Wild (in) Florida

Hey Everybody!

   So this last week has been super crazy. We met our new mission president this last week at a Zone Conference. He gave us all these coins that are super cool. I don't have a picture of it but I carry it around in my white shirt pocket all the time so maybe one day ill take a picture. He is super cool. His name is President Berry. He lived in Draper Utah and he said he knew some Cooks and he just left it at that. He is super on top of things. He had these crazy transfers that have happened just yesterday. People were basically ET'ed(Emergency Transferred) with most of them exchanging today. It was super crazy. We had this companionship that lived in the same complex as us and one of them was freaking out yesterday because he got the call to be exchanged. One day i hope i might get that same call but to go to Argentina!

   This last Monday we went to Wild Florida which is basically a zoo for some crazy animals...mainly Alligators. The cool thing is, is that this place is owned by a member of the Church so missionaries get in free and get a discount at the gift shop. We were there for about an hour  and saw some gators, some watussi's, and even a ZeDonk. Which is a Zebra and a Donkey mix. I have a few pictures that i will be sending of some of the crazy things that i saw there. So you will be able to see a part of some of my adventures.

   So one crazy thing about this week was during our meet and greet with President Berry we were told that this Huge storm was going to come and get us so we would have to be super safe. Well we saw the storm come in on Saturday and we were freaking out because it looked menacing. We went immediately back to our house to make sure we weren't hit by anything to serious. Well....Let us just saw the look was bigger than its bite. It rained for an hour or so, but it wasn't anything too serious. We still stayed inside because of the lightning, but it was just way disappointing. 

   Nothing too exciting has happened this week. Still haven't heard anything about the Visa besides the fact of I might be staying here from a member who's brother had the same problem. His brother got his Visa three days before he was going to be staying there for his whole mission. I know the Lord will put me where the Lord needs me to do his work. I love this work and i see it affect the lives of the people i talk to. Even if they don't recognize it fully, i see it. The lord blesses us every day. My challenge for people this week is to just write down a list of the things you are thankful for. You would be surprised on as you update it through out the week you see the Lord working in your life and how much he truly has blessed you. Even if you only do it for a week, you truly see how you are blessed. 

  I love every body. Peace and Blessings to you all.

       Love

                 Elder Cameron Jay Cook

So first off, I got a hair cut today. It was about that time where my hair was just getting way to long for this weather. Bugs would always get into my hair and I just hated it. So finally got a hair cut done by the wonderful Elder Giraldo and now i hope that i won't be dying of the heat nearly as much as before.

  So nothing really much happened this week besides the fourth of July and that made a lot of things hard for everyone. Every one is out of town, everyone is super busy(Especially the Spanish people) and no one really likes the missionaries over when they have their extended family over. The cool thing was we had a really cool time with the members were were able to see and were able to stay up until 10:30 to watch fireworks and such. We had our ward and the Zone Leaders come with us the Kissimee lake side fire work show and it was pretty cool. We did some contacting here and there. Got a few potentials for our ward, and moved on to watching the Fire Works. We had a really fun time.

  So i kind of wanted to share a quick scripture for this message. I was reading in Habakkuk because i just had a strange feeling i should and i fell upon this scripture. It is Habakkuk 3:18-19

18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

19 The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.

   I really liked this scripture because it truly just proves what the Lord can do for all of us, especially when feeling a little tired or exhausted. This last week has been really rough for our companionship. A lot of our investigators are stopping to progress and are becoming really flakey which scares us quite a bit on their true desires. I was truly tired this week. Then i found this scripture and found inspiration again. If i rejoiced in the Lord, he would carry me to the places where i couldn't do it myself. I finally found the energy that i needed to move forward. I am so thankful that i have the Lord to help lift me up. I can rely on him to move his children to progress and myself to a place where i can stand and declare his word to those who are ready to recieve it.

 I love this work and every day i witness the truth of why i am here.

    Love,

       Elder Cook

Hola from Florida 7/01/2013

     So this last week has been crazy. Once again we were hit by a flash storm that just poured on us. We had just arrived at a potentials house when the clouds rolled in. We were just about done with the lesson when bam, lighting everywhere and it was pouring. We finished the lessons tried to call a ride but it didn't work out so we decided to bike it out. 13 minute bike ride home and we were soaked. The rain was absolutely crazy.

     Speaking of that lesson before it rained. He is a super positive investigator now. We had received him from a media referral from the MTC. He wanted a Book of Mormon. He had received a card from some missionaries while out working construction He called the number and now we are teaching him. He is super awesome. His name is Miguel Rodriguez and he has a family of his wife and two kids. We are super stoked to start teaching him. He says he wants to start involving his whole family in our lessons. He is super awesome already willing to be baptized and everything. If things go as planned we might be having a lot of baptisms soon. Yay!

  Also, we have been teaching this little 9 year old for a few couple weeks and it has been so cool to see him grow in the Gospel. Kids are just so amazing when it comes to these kinds of things. It also helps because the Mom and the kid’s siblings are already members so they have talked a lot about it with him. The only problem with him is that we just can't get the dad's approval to have him get baptized. We are hoping the dad softens his heart before the kid has to leave but if anything we have planted something within him that will hopefully soften the Dad's heart when he goes back to live with him in a few weeks.

    One crazy story for the week. So we were teaching one of our investigators about opposition from Satan when deciding to take the steps to repenting when her neighbor walked over and started cussing us out right in the middle of the lesson. She just said that our investigator shouldn't believe a single word that we were saying to her and that nothing we say is true. After she left our investigator told us that she wasn't even close to her and basically didn't even know her. HAHA it was so funny.

   Other news, I am still in Florida. Yup and probably will be for a while. Nothing else too exciting has happened this week besides the fact that I am feeling a lot more comfortable with listening to people in Spanish. I know that I am not perfect quite yet, but I am feeling a lot comfortable. I am able to participate more in the lessons because I am able to finally understand about 80 percent of what people are saying. I know that as I continue to work that the Lord will bless me with the ability to speak Spanish.

   I love this work and I have truly been blessed with the many miracles on this mission. I have been out for now 3 months and things are just speeding by. I know that this mission will be a precious gem. I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for me in his work.

   Love,

  Elder Cameron Jay Cook

So the first picture is of me right after the other storm.

2nd is of my bike...out of commission again. We went to go fix it today. It should be good to go with a quick fix. As good as new.

So first off, It rained... a lot!

So first off, It rained...A lot. I sent soem pictures trying to capture how intense this storm was. The morning started out fantastic as most mornings in Florida do. The next thing we see is some clouds in the distance and say to ourselves, "Oh it will probably rain today". We we got to one of our member meals when next thing you know, it starts raining. Wait did i say raining i mean pouring. It was creating a river outside of her porch. We then shared a quick scripture with her and rushed to go save the other elders who were trapped in the rain. We went to go pick them up and next thing you know, we are driving in a river. No joke. The car was creating a wake and water was being flung all over the car just from the puddles on the side of the road. Yeah Tropical Storm Andrea was nothing, just a consecutive rain. We were drenched after 3 seconds of being in that storm. We to get through the water to our car we had to do high knees just to make it so we wouldn't be stuck in the water. Yeah that was a fun crazy few hours.

   The great part about this last week is that I got to know my new companion. Elder Baugh. He is super awesome. He is super awesome. He is a magician. He does tricks here and there that just blow my mind. He loves playing board games too. He owns farkle so we play that with our free times during breakfast and lunch. We have a running total games that we play. He is kicking trash right now.

   Other news from this week. I'm feeling really good with spanish. I'm feeling more and more prepared as Argentina seems to get closer. Just the other day we were biking to an investigators house when a guy yelled at me and said "Hey" i stopped and he asked me if i spoke Spanish. I started speaking with him and he asked me what i was doing dressed up and on bikes. I basically taught him about joseph smith all by myself and all in Spanish. It was absolutely crazy. I felt so good about it. He even accepted a Book of Mormon and started reading it right after i left. He just sat down on a bench and started reading. It was so awesome. I'm hoping to see him this next sunday so we will see what his full potential is.

  So a lot of changes are happening here in Florida. President and Sister Hall are leaving and President and Sister Berry are coming in as new Mission President and Wife. I don't know how long they will be here before i leave, but that just means if they arrive while i am here, i will have a new mission president also in Cordoba when i finally make it down there.

  I'm still in Florida, but i truly don't know for how long. I love it down here, storms and all. I am hoping i get to see a baptism while i am here, but if i don't life goes on i know that the people that we are teaching now that they are prepared enough to be baptized. Saul has come to church now three times and loves it and is now participating in Gospel Principles. Iris as well made it to church this last sunday and we are hoping she had a positive experience.

   I love being a missionary. The lord has blessed me in so many ways. He has blessed me with the Gift of Tounges and the gift of interpretation of tounges on multiple occasions. I  know that i am learning Spanish so quickly is because the Lord is preparing me. He has prepared the people here in Florida for me to meet them and also he is preparing people in Argentina as well. The lord is truly preparing the way. Big things are happening in the world and i am one of the few who get to witness the changes that are happening first hand. I love this work and i know it is more about me leaving for two years to serve the lord. I am making a difference by doing the Lord's work. I am starting to lose myself in it and having so much fun doing so. I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for me.

   From,

      Elder Cameron Jay Cook

    Hey Family and Friends, Guess what? I'm still in Florida. 4 of the 9 Visa waiters are leaving today though. Yeah, I know that I still have something to do here in Florida and I know that the Lord has blessed me for keeping me here for a 2nd transfer. The thing is, I don't know how long for this transfer I will be, it could be a day, it could be for the whole transfer. I got a letter from the Missionary Department saying "we are working on your visa don't freak out" Yup, it was pretty nice.

    This last week has been truly awesome though. We have found some pretty new and solid investigators. One of them is a 9 year old that is a son of member who has an investigator as a boyfriend. Yup I know that is a little confusing but we have two investigators in one house, the 9 year old speaks English and the boyfriend/step-dad speaks only Spanish. The thing is, it just makes them want to come over every day to teach each of them haha. They are an awesome family. They make us food all the time too, even if we don't want them to. They made smores for us this last week. We have them tonight again. They are the Avilleneda family. The parents are from Paraguay the cool part, they speak kind of like people in Argentina. It is really cool. I love being over at their house. It makes me happy to know that I get to spend a little more time with them.

   Saul is still doing pretty well. With his work schedule it is really hard to teach him, but he has come to church now twice. YAY! He basically is ready to be baptized, we just have to finish teaching him. He is super positive and I hope to see him Baptized before I leave. The cool thing about him was I was able to have a full conversation with him yesterday. It made me feel super close to him. This last Sunday he came and we had to translate for him. The coolest part about it, I had to translate for him during a couple of the meetings. He then approached me after church and told me how he liked my translation and really liked singing Soy Un Hijo De Dios(I am a child of God) and he understood it because we sing right next to him in Spanish. He is loving church and he has found so many friends. He is so solid and I hope to see him Baptized.

  Another interesting story. We didn't get to sleep until 2 o'clock this last night. You want to know why? It was because we were helping another companionship stop the flooding in their apartment in their bathroom. We got a call at 10:30 last night right before we went to bed from the companionship that lives in the apartment close to us. They called freaking out because their bathroom was flooding and starting to flood their bedroom. We went over there and their bathroom was taking on water from the walls and it was crazy. We were soaking up water with towels and the mop like crazy. We then just had to wait for the senior couple to get over and try to contact the emergency number. We were up until 2 because we couldn't sleep just in case we had to take in the other elders into our house and the elders didn't have a functional room. Well the senior couple just gave us permission to go to bed because the flooding had slowed down to a stop by that time. Yeah so I am a little tired today but I think the lord is blessing me because we still got up at 6:30. Obedience for the win.

  We have had so much success this week. We have found so many cool people this last week and we have a companionship record of 5 progressing investigators for this week. YAY! Our companionship is changing up this transfer. Elder Jackson is leaving for a different area and we will be getting a different elder who will be replacing him. We are hoping that this will help maybe fan the fire in our area that we just started. I love all of this and can't wait to learn some more from this area and from Florida. I love you all and I hope everyone had an amazing Fathers day.

   From,

     Elder Cook

These are two pictures from our District Prep Day.

1. Me at the Waterfall pointing at the crashed plane up there. Isn't that cool. Shows that Mini-Golf is taken seriously in Florida    

2. Sorry people, I sunk in some quick sand, good thing I was rescued!

(zoom in, quicksand only left behind Elder Cook's name badge, looks like that floats?!)

So the glad news is I didn't drown in my first tropical storm, or get struck by lightning which is always good. This also means that I was in Florida the whole time. I have not left for Argentina yet. No news on the Visa yet either. I think it will be one of those things that I will hear of it and then next thing you know I will be on my way out. Yup, it will be quite an experience.

  More about the storm. Well lets just say the work truly does press forward no matter the weather. I think out of this week with the tropical storm I was out in the rain for the majority of it. The only reason we do stay inside is because lightning is close by. We have 30 seconds of a buffer between flash and sound. If it is anything closer than that we have to take cover. For example these last two days we have had dinners scheduled with members. The day looked all great in the area and we started biking to the member’s houses. The sad thing was we got half way there and it started pouring buckets and lighting was 5 seconds between flash and sound. Yup it was pretty crazy. We had to cancel the dinner, but the member did bring us food at the Publix that we were stuck at for 2 hours waiting for the lightning to pass. The other one was yesterday. We had had rain in the early morning so we thought it was the end. Well we biked down for another dinner and next thing you know BANG! Flash and sound 3 seconds. Yeah we took cover. The good thing was, the member was willing to pick us up in his truck with our bikes and take us to his house. People are so nice.

   The missionary work continues down here in Florida. Saul and Iris continue to be our most positive investigators. We are pretty sure both of them are going to be baptized in the next couple weeks, which is amazing. Iris is having a hard time getting to Church because of work, but she said that if she doesn't get the next Sunday off, she is quitting. We didn't tell her that, she just knows that getting to Church is that important. She is amazing. She is making cheese cake for our little movie party we have planned for her this week. We will be watching Finding Faith in Christ. Haha she is so funny. She thinks I am weird because I don't talk a lot but I am working on my Spanish enough so I can speak up a little more. 

  The other is Saul, He came to church yesterday. He called us 45 minutes before church and asked if he could come. We found him a ride; he came to church and really loved it. It also helped we had a Linger Longer and he was able to meet the members and he enjoyed himself very well. We are going to try to get him to church this next week and hopefully get him a new date for either the 29th or maybe even earlier.

  Ahhh anyways. I truly do love this work and there is no doubt in my mind that this Church is true. We have a special opportunity to be here in the fullness of the Gospel. With a living prophet on this earth who can give us guidance straight from Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father and that is all through the Priesthood. I love being a missionary and even though we may have to fight through a few storms and may not get our lessons because of it, we are still pursuing the will of the Lord. He blesses the work and will make sure it is done the way he wants it to be done.

  I love you all, I’m missing Bear Lake but the great thing is I just get to experience getting drenched in the rain haha. Good luck with the Garden and all that sunny Utah weather.  

So I thought I would explain some of these photos for this week and the others from last week. So two of the photos from last week were from our dinner with the Bishop of our ward. He is super nice and has truly made our work in the ward easier. The one with the all the missionaries was at Mini Golf with some other missionaries who live in the same apartment complex as us. The one guy holding a cake is an investigator we had that just moved to California. It was his birthday so we made him a cake. It was the last time we saw them it was quite a sad little day. The one with us holding the cake was where we were at a cake auction. The bishop gave us some money to bid on a cake, well we won the big old chocolate cake.

 Well, the regular transfer time is almost here. I can't even believe how time can seem to fly by. The weeks just seem to mush together. My companions have even told me that the first transfer is always the longest. Well these next two years are going to fly by with amazing speed if this one is supposed to be the longest.

            Just to let you know I am still in Florida at the moment. I don't know when and I haven't received any sort of update of when. The sad thing is, I am truly loving the people that I am serving and it will be hard to say good bye. There are so many people here that I just want to see them progress and see them realize their relationship with Christ, but that will be really hard when the Lord needs me in Argentina.

I have gained relationships here also in Florida while spending the last few weeks here. I have gained the Nickname Elder Galleta which in English means Elder Cookie. Yeah there was one elder in my District who just called me that one day and it stuck for him, the thing that sealed it was one day we went to see an Investigator and I said Hi my name is Elder Cook and he said "Oh Elder Galleta si" and my companions busted up laughing so now I will forever be known here as Elder Galleta. I am going to miss it here, but I know that my feelings truly don't matter when it comes down to it because I will lose myself in the work over there in Argentina as well.

  The Investigator we had with a Baptismal date set for couldn't make it to Church 2 times before his date so we have to move the date. It was hard to see that happen, but you know what - life goes on. We hopefully have some more positive Investigators that we can set some baptismal commitments with this week. We are feeling really good about the work that we are doing here in Kissimmee.

           

Well, I continue to see miracles while I work here and I wish I could put all of them down and tell you about them. The hard thing is, it would take longer than the hour that I am allotted. I love this work and I truly get to see the wave come in. There is so much forward movement in the work of the Lord. God has prepared his Children for the restored Gospel and it truly is amazing to see the changes that it can make in people’s lives. I love this Work and I can't wait to see more. The Work of the Lord is truly hastening.

 

Love you all. This Church is true.

        Love,   Elder Cameron Jay Cook

PS: For anyone who is sending handwritten letters make sure to put my full name because there are 2 Elder Cooks in the Orlando mission so you never know when you have two people with the same last name.