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.
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
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