October 6th, 2009 (Email)

Hello!
Sam Sakely got baptized last week! I just read her name at the top of the announcements today! That made my day.
Sounds like a lot's happening back home. I hope all goes well with the website deal today Dad. I told a few members about it. Don't give up on running! That's the whole problem when people try to exercise is that eventually they give up! Mom, please tell Hannah not to be sad. I don't know what's going on next year at this time so nobody needs to worry about missing me yet. And I hope Grandpa's surgery goes well. Lots of prayers.
General Conference was great as usual! Yeah I missed home a little bit too but not too much. I've only got about 11 months left and that's no time! It freaks me out sometimes so I try to ignore it. I learned a lot from the prophet and the apostles. I especially liked Elder Richard G. Scott's talk about spiritual communication and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk about the Book of Mormon.
Two members from our ward passed away last week. One was Bro. Ray Hall. Bro. Hall was a great man. I'd visited him several times these past six months. We'd go over there to share a brief lesson with him mostly because he just liked having the missionaries over. He came to a couple appointments with us and he attended our Gospel Principles class every week. Whenever we'd visit he'd always give us a banana, a cookie and a soda. Every time. He was a sweet old man and we'll miss him. He died peacefully in his sleep Saturday night. Sis. Kawamoto passed as well. Several months ago I went with Elder Anderson and Bishop Jensen (ward mission leader) to go give her and her husband blessings before she went to get treated for cancer. I suppose it was their time for both of them.
Elder Harris and I had an interesting experience last week with a man named Charles Meachum. Charles is a man somewhere in his 50s who just had open-heart surgery. We ran into him knocking and when I started speaking to him he quickly said "I don't believe in any of that." He's an atheist. So we offered to give him some service. He looked a little intrigued and asked if we mowed lawns. A couple days later we had a great service project! It was great. His yard needed some work to say the least because he just flat out couldn't do it. So we trimmed some trees and cut up some branches and I mowed his lawn and weedwacked some weeds. It was so much fun! After that we set up an appointment to teach him the Gospel. He watched a session of General Conference over the weekend and yesterday he told us that he didn't like how we believe that we're so dependent on God. He said he didn't believe in God and didn't think He'd ever done anything for him. He said that he didn't care what happens after this life and he didn't credit God for anything. And then he started rambling and told us a fascinating story about motorcycles. I listened intently to the whole thing, feeling very enlightened. Here's his story:
He had a nephew who wanted to buy a motorcycle from him. It was worth $5,000 but he sold it to his nephew for $3,000. He gave his nephew this nugget of advice: "There are two types of bikers on the road: there are those that have fallen and those that will fall." He said that there were some parts on the motorcycle that needed to be fixed before it hit the streets. He gave his nephew a list telling him exactly what needed to be fixed and replaced. His nephew took the bike home and fixed some of the parts but neglected to repair some vital parts. Then he hit the highway. Eventually he crashed on some off-ramp and he broke his wrist. As a consequence Charles took the bike back and told his nephew he could have it back when he could afford to repair everything on the bike. He knew that his nephew wasn't capable of paying for everything so he mercifully gave him a deal that if he'd help around the yard he'd eventually earn the bike back. Eventually Charles returned the motorcycle to his nephew. He said "I liked the kid- I just didn't want to be responsible for his death." He also explained, "I raised the kid as my own. I'd give anything of mine to him- all he'd have to do is ask."
Do you get it? It's a very profound explanation of the plan of salvation from God's point of view! I explained it to Elder Harris after the conversation and he was amazed. He was wondering why I let Charles ramble on for so long. We're going to use a lot of Charles Meachum's own words when we teach him the plan of salvation.
Sister Chun's dinners are always good. She bought us some burritos from Chipotle's yesterday. They were huge and they were good, but man they messed me up this morning. While I was living with Sister Chun I paid for my haircuts because I had extra money due to Sister Chun not wanting us to waste any food. But other than those four months I've just let other missionaries cut my hair. It works out just fine. I can hardly tell a difference.
Yay a package! Hm... I'd like some stamps if that's okay. Maybe some colored pencils and some zebra pens? Definitely some letters and some more drawings from Hannah. PICTURES. I want to see some recent photage of y'all!
Gracias. I love you!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis