Time for turkey in the Big Apple

11-29-10

Hey Family!

Good old Thanksgiving week, always one of the best=) Lots of fun crazy stuff happened this week, but it wasn't the best for missionary work unfortunately, too many meetings, and then everyone is either out of town, or the whole family is in town and it's hard to get them to sit down and listen to a message when the house is full of crazy Hispanics celebrating a holiday they don't even celebrate. LOL I didn't ever get mashed potatoes with gravy, but I did get Turkey, and a piece of pumpkin pie, just wasn't the same! Anyway!

So Tues we had a leadership meeting all day long since I'm new and my comp is a trainer and the DL, we had to go also. It went from 11-4 so basically we didn't get much done teaching wise that day, but I learned lots of good stuff! We learned about how to ask good questions that will get the investigator to talk and figure things out for themselves, and about the importance of listening to them, something I'm trying to learn, but I'm just trying to understand what they're saying in Spanish! Always a fun game trying to figure things out, and then they'll use a verb I don't know or conjugated in a way I don't recognize right off the bat, so I have to think about it and then they use a noun for a subject and I miss it and after that they refer to it as a pronoun and I'm really lost! Luckily that mostly only happens when people are telling long stories/talks, not in conversations where I can hear both people talking=) The rest of the week was full of 2 exchanges which are always fun=) I get to spend the night at another pad, and I have to pack a bag and all that, then I get to know a new comp, so far I've only gone with one who spoke Spanish, but they're situation is even worse then ours so we basically knocked doors for 8 hours! Sometimes I wish I could speak more Spanish or knew more about missionary work so I didn't feel so helpless, I just want to do things more efficiently and I read about all these great ideas in PMG I just don't know how to implement them in my specific scenario. Oh well, it's a learning process! I'm definitely learning a lot, not just about Spanish, but about the Gospel, about people in general! With one exchange with English speakers, almost everyone we taught was from Guinea(Guyana is how they pronounce it, I think it's the little country on the NE corner of S. America, but they don't speak Spanish or Portuguese, weird) we taught this family; the mom is Hindu and the dad is Muslim! Go figure, so it was interesting getting to talk to them about what/who God is. The best part of all though is just sharing your testimony and bearing witness that I Know it's true! We also taught 3 guys that live in an apt. One is Jamaican, coming from a bad background, another is from the US, he's white, the other is a Dominican. They’re a very diverse house, they all have very different religious backgrounds, and we just read the Book of Mormon with them and it was cool seeing the different insights each of them got from it. The Jamaican especially loved the part when we showed him how Nephi quotes Isaiah and the guy was astounded how the Book of Mormon even quotes the Bible. It really strengthened his testimony that the book is true. I loved his quote: “We all Gods kids, this book's great cuz them cats here in America doing the same thing as the ones in Jerusalem, and is dope that Jesus was kicking it here in America too!" That made me laugh=) But the Book of Mormon is a testament that Jesus Christ is our Savior, and it is the best way for us to come closer to Him! I'm so lucky—no blessed to be on a mission and I get to do this every day, even when some days, like yesterday, we had all these appointments and 3 investigators said they'd come to church and none of them answered the phone, showed up, or answered the door. Even when we tried to visit less actives, they didn't answer and the 2 that did, they had moved! In New York everyone moves after a couple years, no one stays put so that makes things interesting trying to find people=)

For Thanksgiving Day we had a turkey bowl with our Zone which was way fun! They have a nice turf field near my pad so we all played there, about 30 of us, and we had 4 teams that just rotated on when the other team lost. My team did great surprisingly since we were all scrawny XC kids, but we would just out run everyone and it made it fun, if it would've been tackle rather than 2 hand touch it probably would've been another story, but I'll be grateful that it wasn't=) Then we had a couple of appts. We dropped by to visit people, they always fed us which was awesome! Then at the end of the night we had a big dinner at the District Pres's house (kinda like a Stake President, but of branches, he's in our branch, well at least his family is, like Dad, he's rarely there with his family since he's visiting all the other branches.) It was fun having all the families invited over there. It was nice since he actually had a normal sized house so we could fit more people, and we did it buffet style just like back home. Before hand we went around and said what we were grateful for so that was nice to try to listen to everyone. Some people had some incredible stories about how the Lord has blessed them, and I was impressed by some of the teenagers and the respect and love they show their parents. I am so grateful to be in the branch I am, they are awesome!

Let’s see, not much else, yesterday was church which is always fun trying to get something out of talks when I don't know what they're saying. Usually by the end I can tell what the topic is=) During Sunday school they all laugh at me when I try to read since I always mispronounce words, but I keep practicing! The youth had a Mormon prom the night before which was a cool reminder of how we did that at home. The church is the same everywhere, even in the little church building they have here! Anyway, gotta go get my laundry! Love you all, keep being missionaries!

Love,

Elder Lewis

P.S. Mom and Dad,

Could you ask Sis Eastin to send me that recipe book she showed me she was making for Robert, it looked way good, and I'm getting bored with my limited stock of food items I make. Also, where did Esther live in DR and Puerto Rico? I always meet people from there, like 90%, and where was Joseph in Tampico? I meet so many people from these places my siblings have been it's awesome! I was again glad for my talent of singing when on Sat we did a street sweep by having half of us singing carols and the other half getting people to sign up for free DVDs. I loved giving away Mr. Kruegger's Christmas=) I love Christmas songs! Well gotta go! I love you. I hope to hear an update on the Lee's, tell them hi for me! If there's anything I can do for you all, or answer a question, let me know. Dad thanks for the letter! I love you, and yes there are funny black guys that call us Jesus' boys=) I haven't seen any violence yet, just heard it... But New York is awesome! How is our Stake doing? I loved the Newsletter on everyone! Can't wait to hear more! Hope you're feeling better and I'm praying for you! I love you!

Love your son,

Elder Lewis

Start Spreading the news! in old New York, New York

11-22-10

Hey everyone!

Thank you so much for all of your support, and letters, they really make my day when I hear all about the wonderful things going on with all of you. It's amazing how missionary work continues all over the world. Keep it up!

So this week was my first official whole week here in New York. I live in what's called East New York, and it's in Brooklyn. That's my proselyting area. It's funny all the different parts of New York City. This week we had lots of disappointments with investigators and things, but we continue to find people, and try to just keep sharing the gospel. It's a trial here where I want to improve my Spanish, but since everyone speaks fluent English and Spanish, most (missionaries and the youth in the ward) mostly speak English so I never get to practice until some older member talks to me going 100 miles a minute and I only catch every 5 words. It's a work in progress. I just need to find a way to keep progressing. I don't feel like I'm getting better, maybe worse because I rarely get to really practice my Spanish. We teach in Spanish, but since we don't have a pool, it's really simple things, greetings, and talking about prayer, the Book of Mormon, etc. but I'm forgetting already a lot of the vocabulary I learned in the MTC just because I don't get to speak it in my apartment in my pad like I did with my District. Hopefully I'll figure out something soon because I want to be able to express myself in Spanish! I can understand it sometimes though, and that's always really cool when during a lesson I know what they're saying and I just want to tell them something, but I have to say it a different way because I don't have the vocabulary. It's like a game, trying to reword sentences in my head until they're simple enough grammatically and vocabularily (can't even speak English, sheesh!) so they will understand me. But the work goes on!

New York is getting more and more interesting the more I see of it. I live in a pad with Elder Crawford, a big football player for BYU that's been out since last May, and his comp Elder Cortez that is Ecuadorian and already speaks Spanish. It's cool how fluent he is in both Languages, I hope I can get my kids that way, reminds me of when little Jeffery Toronto spoke Spanish when he was little and we'd always ask him for "un beso" a kiss, and when he was thirsty he'd ask for agua. Aww I miss all those cute kids. It was great to get to see some of them, Brenley's and LaDawn's, right before I entered the MTC, and to hear from Esther, and get cute hand paintings from Mason and Akirah! One of the people we're teaching right now is Roxana, who is Dominicana. Her brother converted this summer with his wife and when Roxana's son Sergio stayed with them for the summer he really liked the missionaries, lessons, church, and went to the 24th of July party. He showed me all the pictures and Roxana saw that change in her brother and wanted it for herself. She's a single mother with Rosalba 15 and Sergio 11. She lives with her parents and her sister's family who are all very catholic and anti-Mormon. When we went to teach her this week she'd been given a lot of anti-Mormon stuff and had all these questions about polygamy etc. It was a great lesson when Elder Kerby just testified that this is God's church, and the only way she can know if it's true isn't from us, or from her Catholic family, but from God. We really encouraged her to pray and to ask God, and she said she would. We also invited her to church, she has to work Sundays, so we offered to take her kids home from church and walk with them since she'd have to go straight to work after Church. We visited them right before church, but they didn't come. L We're also teaching these kids, Celeny (18), Jordyn (15), and Neyeli (13). They're Dominican but speak English, and they're parents just speak Spanish. We contacted Celeny on the street and she had questions about life after Death, and life before, so we gave her the Plan of Salvation Pamphlet, taught a quick lesson and then another night we taught all 3 of them, but their parents weren't home, so we're still working on meeting the whole family. The kids had a lot of great questions, and we taught about the Restoration and more about the Plan of Salvation and the spirit was really strong. Those kinds of lessons are what makes being a missionary so worth it! Sharing this knowledge we have with those around us. They just don't know all these things that I've taken for granted my whole life: The nature of God, our ability to communicate and receive His help, all of these fundamental things I've known since I said my own little prayer when I could barely talk. Getting to share that with others is the best! They couldn't come to church because Jordyn had a baseball game, but we're working on them.

Other fun things: I saw these giant rats in the subway that reminded me of August Rush when he's in New York Subway and gets away from Robin Williams to get to his concert, good movie. J I also saw a chicken just strutting along in the street, random. Fri. had a Thanksgiving Party with the Spanish branch. That was fun, they had a disco ball, and we had rice and lots of yummy types of chicken, also sauces, salads, etc. It wasn't much like a normal Thanksgiving, but that's okay, the food was delicious, the branch is great, the members are super nice, and the kids are hilarious. I haven't had kids in my wards since Aug of '09 since we didn't have any at BYU or at Jacob Lake. Kids really do just have a sweet innocence that really adds to the life of the branch/ward, even if they're rowdy sometimes. J

We did an exchange on Sat. because my companion is the District Leader, and we have 10 other missionaries in our District. He has to do exchanges with all of them so that will be fun. I got to spend the night at a pad with Thomas and Snow, and my comp for the day was Elder Jones. He's English speaking so I didn't get to speak any Spanish at all except when on the Subway. I'd always spot a Hispanic and go sit next to them and strike up a conversation=) Elder Jones was great, and we went into this part of town where everyone is Jewish, and since it was Sat., their Sabbath, we saw them all coming back from the Synagogue; I guess. There were tons of them, all wearing black and white, with big brimmed hats, or the little caps, and they had what looked like towels white and blue wrapped around them, and you could see the long strands draping down others, all had big beards. The little boys had just these strands of long hair around their ears. All the doors had writing over them, and these little capsules with a paper scroll inside in the doorway. It was super cool! Jones told me that they don't talk to Gentiles and are pretty stuffy and rude, so every one I passed, I’d smile and say hello. Admittedly the first 50 just glared at me or looked surprised and didn't respond, but 1, out of probably 100, actually replied and said "Hi, how's it going". He was walking with his kids and looked like a nice father. I can't make generalizations about any culture or people, they are normal people, they just have different beliefs=)

We had another Thanksgiving party with the English Branch. There were 2 white people, the rest black, lots of Jamaicans and Haitians. It was fun during the day to teach people in English, and to be able to really get to know them, find out their needs and help them. It was awesome! But I'm glad I get to work here in New York with English, Spanish, and even Hindu, Muslims, Buddhists, it's all here! I love it=). The food was good at the party, but still no mashed potatoes or turkey. We're going to a Hispanic family's house on Thurs. so I might go this year without a normal thanksgiving dinner, but at least they celebrate it here, unlike other countries. This is the best mission ever!!

The church is amazing, the gospel really can change peoples' lives. I've already seen people getting baptized and seen where they came from and how they are now. The Lord can work miracles. Don't judge people and think they would not accept the gospel, we can't see their hearts. Just the Lord can. I'm so grateful to be here on a mission, serving the Lord. I'm so grateful for my wonderful family, the way they raised me, all the opportunities and happiness I had growing up. The Lord has truly blessed me and no matter how hard I work, I can never repay Him. I love this season and having the opportunity to think about what we have to be grateful for. There are so many people here who have nothing! Love everyone, and don't be afraid to share more!

Love,

Elder Lewis

LOOK HERE FOR LOGAN'S MISSION ADDRESS

Logan's Mission Home Address

85-69 60th Dr

Elmhurst, NY 11373

11-8-10

Familia!

!Yo estoy aqui! I finally made it to New York, New York! J My mission President, President Nelson, is super nice and friendly. He met us right as we got off the escalator and he knew where each missionary was from and talked to me for several minutes about Jacob Lake; he is really good friends with my boss, John Rich.

The weather is already pretty cold, but it’s beautiful! I’ve missed all the vegetation, as the JFK airport is right on the water front so we got to fly over the Atlantic. I’ve missed the East Coast (land view). Right now we’re at the mission home. We drove directly here from the airport and its 5 PM (3 PM for me; still on Mtn. Time). I’m starving though since yesterday was fast Sunday, then today I didn’t get breakfast or lunch, only peanuts/trail mix/candy so I feel sick from that, but Sis. Nelson has prepared an amazing meal that smells delicious. I can’t wait!

Elder Patchett & I were traveling companions, with Hna. Lewis from my MTC District. She’s the only new hermana. I know this is where I am supposed to be. I haven’t been this excited in a long time. I’m not even nervous, I’m just so happy to finally be here. I love our mission home, it’s a quaint house in the nicer part of Long Island and it reminds me of when I lived with LaDawn in North Potomac. The houses all have that beautiful Colonial Architecture; the stairs are really steep and small. Everything is old but I love it.

Our Zone leaders are super energetic and fun. They’re a Zebra companionship; one’s English speaking from Spanish Fork, UT and the other is from Buenos Aires, Argentina. It’s making me excited to meet my trainerJ. Tonight we’re spending the night here in the mission home basement. They’ve got 2 rooms with 6 bunk beds crammed in there. They also have a foosball and hockey table, (go figure), in the downstairs living room.

I already wrote you a letter earlier today on the plane, and I called you so I feel like I’ve basically been with you all day. Thank you for all your prayers and support. Know that you’re in my mindJ I love you!

Love,

Elder Lewis

his first email from NYC!

11-15-10

Hey family!

I'm finally in New York, the Big Apple!! I wrote a letter home last Monday, so I'll just start from there. Monday night we met Pres. Nelson and the AP's, had a delicious dinner and welcoming mtg. at the mission home somewhere in Suffolk I think, it is a colonial style house/cottage that reminds me of LaDawn and Danny's house in Maryland. All the stairs are super steep and narrow=)

Tues. we got to meet our trainers; I'm with Elder Kerby, from Mesa, AZ. He's super friendly and nice, likes outdoors stuff, camping, snow/wake boarding, and likes to work out, so that'll be good for me to actually do push-ups etc.. We had meetings at the chapel/mission office all day since it was a transfer day and leadership mtgs. Kerby is the district leader of our district, and Elder Jacob's (elder Patchett, the missionary from my district at the MTC that came to NY with me, Jacobs is his trainer) is another DL in our zone so Patchett and I were comps basically all Monday and Tues. We did a service project and went and picked up trash for a couple hours. One of the weirdest things about NYC is the litter. No one uses garbage cans, everyone just drops everything on the street; there is trash everywhere! Pretty disgusting, but just adds to the big city feel I guess. Then that night we got to our Pad (Apartment in New York), which is a tiny apt. above a member's home. It's fun, we have 3 bulbs, and half the lights don't work so we have to move the bulb into the kitchen when we want to cook or-- I just made my spaghetti one night in the dark. The shower has never gotten above ‘luke-cold’---almost to being luke-warm, but not quite, but that's after you let it run for 20 mins. which seems like a waste of water to me so I just usually take cold showers, but Elder Craword likes to wait. We share our pad with Elder Crawford who's training Elder Cortez, who already speaks Spanish since his parents are Salvadorian so he was only in the MTC for 3 weeks. Its fun living together and getting to know them better, but apparently we're moving soon.

The field! Everyone here is either black, or Hispanic. We're literally the only white people. I could count the number of Caucasians I see every day on one hand, so it's fun. We're in the E. New York zone, also called the Man Zone because no sister missionaries are allowed in our Zone, it's too dangerous which is always comforting=). I ride the subway everywhere. I have a nice little metro card for unlimited use and we use it to get everywhere. All the Hispanics are pretty much from Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico (is that where Esther went and LeGrand went to Costa Rica?) also some Mexicans. So far I’ve been fine with the language and the food, my 2 biggest concerns coming here. I can't speak amazingly well at all, but I usually can convey what I want to say, especially when teaching since that's what 90% of my vocab is, --gospel related terms, but I’m excited to learn! I can mostly understand people too, they talk ridiculously fast, and for some reason DR's (Dominicanos) don't pronounce the letter S ever so that throws me off, but I’m getting the hang of it! We're what's called being ‘blinded in’, neither Elder Kerby or I(obviously) have ever been in this area, the pool (teaching pool) is pretty dead in that there is no progressive investigator, so we've just been doing a lot of finding! ‘Fearlessing’ people in the streets, subway, busses, or knocking doors, so I've walked miles and miles, up and down these crazy crowded little streets. All the cars and stores have music blaring, and everyone shouts at each other across the street, out of windows, houses, cars, so it's pretty loud, and then added to the noise is the metro which, in my area is mostly above the street. It screeches really loud and shakes the street. But it's been great!

I love the culture here, getting to know so many diverse people from Sri Lanka, Jamaica, or any other country you can think of, its fun! Teaching is also great, sharing our message of Christ and being bold. It is pretty awesome and I’m excited to get better at it! Hopefully we'll be able to get people to start progressing! Awww, I have so much more to say about the branch here, our investigators, but we gotta go! I'll write a letter if I get time! I love you all! The gospel is true, remember to talk to everyone and always be a missionary.

Love,

Elder Lewis

and he's off!

Elder Lewis flew to New York City today to enter the field. God speed little brother.

Last week in the MTC

11-1-10

Dear Family and Friends,

I cannot believe that I've already been at the MTC for 8 weeks!! It seems like I just got here, and now I've already got my travel plans and everything. My plane ticket is booked, and I'm reporting next Monday morning to the travel office at 5 am, then flying from SLC at 8:35, and arriving at JFK at 3:35. So this time next week I'll be in NYC!!

This week has been awesome and has flown by super fast! The biggest highlight for me is Whitney getting her mission call to San Diego, and speaking Spanish! I can't wait for you to get out in the field so we can be serving at the same time=). The next coolest thing was having Elder Richard G. Scott come to speak to us on Tuesday! It was such an amazing talk on recognizing the spirit, he had lots of people walk up to mikes and read quotes and then he'd ask them questions randomly on the spot. My friend Elder Brandon Leslie was one of them, he got to talk to an apostle! I was honored to get to sing in the choir that performed, again. I love singing and sharing that talent, and I keep using it all the time here in the MTC. We seriously sing about 10 hymns a day, Sundays like 30, and every time an apostle comes we sing "Called to Serve", I wish I would've kept a tally of how many times we've sung that. Afterward we had a great district review with everyone, and it's so great hearing everyone's insights, and at the end getting to bear our testimonies in Spanish, and it's even better now since we can actually talk about what we learned, instead of just saying memorized phrases. It brought a lot of members of our district to tears, especially hermanas, but even some of the elders=) This next week will be my last Devotional, last everything! Today was my last P-day, it's so weird to think about!

Saturday for our TRC we had to give a summary of the lesson, find out their concerns about the Word of Wisdom, give them directions to the Church building, and then come back and teach them all of Lesson 2 in Spanish. Not an easy week for us, but all of us felt better about our Spanish this week, even though we were short on time since we didn't have enough volunteers to fill the roles as investigators. Later that day we also had Interviews, and since Hno. Edwards is on his Honeymoon, poor Hno. Jensen had to do all of them, but I love his interviews. They really do help us to set good goals, and help us be accountable to him, help us figure out where our strengths are; where we need to improve, and think about all the good things. It really gets me excited for the upcoming week, and helps me focus on what I want to accomplish. I love it! This week I'm really going to focus on knowing the scriptures better, and always having a scripture on hand for any given scenario, question, or anything I might need it for. They are such a wonderful resource that I'm not using enough. PMG has some great sections and scripture study activities that I"m excited to work on this week for Personal Study=)

I also love Saturdays because we get to have a District meeting and recap the week, set goals, etc.. and then we do one with our companionships, which is so healthy for resolving potential conflicts, being supportive, and giving/receiving constructive criticism.It was especially fun this week because we just got to talk about a lot of things, and now I think we're a lot closer as friends, not just companions.

On Sunday Bro. Swensen, director of Missionary Services gave an amazing talk on "Friends". We got to usher=) He hit on a bunch of scriptures where the Savior refers to us as his friends, and then he admonished us to treat others in the same way He treats us. We need to be everyone's friends, members, investigators, and especially our companions. Also at the fireside an elder sang a beautiful piece "Be Still My Child" I think, and it was one of the most powerful musical numbers I've ever heard, I loved the cello and piano accompaniments. We also got to go to the temple again and that was fun to take pictures of our district and have fun outside, even though it is pretty chilly.

I also loved going to Music and the Spoken Word Sunday Morning, it always makes the day go better. I got to sit behind Elder Rusk a friend from BYU, and then on the way out ran into Elder Biggs, another friend from my freshman ward. The MTC is so fun!=) During Sacrament meeting I was called on to give my talk, every week we all write one and then hope we won't actually have to give it, but Hna. England and I both got called; they seem to pick on our district a lot. It was on the restoration and I got to talk about my experience being in the sacred grove for my 14th birthday and how the restoration is such an important part of our message. It's the power statement that catches peoples' attention, sets us apart. We Are the same church that Christ established on the earth in the New Testament, he still leads and guides us today. What an amazing message I can't wait to preach it to the people in NY!

Mom: Yes I voted, I filled it out and put it in the mail box the day I got it, before any of your letters or advice.lol Yes, when I sang for Elders Nelson and Scott, that was here at the MTC. My mission Home address should be on my facebook profile I believe, or I'm sure you could find it any other way too=) Good job on being a missionary and inviting people to church! Thanks for forwarding me e-mails and being so faithful. I'm gonna miss dearelder when my number of letters will be cut in half.

Dad: Thanks for your letters! Yes I"m allowed to call when I"m at the airport, supposedly 7-8 Mtn. Time, next MOnday.

Happy Birthday LaDawn on the 2nd, and Tara on the 4th. You two are so great and I'm so glad you've been close by here in Utah while I lived here now and all last year!

Hunter Lynette! How was districts, how's school? Why haven't you written me?! I love you guys!

Esther thanks for your letter and your amazing missionary efforts.

I love all of you guys, and I love getting your letters and hearing from you! Next time you hear from me I'll be in New York City!! And I won't have a flashing number blinking at me in the corner of the screen.

Love you!

Elder Lewis