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
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