August 31, 2015 ~ Week 61

After a 3 hour hotter then Tucson, Arizona bus ride I arrived in Arequipa where my companion found me and took me to our room.  We live on the 3rd floor of a member-owned apartment complex.  We actually have real dumbbells in there so it’s great to not actually have to use my study chair to work my bicep.
The relationship that we have with our pentionista is of that of a contractor and not a mom, we eat separate from the family but I told my companion that before the transfer ends we will be eating with the family.

Everyone here is so direct with asking about what happened to my arm, members and non members, everyone thinks that it was an accident instead of a birth defect, but the husband of our pentionista who is the 1st counselor in the stake was impressed when he challenged me to tie my own tie.  Ha, child’s play, I’ve been doing that for years…

Bishop Stevenson who is the presiding bishop of the church visited the mission this past week; he focused on the importance of declaring your testimony and also about 2 Nephi 2.  The whole mission got together that day and it was nice to see everyone.  My MTC group took a picture together along with our mission president as he will be finishing his mission with us next year.

That same night the zone leaders and sister leaders headed over to the mission house for what would be part one of our mission council meeting.  Saturday morning we finished the meeting, it was such a great spirit there and I’m so happy that I am with Elder Pascual and that we have 16 missionaries in our zone.

After the meeting, in the afternoon we headed over to the church for a stake activity where the 6 wards danced to traditional dances and music, it was a nice activity.

On Sunday we headed over to our ward. We live right next to the church and it started at 9am and there was an attendance of about 75 people.  It’s a different feeling being in a ward and a stake, our chapel is huge and its going to be fun time over here, in HUNTER, AREQUIPA.

Bye

Elder McCook

August 24, 2015 ~ Week 60 ~ pictures

Handstands on the beach.

The zone had to say goodbye to 2 really great elders.  It was a sad day.

Had to say goodbye to my awesome pentionista,
Mama Liz.

Goodbye party at Matarani.

August 24, 2015 ~ Week 60

First things first, congratulations to my sister, Madyson McCOOK for finishing her mission in Florida and for returning home with honor.  I love you so much, thank you.

Changes, changes, changes (Transfers)

I am going to Arequipa to a zone called Hunter to be a zone leader with Elder Pascual from Peru.

I remember when I arrived to Matarani; I did not like it, at all.  But in 6 months with all confidence I can say that I am leaving this zone, my district, my branch and my companion better then when I found them.

Yesterday Matarani had its branch conference, so I was not able to give a farewell talk but in the end of the conference they announced that they will be doing a goodbye party for me at 5.  Due to Peru time the party started at 6 and it was incredible, I was so surprised by how many people showed up.  We sung a hymn and had a prayer and then everyone got up to say some words about me and to just share their feelings about me.  It was one of the most special hours of my life because I just had people that I had come to love just share powerful feelings about someone like me.

I was crying within minutes.

In the end I gave a short talk and I shared a scripture that I shared for my very first talk in the branch 6 months ago.  It’s in the book of Jacob:

“I conclude this record, declaring that I have written according to the best of my knowledge, by saying that the time passed away with us, and also our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream"

Madyson, I know your mission passed by - as if it were a dream, my time in Matarani sure did.

Now the Lord has called me to Arequipa to find someone and help them.  Thank you for those of you who are still with me.

Love you.

Elder McCook

August 17, 2015 ~ Week 59 ~ Pictures

Dinner with the zone

Eating breakfast in Arequipa super early before the conference in the morning with Elder Uceda

This is taken right when we got back to the lovely land of Mollendo after the mission conference

Chilling on huge anchor

The official dog of the missionaries in Matarani; his name is McCookie.  This is the photo after we gave him a bath

August 17, 2015 ~ Week 59

My package that my parents sent in July with my camera hasn’t arrived yet because the workers at the Serpost (Post Office) in the capital of Lima have come to the conclusion that the blue sour raspberry baby bottle pops are prescription drugs and not candy and they won’t send the package till they see a receipt for them.  So all the photos that I have recently been sending are courtesy of Sister Torres from Argentina.

On Monday we had a sweet Pday and it’s even sweeter if you can notice in the photo that I am using my batman socks – a Pday only tradition.

Tuesday night instead of sleeping in our own room and getting up 

super early to go to Mollendo we spent the night in the zone leaders house and still woke up early at 3am to head over to Arequipa and spend the whole day over there for an amazing mission conference with Elder Juan Uceda who is a member of the first quorum of the 70 and the president of the area.  The conference was awesome and his English is perfect.  He challenged all the Latinos to face their fears and to learn English and he told all the gringo missionaries to learn Spanish better.  Check the words of the week below to see some sweet new words I learned.

On Saturday Elder Uceda, President Zobrist, their wives, all us 

missionaries, and the Branch Council in Mollendo were in a meeting.  The objective was to make sure that we are having our meetings every week and how to make them better. Afterwards as a zone we went to a bar b q restaurant to eat some sweet dinner.

In Matarani an investigator from the Sister missionaries gave them a 

dog and they accepted it and now it lives in the house of our pentionista.  It’s a cute little boy and Sister Davis named it Mccookie in honor of me because everyone in the zone thinks I’m going to leave Mollendo at the end of this week because changes are this Saturday..

If I stay or if I go it will be great!!  I love Mollendo and it’s crazy 

because when I arrived I just struggled.  It was the absolute worst.  But now I’ll never forget it and I mean that in a good way.

Chau

Elder Mccook

words of the week:  impostergable- postponed

                                canonicos- standards

                                 mesera- waitress

August 10, 2015 ~ Week 58 ~ Pics

I ate some sweet seafood with the zone.

I have the best district ever!
I love my latinos.

August 10, 2015 ~ Week 58

 This past week the bar b q that we did for the leaders in Matarani went great.  All of the leaders that were invited, attended.  The activity was going great. We started with a little training session lead by my companion and I and we talked about the importance of being a leader.  During our training session someone was supposed to be outside cooking the meat but no one was and so after the training and the games we had to wait a bit for the charcoals to heat up. 

Every Friday for the past month we have gone to the church to play volleyball to get the youth ready to play in a district activity that was this past Saturday: 3 branches playing soccer and volleyball.  Our youth got dominated in soccer but for volleyball we put up a fight.  Me and my companion didn’t play in the district activity, but I was a referee.  The Young Men’s President from the Mollendo branch didn’t show up so I took them under my gringo wing and led the under dogs to the championship, but we lost to the other branch.  Matarani has been really good at helping our youth investigators and less actives.  We have a handful of them and the young women’s president has been helping us a lot.

Chau fam

Elder Mccook

words of the week: activity- actividad
                               bar b q – parrillada