3/24/16

Hey friends and family, I just want to let everyone know that I have been released from my mission due to medical reasons in order to get the proper health care in the states. Thanks to everyone for all your love and support. I love Argentina with all my heart and Im so grateful for all the wonderful experiences I have had so far.

Hola mis queridos amigos y famila, yo queria que supieran a todos que yo he regresado a mi casa a causa de condiciones medicales para que pueda recibir ayuda medical en los estados unidos. Muchas gracias a todos por todo su amor y apoyo. Yo amo a Argentina con todo mi corazon y estoy tan agradecido para todas las experiencias maravillosas que he tenido hasta ahora.

{Week 32}

Elder Cook hasn’t had much time these past couple of weeks to send out a big email, so I just wanted to share with all of you a picture, along with Hunter’s favorite scripture.

“Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.”

-D&C 18:10

Elder Cook cannot receive packages from the United States but he would love some emails or letters!  If you would like to send him a little something, his email address is, hunter.cook@myldsmail.net |or| you can send letters to,

Argentina Buenos Aires West Mission

C.C. No. 92

1702 Ciudadela

Buenos Aires

Argentina

“After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to preach the gospel.” –Joseph Smith

Mercedes Round 3 {Week 30}

The crew

Okay, so this week is transfers, but all of the elders in Mercedes are staying!  This transfer is going to be longer too, because they changed the MTC enter date for my mission... This transfer will end the 29 of March.  So I’ll be here for a while longer!!  I’m glad.  I love it here.  It’s super awesome and I really want to see my investigators be baptized.  They are doing good.  But this week was hard to get in touch with Andre, the Russian, because here in South America they do a thing called “Carnaval.”  It's like from Friday to Tuesday and the whole city shuts down and everyone parties.  Actually in Mercedes, what they do is they throw things at you!!  Hahaha  It was so funny, Elder Warner and I didn’t know about it & on Friday we were riding our bikes down the street to go to lunch and we saw a group of kids on the side of the road.   We said hi to them and to answer us back they threw water balloons at us!! hahha  Elder Warner SCREAMED so loud!  haha and I was dying!  He got soaked and I was completely dry.

Mi amigo

We thought it was just them, but it turns out it’s a tradition here.  So on the whole way to lunch we were dodging water balloons! haha  It was super funny!!  It was seriously like a war zone!!  But the bad thing is, people dont just throw water balloons, they throw ice, rocks, or whatever they have… it's actually really dangerous.  We told our zone leaders what was going on and they talked to President and President had us stay in the pench the whole weekend.  That was so hard!!  It’s SOOOOO BORRRIINNNGGG!! Hahah and I think we have to stay in tomorrow too!  Ever since Friday we’ve been cooped up in the pench!!  But ¿Que va hacer?.  

 

We found a Walmart in Lujan!  It's really Argentine though...kind of disapointing... I thought they would have American food.

So yeah... that was my fun week.  Remember to show LOVE to all!  It’s the most powerful force in the universe.  With love we can do anything!  So, this week show a little love to those around you.  I know you will feel the love of God in return!

Love you all!

Elder Cook

Ya Fue Enero {Week 29}

We went to the Lujan zoo again!

Wow, where did January go?  It seriously flew by!  Anyways, sorry I haven’t sent a big email for  awhile...  This week was the best, hardest week ever!!  So lately, Elder Warner and I have been working on our Carpeta de Area and the map for our area!  We have permission to work on it, because it’s a MESS!!  There are so many papers from missionaries dating clear back to 2007!!  So we spent so much time in the pench trying to organize everything and get everything all neat.  That is SUPER HARD!  I felt trapped with a sea of papers in our room.  It was a horrible feeling! haha But luckily we pushed forward and we finished everything!  So this week is going to be amazing!! That’s something that my mom just told me in her letter... "WE are the ones who CHOOSE if we have a good week or not!"

But also this week was super milagrosa!  So, we found a RUSSIAN!!  In Argentina!!  He moved here 4 years ago to get away from a hard life in Russia, and he LOVES the Gospel!!  It’s been super awesome to teach him because he speaks less Spanish than us, so we teach him in English, but still it’s hard for him.  He can’t read in Spanish or English, so we’ve had to search on lds.org in Russian and print things off and luckily the offices had a Book of Mormon in Russian!!  But he is seriously so awesome!  I’ve never had an investigator like him on my mission yet.  He’s a heavy smoker and when we taught him about the Word of wisdom he said he would keep it except for the smoking part.  He likes his cigarettes!  He didn’t want to give them up.  But yesterday, he came to church and really liked it!  He was like, “Hey so I can still get baptized on the 27 of Febuary if I stop smoking right?”  And we were like, "YES OF COURSE!” haha.  Now he wants to quit so we are going to be helping him with that.  We also finally got the Book of Mormon in Russian for him and gave it to him yesterday and he was so grateful!!  We gave him a part to read and he was like, “Okay thanks for this part, but I want to read the whole book, I can do that right?!"  He was so grateful that we had a book in Russian.  He said he couldn’t believe that our religion had a Book of Mormon in Russian in Argentina!  Wow, so that was a HUGE MIRACLE!  I would have never thought that I would be teaching a Russian in Spanglish in Argentina! haha His name is Andre!  But yeah I will keep y’all updated on his progress!

We also found a family this week and taught them lesson one.  They were super interested and when we challenged them to be baptized they were like, "yes of course" then we also gave them the date for the 27th of Febrero and they accepted!!  We invited them to church and they said that they would come for sacrament meeting, so we were waiting outside the doors for them but they didn’t show.  That made us really sad and we tried to call them, but we lost their phone number!!  So, we went into sacrament meeting and while the bread was being passed, the father showed up!  He had to wait outside until the sacrament was over, but we went out and got him and he said he was sorry that he was late, but that his wife had a problem and they weren’t going to come, but he really felt like he needed to come so he came on his own!  That was another miracle yesterday!!  This Sunday was FULL of miracles!!! 

It really is after the hard times, when the blessings come!  I have always liked a quote by Katy Perry haha “ After a hurricane, comes a rainbow.”  It's so true.  I really hope that President keeps me here in Mercedes so I can see these people be baptized!  Transfers is next week and I’ve been here for 2 transfers already, so I hope I get one more!!!

I also was able to give a talk this week in chruch on the atonement!  Something that I realized is that EVERY SINGLE PERSON NEEDS THEIR OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND TESTIMONY WITH THE ATONEMENT.  So my challenge for all of you is to try and get that if you don’t have one and if you do, make it stronger!!

Well anyways, that was our miraculous week.  Now we are going to CHOOSE to have another one this week!

 

Elder Warner's one year mark!!

I love you all!  Never forget your blessings, and don’t forget what Christ did for you.  (D&C 19:16-19)

Elder Cook   

January 25, 2016 {Week 28}

We are teaching a Russian!! He kinda speaks English and Spanish but we are getting a Book of Mormon and everything in Russian for him!!!  So crazy!  Who woulda thought!!

1.  Best thing that happened to you this week?  We had a satellite conference with all the missionaries throughout the entire world!! 70,000 all tuned in!  That was really cool!!

2.  Funny thing that happened to you this week?  Last week we were carrying a giant box of Book of Mormons home on our bikes (there's like 40 in one box), so it was super heavy!!!!  Elder Warner was carrying them, and as we turned the corner, he hit a bump and the box fell out of his arms and he screamed like a girl and

all of the Book of Mormons spilled out into the street!! hahaha There

were cars that had to stop and so we got off our bikes and we were

RUNNING (with cheesy helmets and suits on) into the middle of the

road trying to gather all the books up so the cars could pass!!!  I

couldn't stop laughing!!  All of the people in the cars probably couldn't either!!!

hahahaha SOOO FUNNY!!!

3.  Is it getting any cooler yet?  No!  On Friday it was 110 degrees with 90% humidity.  I felt like I was going to pass out all day!!!!  SOOOOOO BADDDDDD!!!!  Our pench is a constant 90 degrees all day!  So horrible!

Sorry, I don't have time to write a big email... we were in the offices

for basically the whole week anyways, so nothing cool really

happened.... We did bug bomb our pench to kill all of the cockroaches

though!!!  That was funny!  And we got a whole day to CLEAN!!  I was so

happy!!!  WE had to wipe the whole place down with bleach. That was

fun!!

Love youuu!

Elder Cook

Con Dios, Todos es Posible {Week 27}

We made tacos

HOLA! Okay I don't know where to start.  The weeks are starting to blend together and I can't remember what I have already wrote, and what I haven't.  So this week was just a "normal" week.  Nothing odd really happened... But about mi querido amigo, Nahuel, we are working with him, but he doesn't want to progress.  He knows that the Book of Mormon is true and what happened with Joseph Smith is true, but he doesn't want to leave his religion. (He's Catholic.)  Down here in South America, at least in Argentina, Catholicisim is more of a tradition than a religion.  By being baptized and becoming a mormon, he would be separating himself from his family´s tradition.  We are still visiting him, but right now he doesn't want to progress.  But I know without a doubt, all he needs is time.  The seed is planted.  At some time in his life I know that he is going to accept the gospel.  I still pray for him everyday.  He has become one of my greatest friends.  He wants to come to the states to live and now he wants to come to Utah!!  I still have faith and hope that he will accept it.

 

Yummy lunch last P-day

Also, this week we had a "capilla abierta" open chapel.  Which is where we open the doors to the chapel and have banners and stations and everything for the public to come in and see how our church is.  We got a lot of references from it and it was really fun!  My part of the tour was me and Elder Rojas were dressed in baptismal clothes and stood by the font and talked about baptism.  We actually challenged people to be baptized and a lot of people accepted!!  Miracles come from open chapels!  I'll send pictures.

 

Everyone who helped run "Open Chapel". The guy next to me used to be a mission president in Chile

Capilla Abierta

I love our branch president!  President Lettieri (He's Italian of course!)

Also, for my 6 month cumple mes, we bought 14 empanadas and had an "empanada cake" with a 6 candle in it!!  haha It was really fun and really good!!  I'll send a picture of that too!

Empanada cake for my 6 months!!

I'm really loving Elder Warner as my companion! He's so awesome!  We are SUPER similar in everything that we do.  It's super weird actually.  But yeah, just a usual week in the service of the Lord.  Speaking of service we also helped weed a yard that was COVERED in weed trees that were prickly!  

Giant prickly weeds before the missionaries helped!

After!

This week I challenge everyone who reads this letter to go out and serve someone!  Serve someone random or someone you know.  It can be simple, but DO IT!  If you do it, send me an email and tell me what you did!  I'm excited to read them!

 

Outside of our pench

Our kitchen...after I cleaned it!

Our front room.

Stairs going up to the bedrooms

Love you all!

Elder Cook

6 Mesas ya? {Week 26}

Wow! The 15th of January is my 6 month mark!! That’s so weird! I feel like I just started my misión (sorry computer is autocorrecting in Spanish) and now I’m a quarter of the way done!  It’s super sad!  But this week was awesome!! I’m really enjoying my time with Elder Warner! He is awesome!! haha We are SUPER similar and think the same way, so I'm basically just living with a clone of myself! haha Super funny!

 

So hot!! Ice bath...water running on his head haha

This week was amazing, but also sad!!  We taught Nahuel (the kid on the moto).  So he wants to learn English so he can go to the states, so we taught him English at first then we taught him the restoration!  Oh my goodness!  It was the most spiritual lesson I have had on my misión yet.  We got to Joseph Smith’s experience and while Elder Warner was relating the first visión, the spirit came into the room SOOOO STRONG!!  We waited in silence for a little while, and then asked how he was feeling.  He said "muy raro" (really weird).  We asked him to describe it and he said he couldn’t, it was just in his heart and he felt really weird!!!   We told him that it was the spirit and how it testified of the truth of things.  We finished teaching and asked him to offer the prayer and pray to know if these things were true and the spirit was so strong!!  He said amen and we were just surrounded by the spirit.  We sat in silence for probably 2 minutes while the spirit was working in his heart.  He started to cry and said that he had never felt a feeling like this is his entire life!  It was amazing!  We challenged him to be baptized but he said he didn't know, and that he wanted to wait to see.  We went by the next day and he had read the chapter in the BoM that we left him and he told us that the whole time that he was reading the chapter he had the same "raro" feeling!!  He said that he knew what happened with Joseph Smith was true and the BoM was true!  So AMAZING!!  He said he had never felt what he’s feeling right now from doing these things in his life before.  I have truly grown so much love for him and I can feel the greatest joy in my heart!

Service

Service

 

We did service-built a house

I remember my seminary teacher, Brother Christiansen, told me, "You will experience the greatest joy that you can ever imagine" (in my misión).  I hadn’t experienced that joy until now.  Wow I can’t describe it!!  It’s just a continuous joy and love!!!  I’m so sorry I want to write more but I’m out of time!!  Just Nahuel is a miracle!!  We are just working with him on the baptism thing because he’s really Catholic.  So we have been praying and praying and fasting for him!! 

That’s the miracle of the week.  Sorry I can’t explain it more.  I will next week!!

The misión is THE BEST!!  Experiences like these are definitely worth any and all of the trials and hard times!!

Love you all!! Have a great week!!

Elder Cook