Another Good Week (July 22, 2013)

So this has been a pretty good week. Last P-day we actually did something. We went hiking in the hills close by and we both enjoyed it. It was good to get out of town. It is also cool because an aboriginal tribe used to live up there and there are heaps of rock carvings. It is also no wonder why mining is so big up here. Elder Shin would hit the rocks with his ring and it sounded like metal. I knew they were iron because they were red from the oxidation, but I did not realize they would sound like iron as well. Today we are going fishing in a neighboring town with our investigator who is getting baptized. We are not sure if it will be this week because he does not feel like he is ready so today we are going to talk to him about it and try to help him. We would like to have the baptism this week so it can be in this transfer, but we need to make sure that he is ready. It was really cool because we have been praying for him to help him know if he should be baptized now and feel prepared. All of church was an answer to that. All of the lessons and talks were exactly what he needed and it was so cool to see that Heavenly Father is helping us and him. 

It was also cool because we were helping a less active member with some service and she wanted us to start to teach her 9 year old daughter. The mum is deaf. The girl is really bright and the primary is trying to get the girls to come to church. They have come before and it will be good to work with the branch with them. Those are pretty much the main people we have been focusing on this week. Hopefully we will be able to continue to find people and help them. Also yesterday the branch watched the Work of Salvation Broadcast. I think that was my third time watching it and I've listened to it twice, but every time I watch it I learn something more and get excited. There were not too many members that were there to watch it but most of the branch council was there which was good. I just hope that we will be able to continue to work together and find more people that are prepared to receive the Gospel.

love,

Elder Cook

Good Week (July 15, 2013)

Well this was a really good week. On Tuesday it started out great when we saw the 18 year old we have been teaching and set a baptism date with him for the 27th of July. So we should be really busy the next couple of weeks helping him be prepared, but it is good to be busy. It has been cool to see how his faith is beginning to grow. We were also able to watch the special broadcast. I found the MP3's on Monday so we were able to listen to it, and then on Tuesday the mission office mailed up a DVD of it, and I have to say it is way better to watch it than listen to it. So that has really helped motivate us and get us excited. Also the Branch is going to watch it next week, so that should be really good for everyone. I know our Branch President was excited after he watched it. 

I also have a funny story from Thursday.  During our personal study we got a call from our branch mission leader that he needed our help. An older lady we visit with had a dog that had died. She called him asking if he could bury it for her. He was working and about 3 hours away so he called us and asked if we could do it. We finished our personal study and left. When we got to her house the dog was wrapped in blankets sitting on her table outside her house. And the eyes were open and the tongue was sticking out a little. She asked if we could dig a hole in her backyard. The first couple of inches were easy, but after that we hit clay and the shovel she had was flat not pointed, so it was hard to dig deep enough. Finally we were able to dig a hole after some effort. Good thing it was a small dog, but I was really missing the sand in Perth. We had been switching off digging and Elder Shin had finished it, so I was standing behind him. The lady picked the dog off the table and went to put it in the grave, and then looked at Elder Shin and said "I don't know if I can do it, I have back problems." So he took the dog from her and laid it in the grave. That was my fear that she was going to have us put the dog in the grave, so as the great companion I was I wanted to let Elder Shin show his charity and when she had picked up the dog I slowly was backing up so she wouldn't ask me to do it. When the dog was in the grave she almost lost it, so we quickly buried it and left before she completely lost it. The entire time I was thinking that this was the one time I wish that Elder Nelson had not said "Ask the missionaries, they can help you." It was a really interesting experience and I will remember it. 

We were a little sad on Friday we thought we were going to be able to listen in to Zone Conference, but nobody ever called us. So it goes when you are serving 1800 km from the city. It was good though because we saw President and Sister Lindsay the next day so they were able to review some of the things that the mission has been trained on. It was really good to see President and Sister Lindsay. It was really cool to have time with them just to ourselves. Normally we do not have much of a chance to be able to spend much time with them, just talk to them quickly, so it was really cool to be able to get to know them better. It was a really busy weekend, I forgot what it is like to have so many planned activities and appointments. Saturday we had no time to fill, training from President Lindsay in the morning, Branch picnic at noon, community garden right after that, and then devotional after that. Sunday was also a really good meeting, but it was sad to see the Lindsay's go knowing it will probably be a couple of months before I see them again. It will be weird going back to Perth and having so many missionaries around me. It will also be weird because there will be so many that I do not know. The last couple of groups of missionaries have been big, and the next one could be. President said that right now 2 have visas, but up to 18 could come. I  do not envy President Lindsay and trying to figure out transfers, especially when he never knows how many missionaries he will have. He also said he does not have any news about using the internet. He has just received one email about it. But he did say that we will get it while I am on my mission. So that is good. It is funny that others also know about the announcement. It was on the front page of the West Australian and it said that we will not do any tracting, not quite true, but I was surprised when other people started to talk to us about it. I hope our mission gets it soon, but we will see.

Also to end a great week yesterday we set another baptism date with the schizophrenic man. I am not sure if he will be baptized, or can be baptized, his understanding is very limited, but we do have a clear goal we will work towards when before we never had a clear goal for him. 

Hopefully this week will also be good.

I love you all and thank you for all you do for me.

love,

Elder Cook 

Another Alright Week (July 8, 2013)

This week was a little disappointing. I am not sure what it was, just a hard week. I started out the week really excited for missionary work. I was thinking of all of the announcements in the last year about missionary work. First was the lowering of the ages and the increase of missionaries, which is continuing to grow and is supposed to be close to 100,000 by the end of the year. Then 58 new missions have been created to hold the increase of missionaries. And now the new broadcast is going to help all of the new missionaries be more effective and also asks a little more of members to assist the missionaries. 

So I was excited about thinking of all of that. I'm not sure but maybe in my mind I thought all of a sudden missionary work was going to magically get easier, well I learned it has not. More than normal people were not interested, and it has been hard to set up appointments with our more promising investigators. Hopefully we will do better this week with this. 

This coming week should be better though. We have zone conference some time that we will listen in through a conference call. Then President and Sister Lindsay with the rest of the mission presidency will be coming up this weekend for branch conference. It will be really good to see him and to receive some training, and I always feel inspired every time I hear him speak. It will be a little weird to see someone else wearing a name tag though. Last week all of the missionaries went to the temple except the country areas, but we learned that when we serve in one of the city zones we will be able to attend, which will be nice.

I love you all. Remember that the Lord is hastening his work for a reason. That means that there are more people than ever that are ready to receive the Gospel. We just have to recognize them. One of my favorite scriptures is D&C 84:88: "And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up."

I love this because of the imagery. God is going before us to personally prepare his children for us. If that wasn't enough he will be there right next to us. Then he will give us one of his most precious gifts, the Holy Ghost to help us know what to say. And if that was not enough Angels will be surrounding us to protect us and help us. How can we fear at all when we have this heavenly battalion around us?

Love,

Elder Cook

Alright Week (July 1, 2013)

So it rained last week, and it was crazy. Normally it does not rain here during the winter, only the summer when a cyclone comes. It has been the wettest June on record here. It is funny because some people blame me because it started when I came up. Last week was especially bad. It rained a lot, but was also constant all day. In the pictures you can see a red dirt waterfall, and where all the water was going. If you look at that picture you can see bundled rocks to keep the water contained. Well the next day we were biking by and the water was so strong it pushed one of the bundles off and rolled it about 10 meters. And in the last picture you can see the lake forming outside our flat. I went to check the mail right after that in flip flops and the water was past my ankle. We were actually lucky because the flat next to us had even more water and it started to go inside. Also one of the windows was leaking in one of the upstairs rooms. Luckily it was not in the room we sleep in or one of the beds would have been soaked. Someone said it rained 28 cm but I'm not sure if it was in that day or month. Just to put it in perspective 28 cm is around a foot, so lots of rain.

Last week I was able to watch Elder Holland's and Elder Perry's talks at the library, but it was a little hard because I had to have the volume really low to not disturb others. It is really exciting to see how the new changes will happen, and how they will help. In this area I can see how they will help because we have a couple people we see that do not have phones, so the only way to get a hold of them is to knock on the door. If we had facebook or email it would be easy to just send them a message, and build relationships with them even when we cannot see them. I was excited because it shows that you can read the talks, but when I click on the link it doesn't work, so hopefully next week I will be able to read them. I am a little surprised that President Lindsay hasn't told us anything about it, but zone conferences are happening soon so it might be part of that. And he comes up here in two weeks which will be nice to see him and Sister Lindsay. We also got good news this week that the girl that almost got baptized two weeks ago moved up here, so hopefully we will be able to start teaching her this week. Besides that this week has been a little slow, but hopefully it will be able to pick up.

Love Elder Cook

Another Week (June 24, 2013)

It was an alright week this week, but looking back I cannot remember what really happened. We only taught three lessons. One was to the Schizophrenic guy. We are going to have to drop him because his mental capacity does not really allow him to fully understand the Gospel. We had a hard time teaching him about Joseph Smith, he could not really comprehend who he was. A little sad, but we know that he will accept the Gospel in the next life because of the steps he has already taken now. We also taught the woman who was excited about the Book of Mormon. She had not read it, so we read 3 Nephi 11 with her, and it was really good. She really enjoyed reading from it and she says she already knows it is true. That is good that she says that, but many times when investigators say that, because to really come converted they need to pray to receive that strong spiritual witness. She said she was going to come to church, but cancelled Sunday morning. We will hopefully catch them early this week be able to teach her more, and hopefully get the husband more interested. Our highlight of the week was when an eternal investigator came to church and brought a friend along. She used to come quite often, and had a baptismal date, so we are working with her slowly to see how we can help her. We are continuing to work and last week we were able to find heaps of potential investigators, so hopefully this week we will be able to turn them into investigators.

I also gave my second talk on my mission yesterday. This one was a 20 minute one and I was surprised it actually turned out alright. I can see that my public speaking is improving which surprised me a bit since I haven't given many talks, but I guess I am talking all day so I guess it would naturally improve.

So I did find the ocean, but it is really weird. There is no beach, just dirt and then plants growing in the water, which really confuses me. I also find it weird how there is a road, on one side is Karratha, and the other is the bush where nobody lives. 

Love,

Elder Cook

Transfers and Happy Fathers Day (June 17, 2013)

So I am staying in Karratha and so is Elder Shin. It will be nice to stay in an area longer than a transfer. This also means that I will probably be here for at least two more transfers, one more with him and one more with a new companion. When I first came up here I had the feeling I would be here for six months, so we will see. At the moment I would love to stay here for a while. In the last little bit I have fallen in love with Australia even more than before. Something about the openness and knowing that I can look out and not see a person for hundreds if not thousands of km is fascinating. While I do not think I could live here permanently, I am enjoying it. It wasn't until this week I realized why I love it so much up here. Perth is not that big as far as cities go, and there is not much to do in Perth. Also it is pretty common to a US city. I did not realize that until talking to some French backpackers and they pointed it out. In Europe the cities are different because of all of the history there, but that is not the case in Australia and the US. Up here though it is the Australia you think of and in remoteness would only be comparable to Alaska. 

This week has also been really hectic. The first part of this week I felt like our area was dropping. Many of our investigators we have not been able to teach for a while. Also the 18 year old we are teaching was busy this week so we were unable to teach him. Then our area got a huge boost. On Thursday night our branch president called asking if we wanted a baptism on Saturday. A recent convert had his girlfriend visiting and is super keen but wants him to baptize her. So we were rushing trying to figure out if it could happen, and what we would need to teach her. But then something happened with where she is living so while she was already thinking about moving up here, she is not planning on it and is going to wait until she moves up here in a couple weeks. Lets just say I have never been so stressed out in my life, trying to figure out what she needs to know, how we are going to teach it in 48 hours, and then keeping everyone involved in what is going on. Then we met the 18 year old on the street and were able to talk to him and realized just how solid he is. Then on Saturday we were able to find a couple of potential investigators who we have been struggling on finding, and then we found a new investigator. It was also really cool how we found her. We were tracting and this guy said to visit this house because he needs saving. So it was kind of a referral  but a really dodgy one. We might have ignored it but we saw him walking and he told us to not forget to go there. I knew it would either be a super keen person or a person who would not want us there at all. So we went and the husband and wife were really cool. they came out and talked with us and brought chairs out. The husband is Aussie, and the wife aboriginal. I started to talk to him and Elder Shin was talking to the wife. I was talking to him about his beliefs and then I heard Elder Shin start to teach the Restoration to her. He was really nice but not super religious, but she became really interested when we were talking about the Book of Mormon taking place in the Americas. She started to think about her culture and how it would make sense that their could have been prophets among the Aboriginal people. They both said that they would read from the Book of Mormon. We also talked to her about baptism and she said that she wants to be baptized. I loved it because it gave me insight on how to use the Book of Mormon when teaching Aboriginal people. The last couple of days is really what this area needed. We were also able to get the schizophrenic person to church again, and it was cool because he got a white shirt and tie from his brother in law. We have also been helping him cut back on smoking, and this last week it has been cool to see him step up more.

I am excited for this area because we have a goal for two baptisms this transfer and we see it happening with four or five investigators we can see getting baptized. It has been cool to see the excitement we have really boosted when we needed it.

I love all of you, and especially dad on Fathers day.

Love,

Elder Cook

Short But Great Week (June 10, 2013)

This has been a good week, mostly because of that 18 year old we taught. We taught him again on Friday and he had read what we asked him, which is cool because it seems that most of the people we begin teaching never read what we ask them to. Then we had a really good lesson on faith and Jesus Christ with him, and we can see how his faith has increased already. Every Friday we have volleyball at the chapel and we invited him to that. Then it was cancelled because it might rain, but we forgot to text him and he showed up. It wasn't too bad because we were staying there and having a BBQ so we were able to have a good chat with him and gave him a chapel tour. By the way it is really weird giving someone a chapel tour in a small building. Just walk down the hall and the tour is over, but it was still really good. We invited him to church and he came. He actually came an hour and a half early because he forgot the time, so the Branch President told him the correct time. He stayed for all three hours of church and enjoyed himself. Hopefully we will be able to help him learn and increase his faith. 

We also had another cool experience this week. We had just finished knocking the doors of a street and I saw this young man walking towards us. I felt like I needed to contact him, but Elder Shin had started to bike away. He was still too far away to contact him so I started to put on my helmet and get ready to follow. Then he called out and asked if we were from the Mormon Church. We started to talk to him and he was a less active member. He had seen us riding around and wanted to come to church  but he did not know where the church was. The timing had to be perfect because we had knocked on his house, but another person had answered the door and said he was not interested, and this young man was not home yet. When we had finished I'm not sure if he saw us when he pulled up, or if the person inside had said that we had come. But before that when we were picking a street we went to two streets and Elder Shin realized when we got to them that he had already done them. If we had gone straight to that street we would have missed him. It is cool to see how this all works out and the Lord is with us.

Also our teaching has really improved in the last couple of weeks, and it is cool to see how it has helped us. We just wait for the Lord to help us know what questions to ask and what to teach. It is really easy to slip into a pattern of how I teach. I never memorized anything, but you teach it and it is easy to say the same types of things each time. I was giving a rote presentation without realizing it. But now we have focused on turning to the Lord in our lessons to help us know what to teach, what to focus on, and what questions to ask. When we do this we learn a lot more about the people we teach, love them more, and are able to better help them. 

On some not so happy news I had my bike stolen on Friday. It was my stupid lapse of judgement. I normally lock my bike, but because we were going to be playing volleyball and have lots of people outside close to the bikes I thought it would be safe. But then volleyball was cancelled so there was not anybody around. It was good when we were outside, but we went inside to clean the chapel because it was a little dirty. So we were inside for about 10 minutes and in that time somebody stole it. We have back up bikes here but they are around 3 years old which is forever for a missionary bike. I told the mission office and because it was a mission bike I might have to pay for it, which will be fun, but they are going to call me back and let me know.

One thing I really like about Karratha is that it is so small there is hardly any light pollution, so you can see the stars really well. Unfortunately from our flat we only have a view of the Southern sky, and I only recognize a few of the constellations. In the northern sky there are constellations that are in our southern sky, but oh well, I will continue to enjoy the stars while I am up here.

I love you all

Elder Cook

Good Week (June 5, 2013)

This has been a weird week because P-day got moved. It has really just thrown off my week. But it has been a good week. We had a really good district conference call on Thursday that really motivated us and helped us focus on finding, which is something we have struggled with recently. We left our flat after that and found a couple potential investigators, and later found a new investigator. Sunday was good because we were surprised when our Korean investigator came to church. We have been struggling to teach him and he does not get much out of sacrament meeting because of the language barrier, so we are going to try and get him to come just to Sunday school if he is only going to stay for an hour. He said he couldn't because he had something to do, so we thought he wasn't going to come to church at all, but then he showed up, which is good because there is something that gets him coming back. Then on Sunday I got a real boomerang from a returning aboriginal less active. He looks for artifacts before they put in a mine site, and makes his own stuff in his spare time, so he gave us a boomerang each. He told us before that he could sell them for $300 as a pair, so I am really glad to get them for free. Also I learned that there are different types of boomerangs, and that these ones are for fighting and not hunting. Now I am really interested in learning more about aboriginal culture.

We also had a cool lesson yesterday. It was one of the potentials we had found last week, we were able to have a really good lesson with him. It is an 18 year old who wasn't sure if there was a God, but was interested in finding out if there was one. It was cool seeing his face that he was feeling the spirit. It was a little awkward at the end because we had taught him how to pray and we asked him if he could say a prayer, but we forgot to ask him to give a vocal prayer, so he started reading silently. We didn't know how to react, but it was cool because we were able to talk to him a little about how he felt, and he said he felt a peace, so we talked to him a little about that. Also he had started to read the Book of Mormon before we even could tell him we were leaving. It was really cool to see him feel the Spirit and cannot wait to teach him later this week to see what he thought of the Book of Mormon.

I love you all

love,

Elder Cook

Another Week (May 27, 2013)

I am just realizing how big this mission is, and how far away I am from others. This week the only time we talked to another missionary was our district leader last night for our reporting. And I do not actually know who our zone leaders are, and not 100% what zone I am in. Weird. I realized how big it was when I was on the stake directory in lds.org and you can see all of the missionaries out and see their mission boundaries. Mine was the only one that showed an entire continent to show the boundaries. This was just an alright week. The same investigators came to church again, but this time only stayed for sacrament meeting. We are a little disappointed about them because one has a smoking problem and could not go long without a cigarette. And the Korean one did not seem to keen to learn. We tried to teach him this week but he canceled both the appointments we set. It is good that he came to church, but when we taught him a little before church he didn't look too interested. Patience is definitely needed. 

I think that is the weird thing is not only how small and remote Karratha is, but it is also that it has the biggest population in the Pilbara. I also realized just how much money everyone has here. We were walking down the street and across the street we saw an old guy just come out of the bar stumbling a bit. He looked over and saw us and crossed the street and dug out all the change he had in his pocket, and dropped $10 in our hands, and walked away not letting us talk to him. Australia is like Europe where it has one and 2 dollar coins instead of normal money ( I would call it paper money, but in Australia it is more plastic, really hard to explain). We also saw a guy busking outside the shops and in about 10 minutes had made around $15- $20. Unfortunately for him the manager came out and told him to leave, but it still surprised me how much he was making. 

I am not sure if I have told you this before, but as a mission we started reading the Book of Mormon together. We are doing 5 pages a day, so will take us about 3 months. We are using new unmarked copies of the Book of Mormon, and are highlighting every verse that talks about Christ. I was surprised at how many verses there are. In some chapters almost every verse is highlighted. It has been really cool. Pretty much all of 3rd Nephi is going to be highlighted. I have learned a lot from it, and am excited to keep learning. We started the Isaiah chapters yesterday, but this focus on Christ has really helped me because so many of Isaiah's prophecies are about Christ, so I am understanding them better, and at least paying attention to what I am reading. 

I love you all, thanks for everything you do for me

love,

Elder Cook