March 24, 2014

This week started off a bit slow. On Tuesday we had a zone meeting that took ages, but was really good. The mission is now focused on our personal conversion. When Elder Hamula was here he talked about the importance of making sure we are converted ourselves and then the success will follow. Since he also talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon we were able to share with each other how we have been converted through the Book of Mormon. After the zone meeting we had to go clean our flat for an inspection and then went on splits with the ward. The next day we had to go into the city because my companion had a doctor appointment for his diabetes.

We finally are on bikes now. My companion's is still in the shop, but he is borrowing our district leaders bike because he has a car and has heaps of km's to use because it was in the shop for over a week. So we have been able to see more people.  Well we try anyway since they are still not home. We have been trying to focus on less actives this week and one came to church so that was really cool, and this week we want to still focus on that but also try to focus on finding, because right now the entire zone is struggling with finding.

So it was an average week, but we want to have more success this week.

Love,

Elder Cook

Oh yeah I forgot about my birthday, sorry about that. So the other Elders in our district came and decorated our flat while we were out visiting some people. And then we had a blitz in the Sisters' area and afterwards had dinner as a district and a member made a cake for me, which was really good. So it was a good birthday as a missionary.

March 17, 2014

This week my companion's bike is in the shop because it was having some problems. Because of that we have been taking the bus heaps and mostly walking. My legs are so sore after this week. We figured out that one day we walked about 18 km which is around 11 miles. We had a referral who is supposed to be really keen so we are trying to see her but something always comes up when we plan her in. So we decided to spend most of a day walking to be able to see her, and she was not home. It is hard on foot because we want to see people but the number of people you can see while walking is really limited and most people are not home or are busy, but we are doing what we can with what we have.

I know this is random but lately I have been thinking about doing a study abroad at the BYU Jerusalem center. Don't worry I have not been spending much time thinking about it, but it has crossed my mind. I just think it would be a really cool experience. I think because it is a combination of some of my interests, history, politics, and the Gospel. Mom I can see you not being excited about this but I am sure it would be fine. I have no idea how easy it is to get in or when I would want to do it, but I just am curious of your thoughts on it.

Love,

Elder Cook

March 10, 2014

This week was so great. As far as missionary work it was a hard week, everything seemed against us from broken bikes to my companion's diabetes. But it was really awesome to be able to see Elder Hamula and be instructed by him. We had a zone conference on Friday. He gave us great training on the importance of the Book of Mormon and how if we use it more effectively we will be able to have more success. I also learned heaps about the purpose of the Holy Ghost. Often we ask the question of "Is this the Holy Ghost or me?" Elder Hamula taught us that this is the wrong question to ask. If we have the authority to act, so it is in our calling or responsibilities, and if we do so prayerfully, we do not need to worry because the Spirit will lead our thoughts and decisions. Also God often leads us to use our own judgment. But also the Spirit will always warn us before we make a mistake. I realized that the role of the Spirit is not to lead us all of the time, but is to help us exercise our agency correctly, so there will be times where we just act and the witness will come later.

It was a really great spiritually uplifting weekend and I cannot wait to apply what I learned from Elder Hamula.

Love,

Elder Cook

March 4, 2014

We had heaps of appointments set this week, but unfortunately all of them cancelled. That is the hardest pat about being a missionary, if you set an appointment it seems that some people are guaranteed not to be home at that time. You can call and text them to confirm with them, but they still will not be home or cancel right before. But I guess that is missionary work.

This week was cool though because the mission has been focusing on YSA age people. Around the world YSA is the highest baptizing group, except in Perth. So the mission has been focusing on the universities here to be more involved. A senior couple is now doing English classes at the universities and we are starting a scripture study class. On Thursday was an orientation day at a university in our ward boundaries. We had a booth through the LDS student association on campus and heaps of missionaries were there talking with people and getting them to sign up for English class and scripture study class. At first it was awkward because we could not use our normal approaches and we all felt really awkward but after a while we were able to talk with heaps of people. I do not know how many people signed up but hopefully we will be able to get referrals from  it and others since our area is right in between two universities.

This week should also be good because we have a Zone Conference where Elder Hamula of the Seventy will be there. Also Saturday and Sunday is stake conference and there will be a new stake president. The current stake president lives in our area and we visit him sometimes. He said that he has not sat with his family in church for almost 20 years and his oldest kid is around 22. He was in the stake presidency for about 10 years, then immediately was called as bishop for 2 years and then became stake president for 8. He is ready to get released.

This week we will be pretty busy with meetings, but hopefully we can have success when we are not  in meetings, and at least it should be a pretty spiritual week.

Love,

Elder Cook

February 24, 2014

This last six weeks went by so fast, it is pretty incredible. It is also weird because the sisters that I came in with go home tomorrow, which means I only have 4 transfers left.  Wow that is weird. So my companion is leaving, but staying in the zone.  My new companion is from Brisbane and I have met him a couple of times but not for a while. He is just coming from Kalgoorlie. I am excited because this should be a good transfer.

This week itself was slow. We did manage to set up heaps of appointments for this week which will be exciting to start the transfer off right, hopefully none of them fall through. We did have a cool experience yesterday. We have been working hard trying to find people but have not been having much success this week. Yesterday before church we went to visit an investigator and her neice just moved over from Melbourne and wanted us to teach her. They are from Vietnam so are Buddhist and right now she just wants to learn about it because it is interesting not because she is looking to change, yet any way.

I also had a really cool experience this week. We were talking to one of the members who helped fellowship our recent convert. They had him over for dinner on Monday and he was asking questions about  serving a mission and he said that he was thinking about going on one. It was such a great experience when the member said this knowing that he has gone through that change and he wants to help others do that. We also had the opportunity to talk to him about it a couple of days later when we saw him and it is so cool to be able to talk to him about it. That experience made my mission.

Well I hope everyone has a great week. Next week is a public holiday so I am not sure if Pday will be on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Love

Elder Cook

February 17, 2014

This week has been good. It was a little stressful getting everything ready for the baptism. It went smoothly for the most part. We had a little moment of panic because we could not remember if we had asked a member to pick him up or not, but it all worked out. It was a bit small, but we were expecting that because of the short notice. So the baptism made it a great week, but outside of that our week was a bit slow. We had to focus a lot on making sure everything was going to work out, and also we had heaps of meetings during the week so we have not been able to do as much finding as we would have liked. But this week our goal is to keep finding people and we have people we have taught once or twice but we are struggling to make appointments with them or they say they will call and never do. So this week we are going to go through all of these and find out which ones are keen and which ones are not. 

Love,

Elder Cook

February 10, 2014

Yesterday was just amazing. On Saturday we had a good lesson with our investigator at a members home. He opened up to us and we were able to talk more about the Spirit and its importance. Because he has a slight language barrier he does not understand everything, but he does know he gets this really good feeling when he reads from the Book of Mormon, prays and comes to church. After the lesson the member was taking him home and ended up talking to him for 2 hours and asked him why he wanted to wait until after he gets back from Hong Kong. He used this awesome analogy and  everything just clicked. At church the member told us this and then our investigator came up and asked if he can get baptized this Saturday. He prayed about it that night and feels that he needs to get baptized before he leaves for Hong Kong. Members are so amazing! We would have liked to have a little more notice, but he leaves for Hong Kong the next week and will be there over a month. I love teaching him because you can just see how happy the Gospel makes him and how his faith has been strengthened.

We also had a good lesson on Saturday with another young man, and hopefully we will be able to teach him sometime this week. We also found another keen guy from Iran. He has really been struggling with the purpose of life and we can see that he has been prepared to receive the Gospel

Love,

Elder Cook

February 3, 2014

It has been a weird week because Friday felt like Tuesday and there is not as much to talk about. In the last couple of days we have not had much success teaching because everyone cancels their appointments, but we will keep trying. We are continuing to teach our investigator from Hong Kong. He comes to church every week and he is doing well. It is a little hard with a language barrier. It is also a little different because he does not have a solid Christian background so we need to focus more on who Jesus Christ is. He leaves for Hong Kong at the end of the month and gets back in April so it will be a little hard, but other missionaries overheard a lady from Hong Kong in the ward and apparently she is going to Hong Kong as well and she told him that she will take him to church there, so that will be really awesome for him to go to church in his own language. We also gave him the number to the Hong Kong mission office so he can call them and maybe missionaries can teach him over there.

Besides that the last couple of days have been uneventful but hopefully this week people will keep their appointments and we will be able to teach them.

Love,

Elder Cook

January 30, 2014

It is weird that P-day is so late. It was because of Australia day on Sunday but the public holiday was on Monday, and we are going to the temple so it was pushed even farther. But it is all good because we are going to the temple which makes me happy. We are doing really well. On Friday there was a zone conference focused on working with members. It was really good to have more of a focus on bringing members along to lessons. It is just hard sometimes because I would say half of our appointments cancel and of the ones that don't half of those probably are not there when we show up, so it makes it really hard to put all of this effort into bringing members along and organizing it just to have it cancel 30 minutes before we should be there. But that is the life of a missionary. But I do know if investigators have good fellowship it makes all of the difference.

 

We are also having a mission conference in early March.  Elder Hamula, the Area President is coming and offered us a challenge to read the Book of Mormon before he comes. That gives us a little over a month and will take about 15 pages a day. It is pretty similar to what I had to do for one of my Book of Mormon classes at BYU so I know I can do it, but that was reading as fast as I could, but for this I want to spend more time on it, so it will be interesting, but I am sure great for the mission since the last time we read the Book of Mormon it really lifted the mission.

 

Also some rumors about ipdas. So we talked to the AP's and they said that there is a conference in March or April where all of the test missions for ipads will report their findings. So they are expecting that they will begin to be released to the rest of the missions a couple of months after that. Also the AP's are testing out using a smartphone, just a cheap Android phone, but better than the phones we have now. But they think we will have iphones before most of the missions will have them.

 

As far as our area we have found some new investigators, but it will be a couple of weeks before we will be able to teach them again, and like normal people are cancelling their appointments but I am kind of used to that.

 

I hope everyone has a good week and it will only be a couple days until I can hear from you again.

 

Love,

Elder Cook