1-3-11
Dear everyone,
Happy New Years!!!! Can you believe it's 2011?! I'll have been graduated from high school for almost 2 years in June! Weird. I'm very excited though for the new year! This week was quite a struggle, not the best of the mission, but it's okay, we're ready to start the new year with more energy and enthusiasim then ever before! Lots of people to find, no time to lose!
So most of our days this week were filled with trying to get a hold of people and them not answering the phone, looking up former investigators, knocking doors, and no one ever answering their doorbells, luckily there are 5 doorbells on every house so you can try lots of people without even having to walk very far=) Our knew updates with investigators: Jordyn we finally got to answer the door and he seemed like he still wanted to meet with us, just was out of town in PA for Christmas or something, but when we went back for our app. we had scheduled with him his mom just shouted at us from their upstiars window that he was sleeping and then slammed it shut before we could talk to her, not a good sign=( Agustine was stuck in Boston after Christmas because of all the snow so we didn't get to meet with him, but we have an app. scheduled for tomorrow! Roxana's house is always an adventure with 3 generations living there. When we came to our app. we'd scheduled before on Christmas, her mom said she wasn't there, but on New Years when we were walking by on our way to a different house we saw her brother Nicholas (a recent convert) out playing in the snow with his cute daughter and his nephews, we called Roxana and scheduled an app. for later that night, and when we came by it was a great opportunity to read the scriptures with her, and have Nicholas and Alexandra (Nick's wife and also recent convert) there to help. She had read a little of the chapter that we had left here, but we finished it with her, and tried to help her understand how to read the scriptures applying it to your lives and getting stuff out of it. Also another miracle was while we were sitting there waiting for Roxana to finish preparing food (she always has to feed us if we come over) we got to talking more to Keffery Roxana and Nick's nephew who's 17 and he was interested about the BoM so we taught him a lesson about what it is and how we got it. We've invited him into our lessons before, just like it says in PMG, but this time he actually stayed in the room and talked with us, and when we read with Roxana he read with us! Another awesome find was when we went to go visit this sister that the bishop asked Kerby and I to go visit, but she lives really far away and we could never find her house, finally watkins and I put it as a priority because I just felt like we really needed to go visit her, she had just had twin boys last month and hadn't been able to come to church in 2 months. When we got there no one answered the bell and the phone number wasn't working, right when we were about to leaved all discouraged, a guy came up to the door and was able to get us in, he turned out to be Mariela's husband! They have 4 little girls (the oldest 10) and just had twin boys end of November). They're such a cute family and apparently he isn't a member, and so we turned what was going to be just a spiritual thought on the importnace of reading the BoM into a first lesson. He hadn't ever been taught before and was interested, and we got him to read it with us and pray at the end of the lesson. It was a very spiritual expreience and his wife was crying while he prayed. We have a return app. this week with them and hope we can bring that family together. I talked with the bishop though and the problem is they probably aren't legal and aren't married so that's gonna be a struggle=( Knew i'd run into it eventually! So that was our week! Some great finds, but they were few and far between so our umbers were very low this week, but it's not about numbers, it's about the people, and if we can help these people to change their lives to come unto Christ and be better stronger families it will all have been worth it!
As for the day to day affairs of life, not much different, still wading through snow which through the week progressively just turned into muddy sluch that got my suits very dirty and splattered (I need to find a dry cleaner, there are tons all over, but they all look kinda sketch and I don't know how much it's gonna cost, I don't really want to find out.lol) The other day I saw some lady walking through the snow with plastic bags wrapped around her feet and it reminded me of Hyrum and the older brothers doing that when we went to the snow.lol On New Years we had to be in our house by 6 PM since there are lots of drunk people out and craziness going on. On the way home I saw so many people with cases of alcohol, it's too bad people think they can only have a good time if they're drunk. They just need the gospel! That's why I'm here I guess=) we did our weekly planning and then went to bed at 10, and slept through all the chaos of the night. It's weird, the first time I don't watch the ball drop and I'm just a couple miles away from it! The Seminary class that gave us missionaries a gift basket had a bottle of Martinelli's inside so we had that during our planning, but other than that it wasn't too eventful.lol Oh I also got a sweet Christmas Card from Sis. Batey, my old primary teacher from when I was like 6. She is so kind to remember me all the way out here! Last night we went to the Branch Pres.'s house and his wife is Peruvian so she made us papa a la huancayna and also lomo saltado. The first is a baked potatoe without the skin, and it has this delicious spicy yellow sauce on it, the latter is veggies and meat with rice, and there were french fries mixed with the veggie/meat it was delicious! I love getting to try foods from Mexico/Dominican Rep/Puerta Rica/El Salvador/Honduras/Peru and then also good ol American food sometimes at mission events=)
Life is god on the mission! I'm loving all the new experiences, even the hard ones. Like mom always quotes grandpa to me "It's either good for you or you deserve it." , so I'm trying my best to deserve as many blessings as I can get! It's been fun, every week is so different, but they all have one thing in common, I'm still preaching the same thing! The gospel is so great! I love getting to share it with people every day and bearing my testimony that I know it is true! I loved our fast and testimony meeting, getting to hear all the sweet testimonies of the members and what's awesome is all of them are converts so all of them bore witnss of the importance of missionary work and how important it is! I hope we can utilize that enthusiasim to get the members more imvolved in our teaching. Getting to talk to my family on Christmas has got me all fired up to do better. Thanks all my great older siblings, and especially mom and dad! I love each and every one of you!
I hope your year is full of wonderful growth and learning and sharing the gospel. keep being missionaries, because we need you!
love,
Elder Lewis
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