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