First Transfer, New Area Ochogavia

Dear Mom,

Yes, Blake was right! I had transfers!!! But first I want to thank you for your letter! It really strengthened my testimony! It was great to hear about Zach and Brad! They are such studs!  And thank you for the quotes! They really lifted my spirit which I really needed right now! And yes I am writing you today because yesterday was the conference of transfers and today is New Year's Eve and President knew that we wouldn't have a lot of success today so he changed pday to today!  And today is going to be a really chill day. We have pday till 630 and then president made a rule that we have to be back in our house at 8 for all the festivals here for the New Year and for safety of all the missionaries! Which I thought was a little weird to have to be back so soon, but now in my new area I realize why! . . . ha ha! But first onto my week!

First of all, it was so great to talk and see you guys on Christmas! I loved every single second! I wish I could have talked to you more! I am so glad that you all have a great Christmas! I love you guys so much! So I won't say much about the beginning of last week because I told you guys face to face about that stuff--about the flood in the house which was a mess, and Christmas Eve with the really rich family and with the awesome dinner! And Christmas which was just a normal day. After skyping with you guys we, as a zone, went to the hospital and sang Christmas carols to the sick! It was great! Thursday nothing much, we had the tours of the chapel as we normally do and coordination in the night. And Friday there was a ward activity, A Night of Desserts, it was called. And it was great! All the members brought desserts and pastries and it was so delicious! Ha ha and there were a lot of members and everyone was just having a great time! And Valerie came with us and she loved it and has made a lot of new friends! 

But Saturday in the night we got a call from the zone leaders about who was leaving and who was staying for the next transfers and we all thought that my companion Elder Contreras would be the one leaving. But NOPE! I had transfers!!!!  Awwww!! Ha ha  it was such a surprise and no one saw it coming! Ha ha! They don't tell you where you go, all they say is pack your bags and you're leaving and you will know your new companion and your new sector at the conference. So Sunday was my last day in Padre Hurtado. And I am so grateful for that sector! It really is the best place that I could have started my mission! The sector is great! And the ward is awesome! I will miss them a lot!!!  But I said goodbyes to a lot of families and  investigators! I will send pictures of them with their names. I am sad that I won't be able to see any of the baptisms, but I know that is part of the mission and I just need to keep working where ever the Lord needs me. The hardest goodbye was to Valerie; she was devastated! She was so sad!  But it was also my favorite lesson that I have ever had in the mission yet. The lesson was on obedience and how to recognize the promptings of the Holy Ghost. It was so powerful! I told her that I was leaving, but that she better continue strong in this gospel with all her might! Elder Contreras and I bore our testimonies of how we can receive answers through the Holy Ghost and it was sooo  powerful! I know without a doubt that she will be baptized! Not sure when exactly, but she will! And that makes me so happy! She is one investigator that the Lord has prepared specifically for me and I am so grateful for that opportunity! 

Now onto yesterday!! Woo hoo! Transfers!! I have left the field and I'm now in the city! I am in a city called Ochogavìa! And guess what?! It is the most dangerous sector in all the mission and one of the most dangerous places in Chile! Woo hoo! Ha ha that's what my new companion and Elder Contreras told me. Elder Contreras is training another newbie again. But my new companion is Elder Barraza who is from Chile as well. And actually I am in a trio for right now with Elder Santanas! Both of them received their calls to Venezuela but have had problems with their visas and so they are just waiting for the visas to work out. Elder Santanas should be leaving this week but my companion Elder Barraza should be with me for at least one transfer total. And my sector! Don't worry, Mom! The missionaries are safe here! Ha ha, but I will be honest! It is basically 100% the opposite of my first sector with my fist companion. The sector is super tiny! And very dangerous, my companions have told me that our neighbors at the end of the street are drug dealers, ha ha, which is the main problem here. Drugs run this city basically. And at night it gets crazy and you can hear shotguns going off and bombs! It is very interesting! Ha ha! But everyone knows the missionaries and lets them be and if there is someone who tries to mess with us there are guys who really like us and watch over us basically ha ha! It's pretty awesome, I'm not going to lie! But this sector needs A TON of work! And a ton of help! There are a ton, and a ton, and a ton of less actives! Which another problem here in this sector is the ward.

There is a bishop but he has no counselors because they didn't want to be counselors, so they basically just gave up and decided to not do it anymore. The bishop has no idea what he is supposed to do and, I think, that he doesn't really want to be the bishop. My companions have told me that he is a little crecho, which is a word is Spanish which literally means crooked. But it is like a slang term that means like not obedient kinda. They say that the bishop is a little crecho with the tithing money and other things. And there is a huge problem with the members. There are two groups of members. And each group hates the people in the other group. So there is a lot of division and tension in the ward. And there is one other set of elders in the ward and basically the members in their sector talk bad about the members in our sector and the members in our sector talk bad about the members in their sector. So there are a lot of problems in the ward!! Holy cow! Nothing like the Groves Ward or my last ward. And there are no members that accompany us for lessons and we can hardly contact anyone because they don't want anything to do with us. So we can maybe get 15 contacts in a week, which in Padre Hurtado Elder Contreras and I were making about 70 a week! Ha ha! And there are only about 60 people attending church which in Padre Hurtado there was close to about 140! Ha ha! A lot of differences, problems, and sketchy and ghetto things. But I love it! Ha ha! I know that this is where the Lord wants me and I fell privileged that the Lord has put His trust in me to send me here to do His work, which there is a lot to be done! 

My companion, Elder Barraza, is different from Elder Contreras. He is not as obedient as Contreras and has a terrible memory and is always losing everything. But he is still a great guy! He is very open and last night he just opened up to me about everything in his life and it was really great to start our relationship like that. And he likes to do exercises! Woo hoo! He knows perfect English because he was a foreign exchange student in New York his junior year which is pretty cool! He does things a little differently from what I am used to, but I feel that once we get over the tiny problems we will be great companions! He is really funny too and likes to have fun! He has already made me smile a lot already. I just need to be an example to him to just be 100% obediente and not just sometimes obedient. But it's nothing serious!   

So yea! That is my new crazy sector! I am excited to see what is in store for me here! I can't wait to get to work! The past week with Christmas and all and with pday today and with the conference all day yesterday I haven't had any time to actually work! I feels weird and is driving me crazy ha ha! I can't wait to start working tomorrow! 

Thank you all for your letters! I love you guys so much! Have a great New Year's Eve and a great New Year! It was great to see all you guys on Christmas! Tell everyone I say hi! I love you!

Love,

Elder Cowan

Lord is Blessing Us with Prepared People

Dear Family,

It was great to hear from all of you! Sounds like you are all enjoying the break and relaxing! But to first start off, Mom and Dad I talked to the zone leaders yesterday and, yes I can use Google Chat. I just tried right now to download it onto this computer I am using, but I got a little confused and I don't know exactly what to do ha ha but if we can get it to work that would be great because I would love to talk to all of you! 

And I loved your guys missionary experience this week with the man painting curbs! That is incredible! Way to go! There are a lot of people who are struggling in the world today and they just need the help from the gospel in their lives just like that man! Keep up the great work spreading the gospel! And make sure you call that man to invite him to church!!! And I loved how you said that all you did was ask questions and listened, Mom. There is a chapter in PEM all about that! Questions really help people to open up and share their experiences! Look at you missionary mom! Ha ha! I love hearing stories like that from you guys!

Now onto my last week! Well, first off there were a lot of different meetings and conferences so we didn't have a lot of time to work! But we tried our best! And also Elder Contreras and I are still companions! Woo hoo! Actually in the conference of transfers there were only about 2 changes and then President surprised us all and said that there will be transfers the 30th. 

But onto my week! Monday we had a family night with a member in the ward and they are awesome! One of their sons comes along with us a lot and it is great! I really love this ward! Tuesday we found Nestor and José! Nestor we just started talking to in the street and he told us how he doesn't like how preachers preach the word but don't actually live it and are hypocrites. We shared with him the experience of Joseph Smith and how he felt the same way and that really caught his attention and he liked talking to us and shared with us a lot of his beliefs; it was great! And José! It has been really hot here these past couple days and when we were walking we got really hungry and usually we don't like to stop and eat but Elder Contreras told me that he really needed to, so we stopped at this little restaurant place where the guy who was taking our order was José. He first asked us if we knew a girl in our church which we didn't but he started talking to us about how he likes to investigate other churches and would like to listen to our message! Ha ha, it was super easy! We didn't even say anything! Ha ha so the next day we went to his house and read the introduction of the Book of Mormon with him and taught him a little bit of the Restoration. And he just soaked it all up! He thinks that it all makes sense and that it is great to have more of the word of God! And after finishing the introduction we invited him to baptism and he agreed! Ha ha it was great! He is super prepared! And super ready! I am very grateful that the Lord has been blessing us with prepared people right now! 

After that lesson we went to our other super prepared investigator Sebastian! Who only lives on the other end of the same street as Jose Greese! We didn't have a lot of time but we taught Sebatian the Doctrine of Christ with lesson 3. He agreed to everything again and is reading and praying every day! It is great! Tuesday night we taught Jenny who is the family who showed up at church and said that they wanted to start coming back to church. Jenny has three kids which two of them are above the age of 8 and haven't been baptized yet! So Tuesday night we invited them to baptism and Gillermo, who is 10, accepted but Angie, who is 11, didn't accept but that is only because she is not familiar with everything. And we know that if we can get her mom reactived in the church then she will be baptized! This family is awesome. Every time we teach them they are all so excited to have the missionaries over and want to read and participate in all the lessons; it is great! Just another example of how the Lord is truly blessing us right now with prepared people! As of right now we have 7 baptism dates! Which is a lot for us! It is great!

Thursday was the conference of transfers and Christmas with the whole mission. But there were only like two transfers because one of the elders that I have gotten closest too and was in my group in the CCM, Elder Cummings, is going home for 8 weeks because he had an injury in his ankle. It was really sad to see him leave, but I know he will be back in February! But then we had the conference for Christmas which was really fun. We played a lot of different games and had a HUGE lunch with the entire zone and had a white elephant exchange which I only received a sewing kit, ha ha, but it was still fun! Then after we had coordinating council with the ward mission leader once we got back into our sector, so we didn't have anytime that day to work!

Friday we taught Valerie and she is still awesome and progressing a lot! We watched the movie "How Rare a Possession" of the man in Italy who found a Book of Mormon but couldn't be baptized until 50 years later. We shared that with her to comfort her with her situation with her job and that she cant attend church. We are praying that in the upcoming year she will be able to change her schedule for her work! 

Saturday we had a service for the community of Padre Hurtado where we planted trees in the neighborhoods. But the place was really bad, ha ha. It is in the poorest part of Padre Hurtade and we planted trees in straight rocks and dirt! Ha ha! I don't know how those trees will survive but it was great to help the community out! But it was forever, though! The service was from 10 in the morning to about 4 in the afternoon. And I remembered to put sunscreen on my face and arms but forgot to put some on my legs. . .so my calfs right now are fried and just super red! Actually it looks really funny! Ha ha it reminds me of that time when Trevor fell asleep in the sun and burned his legs! Ha ha! I have pictures but this computer is acting up a little bit so I'm not sure if I will be able to send them this week! Saturday night the Relief Society had an idea to gather all the sisters and come along with us to at least three of our investigators to sing Christmas carols to the families and to give them desserts! It was great! We went to Ana, Felipe, and Marta y Hugo. It was great for Ana to meet some more sisters and friends in the ward. But we got rejected from Marta and Hugo just because we didn't accept the tea in the last lesson. It was really dumb and they over reacted way too much, but I am really sad that they don't want anything to do with the Mormons now just because of a cup of tea. It is truly sad that they missed out on the true happiness and for their salvation just over a cup of tea! 

Sunday we taught José Grau the less active with the memory loss problem, but he is always tired when we come and never reads or prays so it is a little frustrating with him right now. But I made a mistake last week, his son doesn't have schizophrenia! I don't know why I thought that, but his son has autism! And that is why it is really difficult to teach him! But then we started knocking doors and we found a family of gold! It was great! It's Marcela, Margarita, and Felipe who let us in because of the hot weather and we started talking about the Book of Mormon and they were all so interested in it! And accepted to be baptized if they receive a answer that the book is true! So we have more baptism dates and more prepared investigators! It is such a blessing!

Sunday night there was a stake priesthood meeting with the stake presidency, but the turn out was really sad. Out of the entire stake only 30 men showed up. But out of those 30, 25 were from my ward! Ha ha I love my ward! But each person who taught, talked about missionary work and it was great! And we had a little surprise afterward! There was an activity after the meeting as a stake to watch the Christmas devotional! So that was great to watch that! 

I am super grateful for all the blessings and investigators that we have right now! The Lord is truly blessing us right now and it is great!! And for the information about Skype or Google Chat. We are planning on skyping on Christmas at 4 to 6 Chilean time. An hour for me and an hour for my companion! So I think that Chile is 4 hours ahead so I think that means about 12 on Christmas I should be calling! Is that okay? We can really skype whenever so if you have another time just let me know! But I have to go! I love you all and thank you for your letters! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Love,

Elder Cowan

More Baptismal Dates

Dear Family,

Wow, I truly am blessed to hear from you guys every week! You are all so diligent in writing me and I am so grateful for every single letter that I get. I realized last week that I have been going over my Internet time, so I am trying to cut down the time so I am not able to respond to all of you, sorry! But now my plan is to print your guys letters in the morning and read them and then come back to the Internet and write you guys back because most of my time is reading all the letters. That's what I did this morning and it has helped a lot!

Now to begin a lot of you guys mentioned Christmas and how we get to talk to one another in 10 days. But not only talk but to SEE each other! Yep! That's right I can Skype! Woo hoo!!! I don't have all the details yet, but I know it will be on Christmas Day. I will have more information to give you guys the next Monday. And next Monday I will need your guys user names for Skype as well. 

And yes, Mom, I am still impressed ha ha :) But, yes, take your own advice and relax! Ha ha and that is great that you and Justin got to go to the temple. That is one thing that I miss a lot is going to the temple! But I am glad that I spent my last couple months before my mission working and going to the temple! And way to go Mom! Member missionary! Way to go! I was so happy when I read your experience of sharing the gospel with Brenda's mom! And give yourself some credit! Don't doubt yourself and say that you didn't do a good job! You bore your testimony and as President always says, If you have a chance to bear your testimony then you are having success. I am sure that she felt the spirit, but it is sad that she doesn't want to change because she is already so far in her life. Actually that should be the more reason to become a member! Because she can correct everything in her life through the Atonement! That is great that you got that chance to share the gospel! Keep it up! 

Now onto my week! Well, first off I have a nickname in our sector, ha ha, which is Dr. Elder Cowan. Ha ha! There have been a lot of missionaries with different problems and injuries lately. And most of them all call my companion because he is the district leader, so I get to hear all about it. But my companion never knows what to do to help them so he always just passes the phone to me and tells me to use my anatomy knowledge, ha ha ha. But it has been great to help the other elders identify their problems. I'm not sure if I am doing everything correctly, but basically I just tell them what their problem could be like in the muscles, bones, or tendons, and then tell them to do some stretching exercises everyday in the morning. Ha ha just more experience for me for when I will be a physical therapist! Ha ha! Also another thing that I have been given the responsibility of is of choir, ha ha. Our zone is going to sing on Christmas for the stake and there are a lot of missionaries and the zone leaders didn't know what to do and then Contreras told them that I did choir so they just let me deal with it, ha ha, but it's fine! But man Latin Americans are really tone deaf! Ha ha! But it is fun to practice with them! 

This week went super fast for me! Like I cant believe that I am already writing you guys again it's crazy!! I love the mission! But this week started off pretty interesting. Last Monday we had a lesson with Marta and Hugo. They are the family with the two sons who are addicted to drugs and have a lot of problems. Well, we tried teaching them the Restoration and we tried to teach it as simple as possible because they have a knowledge of a little kid. And it was really difficult because they were all smoking the entire lesson! Yuck! One of my ties has the odor of smoke now it's nasty! And they made us dinner and gave us cups of tea, but we told them that we don't drink tea and they got upset and were really confused with all our beliefs. All in all, the lesson was a failure because they kept distracting from the lesson about other things and they were confused about the tea situation and about Joseph Smith, ha ha. So next time Elder Contreras and I have a lesson planned with lots of pictures and the Restoration in simple terms for them. I always remember Br. Allison in missionary prep class always telling us to teach as if they were kids because they don't know anything, and these people really don't know much! Ha ha, but I am glad that I get to help them and to help them learn about their Savior and His Church!

Tuesday was splits again and this time I was with Elder Trejo another Mexican. He is a great elder and we had an awesome day! A couple days earlier Contreras and I found a boy named Sebastian who is 18 years and has a lot of desires to learn more about Christ. We went and taught the first lesson with him and it was perfect! He read the Restoration pamphlet before we came and he loved the part about Joseph Smith! And basically taught us the Restoration! It was amazing! And we had him pray at the end of the lesson about the Book of Mormon and after he told us that he just felt so happy! It was great! He now has a baptism date for the 26th of January! He is a miracle and super prepared from the Lord! We are very grateful for him!

We also taught Ana that day of lesson 3 the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it went fairly well with her. This time she accepted the baptism invitation after many times that we have invited her in the past but she won't commit to a date which is a little frustrating! She also promised us that she would attend church with us but didn't! But that's okay! I have hope that she will actually act on her word! Then to end Tuesday we taught Valerie! My favorite! She is so awesome! She just accepts everything! We didn't have a lot of time, but we gave a summary of the Plan of Salvation and then went to English class with her.

Wednesday we had a lesson with Christina who, if you remember, is the less active lady who got baptized and then never returned to the church and hardly knows anything about the Church. She has a hard time with the belief that angel Moroni took the plates from Joseph and has them now today! She has a hard time believing without seeing. We taught her about faith and shared our testimonies of the Book of Mormon. She told us that she lacks faith and told us it is just difficult to believe, but that she is amazed that two young teenagers 18 and 20 years old can leave our families and friends and everything to go and walk every day and get rejected and teach every person possible. She asked me, ¨How do you do it? Don't you miss your family, your friends? You are so far from your house! You walk in the sun all day long and get rejected a lot, Why? Whats the point?´´ And that was probably one of my favorite experiences that I have had on my mission because I got to testify to her that yes, I am far from my house, yes, I miss my family and friends, but I do this everyday because I know it is true with all my heart. I told her that the point is because I love the Savior and that is the reason I am here; that is the reason I am putting my life on hold. After that testimony the spirit was really strong and she realized how important this gospel is to me and how much I want to help others to have this gospel in their lives. It was a great experience for me and a testimony builder of why I am a missionary.

After we taught Jose and his family who this time the wife is wanting to listen to us now and actually asked for a blessing. They are great! But they have some challenges with their little son who has schizophrenia or however you spell it! He is very hard to control and watch over but they have so much patience; it is incredible!

Thursday we had a conference of new missionaries at the mission offices which was great to see my friends again. After the meeting they took all the new missionaries to this tourist place which I don't know the name, but it is a huge mountain and at the top of the mountain you can see all of Santiago. It is really cool! But from the mountain you can't see our sector because it's not in the city. But it was beautiful! I will send the photos, but they aren't the best, Mom, sorry! Ha ha. With the meeting which lasted till 6 in the night we only had time for one lesson with Ana really quick about church attendance.

Friday we taught Valerie again and finished the Plan of Salvation which was a lot for her to understand, but she accepted it and loved the fact that families can be together forever. We told her that we needed to change her baptism date because she can't attend church, but she told us that for the new year she might have a chance to change her schedule for good! So we are praying that she will be able to attend with the new year! She also told us that she was having dinner with her family when her little brother asked her, "Valerie why don't you get baptized in the Mormon church?" Ha ha it is great that we are starting to catch the family's attention. Then we went to Peñaflor to offer tour of the chapel as we do every Friday and Saturday. We only had one tour, but it was still a good day!

Saturday we taught Jenny and her family who showed up at church and told us that they were less active, lived in our sector, and were ready to come back to church! Ha ha, a miracle! Ha ha, they are great! There is no father in the family, but there are four kids and two of them are over the age of 8 and haven't gotten baptized yet! So we now have two more baptism dates! Ha ha, it was super awesome! 

Saturday we had an activity of the Stake where they went all out! The stake went to a park plaza and set up a whole stage and seats and everything and had the primary act out the nativity with all the missionaries singing Christmas songs. And this plaza is in the middle of the town so it was great to be able to have this huge activity and to have others see and catch their interest.

Sunday was election day for Chile for the president, so a lot of people were gone and were in Santiago voting. But we got to teach the Nuñez family and we did the Attritbutes of Christ activity in PMG and we also taught Ulisses and his family and shared the Proclamation to the Family. It is great to see the change in the father after his car accident and to help his family out and lead them through the gospel now.

Well, I have to go! Thank you all so much for your letters! I love you all! Good luck with all your tests and finals! Get better Mom and Trevor and push through this week Blake and Kiersten. Dad keep up the great work and Justin I am glad you made it back home safely! Good luck with the job searching!

Love you all!

Love,

Elder Cowan