I have started my last transfer as of today

So it is official...i have started my last transfer as of today. The last six weeks of the mission has started and i dont feel any different. I was walkign aroudn today and jsut filling out my planner and as i got to the end i reaized that this would be the last one i woudl have to prepare. It was weird because through out this week we have been mentally preparing one of the people that we were living with to go home this week. You could tell that it was on his mind a lot and that the mission is just an amazing experience and something hard to leave behind, the people and place that you have grown to love especially. Finally it came down to last night and you just finally come to realize how much you love the mission and that i want these next 6 weeks to be some of the best weeks that i have had on my mission and from what it seems like we as a companionship we might do it. 

   i am stll with Elder Chuquipoma. We are getting more and mroe open with eachother and more and more liek firends. I have dfenitly been privileged to have him as a companion, especially to be his first compaion here on the misison. I feel bad that he will be my last companion but i feel like we are both learning a lot from this experience. 

   Somethign that was cool this week though is that my companion adn i became official  bakers again this week and we ended up doing a service for some investigators cooking home made bread and a doughnut like sweet called bolas de frayle. We were there cooking with them for the whole morning and they then left right after to go out adn sell it. These people are super nice to us and tonight they are offering us a asado because they feel like we are cool people and that we have already become friends so he invited us over.  

   So i am sorry that i don't have too much time this week but i just know that my mind is still a little fired from not getting a ton load of sleep just because i stayed up helping the other elder get his stuff done and making sure he had cleaned out everything that he was going to leave behind. I may have only slept a good solid 2 hours but i know what i was able to feel and see in that missionary is what exactly i needed to make sure that these last couple weeks for me are going to be the best! 

   I love you all and i hope for the best!

           Elder Cook

Another Tuesday email

 Another Tuesday email! yeah i know it seems bad that i have sent sooo many Tuesday emails here in San Fran, but it isn't my fault. With the parties and all that stuff in December but yesterday we had a storm that knocked out all the power in San Fran for the majority of the day. It went off at about 2 in the afternoon until 10 at night so there was no way we were all able to get our emails out this week.

   Talking about the weather this week, lets just say it has been one of the hardest weeks of my life. This week we have had hot weather. On Sunday it rained which means we always have a ton of humidity, the worst part is that sometimes after a rain storm we only have to wait a few more days and we will have another storm or maybe just a cold wind to wipe out all of the humidity, but this week we didn't have anything. It seems that we were swimming more than anything else. It made somethings just super hard, especially for my comp who cant really stand anything of just hot weather. It has been affecting alot the speed he walks and jsut the ammount of time he talks in a lesson, the hotter it is the less he talks.

   So there was a major miracle that we had this week that i wanted to tell you guys about. So about a week ago my comp went out on exchanges with one of the Zone Leaders and they found a person buying some sweets on the streets and they invited us over to their house. We went over and it is a family of about 10 people all of which are super interested. This week we will be helping them with a service to cook some of their sweets on Saturday and then on Monday they are going to be "paying us back" with a barbecue. My comp went to go see them again last night and they said that they feel that there is something different about us and he feels like we are already his friends even though we have passed by twice. It is amazing how sometimes there are just certain people who you need to find at a certain time.

   Another miracle, WE HAD SOMEONE SHOW UP TO CHURCH! It has been a long time since we as a companionship have had someone had church.This Saturday we had a lesson with a family that we had found that live out in the boonies of our area. We hardly work over there jsut because the peopel are a little more humble and usually cant get to church without a lot of help. But We had a very strong spiritual lesson and the dad came. We ahd a future preisthood holder come. It is amazing how the lord blesses us with hrad work. IT has been rough but we see the fruits. I love the mission.

   I love you all and i just love the mission. I truly enjoy every day and every minute, even though i come home just drenching wet from the sweat and the humidity in the air, i don't care because i come home satisfied and feel the approval of God in my life.

  Until Next Week!

        Elder Cook

I was in Arroyito the first half of the week

Well lets start with the beginning of the week, I was in Arroyito the first half of the week. As a district leader i have the opportunities to have exchanges with the elders and i always love that part of the calling because you see a lot of miracles. While i was their we found a Colombian family and they ended up giving us lunch only after a door contact. It was super cool and they ended up being super nice and that was only one miracle of the day. The second one was somethign that i realized after a lesson. I was walking away from a lesson feeling as normal as ever. My companion for the day looked to me and said, "I really liked the promise that you made at the end of the lesson." I thought about what i had said the whole lesson and i couldn't remember a single word of what i had said.´I just realized the truth of a promise that is made in the scriptures. The words will be placed in your mouth by the spirit in the moment that you need them. I haven't noticed it my whole mission but sometimes i just blame it on a train of thought, but really with learning a new language and trying to actually teach people about the gospel sometimes not a single word of a lesson has been mine but just the spirit speaking through me. I am the vessel and the spirit is the voice. I was very humbled and was very thankful for the two years that i have had to be that vessel after that day.

    Other than that this week has been pretty much a normal week. We keep finding people but it has been super hard to bring people to church these last couple of weeks. Mainly because it seems to me that Argentine people have a huge difficulty to get out of bed and walk to church when storms are on the horizon. And it hasn't helped that we have had a rain storm almost every Saturday or Sunday for the last 4 weeks. GRRR but yeah know part of the mission.

   So i already talked about how i like exchanges but another thing that i do like about being a district leader are baptismal interviews. I was able to do one this week for a girl that wants to get baptized. I cant tell too much about it but i can tell you what i felt during the time. It is a privilage to see the people truly bare their testimonies and how they feel. This girl had been through a lot and she had found that baptism is the only option that she seeks. and to share with me what it meant to her was amazing. I talked about Repentance with my district this week and it helped me realize what grand part of the work that we have to do when we call people to repentance. We are the call, we have to do it. It sucks sometimes but then you truly do see the blessings when they know that it is from God and that he is doing it because he loves us.

    Anyways i love the mission. I wouldn't trade this experience for the world. I love it

Elder Cook

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

       Yeah 2015 is here...that means a lot of things....that the mission is truly coming to an end....that scares me sometimes....i love the mission too much...i don't want to leave....

    The good thing about the new year is that you truly go into an introspection mode where you think of who you are and where you want to go in this life right. And as missionaries we truly think more about the spiritual side and how we are spiritually. IT was really interesting this week because what i truly felt was that i was figuring out how i could keep my spiritual goals but involve them to fit my goals that here in a bit will be more of what missionaries call Worldly goals. Our president is very good about us keeping our visions set forward so that we never are lost. I feel very good and i feel like what i am learning now is going to be worth more than anything else that i could ask for.

    Well we passed the new year with some very good friends of ours in the ward the Acosta Family. They are very kidn to the missionaries. One of their daughters especially just is so grateful for the missionaries. They were less active as of a year ago-but the missionaries have found them and started getting the whole family active again. They have become super excited and were even more excited to have us all four over at their house for New Years. They treated us like kings they had a us sit down as they finished up the food and then gave us some of the best food i have tried here in Argentina. They had an asado with what they call here a Picada which is just basically a buffet of appetizers. It was sooo good. i love the food here. I am absolutely surprised i haven't gained more weight than i have now.

   Anyway i am so grateful for this new year because it is just another year full of miracles and just hard work. I have a lot of goals to just finish out as strong as i possibly can and i am so excited that i can share it with the people i am right now. I love my companion. I love seeing a new missionary and how he has the faith to do pretty much everything. We have been working so hard and i am getting just so tired, but i continue on.

   I love you all and i hope that everyone had an amazing new year.

         Elder Cook