May 5th, 2009 (Email)

Things are chuggin' along here in Cerritos. I've been in Hawaiian Gardens and the One-Ways several times now. It's not that bad. Mind it that I've never been to those areas past 6:00 p.m. Elder Anderson says HG really is not a good place in the evening. And I choose to follow his theory that the Lord will protect us as long as we don't do anything rash. By the way Elder Anderson is from Mississippi. The reason while he'll be moving to the Tumekula/Muretta area is because that's where his dad found employment. His dad's an accountant and he found a job at one of the Indian casinos up there.
Our area's pretty big. We have Cerritos, part of Artesia, part of Norwalk, Lakewood, and all of Hawaiian Gardens. I sort of know where I am most of the time. It'll be a while until I know where all the streets are.
Sa' Lesatele has been taught all 4 lessons now. We're going to go over the baptismal interview questions with her tonight, then she'll be interviewed after her wedding this Saturday. This weekend will be nuts- we've got a marriage, an appointment with a new investigator, this band thing one of our less-active youth girls wants us to come see, and a Ward-Luau. And that's just Saturday. Sunday we have to give talks in sacrament, then we'll have correlation meeting after church, then we'll study, then we'll have Sa's baptism, and then we'll call home. So you should expect my phonecall Sunday evening at 7:00 or 8:00 your time.
Here's something neat I realized while studying the scriptures a couple days ago. I'm going to give you the references and then you can read what I read: Isaiah 2:3; the Bible Dict.- "Temple" (2nd paragraph:2nd sentence); 1 Nephi 17:7; and finally 1 Nephi 18:3. Read them in that order and then ponder what Nephi is telling us to do in that last reference, especially taking into consideration Elder Bednar's Conference talk last month.
Last week there was a lot of hype about this swine flu stuff going around down in Mexico. Sis. Sexton advised us to carry around some hand sanitizer and to wash our hand frequently. So far I don't have it and so far it sounds like it's not all it's cracked up to be. But I will wash my hands frequently despite the rumors.
It's great to hear that Grandma's doing better. I think I'm going to write the grandparents today. I put it in the plans. There's a lot of elderly people in the Cerritos 1st Ward because most of the younger people can't afford to live here. Cerritos is pretty well-to-do. Pretty stark contrast compared to the Southern part of this area.
Here's some of the Polynesian names I've got down here thus far- Magalogo, Ta'aga, Lesatele... and that's all. I'll probably learn more at the Luau this weekend. They'll be serving us a roasted pig. I'm excited.
I'm being fed just fine. I'm not getting overloaded. Either that or I can just eat a lot more than I used to be able to. Yesterday I found out that I've cracked 150 lbs.
Elder Anderson and I haven't had a good opportunity to put our Zone Conference training into practice yet. I know the chance will come. We found seven new investigators last week and we have some of their return appointments coming up so we'll get to challenge people to baptism soon. Some of the new investigators are flaky though. But that's how they usually are at first. These people have to be given lots of second chances because they don't really know what they're ditching yet.
As I mentioned we had a good week last week. We found 7 new investigators, taught 6 lessons with a member present, and taught 22 other lessons. You may be wondering why we haven't had a chance to commit people to baptism during the first lesson yet- and here's why: most of those lessons are with less-active members, members after dinner appointments, and brief minute-long mini-lessons on the front porch when we're setting up an appointment with a new investigator just barely contacted. A lesson consists of: a taught principle and a commitment, usually preceded and followed by prayer. So we have lots of lessons. Just not a lot of solid appointment lessons. Most of our solid appointment lessons are with Sa' Lesatele with our less-active member families.
So now you know what's going on here. Sounds like you're all doing well too. Hope you have a happy Cinco de Mayo! Watch out for those cholos con cervezas en la calle! I'm looking forward to Sunday! I'll talk to you very soon!
Love,Elder
Tyler Lewis P.S.- what? The Pummells didn't drop off my stuff? I've been wondering about that. I'll have to write Elder Bliss and tell him to go get it back from them. Oh well. It's all good.

I forgot to tell you about this:
Elder Anderson and I had a great experience with on of our 15 Families. The Norris family let us come over to "practice" teaching them the first lesson. The non-member husband, Leonard, decided to sit in for the lesson. He had a lot of good questions. He asked about the Book of Mormon and its purpose. At one point during that lesson I tried to lead up to the baptismal commitment but the Spirit directed me otherwise. I told Leonard that when he gains a testimony of the Book of Mormon he'll have faith in Christ, he'll want to repent and he'll want to be baptized and receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Then he sidetracked me with an irrelevant question and I realized he wasn't really taking in what I was saying. By all means I want to commit somebody to baptism during the very first lesson, but for some reason it didn't feel like the right thing to do during this particular appointment. I'm not sure why. It was still a positive experience though.
O.K. that's all. Bye!