theurer who had our phone. Well we she and I both got on the train and Theurer got on the train with at the next stop, and long story short that girl named Emily ended up being a new contact. I kinda knew that something like that would happen, because Heavenly Father just has the greatest sense of humor. "I'm just gonna go ahead and separate these two missionaries for half an hour so that they can do my work in a way that needs to be done". Ahh, good times. We'll be teaching her in about two weeks’ time or so when she's got the time, but as for everyone else we've met on the train, they're pretty hard to get back in contact with once they give us their number. It's kinda disappointing, but we ain't givin' up on them yet.

The Stinchcombes also took us to thebeach, it was awesome!

Thursday was great because we got to teach a new contact that Elder Theurer and his old companion Elder Babneau (my MTC companion) found, and he's one of the most genuine people I've ever met. He was SO open in discussing his questions that he has, and his questions were along the lines of "Why am I here? What's the purpose of life? How can I find these answers?" Gosh, so genuine in what he wants. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said that he'll begin a slow process of reading it, and we're going to go see him on tomorrow, so wish us the best of luck!

Saturday was pretty great because we basically had nothing scheduled: usually in the line of missionary work that really sucks because it's "Oh man, I guess we just kinda fill our time with finding activities", but Theurer and I take the bus to the train station to find. It takes longer than driving, but it was fun to just kinda get lost on the bus and figure out where we needed to go as we went. We had that kinda time on our hands to use like that. We had some good conversations with people and I was able to give someone a Book of Mormon which felt really great. So, in door knocking I'm about as bold as it can get because Elder Worsencroft trained me that way, but I was never really introduced to real street contacting until I was in Eltham almost a year ago, so street contacting is still a foreign thing to me for the most part. Elder Theurer's trainer though, Elder Steele, was a street contacting master, and so he knows street contacting inside and out. Our modes of finding between Elder Theurer and I are COMPLETE opposites, but he's teaching me the ropes of it, and I feel like I'm getting better at it. You can still teach an old dog Elder new tricks. Yesterday was basically church, ward council, and eating. We taught an investigator named Eddie that's been coming to church for like the past four months or so, and he hasn't really had official lessons until then. He's 26 and Samoan, and he's pretty keen to learn but baptism might be a bit of a distance a ways. We'll see how he goes. Last night was great though because we spent the night in the Hastings flatt, and if you remember Hastings was my flatt of first inheritance with Elder Worsencroft. It was pretty cool going and spending the night there, but when Croft and I were in it the flatt was BRAND SPANKIN' NEW, but after almost two years of missionaries staying in it... it was a bit different. And dirtied up. But it was still kinda fun to stay there and be like "Hey! This was my first Aussie home!"

beautiful view at the beach in Australia

So last night after our Zone P-Day (I'll talk about Zone P-Day next week) we got in contact with Carly and Hailey. Remember, the two girls that we talked to on the train about 10 days ago and had high hopes for them? Well, turns out they were both about as plastered drunk as it could get and said that they wanted nothing to do with us anymore, saying that getting drunk and partying every night was the way to live. What the heck? It was absolutely gut-wrenching to see 15 YEAR OLD GIRLS LIVING LIKE THIS!!! Sure it's their life, but it's going nowhere very fast. It was really sad, and it disturbed me for the rest of the night. Even now I don't like to think about it... I hate to be dark and dismal, but the way I see it, this world is as the scriptures say "ripe for destruction".

So that's been my week, and things still keep going great. The transfer's already halfway over, which means I've only got nine weeks left. Strange. But hey love you all, and next week I'll tell y'all's about how this P-Day today went. I love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Helaman 1:21

Dangerous cliff climbing at the beach... NOT

searching the beach for treasures

Beach view

Our group at the beach

Good Times

Elder Theurer Found a tiny cave. lol

Blackberry picking and strawberry picking w/ the Stinchcombes,

My companions portion he took home

My portion didn't make it home

Store where they sell lots of berry stuff

all our cute booties for berry picking

District Lunch after District Meeting

We couldn't find cups to use at the chapel
so we just used these instead

It was like a quarter sip for every one. totally worth it

so bright outside we cant open our eyes...
or we are just being silly young men

Found this sleepy little possum animal just chillin
inside a train station overhang

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

So hello to all friends and family back home in the truest land of the truest promise! So as far as this week goes, as always immersing yourself in the work makes the days blaze by. If you want your years to go by fast and you want to be 80 years old before you know it, then just immerse yourself in missionary work. It's the absolute best!

This week's been great, and we've been doing a lot to try to get to know the members this week since Sunday last week was Stake Conference. So as far as last Monday goes, for the most part we just sat in the flatt and played Pokemon because the weather was absolutely crummy and we're not really sure of what there is to do in this area. It was the greatest, and I have yet converted another companion to the game wahahahahaha! We also went to the beach too since this Zone is known as "beach bum" Zone since we're all just entirely surrounded by water everywhere, so that was pretty fun. I love going to the beach, but the water was really dang choppy because of the windy weather.

Tuesday we had like five different guys from Salt Lake City come to our mission, and even though they weren't all General Authorities per say it was definitely a RARE occurrence that so many would come. It's all because of the massive amounts of advertising that the church has been doing in Melbourne, and I'll send some photos of that all. Brother Steve Allan, the head of the entire missionary department was there, as well as Brother Droube, the head of all the church's advertising, and a few of other "high-ranked" guys were there too. It was pretty intense.

Singing Called to serve with all the missionaries

It was pretty awesome because for about two of the four hours we were inspired to do better, and then the last two of the four hours we were totally reprimanded that we needed to do better and try harder by Brother Allen. He totally RIPPED into our mission, saying that he's "never seen a group of missionaries with such a lack of urgency", and the fact that so many of the missionaries didn't even participate when we were asked questions didn't even help out. Most of the missionaries were Samoan, and because most of the missionaries that actually DID participate were Caucasian or otherwise European, he TOTALLY called out the big group of Samoans: "Hello? You crowd of Samoans in the middle would be loud if this were a football game, so why aren't you speaking?" SOOOOO DANG STRAIGHTFORWARD!!! He don't give a Carebear stare about what they thought of him! But I feel bad, because I feel that President Vidmar was really embarrassed about the overall lack of enthusiasm the general populous of the missionaries gave. While I feel like most of the missionaries "took the truth to be hard", Elder Theurer and I left with great restitution to change and do better. It was great. And plus Brother Allan told me one on one that I had a great smile. Yeeee!!!

Saw Sarah Cranston from Moe ward at the
Book of Mormon display, that was pretty awesome

Wednesday was basically one of the best days ever because our entire Zone got to go to Melbourne to see the massive Book of Mormon display that's like nine feet tall. It was great, and not only did we get to see the Book of Mormon display, but we got to go and man it for about six hours!! Elder Theurer and I gave out like nine copies of the Book of Mormon throughout the entire day, but since we were on our feet for that entire time we were really tired once we got home. It was so great, and we felt completely lit on fire for the rest of the next few days because of it. People would literally just come up to us and want to know more. Not all the time, but heck the fact that it would actually happen was outstanding. Especially talking to young adult aged people: they are SO willing to talk to us. No matter what, if we can find someone that's our age to talk to, more than likely if they don't give a snobby aura they're willing to learn. It's such a great thing!

Just a few of the great missionaries

Thursday and Friday were just kind of blah, lots of works was being done but at the same time it feels like nothing's really been accomplished. Days like that just happen you know, and that's how being a Zone Sensei is, just working but not really doing missionary work. Ya know, ya know... We did visit an investigator named Anthony though, but he's not really progressing. I’ll keep working with him. He's not totally in it for the sake of bashing, so it's not a totally lost cause.

Saturday was pretty fun because we got to go street contacting on the train. It's great, because we were on the train just going on the train between areas across the Zone and back talking to people. Again, from what I've seen and experienced about Young Single Adult aged people enjoying talking was confirmed on Saturday. We were on the train a couple of hours, and we gave a Book of Mormon to some guy from Tanzania, and even though he's WAY interested he's not in our area. But he was really intrigued to find out that the prophets’ name was Thomas, because that's his name too. We also gave two copies of the Book of Mormon to two girls who are about 15 years old. It's so weird, because the girls in this country look and act older than they area. You start talking to them and eventually ask "How old are you?" expecting them to be like 26 or something and they're like "Oh I'm 14". IT'S REALLY AWKWARD!! AND IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME, AND NOT JUST TO ME!!! Anyways, we're hoping to meet Carly and Hailey's parents sometime because they seem genuinely interested to learn about how to be happier. The rest of the day was mostly spent on the train back and forth talking to people, and MAN you meet so many crazy people the later in the night it gets. But it’s fun, those stories can wait for when I get home.

This is the first time I've had an Islander feed like this.
I'll probs gain weight in this area, but I've got two months
left so like I really care. There was so much dang food, and
we ate with all the wise old Tongan sages of the family
(if you eat with the old people, that's a serious honor)

Sunday was great because I got to actually meet members from our ward, because if you remember that last Sunday was Stake Conference, so I didn't really get the opportunity to actually meet members. But heck this ward is AWESOME!!! SO many youth, and all the adults are really cool with the missionaries and treat us like family almost instantly: it's the best. So I gave a short talk and since the pianist nor the backup pianist showed up I had to play today: welcome to the ward Elder Cook. I also had to play the piano in primary and help the 30 primary kids learn and memorize the lyrics to "Choose the Right". And then after church we had a MASSIVE lunch appointment with the Lelenoa family, and HOLY CRAP were there so many people there! Probably about 40 or so people, and the reason being is because they were Tongan and were having a family lunch with all the kids, adults, and the two legendary grandparents that started it all. It was dang fun, I'll send photos.

The incredible food and people at the Tongan feed

So that's basically how this week's gone for us. We're hoping to go berry picking with a family down in Rosebud, my first mission area in Australia, and so that'll be a ton of fun to go with them again. That is, if it ever decides to stop raining. Seriously these past two weeks have been so hot and sunny, and then BOOM suddenly P-Day happens and it's cold and the rain is relentless. What the heck. But anyways, life continues to prosper, and I love it all. Keep going hard in what you guys do and I'll do the same. Love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

*instant Tongan voice* "Eldah, eet thuh pig, is good foh you"

P.S. This email was so long because now I have time to do it throughout the week! Elder Theurer has this machine that you type on and then connect it to the computer later, and it just types everything out on the computer at lightning speeds! So shutout to my companion.