Elder Cook Week Eighty-One

 

President Fortuna bought us pizza last night because some elders were leaving for their missions in Brazil and Guatemala. 

 

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Elder Cook Week Eighty

Familia,

Alright I´ll tell you a little about Sunday.  We were super pumped in the morning to bring people to church because we had an upcoming baptism and we had just found a little miracle family Saturday that promised to go the next day, and a couple others as well were all super committed to going.  So we woke up early Sunday and headed out to the Altos.  We went to several houses of different investigators and no one was able to go, some were out running errands, another was making tortillas, and one seemed to have disappeared from Honduras completely. Then the bus came about an hour late. So we arrived at church a little discouraged but still hopeful that the miracle family we had found would still come. Then we got a call a little into church saying that they won’t be able to go because the dad has to work.  At that point, I was about ready to break down.  It was crazy how many things had gone wrong before it even hit 10 o’clock.  It was rough and I kept thinking what more we could have done for Heavenly Father’s help.  We got through church and ate lunch, and with a very heartfelt prayer headed out to work.  And that´s when our day turned into one of the best days ever!  Every door we touched, we got into.  We taught investigators, found two new families, talked to people on the street, contacted the contacts we had, and everything just went perfect!  

FLASHBACK: With one of the families we found, we had taught the wife one time and the son one time, never being able to meet the dad.  We passed by a couple times to find him but he was always at a church.  When we went with the son about a week ago, we were teaching about the Book of Mormon. We ended with a prayer saying we´d come back another time.  After walking a ways away, E Torres realizes he forgot his umbrella there. We were in between going back or not for a couple minutes, then just decided to go back anyways. We knocked on the door and finally met the dad!!  He gave us the umbrella and was super nice and asked us when we could come back to teach him!  So we said Sunday.  

FLASHFORWARD:  So we went with that family, that night.  We talked a while and they were all awesome people.  The mom said her family had gotten baptized when she was a kid and they had accepted the missionaries a lot since then.  The dad said about a year ago he started going to a church and gave up drinking.  This family was prepared way before we got there!  We went right in on the Law of Chastity and baptism, and challenged them to both. That night we were so grateful to God for everything that had happened.  

But it got me thinking, why? What did we do different or better to get so many blessings? I didn’t think we tried harder or less hard at any point, so why such a huge difference from the morning to night? Then I thought of a couple things. One factor was the peoples´ agency, and that we can´t control. Another thing that kind of hit me was the way that Heavenly Father helps us in life. His blessings that He gives us are real, inside and out of missionary work. He loves His children. But He also wants us to work for them. He can´t just give us everything and make everything go perfect for us in life, no matter how much He wants to. That ruins life´s purpose. He never wants to see us struggle or have problems. But I think sometimes He lets things happen, even when we´re trying our best, because He trusts us and hopes we learn and grow from it. And a lot of it has to do with what you were saying Dad, where a situation doesn´t matter as much as our reaction to the situation. My companion and I could have given up and gotten mad or sad and not tried as hard that night, but we didn´t. We humbled up a little bit, prayed a little bit harder, and put a lot more confidence in God.  And we were blessed from it! We can´t always understand why things happen, but if we just try to learn from it, we´ll see at some point. That´s why we´re here. So really, we should accept problems and challenges in life with gratitude to God, because what it actually means is that He thinks we have prepared enough and we´re ready enough to handle the next step in our growth process to become like Him! When it comes down to it, we just need to trust in our Heavenly Father a little more.  He´s been at all this for a while now, so He knows what He´s doing. And the best part is, He already wrote up the plan! It´s right there in the scriptures. If you want to know more about the plan that He has for us, why you´re here, and why it´s hard, read the word of God. He´ll let you know.

Love ya,

Elder Cook

 

Elder Cook Week Seventy-Nine

 

Doctrine and Covenants 87:8  

“Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come.”

 

What’s new over there in Mesaland? A little while back we were contacting. We got to a door and we were standing there a while, and someone finally called out to say they were coming. At that moment, I felt something crawling up my neck and slapped at it, and it was just an ant. But let me tell you about the ants here. Remember how in Gremlins when you give those little cute guys food after 12 at night they turn into the green nasty guys that want to kill people? Someone did that to the ants here. They are the most vicious little things you´ve ever seen! If one gets on you they don´t wait a second to bite! And in the states the scarier ones are red, but here it´s the little black ones you have to avoid. At that moment outside that hermana´s house, I was standing in a whole pile of them! After I slapped the first on my neck, they all bit at the same time from all parts of my body! They were all up my legs, on my chest and neck, on my back and especially in my shoes! So I flipped out and started slapping and shaking my clothes and acting like a crazy guy in the street. And that´s when the lady came to the door. Luckily my companion, like the good missionary he is, went on normally with the contact asking if we could teach them about Jesus while some big dumb Gringo was going insane next to them. I didn´t even really get to talk to the lady because there were so many ants to get off, but when I got most off I told her hi and my name. They didn´t say anything, until after my companion asked, "Hey are you ok?  That was kind of weird." They really just thought I was nuts! Some ladies that had a pollo shop across the street were laughing really hard at me. Now every time we walk past that street they yell "Esas hormigas pican, va?" and start busting up again. I think that´s "Those ants bite huh?" but that doesn’t sound right in English. Anyways, I´ve learned my lesson to be careful where I stand when we contact.

Elder Cook Week Seventy-Eight

Dear Familia

Fixed my shirt!

Our investigators are doing good!  Right now the main ones we´re working with are the two remaining brothers of the family we baptized and the two kids of a baptized member.  We also have an awesome family that we´ve been teaching for about a week.  The dad of the family has been reading and marking the Book of Mormon since we gave it to him about two weeks ago so we went over to put a baptismal date with them, but last night we ran into a little problem. Usually once we talk about the First Vision it always has an amazing spirit that comes with it.  So we started talking about it, you could see the Spirit testifying to them as the spirit filled the room. I finished, and the moment I opened my mouth again, the dad said "It´s late, you guys need to go."  We were speechless for a few seconds, but we testified of the truthfulness of what we said and ended with a prayer. When we left, all I could think was how could that have happened?  The Spirit was so strong! There´s no way they could have missed it! That family will accept the gospel someday, I could feel it every time we walked in that house.

I know that anyone who reads the Book of Mormon, with a real desire to know if it´s true, will be converted.  They just will!  It´s that simple.  That´s why we are always asking people to read the Book of Mormon! It´s hard to convince people that Jesus Christ restored the true church and a young boy saw God. That Christ’s apostles bestowed the power of God on some Gringo. Heavenly Father knew that.  He knew that with our limited faith all that would sound pretty crazy.  So He gave us an infallible evidence to help us out!  The conversion all rides on one thing, and it´s an evidence that you can hold in your hands!  You can touch the thing that could be the key to having eternal life. That book will convince ANYONE that this church is true.  It amazes me how a conversion rides on three basic things:  reading the Book of Mormon, praying to know it´s true, and going to church! That´s it! That´s all you need to do to know.  And you know the most surprising thing of all? Those three things are the hardest for people. Get married?  Alright.  Paying ten percent of all your money?  I can do that.  Give up smoking and alcohol? Done.  But the simplest, easiest, most basic three things that are ultimately most important to help you live with God again, reading, praying and going to church? It´s hard.  And everyone falls into that trap.  We have to act!  We have to do the little stuff!  It´s not enough to just believe.  Actually, believing and not acting is the equivalent of not believing at all.  Do you want to be converted?  Do you want to have faith that God lives, that Jesus Christ is our Savior, that They love us, and that this life isn´t the end?  Act.  Read the scriptures, pray to God, and go to church.  Faith doesn´t come to those that sit in the darkness waiting for something to change.  It comes to those who get up and get out in the sun.  You might get a little burnt and a really sweaty, but when that faith comes because of all the effort you´ve put in, you´ll know it was worth it. 

Love ya

Elder Cook

Game of balloon volleyball

Elder Cook Week Seventy-Seven

 Familia,

This week has been busy with the new guys in the office. We haven’t  really been able to do that much preaching.  But the family we’ve been teaching did get baptized!  Ah man that was the best baptism I´ve seen in my whole mission.  We decided to try to really make it special and organized so they´d remember, always remember it, so we went two hours early on Thursday and set it all up.

We printed out pictures of the family and put them in different places and downloaded Mormon messages to have playing in the background.  Everything was perfect and all the people we had planned to have a part in the service all showed up.  Almost all of our converts from the past participated.  We can always depend on them.

Our recently baptized members gave the most beautiful testimonies I´ve ever heard, another directed the hymns, and the family getting baptized all gave their testimony at the end testifying of the authority of God and truthfulness of this church.  It was the most amazing thing I´ve ever seen! 

I can’t even describe the blessing I have to be a part of all this.  It amazes me how much power the Spirit has in people.  This family in almost every visit thanks us for everything we´ve done and tells us how much they’ve changed because of us, but it´s not us!  I don’t like it when people we baptize give us credit.  We always remind them of who really did all the work, because we don’t do hardly anything.

Something I´ve really come to understand is how important it is to work hard in the mission and it isn´t necessarily why I thought so before. The goal of the mission is to baptize people and every missionary is needed in the field, but the work of the Lord will always go forward, with or without you.  The people that would’ve received the gospel will receive the gospel, with or without you.  But when I do my best to work hard, I have the opportunity to be a part of helping to make it happen.  That´s the difference.  And even when I work my very hardest every moment of every day, I´m still a siervo inutil! [unprofitable servant; Mosiah 2:21]  We can’t convert people.  I still measure up to nothing as a servant of the Lord even when I give it my all.  That might sound sad but I love that thought.  In the end, God does His own work because the Holy Spirit is the one that makes a conversion happen!  There is nothing that a missionary could possibly say to make someone change their life, if the Spirit doesn’t carry it to his heart. God has control of His work and will always help us to help others receive the gospel.  He can do it with or without us, but so that we can in turn be changed and grow just like those we teach, He prefers to do it with us.

Love,

Elder Cook 

The scripture Elder Cook referred to can be found in Mosiah 2:21 “I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.”