June 30, 2014

So I found out I am being transferred to an area called Swan View. It is in Greenmount ward and Dianella zone, which is the only zone I have not served in yet. My companion is going to be the Elder who I served with about 6 months ago at Christmas time. I am sad to leave Albany, but also excited for a new area. I hope I will be able to stay busy the next 6 weeks to make the time go by quickly. That is cool you got my itinerary. They should give it to me pretty soon. Not really excited for that flight. I thought it was bad coming here, but it will be worse flying the other direction. 

This week was good. We had a good lesson with that part member family. He said his plan is to get baptized and go to the temple with his family which was cool because he is the one that brought it up himself, so hopefully the missionaries here will be able to help them make those changes in their life. We also got a random call from a less active member saying that he has just moved down from Perth and wants to come back to church. He is actually from one of my old areas but I never met him but knew his parents, and he used to live in the Bay area which was also cool. So good things are happening down here in Albany, and of course I am leaving, but that is always the case. 

Also missionaries on street view: 

https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-32.01902,115.916275,3a,55y,314.82h,62.99t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s2N-ZqN5qSxQCrf5udzCgOg!2e0  

Can't wait to let everyone know how I am doing next week!

June 23, 2014

This week was better. It was good we were able to stay busy with heaps of service which I always enjoy. We were also able to find a new investigator, the husband of a part member family who lives just a couple of doors down from us. It was cool talking with him because they have been thinking of coming to church the last couple of weeks and he has been cutting down on smoking. So it is really exciting to know that this could be the time for him. He also grew up in Sacramento which is really cool as well. We are seeing them on Wednesday again and they are feeding us lunch, so it is even better. 

Besides that nothing new has happened here in Albany. It is starting to feel cold, but that is because of the wind, and I haven't had a real winter in over 2 years, but it isn't too bad yet. Next week I will find out where I am going for my last transfer, which is a really weird thought.

I hope everyone enjoys Hawaii and can't wait to see everyone soon

Love,

Elder Cook

June 16, 2014

The Zone Leaders came for exchanges again this week. Exchanges when you are country is always fun because you get to be around other missionaries. Plus my old companion is one of the zone leaders so I always love being able to be with him again. This week wasn't too fun though because I was sick Wednesday, Thursday, and part of Friday. I have been stressed quite a bit lately and I think it just got to me, but I needed a couple of days to try and de-stress and get better. Friday I was able to get rid of lots of my stress by playing basketball with some Filipinos which was really good since I have not had the opportunity to play much sport here in Albany. I forgot how much I miss just being able to run around. Saturday was also good because we had service pretty much all day, but now I am really sore from the basketball and service, but I am just glad that I am doing better. I am not as stressed and my body is back to normal. And everyone thought that I don't feel stress, well now I know what happens when I am feeling too much stress and don't know how to handle it. This week should be better.

Love,

Elder Cook

Oh yeah I also tried baking some cookies when I was stressed but I learned that the sticks of butter are different sizes here and I used about twice the amount of butter so lets just say they did not turn out the best, which did not help my stress level, but now I know how much to use.

June 9, 2014

This week was one of those weeks you are glad it is over and can just move on. It was a hard week for missionary work, and my companion fell off his bike and face planted, so we have had better weeks. But hard weeks are part of missions, especially here in Western Australia, pretty much you just know they are going to happen so when they do you just move on. I feel bad for my companion, I don't think he is enjoying it in Albany, coming from an area where there generally is a lot of work to here where it is slow, away from all other missionaries, it is cold, and now he fell off his bike. But I really hope in the end he likes it because even though it is not the easiest area it is still a really good area, I love it down here. This week should also be good for the district. the Zone Leaders are coming down today and they will be here until Wednesday and when the zone leaders leave the Sister training leaders come down so hopefully with so many missionaries in the district we will be able to see some success that will be able to get us excited. I hope so anyway. When you have investigators you spend a lot of time thinking of them, what their needs are, and what you are going to teach them. When you don't have many investigators you begin to think of home more because you can only think about what you are going to teach them so many times. 

I hope everyone has a good week this week.

Love,

Elder Cook

June 2, 2014

Well this week we decided that we are tired of having basically no investigators. We have had little luck with the potential investigators that we had and former investigators, so we have pretty much been tracting heaps. We have found a couple potential investigators, and a new investigator. Hopefully we will be able to find even more this week. It is funny how some things can change. Normally I really do not like tracting, but I don't think anyone does, but now I do not mind it. Still not my favorite activity, but at least I am willing to do it and hopefully find more investigators, and if not I have still given people the opportunity to accept it.

I did not have an opportunity to teach the Persians again so hopefully this week we will be able to see them and I really hope my Persian is better than I think it is. 

I always think I have a lot to tell you, but when I start typing I guess I forget or it takes up a lot less room than I thought it was. Well I hope you have a good week

Love,

Elder Cook

May 26, 2014

This week was really slow. Heaps of people were not home, and it was wet and cold. Yesterday we woke up and it was freezing in the flat, when I was getting ready in the right light I could see my breath inside the flat.  I think Albany might prepare me for Provo after all, but two different colds, Provo is dry and it is really humid here. For the most part it is not actually that bad, but some days I really just do not want to get out of bed. We saw Colin again this week but he did not come to church. I was not surprised because he is a nice old man who invites us around because he is lonely, not because he is really interested in the message we have to share. We will probably drop by in the future, but he is not someone that we are going to spend a lot of time on. Also our Persian people were not home, but I still had a cool experience. The only things we have in Persian is selections of the Book of Mormon, not the whole thing, and Gospel Principle books from the 80's. After staring and comparing them for a couple hours I can now know what parts I am reading. I borrowed an old copy of Gospel Principles from the library here because the new ones are set up a little differently. I can now read the numbers in Persian and can identify words like Nephi and Mormon. Persian is also weird because they read right to left and I was confusing myself switching between reading left to right and then right to left. I was struggling for a while, but then it just started to make sense being able to read the chapters and find the paragraphs that we can teach from. I was sad I was not able to use it but this week hopefully I will be even more prepared and the lesson will go way better than the first two. 

My companion is great. He reminds me of myself at the beginning of my mission. It has been so weird serving with him, but in a good way. I have really began to realize how much I have grown and changed in the last 21 months. I am pretty sure that is one of the reasons I am serving with him to help me see that I have changed, and how much I have changed.

This week will hopefully be better

Love,

Elder Cook

May 19, 2014

So we got transfer calls this morning and I am staying in Albany, which is not surprising. My new companion is from Samoa, but not sure if he left from there or from NZ or Australia. The sisters are also staying the same so we are excited to have another good transfer in Albany. My new companion has not been out that long, I am pretty sure this is his 4th transfer. I am excited and hope that this is a really good transfer.

The Zone leaders came down Monday night and left on Wednesday morning. It was really good to see them, especially because one of them was my companion two transfers ago. We also found a new investigator named Colin, who is an older guy. He is funny and he came to church on Sunday which was unexpected but was really good. We also taught some people from Afghanistan we found last week. It is a little awkward teaching them because their English is not the best and they speak Persian. We have a Persian Book of Mormon but it is hard to match things up, and they do not have any furniture in the front room so we sit on the floor and teach them.

This week has been good, and I am excited for a new transfer.

Love,

Elder Cook

May 5, 2014

This week was a better week. We had a really good lesson with a couple we have been teaching. We taught them about repentance, but they still do not quite get it like I would like them to, but they were willing to open up to us more. They have known missionaries for about 10 years in different areas that they have lived. The wife has had baptismal dates in the past but she doesn't want to do it without her husband. Missionaries have struggled to teach him but we have been able to begin to teach him. He knows he needs to join the church, he just wants to put it off, his excuse is that he is too busy and loves his toys too much, but he is making progress. They committed to come to church yesterday but they didn't show up so we are going to call them today and see what happened. We have been taking the senior couple with us and they have been great fellowship for them. That was pretty much the highlight of our week, teaching them anyway, not having them not come to church. Besides that we are still trying to find more people to teach.

Can't wait to talk to you next week!!!

Love,

Elder Cook