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

A week of partying and a week of just absolutely hard work

A week of partying and a week of just absolutely hard work.

   So Christmas week is always an interesting but always rewarding week. ANd that is for two reasons. You always do have families getting together so you have more opportunities of finding new people that may have never heard the gospel before, and two the fact is that when families are together usually they don't want two strangers knocking their door and asking if they can come in and share a Christ filled message with them. Yes a few may let you in but the majority of those people not so much. But the few people that doo answer are very elect peopel and we know that they will most likely progress.

    So to start of the week, it has been a very interesting experience to train. First off sometimes you just realize that the guy sitting next to you sometimes just doesn't understand why you do the things you do. I may do something or say something and he then asks me why i do what i do and i realize that it isn't something that he does on a regular basis. For example today he asked me why i was getting in proselyting clothes if it was a p-day, then i realized he doesn't know what we do on a p-day. This was his first p-day that actually didn't have something weird like a Christmas conference or traveling so he was able to experience something normal and he doesn't know what to do.

   Also part of the week was a great filled Argentine Christmas eve dinner. We ate with a family here that i have grown quite close with (the Martinez Family) as well as they invited me to come have dinner with them. Brother Martinez cooked us up a barbeque with half of a pig, a goat, and a good rack of ribs. It filled me up fast. he let me help with the barbecue as well but it was more just a watch and learn experience because he cooks his asado a little differently than i have seen before but it sure saves money but it takes a golden eye to make sure you don't over cook your meat.

   Also this last week though we had a Christmas conference with the whole mission there. It was so interesting because i saw companions from the first part of my mission and realized how old i am because the majority of them are now past their year mark and making fun of me because i will be going home soon. I thought it was quite an interesting experience and kind of out of body thing where i just couldn't help but think to myself on how tired i was as i went around talking to people.

  Well finally it has come to the new year and i am getting pretty excited to start the new year. Start a new part of my life and see what life actually has in store for me. The new year is all about resolutions, and i have made a few, and i know that i will keep adding to the list as time goes on. But anyways i love you all and i hope that life just keeps giving out the blessings. I love you all!

    Elder Cook

...my companion is Elder Chuquipoma. He is an Elder from Peru

   Well i am guessing that you are all now trying to figure out who my new companion is.Well my companion is Elder Chuquipoma. He is an Elder from Peru. I am already in love with the guy. He is an awesome elder and i am super excited to be his first companion here in the feild. He has the fire like none other i always feel bad when we really have soemtiems nothing to do but we get a lot of thigns done. This week we put 2 dates with peopel to get baptized. It was amazing the miracles that we found when we just put ourselves to work with the blind faith that we were going to find the miracles that are waiting for us.

   Yesterday was the christmas confrence for the mission and ti is oen of only very few oportunities where the mission gets together. And this is the whole mission all 246 of us get together and we just have a blast. This Christmas they had a talent show and i was actually able to sing in it with one of my good friends here on the mission named Elder Toledo. It was super cool we sang Mary did you Know with a mixture of Spanish and English lyrics. It was super cool and though it may not have been the perfect performance i was super happy about it and it was fun.

    Well i am super excited about Christams. This year we will be celebrating it with a member family and the man of the house invited me to come learn how to cook the asado (barbeque) we will be cooking a full pig and a goat instead of the traditional cow. i am super excited because i have never cooked something so big before so i am quite excited to learn. 

  I love Christmas on the mission because it just give me time to think about Christ and just read the story and think about what opportunities and moments that i have as a missionary to share the good news that is Jesus Christ and that he was born so that we could actually be saved from damnation. From eternal suffering. From Death itself, And he opened up a door so that my family can be together forever and that i could go around for these short 2 years and tell people that they can receive the blessings.

   I love you all and i hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

         FELIZ NAVIDAD

            Elder Cook

i officially have been called as a trainer for the mission

What a week!

       transfers have ended and i officially have been called as a trainer for the mission. I will be receiving a newbie straight from the MTC. I will be taking a long bus ride into the city on Tuesday to make sure that i can be there Wednesday morning. I cant wait to get my new companion. I am super excited i get to have the opportunity to train a new elder. To be honest i am super anxious to receive him though because i will forever be his first impression of a missionary and that can create a bit of pressure but you know what i am super excited the same and i just hope that whoever my companion is that i can just have an awesome transfer with him.

Something about this week that i have learned though is that it is sometimes just the best to find the best part of life and just keep working your butt off until you just cant work no more. We kind of hit a dry spell this last week and just couldn't find anybody who wanted to receive our message or even wanting to talk to us and all the people that usually talk to us for some odd reason just weren't home or we just never caught them at a right time. It made things very difficult to work but as always when you work you find miracles.

  The miracle for this week has to for sure be a less active woman that my companion and i started teaching about 3 weeks ago. We were told by the ward to start passing by her because she had expressed feelings to come back. SO what happened Her visiting teachers passed by and then a week later we did pass by and we had amazing spiritual lessons focused on the sacrament and its cleansing powers. Next thing you know we see her at church. She had come by herself and she was welcomed into the ward with open arms. It was absolutely awesome to see her there, and even she looked even happier to just be able to have us there with her to congratulate her on coming back to church. Sometimes you just feel so cool to be part of these stories that you just know God has more plans for the people than the things that sometime we have planned for them.

But more than that this week was just a week to kind of get to know my companion a little more. Elder Weller and i probably got a lot closer in this last week than we got any other week. We just kind of let our feelings about some things out and it made the week as hard as it was better. I don't know what it is but i think that the companion is made for more than just a testimony and a teaching companion, but more for somebody that can just help you through a hard a difficult time, someone that can just be at your side when you tell him i am having a hard day. And the greatest thing is that i didn't just have him, i had my zone leaders, i had the other 2 elders in the pension, and then i had the best of all God and Jesus Christ right next to me telling me to just keep moving forward. They are all their to help me to succeed not to fail. Never do they do something to see us fail. Friends would never do that, and just to think God gave us Jesus so that we could have the opportunity to bounce back when we fall. The gift was his to give and ours to receive. This is the time of gifts but he gave something to us that we can hardly give back in return. But we can sure think about it. Christmas is a week from now and i just have been focused so much on Christ and what he did for me. I love the mission and i love the offering that i could give my loving savior after what he did.

   I love all of you and i hope to talk to you all and maybe even see some of you in a week!

 Elder Cook