HOLA y gracias por todos de los Feliz Cumpliaños Well i think that will be enough spanish for today. haha well this week has been absolutely amazing.first off the baptism.the baptism was successful. It really was a beautiful moment. recently my district leader has been really good about asking me to be in charge of the music for the baptism services. the last 3 i have had a musical number, and it wasnt any different from this one. I sang two different numbers and i felt really weird beign bare foot and in white for the first one. oh well. It was super cool to have the experience. When he came out of the water he started to cry and he just hugged me in the font. We were both soaking wet by the time we left. The best part about it though was the fact that yesterday at church he came in with a suit coat and robbed my missionary tag and put it on saying, how do i look. He has desires to serve a mission. It just made me feel so good. He wants my tag when i leave from the area. He is super cool. One of the greatest experiences of my life. Other great moment of the week, we had three different conferences this week. one mission conference and two different sessions of Stake Conference. The mission conference was absolutely amazing. Both president and his wife came and said happy birthday to me and wondered why we didnt answer their call on the 22 because they wanted to sing happy birhtday to me. But we had lost our phone two transfers ago so i had to apologie for that, but they gave me a candy bar and said happy birthday personally and it sure made a good day. Second of all stake conference. We had present a seventy of area in Argetntina and i just got to say he was one of the most lovign people that i have every seen in my entire life. His name is Elder Juan Carlos Avila. He spoke in a way that just got right to you. Most of all his talk on missionary work on saturday was by far my favorite fo the whole thing. But for me the night ended better. We had just finished talking about saving our fellow brethern and all this cool stuff and we were jsut getting home. when we got out of the taxi Elder Richardson found 200 pesos. Well our first instinct was to ask our neighbor who he and his wife are less active members of the church. Well as we figure dout the 200 pesos were his and if we wouldnt ahve found it he would have gone without food for a day or two. So luckily we found it, he gave us a chocolate cake and then we started to talk about the gospel and stuff. Well started to admit ot us that he has now gained a testimony of Jesus Christ and that he is our savior but of the church he wasnt quite sure. Well as it all turned out it ended up being one of the most spiritual moments i have had on my mission of bearing my own testimony and wanting the best for him. as Richard G Scott said in his talk this last general conference "express the love that you have for them and then bare your testimony" The next day i saw him and his wife at Stake COnference happy as could be to be listening to someone. One of the little miracels that happen. Other than that we have been working our butts off. Tonight we have 3 different family home eavenings to attend and teach lessons for so it will be a really fun night. and the best part is that tonight i am going to have terriyaki chicken for dinner tonight. WOO HOO! super excited to have something from home again. As much as i am in love with the food here in argentina...it is startign to become reptative and so i like change. Speaking of food yesterday i had my first food that is only made like three times a year or four depending on the family. it is called Locro, it is just a really heavy soup with a lot of meat. It was super good adn the best part was jsut sharing the table with a mixture of every type o religion and culture. Just a really cool experience. I love you all and i just cant help but wait to see what the lord has planned for me and for my area. Con Mucho Amor Elder Cook

we had changed Branch Presidents in the ward

well what a week....this week started off with some news that we had changed Branch Presidents in the ward, and not only that but our zone leaders organized a zone splash in our area for today. so they asked us to meet with our new branch president and organize this activity for today. well we had basically everything ready, but one thing happened on wednesday that kind of made things a little hard for everyone. I lost my voice this last week. on wednesday morning i had a little bit of pain in my throat and by mid day...i had lost it completely. i couldn't let a single word escape my mouth. yeah where the job of the missionary is to talk to everyone..it made it a little difficult. my companion got stuck doing the majority of the work. but with all the meetings and things that we had to set this activity up...it sure made it hard. With all said and done i had lost my voice for 3 days. three critical days of special plans and teaching opportunities. with luck lots of pray and a blessing i got my voice back on friday but i still needed to take caution with it leaving again. All the members were giving me some sort of medicine or some sort of homemade remedy that would help me. Lets just say the majority of them dealt with drinking lemon juice and orange juice heated up. Good news for the birthday plans. I will be having a baptism tomorrow. The guy is named Luis. he is 18 and will turn 19 on the same day of his baptism. we share birthdays. He is super excited to be baptized and is one of the most chosen people that i have known on this earth. We will be having a type of birthday party for us both tomorrow which will be super fun so i am super excited for tomorrow. Other news of the day is of the splash that we will be having today. all 22 missionaries are coming to our area to teach for 2 hours of the night time. we are hoping that we will be having a lot of miracles happening this week as we use the references that we get. We are also hoping that through all this work we ourselves can find our area growing. WIth the change of branch president he is super excited and super young. he only has 28 years of age and got back from his mission 6 years ago. His 1 counselor is the same. it is going to be really interesting to have such a young leader but i can imagine that we will be seeing a lot of changes here in the area. well the work continues. easter was almost exactly the same as any other day. just a lot more messages focused on the atonement of jesus christ. it was a good day to share the message of jesus christ. I feel super loved here in Argentina and i know that this week will just be super fantastic. I love you all! Elder Cook

Elder Richardson and i have hit the ground running

Wow what a week. Elder Richardson and i have hit the ground running. we were working a butt load this week with trying to meet with all the active members of our ward and our investigators as well. Well lets just say in that process he got to know more of the less active families that we have been working with than anyone else that we have been teaching. He got to know a few of the people that we are working with but he has stated many times that it sure has been different from his last area. One thing that i have noticed is that i have had the luck to serve in 4 areas now and learned a lot about different circumstances and he is just getting to know the difference between the city and the country side. It was one thing that he is still getting used to. He is super cool and i have learned a lot from the new energy that he has brought to the area. we taught a ton of lessons this week and we sure did receive our blessings for all our hard work. we had an investigator at church this week. woo hoo. he has been reading the book of mormon and has almost gotten half way done with it. We have a lesson with him tonight so we are hoping to hear good new on how it went in church. Testimony meeting was great. we have been working with a less active family that has just started to become super active again in the church. they are preparing to enter the temple and yesterday the mom and her two daughters bore their testimonies in front of everyone. I sure about cried when the youngest stood up and didn't say a thing for 5 minutes and then started bawling testifying of how she wanted to be in an eternal family and how she loves the missionaries in her house. Lets just say that this family has sure become my family here in argentina. Other than that the other kids that we are teaching from the other area are super cool. Yesterday i had one of the coolest experiences of my mission. So yesterday we went to teach him the law of chastity. We as awkward as the lessons started off, he started to open up to us. We he has a gauge in his ear and part of the law of chastity is that he has to take out the piercing. Well at the end of the lesson he look at me and said. Tell me what i have to do. and i told him that if he wants to get baptized he will have to take it out. in that moment he took it out gave it to me personally and said keep this until my baptism and then we can talk more about it. It was such a spiritual experience for me and it truly showed that this 18 year old kid is so converted to god that he is willing to do everything to be baptized. Anyway the work has been super amazing the the miracles just keep rolling in. I love the work and i love everyone in general. Elder Cook

transfer day has come and gone and i am with a new companion

Well transfer day has come and gone and i am with a new companion. I am sure going to miss Elder Gomez, it was a good three months together. Time sure flies. But my new companion seems super cool his name is Elder Richardson from Las Vegas..but it isn't las vegas it is a town close by that starts with an H...i am horrible at this. Anyway he has just left his first area in the mission so this will be his second area. he has 5 months in the mission so 1 in the mtc and 3 in his first area. Still nuevito. We were going to see how this goes huh. Second of all i need to explain a story that has been going on the last couple transfers. So three transfers ago the other elders that live with us baptized a 16 year old girl. the family was interested but for one reason or another she was the first to be baptized. Well now this girl her aunt her cousin and her younger brother are all baptized members of the church. Right now her mom and her two other brothers are preparing for baptism. Well, throughout all the exchanges that we have had i have passed by on many occasions. I learned yesterday that after general conference the two brothers accepted a date to be baptized. the 22nd of April. and not only that they asked the elders if i would be willing to be the one to baptize them both. I am super excited and super humbled to have this experience. I love this family and they have been part of my time here in Jardin as well as experiencing my own branch here. Well Other than all this exciting experiences that are going on right now i just don't know what to say. We will be having a change of Branch Presidentes this next sunday so it will be interesting to see who it ends up being. i am pretty sure i know who it is, but other than that i am really not 100% sure. I'm pretty sure that with all these changes happening means new beginnings in our branch and in the work of the lord here in Jardin. i am super excited and i just cant express how much i love serving the lord. I share the gospel in a way that i can't help but say that i know this church is true. i know that joseph smith restored the gospel here on earth. i pray every night to feel the power of that testimony. i pray that somehow the gospel can reach to the hearts of those i talk to , and helps those that i love the most. This conference i thought a lot about the power of love, and how to show it. In all reality, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, and he so loved the world that he gave his life for it. I testify of the power of the atonement and how in all reality this is a gospel and church of Gods Love. For God so loved the world that he restored his church once again on the earth for us, to enjoy all priesthood blessings on this earth. Including eternal families and salvation. I love you all Elder Cook