People only fear a prophet because they fear the judgement of God because they don't want to turn from wickedness.

So I get home in two weeks anyways, so it's like, meh, why even talk about my week, amirite? Just kidding, for your sake I will discuss what happened. So last P-Day we went to Strike as a Zone, and because it was a public holiday the place was stinkin' packed! I swear this place has so many holidays, especially on Mondays. It's ridiculous. BUT nonetheless it was a ton of fun. We've also been able to go on a couple of exchanges with the companionships, and in the next two weeks we've got to go on three more exchanges. That'll be great.

As far as this weeks most exciting event, we're now in preparation for the Stake's mini-mission. So Thursday morning we got a huge hiccup in the program, and that is that mini-missionaries (youth at the age of 16 or 17) are no longer allowed to go one-on-one with full-time missionaries. I don't know why, but with the mini-mission happening in the next few weeks, there were some changes that needed to be made! With potentially 40-45 youth participating, that means we'd need about 40-45 companionships participating as well...what the heck!?  Literally all day Thursday I spent on the phone calling Zone Leaders and individual companionships from the Gippsland, Narre Warren, Maroondah, Heidelberg, and the Chinese Melbourne Zones. It was nuts, and I had to charge the phone about three times that day. Literally spent about eight hours on the phone calling, explaining, and recruiting troops for this mini mission. Oh, and also participating mini-missionaries can't leave the Stake boundaries, so that means that in that singular weekend we will be having about 40-45 companionships proselyting inside of our Zone instead of the normal 7. Wow won't that be fun for me to try to manage? Elder Carroll isn't all too invested in it and just wants me to take care of it, and if it be that way then I will. I would LOVE his help in this, but if needs be I will continue to do the Lords work, with or without him.

This next week will be a lot of fun because about half of it will be spent trying to get this mini-mission up in wraps, still trying to figure out more companionships to use. Still haven't contacted all of them, and more phone calls will be under way. I have seen the lives of youth changed because of mini-missions, and out of everyone Sister McFadden, the Stake Young Women's President, and I are the biggest advocates of making sure this thing is a success. What makes it even better is that this mini-mission will happen on literally the last weekend of my mission. It'll be prepped for, it'll happen, and then BOOM!, mission is done. SO much to do, so little time, and I love staying busy in the Lord's work.

            The church put this up as part of the Easter initiative 

                    (and don't worry I've since gotten a haircut)

Something that I learned in my studies of the Book of Mormon though, and I will learn it again and again, is that the world is more and more increasingly wicked and in such great need of a prophet. It's so wonderful to know that the prophet is there to guide us to God. People only fear a prophet because they fear the judgement of God because they don't want to turn from wickedness. Seriously, it's such an easy concept: obey God, be blessed and remain happy. Disobey God, receive consequences and be unhappy. Like, seriously, it's the easiest thing in the world and for so many people they just try so hard to convince themselves that there's gotta be a loophole somewhere, where wickedness and disobedience can be happiness. Well, you can't eat your cake and have it too. I just can't emphasis how much I love being a member of the Lords Church. I wish everyone would be willing to just at least give it a shot.

 Us at Strike as a Zone once again

But I love you all, and I am glad for the work that I've done and the work that I'm continuously doing. I come home in two weeks and am very prepared for it. Not to say I hate my mission, even though my current companion makes me want to punch a hole through the wall sometimes, but I'm not gonna come home and fall into dumb habits.  That's not faith in the future: that's a prime example of fear. But I exercise no fear. The natural man fears, but there is no point to that. I love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.
-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Helaman 6:35-36

(Sorry for the lack of photos, I've realized that I want to spend less time taking photos and more time working, which has never really been the case but every second seems more and more precious to me)


Little did we know we accidentally booked two dinner appts.  After the second dinner at the lovely Haymes home, we were so full we had to bring dessert home

The Beautiful Rachael Haymes ♥

Never ignore or brush off a prompting from the Holy Ghost

So yeah I've literally got like three weeks left, so hot dang I'm going out guns blazing with the barrels of the gun red hot. I don't want to talk really about much that I did, because I can just do that when I get home in the next few weeks. It's the strangest thing to accept that it's coming to an end, but what a great experience I've had in serving a mission. No matter who you are, where you are, or how you are, I would DEFINITELY look into serving a full-time mission. I have loved it so much and I'm definitely going to miss it. Life is good though and I'm constantly adjusting to the thought of “three weeks left mate, three weeks".

Elder Marshall and his companion Elder Doan 

spent P-Day with us, so that was pretty fun

Shopping with Elder Thach on P-day

So as far as our P-Day in shopping...was actually pretty dumb because all of it was just shopping for clothes. No cool Aussie stuff, no souvenirs, nothing. Just really expensive clothing. Elder Carroll loves expensive clothes and yet he has no money. So he just wanted to stay there and window shop. All day. It was really boring for me because I've only got a few more P-Days left on the mission and I want to use them the best as I can, but when I say that he just kinda gets upset and says "It's not all about you". It's so frustrating, but all I can say is just "three weeks left mate, three weeks". But hey, I was able to buy a lot of A&W Root beer, which is basically the nectar of the gods. But I'd rather NOT spend the last few weeks of my mission like that, but no matter how much I try to sit down and have open communication with him he just doesn't want to hear it.  Oh well, three weeks in the refiners fire will shine me right up before I come home, eh?

I want to share one experience that I had this week though, and it involves the Easter campaign that the church is doing. Wednesday I was helping a missionary in our Zone from Venuatu, Elder Timothy, with his college application for BYU-Hawaii (because I know how confusing that can be). As I was doing that some lady in her late 20's or so was getting REALLY frustrated at what was going on on her computer (since we were at the library). I don't like to see anyone really frustrated because that just doesn't make me feel good, so I leaned over to her and asked what was wrong. She explained to me that she was working on her resume and it didn't save and it booted her off and now she had to start all over. Well there's not really much I can do about that, so I gave her my sympathy and went back to helping Elder Timothy with his application. A few minutes later this lady leaned to me and said she was going to leave for a few minutes and asked if I could watch her stuff, so I did. While she was gone I got this really strong feeling to lean over to her computer and show her the Mormon.org website. Now I thought that was strange and faithless of me for juggled the idea for a minute, but then I decided that before I throw the prompting off that I would do it. Elder Carroll was behind me and loud-whispered "What are you doing!?" I just kept doing what I was prompted to do and by the time she was back I was on the website. She looked a bit confused but I explained to her that I don't like seeing anyone angry or frustrated and that the website was something that might be able to help her, even if she wasn't religious. She looked the website up on the phone was REALLY grateful that I would share that with her because she explained that she loves little videos of encouragement. We left and literally for the rest of that day I was feeling just GOLDEN!!! There was sunshine in my soul indeed. Never ignore or brush off a prompting from the Holy Ghost, and that's something that I've decided to start working on more and more.

As you know General Conference is on a week after you guys in the Americas, so we watched that this weekend. It was awesome, but a little sad knowing that this would be my last General Conference on the Mission. One of the talks by Joaquin E Costa was perfect for one of our investigators because he's in the SAME EXACT SHOES THAT HE WAS IN!!! That talk was DEFINITELY for Eddie, and that was awesome. General Conference in general was awesome, and I definitely felt the spirit all weekend. Elder D. Todd Christofferson has always been one of my favorites, and his talk was greatly inspirational to me. I love that man so much.

In general the week's been good, but my companion is starting to give me a bit of a headache to be honest. He can participate in the work with me or without me. I would love for him to be with me, but if not, then I will do my best to do it myself. I will not have a companion that is going to drag me down. Not during my last stretch of missionary life. I'm gonna keep going hard, and hopefully I and the Spirit can encourage some change in him. Better sooner than later, because I've definitely learned that it's SO much more fun and fulfilling to serve the mission with a correct and happy mindset instead of one of "I can't wait to go home...my homecoming's gonna be awesome..." That's a horrible mindset to go through the mission with, and it'd be so much better for his sake that he learns that as soon as possible. But I love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Aww.. it looks so much more like home
right now!

 It's been raining for ages the past couple days,  

Zone P-Day WAS going to be spent at the beach 

today has now been changed to Strike for unlimited

 laser tag and bowling again, which'll be fun too

I wish more people would want to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ…because it is true. The Book of Mormon and Bible, along with other inspired scriptures, have given me so much comfort and stability in life, and I couldn't live without it. I love this Gospel so much, and I love telling people about it.

So hopefully all my letters haven't made it into your junk mail.  So this week, yeah, just tons of meetings. Went on exchanges, had District Meeting, had Zone Conference, Zone Meeting, had interviews with President Vidmar, life is good. 

Friday it suddenly got really cold out of nowhere, but living on a peninsula does that. It is beginning to feel more "autumny" now, and that's good because I was getting kind of tired of the heat. But all’s good! P-Day was last week, and we visited a bunch of Buddhist and Cambodian temples, so we did some Buddha temple endowments….No just kidding no we didn't do anything like that but it was great to see Asian people go in there and actually pray and here we are just kind of taking pictures like a bunch of tourists. Whoops. Did a lot of meeting with investigators and other members, but as far as activities go, a lot has happened but really isn't worth using my time to type it out. I would rather use this time instead to talk about a couple of spiritual things that I learned about this week.

First of all, the Mormon.org website. Seriously, that website that the church has is amazing. First of all, they've completely revamped it for Easter, and if you haven't seen it yet then you need to go check it out! We've been encouraged to help members to use it, to share the Gospel with friends over social media, and I tell you what sharing videos that the church makes is probably one of the EASIEST and MOST EFFECTIVE ways to do missionary work as a member nowadays. It is SO great, and even though the website has only been up for the past three days we have encouraged a LOT of the members to use it in their daily missionary work, and it's just fantastic. I would encourage everyone who reads this to go to the website, watch the videos, tour around a little bit, and share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever, with the #PRINCEofPEACE that the church is doing. It's awesome.

And also, the other day I was reading in Hebrews 8:35-39. and wow that was a scripture that I needed to hear. I haven't been struggling with anything at all as of recently, but those words just filled my soul with peace and really helped me to see that there is great hope and joy that comes from the eternal light of Jesus Christ. I've been told by a lot of members "Oh, it's hard going home Elder!" or "Ooohhh you're gonna crash and burn if you're not careful!" Do they just plan for missionaries to fail, like there's some kind of satisfaction in it? I can't see myself failing, because on my return home I'm still going to study the scriptures, go to church, pray, fulfill a calling, and look for people for the missionaries to teach! I've been reading a book by Clayton M. Christensen that talks about member missionary work, and he says that the reason that returned missionaries aren't feeling the spirit as strong as they did on the mission is because they stop looking for people who are ready to hear the message of the gospel. I might be coming home soon, but I'm not even close to done being a missionary. I'll do what I always have, I want to feel the spirit, and this is the way to do it! SO that's my thoughts to that. 

I wish more people would want to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ…because it is true. The Book of Mormon and Bible, along with other inspired scriptures, have given me so much comfort and stability in life, and I couldn't live without it. I love this Gospel so much, and I love telling people about it. I love you and pray for you and your own conversion and missionary work back home, wherever you are, because I know that it will bless your life with the spirit constantly. And as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Ponderize: Hebrews 8:35-39

P-Day was last week, and we visited a buncha Buddhist and Cambodian temples PHOTOS BELOW 

Panorama of the Buddhist Temple

Exchanges with Elder Cuenca, that was pretty dang fun

Elder Cuenca

McFaddens Family Home Eve introducing Church website.
Mormon.org  to the Young Singles Ward 

Family Home Evening at McFaddens
for the Young Singles Ward

Captive audience during McFaddens Family Home Eve

More games w/the Young Singles Ward
& the McFadden youngin

Fun Games

Lovely treats at the Young singles Family Home Evening

Family Home Evening w/ the McFaddens & YSA ward

What a fun activity

Beautiful photo from the backyard of the McFaddens

More Fun Games

Had four other missionaries spend the night
at our place, fun

I call it my Tim-Tam Teddy. 

For each day left of my mission there's a Tim-Tam,
and when they're all gone... BOOP!, I'm flying home

My mom posted this on Facebook i guess cause
she thinks Austin and I are so Awesome

It's ALMOST the Winfields, but not really :(
 dang..Miss them!

Zone Meeting,had some complications w/the TV.
 It was great.....said nobody

The Awesome Rach and Beth Haymes

Little did I know how sneaky they can be

Just some monkey business with Benny Haymes

More Monkey Business With Benny

message from Elder McFadden to my mom on FB

     Got caught playing piano hymns for sacrament

 "Doctor I think I have a problem" "What seems to be the problem?"
"I write too dang much" "Nonsense, there's no such thing-" *
Shows this photo* "Oh..."

The atonement is a real thing, and I can feel it working in my life constantly while here and I know that, if I keep prayer and study up and sharing the gospel, then I will feel the same when I get home.

Hey howdy hey y'all I finally hit that 700 day mark, which means that I've sad to say I've only got about 40 or so days to go before this blessed experience is gone and gone. But I got my new companion Elder Carroll and he's from Sydney here in Aussie land. He's a pretty cool guy but because he's Samoan there's obviously a lot of different cultural differences that makes it a bit tougher to get along. Not saying that we argue, but there is DEFINITELY a lot less things that I can relate to than with my past two companions Elder Theurer and Elder Van Wagoner. But with the atonement we can get along, it's just about recognizing the huge cultural differences and getting with it.

Elder Theurer, me and my new companion, Elder Carroll

But this week was pretty good. Elder Theurer stayed with us until Friday instead of just leaving on Tuesday because he was just going to fly down Wednesday morning to Tasmania and then fly back up Thursday night for the Zone Leader meeting and then just fly back down Friday night. No need for the waste, so they just decided to keep him here with us in our companionship in a trio. It was good to have him there for those extra couple of days to help me with the blow of having a totally new companion with a lot of differences, and I'm grateful for that. Now I've gotta help him get used to being a new Zone Leader and taking charge of the area, and at least we KNOW that he'll be doing that because we know where my next area is…… Vegas.

we got these lays made of candy, but I wont eat it 

because it's hard candy and apparently it takes like 

two weeks to make a single one, so I'll just wear it 

home triumphantly instead

So something interesting that happened this week was that we went over about an hour and a half away to see one of Elder Carroll's friends come back from his mission from the Philippines. It was a HUGE Samoan party with a TON of loud, hard-beat music, and to be pretty honest.. I really DID NOT like it. It was probably one of the lowest spiritual settings I've ever been in as a missionary, and to be honest I just wasn't really happy at all while I was there. It would've been fun had I not been on a mission, but I just couldn't really enjoy it much. And to be honest, I don't think Elder Carroll's friend did either, even though he was Samoan as well. But it made me realize how much I really DON'T want to waste the last six weeks I have left, and I plan entirely on going full out as hard as I can for this last transfer. Elder Carroll and I had a really long, heartfelt talk about what needs to be done this transfer, so I can really feel that he and I are going to be great friends by the time this transfer ends.

Huge Samoan party... Look at all that food and decor!

Well I love you all, and sorry for the email not being very long. Busy day today, I've only got a couple of P-Days left so each and every one will probably be filled with a LOT of things to do before I fly home. But I'm so grateful to have been able to have had this chance to be on my mission. I love it a lot, and I'm really glad for how it has changed me. I want to serve as hard as I can while still here on the mission, but I'm also really excited to get home and get life rolling again. The atonement is a real thing, and I can feel it working in my life constantly while here and I know that, if I keep prayer and study up and sharing the gospel, then I will feel the same when I get home. Love you all, and as always, God be with you till we meet again.

-Elder Landon Cook

Uh, we tried to take a good photo, 

but it didn't really turn out the way we wanted it to

 

We admittedly got a bit bored while Weekly Planning

Members always drop food off to us. It's great, we are so blessed

This is Elder Mahendran, I love him to death