Great Investigator Pool

Dear Family,

This is going to be the quickest letter I'll ever write! I didn't have to opportunity to print off my emails today because of the crazy storm last night that took out power in all of our area. . . I'm in Montegrande doing cyber. But I have a few great stories from this past week. It wasn't the best week but definitely not the worst! We still were able to see a lot of amazing miracles and conversions take place.

Alright, well, here's an update on the family of Ana: They didn't come to church on Sunday because she was feeling terrible and as she was trying to leave the house to get to church, she just about fainted. Lack of water and sleep type deal. But anyway, we started to teach her oldest son who is great! He's totally willing to be baptized with the family and everything. There should be five baptisms with this family.

With Irma, she is progressing really well except for not making it to church. She went out to dance on Saturday and slept in on Sunday. But she is reading lots of the Book of Mormon and having very spiritual experiences with the peace she finds in reading and praying. I think she's scared to go to church without a friend and it's terrible because the member we are using to teach her has a calling in the stake and can't ever go to our ward. So, that's a little bummer, but she's an amazing investigator.

Alright, well, Lucas was dropped because his sister came out and told us how much of a waste of time we are for her and her family. Her mom is a member and I don't see why she is so mad at us. But we have such a big investigator pool that we decided to drop him. Plus he has addictions to drugs, alcohol and isn't married. We decided to focus on the more prepared people and they live far away from everyone else. We're going to be more efficient.

So with Edith, she came to church by herself on Sunday and felt the Spirit soooo strong and we had a lesson with her afterwards in her house and she explained to us her testimony and was crying. She gained the strongest testimony and started to read from the Book of Mormon and started to teach us about the blessing she can receive if she is obedient to the commandments. Too bad she can't get baptized because they're still waiting on getting the money to able to get the divorce. Lots of money . . . They need to earn a thousand American dollars. . . I decided I'd try to help them after the mission if I can. She deserves to be baptized and is doing all she can to do it! She's amazing.

With the inactive Zorba family, we had an amazing lesson yesterday!!! We taught the plan of salvation and used the story from President Uchtdorf when he described an airplane flight only being one degree off will cause it to crash into the mountains. We inspired them big time! The spirit testified to them and they are totally committed to come to stake conference on Sunday! They're way fun and even got a hold of a ton of Mexican chiles for us to make really spicy tacos!!! :) I love Mexican food!!!!

Umm, another family we taught a lot this week was the family of Jesus and Magda. They are such studs! They read, pray and even came to church yesterday! The bad news was that the speaker was terrible. He mumbled for 20 minutes and it wasn't understandable for anyone! Even the bishop was a little mad about it, but the poor hermano was really nervous. But then during his talk, Jesus and Magda asked if they could leave. . . That took a huge blow on us. They were only there about half an hour. It was terrible . . . But we are going to get them back by going to a few activities with them! Pray for those two. We fasted on Sunday, but might fast again on Wednesday and then again on Sunday for them. We need them! They're way too great to be lost!

Juan Andino had his baby last week! We were excited for them! Now they can go get married and he can get baptized.

Last night we got hit with a terrible storm that woke me up at three in the morning cause I was afraid to re-experience the storm from a few months ago. . . My first thought was of our next door neighbor Pricila and her baby Ama. Elder Borgersen and I got some cloths on and went out and helped her. I feel like the Lord used us as a blessing for her and her boyfriend, Dario. When we stepped outside we noticed they were trying to squeegee water out of their apartment. We helped them for an hour and a half doing that and holding their baby and calming them down. We finally sat and watched the calmer rain for a few minutes with them for a while. It was a precious moment. Made me think about having a little family of my own some day and how much it would mean to me if two young men came out and helped my wife and baby out at three in the morning until 4:30. It was a way to gain their confidence a little more and we are really trying to help them get married and get closer to baptism.

Well, we will be out of electricity and water for a while. But hey, stuff happens and yet the work still goes on!!! :) Gotta love the mysteries of the Lord. Well, I got to go write my president. Surprisingly I was able to type really fast and tell some stories for you all! Oh and I also taught a workshop five times in a row at the interviews on Friday with President Stapley. It was cool! We got everyone pumped to work and do their best! Well, love you all! Till next week, and I'm excited to be able to skype my soon to be sister in law in two months!! :) Kiersten, be prepared to meet your favorite brother-in-law. . . :) Chow!

Love, 

Elder Blake W. Cowan

Lots of New Investigators & Baptismal Commitments

Dear Family,

Well, I have the "double dragon" again as we say here. Too much body fluids exiting. Catch the drift? But it's all good! I'm still working and doing my best to show the zone that we are hard workers! I'm way excited for this week too!! I don't want to start it by staying in the pench. I love working too much!! :)

So this past week has been great!!! You better butter us up, because we're on a roll!!!! Elder Borgersen and I in two weeks have found twenty investigators and have taken out about 16 baptism commitments. This area is on fire! Honestly! We're going to be baptizing pretty soon! We were going to baptize Ana this coming Saturday but we decided to wait and get her kids baptized with her in two weeks. It'll be a lot more special! And the youngest is eight, so that way he'll still count as a convert for us and can help our zone goals!

Well, I don't feel so hot, so I'm going to write this letter as fast as I can. So on Monday after p-day, we went to Irma and Blanca. We brought Hna. Patricia Caseres with us and she is a return missionary. She's SOO great! She helped a ton this past week! Anyway, we taught about the doctrine of Christ and we tried to take out the baptismal commitment but Irma is too scared to say yes. She's reading a ton and praying a lot too! She was suffering from a depression attack, but she felt better after our visit. Blanca might not quite be totally sane. She's kind of nuts and talks about whatever. We're trying to see what we're going to do with her. We also taught Pamela later on and we reviewed the plan of salvation and gave a brief overview to her friend by phone. She lives far away, though, but she really liked it a lot!

On Tuesday we had district meeting which was great to not have to teach it! :) We also are having problems with Elder Narvaez. He's trying to fake a hurt knee to get home, I think. The poor guy just still doesn't understand it yet and he's only got about five or four months left. We're trying to help him out. 

Ok, I'm not going to be able to write everything that I want to. So, basically here's a list of people and a brief summary of each:

Emanuel, Daniel, and Kevin - Sons of Ana want to be baptized with their mom. We have to teach everything quickly to all of the family. Ana is doing alright. She's destroyed by the loss of her husband but keeps coming to church and listening to us. She knows what she needs to do.

Lucas - A new investigator that has problems with his family and with drugs, I believe. He needs the gospel and is really interested in everything. We found him by visiting his less active mom. 

Jesus, Andrés, Magda, Hugo, Erma - All live in the same house which has received the name, the Narnia Door. Every time we go there, we find more and more people! They're all great too!!

Braian and Franco - two boys of a recent convert that are now on track to be baptized. They're great!

Maria - We finally found her again. She was an investigator of Elder Borgersen and his last comp. She's such a stud. Wants to know everything and wants to work towards baptism.

Well, those were the interesting people from last week. We did and intercambio with the assistants. It was great in our area, but were I went, in Banfield, we didn't get anything done! We drove around and clapped a ton of houses, but nobody let us in. It was great to get to know Elder Reid a little better, though. Elder Borgersen and Elder Griffin were able to get Irma committed to baptism and found some people too! 

Well, I'm sorry that this letter isn't that informative. I'm not feeling too great today. I'll write better next week once I'm better. Plus we have to leave to go work now. I love you all and miss you. Shout out to Atay and Savannah!! Congrats on going on missions! We need more sister missionaries willing to work!! It's tough, but sooo worth it! 

Love,

Elder Cowan

P.S. I'm just feeling weak and my fingers are aching a bit. That's why I'm not writing so great. Don't worry, it's just a bit of food poisoning. I should be fine in the morning. SO DON'T WORRY! :) ha ha!

Amazing Week of Miracles

Dear Family,

First off, Mom, you need to learn how to relax. ha ha! Your letter compared to Dad's cracked me up! You stress too much. You know that causes you to age quicker, right? ha ha! Anyway, I have to say that I am on top of the world right now!!! This week has honestly been so much fun in the missionary field!! Elder Borgersen is honestly my favorite companion already! We can finish each other's sentences!! We always say the same things at the exact same time and we both just want to work and have fun as we do it! He's so great! He has no fear to invite people to Christ and when he doesn't, he looks so uncomfortable. He is just dying to tell everyone about the gospel! I love him!! He's from Oklahoma and we always are making fun of each other's states and saying our own is better than the other's. We do some of the funniest things together but the best part is that we see miracles. Miracles everywhere!!! We teach amazingly together and I have never felt the guidance of the spirit so much in my whole mission! I just don't even know where to start with all the stories. Well, here goes nothing . . .

Alright so on Monday we hit it off with a blast. It was like starting a basketball game with a huge slam dunk! We went to contact a reference of a family and found ourselves talking to the family that lives in front of them, Jorge and Sandra. As we talked a little bit about our message at the gate with Sandra, Jorge kept saying to let us in and to open the gate already! ha ha! So she did. We started to teach the whole family. Their two kids, Leonel and Aylén were there and participating a lot too! Sandra is way catholic and her husband is pretty much atheist although he states to believe in God. We taught them about our relationship with our Heavenly Father and the need to apply the Atonement through baptism to be able to cleanse ourselves of everything. They accepted the challenge for the 3rd of November.

Tuesday was pretty great too! We basically got dragged by the spirit into a lesson. SO we were looking for a house of a less active family when my companion looks at one house and says, "Alright, I know that's not the house we need, but it looks so familiar and just right. . ." So we went. We clapped, and this young woman about 25 years-old comes out with a giant smile! I whispered to my companion, "She's too happy to see us. Watch out, she's a snake I'll bet you 20 pesos." I literally ate my own words. She came up and without even asking to come in, she invited us to pass and talk with her and a friend. Still a little shocked by how nice she was, we hesitated and then walked in. We sat down and began to teach Irma, the young lady, and Blanca, her friend. It was amazing! We barely said our names when Blanca starts talking about needing to be baptized and Irma was just eating everything up. We felt such and amazing spirit there! We only were there for fifteen minutes and we left them with pamphlets of the Restoration. It was so cool to find them!

Wednesday's highlights were a meeting with President in the morning and then in the afternoon we went to and contacted a friend of Gretel, this girl in our ward. We found Ayén, another one, and her mom Yesica. They were so great! We taught the first half of the plan of salvation and we took out the baptism dates for the 27th of this month. Aylén already went to church last week and she absolutely loved it! She wants to be baptized ASAP! We taught another investigator named Felecita. She's this old catholic lady and we actually convinced her to go to church on Sunday! She was telling us at the beginning that she wasn't sure if she wanted to keep studying and mix up her beliefs. But it was miraculous and wonderful how we explained testimony and receiving revelation through church attendance.

Thursday was the beginning of one of the most amazing missionary experiences I've had yet. We had gotten a reference from Hermana Barrionuevo on Monday and we finally were able to go with her to teach Ana Nubolí. Ana is one of the most prepared people I've ever met on the mission. Her husband had been in the hospital for the past two months and we felt the impression that he might be moving onto the spirit world soon. We taught the first half of lesson two, the plan of salvation, with her and talked about the importance of the Atonement and how it is the nucleus of this plan. She easily accepted the baptism commitment and is set for the 27th. She seems very worn out and is looking for help from above. She is so willing to do everything. We were way shocked after that lesson. Had it not been for Hermana Barrionuevo, we would never have found her. That's the key of the members in missionary work. They know the people who are more prepared than going door to door and asking people we don't know. I'll get back to the story of Ana on Saturday and Sunday. . . Also we saw Irma and Blanca again today. We first talked with Irma a bit before Blanca got there and she started to tell us how praying and reading the pamphlet had made such a big change in her life. She told us how she normally suffers from too much stress and a bit of depression but when she was reading and praying, she hasn't felt that anymore! She said that she's just been so peaceful and happy since Tuesday when we left her. She just was loving that! Blanca came and we taught about the restoration and invited them to be baptized but Blanca kind of was scared and Irma, being a follower, denied also. She so wants it, though! They both do, they just are scared to make the commitment without knowing enough.

Friday was weekly planning and we got that done in time to go work in the afternoon. We found this less active family, La familia Zorba, and they're great! They're a younger couple and they both have such a desire to get active again. I'm so excited to get them active again. They're way fun and ready! We also got to have dinner that day which was special and we met the Cruz family who are recently married and way too funny! I almost peed my pants and I was crying so hard because Matias was giving funny marriage advise and teasing his wife big time!

Saturday. Wow, we taught Ana again and she is soooo prepared. The first thing she tells us is that her daughter's birthday is on the 27th, the same day as her baptism date. She said that her daughter had invited her over for lunch that day and Ana told her NO!!!! She said that she has something a lot more important and meaningful to do in the morning and in the afternoon she'll go to spend time with her. What a stud! She just turned down her daughter's birthday to be able to get baptized! Her husband was getting better in the hospital and she was just glowing and was a lot more happy. She wanted to learn everything! We taught the second half of the plan of salvation and she understood it way well and wants to make her family eternal. We also went and taught Jorge and Sandra again. They are great and even read a bit from the Book of Mormon. They are going to be hard to teach because they are only available on the weekends and have a lot of birthday parties and things to do. We'll see what happens.

Sunday just topped everything off! Felecita and Ana both came to church! They loved it too! They were able to only go to sacrament meeting but they both were able to feel of the spirit through all the testimonies of the members. There were so many people too! Like 90 or 100!!! It was the complete opposite of Chascomús! I loved it so much! After church, we were teaching the family of Edith and Gustavo, who Gustavo is a member and lived in Salt Lake for five years, but then we got a text message from Hermana Barrionuevo and it said that Ana's husband had passed away. . . Ana asked us to come by and to share a message with her. We dropped the plans we had and we left right away for her house. We got there and Ana was unusually calm. She was definitely stricken with the loss of her husband, but she was being very strong. Elder Borgersen's and mine feelings were right about that. Anyway, we shared a message about the spirit world and about Ether 12 about trials and that they only strengthen us. She even said one of the most beautiful prayers I've ever hear before. We then gave blessings to all of her children and to her to give them strength and peace during this tough time. It was a tender moment but a testimony to know that our Heavenly Father had prepared her with this knowledge just right before the death of her husband and that she is still willing to go through with everything and she is being strong. She's amazing! She's an example of steadfastness and faith. We spent a little extra time there based on the circumstances and we told her to call us for anything even at two in the morning. She is totally looking to the church for the help and answers that she needs in stead of closing up and pushing everyone away.

I honestly can't fit all of the miracles we saw this week in just one letter. It was an amazing week. We were able to find tons of people, get new baptism candidates and were able to increase in our testimonies. I am so grateful for answered prayers. I am so grateful for this area, Nueve de Abril A. I am so grateful and I can't even describe how strongly I feel the Spirit guiding us every minute of every day. It's amazing! I love the mission. I never want to finish it. I just want to stay here for the rest of my life preaching the gospel and helping people change their lives.

I love you all and I am so grateful for you letters. Look for missionary opportunities. They're everywhere. You'll never regret opening your mouth and sharing these truths with anyone. Well, I am over my time limit, but I had to just tell you all of that. Till next week. Chow!

Elder Blake W. Cowan

Zone Leader in Monte Grande B Zone

Dear Family,

Well, I'm on now. And I have four minutes to write. Sorry. I'll have to hand write what happened this past week and I'll send them to you later, I guess. So the big news for me is that Elder Cowan is now the new Zone Leader in the Monte Grande B Zone!!!! WOOT WOOT!!!! Best zone in the world!! My new companion is Elder Borgerson. He's from Oklahoma and played football and lacrosse before the mission. He was in Elder Jarvis's MTC district and we're already the best of friends! I'm so glad to have a great companion! I've had way too many difficult ones for way too long! We have only been together for a day and only worked for three and a half hours yesterday and we already found four new investigators, took out four baptism dates, taught two lessons, fixed up four other lessons and got a reference from a member. He is great! He only has a few months more than me in the mission and he went up as a ZL last transfer. So we're both relatively new and we have a lot of plans and excitement to make our zone the best in the mission! We're pumped!!!

Alright, so we did get to baptize last week. Zoe and Shakira were baptized on Saturday between conference sessions. The first session I was busy getting some things organized and working for the branch that's when I walked into the Spanish room, I walked in just as President Monson announced the new ages for missionaries and I totally screamed!!! All the members were shocked and looked at me like I was nuts but I'm so excited and I know we're going to have sooo many more missionaries coming!!! There are so many areas that are closed in our mission for lack of missionaries. We need some serious help here with those new missionaries. Addressing all of Kevin's questions, I say wait till August. It won't put him too behind and having the experience in Argentina will put his mindset perfectly to enter into the MTC with more conviction and determination--especially if he has to learn another language! I Honestly believe that I was able to grasp onto the missionary life so quickly because I was prepared by having been to Mexico several times and seeing/hearing the cultural difference. Plus, four years is a long time. . . he he! :) 

Well, I am now five minutes late for a lesson with a lady we found yesterday. Got to go! Oh, by the way, we wrote today because everything was closed down yesterday for the holiday. It worked out just fine though! I'll be on for a little bit more if you have any questions. Make them quick! I love you so much! Take care in Hawaii! Chow!

Love,

 

Elder Blake W. Cowan

 

Visit from Mission President

Dear Family,

Thank you for sending those names into the temple. We've already seen the blessings of that! I got the package you had sent. Thank you so much! I am only left with the peanut butter and taco seasoning. The rest is gone . . . ha ha! I gave most of it away to members and investigators. I think I'm learning a lot of patience recently. I know that because I feel more and more impatient everyday! ha ha! That way I get to practice it more. We have one week till the transfer. So this week we have had a few landmarks that made it especially quick. A few meetings, birthdays, exchanges, and working with President and his wife made it fly by!

So starting with last Monday, it was Hermana Rodriguez's birthday, so we decided to go to Dolores and celebrate during p-day time and work with the hermanas in the afternoon because they've been having a few troubles in the area lately. So during the day we threw a little party for her and it was pretty fun! We made Hawaiian hay stacks and we played sports and drew funny pictures on the chalk boards. It's been weeks, actually months since I've played sports or have done something on a p-day! I really needed to let my hair down a bit and enjoy myself that way. Afterward, we did contacts in the hermana's area and we got them three fairly good references to work with that live right by the church too! One was especially fun because we were talking to an atheist and when we asked him if he had even a desire to know if God exists, then he said that he had actually wanted to but can't. It's always a bummer doing contacts in other people's areas because you can't go back and teach them. I hope they can be great investigators for them. The last lesson of the night we were talking to this less active family with the hermanas and they teach SOO differently than us. They are way too nice. I tried to apply the quote dad had sent me from his leadership training with Elder Bednar. He had said, "If everyone loves you, then you're a lousy stake president (or missionary). You need to challenge them to repent and do difficult things" somewhere along those lines. But I decided to challenge the family with a bigger commitment and to get them to repent and return to church. It was a little more penetrating than they had expected but it really got them thinking. I hope they can actually do the right things and return to the church. Then I went to the pench of the elders and I had to sleep on the floor. Tile floor. Remember, carpet doesn't exist in Argentina.

On Tuesday we had our usual district meeting. It was great! We talked a lot about the gospel of Jesus Christ and how to teach and apply it to people's lives. I have found a great joy in teaching missionaries. I love district meetings and I love studying and preparing the workshops we do. Afterward, we made hobo dinners and ate pretty good! I loved it! Once we got back to Chascomus, we hurried and did groceries and other necessary p-day things because we weren't here on Monday. We then went off to a dinner and talk about charity. We left late and we crashed pretty good that night especially me because I hadn't slept well from the previous night.

Wednesday was one of our only days to work in our area. We had lots of opposition that day. I'm glad President re-planned his visit till Friday because it wasn't a good day for us. First off, the door of our apartment broke and I spent the morning fixing it. It now works, so you know. I'm becoming quite the handy man during the mission! So, after that we visited with Diego, a less active for a bit and talked about how he's been doing reading in the Book of Mormon. He's been trying to read the book of Alma lately. He thinks that the Book of Mormon is boring. I think he doesn't understand it. Afterward, we went to lunch and the whole afternoon was a fight with the bikes. They broke down a lot! I am praying that the new bikes get here soon! I can't even work when these bikes break down so much! It's the worst. We had to cancel a lot of our lessons and had to just not go to some because we didn't have a phone number. We finally left to the plata to stay the night and then in the morning headed to a meeting for new missionaries and trainers.

The meeting was great! It was exactly what I wanted to hear at the moment. I had fun seeing a lot of friends in the mission and I got to meet a lot of new missionaries. I can't believe the way the new missionaries seem to just look so . . . new! ha ha! They're all so shocked by the changes and are so dependent still. I remember back to my training and I remembered that after a week I made a decision to not be a greenie. My trainer always commented to me on how well I picked up on things and how he felt as if I was training him. I also didn't struggle too much with the language either. I just wanted to hit the ground running. I'm grateful for that blessing I had since the beginning. After the meeting, we stayed with the assistants! I got to be with Elder Guzman one more time! I miss him as my zone leader and he is going home in one week! He told me how he and Elder Pratley had tried to get me called as a zone leader when I had one transfer in the mission field! ha ah! At the leadership meeting, when president asked for ideas of possible leaders, they threw my name out and president considered it for a moment and then decided it would be better to gain all the experiences through training and as a district leader. I was so surprised by that! But anyway, it was nice to work with Elder Guzman at night and to spend some time right before he goes home.

Friday was an interesting day. We sat around at the mission home all morning waiting for president to get ready. He had told us to be ready at 9:30 and we ended up leaving at 12:30! It was a cool moment to help out at the mission home, though. In the car ride to chascomús with President and his wife, we got to talk a lot and we learned a lot about him and his wife. We stopped for lunch at a McDonald's and they even bought us ice cream! It was awesome! ha ha! In the afternoon we got to visit three families with president. We saw Diego and taught him about how to get a testimony of the Book of Mormon and then President challenged him to read Moroni 7 several times and to think of all the many blessings the Lord has given him and what he needs to do now. After that, we bought a cake and brought it to Javier and Yolanda because it was Javier's birthday and we shared how important the temples are and that they need to prepare themselves this year to be able to go and seal themselves as an eternal family. We took a lot of pictures and had cake. Afterward, we taught a very spiritual lesson with Rosa Cabrera and her daughter, Romina. We talked about the need of baptism and what the Atonement does for us. We challenged Rosa to get her divorce finally done and to get married and we challenged Romina to get married to be able to get baptized too. It was great! Then, President had to leave for the coast. It was a slightly stressful day having the mission president watching everything you do and all. 

Saturday was great. We taught a lot of lessons and we had a great branch counsel! And all those visits and lessons paid off because on Sunday we had a grand total of 40 people in sacrament meeting! YEAH! That's the best yet! From 12 to 40!!! I was way happy that day! And then we also taught the fifth Sunday class about missionary work. We nailed it! Everyone is way exited to help us out now! I am very grateful for that chance to teach the members. Anyway, I am out of time. I think we will be baptizing next weekend between conference sessions. We'll see. . .

Anyway, I will be finding out if I stay here or not this next week! I'm way excited for conference too! I miss you and love you all! But could you stop the talk about me coming home? I don't like thinking about only having 299 days left and all that. It's fine if we are planning school or you coming to pick me up, but if it is necessary, keep it on a down low. Thank you! :) 

Love always,

Elder Blake W. Cowan