New Area: Quilmes

Dear Family,

Well, the biggest surprise of all is that I got transferred!! Yes, For my last transfer, I will now be serving in Quilmes. If you search Quilmes Buenos Aires stadium in google images, you'll see what I see from my window. I live on the eleventh floor of a tower right next to the stadium and I can watch soccer games at night now! :) ha ha! My new companion has been a good friend of mine since day 1 in the mission home, Elder Romero from Mexico City, Mexico! He's 27 years old and got to Buenos Aires the same day as me. He finishes one transfer after me. He is one of the best missionaries we have in this mission and I'm with him for a reason. I felt very consoled by this change. My last area was very tough and I worked extremely hard every day I was there, for example, for the 111 days I was in El Triangulo, I committed 60 people to being baptized. That's better than one every two days, and in the end, I only was able to baptize two in that area. I'm sad to leave the people for this last stretch of my mission, but I'm very excited to be in Quilmes! 

By the way mom, "Quilmes" is pronounced, "Killmes." ha ha! And the phrases you asked me to translate are as follows:

"I am happy to meet you" - "un gusto para conocerle"

"Thank you for helping my son" - "Gracias por ayudar a mi hijo"

"You are wonderful people" - "Ustedes son gente muy buena"

"I am grateful for all that you have done" - "Estoy agradecida por todo lo que han hecho"

"Keep the faith and stay strong and you will have great blessings" - "Tengan fe y sean fuertes y tendrán muchas bendiciones"

And yes, I know that if you try to speak the language just a little bit, they feel much more special. With my last comp, I was learning Portuguese so that he would feel special and it worked really well!!

So this past week was kind of tough. I got sick, again!! I had a cold all week and on Tuesday I was sick with the stomach flu also. I decided to sleep on Tuesday and see if I could sleep it all away and I slept from 2:30 in the afternoon until 9:30 in the morning the next day!!! My companion couldn't believe that I slept that much! I guess the mission just drains you of all your energy sometimes. I think sometimes I might over-push myself as I try to work here. I really just want to give all I have to the Lord so that I bless other people. I just need to realize that I need to take care of myself.

On Wednesday we had a special meeting with Elder Cook of the twelve and Elder Gonzalez of the seventy. It was great to hear their advice. They really helped me understand some things. They decided to shake every one of our hands too! It was kind of a hectic day though. So we originally had planned to have the meeting in capital in the afternoon until they figured out that riots had broken out in capital and they picketed all of the streets and so it was impossible to get there. We made an emergency change and decided to go to the west mission instead and have the meeting with just two of the missions instead of the three and changed the time to noon! SO we were advised last minute and we had to leave running and we barely made it to the meeting. It was a miracle that so many missionaries were able to make all those changes so quickly and were all blessed to be able to hear the words of an apostle of the Lord.

Then the other few days of the week were spent doing exchanges. So I barely got to be in my area this week. I taught several people in other areas, but I was only able to teach a few of my own investigators and now they're not even my investigators anymore! But I'm very, very excited to be where I am now. The missionary I'm replacing, because he just left for home, and my new companion worked very hard and the area is very prepared. My companion told me that we have a very, very good possibility of baptizing 6 people at least this month!! :) I'm way excited. It looks like I'm going to have the opportunity to baptize an entire family too! I've never been able to do that! I'm very excited and I know the Lord has blessed me for my efforts to improve my last area and zone, which I left very well prepared too.

Well, I better be going I have to get learning my new area! I'm very excited to get to work now and visit all these new people! I will probably have lots of stories for you next week. I love you all and am grateful for your prayers. I really feel them. I know the Lord answers our prayers and also helps us with our problems. I love this work so much. I'm going to make the best of it I can this last transfer.

Love,

Elder Blake W. Cowan