I know that this is where I'm supposed to be right now, and that there is no greater work I could be doing in my life right now.

You know you've officially hit rock bottom when you're like 95% sure the food you're eating has ants in it, and you don't even care and eat it anyway. Yep. That's where I'm at. Not too bad though, it's probably healthy for you or something (at least that's what I tell myself so I'll be okay with the fact I'm just eating ants).

Awesome gate we found. The guy whose house 

it was attached to told us to take a picture with it 

(so we obviously had to)

But hey, this week went awesome! Tuesday we had exchanges, which I love doing. I got paired up with a guy named Elder Robinson, and he's super awesome, really nice, and a really awesome missionary. He taught me so much in honestly just one day of working with him, but he taught me something very valuable when we were doing companionship study. I couldn't figure out what to teach our recent convert family, the Gernali's, and he just said that sometimes, when he can't figure out what to teach someone that day, he just imagines what Christ would teach them if he were there, because after all, he is the perfect teacher. That was actually pretty dang valuable advice, so I'm going to start applying that this week!

That Tuesday night we had literally 8 Elders sleeping over at our apartment because the next morning we had to all wake up at 3:00 AM and go to this event called a cluster conference. So we kind of had a mini party with all of us, which was really fun (But don't worry, we still got to bed on time). Oh, and a cluster conference is where all of the missionaries in the Legaspi mission get together at the chapel in Legaspi, which is a three hour drive away from us, and listen to the Area 70 who addresses us. Our general authority who presides over our mission is named Elder Bowen, and it was really amazing to hear him address us.

We got to the chapel at 7 and Elder Bowen got there at 8 and asked us to all get in a line so we could shake his hand and introduce ourselves. Then he started giving us this whole lesson he had planned out that lasted like 3 or more hours. The first half of his address was about 5 specific things that we need to do that will absolutely change our mission. He talked about how important it was to wake up right on time, the significance of talking to everyone, and basically got our whole mission motivated to do better. It was really nice, because I've been trying to motivate Elder Perkins to do all of these things, but he never cared until Elder Bowen talked about it. Either way, I'm happy because now he's super excited to work as hard as we can, and that's exactly what we've been doing ever since Elder Bowen talked to us.

His whole talk was super amazing and very interactive, honestly, I would have been totally okay with listening to him talk for the whole day. He really got all of the missionaries pumped to work as hard as they can, and for these past couple of days it seems to be working!

Picture with more random cute kids on the street

On Saturday Elder Perkins and I went tracting and just went around talking to as much people as we could, trying to find people to teach. Then we came to this one man named June. It was the coolest lesson I've ever had with anyone. We knocked on his door, and just straight up told him we were missionaries and that we had a message about the restoration of the church of Jesus Christ and that angels still visit the earth and that the power of God is on the earth again. He just stared at us and told us to start teaching. We basically told him all of the stuff that makes us different, and he listened and just looked at us the whole time like we were angels sent from God. We then just handed him a Book of Mormon and he said he would definitely read it and that we could return anytime to continue teaching him.

That's what I love about the Philippines: there are so many people here that are prepared to accept this gospel. They are humble and listen to us because they believe that we have information that can change their lives, and I promise it does. These people are really amazing, and I'm grateful that I'm able to serve here. I know that this is where I'm supposed to be right now, and that there is no greater work I could be doing in my life right now.

Well, that's all for this week! I'll send pictures this time because I actually have my camera this time! Alright I love you all and I'll email again in another short week!!

We got Yna a cake for her birthday!

Love you all, Elder Austin Cook

The writing on it is my favorite. 

(It basically says the elders are the most handsome)