Dear Mom and Rest of the Family,
Thank you for you letter, Mom! I loved it! And that is awesome that you and Dad both had the oportunidad to listen to him and learn from him! You guys are so blessed! Just how I will be blessed on November 13th! You know why?! Because an apostle is coming to talk to all the Santiago missions and can you guess who its going to be!!. . . . .drum roll. . .Elder Holland! Heck ya!! I am so stoked! I can't wait!
Alright and I just want to thank you guys for your letters. You might think that I might get homesick from hearing from you guys, but your letters boast my confidence every Monday and I get re-excited to start working after p-day is over! So thank you so much!
Alright now onto my week, which flew by, holy cow! I now have to have a piece of paper throughout the week and I divided it into seven sections for each day of the week and I write two or three phrases for each day so I wont forget to write it in the letter because all the days are blending together! But don't worry, Mom, I am still writing in my journal, as well, every night! I have only missed two nights since I have begun!!
But I will start on Tuesday! We had splits or diviones, as they call it, so I went with Elder Sharapata in our district while my companion Elder Contreras went with his companion for a day. It was a great opportunity to learn how other missionaries work. It was a little weird because you are with them for a full 24 hours not just for like the night or something, so I had to sleep over at Elder Sharapata's place and eat there. It was a little weird but it was great learning experience. Elder Sharapata has bikes too, which Elder Contreras and I just got informed by president that he is going to let us have bikes as well! I think bikes make me more sore but we will get to cut off a ton of time from walking to and from places, which means more people we get to visit and more lessons!! Yes!
Wednesday was a pretty tough day, Elder Contreras and I walked SOOO much! My knees hurt, I have blisters on my feet and three of my toenails have fallen off! haha! But when we were walking we had no idea where we were and I just felt like we were wasting so much of our time. That's when I decided to say a little prayer for strength and protection, and immediately after I ended my prayer and member drove up and told us to get in and that he would take us to our appointment! It was such a tender mercy of the Lord!! The Lord really does watch over his missionaries!
Oh, and I made my first meal, Mom! It was spaghetti! Haha it was pretty easy actually! haha but I have really come to love you so much and to realize how much you have done for me my whole life! And I washed my clothes for the first time. We had to wash our clothes in the sink and it was pretty tiring, but then the next day the relief society president offered to do all our laundry! Haha heck yes! It was such a blessing! So Kiersten fore warning! You may have to wash the missionaries clothes haha!
Thursday was another fun day. My companion had to go to the mission office for meetings so I went with Elder Sharapata and Elder Niquet again and we had a fun time together! We were walking back from an appointment when we decided to choose a color and we had to count how many times a car passed by with our color. Well, I lost so I had to buy them ice cream, but it was great! And a great bonding experience! And right when my companion got back, not knowing I just had ice cream, he went and brought me ice cream haha! So it all worked out! The weather during this past week has been really hot! So the ice cream was sooo good! And I had my first completo!! Pretty much just a jumbo hot dog with so much stuff loaded on it! I love them!!! They are so flippin good!! haha! That night we had coordinating council with the ward mission leader who is a stud! I love him! He is a return missionary so he can easily relate to us and knows how to work hard! It is awesome! Same with the rest of the ward!
Friday was really fun because I had to go to a meeting at the mission office for a meeting for the new missionaries! So I got to see all my good friends from the CCM again! It was awesome! We had a great talk by president about being obediente and how crucial the doctrine of Christ is! It was great! Then after the meeting we came back to Penaflor and then we found Javier who works in the street and it was our 2nd time talking with him.He has had a lot of problems and has tried to commit suicide twice. We gave him a tour of the chapel and the spirit was really strong, especially when we walked in the sacrament room! It was great! Then right after that, every Friday night we have English classes. And I had to teach it this time!! Haha They told me five minutes before the class started that I was going to be teaching! It was a little scary! But I just made a game where I wrote the words, country, name, fruit, movies, books, and then I would choose two people and I would yell out a letter in English and they had 30 seconds to write as much stuff for each section in English as they could. It wasn't really a lesson but everyone was participating and yelling and having a great time! The rest of the elders noticed this too and they all complimented me on being a great teacher! So that means I will probably have to keep teaching!
Friday morning we had to cut our studies short to give a service for a family in the ward. They need a new front door so Elder Contreras and I had to construct a door for them! It was really fun! Then that's when it went a little downhill. . .Saturday, since it was the day after the meeting with President, we wanted to plan so exactly and well that Saturday would be packed with lessons! We had plan A, B, and C! We had so many back up plans that we thought for sure we would have a great day! But all of them fell through! And we walked to every single appointment but none of them were working out. We decided to go knocking on doors and all the doors were slammed and turned us down. But I wasn't really in a mad mood and I didn't let it affect me. If anything I just felt sorry that they didn't want to listen to this great message. But we finally had two lessons that worked out! One with Natalia who is a missionary who served in Argentina but now is less active. We taught about the Atonement and how we can all apply it in our lives! Elder Contreras had me teach the whole lesson, he barely opened his mouth! But it was really good!!! Then we taught Patricia and Alex who Alex is Catholic but we read the first two chapters in Nephi and taught about the role of Fathers and how Lehi lead his family in the gospel which lead to so many blessings!
Okay, now onto Sunday! Felipe! the 15 year who is our investigator came to church! And another one of our investigators, Jacquline, came too who is less active! It was great to have her start coming back to church! Then we taught Felipe after and we taught the restoration again and then when the spirit was really strong I invited him to be baptized! My first baptism invitation and before I could even finish my sentence he interrupted me and said "Yes!" Haha! Yea!!! I'm so excited! But a couple days ago we saw Felipe and we were talking about coming to church and he said he likes our message and knows it is true but he is not sure since his family isn't interested. And that's when I shared your example, Dad, about how you got baptized and were an example to your family which later lead to having your whole family baptized! He really liked your example! Thanks Dad!!!
Okay, my last thing! Sunday I was craving cake for some reason all day. haha I don't know why! And then after church we were walking a lot and trying to find our references which took a lot of time, and since it was Sunday we were in our suits, and then out of no where it just started to rain! which is so weird because it has been so hot but it was just a random rain storm! It was pretty annoying and I was cold and wet! But then the Lord gave us another tender mercy and we finally found a house of a family and we taught them about the importance of the Book of Mormon because they are less active and then in the middle of the lesson, one of the daughters brought out cupcakes!!!!! Close enough to cake for me!! Haha I was so excited and I know it was the Lord telling me that when the times get tough, if we just endure it, we will be blessed!! I am so grateful to be a missionary! I love all of you guys so much! I love this gospel! I know Jesus Christ is my Redeemer and Savior and I love Him so much! I wish you all the best of luck with everything this week! Got to go! Chow!
Love,
Elder Cowan
P.S. That is really sad about the tortoise.
P.S.S. Also mom in the general conference may 2013 I would like you to read Elaine S. Dalton's talk and especially about when she talks about here 92 year old mother and everything she has done. I read it and I thought of you so much! Also in Boyd K. Packers talk in the same ensign where he said the there is nothing more powerful than the prayers of a mom, and I know that is so true! Thank you for your prayers! I love you all!!
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