Dear Mom,
Thanks for the letter! That is awesome that Jenny and Kyle are there visiting! Hi Jenny and Kyle and little baby Abby! I wish I could see little Abby! Haha! She sounds great! That is great that you had time to visit with them! That's great you got to visit with Jenny because I know you have been pretty lonely with no boys and with Dad traveling so much!
Also just so I don't forget, Rachael wrote me and said that she has finally made her decision on which college to go to and she chose BYU haha woo hoo! Oh and I forgot to give Kylie a birthday shout out so if you're reading this Kylie, Happy Birthday! haha!
Alright onto my week, I can't believe I am already writing to you guys--it only feels like two or three days have passed by haha! Alright, so my week was another great week! Nothing huge and it felt like the same as the week before but I will still update you guys! Tuesday we have divisions or splits so I went with Elder Niquet, who is this Mexican missionary in our district and is very funny haha! He makes me laugh so much! But the splits were a tad difficult because he speaks sooo fast so it was really hard to communicate with him. We mostly communicate through jokes haha. It was also a tad difficult because he is not 100 percent focused on the work, which made me a little upset during the divisions. He didn't really have anything planned out for the day and we ended up just walking to the chapel and talking with members for a really long time, which made me a little frustrated because I knew we should be out working or at least talking with people in the street not just at the chapel. I finally did get him to leave the chapel and we went to one of his investigators where we watched "Finding Faith in Christ." It was a great lesson--not only for the investigator, but for me personally. Because the weather keeps changing every other day--one day it is hot, the other it is cold. And that day during divisions was a cold day and so while Niquet was just walking around not knowing what to do, I was really cold. But I remembered the movie and just kept saying little prayers expressing my faith and testimony about Jesus Christ. And I don't know if Heavenly Father is the ultimate giver of cakes or something but I had another little tender mercy of the Lord, and guess what . . it included cake once again haha. While I was cold and just trying to focus my efforts and thoughts on the Savior, the same investigator we had just taught came running up the street with fresh hot cake for us! Hallelujah!! Haha and then right after that a member drove by and gave me his jacket! Which was another tender mercy! Back to back! I know my Savior loves me and has gone through everything I have gone through and even more! I love my Savior!
Now onto Eric, our investigator. He is very very Evangelic and it has been really hard to teach him because he is so devoted to his church. And on Wednesday when we taught him he would just interrupt us every 20 seconds with something not about the lesson. The spirit was obviously not there! But we taught him again this last Saturday and we finished the lesson on the Restoration which was an okay lesson, but then he asked us how my companion and I both personally know that the Book of Mormon is true. And that's when it got awesome! We both bore our testimonies of the first time we read the Book of Mormon and received an answer through our prayers. I shared with him how I have been a member all my life but had never really had a testimony until about 14 when I finished the book completely and when I prayed I felt the spirit like a tiny fire in my chest start to burn. I told him that I remember kneeling alongside my bed upstairs and how I started to cry because I realized how much of my life I had taken for granted by not reading this book everyday. It was a very powerful experience and the spirit was very, very strong. I know he felt the spirit to, but I think now he is a tad confused because he feels torn between these two different beliefs in his life. Hopefully, he can receive an answer himself about the Book of Mormon and let go of his past beliefs.
Then on Thursday we contacted Ulyises who is a recent convert and only is 13 years old. He just got baptized a year ago and has already stopped going to church. We went and visited him and his family who are less actives as well and shared with them a lesson about Nephi's faith in building a ship. As we testified of the story, the mom started to cry and the spirit was really strong. We found out that they have gone through a lot these past couple months with losing her job, divorce and other things. You could see that Satan has been working with this new developed faith family when they got baptized and has been trying to destroy them a part. But we strengthened their testimonies and I hope they will come back to church.
Thursday we also contacted one of our references Ema, who is 14 or 15 years old but she wasn't there but her mom was. We ended up talking with her mom for a really long time about religion. We found out that she was baptized but now doesn't believe in the Church. We asked her why and she believes God never answered her prayer about if the Book of Mormon is true or not and she believes that God is racist for cursing the Lamanites with a curse of black skin. She kinda was getting in our faces and was a tad upset at us. But when she started going off about how she didn't receive an answer the way she wanted to and that the Book of Mormon was racist that's when I turned back on her and got a little bit in her face. I told her basically that she is straight wrong to her face. I testified how God always answers our prayers, but not always the way we want it and that she has to read the entire Book of Mormon before she can go start judging it and judging the rest of the Church from only the couple chapters that she has read. I said this pretty straight forward and really upfront with her and after you could see how she just got proved wrong haha. Now, don't go thinking I was rude or anything--I just bore my testimony very strongly. haha I think now she realizes that she hasn't been doing all that she can be doing to receive an answer to her prayers.
Now about Rodrigo. He is a cop here in Chile and his wife is a member who we got to start coming back to church but every time we come over the first thing he says is, "Oh I'm Catholic, I'm not interested." So the past couple times it has been really hard to adapt our lessons to spark an interest in him because he just always shoves it aside. That's when my companion said that the next lesson was all up to me, haha! But I am actually glad he let me do that because the next lesson went awesome! My lesson was about the Book of Mormon and how it testifies of Jesus Christ. I began asking Rodrigo about his Catholic beliefs and he just talked a lot about Jesus Christ which was exactly what I wanted haha! I shared 2 Nephi 33 verses 10 and 11 which pretty much says to believe in these words and if you don't believe in these words then to believe in Christ and if you believe in Christ then you should believe in these words because they are the words of Christ. And after I read that, it was like Rodrigo just got hit with a brick in the face! Haha a spiritual brick! After that we helped him realize that his beliefs in Jesus Christ can be the same through the Book of Mormon. We shared our testimonies about the Book of Mormon. After the lesson you could tell there was something different in him. I think we really sparked an interest in his heart about the Church! Woo hoo! 
Now onto Friday which was probably the funnest day I have had in the mission because it was a ward activity where it was a talent show! But whoever put it together planned it really poorly haha. But there were a lot of people there and we even had Rodrigo come haha yeah! But there was no planned talents to perform or anything so a lot of the time it was just the ward sitting in the cultural hall visiting. But then they got some talents put together from different people and they were really funny. And then they had the missionaries go up and do something. Well, we completely improvised because we didn't know we were going to do something so we drew mustaches on ourselves and then lip synced to this song which I don't know the name of it, but basically it just says Hallelujah over and over again haha. But the ward loved it! Everyone was laughing and having a great time and they were all cheering. It was definitely the best act of the show! And it really helped strengthen the members relationship with us! Haha They especially liked me because I'm the super white greenie with the mustache, haha, so I had a ton of members come up to me and start talking to me. It was great!
But with all the people there, came the snakes. . . oh no. . .You know the reference I said we tried to contact named Ema? Well, we got her to come to the activity too, which was a good and bad thing haha. She brought about 4 others of her girl friends who all just wanted to talk to me. It was annoying!! Haha and to make things worse, Elder Contreras left me for like 2 minutes and I didn't know he left, but right when he did immediately afterwards there was a circle of all the girls around. They had trapped me in! And I couldn't get out and they were all giggling and I had know idea what they were saying to me and I don't think I want to know! Haha! Eventually after realizing I couldn't leave the circle, I just pushed one of the girls out of the way and ran to my companion hahaha! Aww it was annoying! 
The last thing I want to write to you about is about Jazmine and Jorge. We met them on the street and went over to their house Saturday. Jorge is less active and has had some problems with some members in the ward. But Jazmine is not a member and we read together in Alma 36 about the Atonement, mostly for Jorge. It was very powerful, as we were talking about the Atonement he lost it and started to bawl. We ended the lesson with giving them pamphlets about the Restoration and Jazmine just ate it all up haha! She is really interested and has a lot of questions! I am excited to keep teaching her! And we invited them to come to church but they didn't come till the end which was okay, we just gave them a tour of the chapel for Jazmine and she really liked it!
Well, I have to go! It was a great week! And hopefully we can find some more people this week! Thank you for the prayers! And I hope Blake that you are having fun with those girls haha since I didn't get to hear from you! I love you all so much! Have a great week! Love you!!
Love,
Elder Cowan
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