24 Feb 2014

Dear Family,

I was excited to hear Joseph got called to be a ward mission leader; ours is going to be moving in the next couple of weeks which was sad news for us. It really makes such a huge difference to have the help of members and a ward mission leader who helps out so much!

We were able to witness another miracle this past Saturday with the baptism of Eliana and her 2 kids - Mariele and Leonardo. It was once again a crazy day trying to make it all happen and it was more than an hour late as usual, but just the same she told me afterward she had never been so happy in her life :) This is what I love so much about being a missionary. Seeing these people find true happiness. It is incredible! And they were beaming even brighter Sunday after receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. It has been nice that one of the biggest problems here is that this ward is growing faster than they can handle right now. They´ve never seen this happen before so our ward leadership is running to keep up with it, but it is a good problem to have.

I also got a new companion this week - Sister A Santos. She´s 21, from Belém, and she´s great. She is one of the quietest people I have ever met in my life, but she is super sweet and humble and will be an incredible missionary!

We had a heart-breaker this week. Lédio, who has wanted to get baptized so bad, but when we showed up unexpectedly for his interview and he wasn´t living the word of wisdom too well so we had to put it off and he got pretty upset about it. It´s hard to see how often people give up the best things in life - the things that will truly make them happy - for the things they want in the moment. But when we can learn to control that, the blessings are incredible!

Another mind-blowing experience for me - we were teaching this woman the restoration and afterward I asked her if she´d like to know if this was true - if Christ´s church was here again on the earth. She said, ‘oh no I believe you. I know what you are saying is true. I know that this is the Church of Jesus Christ’. I responded – ‘so you will be coming with us to church this Sunday.? She said, ‘ah no I like to spend Sundays with my family. I couldn´t believe it. You´re telling me you know that Christ´s church is here again on the earth, but you aren´t running to get there? What?! But I guess that´s why no matter how well we teach, it doesn´t make a difference if they don´t want these blessings in their life. But we keep going and we are being super blessed to find those that are ready! It really is incredible how much the Lord is blessing us here and how much he is in the work!

I love all of you! Keep being wonderful examples and sharing this incredible blessing that you have!

Love, Sister Lewis