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

Happy 4th of July from Brazil!

Dear Family,

Happy 4th of July and Family Reunion! Loved hearing about all of you being together :) Brazil was playing so we all had to be home at 5 and my american comp (Sister Moser) and I, had an independence day festa with our roommates. We sang 4th of july songs all day, had french toast for breakfast with vermont syrup and peanut butter (were getting everyone here hooked on peanut butter. Maybe one day brasil will give in.) and made hot dogs and' had s´mores over the stove and watched a church movie in english. That's about as American as it gets being a missionary in brasil.. but we did our best ;)

Best part of this week is we had an awesome training with president and had interviews. So good! I especially loved something president shared. He´s a successful businessman and shared with us 4 things that not only will guarantee you to be successful in working, but in life:

1 - Never need to have an instruction repeated. (if you are someone who needs it twice your salary is already cut in half. 4x and you have to be treated as a child.)

2 - Every instruction/assignment you receive, you complete.

3 - You get along with any person you are placed with.

4 - You accept correction easily.

I feel like my English translation is not nearly as beautiful, but I thought it was super good counsel, and SO applicable in the mission. He also said he wanted to give us some counsel as a father, not as our mission president but what he would say to his daughters. He said when you´re dating, try to find out as much as you possibly can about the type of missionary he was on his mission. If he got up at 6:31, don´t marry him. And Sister Monteiro got up and told the Elders the same thing applies - if she didn´t honor her priesthood leaders on her mission, if she was constantly calling and complaining, don´t marry her either. If you want to find a good spouse after the  mission, you need to make those changes now! They´re so cute I love seeing them speak together :)

I also loved a quote she shared from President George Albert Smith that says mas-o-menos this: "Our eternal happiness will be proportional to the way with which we dedicate ourselves to helping others."

Missions are the best! So blessed to get to serve one :)

Love you all!

Sister Lewis

Photos

- Sister Bergloff. One of my favorite sisters who just got transferred into my zone so we´re finally not the only sisters in our zone!

 4th of July photos. while everyone else is celebrating another brasiliero victory, we´re celebrating american independence :)

-

30 June 2014

6-3014

Family!

How great yáll are together in Utah right now! Family reunions are the best!

This month has been a month of sacrifice and miracles - I guess that’s how missions are though :)

At our last mission conference at the end of May, President gave a really good talk that I think I already mentioned, but he talked about the Canaanite woman who was pleading with Christ to heal her daughter, but he ignored her, and told her the dogs don’t eat the crumbs from the masters table, but she continued to show humility and persistency so he healed her daughter because of her faith. This idea came up a lot with me this month and I thought a lot about this idea of how much we can accomplish just based on our desire and faith and persistency. 

Not too long after hearing President´s talk my comp and I were talking and praying about our baptism goal for this month. I was thinking about this idea of how we set our own limits. I thought about, “Okay what is my desire, how much am I willing to sacrifice”. I felt like we should set a goal of 17 baptisms for this month. For anyone who´s served a mission you know that´s kinda a crazy goal. That´s like as many baptisms as normally would be in an entire mission. After talking to my comp and praying about it, she agreed that we should go for it. At our district meeting they asked for our goals, and when we said ours everyone thought we were crazy and unrealistic, but we felt like it was an answer from the Lord so we were going to strive for it.

I started to think about this idea of desire, persistency and faith a lot this month and I started to see this example a lot as I studied - The Nephites when they were with Christ and he told them to prepare for the morrow, but after seeing their desire, longing to hear more, he changed his course and blessed them and they heard words so marvelous they couldn´t be written. I read an example the Savior gave in Luke about the judge who gave into the will of a woman just so she would stop bugging him and he compared that to how the Lord listens to the pleadings day and night of the elect. The Savior taught that anything we ask with faith, that is right, the Lord will give us. That is a really powerful promise! 

Think about John and the 3 Nephites; The Savior didn´t ask them if they wanted to overcome death, it started with them thinking of this idea and having this desire. "The sky´s the limit" and that´s true and something I´m learning more and more is that truly we, humans set our own limits! I think the Lord saw our desire and willingness to do whatever it takes and he blessed us with incredible people to teach this month. I can´t tell you how many miracles we saw this month and we were able to do something out of the ordinary, not because we´re really great missionaries or teachers or anything like that, we just showed our faith and willingness to sacrifice and the Lord blessed us; But it definitely wasn´t without a price. We´ve both had the flu pretty much since the start of the month. We had some nights that I told my comp I would go with her but she would just teach the whole lesson because I couldn´t even talk and then we´d get there and my voice would come back just enough to teach. We left the house at 7 or 8 in the morning some days, we got robbed at gunpoint (lost our scriptures), and lost about 1 day of work/week because of the world cup (people are crazy. I’ve seen 4 car accidents, and the swat team in the last 3 days). So it´s not like we can just say – “I want this, it´s a good desire, I believe it can happen and then it happens. But my faith was strengthened a lot this month about how much the Lord can do thru us, and how much He will trust in us, if we will but show our faith and be willing to work, because like Elder Holland says The work of salvation was never easy.

I also realized that I´m always telling you about the baptisms, but actually one of my favorite parts, is seeing the changes that happen afterward. Seeing people let go of addictions, seeing families come closer together and prepare to go to the temple. The gospel of Jesus Christ is amazing! It´s truly the only way to happiness. Just wish everyone in the world would realize that! :)

Love y´all! Have a wonderful week together! Ill be thinkin’ of you! 

Love, Sister Lewis

23 June 2014 Largando el cigarro!

Dear Family,

This was one of those weeks that you just feel so lucky to be a missionary. It was so cool to see Patricia and her 2 daughters Jaqueline (15) and Stephanie (14), and Pedro and Doraci changing so much as they strived to live the gospel! Patricia was really struggling with cigarettes, at least 20/day but we made goals with her all week to get her ready for her baptism and we were so excited when her last day she went the whole day without smoking so she was ready for baptism Sunday! She said she was pretty much just praying all day long because we had a rule that every time she wanted to smoke she had to go say a prayer. They also are used to living off of coffee (like all brazilians) so it wa a sacrifice for them to stop buying coffee and just have herbal tea everyday. But man the house has just become a different place with them saying daily prayers, reading a scripture from the Book of Mormon everday. That light they talk about in peoples eyes. Yep its real. Anyway their baptism was beautiful and those 2 are already really great examples for the other Young Women. 

Pedro and Doraci was a miracle too as they both worked to largar o cigarro this week as well. Doraci is on fire about the gospel. It was so cool because she´s started telling her friends about it too. She totally gets the restoration and she had some of her evangelical friends visiting this week and she showed them the picture of Christ in the Americas and told ém - this is Christ´s church that he set up here on the earth, and that same church is here again its called A Igreja de Jesus Cristo dos santos dos últimos dias. The rest of the churches today are churches that man created! Shes reading the book of mormon faster than i am and their 7 yr old, Alini, is in love with reading the Liahona and is already excited about her baptism. Speaking of, it´s so cute, our recent convert Terezinha (baptized 4 weeks ago) has a 6 yr old son, Nicholas, and every time we go over there he tries to convince me hes 8 because he wants to get baptized too. :)

Keep Anna and her daughters in your prayers. She wants to get baptized, but is having a hard time with smoking as well, and her husband is a bit hard, but I know it´s all going to work out right with faith!

It´s amazing how life really is so simple. Just do your best to follow what Jesus Christ taught and what Heavenly Father is telling us through His prophets, and your life will be so good and so happy and youll get to be with your family forever! So keep living the gospel! Keep being an example because that´s really what draws people to the gospel.

Love you all a lot!

Sister Lewis

World Cup -- Go Ducks!!... oh... Brazil 16 June 2014

6-16-14

Photos: 1. getting ready for church with some of the kids

Dear Familia,

So I had my first taste of the World Cup in South America, but to make it even better it´s here in Brazil and some of the Jogos are here in Curitiba so this place was wild. We also had a lot of meetings with Stake Conference and President visiting Ponta Grossa this week, so it was so hard to get time in to work (we´re not allowed to leave the house from the time the games start and through the rest of the night. People are so nuts. But it was fun because it feels like Game Day in Eugene for Oregon football, because there´s green and yellow EVERYWHERE (every house and car has a Brazilian flag and every person a Brazilian jersey or t-shirt) and everyone´s ‘havin’ a festa’, but amidst all the craziness you can still feel the spirit and it makes you think about the bigger perspective.

We had kind of a rough weekend because we had 6 really solid dates for baptism this Sunday, but a lot of crazy things happened so all 6 got moved to this week in literally the last min. My comp and I have still been sick all week and Friday night my voice had it too, so for 3 days I’ve hardly been able to talk which makes it a bit difficult, and then Saturday night is always super stressful trying to get everything ready and when we woke up at 5:30 Sunday morning, our house was flooded because our washing machine broke again, so unfortunately we had a lot of things working against us. But on the plus side we have so many great people the Lord has trusted us to bring into His kingdom so I know we´re going to see lots of miracles these next couple weeks! Duraci is so ready and wants to get baptized so bad, but her husband Pedro is struggling with drinking and smoking, so pray for him to have the faith to overcome! Also Patricia and her 3 daughters Jaqueline, Stephanie and Leticia are so awesome, but Patricia as well is struggling a lot with the cigarro. It´s interesting because in my setting apart it talked very specifically about helping people overcome addictions, and I was thinking about it this week and I think at least 10 of my recent-converts have had to overcome smoking. It’s a big problem here in Brazil. Oh and George he is awesome too! He was a miracle. We found him last week, late at night, the last door before heading home, and he just welcomed us right in and has loved learning. He woke up super early to go to stake conference and he was waiting in the rain for us for almost an hour. He’s a champ.

We had stake conference Sat and Sun which was SOO good! Wow, I loved the talks, and maybe I’m just biased but I LOVE hearing President Monteiro speak more than anyone even when it´s not specifically to us missionaries. Anyway so Bispo got an onibus to take everyone to conference and with pretty much just recent-converts and investigators and missionaries, we had over 60 people on the bus. (Picture attached). There were so many good talks about families and just being a more god-like people. We are so blessed to have so many great opportunities to be edified by one another every week in the church!

I also loved the training that President gave us Saturday morning. He shared some things that Elder Nelson talked to the local leaders about a couple of weeks ago when he visited Curitiba. He talked about one mission that was having a lot of success in Korea and the Mission President, when asked what they did different he said "our missionaries don´t ask for referrals. They earn them." I loved that. Work hard and be that missionary that the members want you to go visit all their friends and family! We also watched the John Morely (I think that´s his name...) story, who took the trek west and settled in Alpine, UT and walked to Salt Lake every week at 2 am to work on the temple. I remember watching it back home once, but it was interesting because President had us watch it with a little different perspective. He asked us e Hto think about what is our story that we are writing for our life? In the movie it said that there exist 2 kinds of people in this world - those who act and those who are acted upon. (Something like that in English.) We need to be the doers, those who act. There was one line that he said something like "certainly the Lord has many people who could do this work, but the calling is mine." I loved that. Yes the Lord has plenty of other missionaries, but only we are called to our specific area and we have specific people we need to help. The calling is ours. What are we sacrificing for our calling? President told us that to enter the celestial kingdom, we don´t just need to be living the law of chastity, tithing, Word of Wisdom, etc. No, to enter the Celestial Kingdom you too have to have a good story. To sit with Abraham, Moses, Job, Joseph Smith, our Pioneer Ancestors, etc. So what will your story be? We have the opportunity to choose each day! The sacrifices may not be small, but the blessings are great!

Love you! So grateful for all of you!

Sister Lewis

 2.  - Onibus for stake conference

3 - With Isabella (President´s daughter) shes my favorite teenager i will miss this girl a lot.

All in the same day was Dia dos namorados (like valentines day), and 1 yr in the missão for sister garcia, and the world cup, so clearly we had to celebrate with pancakes.

 World cup. so I look terrible in this photo because I've been sick and the sun is in my eyes, but this is what you see on pretty much every house right now.

Muggings. 9 June 2014

6-9-14

Dear Family,

So happy to hear about new little baby Gideon! I think there´s nothing better than baptisms except new babies :)

This week was exciting and crazy as usual. Monday we went back to see Lurdes and Therezinha and their families. We found out that one of the daughters had gone out the night of the baptism and was attacked. She is in the hospital but can’t move or talk or do anything and all the doctors were saying she probably won’t make it. This obviously came as a bit of a shock to us. We thought, “okay what can we say to help them right now?” But we just shared some scriptures about faith and hope and I was absolutely amazed at the way that they reacted. Instead of being angry with God, they told us that it was because they were baptized and that they´re going to church, that their daughter is still living, and during the week as we visited they told us each time of the blessings that they are receiving. I have been so impressed by their faith. They are an example to me.

I also got to do some exchanges with some sisters this week which were so awesome and we were blessed to see so many miracles; finding some super elect individuals and giving that area a little bit of a jump. We set some goals. As I was heading back to my area I thought how amazing it is that the Lord gives us the ability to help people. We were able to make some adjustments and set some goals that I knew weren´t from me.  I know that when we are willing to serve the Lord, He gives us what we need. It is pretty amazing!

We also had kind of an exciting day yesterday getting robbed in the middle of the day after church. Thankfully they just wanted our stuff and nothing to do with us. After the police report we decided to go look around a bit in the area that they had run off to, and we found a ton of our stuff which was a huge blessing! We found our scriptures, identification, and some things that I was pretty sad about losing, so we really were so blessed that everything turned out the way it did! The Lord definitely takes care of his missionaries :)

Love you, have a great week!

Sister Lewis