101th!

Dear Family and Friends!

I love you all! Ha ha, just thought I would start off on a good note! Well, to get straight into my letter, we had a pretty awesome week! I love working with Elder Smith and Elder Goates! It's just a solid stacked companionship! And it's even more awesome to lead the zone with them.

So to start off this new transfer great, my companions and I were thinking a lot of how we could have the zone kick it off with a bang! We have some "normas de excellencia" from President on the things that we wants his missionaries to do daily, weekly, and monthly. One of these standards is to have 70 contacts a week. But for the zones that are more in the countryside they have always have had a hard time achieving that goal just because there aren't a ton of people out on the street like there are in the city. But we decided again that we need to change things up. And we wanted to eliminate that image in the mission that campo zones can't get 70 per companionship. 

So on Wednesday we had our district meetings and for the last 30 minutes we pulled the zone in together and we challenged them to have each companionship do 100 CONTACTS! Wooo hoo!! They were a little bit nervous but Elder Smith and Goates and I motivated them that they could do it! We sure did set the bar high but the miracles sure did occur throughout the whole zone! 

But unfortunately for us we had a lot of meetings this week as zone leaders which limited us on having the time to contact. Like on Thursday we had a leadership council with President from 10 till 6 in the afternoon! Yea, it was a pretty long meeting, but it was incredible! We had some incredible lessons and classes from Hermana and Presdiente Barrieros! I love them! They really gave us a lot of information but it was awesome! Probably one of my favorite meetings that I have had as a leader of the mission.

From there we had weekly planning Friday morning and our zone conference Saturday. But we still went hard and tried to take advantage of all the time that was given to us. To give you guys an update about our investigators. Diego and his family left on vacations so that was a little bummer. And Loreto and Rodolfo went to the beach this past week. Nora was gone for a few days, but we were still able to teach her a little bit. She has a fecha for the 1st. We just need everyone to attend church!

But Saturday rolled along and we had an awesome zone conference. We each divided up and gave short classes on a topic that President taught us in the leadership meeting from Thursday. I had a class about the authority and faith. President told us in the meeting that other religions go out and preach as well, yelling on corner streets and telling the people to repent, without fear and show their faith through these actions. President told us, "They have faith, but not authority, but we have authority but a lot of time don't have the faith." And it's true sometimes! So I was able to give a talk on how we need to show our faith! I got super excited again being able to teach classes, which I love doing! Ha ha! 

Then Sunday came and we were contacting and trying to get to our goal of 100 contacts. And approaching the hundredth we were able to find Ines! Who truly is prepared. Her door was open and we decided to knock on it. She came out and at first told us that she only had 10 minutes to talk. We told her that if she let us in, she would feel the spirit and that we would be able to do it in less that 10 minutes. She kinda looked at us as if we were trying to challenge her to see if we could actually do it, so she let us in. Right from the beginning I just asked her, "If there was a prophet of God here on the earth, would you follow him?" She was a little stunned at how blunt I was in my question, but said of course she would. So Elder Smith told her right away that there was one and how that shows that Christ has restored His church. We then talked about baptism and told her that if there was Christ's prophet here on the earth today we have to get baptized in His church. That's when the light bulb went off for her and you could see that she was pondering a lot. She then asked us, "Can I come to your church to see if it is really Christ's church and to see if I should get baptized in it?" In that moment the spirit truly was testifying to her! We invited her to attend and get baptized for the 8th, she accepted right away and then we left with a prayer. And all under ten minutes. As we were leaving, she told us, "You guys were right! Really that was the best ten minutes ever! I did feel the spirit!" 

Really, we were all stunned, but we all knew that it was the Lord blessing us for our efforts to hit 100 contacts. That's why we wanted the zone to do 100 contacts because we knew that if they could first act and contact, then they would be showing their faith. And if a missionary shows his faith through his actions (100 contacts) we know that faith precedes the miracles and that the Lord will bless us. We saw that throughout the whole week. Just getting different phone calls from our missionaries during the day of how they were able to find some super prepared investigators! Really, I know we have to show our faith to the Lord through our actions, without fear! I know He is a God of Miracles and just waits for us to show our trust in Him!

We were able to see that when we hit the 100th contact. Really, we thought the 100th would be someone awesome! All three of us have never contacted so many people before. But just as the Lord works, He always wants us to go the extra mile. Finally at the last minute of the day we were able to contact one more guy we saw in the street--the 101th contact . . .  He let us talk to him and we found out that he loves our Church. He told us how when he got divorced, he literally had nothing. He lived in the streets with his daughter up until a Mormon bishop came and took him under his wing. He said that from that moment on he knew this man was inspired from God to come to his aide. He told us that he still visits this bishop once a month to show his gratefulness. And told us that with those monthly visits he reads the Book of Mormon with this Bishop! :) Tan bakan!! :) He really is another one prepared from the Lord!

I am so grateful for all the tender mercies that happened this past week. Not only for us, but for our whole zone. There were a lot of companionships that hit 100 contacts as well! Truly, the Lord works on the level of our faith! And we just have to show that faith through our actions, without fear! I love how the Lord works! There are miracles! I know anything is possible! 

Love you all! I hope you all have a great week and will be able to show your faith to the Lord! (Just like Heidi did on her plane ride!) Way to go!

Love you all soo much!

Love Elder Cowan