Where There is Much Opposition, There is Something Worth Finding.

9-9-12

Hello. It’s Sunday afternoon. It’s our lunch hour after church and we are preparing for a lesson we are giving tonight. We are pretty excited for it. 

We might as well just jump into the week. Transfers happened this week. I’m now with Elder Liati. He came from the country. The cool thing about us is that we came out at the same time so we are pretty green together but it’s pretty mean that we’re together. We’re excited and we’re going to set this area on fire. 

Last week I was made District Leader which to me isn’t cool. It puts a lot of focus on where I don’t really want to focus right now but it’s a growing experience so what the hay. I’ll take it and I’m going to be happy to have all the help I can from Elder Liati. I’m pretty stoked to be with him. I am sure though that for the rest of the mission I really just want to be a regular missionary. I feel that that’s what I want to do because that’s where I can put the most focus to help others. But it’s whatever I’m supposed to. 

This week we sucked some raw oysters out of shells because some of the Zone Leaders brought them by. So I said, “Yeah, we’ll eat those!” Liati is the man; he does everything for me and knows how to show his love. We’re always going around serving one another and he’s always making my bed or whatever. Right now he’s serenading us with music if you can hear him since we are at the abandoned chapel. 

You will not believe what I found last week. We went to this way broken down place to get some snacks for our district meeting and I found Chalula, made in Mexico; they only had one bottle. It was medium size and it was a pretty hefty price so I had to use a little MSF fund for it. I don’t regret the decision yet though. Hopefully we’ll get fed sometime is week. 

We had a lot of less-actives come to church today. One of which we are going to see tonight. We are teaching her boyfriend and we have a member coming.  After six weeks of working with her she finally came to church and we are stoked. She is starting to progress. She is really sweet and really thinks the lessons will be good for her, that kind of sums up our week. 

So usually I do this recording on Sunday nights but I have to do it during our lunch break now because Sunday night’s I’ll be correlating. I’m already going to miss the time to do my own thing at night, relax and do my own thing. But all is well when the Lord has called you to do something. 

I’ll let Elder Liati introduce himself:

“Good day – I’m Elder Liati. I’m from Sydney. I was born in Tonga so I’m brown; a Tongan boy. Cook and I started together so this is the greatest to be serving with him. Elder Cook is one of the best companions I’ve had even though we’ve only had three companions. Still he’s probably going to be my best. Don’t worry Sister and Brother Cook, I’ll look after him. Or most likely he’ll look after me because of how big he is. He’s a really good missionary number one; we’re going to rip it up. I’m grateful to be with him. You guys raised up a good son. Always know that. Thank you for all he’s done and raising him up to be the missionary he is today. We’re doing really good.” 

Another thing about Elder Liati is that he’s a personal trainer so I’m so sore today. So I’m going to be ripped by the end of this transfer. 

We went out contacting this week. No success from that but where there is much opposition, there is something worth finding in this area. It’s the beautiful thing that we are the Lord’s soldiers and we’ll be out on the front lines working for him. 

Another thing is that the elders in this area got doubled out and we got sisters doubled in. I don’t know how excited about that I am but they are pretty good. I’m not going to talk about sisters because they are good missionaries. 

With that said, hope you have a good one. Keep the faith and we’ll see ya.

Elder Cook