Hello everyone, it's been a bit of a wild week so I'm just gonna go ahead and ask for about 5 minutes of your time to tell you about it! So here we go!

Entering the Eureka Skydeck

Monday for P-Day we went with the zone to go into the heart of the city, so that was the third time I've been on my mission. We went to this place called Skydeck which is the tallest building in the southern hemisphere, and it was like $20.00 to go to the top. The elevator went to the 88th floor in about 30 seconds, so we were going completely vertical at what felt like rocket speed to my ears. It was cool, but after about 5 minutes the view got pretty boring, so we all basically went just for the sake of saying that we went. It was cool though, but once is definitely enough.

So a quick sum-up of this week, we were able to go through some former investigator records and were able to find a guy in his late 20's or so named Ben, and he's pretty cool! He works as a personal trainer at a local gym so he's super buff, but we he let us come in and teach him about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. He finds the old English a bit hard to understand, but he said that last weekend while he flew to Adelaide and back he would read a few chapters we gave him, so this week we'll go visit and follow up with him on that. He seems pretty solid, so that's a HUGE answer to our prayers.

Saturday night we also met with Alex Hyatt's roommate, Ray, who's not a member. We've met Ray a few times and a few weeks ago we gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he would start to read it. SO when we went on Saturday night for a feed with him and Alex we followed up on that, and he said that he LOVES it: in the past two and a half weeks he's read all the testimonies along with 1 and 2 Nephi along with all of Jacob, and he understands it perfectly! He says that he'll read a few chapters a night and ponder it's messages that it has, and since Elder Ching and I haven't met ANYONE like that in this area, we knew this was a huge miracle! Ray only moved in with Alex about a month ago, so to me it's obvious the reason why he's been one way or another prompted to board with Alex. AFTER having this kind of gospel discussion (along with other things of the church teachings) we ate dinner, and then went on to teach the restoration. The spirit was really strong, and Ray without any real hesitation accepted to be baptized on the 20 of August when we invited him to do so!!!!!! HOLY FRENCH TOAST MOLLY!!! This was the miracle we've been looking for! And the cool thing is, is that he's SUCH a friendly, bouncy, personable guy! Like honest, he would get along SO well with the members in this ward! He said he'd be more than happy to come to church, but only once he can get his hands on a white button down shirt, and he's also willing to meet with us so we can share the discussions with him! FINALLY has our work in this part of the Lord's vineyard begin to bear fruit! Such a great blessing, and honestly, it's all come from working hard and seemingly using this "bite the bullet" area to push our test of obedience and diligence. SWEET-AS!!!

Elder Ching in our dinky little flatt (but I love it)

So yeah, this Sunday night we had transfers, and both Elder Ching and I are staying, which I'm now
glad that I'm staying, but sometimes Elder Ching's Chinese humor is really strange, and sometimes a bit creepy, but hey, not all companions are alike. It's kinda like having a shadow follow me around instead of a companion, because he literally follows EVERYTHING I do. It's like that episode of SpongeBob where Patrick copies exactly EVERYTHING that SpongeBob does, and it's REALLY kinda freaky. Oh well, another 42 days doesn't hurt nobody. And also I'm the District Leader, but we probably have the smallest District in the entire mission because it's only like 2 companionships within the District, so it's not much to hoot and holler about. Fun stuff, fun stuff.

So that's this week, and this next week will be full of adventures and other stuff happening. My eye is still doing alright and I'm still staying away from contact lenses, but next week I get to go to the doctors to see if contacts are now allowed for me. I think it should be fine, but doctors orders. My face is still pretty fat, and that makes me a bit sad sometimes, but I know that I'll lose it when I get home. Oh well, at least I'm not serving in a Polynesian area (then my face'd get REALLY fat). Love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook
Ponderize: Hebrews 12:6

I couldn't resist!  It was 4th of July, I had to, God bless America.

Elder Ching and I at the top of the Skydeck

View from Skydeck

More view from skydeck

View from Skydeck

View From Skydeck

Transfer predictions before and after the callout

out of the 10 missionaries in the district, I predicted (more like prophesied, haha) all 10 on who'd be staying & who'd be going

we got to help with a primary activity on Thursday, it was fun

Got to make a giant puzzle piece with the kiddies

we got to help with a primary activity on Thursday, it was fun

Who called me as District Leader .. Why am I District Leader? This was my reaction

First of all God bless America, so let's go ahead and get that out of the way because today is the 4th of July in Australia, but somewhere in America is it independence day.

So this week was definitely a faster paced one because of the multiple meetings and events that we had. The missionary work among the members is slowly but surely picking up, and the members are starting to refer us to a few people they know every now and again, so that's really encouraging to see that they are starting to get the grip and vision of the work. The members don't really know the exact addresses of these people they want us to see (which I kinda find funny) so we'll be doing lots of tracting this week to find them.

Thursday was the day that President and Sister Vidmar officially arrived in the mission, so that was really cool, but sadly Friday morning President and Sister Maxwell returned home to Utah, so now they're gone and I feel lots of things are going to change, because from the way President Vidmar is, I don't really think he will have any tolerance to the least degree for disobedience or laziness, and I know that half of the mission is screaming "This is great! I can't wait for what the future holds!" and the other half is saying "Ah crap, things are going to get really tough around here". Luckily I'm with the first half. Friday we got to meet President and Sister Vidmar, and since they both did gymnastics in their early lives they're both only like 5"6", which was really different standing next to them compared to President Maxwell who's like 6'2". They're short, but they're awesome!

Elder Ching and I keepin it real with the scoreboard

Saturday the church had this MASSIVE regional basketball youth thingy between like 9 different stakes within Victoria, and it was really cool because I got to see a few of the members from Hastings and from Moe. I got to see the Winfields! Well, Liam and David weren't there which made me sad, but that's alright. And also Riley Pollard, he's the man, and the Stirling's which was cool too. It was basically an all day thing, and as missionaries our responsibility was to keep score for all of the teams all day long. It was weird paying such close attention to something not-missionary-related for an entire day. But it was still heaps of fun.

Such a happy happy day!  Love the Winfields and Elder Holt!

Sunday was a normal day of studies, church, and ward council. During the night we also had a devotional where Jason Smith, an Australian basketball player, and a guy from politics spoke, and President Vidmar spoke too. It was more of a series of motivational speeches because I don't think the first two were members, but it was great anyways. Since there were TONS of stakes there I instantly looked around for any Moe members once it ended,

and sure enough about 10 rows behind me I could see David Winfield's chrome dome reflecting my face back at me (I love him, I can say things like this about him...he doesn't mind), and they were with Elder Holt too!!! Talk about a sweet reunion! So we talked and stuff for a while and it was awesome, and I wasn't too broken up when we had to leave because hey, I'll see them again about this time next year anyways. No worries. I also talked to Elder Steele, and can I just say that he is probably one of the most optimistic and faithful missionaries I've seen on my mission? Seriously. We talked a few minutes about the Eltham area and that things aren't really picking up, and he really got me encouraged to have faith that the Lord is definitely preparing people, and he's definitely a missionary I want to aspire to be like. Not because he's the Assistant, but because he's so encouraging to be around. I look up to him in every way.

So my ponderize scripture this week. I chose it because Jesus Christ laid His life for us all, and many people would do the same. People think of "laying their life" as dying for something, but what about living for something? Many people would die for the sake or Christ, but are they willing to live the rest of their lives as an example of Him? That is the stronger version of laying down our lives means that we submit our lives to him, not necessarily die for the cause of Christ, but live for it and to spread it around. Do we do that, not only as missionaries, but as normal members of His restored church?

So that's me for the week, and this week is the last week of this transfer. I don't really care if I stay or go, but it doesn't matter because we are placed where we are needed. This week will be different because this week, we won't just be working hard: but we'll be working with the faith to find as well. I don't expect it to be a good week: I already know it's going to be, because the Lord has sent me here to find people who are prepared, not waste my time uselessly knocking doors all day. So this week, we are going to be led to those who are prepared. Love you all, and hey, Austin, good luck in the Philippines mate! Take care, love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: John 15:13

The whole view

Riley Pollard playing with a broken thumb (because he's too much of a man)

I couldn't resist.  Its 4th of July In my Country :) 

Why with the Halloween decorations lady..

Halloween in July...Why?

Successfully made orange chicken! Thanks mamma for the ingredients!

So this week has been a pretty eventful one, but at the same time it's felt slow, but similarly it seems crazy to think it's P-Day already. We didn't really do much for P-Day last week, just hung out and played cards with some other Elders in the next area over. We also went to this Asian shop that somehow sold A&W soda. It wasn't root beer which I realized only after buying it, but instead it was Sarsaparilla. Still American. Still awesome. God bless the USA. I also gave myself a haircut, but again I shaved a bit much off. Not as much as last time, but still a bit more than I would appreciate if'n ya know what I mean.

Cheerio good chap, it's been a week of diligent work. Tally-ho!
Enjoying our Root Beer aka Sarsaparilla

Tuesday we had our District Meeting, and afterwords Elder Ching and I were able to go on exchanges with the Zone Leaders, and Elder Rands and I stayed in Eltham. It was pretty cool that we were able to do that and gain a bit of experience in that aspect, but Elder Rands agrees that we're in a pretty hard-hearted area when it comes to sharing the gospel. He serves in an area with a lot of Vietnamese people, and them alongside other people of Asian descent are always open to hear about other viewpoints on God. So yeah, Aussies in rich areas are a bit tougher to get interested (or even have a mild conversation with), and even though it's discouraging at times we are still working our stinkin' tails off here, knowing that somehow we are going to find that ONE person in the entire area who is willing and ready to learn and accept the gospel.

Wednesday was a pretty normal day, and we were able to teach old man Ian again. He's a former investigator that Elder Ching and I re-established contact with, and he's making slow but definitely steady headway in his progression. He understand the story of the Book of Mormon and seems to understand WHY he needs to read it to get his own testimony, but it might take some time, just bear with me. Thursday was just a normal day of Weekly Planning, and most of that day was spent reorganizing the Area Book because that needed to happen.

Saturday we had exchanges again, but this time with the District Leader, and I was with Elder Concardes, the District Leader, and again we were in Eltham. We again were in Eltham, and since that was his area a year ago he was getting all nostalgic over the dinky little flatt (I say dinky because it's like 50 degrees every morning, and there's not really any internal heating in the flatt, and the heater that we do have only heats up the air around it of a radius of about 3 feet or so. Really cold mornings).

So as far as the actual progress of missionary work... it's still pretty stagnant. Not too many people are being found, but yesterday we had a huge miracle! Elder Ching and I were fasting yesterday so we could get some special help from Heavenly Father, and after church we went to go teach the Tong family, and only the mother is a member, both are from China. So our objective was to teach the mother and the father, but because their two toddler children were throwing major tantrums Sister Tong took the kids away, so it was just us and William Tong. Elder Ching and his previous companion had taught them once before, but he told me that William wasn't at all interested. This time was different though, because he sat and talked with us about how recently he has been looking into different religions, so we taught for about 45 minutes about prayer and what it's role is, and he said that he'd be willing to meet with us on a weekly basis to learn more about the church. He, like most people here in Australia, works crazy shift hours and works a lot of hours, so we'll see what we can do.

A missionary lunch staple

So that's about it over here in the city. The work is tough, but every area has it's secret to success, and we are just having a rotten time of finding out what it is. It seems like everyone who is keen to have a conversation with you (which isn't common) shuts you out, ENTIRELY, fsd fa once religion is at all mentioned. But we still keep working at it anyways! Love you all, have a great rest of your week, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Alma 38:5

                                                  

Me and Ching with our Boi TyroneDont mind my chubby cheeks I have
gained a few.  Planning on getting it off
after my mission

 I was swinging my pen around and it exploded all over me

Mormon as defined by the dictionary (no wonder everyone thinks we're polygamists!)

Hello everyone again, it's-a me, Alfredo! It's been a really busy week and I've been really tired the past few days, and I think it might just be a case of overexertion. Because I'm tired. Like really tired. And I don't get tired. Ever. But it has been one heck of a busy week let me tell you.

So Monday we had that meeting down in Maroondah where there were a few general authorities to come and talk to us, that was pretty cool. That Tuesday after I got done emailing all y'all's we went to go deliver a Book of Mormon to an old man named Ian because he had requested one but told us he wasn't interested in hearing the lessons. When we delivered the Book of Mormon he invited us inside and we shared the Restoration with him, and so we are going to meet up with him again sometime this week.

President and Sister Maxwell

We also had our Zone Conference this week as well, and knowing that President and Sister Maxwell will be headed out in just a few short weeks is a bit sad, but considering President Peter Vidmar and his past in the Olympic games as a gymnast is really cool to know, so I'm excited for him as well. Thursday and Friday were really busy days as well when it comes to doing different forms of missionary work, because we have been instructed to go through ALL of any form of previous investigators that have ever been taught, and that includes all the phone numbers previously saved in the phone, so we have been doing a lot of that this week. Almost everyone we have called or otherwise contacted aren't interested in meeting up again, but that's okay because we keep on diligently pushing along. Saturday we had a great ward activity, and even though nobody we invited came it was still a really good evening.

We have been working a lot with members as directed by the Area and Stake Presidency, and I think finally we are starting to get somewhere. We have a LOT of member teaching lessons this week, and I think that shows they have a lot of trust in Elder Ching and I, especially since the last missionary that served here I heard wasn't the best (that tends to be my luck of the draw, me coming in to clean up some kind of mess). It's great though, because the members can see that we are working our tails off to get somewhere, and I'm still convinced that some kind of massive changing blowout will happen sometime just around the corner! We are going on exchanges with the Zone Leaders tomorrow, and that'll be really good because they can teach Elder Ching and I a lot on how to find people who are prepared, especially through street contacting because that's all they've done on their missions. I'm excited for that. It should be another really quick and tiring week, but the more I look at it, ALL of the weeks on my mission have been that way! It's tough, but I sure as heck love what I'm doing!

At the ward trivia night activity 

(I got all the questions on the Book of Mormon right. 

Woohoo! Geography and history I bombed though...)

It's not a long email today, but that's all good I guess because there really isn't much to talk about! Love you all, love you all long time, keep safe and keep doing what you're doing, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Doctrine and Covenants 42:12

President Maxwell, myself and Sister Maxwell

Our Zone

Sorry for not being on yesterday, it was the Queen's birthday or something and that's a public holiday, so all the libraries were closed.  It's been really rainy this week too, so that always makes going outside fun (not really because it's cold and wet, but we try to make the best of situations haha). So yeah, this week has been full of heaps of finding. HEAPS. And sometimes it feels like we are plowing as many seeds as we can not even into dirt, but more like a pile of rubble and trying to make it work. It's REALLY tough out here finding people who are genuinely interested in learning more about the gospel of Jesus Christ. But that's not to say that this week we haven't found anyone, because we have found a very few sprouts that show there is some progress here. And hey, at least we've gotten our hot water in our flat back!

Tuesday we tried our hand at standing in the busy plaza and talking to people as they passed by. At first I was hesitant in it, but soon it became a great thing for me to try to talk to people as they rudely pass by us, because in doing that sure we get heaps more rejection, but we talk to so many more people, so the chances of us finding someone actually interested is much more productive. We gave a Book of Mormon to a guy about my age named Chris, and he seemed really interested in actually knowing about our church, so we scheduled to meet up again with him the next day at the library, and he gave us his number. Well, the next day came and he never met us at the library or responded to our calls, and that was really discouraging because with no real investigators we put a lot of hope into Chris's interest, but when that happened we were back at nothing. Sure we gave him a Book of Mormon, but we wanted to teach him. It was a sad day. That same day, Wednesday, we had a Zone Meeting, and we had heaps of training on trying to teach member families at least three times a day, at LEAST, in helping them get in the spirit of missionary work to invite their friends to listen to the gospel. Member missionary work has always been emphasized in the church, but Australia is a REALLY anti-social country: I mean I have never seen so many people who are legitimately proud to say that they have no friends. Of course that's not with everyone, but most people we talk to don't know their next door neighbors after living next to them for "only" 20 years, nor do they want to. Some members tend to be the same, but Ching and I are doing our best to be diligent in working with members and working with the hand we are dealt. Shout-out to Moe though, because that entire ward  broke that stereotype.

Friday was a pretty interesting day though. Instead of driving to the plaza to talk to people like we usually do, we were impressed upon that we should walk to the plaza instead. It's only like a mile, so it's not that far. As we walked we saw this lady in her early 20's holding heaps of grocery bags and a big box of diapers, so when the coast was clear we ran over to help her out, and as we walked to her house about 10 blocks away with her groceries she seemed really interested in the knowledge that we had of eternal families and eternal marriages. She was really enthusiastic to learn about the church and to have us back again sometime, so we gave her our phone number and a Book of Mormon and set a day to come back later this week. Hopefully she doesn't pull a Chris. We have a ward activity this Saturday night that we might swing by her house to invite her to, but we're really excited to teach her.

As we walked back to go talk to people at the plaza we saw this lady helping an older lady in her 80's trying to stabilize her, and as we got closer the older lady fell down and hit the back of her head in the concrete! We ran to go see how we could help and there was a gash in her forehead from a recently previous fall and blood on her face and the concrete. We called the ambulance and stayed with her until help arrived, but from what I last heard from her sister (who we walked into while street contacting) her face is all bruised up and she needed a few stitches in her forehead, but will make a full recovery. What an experience that was.

Later that same day we went to go teach a former investigator, Josh. He's really cool and always comes to us with a lot of really good questions, but most of them are questions that go back to "So what is your opinion on...?" instead of what is really important, such as  "How can I know what you're teaching is true?" He's in his 30's or so and works as a pastor for the military. He makes a lot of money doing that and the military provides a house for him, so I think one of his concerns is that, and also that if we have the Bible, why do we need the Book of Mormon? It's a tough situation for us, but we will still do what we can.

After teaching Josh (it was a really busy Friday) we had Rafael, a new contact we found last week who made contact with us this week, take us out to dinner. It was really strange, because NO ONE DOES THAT!!! No one wants to talk to us, let alone be our friends (besides members), and NO ONE that barely meets and talks with us wants to feed us. But this guy strangely did. So he took us to an Italian restaurant, but Ching and I were pretty on edge about it all, and since it was raining I took my umbrella, but when we were under shelter I held it like a club. Seriously, he was kinda too nice to just want to feed us. Nothing eventually happened, and we got to learn a bit about him and his life, and yeah he's religious and works as a Catholic priest/organist. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he'd read it and everything. The next day he texted us saying that he was "so glad that he could talk with us and we could have an evening chat as friends" then ended the text with "next time we'll do sweets. Luv u xx", along with some other things that made us pretty creeped out. Lack of time means lack of detail, but if you were in our shoes you'd be on our side entirely. Thanks for the feed and all, but I think we won't establish contact with him anymore. *Shudder* There are some really weird people out there.

Well that's my week, and life is still going well. Josh is our only real investigator, so we do a LOT of finding, and since everyone is really well-off here they all think that God is just something that weak people do to find extra hope in the future. If they only knew what exactly it was they were missing out on and saying "not interested" to. I really do feel a deep regret for those who turn away the gospel so carelessly like it's just a strong opinion someone decided to just "come up" with. BUT I've been sent here for a reason, and I will continue to be strong in it! Love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Mosiah 7:29-33

Curtlie Keeshan fixing our radio because it really needed it

Found some Chinese shop that Elder Ching really wanted to check out

Our one piddly little heater for our four room flatt 

haha we can see our breath when we get up in the morning

Just preparing the morning shower

So, this week has been an interesting one definitely. I got transferred out to Eltham in Heidelberg which was fun, but this week has been a real challenge for me. Traveling on the train with two heavy as suitcases, a large bag with my bedding, and a heavy carry on was fun, and walking from the train station to the chapel 10 minutes away really stinks. Our car here is pretty junky too, like the stereo is dodgy-as and stops playing every time we hit a bump which also stinks, and also one of the doors doesn't lock. And plus, we haven't had hot water in our flatt for the past four days, so to take a hot "shower" we heat up water on the stove and sponge bath it. It's not something I've had to do on my mission before, but I think we might call the Mission office to see if they can do anything about it. It's fun.

Not too happy to leave Moe and Elder Holt

Elder Ching is really an awesome missionary, and he's from Hong Kong China and has only been out about six months but is a really hard worker. He fumbles with his English a little bit every now and again, but he is SUPER humble about it all and is really glad that I have him as a companion to help him out. Getting to the flatt and unpacking my bags left me really depressed about leaving Moe and all the awesome members and such a great companionship. I really had a hard time coping the past few days because it felt like I was leaving family, an amazing companionship, and such an awesome ward. It took me a few days to get back up on my feet from the complete shock from such a big change, but I've learned to cope with it and am doing well again.

The work here is a bit different because here is one of those areas where you stand out at the busy street section and try to talk to people. I've never done that in a realistic sense in my mission life and neither has Ching, so we just kinda stand there looking like a bunch of dorks trying to talk to people and have a conversation. Many Elders are great at it and have found HEAPS of people doing it, but for the next few weeks it's just going to be Elder Ching and I stepping WAY out of our comfort zones doing something we have never done before. I'm sure, like with tracting, I'll get good at it with practice, but we really have no idea what we're doing haha.

 MAH WINFIELD CARE PACKAGE!!! 

(I think Elder Ching might be a little envious, 

but he's super happy for the love that I get. 

Don't worry, I share it all with him)

Elder Ching has had a LOT of tough companions to work with in the past, so right now it really feels like him and I are doubling in the area because we don't have any investigators nor do we really know the part member families or less active members to work on. Yeah, it really feels like when I had to double into Moe with Elder Vaiouga. Oh boy. Well, we'll just have to work on that here as well!! Not much to talk about this week, but we are really trying to stress having member lessons to see if they know anybody who wants to learn about the church, because let's face it, missionaries finding through their own means is close to useless. Granted, it does lead people to baptisms, but out of the over 300 people who were baptized as converts last year, less than 10% of them were from tracting and other methods of missionary finding. Yesterday was pretty cool though because I got to see the Perry family from Moe for a baby blessing that happened this Sunday, and they gave me a massive package from the Winfields which was awesome, full of stuff to make me fatboy slim all over again (it's an inside joke with them, you wouldn't get it).

Not too sure what fun P-Day activities there are over here, but there is this MASSIVE shopping center that really reminds me of the Meadows Mall back in Vegas, so I think today we might go and check that out

A picture of me next to a really big and red tree.. just because

And also something I might mention: I've decided that since I'm in a new area with a new companionship and no one knows me, I've decided to start working hard on my Australian accent. Austin, you ask me HEAPS if I've gotten one yet, so next time we Skype, you'll definitely hear it. It isn't really my accent JUST yet, and I have to concentrate and fake it hard out, but the term "fake it till ya make it" comes into play. But hey, I've been able to fool quite a few people in the ward, some asking me "So what part of Australia are you from?". Teeheehee. Of course, some people can see that I've still got my Yankee accent, some think I'm British or from Europe, and then some hear a mosh-posh of everything and can't tell where the heck I'm from. It's really entertaining to say the least. But that's it from Elder Cook's side of the show, and I've got a really interesting transfer ahead of me. Lots to do, lots to clean up around here, but I'm sure that's why President Maxwell has sent me hear. Even though I was torn to leave Moe, I can now appreciate that Heavenly Father needs me here for some purpose that I don't know: and I accept. Love you all so much, have fun and work hard in whatever you're doing, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Alma 41:11

PACKAGE FROM THE FAMILY!!!!

Mother..Father.. YES!!! AMERICAN Q-TIPS!!!!

(Australian ones are trash)