Email 63: Transfer 11 + Haiti + Sprinting

Received on April 1, 2014 

11 is my favorite number! And that is what transfer I am on now! Crazy right? Elder Cannon and I have one more here in Redondo together! And we are stoked about it. There is so much potential here right now. Some great great things happened this last week! The Zone is ready to rock as well and our district leaders are all staying so we are gonna be unified and work miracles!

So my face is better! I got to trim my beard on Saturday, and then shave it all this morning. It is so weird my face has never been so smooth and nice hahah. But it was a rough week. I will include my last picture with a beard at its longest point. Everyone in the mission loved it. One of the mission secretaries told me, "you need to be on the cover of a magazine.." hahaha oh Sister Milam. Gotta love her! But all is well now and I am back to normal!

We found a family from Haiti this week that we are teaching now! They are super awesome. Setalia, Jean, Fabian, and Shelly. Praying for them to understand the importance so they have the faith to come! We didn't get a chance to teach the Kumari's this week which was a bummer, but we will tonight. We also taught Sis. Cobb, whose daughter, Quimani, is a member. We had a great lesson about the Restoration. She has some concerns, but she went to the general women's meeting and we will teach her again this week! There was a family, the Nichols, that moved from LAs Vegas into our ward a couple weeks ago. They moved in with their father, Mark, who is not a member. They all came to church this week, including Mark, and he wants to learn! That will be pretty sweet! Also, Jennifer Wiggins is a mother of a recent convert in Maple Valley. She is a faithful Catholic, but she is so impressed with the church. We invited her over to the Bailey's home on Sunday night and she came and had a great visit with them. We didn't get to teach her yet, but she is going to watch conference come to church in two weeks and it is going to be SWEET! Another update, Isaac is safe in Ghana! He called Bro Edmiston and told him that he is home, that he found the church, and that he is super happy. I will always love that man! Our next trip will be to Ghana! We are praying to start teaching Regina, Isaac's daugther, and her kids SOON. She works a lot and is sick a lot so we still haven't been able to. But they all love the church and want to be a part of it. So ya, there is a lot of potential and we will only find more!! Keep praying for us here!

I didn't even know that you were going to California this week?? Geez. I bet that is super fun!

SLIM MOMENT:

This morning. Funniest thing ever. EVER. So we had to go and pick up a bike from the Lakota Creek Elders for transfers. Now the Lakota Creek Sisters live in the same complex, but just a week ago, they switched apartments for reasons. We totally forgot this. (Just a side note: Elders are NEVER allowed to go into sisters apts and the same the other way). So we just pull up to the Elders apt, or so we thought, and Elder Cannon walks up and, to be funny, just opens the door and walks in. Now I am like ten feet behind him and I just see him take a step in, and then say "Weird, Bye." and then turn around and slam the door shut hahaha. My first reaction was just to run so I just sprinted away from the apartment for 20 seconds and then started busting up laughing. Elder Cannon was stupified. Just walked in on the sisters!!! Haha good thing they were just studying and nothing else.. Oh it was just too funny. I dont know if y'all will appreciate this story like a missionary would. But trust me. Its funny.

I am also including a picture of our district this last transfer. It was the best district I have been in yet. I mean we had our district leader and his companion, us, and then a sister-training leader and her companion. And all of us are in the same ward so we were just super unified and excited about the work all the time! Hna Mitchell got transferred, but Hna Casper is coming here, and she was in my ward at BYU! So we will continue to do GREAT THINGS IN REDONDO!

I studied Gratitude this morning. I remember speaking on Gratitude at graduation. It really is a power. And I am convinced that if we will consciously cultivate a grateful heart in ourselves that it will eliminate pride and facilitate love, and we will begin to understand even more how great God really is! So I set a goal to write something in my journal every day that I am grateful for. This will be super hard for me because I usually only write in my journal about once every 2-3 weeks haha, but I am going to do it!

I love the Book of Mormon!

Remember, It is ALL ABOUT LOVE!

Love you all!

Elder Cook

PS. Tell Coach Moser that I haven't gained a single pound yet and that he needs to chill with his judgments! I love that man.