{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