February 3rd, 2009 (Email)

That's way cool Hannah won the science fair! I remember one of my science projects when we had some sand and a horseshoe magnet and when you ran the magnet over the sand it picked up particles of magnitite or something like that. And I remember that the magnet was stolen. I was pretty upset about that I think.
So Bruce's CD isn't that great eh? :( That's a shame. And My Chemical Romance is desecrating Dylan? Well at least they know where the good stuff is. I heard that the Super Bowl was in 3-D. Coolbeans.
Grandpa did the zip-line?! That's pretty funny. I hope he gets feeling better soon.
Elder Bliss served in La Mirada before he came to Buena Park. He's a year into his mission and he's been serving in English the whole time. He said that Buena Park is the biggest culture shock of his whole mission. He's been serving in some more upper class areas so he said that Buena Park is definitely the most ghetto of them all. But the harvest in Buena Park is the whitest of all his areas. Elder Bliss is a pretty chilled out person. Good elder.
We've had minor difficulties finding new investigators this past week. It's been really hot lately so I think most of the people just aren't home- probably hanging out at the beach. We've knocked more doors this week than I ever have before. I'm trying to figure out how Elder Rodriguez did things because whatever he did it worked. I think I've kind of got an idea of how his plans worked- between appointments we went to potentials and other investigators and set up tons of appointments and between that we just found news by contacting whoever the Lord put in our path. And I'm finding out that the poorer the area the better. The humble people are usually the most receptive.
Yesterday a less-active lady had us help her move. She's moving to a place with caretakers for her because she has some disabilities. She didn't take a lot of stuff with her. She just took her birdcage, a sofa, her TV, a couple lamps and her rack of CDs. Then she invited us to take anything else we wanted from her apartment and to lock the key inside because she told us she wasn't coming back. She left a ton of stuff behind. Her bed, most of her clothes, her electric wheelchair, her food and bathroom stuff, chairs and shelves and antiques... It almost felt like she didn't really know what she was doing. But she invited us to take her TV-dinner tables so we just took those and some toilet paper. It was odd.
Amalia Ramos still wants to be baptized. It's fun teaching someone in Spanish. I have a testimony of the gift of tongues. I asked her if she wanted to go to the Spanish ward because she speaks mostly spanish but she said no because "Yo quiero asistir a la iglesia con mi hijos" (I want to go to church with my sons.) We said alright and so we're going to continue teaching her and we're going to see her baptism through. She's really nice and I think she gets a kick out of us trying to speak spanish. David Ramos had his patriarchal blessing on Sunday and he was really excited about that. He really prepared for it well. The Patriarch told him to prepare throughout the whole week only listening to uplifting church music and focusing as hard as he could to tune into the Spirit. I can't help but wish that I'd prepared for my blessing more. But I love my blessing nonetheless.
We visited Jason Patterson yesterday and he was in the middle of watching the Office. That put me through a trip. I'd completely forgotten about the Office. He said Jim and Pam aren't married yet. He said that the episode on last night was one of the best he'd ever seen. He's been reading the Jesus the Christ that I gave him and he said it's making him think a lot. The whole Christ being Jehovah, the God of this world and of the Old Testament is really hard for him to understand. It's hard for me to understand too but I don't really let it bug me.
This Friday is Zone Conferance so I get to have an interview with President Sexton! I need to come up with a good doctrine question to ask him this time.
Things are still bueno in Buena Park. I love you!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis