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

Elder Wade my new companion from America Somoa

G'day matees! Well, Elder Stokes is gone now, but now I've got another pretty cool Elder with me. His name is Elder Wade. He's from American Samoa, and we've both been out for 4 1/2 months now, so that's pretty cool. I don't like having companions that have been on their missions for a lot longer than I have because I feel like if I get a big-headed companion that's been out for a lot longer than me, they'll just boss me around because I'm still a greeny,

Anyways, not too much has happened so far this week, nothing really new. Basically all day Tuesday and some parts of Wednesday were spent preparing for the new transfer, including shopping, getting the car fixed, and getting myself a GPS so I can be able to get around the area I'm now in charge of easier. Man, from not driving for 4 1/2 months to driving on the other side of the road with totally different laws is way different, but luckily I was able to learn pretty quickly. But a good majority of those days' time was spent cleaning up the junk and clutter Elder Stokes left behind. I swear, some missionaries can be the most dirty people ever.

Wednesday we went to pick up our new companions from the airport, and Elder Wade is my new one. He's way cool and keen to work hard, so I'm excited for that. We also got a few calls from the recent convert David, and there are quite a few things he needs help with let's just say that. But for respectful and confidential matters I can't go into too much detail about it. While we've been tracting throughout the days Elder Wade and I are trying to come up with some kind of funny way to introduce the Book of Mormon to people, so we came up with a song to the tune of "Do you wanna build a snowman? From the movie Frozen.

It goes like this:
Do you wanna Book of Mormon?
Do you wanna be baptized?
Please don't yell and scream at me
You'll make me pee
And leave me traumatiiiiized!
*person slams the door*
Okay byyyyeeee..."
We have yet to use it, but one of these days we will.

So Thursday night during ward council Elder Wade and I got the assignment to sing on October 25th during sacrament meeting. Neither of us can sing, at all, so why they decided to make us sing is a mystery to me. We tried to cop out of it, but hey, if they need to relieve some high blood pressure in their head by bleeding out of their ears, by all means we're the guys for that!

Me using the excavator

Friday we spent a good amount of time with Todd again because we asked for a ride to Stake conference this weekend, which was an hour and a half away from Launceston, so he said he'd give us a ride if we came to his house and did some service for him. We helped him work on his back yard again, but this time he let me and Elder Wade use his excavator. When I got on the seat I asked how to use it, but he just said "You'll figure it out". Okay then. We both used to for about half an hour each, so that was tons of fun. After that we went to a less active/part member family for a lesson. The 9 year old son hasn't been baptized, and although the parents want him to be baptized they aren't willing to take him to church ever, so we'll keep working on that as much as we can.

now Elder Wade using the excavator

Saturday Todd said if we were gonna get a ride to Stake Conference with him on Saturday he said we'd have to leave at about 10:30AM because he was planning on helping his daughter who lives out there renovate her house, so after running with the Eccles family we went with Todd to help out. There were already tons of people there helping, so we weren't as much of a help as we thought we'd be. We spent a good amount of time there just kind of lollygagging around, so Todd just told us to go take some pictures down at the nearby pier. We wanted to help, but there really wasn't too much we could to. After taking a good amount of pictures at the pier I realized that my hands, feet, and legs were getting pretty sore, stiff and cold. This was exactly how I felt last time I started getting sick, so I knew what was 'boutta happen. That's right y'all, I was getting sick, and as the day progressed it just got worse and worse. Todd said that I should go home if I was that sick and not go to stake conference, but I felt that I needed to go no matter how sick I was.

After the Saturday session of stake conference President Maxwell was able to give me a blessing, and Sunday I basically slept all day, even through the Sunday session of Stake Conference on President Maxwell's advice.

I feel a lot better today, and I know it's because Heavenly Father wants me to be out there working instead of inside resting. That's how it works in the field! I love you all everyone, take care in all that you do, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.
-Elder Landon Cook