Weeding

Dear Family,
Another week gone. Time sure does fly on by if we like it or not.  :)  On Tuesday the Zone Leaders came down to go out with Elder Taylor and me. I went with Elder Merrell. Elder Merrell is from Orem/Provo and an amazing missionary. He was a district leader for an entire year of his mission so I learned a lot while I served with him for the day. Elder Merrell and I really focused on cutting down our teaching pool to just the "elect." With the combination of the two areas, we had quite a few people to see. We first saw Yuri who was the biking Elder's investigator. We talked with him shortly and the problem with Yuri is he does not believe he can learn anything from two young men, and he also feels religion can be learned from facts not faith. Elder Merrell finally asked Yuri if he was humble enough to be taught by us and he said "no," so we dropped him. Hopefully someday he will come around. We then stopped by another investigator that Elder Taylor and I had picked up from the biking Elders. When the man saw us, he invited us to sit down and told us we were welcome to talk with him as long as we did not bring up the name Joseph Smith or the word prophet. He told us he only believes in Jesus Christ and the Bible. We respectfully but boldly told him that one cannot believe in the Bible without believing in prophets, and that one cannot believe in Jesus Christ without believing His servant Joseph Smith. Boy did he not like that. We knew we were wasting the Lords time with this man so we got up and walked to our bikes and the man chased us down his drive way yelling at us saying, "SIT DOWN! I am going to teach you!" Elder Merrell calmly replied "We are here to teach not to be taught." The man got right up in Elder Merrell's face and once again told him to SIT DOWN, but we walked around him and got on our bikes. It's sad that the other Elders were wasting their time with someone who is obviously not ready for the gospel. We also stopped by Wayne's house and we taught him, and we asked him to be baptized and he said "not now." It's sad to say, but we dropped him as well. This time it is for good. So overall, we had a successful day weeding out those who are not willing to progress in the gospel. I was also very impressed with the way Elder Merrell handled himself in every situation. He was polite but as a Representative of Jesus Christ, he was not going to take instructions from anyone but the Spirit. He truly understands the significance of our calling. The Lord truly prepared me for the rest of this week because we have had quite a few run ins with people who wanted to "teach us," but because of the example of Elder Merrell, I knew what to do in those situations.

Ok five minutes left...I have to talk about one contact we had this week. As we walked up to a door, we heard a woman inside the house say, "Oh no! make them go away." We proceeded to knock on the door and a young man opened the door and we contacted him, but he wasn't sure how to respond. Whenever we asked him a question, he would lean back to see his mother (who was out of view from Elder Taylor and me) and see what, I suppose, she was mouthing to him. Finally she stood up, and we contacted her, and it was so amazing to see the spirit work on her. As we talked the "wall" she had up came down and we actually taught her on the door step, ended with a prayer, and as we made to leave, she gave Elder Taylor and me a hug! What a change! She called us yesterday after church and told us that she wants us to baptize her three children. We will see how that goes.  :)
I'm glad you had a fun safe trip for John's wedding. Thank you for always keeping me updated. I would love a package. I really enjoyed those home made oreo cookies and poppy seed muffins. They were delicious. Did you ever get my package of P-day clothes? I don't remember you ever commenting on it. If we have a scripture case that is not being used at home, I could use another one. I love you all and have a wonderful week!

Elder Cowan

P.S. Did you hear about Elder Hill? Newfoundland.  :)  I'm so excited for him.