So this week has again been fast as "lightning on grease" as dad described the last year of my mission and that ain't no lie!

P-Day was pretty normal, just chill at the flatt and workin' out trying to get that muskal back on me and lose the fat-boy slim fat on my face.

Sunday we had the training from regional and Stake leaders in our Branch regarding the Book of

In preparation for the Book of Mormon musical coming out..Just for fun

Getting pretty good at my jump pose

Mormon play and how the church is putting up advertising like mad down at Southern Cross. And now all the members are really pumped for it! We did a roleplay during church with all the members of how to bring it up with non-members, and all the members are like "Wow we suck at this. Let's get the missionaries to come to our place so we can practice this roleplaying stuff and get good at it in real life." Freaking heck FINALLY the member-missionary vibe is kicking in! So this entire month we've only gotten I think two or three feeds, but suddenly this entire week on every night we've got a feed and a lesson to help members out with their member missionary work efforts. Now we're talkin'! I don't care for the meal as much as I just want to get the members fired up for it, but hey free food is cool too. But literally the one person who wasn't participating or excited for this training at all was our one and only Branch President. I don't really get what his deal is sometimes, like literally it's almost as if he's made it his entire existential purpose to stop member missionary work. Kinda frustrating, but Elder Vaiouga and I have the thought that if he's not for us then we won't pay him any heed until he gets the chip off his shoulder. We'd love and appreciate his help, but if he won't give it then we'll just keep rolling on with it with everyone else.

Also this week has basically just been busy again with tons of exchanges. Well, two, but for one week

that knocks out quite a bit of valuable time. I went on exchanges with Elder Swenson and Elder Halsey who's one of the Zone Leaders who goes home in the next couple of weeks. Out of the nine total missionaries in our District, seven of us return home, or "die" as missionaries call it, within the next six months. Crazy to think about it that way, especially since I'm in that list. All goods though.

When I was on exchanges with Elder Halsey we did service for this older woman probably in her 80's we previously tracted into named Irene Spanolo. Spanolo is literally "Spanish" in Samoan which I thought was pretty funny. So we just sat and pulled weeds for her for about an hour and a half, which is literally one of the easiest and least stressful things a missionary has to do. Not service because sometimes that gets cray cray, but just sitting and pulling weeds is so dang easy and brainless. I love it. So we did that and she asked if we wanted tea and coffee with biscuits, or "bickies" as they call them here in Australia. Literally everything here is shortened and abbreviated: breakfast is "brekky," chocolate is "chockee", tennis shoes are "runners", sweat pants are "trackies," and the list goes on. But anyways she offered it to us and we declined, but said that Milo would be good. We didn't finish the service so we'll go back sometime this week, but she's now curious as to why we don't drink coffee or tea and she agreed to learn next time we meet up. We'll just have to see how that pans out! We also did service for a member and we shoveled horse manure. Yup, that gets checked off of the "iconic things that missionaries do" list.

My Companion Elder Vaiouga giving it a try.. haha

 Exchanges with Elder Halsey
 

On exchanges with Elder Swenson

But as much as how much our teaching pool has increased...well, it hasn't. Like, at all. Except maybe for Irene. But life goes on! We're teaching quite a few members about how to get them excited for this, and a couple of less-active members as well, and slowly the amount of less-active members that haven't come in ages are making the slow steps to progressing back. Life's good and it goes on. But that's my week y'all's, and I'll talk to you on the next one! Love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Psalms 20:7

Not for sure but believe this is a Catholic Church

Not sure why they have these gargoyle looking statues on the church

I believe this might be a statue of Mary?

Me in front of this church holding my favorite book :)

Elder Vaiouga putting up a fence at Brother Thomsons farm

Cool looking Land Rover on Brother Thomson farm

We ran out of laundry soap mid-week so we improvised

The improvision worked great!

This has been by far the fastest week of my mission. Monday was P-Day and we literally just did the normal routine and lifted weights in the flatt, Tuesday we went on exchanges with the Elders in Bendigo, Wednesday we had interviews, Thursday we had a mission-wide training regarding the Book of Mormon Broadway musical that's coming to Melbourne in January, Thursday to Friday afternoon we had exchanges with the Glenroy Elders, and Saturday we had a Branch activity. It's been really cold and rainy this entire week, which is really weird because this time last year it was pretty dang warm down in Tasmania.

So yeah it was pretty full on, but I'll get into more detail about each.

Monday not really much happened, but we just worked out in the flatt and did some op-shopping (and for all you yanks back home, op-shopping is thrift shopping). Got this skux-as suit for like $8.00, but then I got it dry cleaned for $20.00. It seems practically brand new, so I'm happy with it. Admittedly the pants are a bit tight, but all the more encouragement to lose weight so I can fit it better. I ain't about to get it tailored. Ain't nobody got bank fo' dat.

So as far as exchanges go I went with Elder Summa, and him and I have been in the same District

Making cookies with the bros 

(the cookie recipe came from my mother 

and is absolutely delicious)

periodically throughout our missions for like nine months of our missions. He's the man. So what they do is to help less-active and inactive members be more accepting and nicer to us as missionaries, we made cookies and brownies to go and deliver them, and they swear that it works. None of the people ended up answering that we went to go deliver them to so that was a bummer. But it was a good exchange nonetheless. And I gave him a haircut too. Not too shabby, but all I can say is you get what

Giving Elder Summa and hair cut

you pay for.

Wednesday we had interviews and that was really good, and I love the heck out of President Vidmar. He's definitely a lot different that President Maxwell because he's a lot more bubbly and bouncy and very smiley, but we all love him and his wife. The church sends us Ensign magazines every month, but this month they accidentally sent us a box of Friend magazines instead, so while waiting to be interviewed we took the magazines and did the crossword puzzles in them with Sister Vidmar, it was pretty dope.

Thursday was definitely the big day though. We had Brother Droubay, one of the high rank members in Utah who deals with the church's advertising or something, came to the mission and gave everyone a HUGE training on how the Book of Mormon musical is going to mean that a LOT more people are going to find interest in the church and what we believe, and since the musical is hitting broadway January 17th (tickets are already booked out until the end of April) the church will be hitting up the Southern Cross Station, which is a MASSIVE train station with lots of foot traffic, with TONS of ads and flyers encouraging people to go to Mormon.org to learn about what we really believe. It'll definitely be an exciting time for the mission. But the thing is that we have to prepare members to answer questions people might have NOW instead of when the play comes. When the time for action comes, the time to prepare has gone.

Friday was exchanges and I went with Elder Seru, a Fijian Elder who goes home at the end of the transfer. He's funny as, and him and Elder Chen are a crack-up companionship. Nothing really much to talk about as far as exchanges go.

Saturday we had our Branch activity, and it was supposed to be a branch BBQ at the Thomsons farm, but because of the rain it was moved to the chapel. It was a good activity, and to get on the Branch Presidents good side and try to get on some kind of common ground we played a really fun board game called Risk basically the entire activity. We also made some more cookies to go deliver to an inactive member named Josh we found a couple of weeks ago at the beginning of the transfer, and he told us that he wants to start coming back to church. We met with him and taught him the restoration, and that went really well and the spirit was strong. Right now he's our main priority since we really have no one else to teach.

This Sunday we were supposed to have the last two hour blocks to help the members in doing roleplays and in helping them out in preparation for this musical coming out, but good ol' Seymour branch has done it again! NOTHING was done in preparation for it. The Branch President and Ward Mission Leader were supposed to go to these massive regional training's regarding it and how to conduct those two hours, but nah, neither went, and because of that we weren't able to do it. To be honest I'm not surprised. As far as missionary work goes, the branch has been caught in the thought of "I'm raising my kids in the gospel, so that's missionary work enough" (not being racist, but the only family that helps out and is concerned with missionary work is the one American family in the branch). It's pretty frustrating considering there's not a lot of time to prepare for this play coming out, and there's a VERY short window in how much time we have for this massive opportunity. I read other emails from other missionaries about how amazing it was this Sunday to have that two hour block, but I guess the only option right now is to work with the members on an individual basis. Oh well, what can you do?

Burning our celebratory 18-month mark 

         pants at the Thomsons farm

Burning our celebratory 18-month mark 

         pants at the Thomsons farm

Elder Vaiouga and I also burned our pants on Sunday since it was his 18-month mark. Mine was on Saturday, but so we could do it together I waited to do it until Sunday.

So that's my week, and this week looks pretty full on but not as much, so I'm glad that we'll get some time to breath this week. Love you all, keep going strong, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Articles of Faith 1:8

PS: I got the information of when I go home, and because my visa doesn't expire until May 28th I get to go home May 3rd: and extra 10 days of my official two-year mark! It's a dang good thing that I had to visa wait in Mississippi, or else I would be like some other missionaries who came out with me who have to go home in March or even April

Burning our celebratory 18-month mark 

         pants at the Thomsons farm

I know where I'm not going to get my haircut done. 

               Salvation Salon is more my style

Making brownies with the bros 

Making cookies and brownies with the bros 

Exchanges w/ Elder Chen & Elder Seru

Another picture during exchanges with Elder Chen and Seru

The Glenroy and Seymour Bros

With the Aranettas, a Chilean couple who are moving back
to Chile this week 

Fun time at interviews w/Elder Howell & Elder Marshall

Having a good time with the Friend Magazine

Elder Howell, who was my Zone leader, is now the Assistant
to President Vidmar

Random photos with Elder Howell & Elder Marshall

Seeing missionaries of transfers past at Thursdays meeting

More missionaries of transfers past :)

Good times with missionaries of past transfers

Sup little American Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton lovers (or haters, depending on who I'm talking to). Everyone who realizes that I'm from America always, ALWAYS, wants to talk about those two bumbling idiots running for president. It's really annoying. "We're from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, not the Church of Let's-Talk-About-American-Politics-And-Donald-Trump-Screaming-"Let's build a wall" of Latter-Day Saints." It gets on my nerves, but it'll probably be like that until the rest of my mission considering that this is the tail end of elections in America.

This week has been pretty good though! Lots of hard work and stuff as always. Last P-Day Elder Vaiouga and I had nothing to do (as tends to be the case in Seymour), so we basically just shopped, cleaned the flatt, and lifted weights for like an hour and exercised really hard. I don't like getting fat. At the end of most Elder's missions they do something called the "six months sexy" which is basically go hard with the exercise and come back looking like Dwayne Johnson. Most missionaries try it but quit after about 20 minutes, but I REALLY want to get rid of my face that's rounder than Frosty the Snowman's. But all cool.

This week I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Wheeler again. That was really good because with eight other Elders in the District I've really got to cram in exchanges with everyone within the next four weeks, and since he was my first exchange that means I've got a LOT of those planned out ahead of me. As a Zone Leadership we discussed what needs to be conveyed to the rest of the District during District Meetings and stuff so that we can make those as effective as possible. Sometimes I still feel pretty inadequate to be a District Leader because I feel absolutely useless when it comes to motivating others to action, but I still try my best regardless.

When it comes to investigators, were still pretty dang flat on them. Always! BUT this week we talked to some people who's 17 year old son was never really religious but has had interest in, get this, ISLAM. I don't know why anyone would find interest in that side of the world, but Islam is sweeping this part of Australia like Cinderella at her wicked step-mothers house. Obviously they showed concern for that, and we gave them a Book of Mormon for him to read if he's interested in religion, and they said that they'd take a look at it themselves. "Take a look" usually means leafing through the pages, but hey it's something. We went to go talk to them a few days later, and when they weren't home their neighbors came out and said "Who are you?" We went to introduce ourselves and the man in his 30's or so, Jay, just kept asking "So why do you believe in God?" in an almost challenging way. We basically explained that we're missionaries from our church and would love to teach him and his girlfriend (they've got two of the CUTEST toddler daughters) and he said "Yeah actually we would like to come to church sometime"! Wait what? He told us he's been in and out of jail and has been sober from hard drugs for a year or so after being on them for most of his life (finding a young 14 or 15 year old hooked on ice is NOT an uncommon thing around this mission), and he and his girlfriend believe the best way to change their life's circumstances is to turn towards religion. They genuinely do want to come to church, and this Friday we plan on taking them on a chapel tour of the local church here in Seymour so they can get accustomed to it before coming. It'll be really good, and we're VERY prayerful that they pan out to a positive experience and miraculous change.

This week is gonna be insanely busy with just about everything. We've got exchanges this Tuesday, interviews on Wednesday, a mission-wide training on Thursday, exchanges happening Thursday right after the meeting to Friday afternoon, and on Friday we've got District Leadership Meetings, and on Saturday we've got a branch activity. TRAVEL TRAVEL TRAVEL!!! Really no time for proselyting, but we do have time for that church tour haha.

So that's my week everyone, and it's strange to know that this Saturday both Vaiouga-boy and I hit 18-months and burn our pants together. Strange... And plus, some missionaries from my intake, even missionaries that had to visa wait as well, are going home anywhere between a month to TWO months early because of visa problems :/ it really sucks because I thought I'd be blessed with like another three weeks on the mission because the way transfers fall into place, but it looks like being released a month early is a cold reality. But I'll let you all know the news next week after interviews with President Vidmar. But that's my week everyone, and I love you all and I'll talk to you all soon enough. Kisses, and as always, God be with you till we meet again!

And just a side note, to all those who write me whether in email or hand written letters, thank you heaps because I always take time to read each and every individual one every week (or whenever I get them). Love them all! And I love ya!

-Elder Landon Cook
Ponderize: 3 John 1:4

Elder Vaiouga and I, super American Samoan dream team

The American dream team strikes again

The scary ATM guard dog

The Sikh mosque, Sikh basically being a break-off of Hinduism

What our car looks like when it hasn't shaved for a week

I can understand the parable of the lost sheep a little bit deeper now

So this week I got Elder Vaiouga who just got done serving in Narre Warren, which is like the mission's land of milk and honey, and then the poor guy gets deported here to outer darkness. But we were stoked-as to serve together for another transfer, especially since we felt cheated that we only spent one transfer in Moe. He's still the man that I remember, obedient and hard working as heck and REALLY easy to get along with. Love this guy, so it's going to be a great transfer with him.

So this week, again, has been a bit lackluster with the work all over again. Not too many "things" that happened other than tons of rain cloudy weather, and we dropped Arthur and Jacinda. We needed to be REALLY blunt with them that we were dropping them and why we were dropping them, but they still didn't really understand that we weren't going to come back. Oh well, we gave the message as straightforward as we could. We have been teaching them so much for so long without any progression and we're told that if they aren't progressing, drop them when we feel appropriate. Satan will put people in our paths to suck up our precious time. There's no point in trying to pluck an unripe fruit

Tracting has been fun but not a lot of successes there to be shard, and majority of the branch still has fun in avoiding us missionaries. I've shared this multiple times, but it’s hard to find anyone when we're stressed to work with the members, and then the members just have an attitude of "I don't want to 'push' religion on my friends" (the term 'push' can mean even simply bringing up the word 'church' or 'Mormon' in a conversation, so many people here are afraid to even do that). SOOO we have to do a lot of finding on our own.

This guy, Josh Schache, just got drafted to play with 

the AFL on the Lions team. and we tracted into him

But as far as what I learned this week, there was quite a bit, some in General Conference (which was SO dang good) and some outside. There isn't enough time to talk about what I learned in General Conference, but it sufficeth me to say that I learned tons, and this has probably been the best General Conference I have even witnesses. When the Priesthood sang at the Priesthood session, I couldn't help but feel that I wanted to join them in singing praises to my Heavenly Father, and I was FIXATED on them and soaked in the spirit so strongly when they sang. And it wasn't even the Mormon Tabernacle Choir that sang either: it was normal Melchizedek priesthood holders from surrounding Utah stakes, most of them being much older men. But the Spirit was so strong, I couldn't but help have a serious longing to join that heavenly throng. I felt like what Alma described in Alma 36:22.

But Thursday we went to go help Brother and Sister Thomson out on their farm again, and as always we had a blast doing that. We got to help round up and herd about 250 of their sheep without any sheep dogs, so that was pretty dang fun in and of itself. But then came the time to put the rubber bands around the newborns' tails and nuts! I won't go into it, but that was pretty fun too. Not something I ever expected to be doing on my mission, but hey, whatever! But!!! Here comes the learning!!! Sheep tend to be pretty stupid sometimes, and VERY easily spooked. While we were herding one of the younger lambs escaped out of the fenced area. Wasn't a big deal because there were other barricades it had to get through in order to completely escape, so we kinda meagerly chased it around. Once it got through the second fence, we took a lot more notice and kicked it into gear to chase it. Once it got past the third fence though, we were on red alert: if it were to pass through another fence, it would be long gone and would probably get killed by predators once night came, and with free range past the fences, there'd be no way to retrieve it. The area it had escaped to was MASSIVE; like ACRES big, covered in groves of trees and grassy plains. Before giving chase to it we knew we needed the Lord's help in this effort, so we said a quick prayer that we would be able to catch it. Long story short we lost it, saw it again on a hilltop about half a mile away, went to go surround it and chase it (Bro. Thomson had to wait behind because we were maddog bookin' it with speed), lost it again, and then found it in our sights once more. We strategized. We contemplated. We chased. We put our FULL effort into making sure this lamb didn't escape. After about an hour of running, chasing, cornering, slipping on wet ground, and watching it ram itself into the fence trying to get out even further, we finally caught it. All three of us, Vaiouga, me and the lamb, were all panting hard from running around so much, but we had a good hold on it to make sure it didn't escape. It had a gash on its front leg from being in such a panicked frenzy from trying to escape. But I realized, like what Elder Gary E. Stevenson said last year during his "Where Are the Keys?" talk, I thought to myself "There just might be a lesson here". Let me explain.....This lamb escaped multiple attempts to keep it within the flock, and in doing so it injured itself badly. Vaiouga and I put our fullest efforts and focus onto catching it, and it was definitely a team effort because we had to corner it. Eventually, after about an hour of searching and looking and climbing up hills, we found it. And upon finding it, we had to exert our fullest efforts into actually carrying it back to the fold. All this for one lamb. In the Lords parable of the lost sheep, not much detail was given in how hard it actually was to obtain the sheep and bring it back. This sheep was injured, confused, tired, and thought it was going in the right direction, but it was only hurting itself and turning away from the shepherd (us). In my mind I compared this with working with the "lost sheep" within our own folds. There are many less-active and inactive members in our wards and branches, and even though we know they're there, we think they just aren't worth the effort because it'll take too much of our time to get them back. But in my experience with the lost sheep, it wasn't as easy as going to find it, picking it up like a lost item, and easily carrying it back on strengthened shoulders: it was some seriously strenuous work! FINDING it was the easy part, but actually getting it to a point where it would comply was another thing. We were tired, muddy, wet, exhausted, sweaty, and even covered in a bit of blood, but after all of our exertions we found it and brought it back to the fold. I honestly feel like I can understand the parable of the lost sheep a little bit deeper now.

Castrating and herding all the sheepies

That's my week and it was great, and I hope yours was as well. Love you all tons, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.
-Elder Landon Cook
Ponderize: Alma 36:22

Elder Vaiouga and I

Elder Vaiouga

All the sheep and one Alpaca

Elder Vaiouga helping

THIS is the dang bugger that gave us so much havoc. 

But you can see the blood on his right leg

I forgot to mention, but in chasing that sheep 

around Vaiouga's nametag popped off. There 

was no way we were going to find it. But right 

when we thought "we should say a prayer" he 

bent down, picked up his name tag, and all was well