20 Jan 2014

1-20-14

Dear Family,

Highlight of this week was that we had a crazy Sunday absolutely full of investigators! We had 15 Investigators in Sacrament Meeting yesterday! A new record, plus a million kids. Between our investigators, their kids, the other sisters investigators - and the Assistants have been working in our area so they had some investigators too - we brought over 30 ppl to church! We rented out an onibus so we could go pick up all of our investigators it was nuts.

And then on top of that, the other highlight of the week was Eduardo´s Baptism! He is doing so awesome and it was wonderful to see the changes he is making in his life. His step-dad, Luiz, came to the baptism. He hasn´t been to church in a really long time but is such a good person. He has a book of Mormon already because he did construction for the church several years ago and he still remembered it. We´re hoping we can help him see the blessings he can have in his life, not just for his son!

Denise came with her 6 kids and they were a riot, it was great. I love those kids to death. It was so cute; we were teaching them on Saturday and invited them to see Eduardo´s baptism and afterward Chaue timidly asked "Do you think I could get baptized today?" I wasn´t sure if I understood him right because you never hear that! It’s just too good to be true, so I asked his mom what she said and she repeated the same thing. At 11 years old he is already so mature and sensitive to the spirit. We´re hoping Denise will let him and also Taynara (who also asked to get baptized) to get baptized this week and were trying to help her get over smoking and want to be baptized as well. 

I also gave a talk in sacrament meeting so in between giving a talk and playing the piano and trying to entertain a million kids - by the end of the night I was absolutely dead, but it was wonderful! It is incredible how much the Lord is blessing us! There are so many good people here! It is so cool to see the ward growing and the members and leadership have been so grateful to us and they are so good to help us out so much.

I also felt overwhelmed with gratitude getting to talk about Families and Love in the Home. I talked about Elder Uchtdorf’s talk, ‘Regrets and Resolutions’ and how we don´t want to waste our precious time here. I also talked about how we can have this happiness in our families; the answer is in “A Proclamation to the Family”. I used the part about "successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love and wholesome recreational activities." I talked about how we can implement these attributes in our families and talked a lot about the example of my parents. I closed with the invitation to live these principles individually and in our families, and to share this secret of success and happiness with the world because we are SO, SO blessed to have it!

I love yall and am so grateful for your examples as well!

Love, Sister Lewis

[interjection by Whitney --somehow I don't know where these photos are. If anyone has them, please email them to me. thanks!] 

Photos:

Eduardo´s Baptism

The onibus with Denise and her kids