We celebrated the official one year in the mission!

Well this week was a little different from the other weeks. First off we celebrated the official one year in the mission. It was super fun we had like 20 people there and it sure made for a good party. It was even better because the asado was one of the best that i have had here in Argentina. Our neighbor is one of the best chefs that i have met here. He was the one who made the asado. Another thing that happened this week was I AM OFFICIALLY LEGAL! and even better SOY ARGENTINO! Last friday i went to finalize my papers to get my DNI from Argentina. I dont have the card yet but in the next 30 days i will have it and i will not be illegal here anymore. The secretary was really relieved as well because it only lasts for a year. well when i told him i only have a little less then a year left he said that i was a blessing because i wouldnt have to come do it again. I feel lucky because even though i am legal and all that. the 7 hours of waiting in lines was pretty killer. Woke up and 5 in the morning and left with two other elders from the zone and didn't get back home until 3 in the afternoon. it was pretty killer. And finally the thing that changed up the week was the fact that Elder Gomez my comp had to go to the dentist 3 different times this week. The dentist office was about 6 blocks from our house but we ended up being there for a while. The thing we learned is that He ended up having to go get a root canal in the city so we ended up being there for a couple of hours on thursday. It was quite a fun experience for us all. But one thing was he had a hard time talking for a while due to problems of the anesthetic. Well the work keeps going forward. We just had two new families move into the ward and they seem super cool and super fun. As well as one of the hermanas will have her baby this week. And a change of branch president is going under way. With all these things going on, with transfers coming up i think we will have almost a completely new branch to work with this upcoming transfer. Well the work continues on and i love every moment of it. I cant believe sometimes how fast time is flying by. Time really flies when all you do is work your heart out until night comes. I hope that everyone is enjoying the wonderful spring time over there in the USA. The fall is sure coming hard on us. More rain and a little less heat. Still i cant believe at times where i am at, what i am doing, and how i am doing it. but i guess that is why since the beginning they have just told me to trust in the lord. It truly works out in the end. I love you all and i hope that you are all having the time of your life. Elder Cook

We worked a ton this week with a lot of walking

Wow what a week. We worked a ton this week with a lot of walking. We were helping prepare for a baptism this week for the other elders that live in our apartment. They were over at their house basically every day for lunch and they would invite us to lunch every day so every once and a while we would go over with them for lunch or to help with something. With luck and a lot of blessings we were able to see them baptized as well. They asked me to sing two special numbers for their baptism. It was a little improved but it was really cool. It was fun to sing again. i miss singing a lot, but we have been given the challenge to share our talents more with our investigadors. I have been trying to sing more often in our lessons and more often just in the house. I love singing, it truly has power that touches the heart. With this as well these last two week have been a lot of celebration and a lot of activities. Last thursday we had a little activity where a sister from the ward and i cooked cakes and mate and we watched the jospeh smith movie for some members and investigators. It was little improvised as well. We made the activity and then two days later we had it. With a little bit of luck we had a good turn out and really did feel the spirit. Next activity will be tonight. We are going to celebrate the year in the mission with a gigantic asado. Elder Celis and I are celebrating this one year together so we wanted to make it the biggest we could. We have about 20 people coming. It will be super fun. I will try to take a lot of pictures. As well this week my companion and i have decided to eat a little more healthy. We bought more than 10 kilos of fruit which is like 20 pounds of fruit. Yeah talk about healthy. With a refrigerator full of fruit and milk we find ourselves eating a lot of cereal, milk shakes, and fruit for breakfast. Well i love you all and i hope that you all have a great week. I know that i have and i just get more and more excited to do the lords work. Every week we see miracles and every time that i open my mouth the lord surely does fill it. Te Amo Elder Cook

So this last week we contacted a guy in front of his house

Hey everybody! what a week it has been. in all reality it has been super crazy. With the week starting of so great with paint ball i didn't know where it would end but we had the blessing to have one of the greatest endings of the week anyone could ask for. but to start i am going to start off with a wonderful missionary story that has been developing over the last week. So this last week we contacted a guy in front of his house. He was working on his yard and when we started talking to him he really didn't have any interest at all. He tried to shed us off by giving us the excuses that we hear 24x7 as missionaries. But we left him with a pamphlet and before we left we asked if we could say a prayer. He reluctantly accepted. My companion elder gomex said the prayer and after the prayer, something changed in him. He almost started crying and promised us that he would read it. this week we didn't have time to pass by but we saw him working on his yard again. He screamed to us as we passed by ¨Jose Smith¨ and we laughed said hi and went on our way. saturday we were walking to the church and there he was again working on the yard. We decided to stop this time and take some time to talk. We learned he had read the whole thing and that he was more interested in reading the book that Joseph smith left, referring to the book of Mormon. Well we passed by right before we came to write emails and all that to give him a book of mormon. He promised us that he might start today but he wants to read it from cover to cover. Gave us a promise that he will read the whole book, not only that we now have a return appointment with him tonight. What miracles. Other wonderful thing of the week was two baptisms that we had this Saturday. They weren't convert baptisms but member baptisms. tow 8 year old kids were baptized this week but they were from two families that i am super close too. It was amazing we had taught these kids all about the what we need to do to be converted, and when the day came i couldn't imagine what spirit was in that room. We had 11 people that werent members sitting and watching this baptism. and at the end of it all the eight year old boy stood up in front of them all and invited every single on of them to be baptized. At 8 years old and a better missionary than most. It was simply amazing a moment that i will never forget in my mission. Other exciting things happened this week like losing our cell phone in a taxi, walking a lot, and having an interview with President. But in all reality that things that have stuck in my mind of what happened this week was those two events. I have been blessed to be here in this area to see miracles. And a whole lot of spirit in the members and my companion. I love life, i love the mission, and i love all of you. Thanks for the love and happy St Patrick's day. Elder Cook

Well we started off the week with an exciting adventure

Well we started off the week with an exciting adventure. First off. We played Paintball as a zone today. I recieved a few hits but nothing really bad. It was super fun though. We found ourselves playing in the middle of a field with old cement houses and with tires and ply wood to protect us. with 19 elders it was super fun as well. Our team ended up winning the 3 games we played so we rocked it as a team. The first two games were attack and defense of one house. One time to attack and one to defend. We won both. The final was to capture and to protect certain areas. We won that time as well. Super fun. One of the best pdays that i have had on the mission so far. For last week....hmmm as i think about what has gone on i think a lot about the miracles we have seen in contacting. We have been chalenged to just talk to everyone in our path and atleast 10 extra people outiside of our normal work. This week we actually tried to do that more than the other weeks, but there was a time that we were in a bit of a rush to get home. Late a tnight and we were tryign to get home on time when we passed by a lady who said Hola Hermanos...The girl by her side started to laugh but we heard that she said that she called us Hermanos because she went to the church before. We ended up contacting her and she was an ivestigator of the church for almost 5 years and her son 12 but never were baptized and they dont know why. THey want to return to churhc now. Super cool. shows that you just got to take the time to contact. Other news of the weeks was how cold it ended up being this week. I can feel winter coming right towards us. My fear is that i have been in super hot humid weather for so long that when the cold hits i will die. I ahve foudn that actually the cold weather si gettign to me at night. No more sleeping with out a blanket. Thats for sure. We had two huge storms this last week. They actually remind me a lot of the storms that we had in Florida. Rains a lot. Lighting striking right outside, or right next to you as you are waitign outside for a member meal. Super fun i love the rain. My jacket sure helps me out. Well time is running out and i have told enough. I love you all. I will try to get more out next week. I love you. Elder Cook

A week full of miracles this week

A week full of miracles this week. Especially with the power of prayer that we have seen all this week. This week we had a challenge to contact everyone in the street and atleast share a prayer with them and have a short 5 minute lesson on the street or at their door step. Well lets just say for us it seemed like just a way to boost up numbers at first, but then en all reality we found why we need to have a prayer with everyone. It turly invites the spirit to everyone. We had a ton of people willing to invite us into their houses after that prayer than before. It was quite a cool thing, we learned for sure our leaders had a reason. We had a super cool expereince of Mexican food this week. It was the first time that i had guacamole and tacos since ever. i can say that i am starting to miss spicy food. spicy here isnt really a word. salty and greasy yes but spicy no. But i can sure say that it was quite a refresher to taste some good old food from mexico. in all reality i am finding that my weeks are becoming very similar and i feel that as i try to find this fun things that i did this week are the things that i do every week. i wash clothes, i walk and talk to people, we see miracles, and then we teach and talk to everybody. Well, so if anyone has questions send them please becasue i can never think for myself because when mondays come around i forget of everthing that we did...haha.... sad truths. anyway i love you all.