Pictures!!

God's Kids in Summerville, SC

7-29-13

Dear Family,

My time is so short, but we really have had such a great week here in Summerville! Saturday we had our first baptism in this ward and it was such a success! Afterward we were helping Mary as soon as she came out of the water and her whole countenance was changed. She was so nervous before and almost didn't want to come that morning but she came out of the water and said she felt like 50 pounds had been lifted off her back and thanked us saying she really had been waiting so long for this day. She looked so beautiful coming to sacrament the next day for her confirmation and the first thing she said was "this is day 2 of my new life!" Love it!

 We made a lot of progress with Rhi this week and her parents are now supportive of her decision to be baptized, so in 2 weeks she should be there!

It hit me this week another reason a mission is so wonderful, it is because you get to be a part of SO many lives!-- Members, less-actives, investigators, missionaries, etc. I've honestly been kind of surprised that I have been in SC for this long. I think it has given me an opportunity to look for even more reasons why I am here. It is so satisfying to be a part of these people's lives. My WML (Ward Mission Leader) told me this week that he was going thru the names we had given him and he had a pretty powerful confirmation that there were people on that list that specifically needed me to be here and it's been amazing to feel that.

I re-read ‘The Family: A Proclamation to the World’ this week. That Document is incredible!!! If you haven't read it lately you should re-read it! (It helped that we memorized it as a family years ago so I've been able to quote it in lessons a few times this week because it came back more easily). I especially love the part about how our purpose is to obtain a physical body and progress toward perfection and ultimately realize (our) divine destiny as heirs of eternal life! We've really seemed to emphasize a lot this week to everyone how important it is that we are continually making that progress. Part of the reason we are here is to recognize that we are children of God! My comp spoke in church yesterday and said "Most parents tell their kids that they can do anything… but my parents also told me why I can do anything." Her mom sang to her "I am a child of God" every night before she went to bed and even now she has her sing it when she is at home because it is so important for us to remember that!

Jesus Christ didn't die for us because we were mediocre creations; he died for us because we are children of God with that divine heritage!

My time just ran out so I can’t finish that thought, but I love y’all so, so much and I think you’re wonderful!

Love,

Sister Lewis

"this area is just ready to EXPLODE"

Dear Family,

For those of you wondering... I'm still in South Carolina :) And loving it! And I get to spend another transfer in the best ward so I'm super excited! President Holm called Sister Dougherty and I and asked us to be the Sister Training Leaders for the N and S Charleston Zones (It's like the sister version of Zone leaders for 2 areas..) So I get to start going on exchanges every week and training the other sisters in Charleston. Kind of Crazy because we are both so young so it'll be interesting going and training sisters who have been out longer than we have, but I think it will be wonderful and the Lord keeps pushing us to do more, but he takes care of us and just blesses us so much!

I was thinking yesterday how missionaries families say they are so blessed for having missionaries out, but I'm wondering if I'm hogging all the blessings because I feel like I have received so much from the Lord. Yesterday I spoke in sacrament meeting and I could not stop smiling! My comp kept laughing at me because I literally was just sitting up their beaming the whole time because I was so excited to see several of our investigators and several less actives there.

 This past week or 2 it has been incredible to see how the Lord has blessed us to do missionary work thru our less actives. Our investigator Mary is getting baptized this weekend (Yeah! Pray for her everything goes well. This is the 2nd baptism this ward has ever had and the first one never came to church again so we are all really excited!).  We started teaching her 2 weeks ago and felt inspired to ask this inactive sister who we were a little concerned about because she has never had a very solid testimony, but we invited her to come with us to visit Mary and she did and it has worked wonders for her! She loves taking mary to church and introducing her to people and they both participate and everything it's just the coolest!

 And then we have this other sister who hasn't been to church in years we've been working with, and this week we got her to talk about sharing the wonderful testimony that she does have (she hasn't been coming because she has to leave early for work) with a man she works with so she said she would even invite him over to meet us at our next lesson! And then we had her VT come with us and then the other went on her own and had awesome experiences there so she came to church! 

And we have another inactive who we just love, but her family isn't too fond of the church and she has only been once since living here and we decided to just take a minute to talk to a neighbor who was in her yard before meeting with her and that neighbor has started taking the discussions and our less active friend said she would start coming teaching with us and she came to church this Sunday too!

 And we have one more the bishop had us just visit to help their family and now they are giving one of our investigators a ride to church and the teenager came teaching with us this week! So cool! So basically this area is starting to see a lot of really cool things happen and it's wonderful!

And our friend Rhi (that we just had time for one door that we knocked into last week I think I told you about..) is super excited to get baptized as well and read the ENTIRE book of mormon this week, and yesterday at church got a For Strength of Youth and True to the Faith in YW and she has just been eating it up and writing down questions like crazy for us.

So basically we have been overwhelmingly blessed and this area is just ready to really explode so I'm really grateful I get to stick around a little longer and be apart of it!

Yesterday I spoke about how the Savior changes lives which is the best as a missionary because we get to see it so much more! See how He is changing you every day and make sure he is a part of EVERYTHING you do because that is when he is able to truly change us!

I love y'all SO SO much!

Love Sister Lewis

always INVITING others to come unto Christ

7-15-13

Dear Family,

I'm so excited to hear we have 2 beautiful new additions to the family this past week! What a blessing! Congrats Laura and Wilfried and Aaron and Rachel! I really hope someone will send me pictures of those new babies :)

We have had such a blessed week down here in South Carolina. This is potentially my last week here in Summerville with transfers next week and I absolutely love this place. We had Zone Conference this last week and it was so inspiring. I always leave wanting to just stop literally every person I see. (I start to question whether it’s me or the spirit telling me to talk to someone because I have yet to pass by a house or person as we’re driving that I don't have a desire to stop and talk to; but we only have so many hours in the day!) It's amazing to me how simple missionary work really is. It's simply inviting others to come to Christ and partake of the goodness of God!

I was reading Jacob 1 this morning and that is basically what he said. Then at the end he said that we are accountable to share this with everyone! I've realized that if we are 100% trusting in God we really should never feel nervous about sharing the gospel, but sometimes we still are. I've realized it usually is because of one of 2 things: 1. Sometimes I feel like I have to persuade or convince them, but if we can remember this is God's work and His spirit does the teaching, it doesn't matter if I am not smart enough to talk someone into it because I'm not supposed to be! And 2. We sometimes forget that not only is it not us doing the teaching and it's not our work, but we're not persuading at all. We're inviting. So it should be quite simple! Just extend the invitation to come to Christ! One of my favorite things to ask investigators, less actives, or members, is: What would Christ be doing if he were here in this room right now? Well we are standing in His place right now and we're telling you what he would be saying to you. He would be inviting you to come follow Him!

One quick miracle I wanted to share: We had a really awesome week and taught tons of lessons and everything, butSunday we were pretty bummed out as all 6 people that seemed very solidly coming to church bailed out on us. We had kind of a difficult afternoon too and we were heading to a less-actives house for dinner. We were about 5 min early and kind of wanted to just go in because it would just be easier, but decided to use that 5 min to go meet at least one new person. We picked one house to visit and the girl who answered the door was absolutely golden! She just let us right in and was so hungry for truth it was great! Heavenly Father definitely gives you those opportunities to bless people if you're willing to put His will above your own!

I’d like to ask you to pray for the Jury family. Robbie is our 17 yr. old investigator who is SO awesome! He wants to be baptized and go on a mission and is just all around so solid, but he’s had some family opposition. We got his mom to recognize we're not crazy and that this will be such a blessing to her son, but her boyfriend that lives there is pretty opposed to the church so we are really working to try to soften his heart so Robbie can be baptized. 

Anyway I love y'all so much! Keep being the wonderful examples you are!

love, Sister Lewis

Mosquitos & Miracles

Lynette's letter ends abruptly. She's told us the library computer shuts off after 30 min. so it must have shut off. I'm so grateful we received what we did.

Love, Mother Lynette

 

7-1-13

Minha querida familia,

It has been crazy here in SC with lots of flooding and I think we've had thunder and lightning everyday but I just love itJ  Makes me feel like a real missionary out there getting soakedJ And people always feel bad and let us in and then find out we're Mormon and sometimes aren't as excited to have us there but that's okay its great! I also have accumulated 69 mosquito bites on my legs so I am trying to be better about that, because my comp and I are just scratching all the time, but this week really has been wonderful!

Yesterday we got to speak to all the adults in the ward and tried to get them more fired up about missionary work. We have such an awesome bishop and RS Pres. that we've been working with to try to get the members more involved and the meeting went really well! I think they could tell I was a little bit passionate about what I was talking about. J We had a couple of members come up to us afterward and give us friends/family members to visit so I was really excited about that. We also just got a new ward mission leader who is going to be awesome so I think this ward is really going to start picking up in the next couple weeks. I went on exchanges up to Goose Creek for 2 days and was inspired by the sister I met up with there to be better at recognizing the miracles everyday. I've found that sometimes I get so excited about just go, go, go and ‘what’s next’ that I forget to appreciate the blessings I already have. So I've made a goal to find the miracles every day and I've found that we get blessed with A LOT of them!

One of the coolest experiences this week: We've been working with less-actives a lot more lately and we had one particular lady who has never let the missionaries in and has always been a bit negative toward them. We decided we were going to go stop by. She told us she was so busy and didn't have time, but we just kept talking to her through the glass door for probably 15 minutes and just got to know her and eventually she let us in (we get a lot of sympathy since we're either dripping from sweat or rain all the time. there is no in between.) After talking to her in there a little while she started crying and said her dad was a ward mission leader and how much he loved missionary work. He died a few years ago and she was very close to him, but she's had some issues with the church with her husband being a non-member and having homosexual family members. We got into talking to her about the plan of salvation and she admitted she never gained a testimony of her own growing up even though she went to seminary every day and church and everything. We challenged her to pray about a few things and she totally opened up and she admitted she mostly was just scared to find out it was true and have to change. But she is wonderful and invited us to come back over for dinner this week.'

We had another miracle with our investiga