My Sick Son :/

Dear Family and Friends,

How awesome it is to write you guys every week! I love you all so much! You guys are the best!

But I wanna get straight to the week and, well, this letter will probably be a little shorter because we really only worked about 3 days out of the week. :/ My companion last Monday night wasn't feeling so well and then on Tuesday he was horrible! He had a fever and was throwing up and his stomach was killing him. He told me he would go in a cycle of feeling really really hot and then want to throw up and then he'd throw up and after he would feel really really cold and with a lot of stomach pain. And he repeated that process all Tuesday until Friday in the afternoon. Pobrecito! But I was able to play the role of ´´Mama´´ this week and I was taking care of him all week and we watched a lot of church videos together, ha ha, it was fun.

Luckily, the members are so nice here that they were all bringing medicines and herbs and food for him to eat that would make him feel better, ha ha. I love the members here! In general, I love the Chilean people! They are so loving! Chile is the best! 

I wanna thank mom for always taking care of me when I was sick! And always making warm chicken noodle soup! mmmmhhhm!! Soo good! With the saltine crackers too! HA ha! And I realized, mom, that every time you took care of me you never got affected by it! You're like Super Mom!! You're the best mom!! Thank you so much!

But this week was the Semana Santa! Woo hoo! Or Easter! And man, I just loved Sunday yesterday! Especially during the sacrament, in the silence of the ordinance I read in Luke about the resurrection of Christ and immediately taking the sacrament after was such a tender experience for me. I know my Savior lives! And I know that we will all be resurrected! How great is that! I can't even imagine what that will be like! And I cant even imagine how it's even possible for someone to overcome death! How incredible! But with the power of Jesus Christ anything is possible! I love Jesus Christ; He is the reason for my mission, and I am so grateful for His infinite Atoning sacrifice that helps me to be better everyday in my life! 

One lesson that we could have this past week was with Jose! Who is awesome! He is an old investigator that Elder Barraza and I found about 3 months ago by offering service to help him build a fence around his garden. He came to watch General Conference with us and came to church yesterday!! How awesome! And we had a lesson with him after church and it was so awesome! I have never felt the spirit so strong in a lesson before! We taught the Restoration and he just loved it all! He started crying just in the first principle of how God is our loving Heavenly Father. He said that his dad, right before he died, always told him that God loves him. And from that experience he has always wanted to know which church is true. He told us that he already feels like this church is completely true and actually asked us about baptism! Ha ha, that was a little shocker, but great! He now has a baptism date and is so strong! That date isn't until the 18th of May. It's a little far and he really only needs 1 more Sunday to attend to be able to be baptized, but he works a lot and we still have to teach him all the rest of the lessons. But I am so excited for him! I love him! Really, he is a miracle! We have been struggling to find new investigators this whole transfer, we really only have about 3 investigators . . . but he is a miracle for us! 

Well, basically, that was my week! Stuck in the house all day, but we had an awesome Sunday yesterday with Easter and the lesson with Jose! We did buy some Easter eggs and hid them in the house for Elder Hatch and his companion to find, ha ha, but it was only about 5 eggs, ha ha. I did get to clean the house two times and update our area book and read the whole book of Mark while my companion was sick ha ha. I tried sleeping, too, but you know me! The son of Amy Cowan and I can't just do nothing! HA ha :) Love you mom! :)

Oh! Another thing that happened this week was ward council. Normally they don't let the missionaries talk really much, but now the bishop and I are best friends and always tells me that he doesn't want our President to send any other missionaries but just to make Elder Cowan serve here the whole time, ha ha. So I was able to talk to the bishop and he let us have a few minutes to talk with all the members. Basically, it was me talking all the time because I have been waiting for this moment and the other elders all said that I have the best relationship with the members, so I should be the spokesman, ha ha! But I really just wanted to make them excited for the missionary work and to make them see the changes in this ward. There were a lot of ugly things that happened in the past, but now we have a chapel full for the sacrament meeting and in elders quorum we have 21 priesthood holders! How awesome! But as we finished talking, it turned back into a normal ward council meeting, which this happens all the time, but basically all the members started off talking about their called saying, ´´okay bishop here are all the problems. . . ´´ And they really kinda just whine about all of the problems that they have, but they never do anything about it! Aww it bugged me! Ha ha. I started writing down in my agenda, in tallies, how many problems, and how many solutions were made. When it got to the point where there was 15 tallies for problems and only 2 for solutions, I felt the spirit so strong as it was telling me to help them. 

Over and over in my mind I had the impression of, ´´help them Elder, help them´´ I finally couldn't take it any longer and stood up and interrupted. They suddenly were all quiet and I asked the bishop if I could share a few words. I could see the stress in the bishop's face and he smiled and said, ´´please Elder Cowan help me,´´ just as the impressions in my thought said to me just seconds ago. I decided to use the Book of Mormon and use the story of the Brother of Jared. He had problems. . .he didn't have any light in his boats. But what did he do about it? Whine about it? Just went to Jared and told him all that was wrong?! No! He FIXED IT! He went to the Lord first! That should always be the first step! And then he went to the Lord with a solution and a plan to FIX it! He went to the Lord in faith that He would help him with his solution to touch the rocks to make light. And he got his problem fixed! I shared this with them and was really direct with them. I told them to just Fix it! That they are the leaders and they have been called by revelation.

After I sat down, there was a silence for a while and I looked at the bishop and he had the biggest smile on his face. And then after, problems were fixed. Ha ha, after the meeting the bishop came up to me and said basically, ´´Wow! You got a little fire in ya! I like that! Thank you Elder! I was praying in that meeting for help with all the problems the leaders were presenting to me. Thank you for fixing it.´´ It felt so great to be an answer to the bishop's prayer. I love him so much! He has changed so much and he is awesome!

Well that's it for me! I hope you guys had an awesome week! I hope you were able to really enjoy the real reason of Easter, but that's not the only time! Everyday we should remember our Savior and Redeemer. I am so grateful to be His representative! I love my mission and I love you guys! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Cowan