Elder Austin Russell Cook Philippines, Legazpi Mission 8-2016 thru 8-2018: This church is the true gospel of Jesus Christ, and anyone can know for themselves if they just ask with a sincere heart

This is the boat that blew up

Hey kids! So last Tuesday I got transferred to my new area in Masbate. It was actually pretty difficult leaving Libon. Honestly it felt very similar to leaving Irosin or leaving home, but I've pretty much gotten used to that feeling by now. So on Tuesday we got on this boat called a Row Row, which is the boat that they use to get people out to Masbate, and it's actually a really nice boat! They have two decks, and the upstairs has really nice indoor seating with really good movies playing (No, we didn't watch the movies, we stayed outside the whole time). So we started our travel at 7:00 PM and the Row Row takes about 4 hours to get to Masbate, so we were planning to be arriving at about 11:00 PM. But about two hours into our travel, the engine of the boat blew out. And when I say that, I mean it was for real, like something you would see in the movies. It sounded like 4 gunshots and steam and smoke just SHOT out of the main engine room and then everything stopped. We thought we were gonna stay there all night, but in about two hours they got the boat up and running again, so we arrived in Masbate safe and sound at about 1:00 AM.

Me and Elder Montilla out in their area in Cataingan

The next morning we woke up at 6:30 AM as usual and got right to work! My new companion, Elder Maliu, used to be President Kotter's Assistant, and this is his last 6 weeks here on the mission, so he is a very experienced missionary. He is one of the kindest guys I've met out here, and I am so glad to be his companion, even if it is for just one transfer. So we've basically just been working so much every day, and I really love it. The people here are THE BEST!! They are super welcoming, even though they just met us, and they are actually intelligent. The main struggle of my last area was actually getting people to just understand our message about Christ, but it kind of seemed like they didn't really understand us, it just didn't click in their brains. But here the people are very kind and they understand us, so it is a very nice change of pace!

Also this place is actually a lot cleaner than my last area, especially the water :) To be honest this island is known for having horrible water. But since we are in the nice part of the city, we have really clean water! And our apartment has 3 bathrooms, and one of them has a shower head! But we only get water in the apartment at certain times of the day. The city controls when we do and don't get water. We get water in the morning and at night, so it actually works perfectly because that is the only time that we are home :) So I really have no complaints about the area! Our apartment is really unorganized, but I'll be fixing that this week as soon as I get time. I don't have a lot of time because we gotta head out to the mainland in Legazpi and we won't even be coming back until Friday. Being a zone leader is busy stuff this week.

Nothing much is different here on the island, environmentally speaking. The food is the same, the transportation is the same, the plants and houses are pretty much the same. Oh, but the one thing that is different here is that the language is different. They don't always speak Tagalog, a lot of the time they speak Masbatanio, which is a mix of Vesiya and Bicol. So we get to learn even more languages out here, WOOHOO!! No worries though, it's actually a lot easier to learn it. Once you understand Tagalog, these other island languages are pretty easy to pick up on.

I don't have much time here, so I just want to share one neat spiritual experience before I head off. So we teach the Villamor Family, just a couple, Babylon Villamor and Mary-Jane Villamor, with two small kids. They were actually supposed to be baptized last week, but some issues came up and they couldn't be baptized, which really bummed us out. So we went to their house, last night actually, to see what the problems were with them not being baptized. We wanted to know what the problem was: were they scared, worried, or just not wanting to? So we got there and turns out that Babylon really wants to be baptized, but his wife does not have the desire. She's not totally sure if Joseph Smith was a real prophet of God, so if he's not a prophet, then this church isn't true, so we could see her worry. We told her that there is NO WAY that she can know if he really was a Prophet if she doesn't pray about it and ask God herself. So right there in the lesson, we told her to say a prayer and ask God directly and specifically if Joseph Smith was a Prophet, and if this is the true church of Jesus Christ here on the earth. So she did. After she finished saying the prayer, it was silent for about 30 seconds before she finally spoke, telling us that right when she asked if it was all true, she felt an indescribable feeling inside of her, and she was so excited about it that she held up her arm to us to show us her goosebumps. She said that she was trying really hard not to cry because of what she felt, and we testified to her that that was the spirit telling her that it was indeed true.

I just love all of this. I feel bad for anyone who misses out on this Gospel of Jesus Christ because they are truly missing out on the eternities. This church is the true gospel of Jesus Christ, and anyone can know for themselves if they just ask with a sincere heart.

Also about my friend in my last area, Aries Leonor, he always told me that when I go home that I would forget about him, but I always thought it would be the other way around. He sees missionaries come and go all the time and honestly I thought he would just forget about me haha. But it's really touching to read all of the things that he wrote about me. But yeah, he really was the best member in the branch, and I'll miss him so much. I never really mentioned him in my emails sent to home, but he really has helped change my mission for the better. I never assumed so much help would come from a member :) There's about 98% that I don't get the time to write about in my emails sent home

But Aries changed my mission, he truly did.

I love you all and hope you all have a GREAT WEEK!!!
Love ya kids, Ingat (Tagolog for "take care")

Elder Austin Cook