Elder Cook Week Fifty-Five

Hey Familia,

Boy we had a rough week! We taught a total of 7 lessons for the entire week! I don’t know if I’ve ever done more walking in my mission. I got sunburned pretty good. If we had a lesson in the afternoon, all the rest of the citas would fall through. If we didn’t have one in the afternoon, sometimes we’d get one that night. We went two days without a single lesson! We even found out today that one of our families we have been teaching moved away. We were going to set a baptismal date with them tonight. Some lady threw water at us today! Kind of a bummer but this week should be great with General Conference coming up! Maybe we can’t get our investigators to progress, but we’re hoping having them hear the prophet speak will change their hearts.

One of my favorite scriptures that I like to share with people is from 2 Nephi 10:23 “Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves -- to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life.” If you’re in a hard situation or the things are looking bad, do something about it! We always have the choice to act whether it be for the good or bad, and with every decision we are either becoming closer to God or distancing ourselves from Him. Sometimes we make things more difficult than they are when really we just need to ask, “Do I want everlasting death or eternal life?” And then be glad that we get the chance to choose for ourselves.

Fun Honduras fact: There’s a bird here called the esticidin that swoops down and carries away cats by the tail to go eat them. A member was telling us that she watched her cat be carried away by one.

The church is true!

Love, Elder Cook

Elder Cook Week Fifty-Four

Hey Familia!

We got J to church today! We were thinking it was going to take the Nephite army to get him there, but it turns out two gringos worked just as well. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this guy before. The missionaries have been teaching him and his wife for over a year.  His wife wants to be baptized and goes to church just about every week. She doesn’t want to be baptized until he does. So we are praying and working real hard with him. He went to church once a really long time ago, and someone broke in to his car while he was inside. They took a bunch of stuff, like a radio and money, so he’s never come back. Anyway, we took a member with us two weeks ago to visit him. He was a super kind and patient and J totally listened to him. So he agreed to go to church Sunday! He tried to back out, but we persuaded him and he got there. He snuck out after the first hour but we went and got him again for the third hour. It was so great! His son, the second counselor in the ward was so happy to see him. We had a cita with J today and we’d hoped to put a date with him and his wife, but we’ll see how it goes this week! He’s progressed a ton. We think that it’s his time to follow Christ.

We also found another interesting guy. He’s a good guy so we went in and taught him a little about the Book of Mormon and at the end we asked if there was anything that we would do to help him, like we usually say. He said he used to be a lot more handsome and skinnier, so we were obligated as missionaries to get his life back together so he can find a wife. And he told us he needed a new tie too because he wanted to get into politics, but it had to be a nice tie, nicer than the ones we were wearing.

We met a new family! They were awesome. We were outside teaching them (because it was crazy hot that day inside) by their outhouse, and in the middle of the lesson the 5 year old kid had to go to the bathroom, so his mom went with him. We kept teaching the dad and about five minutes later the kid comes running out of the outhouse completely naked with the mom chasing him trying to clean him up. She catches him right next to us, wipes him, and then drags him back to the outhouse. Took a good ten minutes for the spirit to be felt again because we were all laughing, but it turned out to be a great lesson and we have high hopes for that family!

Read your scriptures. Pray every day. Go to church. That’s how you get to heaven.

Love 

Elder Cook

Elder Cook Week Fifty-Three

Hey Familia!

                Crazy week.  I have a few more good stories to tell you in a year.  L got baptized!! Woo hoo!  Every time we went over to teach her this week we became a little more concerned that she’d actually get baptized this Saturday. She struggled to remember what we taught her.  She had her daughter answer questions we asked during the lessons because she said they were hard to answer. We prayed a lot for her this week to understand what she had been taught.  On Friday when we went to review everything for her baptismal interview questions before the interview for Saturday, she remembered EVERYTHING!  On Saturday we had the interview scheduled at 12 and the baptism at 1pm.  She didn’t show up until 2pm! Everyone was their waiting for her and we had been pretty worried.   But she came, had her interview, and was baptized.  We asked her how she felt after the baptism, and she said “I feel a lot skinnier!”  Close enough, we knew what she meant. We are happy she wanted to follow Christ in her life.

               We also helped someone move the other day!  Moves in Honduras are a whole lot tougher than in the states!  There’s not some nice truck waiting just outside the garage to put stuff in to.  Here, you just have to carry it to the next house if it’s within the same neighborhood.  It’s tricky to dodge cars and people while carrying a fridge and then take it down a couple flights of uneven or missing stairs.  But as we were going with all the stuff we notice two guys run inside, take a bed and run down the stairs!  We stood there thinking for a minute or two, and then realized that these guys were stealing the stuff as we were moving it in!  So we sprinted down to the hermana we were helping and told her what happened. It didn’t upset her too much.  She said just keep going and we’ll see how much stuff they actually take.  We were shocked but did as we were told.  In the end they carried off a couple beds, a fridge, and tv, and maybe a couple other things.  Crazy.

                Yupp, that was our week.  I was super sick Tuesday, at the end of the day I crashed on my bed, so my comp had to make the phone calls.  At some point he came in and put a lizard on me.  I was feeling so crappy I didn’t really notice. I fell asleep and woke up later that night and, let’s just say the lizard was dead.  I felt kinda bad for it.

Love you!

Elder Cook

Elder Cook Week Fifty-Two

Hey Familia,

T GOT BAPTIZED!!! That kid stressed me out that night.  We went to his house about an hour early to get him and he wasn’t there! We talked to his buddies and he said he went back out to sell some more eggs. We waited another half hour then went to the church, telling all his neighbors to send him to the chapel if they saw him. We went and set up starting the pila and put out the chairs, and he still wasn’t there! About 20 minutes after when the service was supposed to start the members started coming up to us to ask if he’d come or not. We were worried and kept trying to call him! We sent kids out to go find him too. When we were about to give up hope, he showed up in his truck with the bed half full of eggs asking why we were worried. 

So we got him in the baptism suit and get him in the room. It all went great until the pila drained itself. T got baptized 3 times before L could get him under far enough, even after we filled that thing like three times! But man, when he was finally baptized and sitting in the room again, he was different. It’s not something you can really put to words but I’ve seen it in every baptism I’ve been to. When they come out of the water they really have been born again. They have a smile and a spirit about them that’s contagious. My testimony grows every time I see someone like that and it just makes me want to help more feel the spirit and God’s love after taking that step in their lives.

We also had the craziest greatest thing happen on Saturday. Friday night we had like 5 missed calls from Bishop when we got home. He told us he had just talked to a woman that wants to be baptized TOMORROW.  She had all the lessons from the missionaries, she’d been to the church a ton, and really wanted to follow Christ in her life since her dad died the other day and it kind of shook her.  He said she wanted to meet with us at the church at 7:30am the next morning. We were more than a little skeptical, but pumped. We went down, played ball, changed, and then went to meet her. She was everything the bishop said! Her two daughters are members and she wanted to get baptized as soon as possible. We set the date for next Saturday and now we’ll be passing by every day to teach her! It was amazing her name’s L. Like it says in Alma 13:24, angels are preparing the hearts of men. God is always helping people come to the gospel. He wants His children to return to Him. But it’s our job to be there ready to help them. Open your mouth! People need this gospel. Always remember that the worst someone can say is no, and you will be blessed a ton for your effort. 

There you go. Other than that, we just saw and did the usual. Saw a dog get hit by a truck and die, which was sad, played some street soccer with some kids and they kicked our butts, and got a ton of doors slammed on us.

Love you

Elder Cook

The scripture Elder Cook referenced in his letter:

Alma 13:24   For behold, angles are declaring it unto many at this time in our land; and this is for the purpose of preparing the hearts of the children of men to receive his word at the time of his coming in his glory.

Elder Cook Week Fifty-One

Que tal Familia,

This week we met a nice but a different guy! We were contacting and he called us over to talk, which on the mission can be really good or really bad. Then he started speaking gibberish and said that if we were really servants of God we would be able to speak in tongues. We smiled at each other and then started speaking English to him. He didn’t appreciate that very much. Then he started staring at the sun and did it for a good 4 minutes straight and said “God blesses me with sun staring power.”   We took pictures with him. He went and changed his clothes and grabbed his Bible for the pictures.

We contacted ALL DAY Thursday to find a family. We talked to everyone in Torocagua! Every person that was on the street, in their house, playing soccer or changing a tire we talked to. We got about 13 contacts that day and right before 9 we found a family that let us teach a 5 minute lesson. We were blessed for our efforts.

T is still super excited for next week and he is more ready than anyone to be baptized.

Love you

Elder Cook