Ward Activity, Baptism & BIG NEWS!

Dear Family and Friends from the good ole USA!!

Woo hoo! I am so pumped right now! This has been an awesome, awesome week jammed packed with blessings and miracles! Heavenly Father is truly helping us in this sector right now! And there is so much stuff to tell you, but I will save the big news till the end! he he :) I'm just so happy right now!!! 

Well first off FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS A TREVOR!!!! WOO HOO!! Way to go bro! I love you so much and you are such a great example to me!!! Have a great week! And also Happy Valentines Day! I cant express my love enough for you guys! I am truly blessed with the best family and friends in the whole world!

Now onto my week! We first started teaching Mara on Monday and we taught the Atonement with her and it was awesome! This week I have truly come to know of my Savior's sacrifice and Atonement for me! I am so indebted to my Redeemer, I love Him so much! The lesson went great and the spirit was SO strong. It was perfect! 

Then the rest of Monday and Tuesday all of our appointments fell through, but it was actually a tiny blessing because we had a ward activity on Friday and we were able to dedicate Monday and Tuesday to completely inviting people to come to the activity and to motivate the members! It was great! And we had a cool experience Tuesday night where the Lord truly blessed us with one tiny lesson at the end of the night with Emilio who is an old investigator that we dropped because he broke the law of chastity and has a kid now and started doing drugs and he is only 17 years old. But as we were at the church Tuesday night we had about 40 contacts just in that day which is a ton for us! We were a little sad that we didn't have any lessons for that day, and that's when we saw Emilio and his girlfriend walked towards the church crying. . . We hurried to them and brought them into the church and they have been having a ton of problems with everything! But they told us that the only place they thought to go was to the church. It was such a powerful experience to help them realize the peace of the Spirit in the Lord's churches. We helped them calm down and helped them realize that it wasn't a coincidence that they came here to the church because this is where the Lord wants all His children. Then we ended with a prayer and Emilio offered the closing prayer, which before he would never pray. Never!! But Elder Barazza and I bowed our heads and closed our eyes and just waited for him to start. It was silent for about 5 minutes and you could feel the spirit in the room. Just when I was about the open my eyes, he started to pray and it was one of the coolest and sweetest experiences to watch this young teenager pray for the first time in his life, with tears in his eyes, which later made me get teary eyed. The spirit was so strong and I could just feel the Lord's love for him so much! And now he wants to start listening to us again.

Thursday was a little crazy. . . Elder Hatch, who I have gotten really close with, got in a big fight with his disobedient companion and they were yelling and stuff and it was pretty serious. We realized that we couldn't leave them like that so my comp and I played a little Dr. Phil to work it all out and at the end they were all good, but it took some time! And we lost some lessons but I'm glad to have helped them continue in their work in their sector. After, we passed by Teresa and taught the law of chastity, which was pretty funny because she just kept telling us that we don't need to worry about this commandment with her because she is single and planning on being single forever ha ha. We cleared up better what it all contains and right now she is only smoking 2 cigarettes a day! Such a miracle! While before she used to smoke 2 packs a day! And now only 2! God is a God of miracles! I can testify of that! The only problem we have, really, is her memory, which we are working on.

Friday was all dedicated to the ward activity. It was a Family Night with the ward run by the missionaries. And it was AWESOME!! The ward has changed sooooo much! It is a miracle! We invited so many people and actually a lot of people showed up! We had over a 100 people at the activity. And it was all run by us missionaries in the ward. We decided to have it centered on the Atonement and started with an activity where we had treats for every single person, but we had to ask them if they wanted the candy and if they did, Elder Barazza needed to do 4 push ups, and if they didn't want it, Elder Barazza would still have to "pay" for it. With all the people and treats, Elder Barazza did 500 push ups! But near the end, the people didn't want us to have Elder Barazza keep going because he was truly struggling and in pain and some sisters were even crying watching him in pain. But there were still people that would still ask for another candy so he had to pay for everyone. Near the end, when my companion could barely do anything with his body, we turned the lights off and watched a Mormon message from Holland called "Totally Alone" about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It was super powerful. We then read a scripture and shared with them that we all have the blessings in our lives (candies) but someone had to pay for everything. Just as Elder Barraza had to pay for each candy and to do 4 push ups, our Savior paid for every single person and made it possible for all to receive this gift (or candy). It was very spiritual. Afterwards, the sisters in the ward brought cakes and pastries and then we gave tours of the church to the people who weren't members! It was perfect! Seriously. I couldn't have asked for a better activity. The whole week we had been stressing over that activity, but it all paid off in the end and it helped the members so much and motivated them to share the gospel.

Saturday was another miracle! We had a planned trip to go to the temple with Mara and her whole family this time but we woke up that morning and the members who were going to drive us couldn't and when we passed by Mara´s house she told us that she couldn't. We were really disappointed but decided to go back to the house and continue to study when we started our studies with a prayer and let me tell you guys it was just like in the "Best Two Years" movie! HA ha, we started to pray and I asked if it would be possible to go to the temple with Mara and someone in her family and immediately when I said that, the phone rang! HA Ha Hallelujah!!! HA ha we yelled out "Amen" and ran to the phone and it was Camila, Mara´s daughter, to tell us that she could go now! It was such a answer to our prayers! I know Heavenly Father answers and is always listening! We had a great time at the temple. We got to pass by the CCM and I saw my teachers and all the new missionaries and they just all were staring at me, ha ha, it was pretty funny!

Sunday we had a baptism!!! WOO HOOO!! My 1st baptism!!! It was awesome!! Elder Barazza baptized Mara and it was sooo awesome! She had the biggest smile on her face! I have never seen her so happy before! It was a great experience! But just as it happened in Padre Hurtado in my last sector, the baptism font started to overflow! HA ha so while everyone was in the classes, we saw water out in the halls and we ran and realized that it was overflowing! Ha ha it was good that it happened during church and that no one really noticed. We shut the water off, but we still needed to take out the drain to drain water out. So I had the same idea when we had to do this in my last sector. . . so I threw a table in the font and stepped on it to reach down and pull the plug. But this time the water was so high that the desk just went completely submerged in the water and there was no way to reach down and pull the drain with the water level so high and to do it with clothes. . . . ha ha ha soo. . I took of all my clothes except for my bottoms and climbed over and reached out head first into the water and pulled the drain out, ha ha ha. Oh! the memories you get in the mission, ha ha, it was really funny! My comp has the pics on his camera so he will have to send them to me. HA ha, it was really funny. But we got it all worked out and the baptism went great!!! Then the rest of the day was dedicated for my comp to say his goodbyes because Saturday night we got the news that he was leaving and same with the comp of Elder Hatch.

Which now brings me to the BIG NEWS! The transfers!! Wooo hoo! I was really not expecting what happened today!! I am still surprised right now! But guess what!!? I'm training a new missionary!!!!! HA ha only after 5 months! Ha ha! Everyone in the transfers meeting were all surprised by it when President called out, ´´Elder Cowan to become a trainer¨ Ha ha actually this meeting was all in English, ha ha, it was pretty funny! It's because President wants all the Latinos to learn English. But when he announced it I just couldn't believe it! I stood up and walked over to the designated ´´Trainers´´ row and when I stood up the whole mission was just like ´´ohhhhh!!! Nooo way!!!!´´ ha ha. I was freaking out a little, but I know that the Lord trusts me and this is part of His plan! The trainers get to go to the temple tomorrow, which I am so excited for and then tomorrow night I will get my new missionary! Awww, I have no idea if he´s going to be Latino or American or what! I did not see this coming at all! And it is really rare for this to happen with only an elder with 5 months to train a newbie! I am a little nervous because my Spanish isn't perfect and I don't know my sector completely, but I am also super excited to train another missionary and to help him start his mission! HA ha, tomorrow I will be a dad! Ha ha, my first son in the mission! After the meetings, President came up to me and just told me really calmly, ´´This is revelation, and I know you can do it and that the Lord knows you and knows you can do this. Put your trust in Him and you will be able to have a great time training.´´ I am so excited! I know my president is called of God. I have this new calling and I am so excited. It may be a little hard, but I cant wait to help a missionary to start his mission and realize this happiness that I have for the mission! Wish me the best of luck!!!!

Thanks for all the letters! Love you all!!!

Love, 
Elder Cowan