I love my Savior Jesus Christ. He and his teachings have changed my life. But it's not just the teachings that have changed my life, but the application of the teachings. I love you, I love this church, I love my mission and everything that these two years has shaped me to be

Well, um, I guess my mission's pretty much all wrapped up. It doesn't feel as weird as I thought it would, but wow I have to admit that I couldn't restrain ALL the thoughts of coming home and all the things I'm excited to do and see when I get back, but in no way or shape did that restrain me from the work. In fact, like I've said over the past couple of weeks I didn't really have an option to fizzle out of the last week of my mission even if I wanted to: too many responsibilities. BUT it was all worth it, and now that my mission is over I can begin the transition from Missionary to Member. But that won't stop me from sharing the Gospel wherever I go. Seriously, I want to do it when I get home, but of course not to some crazy extent. But anyways, on with my week.

All the attendees at our last family home evening

So Monday we were at Strike with the Gippsland Zone for my last P-Day, and that was a ton of fun. I can talk about it when I get home though. Monday night was awesome too because we had our every-other-week Family Home Evening at the Stake center, and considering we only had five people show up to our last one, look at the amount of people that came this time! Literally all through word of mouth. We had people from other Stakes coming as well, it was awesome!!


We also had the chance to have one of the members, William Lelenoa, take us to a place

Lunch with William Lelenoa.  It was soo dang good!

called Hog's Breath Cafe, and it was really good but holy crud!  It was $40.00 per person.  I could have NEVER taken myself there, so shout out to Will for doing that for us. It was so good!  We went on exchanges with the Elders in Springvale and I went with Elder Marshall, the only other American Elder in the Zone. He goes home in three months but is pretty jealous I get to come home to America: we both love the country we're from and really miss it. But hey, just three days! I'm glad that I have a full time job set up for me, and schooling's all taken care of.   I've got plans and I'm really grateful for that.


This week has basically just been preparing for impact with the mini-mission this last weekend, which was a GREAT way to end the mission. Seriously, and to think that it almost got cancelled. It was so amazing, but holy moly the planning that had to go into it was absolutely nuts! I've never planned for a wedding before, but I can go ahead and assume that planning for this weekend might've been pretty similar. It was stressful. But the missionaries and the mini-missionaries all had a great time and especially for the youngsters their testimonies in missionary work were strengthened. It was totally worth the stress of planning and constantly getting together with Stake leaders to get it figured out. But because of it I haven't been able to pack, and we haven't even been able to figure out transfers or how to get missionaries from one Zone to another. It's ridiculous, and this P-Day will barely even be a P-Day at all. But as far as transfers even go, obviously I'm dying and a missionary named Elder Wiser will be taking my place. He's awesome, and I'm jealous of Carroll for being able to serve with him because I've always wanted to serve with Elder Wiser. But that was a good choice by President Vidmar because Carroll really respects Wiser as a leader, and so that'll be good for Carroll. But today'll kinda stink because it'll just be planning for transfers (we've had zero time to do that this weekend because of the mini-missionary weekend), packing for ages and figuring out what I do and don't want to bring home, cleaning the flatt because we had six other Elders spend the night with us for three days, and you can only imagine what the mess after that was like, and other things. It's not gonna be fun, but hey, I come home soon and things like this will no longer be on my plate. I'll have bigger fish to fry so to say.

I'm excited for home, I really am. I can't wait to go home and progress in ways that I

One last goodbye to the wonderful Haymes family the Sunday before I leave

couldn't do on my mission. People hear that I'm excited for home and they kinda get a judgmental look on their face like "Ah, he doesn't love his mission". No, that's not the case at all. If you go to an all you can eat restaurant and eat until you're full and satisfied, then you'll have no problem leaving and getting on with the rest of life. Sure the food was great and chances are you'll end up coming back, but when you're full, you're full. The guy who needs to leave but didn't eat all he wanted is the one who doesn't want to leave, and he was the one who didn't use the time for what he had. In other words, I'm full. I absolutely love my mission and am glad for the voluminous records I've kept to keep the memories alive, but I'm ready to move on. Faith points forwards. It always has, and it always will. I love this Gospel so much and this church is great. I love this church and everything that it has to offer, and I love my Savior Jesus Christ. He and his teachings have changed my life. But it's not just the teachings that have changed my life, but the application of the teachings. I love you, I love this church, I love my mission and everything that these two years has shaped me to be, and I will see you all in a few days. And as always, as it ever will be, and for the last time as a full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.....may God be with you till we meet again.

Me and Sister Rach Haymes

-Elder Landon Cook
Ponderize: 2 Timothy 4:7

Headed to Lunch with William Lelenoa

One final goodbye to the amazing Haymes family

Love Sister Haymes fun personality ♥

All the while Brother Haymes keeps a very serious face :)

Sister Marlowe and Sister Ete

 Oh yeah, and this morning we had the morningside devotional at Cape Schanck again. It was pretty awesome but because winter is on its way it was pretty cold and windy. We had Sister Marlowe and Sister Ete come back from Maroondah Zone for it because we got permission for it, but it was pretty dang fun. At least we did SOMETHING fun this morning! 

 

Strike for the last time down in 
Frankston with the Gippsland Zone

At STRIKE with the Gippsland Zone..my last P-Day

Well, all the Tim-Tams in my Tim-Tam Teddy 

are all gone, so I guess that means that my mission 

is pretty much over

One of the things I'm looking forward to when I get home is climbing Lone Mountain before the sunrise, by myself, and just watching the sunrise on top of that mountain, just letting my thoughts wander about how much Heavenly Father has blessed me.

So wow, where do I even begin? Last Monday Elder Cuenca and I split off from Carroll and Etilage so that way I could do what I wanted to do before I come home, and that was go and see a place up north called the Beach Boxes. That was pretty dang awesome, and we had a lot of fun going there. And plus they were selling boxes of A&W root beer for $10.00 for a dozen. I couldn't help but get a bit crazy with it. 

One of my Favorite Beach Boxes

Tuesday we had exchanges with the Elders in Rosebud, and I went with Elder Ricks. He's an awesome missionary who wants only to do his absolute best, but because his companion is nearly five years older than him he gets pretty suppressed when it comes to it, and he gets kinda shut out a lot because he's a bit more reserved when his companion is very talkative. We did a bit of tracting, and all he really wanted was to watch and learn how I tracted because he's very observant and absorbent, and he heard that I was "really good at tracting and fearless at it" (I can't take any credit for that because Elder Worsencroft taught me a TON about it and I just try to mirror what he did). It was great, and plus we went to go see one of the families I taught in Hastings when I was there with Worsencroft since Hastings and Rosebud are now part of the same area. We went to go see Julie, and at first she wasn't interested and was about to shut the door, but then I cut her off and said "WAIT!!! Do you remember when almost two years ago Mormon missionaries taught you about the Book of Mormon!?" She opened the door a bit wider and said that she did, and I proudly replied with "I'm one of those missionaries!!" It took her a second to remember me, but then when she did she was SO happy to see me! We literally stood and talked there for about 20 minutes just catching up, and she was surprised that nearly two years has passed since that happened. Elder Ricks and his companion have been struggling to find more people to teach, and so I asked Julie if she would be once again interested in learning about the Book of Mormon. She said that she would, and that she'd be really happy if I could go come back with Ricks again and teach her about the Book of Mormon again. We really want to go on another exchange because of that reason, and plus our exchange only lasted for a couple of hours. I will make the time to go and see Julie this week. That has to be done. Especially since it's my last week.

Beach Boxes

The rest of the week was just work and getting prepared for the mini-mission last weekend. So many things keep fluctuating that we just have to keep up with it, and it makes it pretty tough. It'll be a ton of fun because it'll be my last weekend, and the way things are going to work out is that there'll be about 8 other missionaries spending the night at our flatt this Friday night. 10 Elders in a single flatt. Talk about no sleep. But it'll be fun, especially since that'll be the way that I die in the mission field. Won't sleep for about two or three nights, and then it'll be a nice 20-hour flight home with a nice long nap.

The incredible Winfiled family ♥

Saturday was a blast because we had one of our returning-into-activity members come to a program about repentance and such, and that was fun. We were also able to get permission to go out to Moe that day so I can visit some members before I go home, and THAT WAS AWESOME!!! I wasn't able to see everyone that I wanted to, but that's alright because I'll be back here in about a year or so anyways, and then I'll be able to see all the people that I want mwahahahaha!!! Saw the Winfields, Ozzi and Rawry, the Cranstons, Callan and Catherine Brooks, and Bazil and Mata Rawiri. These are some of the great families I fell in love with!  It was great, but I'll tell you more about it when I get home because I want to go do stuff today! We're going down to Strike again with the Gippsland Zone, and that's always just a ton of fun.

Again, it's strange to know that after this week my mission is finished and I'll be in the loving arms of

the Cranstons

friends and family again. But what makes me the most excited is that I've been converted. Not only to the Gospel, but I love sharing the Gospel with people whether or not they're interested, and so I have some great plans for when I get home. I did hit my two year mark on Saturday and I WAS planning on burning a suit which is the tradition, and I haven't broken that tradition until now because I completely forgot to bring a suit. I will burn my suit though, but it'll have to be when I have more time. No time no time. But that's okay! Life is awesome!

 

Bazil and Mata Rawiri

We just have to be silly!

I will conclude with what I've said here, but man it's been an eventful week and I will have another one ahead of me, and then I will have another one ahead of me, and another, and another, and probably another after that. And that's because I know the mission isn't the end of the church. By far! I still don't understand why missionaries go inactive after their missions, or stop reading the scriptures, or stop praying, and stuff like that. Sure life gets busy, but, seriously, did you testifying of the importance of those things really mean nothing to you? Did testifying that making the church a priority have no real value and was nothing but hollow words? I just don't get it. One of the things I'm looking forward to when I get home is climbing Lone Mountain before the sunrise, by myself, and just watching the sunrise on top of that mountain, just letting my thoughts wander about how much Heavenly Father has blessed me. Seriously, that is something I really want to do! There is a reason the prophets went into mountains to pray, so why not I? I can't wait to get closer to God through ways I couldn't do as a missionary! This mission has only spring boarded my testimony, and there's no way in heck I'm gonna "take a break" from church when I get home. You are just asking for it, and if you do, then that means the testimony your bore for two years is hollow and void of any meaning. I don't understand why that happens, but rest assured it will not happen to me. This church has changed my life and will continue to do so until the day I die. I love this Gospel and I love my Savior Jesus Christ.

 
I love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.
-Elder Landon Cook
Ponierize: Alma 26:5

Ozzi and Rawry

Callan and Catherine Brooks

Some of the great paintings on the beach boxes

Just me and the cool koala hangin at the beach

tried to get a photo of the guy in the background but didn't quite get it.

tons of beach boxes

Had an awesome Soup Sunday yesterday after church

drinks served after church with yummy soup

People only fear a prophet because they fear the judgement of God because they don't want to turn from wickedness.

So I get home in two weeks anyways, so it's like, meh, why even talk about my week, amirite? Just kidding, for your sake I will discuss what happened. So last P-Day we went to Strike as a Zone, and because it was a public holiday the place was stinkin' packed! I swear this place has so many holidays, especially on Mondays. It's ridiculous. BUT nonetheless it was a ton of fun. We've also been able to go on a couple of exchanges with the companionships, and in the next two weeks we've got to go on three more exchanges. That'll be great.

As far as this weeks most exciting event, we're now in preparation for the Stake's mini-mission. So Thursday morning we got a huge hiccup in the program, and that is that mini-missionaries (youth at the age of 16 or 17) are no longer allowed to go one-on-one with full-time missionaries. I don't know why, but with the mini-mission happening in the next few weeks, there were some changes that needed to be made! With potentially 40-45 youth participating, that means we'd need about 40-45 companionships participating as well...what the heck!?  Literally all day Thursday I spent on the phone calling Zone Leaders and individual companionships from the Gippsland, Narre Warren, Maroondah, Heidelberg, and the Chinese Melbourne Zones. It was nuts, and I had to charge the phone about three times that day. Literally spent about eight hours on the phone calling, explaining, and recruiting troops for this mini mission. Oh, and also participating mini-missionaries can't leave the Stake boundaries, so that means that in that singular weekend we will be having about 40-45 companionships proselyting inside of our Zone instead of the normal 7. Wow won't that be fun for me to try to manage? Elder Carroll isn't all too invested in it and just wants me to take care of it, and if it be that way then I will. I would LOVE his help in this, but if needs be I will continue to do the Lords work, with or without him.

This next week will be a lot of fun because about half of it will be spent trying to get this mini-mission up in wraps, still trying to figure out more companionships to use. Still haven't contacted all of them, and more phone calls will be under way. I have seen the lives of youth changed because of mini-missions, and out of everyone Sister McFadden, the Stake Young Women's President, and I are the biggest advocates of making sure this thing is a success. What makes it even better is that this mini-mission will happen on literally the last weekend of my mission. It'll be prepped for, it'll happen, and then BOOM!, mission is done. SO much to do, so little time, and I love staying busy in the Lord's work.

            The church put this up as part of the Easter initiative 

                    (and don't worry I've since gotten a haircut)

Something that I learned in my studies of the Book of Mormon though, and I will learn it again and again, is that the world is more and more increasingly wicked and in such great need of a prophet. It's so wonderful to know that the prophet is there to guide us to God. People only fear a prophet because they fear the judgement of God because they don't want to turn from wickedness. Seriously, it's such an easy concept: obey God, be blessed and remain happy. Disobey God, receive consequences and be unhappy. Like, seriously, it's the easiest thing in the world and for so many people they just try so hard to convince themselves that there's gotta be a loophole somewhere, where wickedness and disobedience can be happiness. Well, you can't eat your cake and have it too. I just can't emphasis how much I love being a member of the Lords Church. I wish everyone would be willing to just at least give it a shot.

 Us at Strike as a Zone once again

But I love you all, and I am glad for the work that I've done and the work that I'm continuously doing. I come home in two weeks and am very prepared for it. Not to say I hate my mission, even though my current companion makes me want to punch a hole through the wall sometimes, but I'm not gonna come home and fall into dumb habits.  That's not faith in the future: that's a prime example of fear. But I exercise no fear. The natural man fears, but there is no point to that. I love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.
-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Helaman 6:35-36

(Sorry for the lack of photos, I've realized that I want to spend less time taking photos and more time working, which has never really been the case but every second seems more and more precious to me)


Little did we know we accidentally booked two dinner appts.  After the second dinner at the lovely Haymes home, we were so full we had to bring dessert home

The Beautiful Rachael Haymes ♥

Never ignore or brush off a prompting from the Holy Ghost

So yeah I've literally got like three weeks left, so hot dang I'm going out guns blazing with the barrels of the gun red hot. I don't want to talk really about much that I did, because I can just do that when I get home in the next few weeks. It's the strangest thing to accept that it's coming to an end, but what a great experience I've had in serving a mission. No matter who you are, where you are, or how you are, I would DEFINITELY look into serving a full-time mission. I have loved it so much and I'm definitely going to miss it. Life is good though and I'm constantly adjusting to the thought of “three weeks left mate, three weeks".

Elder Marshall and his companion Elder Doan 

spent P-Day with us, so that was pretty fun

Shopping with Elder Thach on P-day

So as far as our P-Day in shopping...was actually pretty dumb because all of it was just shopping for clothes. No cool Aussie stuff, no souvenirs, nothing. Just really expensive clothing. Elder Carroll loves expensive clothes and yet he has no money. So he just wanted to stay there and window shop. All day. It was really boring for me because I've only got a few more P-Days left on the mission and I want to use them the best as I can, but when I say that he just kinda gets upset and says "It's not all about you". It's so frustrating, but all I can say is just "three weeks left mate, three weeks". But hey, I was able to buy a lot of A&W Root beer, which is basically the nectar of the gods. But I'd rather NOT spend the last few weeks of my mission like that, but no matter how much I try to sit down and have open communication with him he just doesn't want to hear it.  Oh well, three weeks in the refiners fire will shine me right up before I come home, eh?

I want to share one experience that I had this week though, and it involves the Easter campaign that the church is doing. Wednesday I was helping a missionary in our Zone from Venuatu, Elder Timothy, with his college application for BYU-Hawaii (because I know how confusing that can be). As I was doing that some lady in her late 20's or so was getting REALLY frustrated at what was going on on her computer (since we were at the library). I don't like to see anyone really frustrated because that just doesn't make me feel good, so I leaned over to her and asked what was wrong. She explained to me that she was working on her resume and it didn't save and it booted her off and now she had to start all over. Well there's not really much I can do about that, so I gave her my sympathy and went back to helping Elder Timothy with his application. A few minutes later this lady leaned to me and said she was going to leave for a few minutes and asked if I could watch her stuff, so I did. While she was gone I got this really strong feeling to lean over to her computer and show her the Mormon.org website. Now I thought that was strange and faithless of me for juggled the idea for a minute, but then I decided that before I throw the prompting off that I would do it. Elder Carroll was behind me and loud-whispered "What are you doing!?" I just kept doing what I was prompted to do and by the time she was back I was on the website. She looked a bit confused but I explained to her that I don't like seeing anyone angry or frustrated and that the website was something that might be able to help her, even if she wasn't religious. She looked the website up on the phone was REALLY grateful that I would share that with her because she explained that she loves little videos of encouragement. We left and literally for the rest of that day I was feeling just GOLDEN!!! There was sunshine in my soul indeed. Never ignore or brush off a prompting from the Holy Ghost, and that's something that I've decided to start working on more and more.

As you know General Conference is on a week after you guys in the Americas, so we watched that this weekend. It was awesome, but a little sad knowing that this would be my last General Conference on the Mission. One of the talks by Joaquin E Costa was perfect for one of our investigators because he's in the SAME EXACT SHOES THAT HE WAS IN!!! That talk was DEFINITELY for Eddie, and that was awesome. General Conference in general was awesome, and I definitely felt the spirit all weekend. Elder D. Todd Christofferson has always been one of my favorites, and his talk was greatly inspirational to me. I love that man so much.

In general the week's been good, but my companion is starting to give me a bit of a headache to be honest. He can participate in the work with me or without me. I would love for him to be with me, but if not, then I will do my best to do it myself. I will not have a companion that is going to drag me down. Not during my last stretch of missionary life. I'm gonna keep going hard, and hopefully I and the Spirit can encourage some change in him. Better sooner than later, because I've definitely learned that it's SO much more fun and fulfilling to serve the mission with a correct and happy mindset instead of one of "I can't wait to go home...my homecoming's gonna be awesome..." That's a horrible mindset to go through the mission with, and it'd be so much better for his sake that he learns that as soon as possible. But I love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Aww.. it looks so much more like home
right now!

 It's been raining for ages the past couple days,  

Zone P-Day WAS going to be spent at the beach 

today has now been changed to Strike for unlimited

 laser tag and bowling again, which'll be fun too

I wish more people would want to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ…because it is true. The Book of Mormon and Bible, along with other inspired scriptures, have given me so much comfort and stability in life, and I couldn't live without it. I love this Gospel so much, and I love telling people about it.

So hopefully all my letters haven't made it into your junk mail.  So this week, yeah, just tons of meetings. Went on exchanges, had District Meeting, had Zone Conference, Zone Meeting, had interviews with President Vidmar, life is good. 

Friday it suddenly got really cold out of nowhere, but living on a peninsula does that. It is beginning to feel more "autumny" now, and that's good because I was getting kind of tired of the heat. But all’s good! P-Day was last week, and we visited a bunch of Buddhist and Cambodian temples, so we did some Buddha temple endowments….No just kidding no we didn't do anything like that but it was great to see Asian people go in there and actually pray and here we are just kind of taking pictures like a bunch of tourists. Whoops. Did a lot of meeting with investigators and other members, but as far as activities go, a lot has happened but really isn't worth using my time to type it out. I would rather use this time instead to talk about a couple of spiritual things that I learned about this week.

First of all, the Mormon.org website. Seriously, that website that the church has is amazing. First of all, they've completely revamped it for Easter, and if you haven't seen it yet then you need to go check it out! We've been encouraged to help members to use it, to share the Gospel with friends over social media, and I tell you what sharing videos that the church makes is probably one of the EASIEST and MOST EFFECTIVE ways to do missionary work as a member nowadays. It is SO great, and even though the website has only been up for the past three days we have encouraged a LOT of the members to use it in their daily missionary work, and it's just fantastic. I would encourage everyone who reads this to go to the website, watch the videos, tour around a little bit, and share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever, with the #PRINCEofPEACE that the church is doing. It's awesome.

And also, the other day I was reading in Hebrews 8:35-39. and wow that was a scripture that I needed to hear. I haven't been struggling with anything at all as of recently, but those words just filled my soul with peace and really helped me to see that there is great hope and joy that comes from the eternal light of Jesus Christ. I've been told by a lot of members "Oh, it's hard going home Elder!" or "Ooohhh you're gonna crash and burn if you're not careful!" Do they just plan for missionaries to fail, like there's some kind of satisfaction in it? I can't see myself failing, because on my return home I'm still going to study the scriptures, go to church, pray, fulfill a calling, and look for people for the missionaries to teach! I've been reading a book by Clayton M. Christensen that talks about member missionary work, and he says that the reason that returned missionaries aren't feeling the spirit as strong as they did on the mission is because they stop looking for people who are ready to hear the message of the gospel. I might be coming home soon, but I'm not even close to done being a missionary. I'll do what I always have, I want to feel the spirit, and this is the way to do it! SO that's my thoughts to that. 

I wish more people would want to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ…because it is true. The Book of Mormon and Bible, along with other inspired scriptures, have given me so much comfort and stability in life, and I couldn't live without it. I love this Gospel so much, and I love telling people about it. I love you and pray for you and your own conversion and missionary work back home, wherever you are, because I know that it will bless your life with the spirit constantly. And as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Hebrews 8:35-39

P-Day was last week, and we visited a buncha Buddhist and Cambodian temples PHOTOS BELOW 

Panorama of the Buddhist Temple

Exchanges with Elder Cuenca, that was pretty dang fun

Elder Cuenca

McFaddens Family Home Eve introducing Church website.
Mormon.org  to the Young Singles Ward 

Family Home Evening at McFaddens
for the Young Singles Ward

Captive audience during McFaddens Family Home Eve

More games w/the Young Singles Ward
& the McFadden youngin

Fun Games

Lovely treats at the Young singles Family Home Evening

Family Home Evening w/ the McFaddens & YSA ward

What a fun activity

Beautiful photo from the backyard of the McFaddens

More Fun Games

Had four other missionaries spend the night
at our place, fun

I call it my Tim-Tam Teddy. 

For each day left of my mission there's a Tim-Tam,
and when they're all gone... BOOP!, I'm flying home

My mom posted this on Facebook i guess cause
she thinks Austin and I are so Awesome

It's ALMOST the Winfields, but not really :(
 dang..Miss them!

Zone Meeting,had some complications w/the TV.
 It was great.....said nobody

The Awesome Rach and Beth Haymes

Little did I know how sneaky they can be

Just some monkey business with Benny Haymes

More Monkey Business With Benny

message from Elder McFadden to my mom on FB

     Got caught playing piano hymns for sacrament

 "Doctor I think I have a problem" "What seems to be the problem?"
"I write too dang much" "Nonsense, there's no such thing-" *
Shows this photo* "Oh..."