New Investigators & Reactivation

Dear Mom,

Wow, it seems like you guys have had a pretty packed week! I am glad that you had a great time in California and that you were able to plan everything out! And thank you for forwarding the letter to Br. Patterson I was actually planning on writing him soon and he actually wrote me a short letter too today! It was great to hear from him! Also thanks for sending the Christmas package, I don't know if I told you but this next transfer is only 4 weeks because President wants to cut it short for the elders who are ending their missions and he wants them to end a tad early so they can be with their families for Christmas so there is a small chance that I might have a new companion for Christmas but I doubt it! And thank you for the advice for my investigators I really appreciate it!

Now onto my week really fast! Last Monday we had our transfer meeting which was really exciting! And a first time experience for me! I liked it! They are probably my favorite meetings now! Elder Sharapata is in another part in the mission now and now Elder Niquet has a new companion and it's another Mexican. . .ha ha. His name is Elder Trjo and they both have the same about of time and they both tend to get distracted a tad, but it's not too bad. In the meeting President talked for a long time and just drilled us with obedience; it was awesome! Ha ha I love President! He is really funny at times and always happy, but when it's time to get serious, oh, he gets serious ha ha! He's awesome! 

Monday we also found two new investigators! Oscar and his wife Marcela! We have always heard from different missionaries about Oscar ties in our sector and this is the Oscar who sells the ties! He runs his own tie company and sells ties ha ha! The first time we talked with them it was awesome! They had received the missionaries in the past, but they had a billion of questions for us! And it was awesome because every single question could be answered with the Restoration! Ha ha. It was fun to help them find the answers in the Book of Mormon. But we met with them really late in the night so we didn't have a lot of time to teach them a whole lot, but it was still really great and two new investigators!

Tuesday we met with Christina and her family and they are all members, but they basically got baptized and then immediately after they never returned to church so they don't know a whole lot and their testimonies are very small, but it is great to help them strengthen their testimonies. Just as President told us, this mission isn't a high baptizing mission, but a reactivation mission. And it's true! The last baptism in our ward was over a year ago, but just with Elder Contreras and I alone we have helped a lot of the less active come to church again. Which is just as awesome! We taught Christina about Alma 32 about planting the seed and strengthening it. We related it to how we can strengthen our seed by going to church every week! It was a great lesson! Also that day we taught Ulisses, the recent convert, (the baptism from over a year ago in the ward) and he is only 13 and he has changed so much since the first time we started meeting with him. The first couple times he would always fall asleep in our lessons and be tired and not interested just like any normal teen, but now he is so funny and always sharing stories with us and laughing and he loves trying to speak in English with me, ha ha. It's really funny! And afterwards we had completos! mmm :)

Wednesday we decided that we needed to find new investigators and we didn't have many appointments that day so we decided to go contacting for 3 hours. And we only talked to about 10 people. . but I have my hopes for those 10! Ha ha! Missionary work is really changing now, just as the profetas and apostoles say, tracting and knocking doors is not effective now a days. And that's the reason we need the help from the members so much!!! Aww! The members here are awesome and they have a desire, but some times they just like to talk the talk and not walk the walk and actually help us. There is one member who is incredible and I love him so much! His name is Pedrito Gonzalez and is only 16 years old but he wants to be a missionary so bad! He accompanied us for 3 hours on Wednesday, ha ha, it was awesome! With him we went and visited Valerie! Valerie is bakan! She just soaked the restoration lesson all up and accepted it all. She also accepted that when she reads and prays about the Book of Mormon and receives an answer she will get baptized! Woo hoo! But there is an opposition in all things and the problem with her is that she only works on Saturdays and Sundays . . . so it will be really hard to get her to attend church, but we are praying for her. The next day we planned a tour of the chapel with her but she couldn't make it because her brother just got came back from military camp. But it was awesome because another awesome member Oscar (not the investigator) is basically the ward missionary leader, and is the seminary teacher and president of the young mens, ha ha, he is a stud. And he knew that we had a tour with Valerie so he got on Facebook and asked for people to come along with us since we needed another man to be with us since it was just Valerie. But we forgot to tell him that she couldn't make it and that's when we got a call from Pedrito telling us that he is walking to the chapel right now to help us out ha ha! I felt so bad because he lives far from the chapel but its just another example of how much of a stud he is, after being with us for 3 hours the day before we was still wanting to be with us and help us out with the tour the next day, ha ha.

Thursday we had district meetings and our weekly planning session and coordinating council in the night so we didn't have much work done that day. We did receive new missionaries so I'm not the youngest greengo now! Ha ha woo hoo! Also I realized that Thanksgiving is this week and it's on the 28th, I believe, which is my 3 month mark! So remember when you are all eating together that I hit my 3 month mark ha ha! Woo hoo! Thursday we did have one appointment with a less active named Margot she is a tad depressed right now in her life and we are trying to cheer her up. And our other less active Mauricio accepted to come along with us for the lesson! So that was awesome to get Mauricio to participate!

Now onto Friday and Saturday the two days that have probably been the most physically challenging for me! Friday after lunch we were walking and I just had this terrible stomach pain around my appendix. I thought it would go away but it didn't and it hurt to even walk, I pushed through it, though, but I probably looked really funny walking like a hunchback ha ha. But I couldn't figure out what was wrong with my stomach I was wondering if it was just food poisoning or just that I needed to go to the bathroom but I tried going to the bathroom and I couldn't. The pain finally went away Saturday morning but once again after lunch on Saturday the pain came back and this time it was too unbearable for me so unfortunately we had to return to the house and rest. Saturday was really painful and my stomach was killing me. Finally in the night I went to the bathroom and I found a little surprise and the reason for all the pain!! . . . . And guess what it was?! Ha ha a worm!! Ha ha it was pretty nasty, but cool at the same time! I was finally able to poop and get it out! It was only like 3 inches but it was cool! But I forgot to take a picture of it! Awww! But that also explains why I have gained so much weight so fast! It's because I have had someone else eating all my food! Ha ha but don't freak out, Mom! I am all better now! I am back to normal and there is nothing to worry about! Ha ha! 

Saturday in the night we also taught Felipe whose family still hasn't changed but we decided to teach Felipe about baptism a little bit more and we extended a baptism date for the 12th of January. We have this date a little far off in the future because we are hoping that with an actual date, it will help the family to accept us or at least accept Felipe to get baptized. We aren't sure, but we are praying for a miracle! He is such a stud! Every time we meet with him he is so happy and he gives me the biggest hugs ever! I want to help him so bad and for he and his family to be baptized! We also taught Oscar again who had a ton of questions and this time they could all be answered through the Plan of Salvation. But we have a problem with him because the last missionary to teach him told him that he needed to read the Book of Mormon completely and then to pray and know the truth. So he is set that he will not pray until he will finish the Book of Mormon, and that will take a lot of time with all his busy schedule. We are going to try to let him know that he can pray about it right now because whether he reads one verse or the whole book it is all the same truth.

Sunday we had a baptism which was for Elder Niquet and it was a very touching baptism. I don't know the investigators, but during the entire baptism service I was thinking about how great it would be to have our investigators to feel this happiness in their lives. And Kylie Kendall kept popping into my head and how much I want her to be baptized! So Kylie if you are reading this! Please look at all my letters and the joy that I have received from this gospel and I just want to help you to receive that happiness too. 

Also we had a tiny miracle on Sunday. The very first week we got here we got a reference from the hermanas about a lady named Marta. And the first couple weeks Elder Contreras and I tried to contact her and teach her, but she never answered and when she did she didn't want to listen to us. But finally yesterday we had a lot of our appointments fall through and we were walking a lot when Elder Contreras had the impression to go try her one last time and she answered and was so happy and invited us in! And now she is a new investigator for us! She accepted us this time because her daughter is listening to the hermanas in another sector and she has seen the happiness in her daughter and she wants that too and because her husband recently died. It's just like the scriptures say how we plant the seed and it doesn't always sprouts right away, but eventually in time it will start to flourish. It's the same with Marta who the hermanas planted the seed and eventually gave it over to us and all we needed to do was to wait for it to sprout.

I am so glad that I am a missionary in this time and in these days; they truly are the ultimate days and I love being a missionary! I love you all so much! Good luck with everything!

Love,

Elder Cowan

Elder Holland was Incredible!!

Dear Mom,

Wow, Mom, that was an awesome missionary experience! And same with you, Dad! That is awesome! You guys are really living up to the title Every Member a Missionary! You guys are awesome! And even though that lady didn't accept your message Mom, you planted another seed in her heart to spark the light of Christ in her. And I know exactly what you mean when you felt sorry for her. There have been hundreds of experiences of when we are contacting people in the street and we know that they feel the spirit but then deny it and don't want to talk with us. Satan has a great hold on the people in this time but there must come a falling away first before the second coming as the scripture says in the Bible! And, no, Mom we hardly do exercises in the morning maybe like 10 minutes and, no, I am not getting the weekly letters from my friends and, yes, I can print and thank you for the package! I got it today! And the brownie mix is still good! Ha ha! Thank you so much! I love it!!!!!!!!

Alright now onto my letter really quick because I don't have a lot of time!

Alright well to start off. . . HOLLAND!! Ha ha! Holy cow, it was so incredible! It was amazing! It was awesome, great, so cool, awww! I can't describe it! Ha ha! It was so cool to hear from him! Oh, and Mom, I got to see Cody Richardson for like 10 seconds! It wasn't really long but it was still great to see him and he is great and his Spanish is really good! Elder Holland talked about how we need to stay in this gospel and live up to every opportunity! And that he can't believe that missionaries can be representatives of Jesus Christ and then come home from their missions and go inactive! That was the most powerful part! He was yelling and pounding his fists on the pulpit! Ha ha. He compared it to the scripture from Joseph Smith about how their lips draw near unto me, but their hearts are far from me. He used that phrase a lot and commanded us that we better be living this gospel now and forever and that we need to leave everything behind because this is the mission! Ha ha, holy cow! I can't even describe it! Just imagine Elder Holland yelling and pounding the pulpit! He also talked about how as missionaries we are the Lord's investigators and the same things we want our investigators to do are the exact same things the Lord wants us to improve on too. It really was an eye opener for me because there are a lot of things that I want my investigators to do and those same things are the things I need to be improving on. Then he talked about how we need to astonish people! Just as the sons of Mosiah how they astonished people! He commanded us that we have to be persistent and when we preach with the spirit we can astonish people! Then my favorite part was when he brought up the question, "Why is the mission so hard?" He said he often asked himself this question multiple times during his mission and he said the answer is because ¨salvation doesn't come with an easy price or experience.¨ He told us that we should not be wasting our time wondering why our missions aren't easy and that the road to salvation is not cheap. He said that All salvation has to go through the Garden of Gethsemane to become a disciple of Christ. He asked us, How could it ever be easy for you if it was never easy for the Savior who bled at every pore!!! That was so powerful! Oh man, I felt like an earthquake was happening in the chapel! Ha ha. He charged us to take up our crosses and follow Him. It was such a great experience! I will never forget it! And after, since it was all the missions in Santiago, I got to see a lot of my friends from the CCM! It was a great day!

Now onto our investigators. . . I wiill start with Eric the strong Evangelical. . well, we actually had to drop him this week, which I was really sad. In the last lesson he brought out his bible again and we had a little bible bash. I wont go into detail but he was of translating the Bible is so corrupt. And I tried to shared with him that he was wrong in a nice way but it was really difficult. His main argument was that Jesus Christ, God and the holy spirit are all one. I shared with him a couple scripture masterys in the New Testament (which I thank Br. Patterson for having me memorize them) but then after using those scriptures he was still arguing with us and that's when we just bore our testimonies of the Book of Mormon. You could tell he was feeling the spirit because as we were testifying he stopped arguing and started to actually listen and not interrupt us. But after our testimonies he still denied those impressions and started to use his bible scriptures. That's when we decided to leave. I feel sorry for him because he has felt the spirit in every lesson that we have taught him, but he still denies it!! Awww!! Oh well! We at least planted the seed!

Now onto Jazmine and Jorge. . .well Jazmine will not be getting baptized. . .or at least by us here in Padre Hurtado. This is because they have been having some trouble with there neighbors who basically are the people they share their house with and they moved to Talagante this last weekend. It was really difficult because we taught them lesson 3 and the Word of Wisdom and Jazmine as she normally does just soaks it all up and understood it all and agreed to live it. But I know without a doubt that she will be baptized in Talagante and those misisonaries are very lucky! I realized that it's not all about the baptism or the numbers because I know that I have helped Jazmine come onto Christ and to fulfill the things and covenants she needs to do in life to return to our Heavenly Father. So that makes 3 less investigators that we don't have. :(

Then onto Felipe! Who is such a stud! We taught him after English class which we haven't really been having much success in and basically during the class Felipe and I just chat and mess around, ha ha. I have gotten so close to him. In our lesson we just read the story of Enos and the desires of his heart. He himself shared with us that he has the same desires in his heart and asked us why he can't get baptized! Ha ha. He is so prepared and ready, comes to church, prays, reads, goes to seminary and mutual, but the only thing is his family!!! Aww, it is really difficult! I have been praying so much that the Lord will bless those desires that Felipe has in his heart to change the hearts of his family. Then on Sunday we experienced a tiny miracle, after sacrament meeting we were leaving the sacrament room with Felipe and his brother was waiting out in the foyer!! Ha ha. We talked with him, but he just felt like he needed to rest and he came to the foyer to rest! It was great! Hopefully, we can get all the family! Even if it takes one member at a time! I know Felipe will be baptized and I will do everything in my power to make that happen!

Now onto Jacqueline and Rodrigo. We visited them 3 times this past week. The 1st visit went awesome and we had a member there present too whose name is Oscar. We taught about revelacion y prayer. The lesson went really well but when asked to prayer at the end of the lesson Rodrigo denied it. We didn't think much of it, but we realized that he really needs to pray. So the 2nd visit we just testified of prayer and how we can receive all our answers through prayer. The same member was present in the lesson too. But Rodrigo kept denying to pray and kept telling us that he is Catholic and that they pray differently then we do. It is really difficult because no matter what we teach him or testify of, or when he feels the spirit, he always just says that he is Catholic and won't change! Aww, it is really frustrating! And the second visit went really bad after that because the member decided to use a scripture in the Bible which says something about that repeating prayers is an abomination in the sight of the Lord. This is true, but it really offended Rodrigo and the member basically told him that he is sinning and has been praying wrong his whole life. That didn't go so well with him. . . Elder Contreras and I tried to changed the lesson a bit and to invite the spirit but there was nothing we could do. After an hour of teaching him and inviting him 8 times during the lesson to pray, he still denied to give the prayer. It just doesn't make sense to me because he is reading the Book of Mormon and likes it and feels the spirit but won't pray!! Aww! Then the 3rd visit was with Elders Niquet and Sharpata because changes happened today and yesterday was the last day for Elder Sharapata so he wanted to see Jacqueline and Rodrigo one last time. We hardly have any time to share anything with them but Sharpata shared his testimony and challenged Rodrigo to pray. He still wouldn't but there was a change in his eyes that I could see as he was listening to Sharapata's testimony. We don't really know what to do with him! Please pray for him and for the family of Felipe!

Yesterday we finally got our ward to do a ward council which was just based on missionary work! It was great! The ward and the leaders are really determined to help us missionaries and to do missionary work themselves! If there is anything you can tell your bishops, Dad, it is to challenge them to maximize their ward councils, it is such a blessing to have all the leaders in the ward working together for the missionary work! After the hermanas had a baptism which we went and saw but after the baptism everyone left but Elder Contreras and I had to wait for the water to drain but someone had put a plastic bag over the drain so the water wasn't draining so we threw a table in the font and I crawled on the table to remove the plastic bag ha ha! It was quite the adventure! And I have photos which I will share next week! Sorry I don't have any time! But then even after that the drain pipe was plugged so the water took forever to drain! And we had to wait for the water to drain before we left. . . well it took 3 hours to drain! It was such a pain! So we didn't get a whole lot of work done! 

We did find two new investigators this past week, Valerie who is a news journalist and has a ton of questions! She is really interested and awesome! I'm excited to start teaching her! And the other is Catherine and her family. She is less active but not all the members of the family are members and she came up to us one day and told us that she was been waiting for the elders to come and she saw us walking in the street and came running up to us! It was pretty cool! She was baptized a long time ago but immediately after her baptism she went inactive so she really doesn't know a lot about the Church but we are glad she wants us to teach her family!

Well, I have to go! I can't believe I'm in my second transfer now! Which by the way, yes, Elder Contreras and I are staying together again! Woo Hoo! And next month is Christmas! Time on the mission is so crazy ha ha! I love it! But thank you all for your letters! I wish you the best in Disneyland! Enjoy it! Ha ha! I love you all so much!! Thank you for everything and for your letters! Chow!

Love,

Elder Cowan

Baptismal Date and More Progress with Investigators

Dear Mom,

Hey, I'm back!! Alright, well first of all before I forget, my friend's name is Colby Nielsen. I'm almost positive that it was him who is serving in Paraguay, but honestly, as you know, I have a ton of friends on missions and they all kinda tend to blur ha ha! And yes, Mom, I will be safe! Ha ha you don't need to worry! But actually it's funny you mentioned that because here in Chile there are a ton of stray dogs everywhere and last night as Elder Contreras and I were returning to our house a dog jumped out of no where and started to come after us. We started to book it and run to our house, but we were too slow so I just turned around and stood in front on the dog to take it on. Thinking I would be in for a little fight, right as the wild dog realized I stopped and was waiting for him, it skidded to a stop and then just sat down like an obedient dog and looked at me and then left. Ha ha my adrenaline was pumping for sure! Ha ha but you don't need to worry, Mom, ha ha ha!

For Christmas mmm. . . not sure maybe some of your homemade oreos, fruit snacks, cosmic brownies. Oh, and if possible, some nutri grain strawberry bars and a few ties or something. I'm not really sure! I am doing well with all my supplies. I have noticed that I like the straight black socks that you got me more than the gold toe. The gold toe tend to get stretch out and slip down to my ankle. I don't know what kind or where we got the straight black socks, though. But that's all I can think of, and maybe some Milkyways ha ha I don't care! :)

Now onto my week! Which started off awesome because of Susana who is a less active we have been trying to work with and we went to go visit her and she was really sick and then asked us for a blessing and she asked me to give it! So with the help of my companion I gave my first blessing in Spanish! It was awesome! I honestly don't know what I said and didn't even know that I could even say some of the stuff I said in Spanish! It was a very strong testimony building of the power of the spirit and the priesthood!

Then Tuesday was a tad difficult because there was divisions again, but this time Elder Contreras was the one that left so I was in charge of our sector for the day! It was awesome! It was awesome to take charge and lead our zone. That's what I really like about Elder Contreras, he doesn't treat me like the junior companion. We have a goal this week to every other day I will lead the sector for a day, for example like today I am in control. It is awesome! My companion is really helping me to be like a senior companion and he keeps telling me that I'm already to be a senior companion, but I don't feel that way ha ha! But the difficult part was that my companion was Elder Niquet, the Mexican who isn't really focused in the work! But if you remember I went on divisions in his divisions a few weeks ago and it was difficult and we hardly did any work. Well, knowing that he would be my companion I decided to pay him back and to show him how the new greengo Elder can put him to work! Ha ha we walked and walked and worked and worked! Ha ha he was complaining almost the whole time but I wasn't going to let that stop me! Ha ha! At the end of the day I really think he realized how to maximize a day as a missionary and he thanked me for the experience. :)

Wednesday we moved to a new house! Next week I will send a picture! It is actually REALLY nice ha ha! I'm surprised that they are letting missionaries live there! But it is a tad difficult because now it's not just Elder Contreras and I living solo but we are sharing the house with Elder Sharapata and Niquet. It has it's ups and downs! I'm just trying to look at all the positive things. The house is two stories and really awesome! I love it! But it took almost all Wednesday after our studies to move all our stuff and all the stuff of the other elders too! Luckily there was a hermana in the ward that was really nice and drove us back and forth! Then afterwards we got to teach Jazmine and Jorge again who are just awesome! I can't say that enough! Jorge is ready to come back to church and change his life around and Jazmine is just soaking up all our lessons and fulfilling all our commitments! We also taught them on Saturday again and it went great! Jazmine has a baptism date for the 30 of December too!! Woo hoo!!! I'm so excited! The only trouble that we have with her is that she has a hard time with prayer. She says she offers prayers by herself after she reads at night but every time we ask her to pray in the lessons she kinda gets a tad offended and doesn't want to. I believe that she just really isn't praying with real intent but once she does and receives an answer it will be great!

We taught Eric again too. . . who is the very strong Evangelical priest. This last time he brought out his Bible and started to ask us a ton of questions. It was a tad difficult because the spirit was not there and it was kinda as if we were in a mini Bible bash the entire lesson, but we were just very humbly trying to teach the lesson but he would interrupt and ask another irrelevant questions. It was pretty cool, though, because for all his questions that he had in the Bible we were able to respond using the Book of Mormon. We haven't gone back for almost a week now. . . we aren't very sure what to do with him

Thursday was another great day! Ulyises who is a recent convert and only is 13 years has not been coming to church and it has been hard to catch his attention in the lessons. But on Thursday we taught him and shared the movie "Finding Faith in Chris" and we found the solution to our problem! Showing movies catches his attention! Ha ha after the movie he was very open with us and willing to share and it was awesome!

Friday we had to clean the church for the tours that we offer every Friday, but none of the elders know how to clean very well. Ha ha. There were some hermanas there and they kept complimenting me on how well I was cleaning and it's all thanks to you, Mom! Ha ha!

And we also found Cecilla while we were walking one day! She was cleaning and when she started to talk with her she was not very open and kept telling us that she only has a relationship with God and with no religion because they are all corrupt. But we kept talking with her and we found out that she believes that kids don't need to be baptized, she believes in the second coming and that the spirit and body will be reunited! Ha ha. We told her that we have the same beliefs and she was puzzled! Ha ha. It was awesome she has all the same beliefs and is super prepared! Ha ha. I love it!

Saturday we taught Jacqueline and Rodrigo which went really well. We watched the Restoracion and Rodrigo was really interested in the church history of the saints. We are so close with him! All he needs to do--along with Jazmine--is to pray to receive an answer! Aww! And then we taught Ana who is the old lady prepared from the last missionaries who is ready for baptism too, but she needs to pray too! So I ask you guys to pray for our investigators to pray to receive an answer! We are all so close with them! We also taught Felipe who is ready but doesn't have any support from his family, which is an obstacle we are trying to overcome with him.

Sunday was great and we had stake conference which one of the seventy came, Ulisses Soares from Brazil came and talked about persevering to the end. It was a great talk! And tomorrow we get to listen to Elder HOLLAND!!!! Holy cow!!! I am so excited!!!!!!

Well, I don't have any more time! Please pray for our investigators to receive an answer to their prayers and Mom I am so proud of your desire to work in family history! You are awesome! I love you so much!!! Choa!!

Love,

Elder Cowan

P.S. Yesterday we were at a members house and we weighed ourselves. . . . and I'm 167 pounds! I started with 146! Only in this short time that I have been on my mission I have gained 20 pounds!!!! Holy cow! I was kinda having a panic attack yesterday! Ha ha! But I am dedicated to work off all this FAT!! Ha ha! Anyway, I need to go. Love you!

Zone Activity

Dear Mom, 

You are such a great example to me! You are incredible! Keep doing that family history work! It truly was a testimony builder to hear about your experiences! You are amazing! Keep up with the great work! And don't be so hard on yourself for not doing missionary stuff in every situation! It all comes in time and practice! Thanks for the update about Emmy too! Holy cow! She really did get engaged! That's awesome! And thank you for the other updates about the Olsons and sharing the bread. You truly do have a missionary mindset and that is awesome mom! Your experiences reminded me of when I worked in the temple this past summer and when I received my testimony about doing family history work! There truly is a great work for those people who have passed away and they are just waiting! 

But I really have to get onto to my letter! We are running a little behind today because we had a zone activity where we went out to Santa Monica where it is basically farm land everywhere, but there are some cool mines that you could walk it and it was awesome! And then we had a good tradition South American barbecue! Haha! It was so good! But out of all the zone there were only 3 companionships that decided to go! I have pictures and I will try to send them to you after this letter!

Alright last Monday, we had family home evening with the Nuñez family who is a family with no father, Hermana nuñez and her four sons, who one is serving a mission. But the two youngest sons are really nice and probably the two people I feel closest too and the most comfortable talking in Spanish. But the oldest son, Mauricio is less active and that is the reason we were there to strengthen his relationship with the Church. It was a great lesson and we visited that family 2 more times during this past week. And all the visits were going really well and we got Mauricio to come back to church! We were so happy! But on Sunday he didn't show up..  we talked with his mom and Satan truly is working on him and I feel so sad. Saturday night Mauricio went to a party and got drunk and passed out till 7 in the morning. It was truly sad to hear.

Tuesday after district meetings Elder Stallings, one of our zone leaders, went with me and Elder Contreras on divisions. It was great to learn from him. Tuesday we also looked on our map of our area from the past elders who were in our area and found that there was a name tag called Ana on a street that we were going to be close to that day. We decided to go find out who this Ana person was and she is awesome! She was taught by the missionaries a long time ago but when changes happened the next set of missionaries didn't keep up visiting with her. She has received all the lessons and is super prepared. She has just been waiting for the missionaries to come back to get baptized! So she was super happy to see us! haha! She is so prepared and we hardly even gave her a lesson, she taught us! Haha and we invited her to baptism and she accepted! Haha! I love the people that the Lord really prepares for us! It is a tad difficult for her to fulfill our commitments because she has a really hard time reading, keep in mind that she is probably around 60 70 years old, so she is losing her eye sight, but we are planning to get the book of Mormon on tape for her.

Tuesday night we visited Alex and Patricia who are a less active family and we have been visiting them a lot to get them reactivated but on Tuesday night they weren't there, but their two sons were. And as we talked with them we found out that they have strong beliefs that there is no god. And it is a tad difficult because Alex isn't the real father to these two boys so the relationship in the family is rough. We tried our best to testify about our loving Heavenly Father and used scriptures to prove there was a God. But they kept rejecting everything. It was really difficult, then I felt like I should just ask them an anatomy question. So I asked them a question-- if they knew what the left atrium does in the heart. Of course, they didn't know and after my question I gave them a little lesson about what the heart does and how it is only muscle but it controls the whole body. After teaching them this, I asked them how it was possible to be able to make a muscle to pump every few seconds and to run an entire body. I then testifed that God created us and how our bodies are magnificent and incredible! After this I realized I had been talking for a long time and I stopped and looked at them and they didn't reject it haha. They were actually dumb founded because they knew that I just proved to them that there was a God. It was a great experience! I'm glad I took anatomy class! Ha ha!

Wednesday was awesome and bad. . .Awesome because we had interviews with President! Woo hoo! It was really short because he is always busy but it was great to just catch up with him. He shared 1 Nephi 3:7 with me and talked about the importance of where are hearts are set. Because in chapter 2 it talks about Laman and Lemuel hearts where pondering on the things they had left in Jerusalem. It goes perfect with your insight you gave to me in your letter, Dad! But then after the interviews we wanted to eat since we skipped lunch for the interviews, but Elder Contreras wanted to eat with Elder Niquet and Sharapata in Maipu where the mission office is. I just wanted to go to a little stand, get some food, and take the bus back and get to work. But Elder Contreras wanted to wait for the other elders so we did. . .and we waited for an hour! When they finished we walked around Maipu and after walking for really long time, we ended up eating in a restaurant which I don't think we should have done. Since it was a restaurant it took even longer and another hour and a half that we wasted. I was really upset! I finally got Elder Contreras and the other elders to leave to Peñaflor and when we did, I think the Lord wanted to teach us a lesson because everything fell through right when we got to Peñaflor. Elder Contreras apologized to me that night so it's all good now!

Thursday was Halloween and it was a pretty normal day for us. We did change our name tags for our costumes for Halloween haha. We taught the Erazo family who is less active as well and shared with them the covenant that the Anti Nephi Lehi's made and talked about the importance of renewing our covenants. They agreed to come to church but they didn't because they went to the beach. . . awww

Friday we decided that the role of members is crucial so we have the video "Work of Salvacion" and we have a goal to show the video to all the members and leave a commitment with them to give out a pass along card the following week. It will help with us getting more contacts, I believe! And for the members to help in the missionary work.

Saturday we had to take a turn at the stake center where we were going to give out tours of the chapel to the entire zones investigators, but we couldn't get any of ours to come or the rest of the zone as well. Only two investigators showed up but, hey, two is better than none! Elder Contreras and I taught about the sacrament and it is truly a blessing to take the sacrament every week.

Sunday was great because Jorge and Jazmine came to church! Woo hoo! Jazmine is so ready and prepared and willing to do everything we ask her to do. And Jorge, being a less active, is ready to change his life around and you can truly see the desire he has to live a righteous life again. It's awesome! 

Alright but I really have to go!! We are really late! Just for update there was a 6.5 earthquake on Thursday! Ha ha but we didn't feel it. We were in a lesson ha ha, but you can see a little bit of damage to some stores and stuff which is pretty cool. And Elder Sharapata pooped out a worm yesterday haha! And with the earthquake we have been without lights for Thursday and Friday which was interesting, but its all good now!! And my companion gave me his crocs and before the mission I thought they were always ugly, but they are awesome! Ha ha I love them!! But I have to go! I love you guys so much! You're the best family in the entire world!

Love,

Elder Cowan