Wow what a week

Wow what a week. First off what an amazing weekend i have had. Two days i was blessed to hear from high general authorities. Saturday we were blessed with the Presence of Elder Ballard and Elder Rasband(Presidency of the 70) and wow did they teach us a ton of things. One of the greatest blessings of that was it was all in English. They had a translator there of course for the people that didn't speak English but it sure was a refresher for me to hear some spiritual advice in English. Then the next day we were blessed as a stake to listen to Elder Rasband as well. It was soooo cool. One of the coolest things of that was how we got to the conference this Saturday. Well we woke up on Saturday morning at about 6 in the morning so that we could be at the chapel in another part of Cordoba at about 8 in the morning. With luck we have a taxi driver as a neighbor so he is willing to take us at that hour in the morning. Well we left on time and everything was good and fine. right as we left it started raining, and then after driving for a bit, it started pouring. We entered into the city and we found that the streets were flooded and with the hills of Cordoba we found ourselves driving through the rivers of Cordoba more than the streets. The bad luck that we had was that the chapel that we needed to go to was smack dab in the middle of this river. We found ourselves fighting through this river but the car couldn't make it through. We stopped on the side walk and decided to walk the rest of the way. We found ourselves crossing some of those rivers, but with luck and some jumping we only had some wet socks for the conference. As well with the second week of the transfer i have gotten to know my companions in this pension super well. We are all getting along super well. We have a lot of fun together. We have found ourselves making a lot of pizza in the pension. Elder Mendoza, Elder Celis, Elder Gomex and I, it is just one of those fun times that makes the work a lot easier too. A happy missionary is a smiling missionary right. I like having pensions with only Latinos. Only Spanish and the culture that they all bring is just different but i always find the fun part is when we find something in common. Anyway the life continues on we are working a ton with the members know and the vision of the mission is the tone day we don't have to tract anymore but that we can just walk talk and teach. Anyway, i love you all and i hope that everything is going great for you all. Elder Cook

SURPRISE we had transfers

SURPRISE we had transfers. but the thing is that nothing really happened with us. Elder Gomez and I are together for another transfer. We are super excited because we have a ton of things going with in the branch and we are just so excited to start getting them rolling. Nothing changed with us but the other companionship that lives with us, Elder Curtis and Elder Mendoza, had a change. Elder Curtis left for another area and another Latino came to fill his place. Once again i am in a apartment filled with latinos. I am really excited for this one. the last one was just super fun and i can just imagine all the fun that we are going to have this transfer. This week was a little slow in the means of the work only because we had rain storms all week. We still worked but we would find ourselves soaking wet at the end of some nights. But all things a side i am for sure enjoying my rain storms more then the blazing heat. Gladly i am used to the humidity from florida so that doesn't bug me too much. Everyone is preparing for the special conference with Elder Ballard this saturday. My companion and i have volunteered to be in the choir that will be singing a special number at the conference. there will only be 6 people from each zone singing and we were the first ones to volunteer our time to do it. It is sure a blessing to have a companion that enjoys singing as much as i do. We have a practice this tuesday. The chapel where it is at is right across the street from the gigantic walmart here in Cordoba. ill try to take a picture or two. Well, i have run out of time i am sorry but it sure has gotten harder to think of what things i can actually tell to you all...I keep up the work, we knock doors, we contact on the street, and we work with members. I really cant explain all the miracles that i see in one day, but i sure do testify that the lord is hastening is work and always shows what love he has for his children. I love seeing the tender mercies of the lord in the work. It makes the week a little brighter. I love you all! Elder Cook

Hola!

Hola! So officially i can announce this to you guys because they announced this in church yesterday but in 12 days we are going to be blessed here in Argentina with the presence of Elder Ballard WOO HOO. I am even more lucky to not just have one conference with him but 2 WOO HOO. He is going to be coming to speak to the mission on February 22 and to our stake on the 23. AHHHH i am so excited to here from an apostle. The zone is buckling down on the urgency so that we can show that are truly working down here in Argentina. Hope it shows. Other than that this week was kind of a roller coaster for us as a companionship one of our main investigators was in a car accident on her motorcycle with her boyfriend. She was pretty beaten up. She showed up the lesson cut up bruised and barely could walk. Lets just say that she wasn't able to come to church this last Sunday. We were able to give her a blessing and we are hoping that she recovers. It seems just like a sprain and bruising. That is the hope. Other than that we had a super cool miracle that happened to us this last week. So we have a little town, Bouwer, in our area that is about 30 minutes out of the city. We take one day out of the week to take a bus out to the town to meet with some less active members and trying to establish a branch out there so they can have there own branch. We have felt that there is a ton of potential in this small little town of 600 people. This last week we went and we were blessed to find a family. The strange thing was the daughter at the age of 11 was baptized but not confirmed that was about 10 years ago. So we are working with her and her family so that she and her family can all be baptized. They all have a lot of questions and are looking for a church that represents Christ. The father has a lot of questions about the restoration so we have a lot of hope for them. Well, not much has happened this week. The rain is starting to come to introduce the fall season. It gets cold sometimes in the morning but if we don't have any clouds the sun kills us all. We keep on walking. We keep working, and we are really trying to help the people here in Barrio Jardín. Se Amo,a todo. Elder Cook

i was finally called in to be legalized here in Argentina

So good news everybody this week i was finally called in to be legalized here in Argentina. WOO HOO! i am going to be legalized as a resident of Argentina for the next year. We started with all the paper this week. It was quite an adventurous day as well. I received the call Monday night and then the bad news was that i would have to be at the mission home by 5 in the morning...we live about 30 minutes from the office which isn´t too hard, but to prepare two missionaries was a bit difficult. We ended up sleeping in until 445 which was the first exciting part of the day rushing to get ready and out the door. Gladly our friendly neighbor who is a member and taxi driver woke up and took us to the mission home at 5 in the morning. We were a little late but the secretary was waiting for us and we sped off in the same taxi to do our paper work. Well lets just say that we were in line from 545 until 8 when the building opened. Our secretary told us that we have to do this like Black Friday, we learned why at about 7. the lien was about 2 blocks long. wow. We then waited to do some paper work and fingerprinting until about 10 o'clock. When that was finished we did some other paper work at the police station here in Cordoba, another 2 hours. by 1230 or so we went to go take pictures and go find a place to eat. Well after all that i returned back to working the day away. This week was once again blazing hot. We were blessed with clouds but i think my body is just getting used to the 95 degree weather now. I was looking at the weather and realizing that it is about an average of 35 degrees the last week. i didn't think about that being too hot until today when i realized that it is about 94 degrees. HAY CALOR! Well other than that this week has been super busy and super fun as we think of the life of a missionary but hey i am still loving it. This Week we were able to have a little activity at the church. My companion and i did a little theatrical piece. The members that we had there absolutely loved it. I am sad that i wasn't able to capture it on camera but i think that one member was able to film it so we will see if it appears on Facebook or YouTube or something like that. We then had a little activity and game about the armor of god and that sure made for a fun thing as well. We are hoping to have an activity now once a week. that should make for some fun things. Other fun fact of the week is the fact that we had a day filled with service this last Saturday. Not just that but it was a day of an exchange. So elder Mendoza (a new elder form Mexico) and ended up helping a member move a fridge about two blocks by hand. Lets just say my arms are still hurting from that, and then later in the night we had an opportunity to paint the patio of the nice and friendly taxi driver our neighbor later that night. We sure did celebrate that night with some ice cream. It was a fun day though, Well as the weeks keep going i see that the weeks are just the same. We walk, we testify, and we touch the hearts of people that the lord needs us to talk to. For example this last week we had the feeling that we needed to visit a potential that we had passed by a couple times with no success. We then passed by this last week and found the husband sitting outside. We asked how he was and he just said very bad. We learned that his wife had recently died. the strangest part was that my companion had seen her two weeks ago. It is just so strange but we were able to share a quick message with him and we plan to pass by again. The things the lord puts in your path to help his children in need. I love the mission. I love you all and i hope that this next week is just full of great things. Elder Cook