Prayer is real. Prayer helps. It's asking our Father in Heaven for his help, and he will ALWAYS help us in the best way possible, but only if we are willing to follow his direction and to follow his will.

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a fantastic week this week! I don't really know where to start this email, but I kinda realized that I have been companions with Elder Maga for the past 5 weeks, and I don't think I've given a decent description of who he is, so I guess I'll explain him a little bit. Elder Maga is SUPER awkward, super blunt, and just doesn't have the best of social skills. But I'll tell you what, he is one of the funniest people I've ever met. He doesn't make a lot of jokes or anything, but just the way he does things is just hilarious, so we actually get along really well! He doesn't speak hardly any English at all, so I only speak to him really in Tagalog, so it helps me learn a lot more, which is fantastic! Well that's pretty much who he is. It's really difficult to explain his type of personality through an email, but he's great, he really is.

So we have another baptism of a girl this week named Glorybie (Glory bee) (yeah, super weird name right?) We have been working with her for like the whole time I've been here, so it's really nice to see that she is taking steps towards her baptism. I have a feeling that she is going to be my last baptism before I leave this area right now. I've been here for 6 months now, and Transfer day is next Tuesday, so there's a good chance I'm going to be headed out of here. It's kinda sad really, the people here become like your family, especially when you're been with them for 6 months.

This week we've been basically been focusing on Glorybie and Twinkle. Twinkle is doing great. Even though she was only baptized a week ago, she is one of the strongest members in the branch. She is the oldest in her family of 8 kids. Her dad left her and moved to Manilla to provide for the children, and her mom decided that being a mom was too hard, so she just told Twinkle that she was going to take care of the kids from now on, and then her mom moved to a different city and barely talks to them anymore. This happened like two years ago, so Twinkle is probably one of the strongest 18 year olds I've ever met. She has all of the great strong qualities that a mother of 7 kids has. She has probably taught me more than I'll ever teach her about patience and faith. I have seen in her what I have seen in probably no one else in my life.

She has such a firm testimony in prayer. It's really amazing how she thinks and receives answers from God. So many people will pray for something in their life, and then when it finally happens, they don't realize that it correlates with their prayers. Prayers really is the most divine way of receiving the highest form of blessings. On my mission so far, I've really learned to rely on prayer, and to seek my own answers with divine assistance. Really, prayer is real. Prayer helps. It's asking our Father in Heaven for his help, and he will ALWAYS help us in the best way possible, but only if we are willing to follow his direction and to follow his will.

Sorry I don't have any pictures again, I kinda forgot my camera back at the apartment. But that's okay, because that means we get twice as many pictures next week! WOOHOO! But anyways, that's all for now folks! HAVE A GOOD WEEK!!

Elder Austin Cook