Temple Blessings!!

Dear Family and Friends!

Wow, this week was amazing!! Seriously! First off, all I just want to say is that I am so grateful to be sealed to my family! What an incredible blessing that is! As well, I'm so grateful for temples! What a blessing to have them so close in our lives! We were able to have a lot of experiences in the temple this past week! I LOVE THEM!

So to explain, President got the revelation from President Monson's talk that he should let his missionaries go to the temple more often to help us remember the covenants we have made with the Lord. He decided that each zone would go week for week this next month. 

And since we are the closest to the temple we had the blessing of going to the temple first! We were able to go Tuesday morning for an endowment session! Wow, it's been almost over a year since I have done an endowment session! Oh, how I love the temple so much!! As we approached the temple grounds I just felt like my soul was longing to be inside. As if it had been too long and just as a lost kid wanted to return back safely home. So even before entering the temple I was getting emotional! HA ha! But it was amazing! The session was so beautiful and I learned so many more things. I know that the Lord is the Lord of Covenants. He has so many promises for us and He loves us so much and wants us to return back to Him. Temples are the gates to heaven and I am so grateful that we had that blessing to be in there. IT was amazing to feel the peace again and to just have a stop in life! It was so needed!

Then we were able to go to the temple again on Saturday as the assistants called us to let Elder Daniel know that his converts from his 1st sector were gonna get sealed in the temple!! What a blessing! So we went to the temple again on Saturday and we were able to be present in sealing of these two young adults. It was so powerful! That was the first time I have ever seen a sealing in live action! And the spirit was so incredible! I was thinking of Trevor and Kiersten and Justin and Stacie and how powerful it must have been you guys! Aww!! I just love the temple!! And it was even more powerful when we brought in their 1 year old baby! And from that point I think everyone was crying! It was amazing! We were able to talk to the guy in the changing room as I saw him talk with Elder Daniel as he hugged him and thanked him for leading him to this gospel. That was such a powerful moment for me to literally see the outcome of all that we do and to see this brother of ours in the temple now getting sealed in the temple! What a miracle! This gospel changes lives! And blesses them for an eternity!

Well, that was a little about our experiences in the temple, but now I will go on to how it went during the week. We were also privileged with a new experience that happened on Friday. The secretary of the mission called us and asked us if we could do divisions with some Elders in the CCM. And al tiro we responded yes!! So Friday afternoon we were able to have 3 Elders that have been in the CCM for 5 weeks. IT was amazing to be with them! I don't know if you guys remember but they always let the American group of missionaries to do these divisions there last week in the CCM. But since I got changed into a Latin district I wasn't able to participate. But I guess the Lord has a time for everything and who knew that I would have the chance to be on the other side leading these new missionaries and showing them around of what missionary life is really like! 

Elder Daniel was with one elder and I was with two others. Their names were Elder Stevn Taylor form Mesa! HA ha, it was cool to be with someone from Mesa again. OH! I almost forgot when I was in the temple of Saturday I saw Elder Isaac Strong too! Another buddy from Mesa! HA ha and I was with Elder Parker Spanbauer from Idaho. Both of them aren't coming to our mission, but it was amazing walking around with them as they were experiencing real mission life for the first time! And we were able to take out the trash too! We were only with them for about 3 hours, actually a little less, but we were able to have 4 lessons with 4 new investigators as well! IT was such a blast! I was trying to give them all the advice I could possibly give them in that short amount of time! They are going to be great missionaries!!!

Thursday was a little weird for us since Elder Daniel and I both got a little sick because we ate stomach for lunch. That was a first time for the both of us and it didn't go so well. As well, there are a lot of universities in our sector and there was a student riot going on so we weren't able to do a lot of stuff. Ha ha.

What was cool, was our lesson with Regina who is reactivating really fast! She is awesome! She told us that she got a lot of revelation in the general conference about the importance of an eternal marriage and families that now she wants to get married to her basically husband and she wants them to start participating in the church. A about two days later, we were able to teach her husband, Pepe. And we read 1 Nephi 8 and read how Regina wanted her husband to participate in the fruit as well. He was really open with us and about the idea, but still hasn't committed to anything specifically. But I'm excited about the future for that family.

As well, Sunday was an awesome day! They let Elder Daniel and I both give talks in sacrament meeting and they were great! Elder Daniel talked about the Holy Ghost and I talked about Obedience! All the members really like our talks. And then we had a ward family home evening at 7 that night where over 50 people came to the activity! WE were not expecting that! But we were able to pull everything off and it was amazing! The spirit was so strong! A family brought their next door neighbors who aren't members and they had a great time! We are going to have another FHE with them next week! So we are stoked!

We are really trying to work a lot with the members here! Because we have seen that with all the universities and businesses in our sector there aren't a lot of places to go contact. So we are trying to think of more idea of how to find new investigators with the ward. Please pray for us as we continue trying to find some more prepared investigators!

I have to go now! But I am so grateful for each one of you! Congrats to Justin and Stacie who are on that awesome vacation trip and congrats to Trevor and Kiersten who are going to graduate! Woo hoo!! And Blake way to go with showing your diligence in your studies! Push to the end buddy! And Mom and Dad I love you two sooo much!

Thank you for everything! I love Chile!

Love Elder Cowan