start the day off with an adventure

     So we start the day off with an adventure. Transfers came in this
last week and it ended up being that in our ward and district
everybody ended up being transferred, except for me. they took out the
sisters and my mini went home. So it left me with getting 3 elders
today. The best of it  was today in the morning. They had told me i
would be going to the bus terminal to pick all 3 of my companions up.
Well it got to be about 1130 and we started to worry that my companion
wasnt there. He was supposed to be there at 930 and we had heard that
he actually had arrived there. After 2 hours of waiting no one knew
where my companion was and he was without a cell phone and no way to
call anyone or get in contact with us. So i was worried they had sent
my companion to some weird spot in the city where he was lost and
scared in the big city. Well gladly after 2 hours and a few frantic
phone calls, a member passed by the pension and found him waiting
patiently in front of the apartment door. we then flew over there so
he wouldn't be alone for too long and we finally got settled in.
   My new companions name is Elder Lactoure. He is from Parker
Colorado, about an hour away from Denver. He played tennis in High
School and loves to ski and mountain bike. an outdoorsy type of
person. i haven't had too much time to get to know him but i have a
feeling that we are just going to get to work and that we are going to
have some of the best times of our lives together.
   This last week has been filled with service projects. We had 3
different service projects this week and sadly i didn't bring my camera
so i couldnt get some good pictures to prove what i was doing. but it
all started tuesday when we cut down a willow for one of the members.
There are some branches that are precariously perched and he wanted to
cut them down before they fell into his house in the wind. so my
companion went up the tree and cut the branches and i was on the
ground breaking them into smaller bits so we could fit them into
garbage bags, we didn't finish that part because there are still a ton
of little branches and there isn't the great convenience of having
trash bins in your house.´
  other service was this friday we had to opportunity to sand the wall
of a member who is going to paint his house this week. the best part
about it was that while we were doing it, i cooked cinnamon rolls and
he was cooking an Argentine Asado. So pretty much we enjoyed the whole
Gringo Argentine experience with a good ole service project and
barbeque with a good fattening dessert. We were covered in dust
though. My clothes were completely white, it looked like we had
snuffed cocaine as well when we took of the masks because some of the
dust had entered in our face covers and only had the white powder
around our nose. it was super funny.
   and the final one was the same project we have been dong for the
last 3 weeks. we have been trying to put this electrical tubing in the
house of a member and we finally got everything placed and ready for
cables this last week. We got so much done that day. we had 4 people
or 2 groups of 2 people doing different rooms and we got things done
so fast. we cleaned up all the walls, and put the plastic tubing in,
and cemented them into the wall. this week they will be getting
someone to do all the connections and i will be finally able to see
the complete project and i will feel so happy just to see a light
switch multiple appliances running at one time. i will try to take a
picture of it sometime this week.
      Well i love you all so much and i am so excited for this
transfer and the weeks to come. i hope that everyone has a wonderful
week and i hope that everyone just has a happy wonderful time.
     Elder Cook

huge result of miracles

Another week of the same work but this end of the week we had a
huge result of miracles.
     First off, with the work here we have changed a lot in the way we
actually do the work. A lot more planning and a lot more talking with
members to help us out. Well with this we have focused a lot more on
the attendance of the sacrament meeting. We haven't had a lot of
success with reaching our goal of about 120 people at church. usually
we get around 90 people but this week with all the work we put in we
got 115 of our own members to church. i was so excited and even we had
more people that we weren't even planning for. The lord sure does bless a
good job well done. We Put the effort and we may not see all the fruits
until the end of the week. i love it.
   So it seems like this transfer has been titled the transfer that the
missionaries get to do a lot of service. as i informed my last email we
have been helping a member get her electrical done in her house. well
we still aren't done yet and hopefully by the end of this week it will
finally be done. We showed up this last saturday and we ended up being
the only ones to show up so we started beating into the walls to
atleast get the holes ready for the new wiring that is going in. i
accidentally whacked my hand with the hammer and it left one of my fingers
pretty bruised and swollen for a couple of days. Also we helped
someone cut their grass and now we have as well 3 more days this week for
service projects. We are keeping ourselves busy.
   I am sorry i don't have too much to write this week but it's because we
just did the same thing as we usually do but just a lot more. we put a
ton of energy into last week and as we head into our last week of the
transfer we are planning to do more than ever. i am just loving
the work and i am so privileged to be able to be part of the lord work. i
love it and everyday we see some sort of miracle.
   Love you all and until next week
           Elder Cook

I have fallen in love with Mate

This week was definitely a lot less exciting but a lot more
rewarding than last week.
       First off on the list of news. I have fallen in love with Mate.
For those who don't know what Mate is, it is the drink that Argentina
is known for. IT is the Herb drink that you drink with just the herbs
and the straw. Recently we have been allowed to drink it but only in
the apartment. This last monday i officially bought myself a set of
Mate and have been drinking it every day fro breakfast. I bought a
herb that has a flavor of passion furit. So yeah it is actually pretty
good for breakfast and dinner here. It fills me up and it makes me
really think that i may just have to drink this the rest of my life.
  Other news, this last monday we went on a hike as a zone to a giant
cross that is placed on a mountain. It was a pretty fun hike.  It
makes me miss the big mountains in utah. i think of my mountains a lot
and the place where we went (Carlos Paz) is a pretty good similarity
to the utah valleys. Still i miss how big they are and how they really
just guide me to wherever i need to go, but hey it makes me respect
htem a lot.
    Other cool fact, service project this week. we had a service
project where we are helpign a member run electricity in her house.
She is  a single mom with 6 kids and doesnt have life to easy, but
what was super cool is as a ward we got together to help her have
electricity so that here house could be more stable with the heaters
running all day long. For those who didnt know heaters take a lot of
electricity. I was in charge of breaking the cement walls so we could
put the fuse box in. that was a fun job. I would just like ot say that
i like working with wood houses a lot more than cememtn. But i learned
a lot and we are going to be finishing the project this saturday. I
dont have any pictures, but i will for sure send some next week.
    But i think the moemtn that i want to sharew tih you of this week
was a spiritual experience that i had this last week. Thourgh all the
excitingness of last week, i was hoping for a really chill and hard
workign week. well my companion and i got to work. Especially with one
family. This family is really close to my heart because since i day 1
i have felt something special about them. They have been members for
atleast 13 years but they havent been for atleast 10 of those. We ahve
been wrokign supe rhard and they just havent been able to budge. Well
This alst week we got into there house and i had a weird feeling to
share a ceratin scripture. When i say weird it is those feelings that
you just cant ignore as a missionary that is the spirit tellign you to
say something. Anyways it ended up leading to a few questions and the
mom started to cry and telling us that it was time to come back to
church. after 10 years of being completely against going to church to
now feelign the spirit in her home again.  the next time we came the
same spirit came to share a different scripture but ended the same to
lots of tears and the most spiritual prayer that i have heard from the
dad. I have really enjoyed being a missionary. i lvoe feeling the
spirit.
   Love you all and thank you for all the spirit and prayers that i
feel from you.
     Love
            Elder Cook

This week has sure been the most interesting of my mission

 Well this week has sure been the most interesting of my mission. Lots of things going on. We had a lot of exciting moments through out this week. First off on Tuesday i talked to more than over 90 people over the course of the day. you know how usually all we do is talk to people as missionaries. well Tuesday my district was assigned to take over a booth that our mission is trying out that has a giant stand up poster with questions on it. then we as missionaries just walk around talking to people trying to get names and addresses to pass by. Well my companion Elder Martinez doesn't like talking to people so we have been trying to overcome the fear by doing a few things. By the end of the day he really hadn't talked to anyone so i just said look it isn't that hard you just go up to someone ask any question and then talk. he told me it wasn't as easy as that. so i told him look it doesn't even have to be about the gospel. so to show him and example i just went up with him to a random person who was looking at our poster and asked "le gusta arroz con pollo (do you like rice with chicken)" and my companion about busted up laughing. the guy looked at me weird and we then started talking about things. he was a Jehovah's witness and doesn't have a lot of interest but it sure opened up Elder Martinex to contacting 2 people after that. A good accomplishment.

     After that this week has been filled with just meetings and looking for a new house for the sisters in my district. It has been super crazy just trying to look for a house or an apartment. we live in the suburbs where there are only super rich houses or super crappy apartments. so trying to look for a perfect little place for two sisters was difficult. we finally found a small house close to the one they have now. they are super excited about it and we will have to see how it turns out.

    Speaking of the mini it seems like people have questions. Well Elder Martinez is called to serve with me for 6 weeks, a whole transfer. he lives with me and stays with me like a regular companion would do. the only difference is that he shares my responsibilities but not the calling. he has different rules, like right now to communicate with his family he is using facebook. he can talk to his family whenever he wants and just has to be with me.he is like a real missionary but he doesn't have everything that a missionary has. he is just a priest at this moment so he cant give blessings or anything like that. So it makes for some fun times when i get called to do blessings because i end up doing them alone. I have gotten really good at giving blessings in Spanish. Other than that he acts and does everything that i would do.  we live together just us two in our small apartment.

   Speaking of our apartment. we got a complete remodel of our house. They called us on monday and told us that they were going to come in and do some little fixes on friday. they came in told us we had to take all the pictures off our wall and had to prepare the room for complete painting. so they painted our room and we have been having problems with our heater and i jsut thought they were going to fix it, but in they end they just took it out and haven't put it back yet...so we dont sleep in our room for the moment because there is a hole in our wall that all the cold night air enters in so we are sleeping in our kitchen and using our small little oven to keep us warm at night.

   well other than that i guess the stories just could keep going but i dont have too much time to just write them all down. but i love the mission. i love being called as a district leader because it sure has shown me what true service is. i love my district and i love the unity that we have created. I will be sad to see this transfer end. i love you all and i hope that everyone enjoys the week.

     Elder Cook

the week kind of started off pretty rough for the argentine people

Well....the week kind of started off pretty rough for the
Argentine people. Their team ended up losing by one point. It was very
different feeling yesterday. i was heading back after the game and
just heard nothing but complete silence in all of Cordoba. The only
thing that was heard was the sound of one noise maker but it almost
sounded like just the sound of utter sadness. It was quite different
from the celebrations of Argentina that was going on when they won
against Holand. Very different but i do have to say that i feel very
lucky to have had the opportunity to be in Argentina during such a
grand time of Argentine history. It will be a moment that i will never
forget.
   One cool thing though came out of yesterdays game was from the
investigators that we watched the game with. About 3 months ago two
boys got baptized through a member reference. These two guys have been
super cool and some of the most firm in the church. but the thing is
the rest of the family started off being super against the church and
really trying to influence them to leave the church after they had
joined. Well recently we have just tried being friends with the dad
who had probably the biggest stand against the church. well yesterday
he officially called us his friends and has invited us to come by his
house at any time we want. I think more than anything the lord has
really just opened up his heart. And now he does accept our
invitations and even as said that one day he will be at church. I hope
that maybe i will be there to see that.
   This week has been really interesting time wise with just the fact
that because of the games our schedules have been swapped in every
direction just to accommodate for our better times of talking to people
but lets just say that it was really hard in general just to get into
the houses of people because people where traveling all over the
places just to be with family to see the games. But we did have
miracles and we did find new ways to look at the work. i am super
tankful for everything that i have and super thankful to have this
great opportunity to serve the lord. I love the service of the lord.
Until next week!
   Elder Cook

Argentina won their two games this week and the country is now jumping for joy

WOW! Argentina won their two games this week and the country is now
jumping for joy. it is insane the amount of people screaming in the
streets and in almost every contact i get some sort of comment that
Argentina was THe united states revenge against belgium. Both of the
games were during our lunch time and i do have to say both games
really got you just tensed up just to see who would make a single
goal. the game against belgium was just crazy because it came down to
the last minutes. the whole country i heard scream goal for that
minute. The world cup is taken really seriously here and now that they
are in the semis i can just imagine what will happen if they make it
to the finals.
    Well other than soccer this week has been for sure an interesting
one. WIth a new companion i have found that sometimes it is hard to be
a teacher. My new companion didn't go through the MTC so he doesn't have
a lot of knowledge or practice of the missionary lessons. So we find
ourselves practicing a lot the lessons and just what you have to teach
every day. It sure has made for an interesting week because i find
myself talking a lot more in my lessons. Sometimes i realize though
that as much as i know my spanish isnt perfect, i surprise myself with
how much i understand and how much i can actually respond. GIFT OF
TONGUES FOR THE WIN!
   Well with an interesting experience of the week actually happened
yesterday. We were going to a house that the family is a less active
family. They all live together in the same kind of area. Actually you
open up the front gate and you have the 4 houses in the same area.
Well we have been working with only one of the kids but yesterday i
had the feeling that i needed to talk to the other brother who was
working in the workshop. Well we started talking to him when my
companion said, "is that a helicopter" to my surprise i looked more
intently and the machine that was sitting right behind him was a full
blown helicopter made from scratch. A home made helicopter. We started
to have a conversation about the helicopter and he told us that his
dad who died about 2 years ago was an inventor and had the desires to
make a helicopter. More than that this helicopter was made so that his
dad could go fishing in places where cars couldn't get to. Yup a true
fisherman right there. And the best part of it all wasn't just that but
the one that i sitting in the garage is the second one that he made.
As we continued we talked about things that his dad had invented, and
not just that but right before his dad died they had a dream to start
streaming an actual television channel. They are planning to reboot it
this week and have their own personal tv channel. That same day i
looked up and realized the gigantic antenna that was shooting from
their house. Yeah this family is super awesome. one of the most
interesting families that i have gotten to know in my time here. i
think i am going to be seeing this family in TIME magazine one day.
    Well other than that i just keep getting through the weeks and
realizing that i love the mission. as much as i miss celebrating over
there in the united states the holidays, happy july 4th to all, i
still just love serving the lord. i love you all and i hope that
everyone enjoyed there time of the holidays.
    Love Elder Cook

A mini misionero!

Transfers came around again and i have been found with a new companion. A mini misionero. His name is Axel Martinez. The mini missionary program is huge here in latin america to give opportunities to help Youth learn about the mission as well as fill in places for empty places that cant be closed down. Elder Martinez is 18 years old and is from the city of cordoba. he lives about 30 minutes aways from where we are serving right now. He is super cool and super loving and i just loving working with him. we will have to see how things work out this transfer because i just feel that it will be filled with miracles.

Other things that have happened this week was a super cool experience that i had this week with a family of investigators. Last week we had found a super cool family that My companion had been working with for a while. it was super hard to find the whole family together and then we finally did. the best part about it was our lesson with them was super spiritual. we then offered to help her out with some service that she was needing and she accepted. We helped her for 2 hours cleaning up her front porch of things that she had just piled there when she had moved into her humble home. After the service project we invited her to come to church. More than accepting she was completely willing to leave behind other things so that she could come to church with us at 9 in the morning. The best part of it all was that they actually did come. we all know of how hard it is to get people to church and i can just say this family was so good. at 9 o'clock they all started getting ready to go to church and were in the church at 930 so that they could partake of the sacrament. The best part was their kids were probably the best mannered as well. they all sat down and just watched with such reverence. i was super surprised and super excited to have investigators.

Pero, i am so happy to be a missionary and every week i just keep seeing more and more miracles in the work. the lord sure does bless his servants and i know that he loves each and every one of his children. he finds them in our times of need. i love you all and i hope to hear from you all next week. Elder Cook