Taught 141 Lessons in Six Weeks!

Dear Family,

Thanks for sending the Christmas package! I'm not sure when I'll get it, but it'll get here. I'm slightly worried about the holidays, though, because I feel as if I might not be in the same area.

With this transfer, we only had a few changes in our zone. Elder Ramos, a young buck who's baptizing tons already, will be coming to help our situation with one elder and the biggest change was that we are taking the elders out of Monte Grande and putting in Hermanas! And guess which two are coming! Hermana Widerburg and Hermana Rodriguez!!! The same ones from my old district! I'm so excited for them!! They'll be doing a white wash, meaning, they both don't know the area and will be starting from nothing! I'm way excited for them and I hope that they can get that area fired up now!

So we will be having four baptisms this Saturday. Ana and her three youngest boys will be getting baptized. We only have to explain tithing and do the interviews. We're really excited for them! We have been working really hard! In six weeks guess how many lessons we taught . . . 141!!! We were teaching a ton!! I knew that we gave it a great effort and now this transfer we have a goal to teach around 190! We're already almost leading the mission as it is, but we want to make sure that we are doing the best and are the best missionaries that we can be and we know we are capable of teaching that many lessons. It'll be a lot to prepare for, though! Sometimes I'm amazed at what we missionaries do day to day and week to week. When you start to add up all the numbers, there's a lot of stuff!!

Alright, this past week was tough getting help from the members. We taught a ton of lessons without their help. We need to get better at that. It really helps us so much to have a member there. Anyway, we were able to have a lot of lessons and to be busy working our buts off! We also have been trying to do a lot more contacts. We decided to make it a goal and we talked to over 60 people this week inviting them to come unto Christ. We are aiming for about 140 in a week. That's a big number, but they say one of every 200 contacts gets baptized and if we are doing that many, I'm sure that we can start baptizing once a week. We need more references, though, from the members. 

So a few investigators that are progressing really well would be Ana and her family, obviously since they're getting baptized. The kids are a bit lazy. The other day they didn't want to wake up from their already two hour long nap and I just went into their rooms (with permission from their mom) and I picked them right out of bed and sat them at the table. Ha ha! I'm not messing around here!!! I know this message is a lot more important than anything else they can be doing. But they come to church and participate when they're not sleeping. Ha ha! Plus their mom is so great! Ana works so hard to get them to church. Pray that they'll remember everything for the interview.

Jesus and Magda are doing alright. We're worried because we can't get them to come to church again. They both are trying so hard to find an answer to their prayers, but they don't understand that they are lacking a key part for them to get that revelation and that is the attendance in church. I know that if they go this week, then they will be baptized in no time. They just haven't been able to see the restored church in action. Last week was Magda's sixteenth birthday and we weren't able to teach them as much as we'd like. But now that seminary is over, we are starting this week to bring a few of the youth with us to the lessons and today we are going to invite Jesus to go play soccer with us and the other missionaries. Hopefully that'll help them out.

So we have had a few crazy experiences with Claudia. She is kind of nuts, but she has been progressing better than any other investigator recently! We invited her to come to the baptism of the other elders in our ward and she came. We invited her to church and she came. We started her on a plan to stop smoking and she is going to struggle big time. I was joking with her that I was going to break all her cigarettes and she went crazy crying and screaming! She only let me break five of the 19 she had though once we delegated it out. She's really nervous and only trusts us two. We don't quite know what to do with her, but if she can stop smoking completely, for a week or two straight, we'll be forced to baptize her. I have no problem baptizing her, we just want her to stay active if we do it. We were looking at some statistics and it's bad. . . this ward here has over 700 members and only 12% are considered active and to be considered active, you have to go to church once within three months! So we're pretty worried about each one of our baptisms trying to make sure they stay active.

Dario and Pricila came to church this week! In all, we had 7 investigators at church. That's a great number! Anyway, their baby stayed quiet the whole time and they really liked it! Dario said that he found the documents and it's possible that they could take out a marriage date this week!!! That would be a miracle. They need a job, though, SOON! They have a big debt and are really worried about it. They are such a great little family, though. They're in one of the pictures I sent this week.

So that's basically the best news from the investigators. We found some new ones and we need time to teach and see if they will progress now. 

Elder Borgersen and I started to do push ups every day again and I am sooo weak! I have been wondering what I'll do when I get home from the mission and I have officially decided I will be working out to get in shape again. Ha ha! I feel so out of shape all the time now! I just imagine what coach Alexander would say and I'm embarrassed! Ha ha! So anyway, we are working out quite a bit now!

Alright, well since today is Carly's birthday, I have to wish her happy birthday from my email! Feliz Cumple!!!! :) Missionary age now!! Hope it's a great day!

Well, that's all I got for this week. We'll be busy with lots of meetings and lessons. Elder Arnold will be coming to drop the cane on us in a bit and we want to have a good looking zone before he gets here. Ha ha! Thanks for all you do! Good luck with all the wedding stuff! I'm excited to see pictures! :)

Love you all!!!

Elder Blake W. Cowan