This is a "keep the faith" mission ...and not be hindered by our human nature.

May 20, 2012

Hey How’s it going? Its Sunday morning there; so good morning. You guys are lucky. You’ve got the sacrament ahead of you. Look forward to it. 

It’s weird, once I got on my mission I realized how organized I am. Everything just has to be organized. I hate when the kitchen is messy so I have to do the dishes. I end up doing them often. But I love it. I never saw myself becoming a neat freak.

There is this guy down here, I don’t know if anyone knows of the Maori guy that carves things out of bones. He lets us go over there on P-days and do our own carvings. I love it. Tell dad to start collecting bones because I’m going to be carving when I get home.

Some people are shocked that I haven’t tried a beer in my life. There is this part member family who are investigating the church. They are not in my area, I’m so jealous… it’s a whole family. Ya know the islanders all pack into the same house. Also everyone is shocked that I’m only 19 years old. They think I look so much older than that… which is cool. 

So, I learned that when it says “the gospel is going to be preached to the ends of the earth.” It was talking about Perth; yeah Perth - Earth. When Gordon B. Hinckley came to Perth he said, “Perth Perth, end of the earth”. So with a little bit of revelation I was able to pick that up and spread the word. 

We have a baptism coming up on Saturday so that’s pretty cool. The yearly goal is 250 baptisms by the end of this month. That’s a record breaker goal here but we are on track. Last year they had about 170 baptisms or less. Last year at this time they had 33 baptisms and this year we have 76 right now so we’re on track. We hear of other missions where there are baptisms once a week. They know nothing of struggles. But this is a “keep the faith” mission for sure. You have to have that strong faith and strong will to know that the Lord will guild you to people and you will be able to find them.  

Tonight we just went to a dinner which was a feat in its own and then afterward we went to a less active family who basically just said don’t come around here anymore. Actually that’s exactly what they said. Then we went and said a prayer. As I was saying it I felt my heart swell like they say. Seriously that’s what it feels like when you feel the spirit. I prayed for success that night and that we’d be guided by the spirit. We were biking and decided to go visit another guy. We didn’t even get to him but we ran into this lady. I’m very friendly. I just like to spit out the gospel and share it but she said she had her own church. It was frustrating because this message is so important. That didn’t even go anywhere but we have to just keep the faith. 

We got to a train station and met a girl. She was right away open with us and shared her feelings. She said, “There has got to be a God. There’s got to be something else out there.” She didn’t believe that we came from monkeys and stuff like that. She said she just didn’t know how to tell if it was true or real. I got stoked and thought, “Boy do I have the answer”. After she finished we told her that we had a message to share of how she can know it’s real. So next week we’ll meet with her.

Australia is the refiner’s fire for sure. The Lord is sticking out. There are hard times here… especially when you hear about other missions.  It’s just these people are so unreceptive to the gospel. Yeah there are a lot of nice people but they are just really blunt. Also, people here are sometimes just lazy. It’s pathetic. A lot of times people are too lazy to come to church. They have a testimony, investigators and less-actives, but they don’t come. It’s really hard but so rewarding once you get those people who will listen. You seriously have to talk to everyone and not be hindered by our human nature.

Tell Jerm to read Alma 34:13…He’ll know why after he reads it. Pay attention to the name that is said. Oh and he might as well keep reading on.  In fact, I want everybody…I challenge anybody who reads this message to read Alma 34:13 because I just felt prompted that you all need to cry unto the Lord in prayer; Cry unto the Lord. Also as you read on, if I am correct ( I studied this yesterday in personal study) you will then learn about not procrastinating the day of your repentance. How true that is.

So I didn’t really get a chance to do this on Mother’s Day because I was talking to everyone but Mum – I am so thankful for you. You have done so much for me and I’m so sorry I haven’t been as thankful in the past. Obviously I’ve been your best son. I’ve appreciated you the most out of any of them but I should have done better and I’m sorry. Just know that when I get back I’ll be a better son than I was before. I’ll love and serve you for all my life because you’ve done so much for me. I’m so happy that you’ve got me here, along with the help of others but you’ve done so much for me by example.

I’m happy to be out here on my mission right now. I know it’s the right thing to do. Trevor was right. You do find out that it’s a war out here. You can see God’s and Satan’s hand in everything in one way or another.

I do want to share my testimony that I do know this church is true.  I know that as we build our foundation on faith we will be able to gain an even greater knowledge of this gospel; Just to find out for ourselves if its true. I remember a time when I was living this gospel, well not living it. I was just going through the motions. I’m sad that I didn’t read ponder and pray early in my life. I wish I knew this gospel was true when I was younger and I wish I had lived exactly by it. I can press that enough. 

Again, I love all of you back home, Australia is the best!

Elder Cook

Oh random fact in case you all were wondering. Shrimp – it doesn’t make sense here to say, “Let’s put another shrimp on the Barbie”. They’re called prawns here.

Oh more good news… they have Tabasco here. So spread the word.

Another random fact is that it seems education is not important here. People actually just go to school until they’re 12 years old or something. Some obviously graduate high school, some don’t. But people just start dropping out of school and its normal because here in Australia you just have to get a job at around 14 or 15 years old and begin to get a trait. It’s crazy.

AUSTRALIA, PERTH I arrived! - Rockingham

May 13, 2012

THE MISSION

So my companion is the District Leader of our little district of six missionaries. His name is Elder Keers, he's a stud - very obedient missionary. Good to have his example.

Our mission is the most expensive mission of all missions actually. Everything is just jacked up here it's pretty crazy. For example, at petrol stations it's a dollar fifty or something per liter, and there's 3.7 liters in a gallon so yeah, you do the math. It's also the biggest mission, but that's like landmass-wise otherwise not so much. Most of it is desert.

Right now my area is Rockingham. It's about an hour South of Perth, I guess. In our district there's one car that we kind of share but Cornon is the biggest area so they get the car every day. We bike; sometimes get the car when we need it for whatever reason.

ABOUT AUSTRALIA

So it's raining like crazy here because it's starting to go in to the winter months. Today actually, we were just walking, I mean biking, and it started raining pretty flipping hard and we figured if we're gonna get wet we might as well have some fun with it so we just biked around and got soaked in our shirts.

It's really trippy driving on the left side of the road. It was weird but it's a lot easier now. They basically only have washers and everything else is air-dried, which is alright I guess. Another kinda weird thing - their escalators are flat. Kinda like airports', but on an angle. That was weird.

Also, something that I think is way sweet are "posties", like mailmen. But the mailboxes are in the middle of their lawns, so they either ride bikes or motorcycles and just drive up on peoples lawns and deliver the mail, it's pretty sweet.

Yeah, really healthy here. It was pretty cool cause we went to Mackers today, I mean McDonalds for yous over there. And mediums are like smalls in America. It's pretty cool, because you don't get fat. Well, you still eat unhealthy, but you don't get as fat as you could.

The spiders here are huge, ginormous,the creepiest spider I've ever seen, the size of a tarantula basically. Yeah I think Keers is just killing a spider right now actually. The story of our life. Good stuff, good stuff.

THE FAITH

Oh yeah talk about a flippin roller coaster -  this mission is constantly up and down. I guess all missions are. Spiritual highs one moment and then  nobody wants to hear the gospel. It's frustrating but you know I'm learning to just let it roll off my back because there are people out there who want to listen. 

There's a lot of either rude or nice people. A lot of people are just like, "Oh no sorry love, don't want to hear that right now." Or something. Most people are very distant from religion and don't want to hear about it. But today we had a good experience while tracting.

I didn't have much faith in tracting but I was developing faith. We knocked on this door and this kid answered, he was in his teens so we were thinking, "Oh great." So we just did our approach and asked if he'd be interested in hearing the message. But He said, "Yeah, you can come in." So we went inside and taught the first lesson.  I shared the first lesson and the Spirit was there, it like hit him right in the face. So that went pretty good. It was a spiritual dance party for a second.

The people are good here; a really good solid ward. It's amazing because at church the wards are a lot smaller obviously. Here, wow people can't wait to share their testimonies and it's amazing... just awesome. I wish people back home were more like that.

We've had a couple dinners with some islander families. One's from Tonga, and the other ones are from the Cook islands. But the ones from the Cook islands - there's about 27 people who live in their home and me and Elder Keers are trying to memorize all their names, so that's a trial in itself but it's good.

And eating their food - you know how islanders do it- they just pile on this massive plate of food. It looks amazing before you get started but once you get going, you just get so full. Today, a little bit earlier, I was eating my meal and you know, I had to eat a lot. I mean, Keers can just put it away, I don't know how he does it, he's smaller than me. Afterwards they had dessert and I'm like "ah I'm gonna die". I was sweating and I felt sick but you don't want to offend them or anything. We eat pretty good during the week, Keers can fix up some mean meals. So that's good.

Stay safe, keep the faith, and we'll talk to you later.

THE MTC Week 2

May 2012

"I wish I would have paid attention better in class" - It seems that this is a common shout out to youth and a reminder to all adults. Its not until we are put in situations where gospel knowledge is needed that we look back in heinsight and wish we'd have cared more when it wasn't a necessity. When we are not asked to prepare a talk in church, when we don't have a calling where we are perparing lessons to teach, are we paying attention in class to prepare us for those moments - to bring to rememberance the things we have studied? Are we paying attention in class so we will be able to hear the spirit whispering... and better yet, understand it?

All is well and I can't wait to get out and teach. I'm getting way stoked. It's seriously the coolest thing when the spirit is there and your teaching someone a lesson... it's so powerful! I'm lovin' it. I didn't realize how important it is to be able to talk to people and I tend to have a nact for it. I've had some really cool experiences and those were when i was only teaching my teacher... it's like a spiritual dance party.

Be sure to tell Bro. Martin that I wished I would have paid attention better in class haha!

Oh so the food has actually gotten better...still it's still ya know but I like it more than I did before.  

I'm gonna need all the blessings I can get. Not to scare anyone but I talked to an aussie and he was a little dramatic...I'm gonna die. Well anyways I love you so much I can't wait to talk again. I"LL BE IN AUSTRALIA!!!!

THE MTC Week 1

April, 2012

"A sacred missionary." - Its amazing how the MTC starts to change you. Not necessarily the MTC, but the Spirit that abides there. I "hope to become a sacred missionary". Not just a missionary but a sacred missionary. In our efforts, no matter what we are involved it, are we trying to become sacred? A sacred teacher? A sacred member? Or even a sacred person?  Its then that we ask ourselves what it means to be sacred.

Everything is going good, I'm starting to enjoy it. My first few weeks were really tough but it's going good now. I've been made district leader so my responsabilities are through the roof.  It's stressful and it makes life busy..more busy. Oh and Mitch is district leader too... so I guess he is a stud.. or he could be in my case and not a stud but still district leader.

I hope you got my letter I sent it sometime last week. It's really frustrating that I only have thirty minutes on the computer but whatever. I'm learning a lot, they just cram it all in the first few days and all I wanted to do is go home. I miss Sage and obviously my family.

I don't know what T and Krista were talking about but the food is not good.

So this sunday at devotional Elder M Russel Ballard came and it was amazing. It was like a spiritual nuke to my face. Also it's David Archuletas last sunday so he sang The Spirit of God.. and wow. He has the greatest voice ever that kid is a stud. Also I saw him everyday cause he was in the same building as I am. I uh held the door open for him and said, "Hey Elder."...it was pretty epic. Anyways someone should have told me he was so short, it bothered me.  

I think i'm finally getting it down and trying to teach through the spirit. It was so hard but it gets easier. i'm not hating the MTC but i can't wait to get to Australia... I just wish I was super unreal at teaching so I wouldn't have to be here for another two weeks.

I'm trying to get a grip on this work and when it feels like i've figured something out I get humbled in some way or something. I've learned a lot about what KEEP THE FAITH means. I still don't feel prepared enough for this work. I gave a blessing last night and it was pretty cool. Actually I just stood in but still awesome... I miss you guys and hope to become a sacred missionary. My comp has grown on me a lot. The kid is here for the right reasons.

THE MISSION CALL

Thanks to all of you who came and have supported me during my preparation to get here. Family and friends came; and more were skyping on the phones, and listening from afar. I couldn't believe I got called to the Australia Perth mission. It pretty much took my breath away and I had to take a moment to compose myself. I was so overwhelmed, scared, humbled, and dang excited I was going to someplace exotic all at the same time.