Mole Creek caves

Myself, Darcy and Elder Wade

Wow it sure has been a crazy busy week! Last P-Day we went to the Mole Creek caves in Deloraine, and that was a lot of fun. But I guess there are really two highlights to this week: performing the Haka WITH a participating investigator and with Greg and Linda watching, it was pretty awesome. We put a lot of time into practicing throughout the week, and Darcy was keen-as to do the haka with us. It was for a ward-wide talent show, and we thought the best way to introduce them to the church was through showing them the fun side of things. Because of all the practicing we did (and in our practicing we went HARD) our throats were destroyed and my thighs had bruises on them from all the leg-slapping. It was crazy, but we ended up completely nailing it.  Luckily we had Job Tai and his son Benny perform with us so it wasn't a completely white-washed haka, but altogether we had Luke, our ward mission leader, Job, Benny, Darcy, Elder Wade and I all do it. It was pretty dang awesome.

So we have been spending a lot of time with Greg, Linda and Darcy this week, but I feel like we've been spending too much time with them as causal friends and not as missionaries. But we did get permission from the Zone Leaders to go to Cradle Mountain with them on Saturday, and that was a lot of fun. We were only allowed to go on one condition: that we wore our proselyting clothes when we went. No biggie, so when we got to Greg and Linda's house (Darcy had work sadly) we were in our full church 

Cradle Mountain

Inside Mole Creek Caves

clothes, but they were completely bundled up like they were headed up to the top of Mt. Everest, so we definitely went unprepared: I even brought my beat up church shoes, and they both had full blown hiking shoes. Luckily Greg lent us some really warm jumpers, but for the rest of the clothes we were on our own. It was cold, cloudy, drizzly, windy, and awesome. The 6k hike wasn't too bad in our pros, and it was actually a lot easier than I thought. That 50 mile hike in the Uinta Mountains two years back has prepared me well, ay papa?

So Sunday rolls around and we go to the Pentecostal church. Again. There really is a lack of spirit and peace there, but we just go to be polite because we are trying to have them come to our church to REALLY feel what the spirit feels like: the feeling of love peace and joy, not adrenaline running through your veins about the rock concert about Jesus. We went there and it was kinda weird, again, but they invited us to go to get coffee with them and we had to decline to keep the Sabbath day holy. Elder Wade said he has a hard time saying no to people, so whenever we have to turn down coffee or tea they offer us I'm always the one who has to stick up for ourselves. Kinda sucks, but hey, I just look at it that it builds me up to be a stronger person. Long story short Darcy and Linda came to church on Sunday because I told them I was giving a talk, but it was a pretty lame topic to give a talk on when we have investigators: The Word of Wisdom. Out of all the inspiring things I could've been assigned, the Word of Wisdom was my topic. Who knows though, it may have been just what they needed to hear. Anyways, they seemed to enjoy church because they came to the second hour, so that was good. Elder Jensen has been getting on our case because we're starting to get too "buddy-buddy" with them, and I totally agree: the relationship feels more like friends than investigators, so Elder Wade and I have been thinking of ways so that we can get them more and more "riveted" to the Book of Mormon.

This week we have Zone Conference in Hobart, and I'm really excited for that, because not only is Zone Conference always a big spiritual boost for me but after that our Zone is working on making our Christmas video the missionaries make every year. This year it's centered on Disney movies, and we got Lilo & Stitch for ours. Not quite sure what we're gonna do with it, but hopefully it doesn't stink haha.

Well my amazing family, I guess that's the jist of this week. No fear, no worries, ain't no biggie brodda, it's been alright. Love you all, love you HEAPS, and as always, God be with you till we meet again!
-Elder Landon Cook

Capturing spiders in the flat and funneling them all into a single food container so they can have spider battles

Elders Mannering, Calachan, Jensen, Wade, Moala, and me playing rugby on pday in Tasmania

echidna we saw on the side of the road

Odelia O'Connell-Maritz made me this (she's 6)

Cradle Mountain

Elder Wade, Greg, Linda and myself at Cradle Mountain

Cradle Mountain

Cradle Mountain

Well it's definitely been a good week. Kinda. Last week for P-Day we went to a less active member's house in Deloraine because she invited all the Elders over to her house for a BBQ and for some Grid Iron (American football) in her back yard. Been a while since I've seen American football.

This week in general nothing too big or eventful has really happened, but I went on exchanges with Elder Calachan on Friday, and it felt awesome to be a REAL missionary again: my companion doesn't enjoy doing the work very much, so when the day came I was able to have a temporary new companion I ate it up. We worked really hard throughout the day, and we found this kid named Kyle, who's 16 years old. Now, he's not interested at the church at this point, so no need to get your hopes up, but when we found him he was definitely interested that we were offering to come and mow his lawn for him (since it was his chore). We went and did that Sunday morning, and while I did the lawn Elder Wade talked with him. We mowed for about half an hour, and he was so confused as to why we were doing this for free for a complete stranger that we didn't even know. We talked about how Christianity drives us to do these things for other people and how being a worshiper of Jesus Christ drives us to do good for others, even if there is nothing in return. He said he doesn't believe in God because his 14 year old sister was born with a physical handicap leaving her about the same size as a one year old and that she will never grow up and that he's got a really tough upbringing with 12 other siblings from separate families. We never really set up a return appointment with him, but we did give him a pass along card with our number on it, and we could just tell that what we said and done for him impacted him in a way I'm sure that will affect him later on, and that's what the mission is about.

Greg and Linda, the best investigators ever (Darcy wasn't able to make it last night)

Saturday we had another feed at Greg and Linda's place, and every time I meet with them I am just more and more impressed with how much they have come to love us and trust us as their friends. They are excited for us and back us up completely in our missionary work, and are always excited when we are and are devastated when we are. They back us up 100% in our missionary work. Well, on Saturday we had our amazing dinner and dessert, and afterwards we taught them about the Restoration of the Gospel, focusing a lot on the restoration of the priesthood through the prophet Joseph Smith. They were VERY receptive to what we taught, and they understand the importance of knowing why the Book of Mormon is true, and if it was, what that would mean what course of action they would have to take. It's definitely a miracle having found them, and I can't wait to see them again this Friday!

But on the other side of things, I don't think I've ever felt so alone and depressed in my life for such an extended amount of time. As missionaries we are expected to exercise a high amount of self-discipline from cutting ourselves off from the things of the world, including music, movies, and other worldly things. My companion doesn't seem to recognize that at all, and it flattens me. He doesn't do his studies at all and usually just sleeps through them, and that really hinders our ability to teach, and with Greg and Linda so receptive to what we teach, we can't afford to even try to teach without the help of the Sprit. The mornings are very lonely, and I don't think I've every cried myself to sleep in such depression so many times in my life. I've tried to correct him with love, lead and show by example, tell District Leader and Zone Leaders, but nothing is working to help him. I feel as long as I am with him I'm wasting my time and money being on a mission because of the lack of effort we're putting into each day. I hate it, I absolutely hate it, but the transfer ends on November 29th and I just keep my prayers and heart open to whatever happens. I know the Lord has something in store for me, so even if I am chosen to spend yet ANOTHER transfer with Wade I will do so with patience. Heavenly Father knows what's best for me and I don't, but I'm still keeping my hopes up. I don't want to leave this area, especially right before Christmas time, but I'm not sure if it's worth it to get another companion.

Thanks everyone for tuning in, and please keep praying for Elder Wade. I'm fine, I could always use the prayers, but please pray that Elder Wade will somehow have a change of heart. He's had so many false positives for a change that I can't even expect a real change anymore. I love you all, keep the faith, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

Darcy Lake, the legend.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderizing scripture: D&C 122:7

Elder Jensen being a dork

Me, Elder Wade, and Elder Jensen in the back of a tractor ride in Deloraine on P-Day

BEAUTIFUL Tasmanian sunset (this place is definitely one of Heavenly Father's greatest secrets)

Oh my goodness gracious, oh my golly, oh me oh my, it has been an amazing week of

legitimateness! So first of all, Elder Wade and I have been going really gung-ho for eating healthier, so we've been switching out our terrible lunches with a hardboiled egg and a fruit smoothie with kale, and we've also been telling the members that we're trying to eat healthier and that they don't need to make us dessert, and they're really accepting of that. In the past week I've shaved off about three pounds, and I feel really good about it. Totally cutting out all fat, sugars and bread during breakfast and lunch: dinners aren't really in control haha. But this week during the Saturday Park Run I was able to beat my 5k personal best by over a minute!!! 5k's in 24:05! The members we run with were really pumped for me that I did so well.

So before I get to the miracles this week, let me just kinda skim by on what's been going on. Maddi Williams is still set for having her baptism in December so she can be baptized by her uncle, the only priesthood holder in her family, so that's really good. Thursday we went to go check up with a less active family, but they weren't home, so as we've made our own rule is to knock five doors around the house. One of the houses had a man named Greg in it, and he answered the door and although he wasn't too interested in hearing our message he was still very gracious and kind to us. He invited us to his Free-Life church services that was happening Sunday morning, and because we have afternoon church we definitely considered it. We gave him our number so he could contact us with more information, but as we left we realized we never got his phone number, so that was a mistake on our part.

Boutta do a mean-as cannonball

#MichaelPhelpsStatus

Friday we went and did some service for Todd, but we weren't with him for too long because his Sister from Utah came down to see him and they want to spend as much time together as possible. When we got home we were still in our street clothes, and all at once the rain just started POURING down in buckets, so just like any two normal teenage boys would do we took our shoes off and went out and played in the rain bare feet. The gutter was gushing with water, and since it's a commonly known rule that missionaries are NOT allowed to swim, we decided to kinda make a loophole for ourselves: we decided to sit in the gutter, play in the water, and pretend to swim in the 3 inch deep river. It wasn't even close to swimming in the least, but it was still heaps of fun. We took lots of pictures and videos of us dorking around in the rain, so I shall send those over! 

Boutta go rowin in my umbrella boat with my golf club oar (didn't go too well)

Elder Wade also duplicating a cannonball

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming

Me running back from playing in the rain

After that we went and did some work, and because we were close to Jason Worsley's house we decided to swing by him and see him. For like the past two months we haven't seen him at church, gotten contact with him, nothing. It's been really depressing. A few days prior to this we got a text from him, so at least we knew he wasn't dead, but he was talking about how after two years of fighting, he's finally gotten full custody of his 5-year-old daughter Alexia from his abusive ex-girlfriend. I was excited to hear that like nobody else, and it made me happy to hear that.

Anyways, we went to go swing by his house, hoping he was there, and we could see a little girl with glasses riding around on a scooted behind the house fence in the backyard. She saw us and went to go tell her dad, and Jason came out and gave us each huge hugs. We went and hung out with them at the park for an hour and a half, and Jason was probably the happiest I've ever seen him now that he had his daughter back in his hands. Alexia is honestly just a ray of beaming sunshine, and she loves the heck out of us! After him we went to go to the store to get something, and when we came out a member of the other ward stopped us and gave us a HUGE bag of day-of bread they received from the store. We had no use for this bread, so we went around to members in the ward and gave bread to them. All of them were thankful, and a few of them even gave us referrals for us to go deliver bread to some of their friends, so we did that. We didn't teach the gospel to their friends, but just helping them out in their time of need was such a great feeling, and I'm sure that makes a great first impression of Mormon Missionaries to them. Planting seeds my friends!

So early Sunday morning comes around and we still haven't heard anything from Greg, but at about 9:00AM we get a call from him saying that his church starts in an hour and he gave us the details for it. I don't think that he was actually expecting us to show up, but when we did he was really happy to see us! It's a Free-Life/Pentecostal church, so inside the huge building was a disco ball, dimmed lights, and a band playing and singing about Jesus Christ. It was still very loud, but the music was much more enjoyable than the one at Mississippi hahaha. At the end of it, about two hours later, we met the pastor and talked with him, and talked with quite a few people afterwards as well, some of them even inviting us to a feed sometime this week! HOW FRIGGIN COOL IS THAT!?!?!? Greg and his wife Linda also invited us to dinner at their house Sunday night too, so that was really cool of them to do.

Manna from heaven! 

(Found this perfectly untouched 

on the side of the road on our way 

back from the ParkRun)

Sunday night rolls around and we go to Greg and Linda's house at 6:00PM. Dinner wasn't ready at this point, but they just LOVE us. Even though we're not in the same religion, they love us and the work that we do to try to bring people unto Christ. They're both really into fitness, and when I first saw them I thought they were in their early 40's or so, but Greg said he was approaching his 59th birthday in a few months! Wow man. They decided to invite their 19 year old friend Darcy, who they told us was really big into fitness as well. At about 6:45PM Darcy shows up, and this guy (yes, Darcy is a dude) walks in, and let's just say this guy is basically Superman. He's really big, super cut, has a friggin 8-pack, skux-as (Aussie for good lookin' [I'm not gay, I swear]), is super religious, and VERY friendly and polite. The five of us had a GREAT time getting to know each other, and Darcy is just awesome. There was never a quiet moment in the house, and even though we spent over THREE HOURS at their house it wasn't in waste. We got to know Greg and Linda well and Darcy too, and we talked a bit about the Book of Mormon and they said they'd read it and give it a whirl. Darcy seemed extremely interested in it, so keep them all in your prayers! Since Darcy is huge into fitness, we invited him to go running with us this morning, and he did! It was sweet. He runs the Park Run too, and I thought my 24:05 was good, but Superman over here runs a 5k in just over 19 minutes!!! He's also invited us to go to the gym with him, so we will definitely take him up on that offer!

Well, this has been my miraculous week everybody! I love you all, keep up what you're doing, and as always, God be with you till we meet again!

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderizing scripture: Matthew 21: 28-31

Albino deer we saw on the side of the road

HUGE-AS spider we found and captured in our flatt on Saturday

Us missionaries doing apukana face in front of the old 

church building, pukana meaning"ugly face" usually 

where you stick your tongue out and make your eyes bid.

 (Elder Wade said mine was pretty good)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!!!

Me putting up the punching bag with cords and duct tape

Again, another interesting week in the field. Tuesday we went to Devonport for our District Meeting, but the Devonport Sisters couldn't even come because they had something scheduled over it. Elder Jensen gave us a ride there, and we had to stop by their flatt to pick up the key for the church, and when we got to their flatt we saw a punching bag hanging from their roof! *angelic voice* aaaahhhh! We asked if they ever used it, and they said they didn't, so they gave us permission to take it. It was hanging by a bike lock, so in order to take it we just had to cut the tops of the straps because no one knew the code for it, so that was funny. When we got home after the meeting we found a way to strap it to the roof of the car port, and we have actually used it a few times since we got it.

Binalong Bay

Wednesday we spent most of the day doing service for Todd. He's got a house that he's renovating and is planning to rent it out to the church for us missionaries to use. It's WAY better than the flatt we have now, so we want to help him renovate it so we can move in there as soon as possible hahaha. It was really funny because there were parts where one of his friends who was helping him told him that he needs to take the boards of the outside canopy off carefully and starts using all these technical terms, and in the middle of him explaining Todd just grabs a sledgehammer and just starts bashing it. That's the kinda guy Todd is, he's legit.

Thursday was pretty interesting too. We went less active/part member family finding, and when we tried this one house a mom in her late 20's or so opens the door and before we could even get a word in she says "HEY!! It's good to see you again! Listen, my husband isn't here right now and my kids are running around everywhere, so would you guys be able to come back Monday night or so?", so we are planning on returning there tonight. But we had a dinner appointment that night, and before that we got a call from Sister Kaye, the grandmother of Maddi Williams, the girl who's supposed to get baptized this Saturday. She called us and asked if we could move the baptism to THIS weekend, or October 31 instead of November 7, because her uncle, the only priesthood holder in the family, was down and wanted to baptize her because he'd be back on the mainland by the 7th. Well, that was a problem, because Elder Wade and I were expected to be in St. Helen's two hours away to do a stake-wide missionary effort thingy on Saturday, so if that were to happen we wouldn't be able to be there. Because she now wanted to be baptized in TWO DAYS instead of ten, we had to make last minute plans to teach her the last lesson, show her how the baptism will happen, show her the baptismal clothing, call Bishop to schedule and get his permission, get Elder Jensen down to do a baptismal interview with her... and all this had to happen BY THE NEXT DAY!!! It was crazy, but over the next hour we were able to schedule how all of it would happen. After our dinner appointment, after ALL THE STRESS WE WENT THROUGH TO SCHEDULE THIS, Sister Kaye said we'd still do it next week because the uncle was leaving Friday, so now we had to call all those people back and tell them it was off. UGH, it was stressful.

Elder Wade and I as MIB with Arden Eccles

Friday though, we did some finding through trying to talk to the people on the street in the city, but no one wants to talk to us, and neither Elder Wade nor I are very good at it. After doing that for a good portion of the day we went to Arden Eccles 8th birthday party. Because we'd be in St. Helen's during his baptism we decided we had to go to his party to make up for it. Because it was Halloween we had to find something to dress up as while still being in our proselyting clothes, so we decided to wear our shades, suits, and black ties and go as MIB. We needed weapons, so we grabbed the Nerf guns in the flatt. Meh, they were all kids, they didn't know the difference.

Found this while tracting (only now do I realize that my eyes were closed)

The squad of missionaries (Two of them got a ride with some members)

Saturday though, that was a fun day. We went to St. Helen's, which is basically a beach resort on the eastern coast of Tasmania, and all us missionaries went in a bus with Brother and Sister Honey as the drivers. Our job was basically to invite people to a screening of Meet The Mormons that was happening at the school, but long story short no one showed up to it. 10 missionaries going around inviting people JUST TO A MOVIE, and still no one showed up. What a sad day it was. On the way back Brother and Sister Honey made a few side stops so we could take some pictures, including a cemetery with a church building where the first priesthood meeting was held in Tasmania. Us Launceston missionaries were expected to go on Sunday in case any new non-members showed up, but no one ever did. It's so disappointing, because EVERYONE thinks "Oh I know what you guys teach, I know what you're about, all you want to do is baptize me" blah blah blah! It's SO tough because people won't even listen, and if they just listened they would come to realize how important this church will be in their lives for the better.

Missionary tag in the sand at Binalong Bay

Well, Todd gave us a ride up to St. Helen's because he's the man, and because we stayed for the full three hours on the way back Todd said "Alright, I don't care what you say, since we did three hours of church we're doing three hours of beaches". Well, we were two hours away from home, so we really didn't have a choice. Todd is just not the guy you say no to. He took us to this place called Binalong Bay, and talk about white beaches and beautiful water! Took some cool pictures there, and then we went to Skeleton Bay, and took some really cool pictures there too. The wind was blowing pretty hard, so that made for some interesting photos.

Obviously it's been an exciting week, and I can't really put it into too much detail because I don't want people to feel like they're reading the bible every time I email home. But I love you all mucho, hope everyone stays awesome, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Brother and Sister Honey stopped to take a pictures close to the beach

At Skeleton Bay enjoying the wind

and smell of the waves, just like my 

family right now is doing in Carlsbad California

Skeleton Bay

Skeleton Bay Australia

Enjoying the Beautiful Blue Waters

Can't help but to take it all in!  I love Australia

Our Heavenly Father has created such a beautiful world for us to enjoy

Skeleton Bay was LEGIT

The Beautiful Binalong Bay

Just, ya know, some Portuguese Man O' War jellyfish washed up on the shore, no biggie

Todd playing soccer with a dead bird on the beach. Yeah, Todd's the man

Todd Roberts, posing for perfect pictures and not even knowing about it

Elder Wade doin' some poses (The wind made him look hecka buff in the last picture)