Elder Cook: October Update

Oct 6

Good morning!

It is a great month! Perhaps one of the best months out of all of them! it started of with a really good General Conference and there were all so many good talks! I have a ton of notes and i was going through them this morning and started underlining challenges that they all left and other things that i felt like i needed to do! There were a lot of things that i need to do... Ha but i have at least until next General Conference to apply some of them! So i am looking forward to that! I liked the talk that was given! I cant remember his name... i am horrible with names. But it is the one that talked about aligning your life with what your patriarchal blessing says so i went through all my notes and wrote down anything that applied to my patriarchal blessing and that is what i will be working on! So i am excited for that!

Last week was pretty slow! We had to drive into farmington to get a prescription for Elder Thompson so on Friday we were gone all day! But everything is going good still! We are trying to do our best to continue to focus on active members. We had another zone training on active member lessons and what we can continue to teach them to help them get more involved in missionary work. So along with praying for missionary opportunities we are going to be teaching the members about setting due dates. So having a date set where the member will have someone ready to be taught by the missionaries! So that was pretty cool! Just like how we set a date for people to be baptized, we are inviting the members to prayerfully set a date with the Lord to have someone be taught! We are excited! At church last week we had some members come up to us and they had some missionary experience they wanted to share with us so we have a journal that we write in whenever a member has a missionary experience! but anyway that is all that is going on with the work here! It is a slower process but we are hoping that all our efforts will work out!

We have zone conference this Wednesday and that is when we get to watch Meet the Mormons! We are pretty excited! And also we are hoping to get more news on the ipads. I heard that we are going to be using our home facebook so i am curious to see how that works! but anyway not much new! Its suit season now! Ha so my suit will be done with after this next 6 months! Also we had a spiritual experience this last week on Saturday! We were able to go to a less actives house to watch the afternoon session of General Conference and of course it was good! but something cool was that Ed, who is the less active, really enjoyed it and at the end he said he was able to learn and remember quite a bit and he knew he needed to work on some things! It was cool because Ed was shot in the head a year and a half ago and he has had a hard time remembering stuff but the Spirit was able to help him remember the things he needed to and he knew how he could apply them to his life right now to help him in his situation! So that was really cool! But all is well!

Love,

Elder Cook

Oct  13
This last week was a really good week! We had a lot to do! So it first started out with going on an awesome exchange with Elder Jacobs! We had a really good day and a really good experience!  On Tuesday we got done with a lesson and we were looking at the planner on where to go next and we decided to go to this members house to see how things were going. We got there and noticed that her car wasn't there but we still went up and tried it. As we were walking up the ramp to the front door, a guy said, "Get out!!" So we looked at each other but kept walking. Ha so we were walking up with some dogs and it turns out that he was talking to the dogs so that was good to know.  Ha but we came into his view and he saw us and said, oh sorry, not you guys. I was talking to the dogs." It was pretty funny. So that was the experience. Just kidding but he was Sister Mott's son, who is an active member, and his name is Karl. He hadn't gone to church in a long time and was a little hesitant but he let us in. We ended up talking to him for like a half our and he told us how he lacked faith and he was going through a pretty hard time. So Elder Jacobs and I gave him a scripture to read in the Book of Mormon and he sounded really excited to read it! That made us excited as well! But he asked for a blessing after the lesson and said that he was glad we stopped by. He has a lot of doubts and questions but we told him that he could have all of those questions answered if he put forth a little effort to seek the answers. He was really excited about that so we are going back tonight to see how things are going for him. He went out to Tuba City because he had court so he was also stressed out for that! But he felt a lot better about it after the blessing!
On Wednesday we had Zone Conference and that was really good also! We had the opportunity to watch "Meet the Mormons"!!! It was really good! it was really funny at the beginning! They opened it up in a great way and it caught my attention really quick! You should all see it if you havent already! It was so good! I wish i could watch it again! Also one of the parts in there, it shows Snowbird!! Ha i miss snowboardin! ha it was cool though! really good movie!
Thursday we had Elder Christensen with us who is the assistant to the President! He is an awesome missionary! He taught us a lot! We were only with him for like a half a day because he had to take the long 4 hour drive to Farmington! Ha i have made that trip way to much! But on the bright side, i know how to get around like the whole reservation without being lost!
The weekend was really good also! It is starting to get cold and i am loving it! It feels so nice down here and i am excited because they have a couple of festivals coming up that are pretty big so there will be a lot of people in Page! Elder Thompson is doing great! We have transfer news this Saturday so i will let you know how things go next week! Hopefully i will get to finish out training Elder Thompson! Ha love you all and have a great week!
Love,
Elder Cook

Oct 20

Things are going great! This week was a little rough! But it was good! There will always be challenges but it was good! So something new that we learned and i dont know if i told you already. But President Batt told us that we now have the option of extending 30 days!! So that is something i am thinking and praying about! But also what do you guys think?? Ha President Batt told us to let our families know if we might be planning on it! But right now i think that is something that i want to do! That was pretty cool to hear though! This week we had a great experience though! So there is and active member that we have been teaching about member missionary work and we have been inviting all the members to pray for missionary opportunities. But we were able to teach her that and we promised to her that as she would reach out to others, her Heavenly Father would help her and her family! She has two sons who havent gone to church in awhile and we promised that as she helped and served others and shared the gospel with others that her family would start to come back to church. So she had a pretty cool experience where she picked up some hitch hikers and drove them to Tuba City and they talked about the Book of Mormon for the whole time and the hitch hikers seemed pretty interested! But we were able to go to her house and her son told us that basically he wanted to start getting back into church but he was pretty scared. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he read Alma 32 which is a really good chapter and he read it and really enjoyed it! It talks about faith and i really love that chapter! If you get a chance then you should all read it! I always learn something new. But anyway a couple of days later her other son wanted to learn about the Book of Mormon and we gave him Alma 32 to read! So they both opened up a lot! It was really cool! But today we are on a disobedient fast so we are trying to be exactly obedient on everything! So i have to be done with emailing soon so i have to get going! We are doing a week of fast this week! Today is disobedience! Tomorrow we are doing a truck fast, so we are not going to use our truck all day! and i cant remember the rest. One day is a negativity fast! But it will be a good day! Oh and also i am staying in page and so is Elder Thompson! We have a fall festival this week and then next week we are participating in the trunk or treat and then on November 1st there is the Balloon Regada festival here in Page! I am really excited for these next couple weeks!! We will be able to talk to a lot of people! It will be fun! We might even do a little stand for the Balloon Regada with handing out Book of Mormons! Love you all! Have a great week! Talk to ya next week!

Love,
Elder Cook

Oct 27
So this week was pretty awesome! i am loving Page! It is probably one of my favorite areas! Well all of them are my favorite! But this last week we went to the Fall Festival they has this week and set up a booth on family history! It was really fun! The festival was a 3 day event! Each of the sets of missionaries in Page took shifts so we could have someone there the whole time managing the booth! But it was really fun! Especially because it is the best season of the year! I love the fall! But we were able to teach people about family history and we had quite a bit of people come by! We had the DJ announce people to come by and there was this lady that came by and we told her about familysearch.org and she started screaming and jumping up and down and yelling, "I hit the jackpot!!" it was pretty funny! But we had two computers and an ipad there so we could search up peoples ancestors right on the spot! We were able to find quite a bit of stuff! It was harder when native americans came by because it is harder to find there ancestors because most of them lived way out in the middle of no where and hardly have any records to find! But it was still really fun! We have the Balloon Regada festical this weekend along with the trunk or treat so we are going to be busy this weekend! It will be really fun though! The Balloon Regada festival is going to be sweet! There will be a ton of hot air balloons friday. saturday, and sunday! They close off main street so all the people with hot air balloons can land in the street! There will be a lot of people so it will be really fun to set up a booth again! Anyway things are going great! That was most of the week! We set a new baptismal date! Francesca Miller, who is a recent convert and is doing really awesome, has a daughter that is like 17 or 18 expressed that she wanted to be baptized the first lesson we had with her! We went there on Wednesday and taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ and answered all the questions that she had! Her date is for December 6 so we are helping prepare her for that! But all is well! How is everyone else doing???
As for me extending! ha thanks for sending me the emails! I will let you know when i get my answer! Ha i havent thought about it as much for now because that is still a long ways away! But i will let you know when i find out! Love you all and thanks for the emails every week! I really appreciate them! And also the pictures! I really appreciate those too! I love seeing pictures from you guys! Well i have to get going! Love you all and have a wonderful week! oh and sorry i was going to send some pics but for some reason i havent got them from elder thompson so i will try for next week! they are on elder thompsons camera and so he is trying to send them! but love you!
Love,
Elder Cook