New Area is Beautiful!

Dear Family,

Well, it sure isn't Tomás Flores here, but it's getting better. My old bishop warned me that the first week in a new area is usually pretty tough because you don't know the members. I feel like there's no love, excitement, or spirit in this ward. Church yesterday helped a little, but not much. So few people showed up of a fairly large ward. Anyway, I gave another talk, yet again, I think it's probably the eighth talk this year. But, this time I was given the topic of missionary work. I lowered the cane on them a bit. I talked about how the members need to be involved to help the missionaries find the prepared people because we don't know them. It actually inspired a lot of members. We received a few references and there are a few families that are planning on talking to a few neighbors to invite them over for a family night. I challenged the ward to fast and pray to find someone in their lives to share the gospel. I thought of our own family too. Besides Vince and Pam, I don't really remember our family working too much with missionaries or anything. Mom, maybe you should feed them or give some references to them. It honestly is one of the things that helps us the most! You could pray and fast to find someone new in your life to help and bless.

Anyway, my area is beautiful! There's so many fields and beautiful scenery. I am enjoying the bikes a lot too! My comp is dying because of how fast I like to ride. he he he! But he's losing a lot of weight. Speaking of my companion, his uncle baptized my daddy!!! Yup! Dane Calkins or something like that. He got an email asking if I was the son of the Mesa stake president. That's pretty cool! Look at that, the world is such a small place! My companion is a goober. He is seriously obsessed with Star Trek and is super scared of being robbed, getting weird sicknesses, or any of that good stuff. ha ha! But, we decided to mess with him a bit this week in the pench. So, today we have convinced him to get a swirly in the toilet at the zone activity for the amount of 17 dollars and the chance to throw a pie in my face. I'm down with that! Ha ha! We also took all of his ties and put them in the freezer and let them freeze over night. In the morning we told him he he'd slept walked and woke us all up. He didn't believe us until he went to go get dressed and realized that all his ties were missing. He was a little upset, but then he finally found them in the freezer and believed our story. We still haven't told him yet. ha ha! Also, Elder Salters, Hansen and I all have the same sweater and toothbrush. We also convinced him that the mission gave them to us for safety reasons and he got really worried. Then we told him president called and said not to leave the pench because someone was just murdered across the street at the train station. ha ha! He's a good sport. We like to mess with him cause he's so gullible. It's amazing!

So with the missionary work, we are hitting it hard! We are teaching a lot and finding a lot! The people in this area just are more open! It's so easy! ha ha! We took out a fecha with Melani the other day. She's a little snakish, well, really snakish. She gets jealous when the youth start talking about Carly, but they were a good help with her. She's assisted twice on her own and picked her own baptism fecha. So, she'll be pretty simple like Laura was! We have found amazing couples who aren't married and without documents that unfortunately can't be married or baptized for months. There are a lot of people from Peru and Paraguay here. I've even met some Venezuelans too! I like hearing the difference in their accents.

The area book here is filled with potential baptisms, the ward is made up of part member families, and the inactive families have kids that need baptizing. Needless to say, I think this ward could easily get twenty baptisms in just two or three months. I hope it all works out like it appears! Anyway, We'll see what the Lord has in store. I just can't believe that some of the other elders haven't recognized some of that! Elder Carlson is still in the lost puppy mode and still doesn't know the area really well. We wasted time doing circles one day and then I told him I would get us around. I went and got a youth, Agustin, and he's a champ. He lead us all over the place and didn't mind going for a few hours. He's only seventeen, but he's legit. I'm impressed by his maturity and desire to help in the missionary work.

With my foot, it's not too much different on the bike than walking. I still have the pain. Sometimes at night it hurts. I honestly think I can manage like this throughout the whole mission. But, we'll put it in the Lord's hands. I think I am going to be fine. Maybe we'll operate someday afterwards. We'll, I'm very happy and excited to get to work! I'll talk to you all next week! I love you all. Keep strong!

Love,
Elder Cowan