HEADED OUT TO THE FIELD TO EXPERIENCE BEING A TRUE MISSIONARY

OUR FIRST DAY AND NIGHT!  Our apartment has more mold than anything I've ever seen!   It's so fun to clean.  We couldn't go out our first day because of rioting, so we got to deep clean!  SICK NASTY :) but good companion bonding time!  

 ​I​ found ​a red sassy apron so I cleaned in it all day.

View of a rainy day from our appartment

1ST Chilean meal outside of CCM together....
yup. mac & cheese, hot dog & cokezero ;)

This... my parents and families is the first person I contacted, Raul.

You see in the CCM we got to go out on week 4 and do contacts for a half hour and try to teach people with our messed up Spanglish. I met a man named Raul. He said he had pains in his knees and with his family. I taught him a bit about the plan of salvation and Heavenly Father and taught him about prophets. He asked if he could buy the Book of Mormon from me, so I just gave it to him and he was so grateful. I asked him to read the last two paragraphs of the title page. His eyes got tearful and he hugged the book. HE ACTUALLY HUGGED it!!  Talk about some goose bumps I got. He also asked if we could take his number down and asked if Latinos could teach him so he could understand a bit better, which I wasn't offended by at all. It just means he really wants to learn :) It surprised me that he gave us his number and address because he was so happy about what we were telling him. This gospel really does bring so much joy that I never knew, because I've never been with out it. I sent a picture of his contact info just for fun so you could see my first real street contact in Chile :)

As we walked away I told him I'd be praying for him and he held my hand and we shook good bye.  He is about 50 years old or so and as I walked away I saw him open the book and watched him read it until he was out of sight. 

I was touched. I loved Roul and had only known him for about 45 minutes. The joy that came to him from us telling him about eternal families made me wanna take him to church right then. Landon Austin and Brooklyn, I only wished you could have seen this cute man. I don't know Spanish well but I used what I knew and the spirit did the rest. Other people at the park we went to, did reject us, but Raul was ready for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I can only hope he gets taught by some awesome missionaries since we weren't allowed to teach him yet.

I love this work and I know we are constantly receiving revelation as missionaries. I'm so grateful for Joseph Smith who went through so much to translate the Libro De Mormon for us and to restore His Gospel.  I love families and especially knowing they can be eternal. I will be able to know you guys forever yayyy!!!! Okay well I need to go. my testimony is big, but my words have to be short right now. love you all.  Please PLEASE keep praying and fasting for my Spanish.  It's a struggle for me with the conjugations and memorization's.

I'll keep you each in my prayers. Pray for Raul as well :)  He's a great man.  I hope he continues to read and find joy in the Gospels teachings. 

Chao familia! 

xxoxoxo

♥Simpre, Hermana cook

More Pictures:

My district leader of the first district, Elder McMullen.  He's so nice to me.  But this was an accidental picture we took.  Me, my companions and him.  The Latinos were like OOOOOO TRES CHIKAS!  So they were teasing him cause he had three girls around him and we were cracking up and someone snapped this picture.  It was also really awkward cause he like kind of ran into me so we were a little embarrassed but it was super funny!

 

This is me and Presidente Allred and Hermana Allred.  She cried when I left and said she'd miss me.  She was like my mommy and I always asked her for hugs when I wanted them from you. haha  Love these people they're great!

It's great you made a fake me!!!  Actually I cracked up laughing and it made me laugh out loud. its AWESOME!!!! ahh love you guys.   Austin:  ​I​ love you. your tractor is sexy and  ​I​ really wish ​I ​was with you :( Oh my gosh !!!! I'm cracking UP!!!!!!! LOVE THE FLAT DANIELY!!!!! ahhhhh. I miss you guys :( but it's great here.  This is MUY gracioso.  That pic of the fake me made me sad, cause it's a fake me!!!   It's AWESOME!!!  haahaa  Love you guys..

Our CCM as a whole!

                   Our CCM as a whole!

Goofy Elders saying good bye!

District 3

My second district (district 3) and
my other teacher Hermana Nina in red dress

District 3

Leaving CCM for first day in Field with Hermana Clearwater

Me and Hermana and Elder Gilbert. I just love 

Elder Gilbert. always so happy. I said I wish I 

could give him a hug and he said if that was

 allowed I'd be the first one he'd hug in the CCM♥

District 3 in the CCM.

Such studs.

FIRST SUNDAY out in the field in front of 

church with Hermana Leavitt.  I just LOVE her!

Completos!

  1sd day in field! New companion Hermana Leavitt! Wearing pink & white.

Goofy Sisters at lunch!

Pointing to where I am serving on the map of Chile

This is part of my zone in the mission field! 

P-days are way funner in the field

We played sports today and I learned 

how to play soccer. I officially have a 

favorite team. COLO COLO!!!

Presidente Allred and Hermana Allred

Us eating on the last day at the CCM.
My 2 companions are across the table
from me LOVE THEM BOTH ♥

Me and my precious sweet companions, 

Hermana Castleton and The Gilbert's. 

They are so sweet. Elder Gilbert was

so sad to see me go. He said I lit up the CCM. 

He has the most loving eyes

Pretending to be held prisoners in CCM

SUPER COOL DOG we FOUND

I feel like a little kid here wanting to 

pet all the dogs haha look at its eyes!

One is ice blue and the other hazel Brown

Hermanas from District 3

My testimony has grown specifically for the subject of obedience.

This is going to be so random and all over the place! Not much time to organize my thoughts!

So a lot happened this week!!!   I got switched to a new district and got put into a trio with girls because the new women that came, had an odd number of girls, so they took my companion and put me with two other girls!  I'm so grateful.  My teachers and other Hermanas in my district complimented me on my charity and patience. :)  My new companions are Hermana Albrechtsen and Hermana Pedersen.  They're both from Utah and super sweet!  We had a great time today for our P-Day!
                                                                                      

  (District 9 Love these people) we are way too goofy     Last Day Together!

I want to tell you how much my testimony has grown specifically for the subject of obedience.  My last district (district 9) was always on time, always starting each class on the exact minute and super uptight about being diligent! I didn't think anything of it, I thought all of the districts were that good about starting class but my new district 3 isn't that strict and it's hard because this new district is ran quite a bit differently!  The people in our new district are really kind though. They have complimented me and my companions for our diligent studying and we know we're an example for them, even though I want to strangle the elders sometimes! I miss the way our old district was ran and I know I took the organized structure we had for granted!  But there's pros and cons to both districts.

So to my siblings: PLEASE PLEASE be obedient as often as you can!  You wont see the blessings for maybe a few months, maybe even years but I KNOW obedience is a big part of success.

There was a sweet girl that just came this week and she was talking to my old companion about having a hard time so Hermana Clearwater came and asked me to talk to her because she said I'm really good at helping and because I went through the same struggle.  So I took this new girl by the hand and told her to never compare her Spanish to anyone else EVER. and I told her some embarrassing things I had said in practice lessons like one time I told an investigator he could be forgiven for his fish.....because fish and sins in Spanish sounds really similar!  She was cracking up laughing and she stopped crying after I told her that.  The next day I made her a piece of paper of important words to memorize and gave them to her.  She hugged me and she's been really happy and better since then.  She always hugs me and says hi when we pass each other around the CCM (MTC Mission Training Center).  I love this!!

Oh by the way your prayers and the Lord has helped me so much this week; I memorized all of Doctrine and Covenants 4 and my objective and the first vision all in Spanish.  That's a miracle if ya didn't know!!! lol I'm way excited.  Also, no one else even bothered to memorize Doctrine and Covenants 4 so I'm disappointed about that, but at least I did it!!

I have to tell y'all something that might shock you... I haven't been nervous or gotten butterflies once here. I've felt so much peace the ENTIRE time. I can't even tell you.  It's so not like me and I can feel angles around me all the time.  Doing work for others really makes you forget worries and selfish bothers.  I thought I was a pretty loving person before but really the only time you think of yourself is in the morning when you get ready and exercise!! I loveeee it. 

I met my mission president and he interviewed me yesterday.  Let me tell you about a sweet, relaxed man!!! He shook my hand and BAM I knew everything was going to be a great experience. He didn't talk to me in Spanish which really threw me off and he asked me some good questions about what I wanted to do with my time here and he laughed at my joking answers and joked a lot with me back.  Dad, he served the same time you did. I expressed my concern about the language and he said he could tell I'll have it down well super quick, because of my concern and he said we have great trainers in the field!  Also, my mission is the smallest in area, the most poor area in all of Chile, the most dangerous and has the most humble people.  The member activity rate is about 3-4%.  So were going to do a lot of re-activations which is awesome because we just have to re-teach a few things and then LOVE THE PEOPLE. piece of cake ;) lol jk it will be hard but I know I can do it with the help of my Heavenly Father and the Holey Ghost. I know it wont be easy. It wasn't easy for the Savior but I know I will love it with all of my heart.  Hard times and sacrifice is what makes us appreciate small things.

Flowers on The Temple Ground

Also can you send me some happy uplifting positive quotes from sister Hinkly, sister Monson, the apostles??  There's super cute ones!! Thanks!

Austin: I was sitting in class studying my guts out then I thought of the time we were wrestling and you shoved my face in the wall and there was a makeup mark left on the wall!!! I laughed out loud and was super embarrassed but couldn't help it.  That's my story for you.

Landon: Awe brother, I miss you!!! I have an assignment for you; my favorite hymn right now is Be Still My Soul!  If you have time do you think you could practice it for me and then play it when

I come home?!?  Boys here play piano all the time and it makes me think of you guys playing piano!

Brooke: I MISS MY MIDGET. How are you?  Send me pictures and feelings and I wish you were here sometimes so I could talk to you about my crazy companions.  I want to plead with you to keep reading your scriptures.  Elder Bednar gives some wicked talks I think you should look a few up!!!  And Elder Holland gave one called feed my sheep; YOUTUBE It.   It gets you so pumped for missionary work! I love you all so much.!!  Please remember me and Heavenly father loves you more than I can tell you or type to you at this time or EVER!  ♥Hermana Cook​ ♥

My first Coke Zero on P-Day

                                                                                     

Hermana Clearwater in front of temple

Me and my old companion Hermana Clearwater and my teacher Hermana Leyton in the middle!

They came to me this morning with notes and lots of hugs and kisses.

All the Latinos absolutely LOVE me because I am always asking how they are and talking to them and joking with them.  I had 6 elders say "HERMANA COOOK we need photos with you!!"  I have never even talked to them this entire time I have been here!!  LOL they love my blond hair and they always say they like how my companion and I are smiling all the time!

I feel so much love from my roommates and the Latinos.  They say how much they will miss me when they leave.  I can't believe how the language barrier disappears when the love and spirit are present.  They came to me this morning with notes and lots of hugs and kisses.  They wrote how they love me so much and how happy I am and how much I served   them by doing little things.  I love Latinos and the spirit.                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Hermana Colil loved me the most.  She is the one I stayed up til 12:30 am last week and painted her nails and tried to help her to feel not so sad.  She is sad a lot and cries but I just always give her hugs because that is the best way to communicate with her.  She was just home sick and talked about missing her family a lot.  She bawled and held onto me before she left for the field this morning.  Latinos are only at the CCM (MTC) for three weeks because they already know the language.  They all left for the field at 6 am this morning.  I love Hermana Colil.  I felt bad for her because many of the people in the MTC seemed a bit bothered by her missing her family and crying a lot.







My companion Hermana Clearwater (the tall one from Argentina) just loves me and brought me some fruit she had bought one day because I told her how much I missed fruit!!  She is soo thoughtful!

I love you all...Keep saying your prayers and pray that I will learn Spanish!  xoxoxooxoxo

Hermana Cook (:

My super crazy note

                                                                            


This is my Mission Presidents at the CCM (They look like grandma and grandpa Fisher) :)









Hermana Castleton is the first young lady I took a picture with.  She is a great woman and absolutely stunning.  She was quiet at first, but I could feel the strong spirit radiating off of her so I always tried to be by her.  I like her a lot!





DINNER FROM HEAVEN and desert

Hermana Colis Nails I painted ♥

           

 This is an old church they were restoring!

I ate my first Chilean cookie!

Hey family.  I love you guys so much!  Not much to tell from this week, it was the same as last week except that I have been improving a lot. Spanish is still suffering a bit but I'm honestly not even bothered by it. I know I will be able to speak the language soon. Every one tells me it doesn't really even come until the second month and not to worry and I've had a lot of comforting feelings that i will be fine.

I ate my first Chilean cookie!  Look at the Chilean money!  its so pretty!  Some of the money here has an owl on it... I hate owls but it made me think how Tate loves owls so I hugged the money.  Sounds super childish but it brought me comfort.  500 pesos is one dollar, so we like joke that we have 1000 pesos in our pocket at all times.  It makes us feel wealthy. heehee

All I've eaten here is rice pasta and chicken.
It's been super great.  I miss mommy's cooking but I've lost 8 pounds so holla at that!

I've had many tender mercies happen this week so I went out and got a notebook to write all the tender mercies that happen out here and I'm going to share a few with you.  INSERT SMILEY FACE HERE cause I don't know how to get them on Spanish keyboards..

This week it rained twice.  This was a tender mercy to me because I felt like I was at the beach and it relaxed me and I felt Heavenly Father's love with each drop.

I say words wrong and it ends up being a District joke!  I was trying to say [what can you learn from this? but accidentally said '' what can you learn from bear'' this was a tender mercy because I was feeling a little flustered but with the laughing of my class and companion and help they showed me I felt so much happier.

I memorized the objective and the first prayer in Spanish. YUP.  I did it.  I would like to say I did it all by myself but that would be obviously lying to my family and to Heavenly Father because through your prayers and testimonies I was able to do this.

I saw the moon for the first time in 2 weeks.  I've been looking for it every night but it's so foggy here you rarely see it and last night me and Hermana Clearwater came out of our personal study session and stared at it for a good solid 5 minutes. I thought of you mommy!!

I saw pink flowers two days ago.  Pink flowers are my favorite happy object.

Also this week the missionaries that were here before we got here.. meaning all the Latinos and our roommates left the CCM and will be going out to the real mission field!  I never knew how much love you could have for someone that doesn't even speak the same language as you.  I had to communicate through a lot of actions and mistakes with my words but they loved to watch me try to explain things then help me say and understand. They are such loving people.  I'll miss them so much but I know I'll see them again so I can thank them properly with real Spanish sincerity.  I love this gospel. Christ lives. I know after 3 days the disciples went to check the tomb and Christ was not there.  He had risen.  Joseph Smith restored this gospel and sealed it with his life. I know that Moroni saw our day and wrote those scriptures for us and selfishly for me particularly.  I love you mommy, daddy, Landon, teeny and Brooklyn!!

These were only a few tender mercies that I wanted to share but through out the week I will be writing letters to you and taking pictures of the letters and sending them to you.  I want to write back to all of your letters you wrote me last week so I'm going to take the time to do that now.

Here is a picture of Hermana Clearwater, Hermana Pederson and Hermana Albrechtsen !  I love this place.  We may look like we goofed off a lot but that's only for about 10 to 15 minutes max each day.  We work hard and its stressful but we make time to smile and make memories along our studies.

Love you all!  Hermana Cook ♥

Dove Chocolate that Hna Clearwater always gave everyone at the beginning of class. This one says "Take a bath."

We had our first missionary discussions

So please forgive me again for punctuation.  We have about 45 minuets to read our emails and type so grammar isn't in the forefront of my mind.

(me negro is like a compliment in Chile by the way, its like saying : what's up buddy!!) It's muy grasioso.. (funny) heehee

Okay, so there is a temple in Santiago and it's in my back yard :)  You can look up pictures and see what it looks like.  It's super teeny, but beautiful none the less, and I get to see it every day all the time!  I love it.  We get to go through a Spanish session tomorrow and I'm super excited !!  Spanish is super hard and I've kept positive the entire time even though I am the slowest learner in my district.  I am in district 9 which happens to be my favorite number which is a BONUS!!

So I got so stressed the first day here I ground my teeth all night and I had lock jaw the next morning.  But I wasn't even upset about it.   I kind of almost pretended to forget my mouth hurt and focused on learning and pretty much it went away after the second day! yay!  Ive slept very nice here and I'm so glad I had an extra blanket because it helps me sleep much better and I LOVE the dog we got at the DI.

I've had rice and chicken every day for lunch and dinner and we get cereal for breakfast and toast and ham, so I'm kind of tired of that but that's OKAY!  I'm grateful for food.

Basically how I have been learning and memorizing things in Spanish is through doing sign language Haydin taught me  I almost cried two days ago because I cant speak as well as everyone else.  So after I pleaded with Heavenly Father on how I should memorize these big long scriptures. He told me to use sign language and so I listened and WALLAH I memorized most of the first vision and our missionary objective. yay! Thanks for all the prayers by the way  I can feel them when I'm upset, which I'm not upset often, but the stress does get to you but i love it!!  Ive lost six pounds this week because I'm tired of the food so I don't eat that much so that's kind of nice.  But i'll put weight back on when I'm out probably because its ALL CARBS!

So we had an awesome district meeting on the third day we were here and when the speaker was talking about how we were prepared for this generation I thought how the prophets have prepared you (mom and dad) to teach us these things.  Having scripture studies, FHE, making us go to church etc.. was preparing us (especially us women) to be ready when the age change came and because of that I also can teach the gospel more quickly and fervently.  I love you both for that.

So I also learned with memorization; if you memorize things for your investigators, you memorize things a little easier compared to if you're trying to memorize them for yourself.  For example; if you pray to Heavenly Father to help you memorize something to teach your investigator and you think of them while memorizing the passage, you'll do it with more love in your heart, which I think helps the message stick in your mind!

Oh and by the way.... the men are twice as adorable when you walk around the corner and you see them kneeling in a companionship in the middle of the hallway saying their

prayers.  SO precious.

Fast Sundays are awesome.  We fast for a full 24 hours and the entire sacrament is in Spanish so you have to kind of make up what they are saying as they speak so it gets you thinking about a lot of things!!!

We had our first missionary discussions (they were with our teachers but they pretend to be an investigator that they had converted on their missions so its like real) and I am so blessed to have a companion that took a year in Spanish before she came up here because with out Hermana Clearwater I´d be so lost!!! But it's hard to sit and listen to her and the investigator talk and know what they're saying and the holy ghost is telling you to say something but you can't because you don't speak Spanish just yet!!   I got so emotional the first time because I wanted to tell them that their Heavenly Father loved them and through the atonement they could feel peace and happiness.  But I couldn't so I just listened.  That made me want to learn the language SOOO badly though.  The CCM (MTC in Spanish) has such inspired teaching methods.  By the way all of our teachers got off of their missions within the past year and a half, so they're pretty awesome and inspired as well.

Another thing I learned is not to slouch!  It puts you right to sleep.  A really good Sunday movie to watch is called LEGACY.  It's an awesome pioneer movie and we watched it on Sunday :)) so it will put the TV to some good use.

I also found out that there are 200 to 250 missionaries in my mission which is one of the smallest missions in the world!  It's 16 miles by 8 miles so there will be about 2 to 3 pairs of missionaries in each ward.  That's crazy.  A lot of people are inactive here so that's what we will be doing a lot of the time is reactivating these people.  woohoo!!

PLEASE PLEASE pray that I will be able to quickly learn the language.   I'm making note cards later today because I'm not sure what else to do!  I know it's only been a week but I want to speak to people so badly. I know so much that they don't know yet.  I feel so greedy holding it all inside.  I'm grateful I love everyone so easily because I can tell it's going to be hard.  People here are nice but not super patient all of the time!  But it will be fine :)

One more cool thing: there's a ton of 18 year old elders here!  Some boys here came to the CCM super immature and loud and would lean back in their chairs and seem to have the worst ADHD I've ever seen! but after 2 to 3 days, these boys straightened up and you could

at least read their testimonies on their faces.  Change is inevitable here!  It's crazy.. they open doors now and are getting better despite some things they still have to work on,  know they'll be awesome MEN someday. They're precious.  Love all the Elders!!

This letter has been painfully random and I'm sorry! They're is so much good things happening here that I wish I could elaborate more, but this will have to do for now.

Additional notes and random funnies:

Being blond in Santiago Chile is really funny.  Blonds never open doors

Blonds feel like celebrities because you have tone of people taking pictures of you, even while they're driving

I love pan!! Which means bread in Spanish

I haven't cried once

I only got discouraged for a total of 4 hours two days ago because I couldn't speak to our investigators!!

My spelling is worse than before because I'm trying to remember which is the spelling for Spanish and English!!

I love President Tew because he is worthy to hold the priesthood and be my stake president to give me such a wonderful blessing

I love saying 10 to 15 minute prayers 

Revelation is a frequent thing even if they're teensy thoughts

I look terrible with red lipstick

Sin and fish sound almost the same in Spanish and I mix them up a lot : pecado:sin  pescado: fish

Mommy I loved the pictures of you and Brooke.  Makes me miss you both :)   Can't read all the emails so  took pics of them and will read and respond eventually!  Daddy read parts of your email because I couldn't resist, but couldn't read it all.  Love you tons.  Hope your job is going well.  I'll be praying for you.

LOVE YOU!

xooxoxo

love always

Danielle N Cook

I'll type my testimony next time in Spanish because i just don't have time right now!  But I do have a testimony.. I promise.  KAY ADIOS.