ELDER COOK

5/21/2017

Family,

Thanks for the package! That is the best package of the year every year with the Ensign in it and some dried fruit. What more could you want. Dried apples, dried pineapple and the May 2017 Ensign. Sounds like happiness to me.

Many blessings this week. Lets start with at church I guess. Everybody was at church this Sunday. It was great. All the Recent Converts and Less Actives we are working with all showed up. Chen Guo Wu, Boris Guo, Jason Luo, Yang Kai, Angel Tan and her mother, and Yang Feng JM. Besides that Shuie a new investigator was there as well. I couldn't believe it. The Sacrament talks were perfect for Shuie. The 1st Counselor in the Temple Presidency was there and was invited to share his testimony. He bore a short and simple, but powerful testimony (in my opinion, the best testimonies are this way) on how he knows Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and how he came to know that is true. Then a Senior missionary spoke on the Priesthood. Both right on the spot for what she needed to hear. Preach My Gospel tells us that the first questions an investigator has to resolve is whether or not Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, which can be answered by reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. This obviously applies to Shuie as well. Such a blessing to have a wonderful Sacrament meeting on this.

Shuie is really investigating. Too often we meet with people and I feel that this isn't the case. She is investigating. She keeps commitments and she has a lot of questions. They are real and good questions. She really wants to know. It is so fun to teach and learn with her. When they have real questions and a desire to learn it is much much easier to teach than when they don't. Also I find myself studying harder to help her and praying for her more and loving her more. 

I had the urge to make cookies from scratch this week. Figured it couldn't be that hard. Well, it is a little harder than mixing some flour, milk, eggs, sugar and butter together. Tasted more like a sweet pancake than anything else. Not too bad.

Few mainlanders down this week. They are just incredible every time.

One more tender mercy. We have been trying hard to ask everyone for referrals and haven't had really any success. But like most the time referrals, they come from places you don't expect and come when you are trying to get them and the Lord can see your desire. Elder Woolley called up last night with a referral from the Wan Chai Mandarin Branch on the Island. 

This week in personal study I liked 2 Nephi 32:3, 5. The words of Christ TELL us all things we should do and the Holy Ghost SHOWS us all things we should do. No wonder Preach My Gospel tells us that the Book of Mormon, combined with Spirit, is our most powerful resource in conversion. The words of Christ tell us the what and the the Holy Ghost show us the how. That's a good combo right there.

We are very excited for Elder Cook this afternoon!

Elder Josh Stratford 施長老