December 9th, 2008 (Email)

Hey!
First off, parents: please don't send the package to the mission home. The zone leaders said it'd be difficult for me to get it before the next zone conference and I don't know when that'll be. So please just send it to the apartment. Thanks!
It's been an interesting week. First off let's talk about last Wednesday. That wasn't a fun day. The night before I woke up in a cold sweat and I threw up from the top of the bunk bed all over the wall and carpet. Don't be alarmed though I'm fine now. I felt fine enough the next day to proselyte but I still felt relatively like crap. Elder Rodriguez had whatever I had too (it was probably just the 24-hour flu), but not quite as bad. He didn't throw up. His illness involved the other extremity. That day got really rough when we were fed dinner. Twice. David and Dixie fed us burgers. They brought out their pet python and we watched it eat a live mouse! That was disturbing. I've got pictures so you'll get to enjoy that visit someday. After that dinner we were fed by our ward mission leader, Bro. Park, in his great and spacious building of a home. Have I told you about this guy's house? I don't think I have. It's a multi-million dollar mansion. The Parks are from Mongolia or something oriental like that and Bro. Park's an orthopoedic(?) surgeon so he's LOADED. He has a great and spacious building in Huntington Beach too for the weekends. His home is rejunkulously ginormous. Well, after that dinner I wanted to die. Both those meals were fantastic but I was sick and I hadn't ate anything solid that day for a reason and though I've definitely gained weight I'm still not a very big guy. I ran into this problem last night too. Dinner appointment with a sister form the ward AND with David and Dixie. And it's always a feast at David and Dixie's. I'd almost finished shrimp pasta when David asked me "Why are you sweating? Ha look at him!" I was way too full. I managed to eat it all though. Then they gave us more shrimp.... And then they gave us dessert... I was so full last night it's not even funny.
Well back to last week. Remember Raymond, the random guy who wanted to get baptized? Well things changed last week. We went to visit him and Suzanna let us enter the apartment and she was in tears yelling on the phone. That was the least funny most awkward half an hour of my mission thus far. Here's the deal: apparently Raymond and Suzanna are not married. They're engaged. That day they'd had an argument and that night they were in the process of breaking off the engagement. She was hysterical. Raymond stopped by for a second and left. I'm not sure if we've been dropped or what but things are no longer solid with Raymond. We gave Suzanna a priesthood blessing and then we had to leave. She came to church on Sunday and said things are going better now and she had her ring on still so things might be good enough for us to go back. But still - Raymond is not married. Cohabitation is happening. So the baptism cannot happen yet.
We got so close to getting Jason Patterson baptized! He's so ready! He had the baptismal interview and everything. But his wife still won't let it happen cuz she doesn't want to change from her heavy-metal rockin' ways and she keeps telling him "I didn't marry a Mormon!". I don't mean to judge but one parent is definitely setting a more firm foundation for that family than the other. Whenever we visit Jason his Mormon music's playing in the background. He has many copies of the scriptures. He's read the standard works several times. He's read TONS of church stuff and TONS of anti stuff and after like 18 years of investigating the church he's disproved all the anti stuff he's read. His testimony's uber-solid and he wants so badly to be baptized and set an example for his kids. So I am justified when I say that we are SO FRUSTRATED WITH HIS WIFE!!! We want so badly to teach her but she won't have it. She's not mean to us or anything. I think she puts on a pleasant facade for us. Jason says she knows that if she'd listen to us she'd believe. She just doesn't want to change.
Oh well. On a happier note we met Joseph. Joseph is this black kid who's about 18 years old and he's really nice and he's way open to whatever we teach him. He's digging the whole idea of the Book of Mormon and there being a prophet on the earth. He talked to his pastor about it and his pastor told him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon!?!?! Yeah. Weird for a pastor to say but Joseph's gonna do it.
On Sunday David Ramos asked me to confer upon him the Aaronic Priesthood. That was an awesome experience. Not all missionaries get to ordain one of their investigators to a priesthood office. I feel very priviledged. So now David's a priest. He's going to be such a strong member. His testimony's very strong.
Yesterday was different. Elder Rodriguez and I went on splits with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Esterholdt. I had to drive all day yesterday. Scary? Yes. But we're both alive. We taught Joseph yesterday. Elder Esterholdt was very bold with him. It was great. We read 3Nephi 11 with Joseph and Elder Esterholdt said "You do realize that what we're saying is that our church claims to be the ONLY church with the authority to baptize, right?" Joseph said "Yeah that's what I like about you and that's kind of why I let you guys in in the first place." Joseph seemed to really be into that chapter of the Book of Mormon and just really excited about the general idea of there being new scripture.
Elder Rodriguez and I have a new investigator named William who's going through a hard time. He lives in a sober home and helps out with the people there trying to overcome addictions. He's unemployed and broke. He wants us to teach him and baptize him and he made it very clear that he really needs help from the church to get him back on his feet. This may sound like he's trying to take advantage of what the church can offer but I'm pretty sure he's sincere. He said baptism is his first priority because he wants to experience that rebirth and start over. We're happy to help him on the road to baptism.
There's been this exhibit happening at the stake center called "Reflections of Christ" and it's really cool. It's a bunch of photographic art portraying the life of Christ. It's really powerful stuff. The missionaries of this stake were asked to act as guides for the people visiting the exhibit. Elder Rodriguez and I served Saturday night and we're going again tonight. It's a great opportunity for us to find new investigators cuz non-members get a chance to have us deliver a small framed copy of one of the pictures to them.
Sabrina Sanchez is getting baptized tomorrow! It looks like I'm going to get to baptize her! That'll be a great experience. Sam's still on the fence. We still don't know what's happening with Raymond. Jason's still awesome but stuck. The field's still white!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis