Dear Family and Friends,
Ha ha I'm not even sure if i should put friends because they probably don't read my letters! Ha ha but anyways! We had an awesome week! A lot of surprises and fun things! Ha ha! But first I want to say one thing first and that is, Mom, you are awesome and a beast! As I was reading your letter when you were sick and all the things you still did when you were sick it just amazes me! You are such a hard worker and great example to me! I hope you feel better! And we are actually using the quotes from Ballard and have made little cards to give to the members to motivate them and it is helping a lot!
Okay onto my week! It first started off with a miracle! If you remember Jose from last week he is the man who asked for a blessing and had a baptism date but we found out that he actually is a member but doesn't remember because of his accident. It's a little sad to see that he doesn't remember much but that's where the miracle happened! On Monday we taught him and taught about the power of the Holy Ghost and how it teaches us and shows us the truth. The spirit was very strong during the lesson and my companion made a promise that if he strives to have the spirit in his life that he will be able to remember things! And the next thing that happened was awesome! The spirit was very strong and there was just silence after my companion said that, then after about 3 minutes of him pondering he looked up at us and had the biggest smile on his face! And he told us that he remembered the day of his baptism now! It was incredible! He told us detail by detail of the experience whereas before he couldn't even remember that he did get baptized! It was such a great experience! And during the week we got two more phone calls from him telling us that he remembers his wedding now and when his son was born! And he said that he started to remember these things because he started reading the scriptures everyday! It is such a great miracle! Heavenly Father truly does bless his children when they are obediente!
Tuesday was another day of divisions where I was with Elder Niquet the Mexican and we were in our sector. So that means I had to call all the shots that day and to lead the sector! And it was great! I hardly had any problems! It was a little stressful but Elder Contreras and the training program in the mission has really helped me a lot to become a better leader. Every day Elder Niquet and Contreras tell me that I am ready to train and that when I am a assistant that I better remember them ha ha! Who knows! Ha ha! We taught Felipe Tuesday about 1 Nephi 8 about how after Lehi took of the fruit he wanted his family to partake as well, so we related that to his situation with his family and it went really well! As well we taught Valerie about faith in Jesus Christ and how we can receive miracles when we act in faith. We related that to how we need a miracle with her job to change so she can attend church with us on Sundays because she is SOO ready for baptism, but the only thing that is stopping her is her job and she is so upset about it, ha ha. She is awesome! She told me that the reason she started to talk to us the very first time we met her was because she saw me and she had a prompting that she needed to go talk to the greengo. It was a great experience to know that the Lord is preparing people specifically for me. After she came with us to English class which I was the teacher, but I had no idea that I was and didn't have a plan. Usually the classes are very boring and the people don't have a lot of fun. That's when I decided to change things up and play Pictionary with the students which I guess isn't really well know here in Chile. But I first taught them different things about Christmas and then after they knew all the words in Ingles we split up into two teams and played pìctionary where they had 10 seconds to draw a picture of the word and the team had to yell the word out in Ingles. Ha ha it got pretty intense! And they all loved it!
Wednesday I got to play the role of Dad for a little bit because we got a call from Susana who is a less active in the ward and lives alone. And Elder Contreras and I had the chance to put up her Christmas lights up! Ha ha don't worry, Dad! No injuries! Ha ha! But it was really fun! For the rest of the day we knocked on doors and talked with a ton of people. And Wednesday night we taught Ana who first just started to cry because of some family situations, that's when we shared some comforting scriptures in the Book of Mormon and it was awesome to help her feel peace and calm just from reading from the Book of Mormon! It is such a blessing to have this book!!! Then as we were returning to our house we saw this huge cloud of smoke close to our house! So we booked it to our house and about 500 yards from our house there was a huge grass field fire! Luckily, the firemen were already there and trying to control it but it was pretty big. But we couldn't get a lot of sleep that night because there were a lot of sirens going off everywhere and we weren't sure if we should start packing just in case we needed to evacuate! But eventually the firemen stopped the fire and it was all good! Since we couldn't sleep I decided to make my brownies which are in the photos I sent.
Thursday! Was service day! Ha ha! We woke up and got a call from a lady in the ward that needed help with her garden, ha ha, but it ended up being a huge project! Ha ha and not only was it a garden but more like a farm! Ha ha and we had to clear a big space in the field to start planting tomatoes. And there was a ton to plant and it took almost all afternoon and I got roasted! Ha ha! Thanks Mom and Dad for always teaching and showing me how to work hard! For a lot of the time the other elders and my companion got distracted and started to play around with a soccer ball while I was continuing planting the tomato seeds. Then afterwards we had our weekly planning session but only about 20 minutes into it we got a call from the zone leaders that they needed help with the tours of the church in Villa La Foresta Penaflor. They told us that there were no district or zone leaders there and that the elders and hermanas were getting a little distracted. Which by the way, the tours is a regular thing now. Everyday of the week there are assigned companionships who go to Penalor and invite people to come and tour the church. Well, it takes about 20 to 25 minutes by bus to get there and when we got there no one was working and they were all planning on leaving. But as they were wrapping things up they realized that they didn't have the keys to the chapel and that Elders Niquet and Trejo had them, but they left early and were in Padre Hurtade. So we had to take the bus back to Padre Hurtade meet up with the elders, get the keys, and take another bus back to Penaflor and then give the keys to the other elders and by then the time for the tours was over so we had to take another bus back to Padre Hurtade to go to our appointments. All in all, we took 4 bus rides and we were on the bus for a total of almost an hour, ha ha, it was a little annoying.
Friday we taught Valerie and read the general conference talk "A Sure Foundation" which is about the importance of reading, praying and attending church regularly. It was a great lesson. Also we taught Natalie which I doubt you guys remember, but she is a less active and we haven't seen her in a long time but we entered and immediately her roommates were there and one was really sick so we gave her a blessing and taught all three of them and the two roommates are now new investigators for us! Ha ha cool!
Saturday it was our turn to go to Penaflor and offer tours to the people there. But as we were offering and talking to people we met Pedro who is a very angry man. He started yelling at us that we are so rich and that our church isn't true and just kept protesting in front of the church. We tried multiple times to talk to him, but he kept telling us that he didn't want to talk to us rich people. He kept telling us that we should be taking our nice fancy ties and white shirt and giving them to the poor. We tried multiple times but he was jut an angry man. Finally, as he was leaving he came up to me and asked me if I believed in Jesus Christ and I said of course I did! And then he told me that Christ always helped the poor and that he was poor so that means that I should give him my tie. Ha ha I knew that he was just trying to test me to see if I would actually give it up and, of course, I did! Ha ha I wasn't going to let him be correct with his judgement that we are just rich and keep to ourselves. So I took off my tie and said "Here you go!!" And he was just dumbfounded and couldn't believe that I was so willing to give it up, ha ha, he eventually took it and left! Ha ha it was one of my purple ties, but I don't care! Ha ha so afterwards I didn't have a tie but we have streamer paper so I took some and drew on it and made myself a tie! Ha ha that's the other photo that I sent!
There is a new initiative as a zone that every missionary should at least invite one person to baptism everyday. So we decided to try it out and knocked on a door and met Alex. He didn't have a lot of time, but we gave a summary of the Restoration and then invited him to baptism and he accepted! Ha ha a contact, new invest., and a baptism date all in 5 minutes! Ha ha it was a miracle! He is awesome!
Sunday none of our investigators attended which is a big obstacle that we are having in our sector, but one of our less actives, Mauricio, attended! So that was cool! After we had coordinating council and it was great to work with the ward. At the end, though, the Bishop just went hardcore mode and basically started to chew out the leaders because none of them are really taking the missionary work serious, which is true they tend to believe that coordinating council is just a time to sit and chat. It was awesome, though, to see this bishop take a stand and get these leaders into shape! Ha ha It was awesome! Sunday we taught Felipe and helped him start his Duty To God. Taught Ana as well and read Mosiah 18 about the desires of the people to be baptized by Alma in the waters of Mormon. And Ulisses who is the recent convert. But his dad was surprisingly there and he was in a really bad car accident about 2 weeks ago but he said that because of the accident he has a new mindset and is now reading in the Book of Mormon and was asking us a lot of questions that he had about his reading. It is awesome to see the change in this man to follow the Savior and to lead the head of the house now with the gospel! It is such a blessing! After that it was really late but we got a call from a Hermano in the ward that we needed a blessing so we rushed over there and gave the blessing and then afterwards it was 9:55 and we had five minutes to return to the house but we also realized that we were 3 people short to achieve our weekly goal of contacts of 60. We knew we didn't have a lot of time but we prayed that Heavenly Father would help us and He surely did. After the prayer, we started walking back to the house when the next three people that crossed our path and started asking us questions about the church and they were really interested! Ha ha so we got 3 more contacts and made our goal! And an example that Heavenly Father does answer prayers!
I don't have any more time but I want you all to know that I know this gospel is true and that Jesus Christ lives and is our Savior and Redeemer, I am loving this gospel so much! Thank you all for everything! I love you all so much!
Love
Elder Cowan
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