Exciting Week!

Dear Family,

 

What an exciting week! I have a short amount of time. I will try to hit the highlights. Elder Tran and I, along with President Buffington and Brother Bright (Stake High Councilor over missionary work) organized a training meeting. The meeting consisted of a proper correlation meeting and then a proper PEC meeting. We emphasized the importance for the full-time missionaries to fulfill their responsibility by adequately filling out our progress record. Then we taught the ward mission leaders the importance of an agenda for correlation meeting and the importance to make assignments. I hope I remember the life lessons I am learning on my mission. 

 

On Sunday Doreen, Regan, and Charleston came to church. Becky stayed at home because the children's father was coming up to Spartanburg and she did not know what time he would arrive, so she decided to wait at home for him. I don't think I ever told you their last name. Their last name is Sullivan. This week was exciting. The Sullivans came over to the Bakers for dinner. The Bakers are a family focused on missionary work. The meal was a success. Regan met Kayla Baker and now she has a friend at church. Regan was the driving force that made them come to church. We taught them Saturday night to get them to church and a drunk man came into the lesson from outside and he started to aggressively argue about Joseph Smith. The great thing about it was that Becky was the one that was defending the church!

On Friday night we got a phone call from President telling us that our zone needed to be in Columbia the next morning at 8:00. We frantically organized rides for everyone and we went down to Columbia. We had a special conference with Elder Neil L. Anderson. This is now the 3rd apostle I've met on my mission! We had a great meeting with him which lasted about an hour. At the end of the meeting, we drove back to Columbia and worked the rest of the day.

I wish I could write more, but I need to go. I love you all! 

 

Elder Cowan

Another Great Week to be a Missionary!

Dear Family,

What another great week to be a missionary. I first should start with thanking you for the package a couple of weeks ago. I appreciate the goodies. I also forgot to inform you that a package should be on its way to you at the moment. I sent it this last week, so it should probably make it sometime this week. The package is full of board games and and other random things. The games were found in our apartment. We have decided as a mission to remove all distractions in our lives. The movement came from General Conference with the story about herding the cows. The speaker said, "A distraction does not have to be evil to be affective, it may be as simple as shade." We also are pulling from President Packers famous talk on "Good Better Best." The board games and other things we had in our apartments are not bad, but there are certainly better things to do with our time--especially during this short period of time on our missions. We calculated it out and 1/2 of your mission is already gone the moment you step off the airplane. With time spent in meetings, sleeping, and other activities, a 24 hour day, dwindles down to only 7 hours of proselyting. Elder Thayne and I have decided to remove dinner time out of our day. We work all day and then eat a quick dinner at 9:00 pm as we plan out our activities for the next day. :) I really am working Elder Thayne REALLY hard. The great thing is he doesn't know how hard he is working. He assumes everyone in the mission does the same thing we do. I hope he will be able to see the fruits of our labors so that when we separate he may continue to work hard throughout his entire time here in South Carolina.

On to this week's events. On Tuesday we had a zone development meeting. Elder Tran and I decided that we would have a different type of meeting. Instead of the normal sit and listen and take notes meeting, we decided we would teach through activities. We had three activities. 1. Physical challenge. As missionaries we have to work physically hard. The challenge was to push a car around the church parking lot. 2. Presentation Challenge. As missionaries we have to present the message in the proper manner ie (smile, have a personality) the activity was charades. 3. Spiritual. We had a testimony meeting. We divided the zone into the three districts and rotated them through the activities. We then came together at the end and did a activity for the whole zone to increase unity. The meeting was a success. The missionaries were pumped to go out and work hard. As a zone we found 90 new investigators this week. :D

On Wednesday we had zone leader council in Columbia. We had a great meeting in which I personally felt a greater desire to see success in the zone. In order to expect that from others, I need to improve my myself as well.

Elder Thayne and I saw a lady Elder Douglas and I found before he left and she let us right in. We taught her a great first lesson and she accepted the invitation to be baptized. Her date in May 8th. Her name is Shina. The very next day we took over a member and we taught her the doctrine of  baptism. We are excited to work with her.

We had a lesson with the entire Becky/Doreen family. We started by watching Finding Faith in Christ, and then we talked about faith as a seed. (Mom, we were on the same wave length). We then gave each member a pot and a seed and told them that just like that seed is going to need water to grow, in order for our faith to grow we must read from the Book of Mormon. Every time the family reads from the Book of Mormon they can water their plants. They committed strongly to come to church. They did not come. They over-slept. :( Becky is beginning to lose desire to quit smoking. She wants to do it in her way. I told her she would not be able to overcome except it be through the Lord's way and with His help. We will see if we can excite them once again for the gospel. I love all yall!  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Cowan

Another Week of Missionary Work

Dear Family,

What a great week. It is quite fun serving with Elder Thayne. He has great intentions, but he has a difficulty staying awake sometimes. :) Every day he does a little better than the day before. He is slowly becoming acclimated to missionary work. 

 

I don't have too much to update. Becky and Doreen were out of town for a funeral this week. Elder Thayne taught Charles while I was on an exchange in Simpsonville. Charles had to work this weekend. Douglas has mental health problems. He stresses out if he does not keep a commitment that he has promised. He breaks down into shakes and depression if he recognizes that he does not do something he has promised to do. Because of this illness, he finds it easier to not promise anyone anything. He said he would come to church "some Sunday." We told him we are not going to be able to continue to come around and wait for "someday" to come. He knows where the church is and we committed him to continue to read and pray. We  may stop by one more time before we drop him. 

 

Becky did have a baptism date for the beginning of April, but she did not quit smoking. They have been really difficult to catch recently. I hate waiting, but I am trying to love it, because I know there is only so much I can do. We really want to teach Becky's children: Regan Corey and Charleston. We are going to teach them about faith and give each of them a pot with a seed in it. Every time they do something good, they can water their individual plant. When the family reads the Book of Mormon together, everyone will be able to water their plants. Hopefully this visual will help them to recognize that just as the seed requires action on our part to grow, we also need to put forth effort in order for our faith to grow (reading, praying, going to church). It should be a good lesson. I want to thank you Mom and Dad for being great parents. I see so many families where the children do not have restrictions, rules or any sense of order. I thank Heavenly Father that I have "been born of goodly parents." I hope and pray for your physical and spiritual safety and welfare. I hope you have a great week!

Love,
Elder Cowan

New Companion: Elder Thayne

Dear Family,
What an exciting week! Transfers took place on Wednesday and I am now training Elder Thayne. Elder Thayne is from West Jordan UT. He is tall and lanky (like myself) and his favorite color is orange (like myself). I've tried extra hard this week to work as hard as possible so Elder Thayne learns good work ethic early on in his mission experience. At times I'm afraid he is going to hate me because of how much I push him, but he keeps a good attitude and wants to see success. Elder Thayne is the youngest in his family.

I loved General Conference. I wish I could have experienced it with more of my investigators. All of our investigators were doing things with their families during the Easter weekend. Becky and Doreen were really sorry that they could not make it. Doreen told us, "Don't stop coming by just because we have not been able to make it to church the past couple of weeks. We really enjoy you coming by. I've learned a lot from you." When Elder Bednar was speaking and he shared the quote, "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day, teach a man how to fish, and you feed a man for a lifetime." I have thought about that and I've decided that I need to do a better job at explaining to my investigators that I am not here to give them just enough spiritual food to survive until the next time we come by; I am trying to help them develop habits in which they can drink from the well of living water throughout the remainder of their lives. I really enjoyed Carlson's talk about the three reasons why one does not obey and Elder Bednars talk about teaching little children. Even though he was speaking to parents it directs well to missionaries trying to teach investigators whose testimonies are small like a child's.

The only person who came was not one of our investigators. A member, Brother Jackson, brought his friend to conference. (I'll accept a tender mercy from the Lord anytime!) His friend's name is Charles. Charles really enjoyed conference. Elder Thayne invited him to be baptized, but he recently joined a church and he does not want to abandon it. We are going to teach him on Thursday at Brother Jackson's home. I wish more members did missionary work. It would be great to fulfill our purpose to teach and baptize. Unfortunately, we spend all our time finding instead of teaching. We are going to have a training meeting with all the leaders in the stake. Hopefully we can help the members remember their covenant they made at baptism. I love you and I pray that all will go well with the stake conference coming up soon! I love you! I will tell you more later!

Love,
Elder Cowan