Feliz Navidad

Dear Family and Friends!!!!!

WOW! Can you believe it!??! It's Christmas!! FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!! Wow I'm still kinda taken back a little bit of how crazy the time is flying by! Like seriously, it's already been another week!? Wow! Christmas really did sneak up on me this year! May we all be able to share this wonderful time as families and to be able to share this wonderful time of the year with those who may have this light in their lives!

Wow and I can't believe that we are going to Skype this week as well! I'll be honest I'm not sure how I feel about that! Ha ha! It feels only like a short time ago that we were skyping for Mothers Day! But I can't wait to see all of you!

This past week was a busy week! We had a lot of things that happened this past week, which were good things and not like distractions, but they did prevent us from being in our sector a lot. This week was pretty busy for the Navidad! Even for the missionaries and for the whole entire world this time of the year always seems to get really full with all the things!

But to start off with the beginning of this week on Monday we were able to find some new investigators. They are Victor and Valentina. They are brother and sister and really live a very humble life. They have a tiny little house but there are over 14 people that live there in all different parts! We met Victor in the street when he stopped us on his bike and asked us if we can help with him English. We said we could and we taught him a few words and then watched the video, "He is the Gift," with him. Victor is only 19 years old, my age! But really has never had any time of beliefs or standards in his life. He has a little braided rat tail behind his ear and on the top of his head his hair is really long and all over the place. He isn't a typical teenager that you would see in church, I guess that's what I'm trying to say. But it's so fun teaching him because we have to start from level 1 from the basics of everything! It's pretty hard for him at times to wrap his head around some of the things about "Dios" and all, but he is slowly moving along. For the longest time he didn't want to pray but when we visited him for the third time he finally gave in and prayed. And that's one of the coolest things to see in the mission--seeing a person pray for the very first time in their life. It's awesome to see slowly by slowly, step by step how this gospel is changing him!

To update you guys about Loreto and Rodolfo. We actually haven't been able to see them a whole lot. Rodolfo's dad last week just entered the hospital because he is pretty critical in his health right now. So they are at the hospital almost everyday. We were able to pass by and we were able to run into Rodolfo and he opened up to us that he's having a hard time with everything. So even though they didn't attend church or we weren't able to have a lesson this past week, tonight we have a scheduled lesson with them where we are gonna teach the Plan of Salvation. It's gonna be a good lesson! I can't wait!

And then on Thursday we had our Christmas festival as a mission and that was awesome to be able to see all my buddies from the mission again and to see Elder Alcaraz and Elder Kimball! I was with them the whole day basically! Amo mis hijos! Ha ha! We were able to have a huge white elephant activity, a huge lunch and time to just talk with everyone! It was great! I love President and Hermana Barreiros! They are the best! That same time was when Elder Brady left! So now he is in Arizona in Show low livin' the RM life! And now it's just back to two, which was a little weird to get used to with Elder Goates and I.

Friday was a pretty crazy day. Our mission has put together a big musical presentation for Christmas where they got a choir together and with the singing they have scriptures read and on a projector the bible videos playing. Wow, the mission went all out on this thing! It was incredible! And they have been going all over the mission presenting this presentation musical! And luckily Talagante was chosen to be one of the locations to have it. But as well that meant a lot of preparing. So all day Friday our zone was putting up the mikes and cleaning the church and all. I was running all over the place. And during all that President came to do interviews with the zone. He kinda got behind a little bit and so since the zone leaders are always last Elder Goates and I didn't get our interviews in til about 7:30. Poor President, when I walked in you could just see that he was wiped. As I walked in I asked if he was tired, to which he responded by taking out a liter of Coca Cola bottle and just drank it from bottle! Ha ha, I love Pres!

The interview I had with President, he put a lot of pressure on me for the zone. Really the cities Talagante and Melipilla (look on a map of them) are all one district. And President is the stake president since it isn't a stake yet. But he went on to tell me that this is the time that this district can become a stake and that is why he has called me here at the end of 2014 to help get the attendance up that way when the numbers go to Salt Lake at the end of the year the apostles can look at the results and decide if it can become a stake. Wow, he sure did put the pressure on me! Ha ha, but I know that THIS IS the time to have this miracle occur! Really, if it happens and it all becomes a stake, it will become the biggest stake in all of Chile! Wow! That way we will be able to say that we helped construct the biggest stake in all of Chile, that's what president told me. And that would be so cool! Really the attendance is a grand challenge because the members need a lot of help and are a little "trio," I guess you can say. But I know everything is possible! Now then ever we need to keep pushing the attendance to be higher! Please keep in your prayers that the members can all attend and not get lazy!

After the interview the presentation started and holy cow it was incredible!!!!! Seriously! It was sooo good! We had to start a little late because the assistants wanted to see if anyone else would show up because there were only a few at the beginning. So I got the whole zone together and assigned each companionship to go out and invite EVERYONE to this presentation! We had a good 5 block radius in each direction of missionaries griding out Talagante and inviting people to come! And we were able to pull in a TON of people! We ended up with a full house! It was awesome! And there were a lot of surprises too! One was when I was at the door and this guy just yells out "Elder Cowan?!" and came and gave me a huge hug. I honestly don't remember the guys name but as we started talking he was in Blake's misison and he knows Blake really well and I guess Blake stayed a couple nights in his pension or something. Aww, it was awesome just how excited he got! Ha ha!

And then another surprise was that Nancy and Alejandro came to the presentation! They heard about it in 4 Poniente and they decided to drive out and see it with me! Aww, it was awesome to see them again! They are still super active in the church and Alejandro has received the Melchizedek priesthood now! And they both have callings and all! It's awesome! Seriously, they are incredible! Alejandro is going to be a future bishop I know it! 

And then the last surprise was that Elder Alcaraz was actually in the presentation, but since it ended late there were no other buses to take them back to his sector so he spent the night with us! Ha ha, aww, we kinda talked a little too long that night, but it was so fun to be with him again!

But now my time is running up, but really I cant wait to hear from you guys! We are still trying to work out the skype for Christmas but hopefully we can all figure it out! May we all be able to draw ourselves a little bit more to the Savior this year and this week of His humble birth. I know He lives. I know He is our Redeemer! He passed through it all for us and I know His love is infinite! May we all be able to give a gift to the Lord this Christmas!

I love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Cowan