Ultimo P-day

Dear Family,

One more reason it is such a blessing to be a missionary is to see people you love complete ordinances necessary for salvation each week. Rosie, Luis and Bruna were confirmed yesterday as well as Leticia. I love seeing these families just so excited about the gospel and seeing how much they change because of it! Legiane and her 2 daughters Jasmine (11) and Emily (she will turn 8 the day I leave) are making so much progress. it was cold yesterday and the members who were supposed to take them decided not to go so they called a taxi to come get them because they were determined to get there all the same. It´s my goal to see their baptism before I head home and hopefully Emily will be able to get baptized that week! Keep them in your prayers this week as well as Rodrigo!

So this is kind of mind blowing for me that this is my last letter home as a full time missionary and I think I´m in denial right now. Everyone says I´m going home next week, but it just doesn´t feel like that´s real, so I´m not really sure when that´s going to kick in. Last night as we were working I kinda took a step back and was really overwhelmed by how incredible and wonderful it truly is to be a missionary. Shortly before heading home we saw a father with handicapped legs arriving home with his kids. He´s a single dad with 3 kids who works every day from early in the morning til late at night struggling to get by and provide a better life for his kids. As we sat in front of the house conversing with him you could see years of pain and struggling in his face. I just felt overwhelmed by how much I wanted him to understand and know that things CAN be better. That through accepting and living the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, the Savior has the power to take away the pain in his eyes and the lines of stress off of his face. I sat there thinking how this message that we have to share with him is truly the only thing that can permanently help him find that peace and happiness he is searching for and I felt overwhelmingly grateful for the fact that I have the restored gospel of Jesus Christ in my life and how many times I have felt it change and bless me. How many times as a missionary I too have felt physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually worn out and feeling like I had nothing left to give, but how each time I pleaded with Heavenly Father to help me, I could feel His angels carrying me on. I have seen the gospel transform not only my own life, but hundreds of others. And I had to hold back the tears as I shared my testimony of the restored gospel with him knowing that the opportunities that I will have to day by day share the gospel with so many strangers who I love so much is not something I will get to do forever. I think the reason my mission is such a precious, undescribable experience for me is because I have never felt God´s hand so powerfully in my life, never seen Him touch and change so many lives and never felt the love that He has for others as powerfully as I have as a missionary. I cannot express in words the gratitude that I feel for having had the opportunity to be a missionary and full-time representative of our Lord Jesus Christ, but I want each of you to know that I know without a doubt that Jesus Christ truly is our Savior and Redeemer and that following Him is the ONLY way to happiness and salvation. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is His church that He leads and guides thru a prophet and 12 apostles today and that if we will lose our life for His sake, we will find it as He promised us. I love all of you so much and am so grateful for the examples that you have been to me thru my life and I pray that each one of us will endure to the end so that we can be an eternal family - the best blessing possible!

Love you all tons!

Sister Lewis

To be changed to be more like HIM -- THAT is the purpose.

-We found lots of new short cuts this week on trails that we were really excited about and i feel like this is how i imagined brazil would be. 

  8-11-14

Dear Family,

Yesterday was Father´s day here in Brazil and this week is dad´s birthday so I´ve been thinking about you this week dad! Thanks so much for your wonderful example and being the best dad ever (I know we always say that, but it´s true!)

This week one of my favorite families in the world got baptized; One of the most special baptismal services I´ve seen.

 I think I told you about this family, but a while back I really wanted to visit this house and then it just so happened that the 6 yr. old daughter, Jovana, found us and well we became fast friends. We ended up teaching her mom and 2 siblings, and yesterday they got baptized! Now we’ve got to get their eye set on the temple. The changes in this family are amazing! During gospel principles yesterday Rosie shared about how much she has changed just in her relationship with her family and how she has become so much more calm and loving since we started visiting them. The baptism was definitely a testimony of that. Those kids couldn´t stop hugging each other and hugging their mom and when Luiz (the 11 yr. old) left primary he gave me a big hug and said "I love this church! I want to come here every single Sunday!" We´ll make sure he follows through on that promise. J 

But there really is a special spirit in that home and I feel so blessed that Heavenly Father placed us in their path to be a part of that! Also Sidnei received the Priesthood yesterday and it was so cute, he was just beaming from ear to ear with all of his books in hand and he just wants to do everything right and not mess up, it´s super cute :)

I had a goal to finish the Book of Mormon again before the end of my mission, so this week I was reading Moroni 7. I LOVE that chapter every single time. Something that hit me especially this time is where it says towards the beginning that "except he shall do it (give a gift) with real intent, it profiteth him nothing." In EVERYTHING that we do in life: yes we can accomplish many good things that can benefit many people, but if we don´t do it with charity it does absolutely nothing for us. It reminded me of a quote from Elder Corbridge I´ve always really liked throughout my mission: "Even if you give your body to be burned, lay down your life for the truth, if your heart is not right, you will not profit by it. Good will be done, the poor will be fed, and the truth defended, but the good that you do will do you no good, unless your heart is right, unless you have charity." So even if we´re doing our callings, going to church, reading our scriptures, doing FHE, etc. it doesn´t do us any good if we are just doing it because that´s what we´re supposed to do. Our goal is to change ourselves so that doing the Lord´s will is what we WANT to do, not what we HAVE to do. I really liked what he said about the scriptures specifically as well: "From the dawning of time there has never been a people as blessed as we are blessed with volumes of scripture. And yet all of it is only ink on pieces of paper bound together in leather. IT HAS NO INTRINSIC VALUE UNLESS IT BECOMES YOU. The purpose and essential blessing of life is to be changed to become more like the Lord, to realize the full measure of your potential." So that´s my invite to you this week; Don´t just do what you´re supposed to do each day, but let it become you.

I love yáll lots!

Love, Sister Lewis

-Oh and PS everyone always asks about how I'm feeling about going home. I do realize it is only 2 weeks away, but to be honest I don´t really feel any different. Sometimes it hits me and it makes me nervous and excited but in general I feel the same, maybe just a little more motivated because i know I have a time limit.

Photos:

-Had my last mission leadership council this week in Curitiba. All the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders of the mission

Love & Miracles for Sister Gear < 3

Dear Family,

This week I got my new (and I assume final) companion, Sister Gearheart. I think I mentioned last week, but I trained her in the states and she just got here with her visa and we are stoked to be working together again. We are laughing pretty much all the time, but still working hard :) There are now 3 companionships here in our ward: 3 Americans and 3 Hispanics.

Clearly I was way excited for my new companion! We weren´t at transfers because we are out in the boondocks, so I brought a sign to greet sister gearheart's van just to make sure she hadn't forgotten who I was :)

Miracle of the week: Leticia finally got baptized! I worked with her for a long time with Sister Moser, but she was struggling with some things so we put it off a couple times and one time we almost cut teaching her because she wasn´t progressing too well but her grandma (who she calls mom. She doesn´t have a dad and her mom died in an accident when she was really little.) called us one day saying thank you so much for helping her she has changed so much in even the little things since yall started coming her. She used to just stay in her room and be really angry all the time, but now she helps me clean the house and talks to me and i know its making a difference. It was one of the most beautiful baptisms I´ve seen here because I know how much she´s struggled to get to this point. She had a really really difficult first 16 years of life, but now she isready to be in the Lord´s caminho and she is doing great.

Leticia!

It was also so cool to see both Sidnei and Jonathan show up to church in white shirts and ties yesterday and they are getting ready to receive the priesthood next Sunday!

Another blessing of having Sister Gearheart arrive is that she has been with a few of my former companions and was able to share some cool miracles. A Less Active I worked with in the states went thru the temple, some of my past investigators were baptized, etc. In my first area here in Brazil I was only there one transfer and there was a woman that I taught, but who didn´t want us to teach her anymore. We were able to teach her mom and her mom got baptized the week I left but she still had no interest. Apparently she still had no interest and always hid away when the missionaries came, but a couple months ago she had a dream that Sis. Gomes and I were at her gate knocking and knocking and calling her to get baptized. Apparently she took that as her sign from heavenly father and she decided to totally change her life around. She and her boyfriend got married and a few weeks ago they got baptized. It was a tender mercy to see how so many times you don´t even know what a difference the little things can make! We are So incredibly blessed to be Representantives of Jesus Christ. Being the messengers of the gospel of Jesus Christ which truly changes the lives of these people! 

We had another wonderful family at church yesterday, Rosie and her daughters Bruna and Jovana. It was actually kind of a miracle how we found them too, because I passed there house wanted to go there but we didn´t have time, but Jovana (6 years old) found us and we ended up going back to that same house. Rosie also had a pretty rough past,but is so ready to change and follow the Lord´s path. Pray for her and her familyt that the can stay strong and prepare to get baptized as well!

Love you all lots!
Sister Lewis

We found what we thought was a giant avocado so we took it with us all day long and then when we got home it was just full of cotton which was super weird.

Don't get rabies!

I got my first real dog bite this week.

We spent basically all day thursday sitting at the posto de saúde because it was a street dog, so i had to get some shots to make sure i don't get rabies.. Just another reason not to have government healthcare because we were there ALL day.

So here´s a nice photo of the bite (not to mention i was wearing boots, leggings and 2 pairs of socks and he still got through)

Sitting in line at the p de s since 6:30 in the morning next to this dog who just came and sat down by me.

28 july 2014 last transfer!

7-28-14

Dear Family,

This week we´re going into my last transfer and I was told that I was going to get another new filha (would be #9) but then was super excited to find out that it´s my filha from the states, Sister Gearheart! I trained her in SC my last transfer there and she has been there the last 10 months and finally got her visa! So I´m way excited I´ll get to have my last transfer with her, here.

This week we had the baptisms of Sidnei and Jonathan. I’m so excited for them, they are awesome! Jonathan will be such a stellar missionary he was definitely an elect investigator and Sidnei was just so ready for the gospel! One of my favorite things about this week is that we had the opportunity to help a lot of people really understand the whybehind the commandments and see the blessings when they live them. Sidnei was a great example of that and he has become such a different person! It was so cute this week he really wanted a bible and wanted to wear a suit to church so he could look like the rest of the guys there because he told us he didn´t want to just be a ‘part way there member’. He wants to do everything that God wants him to do. So we were able to find a bible in our house and our LMA donated pants, shirt and tie for him and he just looked so good at church :)

We also were really blessed to find this awesome family this week. It was definitely inspired. We were knocking doors the other day and met this older lady who was super catholic and clearly was not really interested, but in talking to her she mentioned something about her son’s family and we just felt like we wanted to meet them so a few days later we went and found their house and the spirit was so strong. They´ve been to a lot of churches but haven´t stayed in any of them. When we shared the first vision the mom started to cry and at the end when we had Sergio (the dad) say the prayer she started to cry again. They were so excited about reading the Book of Mormon and going to church. That´s why being a missionary for Christ´s church is the best because you get to tell people who are hungry for the word of God about this amazing thing called the Restoration that can bless their lives so much and teach them about how they can follow Christ which is the best thing they could possibly do with their life! Unfortunately their daughter Diani who´s pregnant had some complications Saturday night and they were in the hospital all of Saturday and Sunday so they didn´t get to go to church. But pray for them that things will work out and they can be there this Sunday! Also Bruna who was supposed to get baptized yesterday, we were able to convince her mom to authorize her baptism, but Bruna knows her mom doesn´t really want her to get baptized so she decided she didn´t want to anymore. So they could really use your prayers that her mom will soften her heart and support her in this decision.

Anyway I love you all a ton and hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Lewis

21 July 2014

7-21-14

Dear Family,

It is incredible how fast time passes on a mission.

This week we finally moved apartments (I think it´s like my side calling to go whitewash all the areas that need new apartments because this is my 4th time doing it.) But our new house is super chique. I think it´s the nicest house I’ve set foot in since my first area that was super rich. It even has "hot" water in the kitchen (it’s more like lukewarm, but that’s still a big step up and I’ve only seen this in one other house as well) and it has 2 bathrooms hallelujah! But we didn´t have electricity all week because of some complications so we used candles all week, 2 of us gave in and took cold showers but in the winter that´s the world’s worst so we started walking to our old house at night to take showers and then come back. It made things interesting.

I decided a mission is good mom prep - you have to have snacks, paper, things to color, and the Liahona, every Sunday to keep the kids distracted during Sacrament. SIster Monteiro told us that during church are the 3 hours you work hardest and that is so true. I’m always burnt out by the end of it.

We had mission conference this week which was awesome! President is so inspired I could listen to him talk all day.

Really cool experience this week. We´ve been having a hard time finding Really good people these past couple of weeks and we were praying this week to find that elect family. We all felt like we needed to go to this one neighborhood in particular so the whole night we knocked doors there and didn´t find anyone really promising. So in planning that night we prayed again – “Heavenly Father where do you want us to work tomorrow, we know there are people out there that need us”. We felt even stronger that we needed to go back to that same area because we hadn´t found them yet. So we went back the next day and I was feeling so sure ‘there is gonna be some elect family here. Probably a Mom, Dad and 8 kids of baptismal age’ or something like that. We got to a house and a young mom let us in. When we got in there were pictures of Christ and temples on all the walls. Shortly after that we discovered she was a less-active. She had fallen away some time ago when her husband left her. This week she had been feeling really discouraged and she said she just didn´t know what to do but to pray and the night before she said “Heavenly Father I can´t do this anymore please send angles to my door to help me”. The next day is when we showed up. She cried a lot and was so determined she needed to come back. She even wrote goals on her wall, without our suggestion, to read the Book of Mormon, do family home evening and in bold at the bottom ‘Go To Church’. It was another testimony to me of how the spirit knows who needs us and when and we Always need to follow that guidance. She started inviting all of her friends to hear the missionaries and I think she´s our best ward missionary now. It was so cute to get to church and see her and her kids sitting there. She walked all the way there alone and got there early. It just puts a smile on your face :)

Pray for Marcella, Sydney, Jonathan and Bruna. They were all at church yesterday and are doing so great and we don´t want them to lose their faith and enthusiasm about learning about the restored gospel!

Also there´s a cool video on the church website called "Unto all the World" about missionary work in Brazil that they showed at our conference. You should all watch it and be those wonderful member-missionaries that make our work possible!

Love you all!
Sister Lewis

Photos - With Sister Moser, Silva and Bergloff at Mission Conference

- Hair and makeup in the hallway because we didn´t have electricity in our apartment all week :)

14 July 2014

Sister Santo and Sister Moser - Time do Amor (Team of love) a little weird but i thought it was cool haha

Dear Family,

So while all of my siblings are having lots of babies, I had my 8th daughter this week também ;) (8th time training in missionary terms.) This is my 19th companion. I think i could set a record with the most companions in a mission haha Her name is Sister Santos and she´s from Brasilia. She´s awesome. Just jumped right into the missionary lifestyle so natural I don´t even feel like I´m training. Plus I still have Sister Moser with me which is fun so I´m back to being in a trio. Best part is it always brings in new energy to have new missionaries! 

This week felt a little slow because there were tons of world cup games (finally ended thank goodness.) and unfortunately this ward doesn´t have a lot of really strong leadership so they´re having a hard time keeping up with lots of baptisms so we have to use a lot more time trying to get the members to integrate with our recent-converts and help them so that they will stay strong too. I gave a talk on Sunday and was able to lovingly remind them that as members of Christ´s church they aren´t just here to take care of themselves, and help others when it´s convenient. The last thing the Savior taught His disiciples was to feed His sheep and that the Lord told us we need to waste and wear out our lives giving our whole Heart, might, mind and strength. If we aren´t making time to help others we aren´t keeping our covenants. I think it got to some of the ward members because we had a couple of them afterwards come tell us that they were going to go do their visiting teaching this week or going to visit so and so (they probably got tired of how many times we´ve called and reminded them these past couple weeks to do their visiting and home teaching...) but it really is so important!

One of the saddest moments of my mission this week - I went to go visit a recent-convert that has been so strong. They got baptized a month ago and gave up smoking, coffee, and drinking and have been going solid for 2 months, we´ve been talking to them about the temple and everything and then last week a family member was sick so they went to go see him in the hospital and weren´t at church. And just that one week off made a huge difference. We went to go see them and had a great message prepared about getting them to the temple, but I felt like I needed to ask them how they were doing with living the commandments and ask them specifically how they were doing with smoking which seems strange because they had been doing so great for so long. But, they had fallen back into the old habits that week after not going to church. Doraci, the mom, was just so heart-broken and discouraged. She started crying and said, "I am reading the book of mormon everyday, we're praying everyday, going to church, so why hasn´t God done a miracle and taken this desire away from me? You see those pastors who just cure people on tv why can´t i have that miracle in Christ´s church?" It was rough, but we did our best to explain to her about God´s plan for us and learning from overcoming addictions and temptations of the natural man, and how she will be so much stronger and be able to help others overcome their difficulties as she overcomes it. We showed a video about the Savior and the atonement and how it wasn´t easy for Him. The spirit was really strong and I hope they can have the strength to let go of these addictions so they can truly have the fullness of the blessings that God wants for us! 

I hope all of you are answering the Savior´s call and feeding His sheep. Go visit those recent-converts and less actives! They need you!

Love you,

Sister Lewis

 the trio -- Sister Lewis, Sister Moser & Sister Santos (Lyn's 8th new missionary!)

Sorvette with a bunch of the Sisters in Ponta Grossa