Elder Austin Russell Cook Philippines, Legazpi Mission 8-2016 thru 8-2018: Time is already flying by. I've already finished 1/4 of the mission! But it really scares me as well, because every day that I get close to coming home is a day that I get closer to never being able to do this again in my life.

So this week Edna's kids were finally baptized! It was really a neat experience for all of them! That's pretty much the highlight of this week, so I'm going to focus on that.

Not a great picture of the baptism, but that's as good as it gets

So the baptism started at like 4, and it was held in the middle of nowhere in this random hot spring. Seriously it was such a beautiful spot to do a baptism! The baptismal service itself went until like 8:00 PM, so we baptized them in like pitch black darkness, and there was just a perfect silence among the crowd, seriously it was so beautiful. But the kids were super excited and the mom especially so. It was such a blessing to see a whole family accepting this gospel and desiring to live by it in their lives.

Later that day, we also had transfer announcements! I was honestly super scared, because I did not want to be transferred out of this area yet. I have way more work to do here before I'm done. But anyways, turns out Elder Bangal is being transferred! After only 6 short weeks, he is being transferred to Legaspi to be a zone leader there. He's really excited for it. I wish he could have stuck around because we get along SO WELL and he is really such a hard worker. But I hear that my new companion is really nice and humble, so that's great to hear! Anyways, I guess I will find out tomorrow when I meet him!

So that's pretty much all for this week! Gosh... I know coming home in a year and a half is going to

Broadcast- Bulan zone

be awesome, but time is already flying by. I've already finished 1/4 of the mission! But it really scares me as well because every day that I get closer to coming home is a day that I get closer to never being able to do this incredible stuff in my life. Bu I do want to talk about and highlight one of my favorite principles of this gospel. This week we taught the Plan of Salvation to Twinkle and her family, and they asked what happens to babies if they die without being baptized. Because here, they believe that they all go straight to hell. For me, that is the most depressing thing that anyone could possibly believe and it breaks my heart to know that so many people believe that. But I was so grateful to have read to her the chapter in the Book of Mormon where it explains that children who die without being baptized are wrapped up in the arms of God and are taken to live with him. What an amazing and blessed piece of doctrine found only in this gospel. When we taught them that their whole family absolutely loved it, and they just said it made sense. Honestly, I cannot express how true that is and how loving our Heavenly Father is to allow those children who die to be brought back instantly to his presence.

Yeah so that's a volcano exploding. so yeah. That's pretty cool

Anyways, that was just a thought that I had throughout this week. But that's all for now! I love you all and I promise I am keeping you all in my prayers! I'll email again next week!

Elder Austin Cook

I (Austin's mom) asked him a few questions and these were his responses:

The Church of Jesus Christ in the Philippines is ran pretty disorganized. The missionaries here have an infinite amount of responsibility. We find, we teach, we anchor, we act as friends, teachers, counselors, auxiliary leaders. I'm not kidding when I say we are literally in charge of everything. We are not jut baptizing people, it is our job to quite literally establish the church here. It's so hard, but it keeps us busy... and BUSY is HAPPINESS!

Isn't the Volcano erupting awesome! and no it doesn't kill people. A couple years ago it killed a couple hundred I think. But those people were living literally on the volcano, so we are safe.

I know coming home is gonna be awesome! Time is already flying by. I've already finished 1/4 of the mission! But it really scares me as well, because every day that I get close to coming home is a day that I get closer to never being able to do this again in my life.