Elder Andrew D. Cook entered the MTC on January 15, 2014. I am excited to update as I know how he is doing, especially posting his mass emails.

Writing & Shipping information is found in the right hand column.

There is also a link to a few different translators to help us guess what Andrew said. :D Sometimes I get a better idea when I remove his ! from a word.

Monday, January 19, 2015

January 19, 2015

It was from President Hinckley who said, "Latter-day Saints need to get the gospel from their heads into their hearts."  This is one way to foster real growth in hastening the work.


Note from Mom: I can't wait for him to come home and tell me what he means in some of these letters. LOL translators don't work! ha

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

January 12, 2015

Funny story: this morning, for breakfast, I decided to make potato chips, (or crisps for you non-American folk out there) and the other elders come into the kitchen, ask to try one, eat the whole batch in about 2 seconds, one elder quickly grabs ALL the potatoes we have left, and cuts them into slices, and throws the whole set into the oil at once, before I can even blink. Of course, he had no experience making chips (crisps) so they were FAAAAR too thick, so they were soft; and because he threw them all in at once, they stuck together! but it made me laugh so it was a good morning. we went to Baguio looking for imported soft drinks, but the taxi driver took us to the wrong place, so we ran out of time (and taxi fare) It is a good day :D have a great week! 

p.s. We returned to the computer shop with the scanner, when the other shop raised their prices :D


I want everyone to pray for the missionaries in EVERY prayer. not just be, but all missionaries. Also additional to every fast, because you are allowed to fast for more than one thing. Imagine if everyone who reads this fasted for missionaries now until the end of time! how much faster would the work of salvation go?!
Thankyou, Elder Cook.

Monday, January 5, 2015

Mass Email 1-5-2015

for my mass email, I will just copy and paste my letter to President Balledos.

"Dear President,

I have watched the district every day for the last week. I realized that I am not the missionary I always dreamed about when I was 8 years old! 

As a mission, we don't teach lessons like the missionaries I've know in the states, OR like the missionaries in the district.
I want to change this, starting with myself. I have fasted, and I have studied the heck out of this week, and I've already seen an amazing improvement. 

The most important thing I have started with is teaching people not lessons. In the MTC they gave us some amazing advice "Never use a pamphlet to teach a lesson. they are more like business cards. There is a reason the church got rid of the flip book, right?" but my trainer trained me to cover all the points of the lesson, from the pamphlet, not so much worrying about the concerns.

So my new years resolution: never touch another pamphlet during the lesson. they have an important role, but MUCH more important is following what the spirit tells me to say.

the next thing I changed was the power of pause. I THOUGHT I knew how to use it. It turns out I was wrong. I watched the district 2 segment on "EDPER" but I was focusing much more on the workshop they used to demonstrate. HOW TO EFFECTIVELY PAUSE. Before, I paused to add stress to something I said, to add emphases, and allow it to absorb. Now I pause BEFORE I speak. I now pray "what should I ask?" before every thing I say, and I wait for an answer.

I would like to give an experience from yesterday. Before we started I wanted to ask a question from how to begin teaching in chapter 10 of PMG. The question I felt prompted to ask was "what do you expect from our visit?" she told us "I expect you to teach about Jesus, but I DON'T expect you to try to persuade me to join your religion." we shared our purpose. "we are not here to persuade you. we don't want to force you. we are here to INVITE you to find out if what we know is true by asking your Father in Heaven, Who WILL NOT LIE TO YOU." 

Later in the lesson I wanted to ask another question. I paused and asked advice from The Spirit. Then nothing came to me. I asked again. again, Nothing. I was starting to panic!

Then just when I started to get scared, the investigator spoke, and I realized, the Holy Ghost WANTED me to be quite, because the investigator then shared another concern: she didn't believe in the apostasy. 

We just again invited her to pray. "Sister, we KNOW this is true, and if you pray and ask God, you will know too. If God says the apostasy really happened, then you know it really happened! Pray about Joseph Smith, and you WILL come to know that he had the restored priesthood authority.

Even though she didn't accept us, we left happy, because we felt the spirit and I learned something. I know she was edified as well.

BUT our member present didn't get a chance to share, because the investigator refused his testimony, so I felt inspired to ask ANOTHER question. "Brother Wilben, how can we more effectively use our members? we don't have your help very often, and we would like it to be the MOST POWERFUL." 

He said that maybe we could invited the member to bare testimony after every principle, not just just at the end, OR maybe, every we time we ask an investigator a question, we ask the member the same question, to see what they think.

I definitely will be applying what I learned this week!

Have a great week President! I love you! thank you for your service! your tithing message in the Baguio Banner was very inspiring! ingat!"

well, family I hope you have a great week! love you all!