Dear Family,
Alright I am back! And now for my weekly letter! But to first start off, Mom last Wednesday I got the Christmas package! It came super fast!! Ha ha but don't worry!! I haven't opened any of the gifts yet! I remember when either Trevor or Blake didn't wait and you got really angry with them! But I have been eating the little candies everywhere in the package! So don't worry I am being patient and waiting for the 13th of December to open the first gift! And I don't care that you didn't take that part about the worm out of the letter! I will let you know when to take things out or not! And you also asked about the language. It is still coming a long. . I don't really know ha ha! I can teach all the lessons and I even lead in giving and starting the lessons, but my Spanish vocabulary is very, very well when it comes to gospel topics. But when it comes to just normal talking and small talk kind of stuff it is quite difficult. My companion says my Spanish is really good and especially my grammar, like when to use past tense and future tense and all that. But the only hard part is just understanding and listening to the people because they talk really fast here. But I am not letting it get me down. I know it all comes in time and I have only been here for 3 months. I have caught myself a lot thinking in Spanish and I am also writing in my journal in Spanish because when I write in English it just turns into Spanglish because I tend to write Spanish words instead ha ha. Also my companion has made a goal for me to lead the sector every other day. So that means I am in charge of everything for that day, where to go, who to go see, what to do, also in charge of all phone calls we get and have to make, and in leading the lessons and in contacting. That has been helping my Spanish a lot and has helped me become a better senior companion. My companion keeps telling me that I am so ready to be a senior companion and ready to train already! Ha ha! He keeps telling me that so I don't know! Maybe I will--that would be cool! Ha ha! Also I just thought of this but I get to practice my frisbee skills a little bit here in the mission. When we get references from people we plan to go visit them shortly but sometimes the people don't answer so we get a pass along card and write a little message and then since all the houses have fences you have to throw the card to the front door step. And I have gotten pretty good at it, ha ha! My companion is surprised every time when it lands right in front of the door, ha ha!
Okay, but onto my week! Last Monday nothing really happened after Pday. We had a lesson with Ulisses but nothing really exciting. Then Tuesday I woke up with an ear infection. I have been wondering when they were going to start coming back. But a little miracle occurred, I believe, because I woke up and knew I had a ear infection and so I got the drops and put them in and then I haven't had any other problems! Usually the pain lasts for a couple days! But it's all fine now so you don't have to worry, Mom! And I am on medicine for the worms--you don't have to worry about that either! Tuesday we also had divisions where Elder Wilson, one of the zone leaders, came along with Elder Contreras and me for a day. And he counseled us to make more little sectors and to really work and focus a lot in the little sectors everyday. So we drew new lines on our maps and started to knock doors. But as we were knocking on doors we looked across the street and Jehovah Witnesses were across the street knocking on doors as well, ha ha, so we had to stop and we have been waiting a little bit in order to retun back to that sector. Ha ha, but it was pretty funny! Also on Tuesday we taught Valerie who is probably the main focus in this last week! She is just awesome! She is so interested and accepts everything and is just willing to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ in her life. We taught L3 with her and extended a baptism date with her which she willingly accepted with no problems!! :) And even after the lesson we were walking away when she asked us about our beliefs about coffee and tea, and we basically taught a 5 minute lesson about the Word of Wisdom and after teaching that she just looked at us, thought for a little bit and said, Okay, yea that makes sense, I will follow those things as well. Ha ha she accepted it even when we didn't even extend any type of invitation to live it, ha ha, she is just awesome! And, well, Tuesday night Valerie came to English classes because she really wants to learn English and it was just awesome! And after the class we gave her a tour of the chapel as well, ha ha. Ha ha, I don't think I can use the word awesome enough ha ha! So, yea, Tuesday was a great day and a lot of the time was with Valerie!
Wednesday we had a conference in Maipu with three different zones and it was great! There we did a lot of role playing and practices and it helped a lot! President was sick, but he still came and talked to us and it was great! That was the day I got the package! Seriously that thing came within a week! I am so surprised about that! And you probably are to, Mom, ha ha! And then after the conference we had a miracle contact! We were just walking in the street and saying hi to everyone like normal when a lady walked by and we said hi and then she stopped and turned around and asked us where our church was. We gave her the direction and then she said, "Hey, this is my house right here would you like to come in and teach my family?" And we were like umm yea! Of course! Ha ha, and she has a husband and two sons. Her name is Marta and the husband is Ugo. The sons names are Mauricio and Ugo Jr. And the two sons were high when we first entered. They have a lot of problems with drugs and have a lot of addictions. It was really hard to even breath in the house because they were all smoking. But I just remembered that they are my brothers and sisters and they need the gospel in their lives really badly! I thought of the general conference of when one of the apostles quoted the story of the missionary who saw all of his investigators the same way and saw them in white. It was a great miracle that we were able to find them and have them all be new investigators for us. I am excited to continue to teach them because I want to help them so bad! Wednesday our recent convert in our sector Ulisses called us to let us know that his dad got in a really bad motorcycle accident. Ulisses didn't really care because his dad separated from them a long time ago, but he wanted us to come over because his mom was very depressed. So we rushed over and taught a short, sweet message about hope and the power of the Book of Mormon to try to comfort her. Ulisses, though, lives close to the farthest boundaries of our sector so after it was already 10 at night and we were supposed to be in our house, so Elder Contreras and I decided to book it back to the house because there were no taxis or buses at that late hour at night. And it was super fun, actually! There are dogs everywhere, as you know, and anything that is fast the dogs chase after so when we were running we turned around to find a pack of like 10 dogs all chasing after us ha ha! But we stopped and started to walk and then they all skidded to a stop and went their different ways, but it was a little scary ha ha!
Thursday! Thanksgiving! Ha ha just a normal day for me! We went to Penaflor where as a zone we were going to work together from 4 to 7 and invite people to come and tour the chapel. We had 6 tours in total but we didn't really have a whole lot of success. But it was cool to see all the zone go out and have missionaries on every street in this area going and inviting people. One elder decided to take a white board and wrote "We are selling Super 8s" (which are basically kit kats here) ha ha but we didn't have any, but a man came and wanted to buy a Super 8, but we promised him that he had to tour the chapel first and then he could buy one. Ha ha so while some elders were giving the tour, another companionship booked it to the closest store, bought a super 8 and returned just in time ha ha. We decided that we shouldn't bribe people and that it was wrong to do that. But it was still funny!
Friday we taught Valerie again!! I love teaching her! And this time her little brother came and wants to listen to us know! So he is a new investigator too! And we extended an invitation to be baptized, but Valerie kept talking so he couldn't reply, but basically I believe he will want to be baptized too. And he likes the belief that families can be together forever. And he is only like 15 or 16 years old, so we believe we can get the whole family baptized ha ha! Yeah! And after the lesson Valerie asked us if she could apply to have Liahonas sent to her house! and we were just like, "Yea of course!" ha ha, she is just awesome! Friday we also taught Oscar who is the old investigator who thought he needed to read the whole Book of Mormon first and then to pray to receive a testimony. But in this lesson we read Moroni 10:4 where it says when you receive these things. . .and so on. We shared with him that if the Book of Mormon is true, which it is, then one verse is true as well and we shared with him that it is when we receive these things not when we end these things. He agreed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon now!! Woo hoo! I am so excited! But at the end of the lesson he was a little upfront and a tad rude to me. When I teach I always try to make eye contact, but at the same time I am trying to think and translate what I am saying in my head, and when I don't know exactly how to say something in Spanish I pause for a little bit and think and then keep going. But Oscar got mad at me that I don't keep eye contact and that when you don't keep eye contact it is a sign that what you are saying isn't true. That hit me pretty hard. I tried telling him that it's just me trying to translate in my head from English to Spanish and not because I don't think this is true. After I told him that it is just me translating in my head when I don't keep eye contact he apologized and said he was sorry. After that lesson we were really far from our house and we needed to get home on time, but we were still really far, but luckily there was one taxi that night but I only had 2000 pesos so we just decided to go as far as we could with the small amount of money but there was another tiny miracle. We ended up right in front of our house when the pager was at 1975 ha ha! We barely had enough money and we got home just in time! Ha ha!
Saturday we got a call from the young mens leader that there was a lady who wanted a tour of the chapel and needed help with English. So we went and gave her a tour, her name is Mary and we helped her with her English for a long time and she is really interested in the church. But then finally at the end of everything and the end of being at the chapel for like 4 hours with her, we found out that she actually lives in the Hermanas sector so she is their investigator. . Ha ha but it's alright! I am still glad that I was able to help her learn English! While we were at the chapel we got a call from the zone leaders that there was a man that wanted a blessing. So we wrote down the reference and went straight to the house. And it is a man named José. We asked him why he wanted a blessing and he replied and just said that he believed that we had power and authority. Ha ha we were really surprised at that response and so we gave him the blessing. And he wanted the blessing because he got in a bad car accident a while ago and lost some memory. Well, we kinda passed over the part of the memory loss. . you will see why. . . Ha ha, after talking with him and talking about how we actually do have the power and authority, we taught him the Restoration and he was really open with it all and accepted it all. He told us that it all made sense and that he believes in Joseph Smith. Well, at that response we were even more excited and surprised. I was so surprised and excited that I invited him to baptism which he accepted. But here comes the funny part...remember the part about the memory loss well we talked to a hermano in the ward who knows him and he actually is a member but doesnt remember anything about joining the church! Haha. But hey at least we get to help him come back to church! Haha. I was so excited that we were going to have such an easy baptism. Haha. But its all good! And really funny, too!
Sunday was when I had a little Thanksgiving for myself. We had lunch with the Lopez family. It was Br. Lopez's birthday so they made a huge lunch with all this chicken and salads and everything! Haha, and after dinner they had different types of desserts and cakes! Ha ha. So I will take that as a little tender mercy from the Lord for me to have a Thanksgiving of my own! Haha. ;) Sunday we finally got to teach Felipe as well We haven't seen for almost over a week! But he is still doing great! He got braces and had to get teeth pulled out so he was basically on his bed resting and sleepy all week from the drugs. But he is great and still excited!
Well, that is my week! Thank you for all the prayers and letters every week! I love you guys so much! I know this gospel is true and there is so much power in the Book of Mormon! I hope you guys are reading it everyday! I love that book so much! It is meant for our time and it is true without a doubt! I love you guys and I hope you all have a great week! Dad, good luck with your busy week! Mom, enjoy the Christmas season. Blake, good luck with the girls. ;) And Trevor and Kiersten, enjoy each other's company for the break that you have and good luck with any upcoming school things you may have. And HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JUSTIN!!! I know I already sent you a personal letter but Happy Birthday, big brother! I hope you are enjoying traveling across the country with Nathan! That is so cool! I love you all so much!!!!!
Love,
Elder Cowan
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