So wow, it has been one heck of a crayazay-as week! Monday night Ching and I basically just went around and visited members for most of that time, taking pictures and saying goodbye. Tuesday I went to some “New leadership training" meeting since I never got to go when I was made District Leader last transfer.

a couple of the Sharon Murphy family members

So here's the situation with my companion, the area, and the branch. Yes, the branch. So the Craigieburn Zone is one full of Samoan and Polynesian members, so I thought mine would be no exception, but it turns out my area is the ONLY exception: instead of a ward of 150 - 200 of Poly's, I'm in a branch of about 25-30 of Aussies. It's a pretty tight-knit branch because there's not that many people, and I love it because it feels so family. Seymour is REALLY bush: it reminds me of that little town in that movie Old Dogs that those guys try to protect from the bikers. This place is about as uninhabited as it gets!!! We've got a few outer lying suburbs that are anywhere between half an hour to an hour and a half away, so we'll try to work in those areas if we can get to them. So I'm taking over from the last DL who went home last transfer, and I tell you what this place is dead! Cuenca said that his companion was pretty lazy and discouraged from the small area we worked in, so again, I'm placed in an area with no real investigators to work with and it'll be nothing but lots of finding and door knocking and talking to people to find people to teach. It's part of the mission! My companion has changed a lot from the time I knew him in the Gippsland Zone, and for the better. He's pretty open with me and we joke around with each other when it's appropriate. Like most of my companions he's pretty quiet when it comes to finding situations and talking to people and he has a hard time keeping up with conversations, and I think that might just be because of the language barrier, but then again, it might not be.

Saying goodby to incredible people Iv'e met 

It's cool being a part of a full-on District, because now we get to go on exchanges every week with
other missionaries! Elder Summa and Swenson are in my District, and they are two awesome Elders that were in my District when I was in Moe, so now I get to go on exchanges with them which is pretty cool.

I want to talk about an experience that we had during the week. Well, two actually. As we were tracting we walked into and talked to this guy who was doing a census for the government since the online census was down for some reason and had to be done in person. He said that as part of it they account for who's all religious and who isn't, and he said that 49%, almost HALF OF ALL AUSTRALIANS, are completely atheist and are even against the idea of God and Christianity. It's really sad that is, because there's a member of the branch who's in the military on assignment here from America and he says it's sad too, because he works with a lot of men in military here in Australia and he says that almost all of them are atheist too. Yet in America, you can't find a man in the American military who doesn't believe in some sort of God. It's kinda strange in my mind, but I got an email today from my awesome little brother regarding it that I want to include:

"There was once a man who wanted to climb an insanely high and desolate mountain that no man had ever climbed before. He was determined to be the first. He trained for months, and finally decided to conquer the mountain. After finally getting to the top, he finds a little pool of water, and in that pool of water he finds a stopwatch. He heads down the mountain and wonders how on earth a stopwatch was at the top of a mountain that no one had ever climbed before! He takes it to scientists, and they decide that the most logical answer is that over millions and millions of years, the winds and waters and elements moved in just a way to create every part of that stopwatch, and after millions and millions more years, those same elements coincidentally moved all the parts perfectly together.

Instead of just accepting the fact that someone had made it there before him, he makes up a ludicrous theory of the elements and doing it. My roommate said it’s the same thing with recognizing there is a God. People would rather turn to a theory that the universe just coincidentally lined every single particle perfectly by itself, than just accept the simple fact that there is a God who created everything."

The Beautiful Melbourne Australia Temple

It's really true over here. BUT again, that's the mission! And amongst the thorns and thistles there ARE those who are prepared SOMEWHERE!!! There IS a needle in the haystack.

And my second experience. We were tracting the other day and found a guy who's from New York, and even though he wasn't interested I asked him about the massive juke box cardboard box that was in his yard, and he said "Oh I just got that yesterday, but I've got a smaller one that you can have" and he went back inside for a second and came back out with a 12" juke box (not a real one, just one you can plug a flash drive or iPod in). I was pretty happy he gave it to me, and when we walked back to put it in the car we saw a couple in their late 30's or so with a moving truck, and we had previously tracted into them and the lady was kinda mean to us as she shooed us away. We walked up to them and I said "Hey someone just gave this to us while we were door knocking but to be honest we probably won't be using it and won't have much for it: would you guys be able to take it off of us?" I think lady felt a bit awkward after just rudely shooing us away, but the man was like "Sure, I'm sure the kids would love it!" We then spent the next hour helping them move right then and there in our church clothes, and it felt really good to help them out. Even though the lady never really apologized for being rude to us, we said that we forgive her and ask her not to be as quick to judge Mormon missionaries next time: all we want to do is help.

It was a good week this week even though we didn't find anyone interested, but they're out there, I

the Nauta's

just know it! We'll keep on working throughout the weeks to come and hopefully some change will come our way, but like it did in Moe and in Eltham, the change is imminent if we grind our metal and put ourselves to the test of work and obedience. Love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Alma 20: 29-30 ( I chose this scripture because it wasn't that Aaron and his brothers were less righteous than Ammon, it just so happened to be "their lot to have fallen into the hands of a more hardened and a more stiff-necked people")

The Mcleans

The Haydon Family

The Sayer Family

The Thrush's

The Tucci family.  Jaydin served in the Philippines

Love the members in this area

 Helping out one of the members, brother Thomson, 

out on his farm on Saturday (that was pretty fun)..

 Helping out one of the members, brother Thomson, 

out on his farm on Saturday (that was pretty fun)..

There's no one out here in Seymour. 

It's a little ghost town compared to Eltham. 

Even compared to Moe!

Saying goodby to some awesome families

Well haylo and g'day maties it's time for another episode of "Locate Landon"! Yeah so we had transfer news last night and even though Elder Ching's been here for like 5 months he'll be staying with Elder Fermanis from my intake. I was honestly pretty gutted to hear that, because it was looking to be a really busy transfer here in Eltham, and I've finally started getting used to this place and have actually gotten GOOD at street contacting. Freaking days man, it's tough! I've gotta spend all day packing my stuff up, and since I'm the DL I've gotta drive up to Epping to check the other flatt for it's cleanliness and stuff, AND I want to visit other members and take pictures with them today. Ugh, it's gonna be a nightmare of a day today. I'm going to Seymour in Craigieburn Zone with Elder Cuenca as my companion. He's from the Philippines as well, and since my last Philippino companion was pretty stinky I'm not too hopeful for this one, especially since Casil follow-up trained Cuenca. I guess we'll just have to see what happens though. I've been out a good while longer than he has, and I'm still the DL, so I think I can exercise some righteous authority over him if he steps out of line.

BUT for this week, it was one heck of a way to go out with a bang! We've re-established contact with a part member family and the kids really want to come to church and be baptized, and Elder Ching and his new companion will get back in contact with them on the 25th (cry). We also had our Zone P-Day at the beach and that was fun, and we just had a BBQ and hung around at a park for a couple of hours. Nothing too scheduled out, more just relaxing and hanging out which I loved. We also went on exchanges and I went with Elder Howell, who's been out for 18 months and has only served in one area his whole mission. But that's because he's one of the only few Vietnamese speaking missionaries in the mission, and there's only one area for Vietnamese ZL's to be in, and that's in Footscray. Even though I was in his area and I can't speak a lick of Vietnamese I learned tons from him, especially about street contacting, and that it's literally all about being more confident than they are. He told me how Batman was originally afraid of bats as a child, but to remove that fear he became the bat, telling me that I must get over my fear of rejection by being so overconfident that rejections slides off me like a marble on a oiled table. He told me two things that I need to tell myself when I street contact, and that's "I fear no man" and "I own these streets. Not that guy, not that lady, but me. I DO." And man has that helped me out so much! He's the man, and a big part of the reason I'm gutted to leave is because I'm no longer going to be able to serve underneath him. But I guess I learned what I needed to, and the Lord will place my on His shoulders to my next area.

So that's the main chunk of the weeks highlights. There's more but I really don't have time to write about it all. That's okay though, because I still love ya! Talk to you all soon again in my new area, which I'm pretty sure is an area full of Polynesians. You know what that means right!? That's right: my face and body is going to swell like an oversized marshmallow. This fat boy slim will now become fat boy. I'll do my best to fight it off, but rarely does anyone ever escape a Poly area without getting fat. Ugh... Love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Doctrine and Covenants 123: 16-17

P.s. Man Austin's green tie is Awesome!  Plus it makes me so happy to see him at the MTC!  He's the man and I am sure that he will be protected.  I was reading my patriarchal blessing the other day and i saw that i was promised that i would be protected, and i was reading in Mosiah that while the sons of mosiah were on their missions they were also promised by the Lord they would be protected.  Ammon even had someone come up behind him to kill him with a sword and the Lord just struck him dead (Alma 19:22)  I am protected because the Lord has promised it, and even though I will go through hard times I will return home safely and unharmed :)

Another week is gone, and this Wednesday I hit being out for 70 weeks out of 104, and next Monday I hit 16 months. But lets go ahead and get started on how this week went, shall we?

For the most part it was a generally slow week, yet there was a lot going on so there wasn't really much time for any real finding to happen. We did service for Anna and Nick this week and that was cool, but I think for the most part they're "satisfied with our services", so we probably won't be able to see them anymore. Oh well, we still did our part. We also taught Richard and Leanne again, but right now it's more like "religious sharing time" because they don't really want to commit to do anything: reading, praying, even watching Mormon Messages, nuh-uh, they don't want to do it. Annoying, but until they drop us we'll do what we can. I also went on exchanges with Elder Brouwer this week, and that was pretty fun and we were able to work hard. We also picked up a former investigator named Simon, but there's a massive problem because it doesn't seem that his parents want us to teach him, but he says we can just meet behind their back. Sorry buddy, but until you either get permission or turn 18, we can't really teach. It kinda sucks because he's like the ONLY person in Eltham it seems who will actually keep commitments, but all in the Lords timing.

But what I really want to talk about to day was the fact that we had mini missionaries this weekend from another stake! If you remember about a month ago we were supposed to have minions but they duped out on us, so another stake spotted us two little ones for us to borrow over the weekend. I went with Isaac Truman (the one with the curly hair) who recently turned 16, and this would be his first mini mission, so I was praying that this would be a great if not life changing weekend for him. We did our thing and did tracting, street contacting, and some more tracting. He was pretty quite at first but soon opened up to me as the day went on. He was a stellar member to go with, and at the end of it all he said that he didn't want to come at first and was thinking about just not coming, but decided to come anyways and was sad that it had all happened so fast. He told me that he had a great weekend and didn't want it to end. Bro, I know what that feels like, because before I know it this mission of my own is going to come and go and I'll be back home wearing board shorts for the rest of my life, grow out my hair and never shave my beard. Jokes. But seriously, it was such a great weekend, and sorry I haven't given a lot of detail because I'm a bit crunched on time, but a picture's worth 1000 words. We're going to the beach today for a Zone P-Day, and the travel time there and back takes ages,

So this is the last week of the transfer and it's insane to think that I've been here for two. I'll probably be here a third and maybe even a fourth, but you never know! I don't really care if I stay or if I go, just wherever the Lord wants me. This work is true and I'm so grateful to be a part of it, because there are so many who don't want to be a part of it because of the workload required. Lots of things have happened during this mission and I just love it. If I have any advice for any young men who are questioning going on a mission: please prayerfully consider the blessings that are PROMISED TO YOU FROM HEAVENLY FATHER about it, because even if you feel you are unworthy, then get worthy. If you are inactive, then get active. If you don't feel you are adequate, remember whom the Lord calls he qualifies. This work is amazing and I pray that you will come join the ranks. Love you all tons, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Muy Buenos dias!! It's been a bit of a crazy week, but similarly not all that much has happened really, so this'll be a short email today. This week has honestly been full of just a lot of different meetings and planning things out, so in all honesty this is going to be a short letter. REALLY short.

Can you find Elder Cook

So last P-Day there was nothing that happened, so I kept myself entertained by putting pictures of my face all over the flatt in a game of hide-and-seek for future missionaries. We've also continued to do service tracting, and we've gotten only one person who wanted us to come and help them. Her name is Ding and she's in her mid-20's or so and from Malaysia, and we went to her place on Saturday to help her do her front yard and such. It was pretty good, and the cool thing is that she said she knows about Mormonism a little, but only from what Wikipedia tells her she admitted. So we talked a bit about the church and such which was cool, and we're going to go back to her place in about two weeks time to help her out again. We've been trying to do more service for members and non-members alike because that's what President Vidmar has advised me to do personally, so we are still doing that as much as we can, and we were able to help Sister Dudfield out on Thursday, which was really cool because her husband is in the Area 70. She seems to really trust us as missionaries and has had a hard time trusting previous missionaries in the past, and in doing so she said she has a family that she wants us to teach. AWESOOOOME!!!

But I just want to say how grateful I am for the changing power of the atonement and how the Lord works through us very carefully and in extremely small measures, almost to the point of not recognizing it. I love it and I love the person that this mission is changing me into, because I did NOT like the person I was before this amazing experience. I just wish that everyone could experience the things I'm experiencing right now, because I can't wait until the day comes when I can show everyone exactly what my mission has made of me, because I love it. This church, along with it's underlying principles, is so true like what the heck why don't other people want this?

So yeah that was our week. Lots of tracting, lots of street contacting, lots of going through former investigators, but still... NOTHING is coming out of it. I haven't entirely lost all hope for Eltham yet, but I'm just sure that this is a trial period for me where Heavenly Father is purposely withholding people to teach for this season to season my patience, which I really appreciate. Anyways, love you all, take care and I will talk to you later, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Proverbs 16:32

Yeah it was a pretty boring P-Day... and these are the only photos that I took all week, so if that doesn't confirm it was a hum-drum week, then I don't know what does

Message from Landon's Mom:  Please don't ask my why my son decided to do this and why he decided to pick this particular picture, but I guess that's his kind of humor....  Below he entertained himself by putting pictures of my face all over the flatt in a game of hide-and-seek for future missionaries.  Each picture is a before and after he placed his hidden photo of himself... OH MY!

Before...

After

Before...

After... Can you find him?

before...

After

Before...

After

Before...

After...