September 8th, 2009 (Email)

Howdy!
Elder Harris and I are still working hard just trying to find, teach and baptize people. It's been a good couple of weeks. Jessica is still progressing just fine. She committed to keep the laws of tithing and fasting last time we visited her. I asked her if she felt a difference since she started meeting with us and she said she really has. She told us that when she moved here from Las Vegas she was feeling lost and wasn't sure what she needed to do and then Elder Rada and I came and knocked on her door just two weeks later! She has a lot of faith.
We committed another investigator to a baptismal date. His name's Charles Cole. He's an african-american brother who lives in the same neighborhood as Jessica. Now, we don't think he really understands what committing to being baptized really means quite yet, so we're real anxious for our next visit with him so that we can explain a little bit more and invite his mother to be baptized as well. Neither of them have come to church yet (partly due to Labor Day weekend) so it may take a little longer for us to work with them. I've noticed that Heavenly Father really prepared a lot of people for us to teach in that particular neighborhood. There are at least two other investigators we're working with there as well. There are actually fish in the sea of Cerritos!
So remember Hyemi Choi? She was a Korean girl that Elder Rada and I taught for a few weeks and then she decided she just wanted to go to institute because we kept inviting her to be baptized and she didn't think she was ready. Well, as soon as we heard Elder Choi was taking over the other half of the area Elder Rada and I and the ward all knew that if a Korean Elder started teaching Hyemi the possibilities were pretty bright. And it's true! Even though Hyemi lives in my area we set Elder Choi and his companion up to start visiting her and now, just about a week later, she's committed to be baptized on the 19th! So I'm happy about that.
Elder Harris and I have been teaching a lot of people in Spanish as of late. We found this one spanish-speaking couple named Ana and Ramiro one day by tracting in a park. Ana had met with missionaries before in Mexico and Ramiro knew a little bit about the church already. As soon as Ramiro figured out that the Book of Mormon has to do with a branch from the House of Israel he got really excited. They're sincerely interested to learn more and we have a return appointment with them tomorrow.
Yesterday we met with a man from the Pentecostal Church named Ralph. I guess Pentecostals believe that the gift of tongues is evidence that you've received the Spirit. The gift of tongues is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. If you read Acts chapter 2 it's clear that the gift of tongues is a gift of the spirit with a specific purpose: to preach the gospel. Not everbody receives that gift. The doctrine of the gift of tongues was really messed up by the Great Apostasy. But anyway, Ralph is sincerely interested to learn more and we have a return appointment with him tomorrow too. We didn't get to invite him to be baptized during our first appointment because he likes to talk a lot and he kept sidetracking us from the lesson though it really was our intention to invite him to be baptized. We're going to take care of that early on in the lesson tomorrow.
During one of our lessons with a spanish speaking person I noticed that I truly felt like my tongue had been "loosed." It was pretty neat. Elder Harris' spanish is coming along great too. He's lucky he gets to start his mission in an area where we get to teach in spanish a lot. And I'm lucky I was trained by an Ecuadorian.
Wow Dad 218 pounds!? That's amazing! Keep it up! 175 pounds eh? Good goal. I'm not sure how much I weigh right now but I think I'm still sitting at 140. Elder Harris and I run every morning for 25 to 30 minutes. I should definitely be able to run the loop with you and mom when I get home next year!
I had Elder Harris hand someone a pamphlet from the car a few days ago. When we invite someone to learn while tracting we call it an "I.T.L." (an invite to learn) so we were driving with the windows down and we pulled up to someone else with their windows down at a red light and I handed Elder Harris a pamphlet and just started yelling "Car-T.L.! Car-T.L.!" and he actually did it! It was hilarious.
Well that's what's happening. Hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
P.S. my inconsistancy with the time I e-mail is due to the inconsistancy of my P-day schedule. Sometimes we grocery shop first, sometimes not. I can't make any promises with that but for the most part I'll be e-mailing around this time.