Esta es nuestro ultimo dia del preparacion en el CCM! No
puedo esperar hasta lunes! Voy a estar en Tejas!!!! woohooo!
So yeah we're all pretty excited about Monday! It’s hard to
believe I spent a whole summer here! But I learned so much! The Spanish went
pretty well this week, we had a couple chances to talk to native speakers a few times and I can say
that my ears have come just as far as my tongue has with the language! I've
been so blessed!
So yesterday we had a big day-long workshop to prepare us as
an infield orientation! It was great and we learned a lot of cool stuff about
working with members and goals and planning and as always a focus on our
purpose! Give the missionaries referrals!!! They will love you forever! Don't
be scared either...that always the biggest inhibitor! Thank you so much for the
package! It made my day! Thanks Spencer for the quarters!!! They were awesome
and I proudly showed them off to my roommates! Thanks for the watch as well!
Its way cool!
This week for our devotional we had Elder David Evans of the
70 come speak to us. It was awesome! He gave a great message about how
reactivation and missionary work are all the same work...it’s all the work of
salvation! He give some great examples from the life of President Monson! He
talked about to how missionary work was really going to begin to achieve its
full purpose (inviting ALL to come unto Christ...not just non-members) and as
head of the missionary department this was very interesting! Today we get to go
to the temple (might be my last time for 2 years!) and then the rest of the
time will be packing and cleaning! We got to host again last Wednesday...and I
hosted another one of my friends from the floor at school (he's actually from
Ohio as well) and then an Elder Cook. IT was funny. Better yet...this (3rd
Elder Cook?) Is headed to Rochester New York so I told him all about the Steele
family! It was really nice to be leaving before all the missionaries that came
in! It’s been kind of strange to be the oldest group here but we love it!
So this week we also had our last 2 classes so I’ll share a
little bit about our teachers. The first is Hermano Johnston, he was our first
teacher (taught us all 9 weeks) and served in Guatemala! He's one of the nicest
happiest people and I think we only heard him speak English once or twice. He's
from Arizona and can recite the 1st vision in Spanish in 11 seconds. It’s
pretty crazy! The other is Hno. Larson! He knows Spanish, Mayan, Portuguese, French
and he's working on Romanian as well right now. He was our first
"investigator for the first week and taught us these last 8 weeks! He
served in Mexico (Cancun) and had been to Cozumel and stuff! He's really smart
and helped us so much with our Spanish. He lost a grand total of 80 lbs on his
mission and then 40 shortly thereafter. We got to see his before/after pictures
and it was pretty impressive! They’ve basically been our older brothers the
last 9 weeks!
I'm so grateful though for the chance I've had to be here at
the MTC! You learn so much! I've figured out I'm so excited to leave not
because the MTC is hard to endure, I love it!, but because Texas is going to be
so much cooler! I'm sure I’ll have some fun things to share next week! This
week I found a few new favorite chapters of Scripture! (John 14 &15). I'm
so grateful for the Savior, that we can be His friends and that He has set the
perfect example for us! I'm grateful that He loved us enough to lay down His
life for us and to go through each individual pain, temptation, and affliction
that we face. The amazing thing is that he's still working just as hard to help
us come back to our Heavenly Father! Prayer is real and I've learned that
answers come when we look, listen, and open our hearts and minds! I love the
Book of Mormon and my testimony of it has been strengthened so much! It has
such an incredible power to change our lives! Joseph Smith is a prophet. He did
truly see God the Father and Christ His Son and to me it is the sweetest
example of answered prayer. I'm so grateful that families can be together
forever and that someday we will be again with our Father in Heaven.
I love you all!
Tell the missionaries hi for me!
Con amor,
Elder Cook
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