4/4/2013 Can you still call me Cameron?  I am Elder Cook now....

My week hasn't been that eventful though. Surprisingly enough the MTC is just a gigantic school meant for language and gospel studies, except you can only leave twice a week and you only have so much time to sleep. The days are starting to blend into one gigantic day. These last three days have kind of melted into one. People tell you to make it to your first Sunday in the MTC and things tend to go by really fast. IT IS SO TRUE! I can't believe how fast my first week went by. We even had a ton happen. We got our fingerprints done on Tuesday getting us ready for the Argentina Consul meeting on Tuesday. We learned a lot of Spanish, and we already saw two different live devotionals. My favorite devotional was this last Sunday. It was by a member of the Seventy named Brother Ringwood. He serves in the Korea area. He ended up talking about Enduring to the End and how that is the only thing we can not really teach to our investigators. My favorite quote from him was "There must have been a reason that Nephi first went back to Jerusalem for the plates and second for his wife" or at least something like that. It was really cool. He talked about how we as missionaries are here to gain our own foundation so we ourselves can come back changed to endure to the end. I just hope that I can create a solid foundation of the Gospel in my investigators so that they can endure to the end.

  The next thing I wanted to tell you was about my visa status. So this last Tuesday we got our fingerprints done to officially start the international side of my visa. We are going to meet with the Argentina Consul this next Wednesday so we can actually start the visa process. After that we will send off our papers to the actual consul office in Los Angeles where all we have to wait for is a signature. They estimate that the signature will take about two weeks, but they are behind on the signatures by two weeks, so it is very possible that I won't get my visa for another 4-5 weeks. The great thing is that we have a very likely chance of actually going directly to Argentina. We as a district continue to pray about our visas and just hope that they will go through on time so we can all go at the same time.

    So everyone is probably wondering about my companion, room mates, and possibly district. It can all be summed up by one word Awesome. My Companion's name is Elder Lammers and he is from Pocatello Idaho. We both like theater and Pokémon. I never knew I would run into a bigger Pokémon nerd than Dad, but my companion takes the cake. He figured out an algorithm to the perfect Pokémon team. He is super cool. a little quiet but very cool. The other Elders in my room are Elder Babbitt from Arizona and Elder Zobrist from Las Vegas. Surprisingly enough my district is mainly made of people outside of Utah which is quite a rarity. Only one third of us are from Utah. I am super excited for this district and it will be sad to leave them behind. We are all getting a hold of Spanish, and I can't wait to start speaking as much as I am understanding. I have enough Spanish to teach and preach in the sense of baring my testimony and praying. Surprisingly enough I have survived 4 lessons with our investigators and can't wait to meet our next one. I am loving it here at the MTC and I am really excited to continue my journey. Onward ever onward. I love this gospel and I love being a tool in the Lord's hands. I am super blessed with the people that are surrounding me and I hope I am this lucky out in the field. I love you all and I can't wait to here from some of you again. :)

   From,

       Elder Cameron Jay Cook

P.S Pictures are of my room mates, my district, and my class room which I spend 12 hours of my day in. my companion is the shortest Elder.
P.P.S Dad, you said my room would be a small brick room. I got lucky by getting blessed with what the floor calls the Celestial Room. The ceiling has tiles that are like the sky and trees and so forth. I am super lucky.