March 3rd, 2009 (Email)

I am no longer a Greenie! As of today! Remember 6 months ago? I sure do. To be completely honest I did not enjoy that first day much at all. It was a really really really tough day for me. It probably was for all of us. It was probably the hardest day of my life to tell you the truth. Definitely the hardest month of my life. I look back and wonder: How did I make it to this point?? How did I walk past that first step??? Lots of prayer and lots of help from my Heavenly Father is definitely a big part of the answer. I read 3 Nephi 27 during my personal study this morning and received a little more revelation and realization about the purpose of Christ's gospel. Jesus says something to the effect of "even as I was lifted up by men shall men be lifted up by the Father." His work is to lift us up. He has lifted me up countless times. And the blessings truly come after a trial of your faith.
Denny-Ray-Billy-Shaw Stelly is going to be baptized March 14th! So I'm torn; part of me wants to stay in Buena Park to see that happen and part of me wants to start a new adventure. I have no idea what the President's decision will be regarding whether or not I'll be transferred. We'll see!
We met with Sam on Saturday! Finally! We studied a little about Lehi's dream and extracted some deeper stuff and applied it to our lives. President Sexton explained last zone conference that the tree of life is Christ and that the fruit of the tree of life is His Atonement. Lehi never left the tree of life in his vision; rather he beckoned and called to his family inviting them to come and partake of the fruit also. But he never left the tree. NEVER LEAVE THE TREE. That's what we told Sam and then we asked if she'd like a priesthood blessing. She was crying at that point and quickly said yes. I'm always a little nervous to give blessings but I did it anyways. I think it helped because on Sunday she came to church AND SHE BROUGHT HER DAD! Sam mentioned that she'll probably start attending the Singles Ward pretty soon. That's a great idea.
Yesterday we had splits. I stayed in my area again and my companion for the day was my District Leader, Elder Thompson. He's an amazing missionary and he taught me a lot. We had no appointments yesterday so I was a little worried about planning the night before. It's usually pretty painful to plan for an empty day. But Elder Thompson had me use Preach My Gospel to guide our planning session and before we knew it the day was full. And we were way busy yeserday! It was a miracle! We set goals to teach one lesson with a member present, four other lessons and to find two new investigators. We met all our goals and exceeded our goal for how many lessons we taught-- we taught six! It was a really productive day. We also stopped by Robbie Reed and gave him a blessing because he's sick. I've had to give lots and lots of blessings on my mission already. I love it!
On Sunday we had FIVE investigators come to church! That's the most we've had this transfer! It pales in comparison to the eight investigators we had coming to church repeatedly when I was with Elder Rodriguez but then again most of those investigators have been batpized now so five is great! And David Guiterrez (Dixie's David) bore his testimony during sacrament! That was so cool. He talked about the night Elder Rodriguez and I knocked on his door and he bore testimony of the Word of Wisdom and how the Lord has blessed his family after he chose to give up certain things and he also talked about how thankful he is for Christ and his sacrifices. It definitely made my day to see him stand up at that pulpit. We actually subtly challenged him to do that during our last lesson when we read with their family what Preach My Gospel says about the importance of bearing your testimony often. David Guiterrez has come a long way during the brief four months we've been visiting his family. He's gone from ex-cholo (cholo means gangster) to saint!
I'm still loving the mission and I still love Buena Park. I'm excited to not be a Greenie anymore and I'm amazed that it's been 6 months already. I'm a quarter of the way back to that airplane and I'm going to keep living every moment of this time to its fullest because this is it. Gotta be obedient.
iLes amo! (I love you!)
con amor,
Elder Tyler Lewis