Cook Family Blog: Luke's Letter June 22, 2009

Family!!!

How is everyone doing? This last week has been quite the exciting one! First, on wed we had the chance to hear from to members of the first quorum of the 70, Elder Dickson and Zabello. It was really cool. I could understand most of what they were saying so that was good haha. And we all got to go up and meet them afterwards. Elder Dickson only has one arm too. He was a powerful speaker and promised us that if we can get inactives and new members to have a testimony of tithing through the Spirit, they will never go inactive again. So we´ve been focusing on that a little more in our lessons and it seems to be doing good.

So this week we had baptisms!!! It was so amazing! I got to baptize Sebastian Casas then Sister Flores´husband was able to baptize her. It was such a cool experience. I have tons of pictures but I can’t send them right now, but we are going to the Flores for lunch today and they have a computer and they want a lot of the pics of my camera so I’m going to see if Alexa their daughter will email all the pics to you for me cause I don’t have enough time. The baptism was really cool though, other than our ward mission leader had to work and didn’t tell anyone so the font didn’t get filled up in time so I really had to dunk sebastian low haha, same with Brother Flores, but like my comp said, what’s a baptism if there isn’t a little craziness? Haha. Sebastian’s immediate family isn’t members, his dad might be inactive I think, I dunno, but they were all there and his mom was super nice and really excited for him and she was at church the next day for his confirmation. This boy really has so much potential and we hope that he can start bringing his mom to church and stuff like that.

So this week is cambio week, so this morning my comp found out that he is going to be zone leader of the other zone here in Arica so he is moving out tomorrow and I’m getting a new companion here! I dunno who it will be but its pretty exciting, and a little scary haha. I think it would help me out tremendously if I had a latino companion for my Spanish, but it would make some things harder. Its also going to be hard because I’m the one that knows the sector and stuff and kinda have to lead us around at least for the first while, and it will be hard with some investigators because even though I know them I didn’t really talk a lot with them, but this happens a lot I’m sure and I know it will all work out. Maybe this new companion will be just what some investigators need. We have one investigator, Cris, who is a super smart lady, a nurse here in Chile, and she’s came to church the last two weeks, so we hope to continue to see progress with her. She says she believes the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but she doesn’t really understand what that means. Like, she still thinks other churches can be right too, so we still need to work on that with her. But we’ve also found some other new investigators and hopefully can continue to work with them on everything. We’ve been trying to work with members a lot more so our investigators know members and have a friend to go with them to church and that’s been helping a lot. It just takes more planning on our part and everything, but its very worth it.

I have to admit that time has been going fast here. I can’t believe I’ve been here for 6 weeks already! Its crazy. I´m not where I was hoping I´d be at after 6 weeks but I need to keep trying. I don’t know near enough scripture references or Spanish. Finding the scripture you want to use is a lot harder in Spanish scriptures, because you can’t just skim read through them. Maybe one day I’ll be able to, but right now definitely not haha.

So for my birthday I thought of a couple things I guess. One is music, it would be nice to have a little cd player or something that can be plugged in (because batteries are EXPENSIVE down here) with a couple cds of EFY music or whatever. I’m sure brittany would know some good EFY music. The only other thing that would be nice is like some packets of hot chocolate maybe. We found some at the store but they were expensive as well, but worth it haha. Its nice to have something hot to drink at night while planning and its a little cooler. I still sweat like crazy during the days though, I hate it. I’m lucky I’m in a dry area.

That is really funny about you running into Brittany at Red Robin´s when she was with her roomate´s family, because that is also her old b/f´s family, so it is kinda funny that you all were at the same place. That’s also way cool that you invited her over for FHE father’s day thing, she emailed me and said she really enjoyed it, a lot and that she really likes hanging out with you all.

That’s cool that Julie gave a talk in primary! Was she able to talk loud enough for all the kids to hear and understand? I wish I could have seen it. Oh, and if you or brittany could take care of my facebook that would be great. That’s cool Zach added me on there. Alexa, the daughter of sis flores looked me up on facebook haha. I dunno if she added me as a friend though.

That’s kinda scary about baby ben, I hope everything goes ok there. Grandma Carol sounded like her time with Gloria wasn’t too bad haha. Hopefully you guys can visit each other sometime soon.

I do have to say mom that your inspiration you found in Harry Potter was really cool. Really, it made me laugh a little bit but you are so right. I was thinking about that with our investigator Kimberly who I think I’ve told you about before. She reminds me of me I guess. So when we talk with her and everything I feel like maybe I know what you guys as parents felt like when talking with me before about a mission and everything. Kimberly knows the thing she should do, but she’s stubborn and doesn’t quite understand the blessings she will receive from the gospel. Even though she knows its true. So there’s nothing we can do but keep praying for her and talking with her and hope she makes the right decision. We will see I guess.

Well, I’ve got to get going. Thank you for everything, say hi to all my friends and all the other members of the family. I think I asked this last week but I’ll double check, do you forward my emails to Jason, Kaci, and the Norman family? There might have been other friends too but i can’t remember. Anyway, just double checking. Love you all! Luke