It's Awesome!

Dear Momma!

Thank you so much for the letter and the insights you got from those talks! My pday is Tuesday as you can tell so you did have to wait another day. But I have a lot to talk about and I really wanna write to Dad to since I didn't write him anything last week. But I love all of your letters SOOO much! It's the best in the world and I have the best family ever!!!

So just for update my favorite scripture is Ether 12:27 which I have been relating to a lot here at the CCM. And just another update Mom, the water here in Chiile is 100 percent safe so I don't have to worry about that and it is so beautiful here! And at Alcantara where I stay there is a maid who does our laundry and it's awesome so I have it pretty good here haha! But also I just want to apologize for not writing everyone last week, they only give you an hour and it's probably the most stressful hour here in the CCM! But guess who is the top dog at the CCM now!!? Me! All the older districts left this morning to go to their missions so we are here for another four weeks and we get some new missionaries tomorrow morning! It's awesome now that we are on top! It's awesome! And out of the Americans here, I probably know the most Spanish! It's pretty sweet! I am so blessed to recall all my Spanish and for it to just stick with me, it's really easy! The hermanas in my district tease me everyday that they are jealous of my Spanish and how they want me as a companion cause my Spanish is so good haha. I already told Blake this but my teacher was teaching us past imperfect and preterite and he got them switched around and went on this twenty minute lesson about it teaching it wrong when I finally told him the correct way and he just starred at me in amazement that I already knew it all! Ha ha so thank you so much Blake for all the studying! 

All the days seems super long but the weeks seem to go by fast it is weird. So the days all seem to be blending all together. I will try my best to recall everything. We have three investigators, Ismael, Carolina, and Alejandro. And the first two are actually really easy and they are so prepared to hear the gospel. Every time Elder Peel and I teach Ismael and Carolina they just absorb it all up! And Elder Peel and I were the first companionship to get a baptismal date with Carolina! Ha ha! Number one! Ha ha just kidding! It was awesome! Alejandro is a whole other story. He is a kid who just is not interested in or during our lessons and is only listening to us because his girlfriend is Mormon. It is really hard to keep his attention. Every time we go to teach him he is just mad, but Elder Peel and I just keep our lessons short and we just testify a lot to him cause we have noticed that whenever we testify he pays attention. The rest of our district is having a really hard time teaching him but we have gotten to know him the most. Every time he opens the door my companion just goes in and gives him the biggest bear hug and it changes his attitude totally! I know Heavenly Father has really blessed me and my companion with teaching him. I hope our district can do better as well! I know this isn't the real thing but I can't wait to actually be teaching real people; it is going to be awesome!!!!!

Saturday Elder Peels and I had an adventure!!! So we have exercise every morning and this time we had a little bit for free time so we decided to go out and explore a little bit. . . bad mistake. We left and 8:15 in the morning and didn't get back till 9:30 because we got SOOO LOST! It was so scary! I was panicking sooo much! I have no idea where we were but we just kept running and running and then we missed our street so we went way North and then way East! And we had no idea where we were. I tried to ask people where our street was and they just kept looking at us and saying stuff like, "Your street is half an hour just by subway. You have a very long way to go!" Ha ha so that was not comforting at all! Just imagine Elder Peel and I in this huge city with only our name tags on and no money or phone running for a straight hour and a half! It was so scary! But we decided to pray for help and I know Heavenly Father answers prayers! It was pretty cool actually. There are stray dogs everywhere but right when we finished praying we got up off the sidewalk and this dog walked right up to us, looked at us, then starting walking in a direction. For some reason, both me and my companion had the impression to follow the dog and after following the dog for twenty minutes, we asked someone for directions and then we were only two blocks from our house! It was such a tender mercy! I am so grateful for the dog! I know there would have been no other way we could have gotten back! It is such a blessing and I know that Heavenly Father answers prayers and looks after his missionaries. So no worries mom, I'm completely fine, just really sore ha ha!

Sunday was an awesome day! We just watched a lot of movies about the Book of Mormon and how important it is! It is such a blessing to have the Book of Mormon and I have taken it for granted so much! It is the word of God and has the fulness of the gospel! I know it is true and we ALWAYS need to be studying out of it! I also realized after a devotional we had that I just need to forget myself and get to work just like the talk Gordan B Hinckley gave. And guess what happened in Priesthood??!!! I had to give a talk!!! Yea every Sunday the CCM president calls on like five guys to give a talk and you better be prepared. Luckily, I was and I gave a five minute talk about keeping commitments because they are crucial for our investigators to make covenants with God and I told them that we all made a commitment to be a missionary and we need to always remember who we are representing and how we need to help our investigators draw closer to God. I felt like I did really bad with my Spanish since I was so nervous but I actually had a lot of people come up to me and say that my Spanish was really really good for only being here for two weeks. I had some elders that just left on their missions today come up to me and say that they wish their Spanish was that good ha ha! And they have been here for six weeks! So that was a great confidence booster! 

Today since the Elders and Hermanas left for their missions, Sister Gilbert made us pancakes!!!!! It was awesome! For breakfast here we have fruit loops with yogurt. It's pretty good, but when she brought those pancakes out I just went to town with them! I think I had about 7 this morning! I miss American food so much! I have chicken, rice, and mashed potatoes every meal! Ha ha but don't worry I still haven't put any weight on! Yesterday was a way tender mercy cause I was missing your cooking so much Mom. And for lunch that day guess what they had? They had squeaky chicken and I know I didn't really like that that much back home but it was awesome! And then guess what they had for dinner?! Stroganoff or however you spell it! It was such a blessing! Heavenly Father really does look after his missionaries! 

Okay so that's my email! I'll try to send pictures but it is really slow here, but if you don't get any you will next week for sure!!!}} I love you guys so much! And I love this work so much!!!!!}

Love, 

Elder Cowan