29 September 2013

Dear Family,

Its so good to hear from some of you this week and hear about your missionary work! Those letters and the letters I get from my friends and cousins serving missions are my favorite! im so blessed to have such a missionary minded family! 

We have a really good ward here and we are trying so hard to get them more excited about missionary work because not only is it such a blessing to the people we share it with, but it is such a blessing to us as we share it! The Lord blesses is us way more than what we give!

We were so excited this week to have so many investigators progressing! (we have struggled to get them to commit to a baptismal date but we had at least 6 really keeping commitments and progressing) and then we were so bummed when only one showed up to church :( but we just keep moving forward and we were definitely blessed with some other missionaries [i think Lynette means investigators, not missionaries...]. 

One of our investigators we were so excited about (that dropped off the map) we, by a miracle, ran into last night and found out her mom had told her all kinds of crazy things about mormons and so we were able to clear up a lot of her concerns and hopefully she will get back on board. 

Then we were walking home and we only had like 2 min before we were supposed to be back but I saw a light on at one house and saw a mom inside holding a baby so I was like, we have to go talk to her! And her family was so awesome! They actually understood pretty well what the restoration meant and why we're different which is always a big deal. And they were really excited to read the book of mormon. It was really cool to see how the aunt at the beginning was so uninterested and was in the background on her phone watching tv and didn't really want to join, but then she put aside her phone and then as i started to share the first vision she turned off the tv and was totally locked in and the spirit was there and it was awesome! And then we find out that the mom is actually brazilian and she was stoked to speak some portuguese with sister gearheart and i! 

which speaking of brazil... i've discovered it's probably a huge blessing i'm not there right now because apparently in the past month or so there has a been a lot of sickness around the mission and i found out last week that one of my good friends from the MTC, sister brooks, had to go home this week because she got so sick. so i'm so grateful i have been able to avoid getting sick yet!

anyway i love you all and think you are the best ever and im so grateful i get to be with you forever!!! :)

love, Sister lewis

Hard but Good 23 Sept 2013

Dear Family,

I loved hearing all of your updates! That is the best news about Esther I am so excited for your family!

This week I remembered for the first time what it felt like to walk outside and not instantly start sweating! Best feeling ever! Loving this ‘not so miserably hot sunshine’ :) It was especially a tender mercy because we had 2 days straight of probably the hardest days of my mission. It was almost unreal. 8 apts straight we either got dropped, they didn't show up or we got straight ignored at the door and it was like No one wanted to talk to us. I've had slow afternoons or evenings, but never that bad. At one point we had a drunk guy following us around and yelling at us that no one wanted to talk to us and we were wasting our time. Sometimes I guess Satan is literally mocking you thru someone else. It was heartbreaking to see people who had felt the spirit completely reject it, but my companions are just so great and nothing gets them down and they make me laugh all the time so we were definitely able to find the light in the darkness.

Then we were blessed with a very good weekend, finding a lot of wonderful people. Highlight was our Portuguese/Spanish investigator Andrea. She LOVES the gospel and is always studying everything we give her. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and SHE was sharing with us several scriptures from the Book of Mormon that went along with what we were saying (also a tender mercy because our broken Portuguese and trying to understand her Spanish/broken English causes a little bit of a communication barrier). But she was so awesome and wants to be baptized as soon as she is allowed to. She told her family all about it so the missionaries will go visit them in Bolivia!

One of the other highlights of the week was definitely seeing how much better we've become at teaching together as a companionship, and especially seeing how much they have grown in teaching with confidence and power. (That's one of my favorite things about being with trainees so far my whole mission, because there is such a big difference after just a couple weeks.) One of the coolest was when we were talking to these 2 hardcore southern Baptists. They didn't have a reason for everything but just told us we were wrong because that's the way it is. We were just able to testify to them and we think we actually made a pretty strong impression on the son who is leaving for school in West Virginia tomorrow which was pretty cool. After we left Sister Patterson was just beaming because she felt that power that comes when we face intimidating situations; you just feel confident and powerful representing our Savior. I love that feeling and loved even more getting to see them experience that and love it!

One thing real quick that stuck out to me this morning - I was reading about baptism in True to the Faith and I loved the point that we actually covenant to serve God the rest of our lives. Weseparate ourselves from the world, but we don't isolate ourselves from the world. We serve God by serving other people, and there are people all around us who do not have the gospel. In keeping our baptismal covenants we should be serving them and helping them. So if you're problem with missionary work is that you don't know anyone who isn't a member (that's every members favorite excuse...) then go find people to serve and become their friend! I know it is harder in some places than others, but I know there are people around you that would be blessed by your service so live up to that promise you made and serve the Lord by serving them! 

Love you all!

Sister Lewis

Lexington

9-9-13 

Dear Family,

So it's been a very exciting week and kinda crazy. I am now here in Lexington, SC (just outside Columbia) with my 2 new companions Sister Patterson (English) and Sister Gearheart (Visa-waiter to Curitiba as well!). They are both so awesome and I'm completely convinced I get spoiled with the best companions in the mission every time. They are both just good, humble, hard-working missionaries, which is such a blessing especially since there are 3 of us and there is a lot of work to do in this area. I actually knew Sister Gearheart at BYU - we had a class together and were partners and we have a lot of mutual friends. She told me she got called to Curitiba but I wasn't expecting to see her at our training meeting here in South Carolina - so that was a fun surprise!

Lexington is a really great area, not as high class as Summerville, but not quite as humble as Gaston. The ward is REALLY small. I went into sacrament meeting waiting the whole time for everyone to walk in late, but nope it's just an incredibly small ward, but the few families that come are great and I'm excited to work with them! It's pretty crazy starting from scratch all over again. We don't have a GPS, just a beat up map, and not a lot to work with so we've had quite an adventure getting around here. There are so many good people in this area. It's so weird after being in Summerville that it seems like almost everyone is willing to talk to us!  There are a lot of less-actives, so just really so much potential here, it's great!

It was pretty cool that our very first day, our first investigator we found doesn't speak very good English so we taught her in Portuguese. She's an exchange student from Bolivia, but her mom always spoke Portuguese so she loved having Sis. G and I teach her in Portuguese. It was really fun for us too. We got her a Spanish BofM and she has just soaked it up! She came to churchSunday and started showing us all her notes.  She's studying both the Spanish and English BofM and She LOVES it! She started ‘going to town’ in Spanish about how much she loves it (which was interesting because even though we understand a lot of Spanish, we are definitely not even fluent in Portuguese, let alone Spanish so it was funny to try to understand.) But that was awesome and I'm getting to practice a LOT more now that I have a Portuguese -spkg companion.

One of the saddest things I am finding here is this theme of a lot of less-actives who are even returned missionaries who have just fallen away. Often times the wife or kids are still active. But we have a lot of adults who grew up in the church, served missions and fell away. It has been a bit mind-blowing for me. I don't understand how someone can have the experiences you have on a mission, and then even consider thinking it's okay to just sit out of church and not fulfill your callings when you see how crucially important it is!  It's amazing to me how pretty much every time, it starts with them getting busy and not making time to do the little things like reading the Book of Mormon and praying each day. By small and simple means are great things brought to pass. Sometimes small things have the opposite effect as well; just a downhill spiral. Usually they remember that life was so much better when they lived the way they were supposed to, but they just have a really hard time doing those tough things - making changes. So we're focusing on getting our Less-actives to start reading the Book of Mormon again, because that's where it starts. It's amazing to me how we really are asked to do such small simple things and we are promised so much. Anyway the gospel is true and it really does bless families SO, SO much. We just have to do the simple things to let it do so!

I love yall!

Sister Lewis

Sayonara Summerville

9-2-13

Dear Family,

So... psych! I'm still here in South Carolina... Online it says my visa came, but SCCM [South Carolina Columbia Mission] hasn't received it yet so I have another transfer here!

So the Lord definitely likes to make things exciting for me every transfer it seems like. I am leaving Summerville :( President asked me to open up another new area and train 2 new sisters... One English and one is going to be a Brazilian Visa Waiter!

I am a bit heartbroken about leaving Summerville 1st ward. You just put your whole heart and soul into a place for 12 weeks and I absolutely love the ward here. They are the best ever and I'm not going to be at Joan, Dalensa or John's baptisms, but I am excited for the chance to start from scratch once again and hopefully learn to love my next companions and next area as much as this one, because it's hard for me to believe right now it could get any better than this! We have been SO, SO blessed here! We had 7 investigators at church yesterday and a few other nonmembers we haven't started teaching yet, and several less-actives. It was an incredible experience to sit there and see all the people that weren't there before we came in and how incredible it is that the Lord lets us 20 year olds to be a part of so many peoples’ lives and make a difference in them!

One of the highlights definitely was Marcus' family cancelling their trip so they could come to his baptism Saturday and confirmation Sunday. His mom was crying through a lot of it and some of his other family and friends also had such a good experience. He had the biggest smile I have ever seen when he came up out of that water; it was amazing! It was also a great weekend because the ward had a temple trip. We were able to have some of our recent converts and less-actives go and I loved getting to hear their experiences and then we just had a very touching testimony meeting as well. 

Joan, who is hopefully getting baptized this upcoming weekend, was so awesome to try fasting even though she has some health problems. She came in and asked me right away where she could get a tithing envelope because she got a check this week and was excited to pay her tithing! I Love hearing that as a missionary! So it was a wonderful ‘last’ Sunday to end on, but hard to say goodbye to all the ward. They were so kind and appreciative of the changes we were able to help bring about in this ward, and I tried to just be okay with knowing that I did what I could here and now the Lord needs me somewhere else! 

It was also an interesting weekend because one of 3rd ward's sisters had to get an emergency transfer so we have been in a trio for the past 5 days and covering both 1st and 3rd ward. We have a pretty big teaching pool right now we're trying to keep track of so it was pretty crazy trying to cover both areas. It feels like we have been running around like crazy. But it has been a very nice problem to have to try to keep up with all the elect individuals we have been finding!; especially because this week I will probably be back to mostly the ‘finding stage’ and trying to get the area organized and getting the ward excited. I cannot tell you how much you learn to appreciate wonderful members as a missionary! We cannot succeed without members who are willing to be there to come teach with us, befriend those we are teaching, reach out to the less-actives, be a friend at church, make them feel comfortable, be willing to share your testimony, willing to invite people, give rides etc. It is so cool that in our church, we do just as Jesus Christ did-- and we are asked to serve! We are asked to act, not just to be acted upon, and it's amazing to me that we are so much happier that way too! If people would have enough faith to just try living the gospel, it's amazing to see how EVERY time without fail, they are guaranteed to be happier. It's just that part about having the faith to overcome the natural man and ‘act’ that seems to be the problem. 

Anyway South Carolina is wonderful and there are SO many good wonderful people here and the Lord has blessed me so much and life could not be better! Even better than being at the BYU v. UVA football game that both mine and my companion's families were at as well as some members from our ward ;) I love y'all so much and appreciate your prayers and your examples! You are wonderful!

Love, Sister Lewis

Here are some pictures from 1. Marcus' baptism 2. Me Sis D and Joan - one of my favorite investigators and 3. Me Sister Dougherty and the best relief society president ever Sister Gubler.