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