Hey Fam!

Sounds like you all had fun over the 4th of July. This is actualy the 3rd one I have spent outside of the U.S. I had one while Stacy and I were in India. There is an odd feeling when you know everybody is celebrating something somewhere else but where you are is just another normal day. You kind of feel like you didn't get invited to a party that everybody is talking about the next day. However, the difference is I can say, "Sorry I wasn't at the party fellas, I was busy preaching truth in a foreign land." This is a win win win situation.

  In actuality things had kind of a sad spirit here. A former President of Lithuania died this last week so everybody had thier flags out so it still had a patriotic feel. However they were half mast and had a mourning black ribbon on them. I included some pictures.
   As far as the work goes things are going well. Elder Hilton and I are still trying hard to build up our pool of investigators. We have found some good people including a boy named Petras who just had a ton of good questions and was willing to learn. We are going to be meeting with him again today. About half-way through the week I just got really tired. After 4 weeks of 5+ straight hours of contacting days it gets hard to still have a passionate spirit about everything. Elder Hilton does a great job of keeping the faith. He helps me out a lot. After we had some good spiritual lessons and had some good discussions about Christ I was back to normal. It keeps me going knowing that I need to be an example to others and that I myself need to fufill my calling. It makes being obedient not an issue.
  In other news i once again came home from Riga to find my power had been turned off.  We had our landlord come fix it that night.
Let's hope my luck gets better when I go to Riga because I have to go again this Friday with Elder Gearhart for an exchange. Better get my Russian and Latvian "contacts" brushed up.
Love you guys.

Elder Cooke