Much Better Week!

Dear Family,

Thankfully, this past week was a lot better for us! We were able to find new investigators and invite more people to get baptized. We're trying really hard to maximize the work in our last bit of time in the mission. One bad thing about finishing the mission is that everyone makes fun of you for it and everyone keeps constantly asking how much time is left. Thanks to my whole zone, I know that I only have 49 days left. This morning they sent me text messages telling me that. They just think it's so funny to remind me of that . . . wonderful.

Anyway, I was glad to have worked hard and seen results last week. So we started the week off well by finding Romina. She had listened to the missionaries before but had never gone to church because she used to work on Sundays. She is about eight months pregnant right now and her husband works a lot. We aren't sure if they are truly married, knowing Argentines, probably not. but she was really receptive to the discussion and we are going to pass by again this week.

Also, we found Damian. He is a young kid who is friends with some less actives that went to play soccer with us on Monday. We kind of tricked him into a discussion, though, ha ha! We were sitting at the house of the less active family and we had the mom call him and invite him over so she could give him something. . . it wasn't quite a lie since technically she wanted to give him the gospel. ha ha! But he showed up and we sat him down and began to teach him about the Restoration. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted. It was pretty funny!

While I was on an exchange my comp found a whole family!! :) It was a reference from a member and they got in their home and taught the whole family together. He said they really liked it, but it's going to be a challenge since they need to get married and they believe in saints. But that's no problem. We just need to have steady visits with them and they need to come to church and they'll be able to change once the spirit touches their hearts.

We have had a lot of great teaching experiences this past week too. We saw a lot of progress in our investigator, Vicky. We had a great discussion with her when we did a question and answer. We helped her with a lot of her doubts. Another great lesson was with Cintia. We read about Christ's visit to the Americas and she understood really well. She's still not sure about baptism and wants to learn more. She wants to know why we can't worship saints, so we left her with the ten commandments to study from both the Book of Mormon and the Bible. We're going to go by again and teach about idols this week.

So one of my favorite people I've met in Argentina is Vicky, a less active. She's the one who got pregnant and decided to name the baby after me. Anyway, about ten days ago she started to have blood loss. The doctors told her that she needed to be in total rest and do absolutely nothing if she wanted to keep the baby. She was getting a little better and then it happened again. She called us to come give her a blessing on Thursday night. We were really far away, but cut our lesson short with a family and took off running to go give her a blessing. She asked me to give her the blessing and it was one of those moments in my life when I really felt the influence of the Holy Ghost giving me divine revelation. I remember very little of what I said, but I remember that I told her that someday she would feel the joy of being a mother again. I remember the impression came to my mind that that opportunity would be later on, not at this time. In that moment I knew she was going to loose the baby. Two days later we got a text message saying that she was in the hospital, had lost the baby, and had almost died from blood loss. Last night we went to see her and she told us all about what it was like. She said she remembers very little, but she knows she saw the other side for a moment. She told us that she knew the blessing kept her alive and strong so that she can still be here for other purposes. She's a great person and she decided to get completely active now since she doesn't want to be on the bad side of the veil after this life. I was really glad to hear that! 

Well, I better get going. I am excited for another week of work! I am expecting to see even more miracles!! Love you all and thank you for your letters! 

Love,

Elder Blake W. Cowan