Hello!
First of all yes I got rear-ended last week. I don't remember what day it was but that Luis Campoy person just wasn't paying attention and he rear-ended us at the intersection of Paramount Blvd and Rosecrans. The damage was minimum - chipped paint and a small dent - but I had to get his info because it's not my car. Elder Blake, the Vehicle Coordinator, is taking care of the situation. I don't think you're supposed to do anything because it's not your car and not on your insurance. I already got the guy's insurance information and sent it to the mission office so I believe it's been taken care of.
We've had to drop a lot of our investigators lately because they're not progressing. We're in the process of switching up our teaching pool though. We've been visiting a 91-yr-old lady named Grandma Helen Seabolt who's been going to church for a few years now but hasn't been baptized because she's terrified of going into the water. And that's her main concern. She's already read the Book of Mormon a couple times and she already knows the Church is true-- she's just scared of the water. It's more of an obstacle than you'd think. She's in a wheelchair because she broke both her legs when she fell in the shower once. Yesterday we tried to commit her to be baptized in February and she just flat-out said "NO." It's funny teaching senior citizens. It's really really hard to keep the lesson on topic. Sis. Seabolt said something pretty hilarious yesterday. She said, "I used to have to walk five miles to go to school, sometimes in the snow." To that I asked, "Was it uphill both ways?" She responded "Yes, both. And everyday before breakfast I'd have to wake up real early and milk FIVE cows." I couldn't help but chuckle.
Sis. Seabolt was our only investigator who came to church on Sunday. Javier and Margarette aren't willing to get married so their progression slowed down a lot. Jasmine Lopez's mom keeps taking her away over the weekends to keep her from coming to church. And the rest of the people who had dates just aren't keeping their commitments so they've been dropped. So we're trying hard to find find find. Last night we found a big Samoan family. They're diehard Catholics, the mom especially. She was willing to listen to us though. She asked us whether Joseph Smith was Catholic before because she'd noticed that our Church has some similarities with the Catholic Church. To that we explained the Great Apostasy to her. I don't think she fully understands what we're telling her yet. So we just have to carefully teach the family that we claim to be the only true and living Church upon the face of the whole earth with which the Lord is well pleased. :)
Elders Harris and Black had a baptism on Sunday! Carol Jarrett, a 63-yr-old black lady, was baptized by Elder Harris on Sunday. I got to interview her on Saturday and she is AMAZING. She's a strong convert. She's only been visiting with the Elders for about 3 weeks now-- she'd have them come over for an hour 3 times a week to have her "Bible study."
So that's about all for this week. Hope all's going well in Utah! The weather here is kind of lame now, but I'm not one to complain because there's no snow. There's been a lot of rain though. The roads got pretty flooded last week. It was fun to drive through. Have a great week!
I love you!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
January 12th, 2009 (Email)
Hi!
I went fishing this morning! A Samoan man from our ward with a last name I can't yet pronounce took all six of us missionaries to the pier and we fished for a few hours. We call the man Ani. That's his first name, pronounced "Angee". He's paralyzed from the waste down, which made driving with him interesting. He drives with some sort of metal cane contraption and he said he used to drive with a baseball bat. I'm pretty sure he's paralyzed because of something that happened in his past gangster life. He's been wanting to take us fishing for a while so after getting permission we decided to take him up on the offer today. That was my first time ever fishing in the ocean. We were right across from the Queen Mary. I didn't catch anything but Elder Black caught a starfish. A pelican flew up onto the pier and I touched it. I took some good pictures.
Elder Beverley and I have been having tons of success lately. We're teaching several new people. We're teaching a couple named Javier and Margarette and also her grandfather named Jose. Javier is in a wheelchair and he went to church on Sunday. They're all super excited about the gospel--- well, at least I'm sure Javier and Margarette are. Jose's an old man from Chihuahua and sometimes I wonder whether he's really awake during some of our lessons. But anyway all three of them have set baptismal dates. Javier and Jose want to be baptized on the 31st and Margarette wants to be baptized Feb 6th. But first we need to make sure Javier and Margarette either get married or have one of them move somewhere else. Law of Chastity lesson will be fun as usual. We're teaching a bunch of other people too. In fact yesterday we spent the majority of the day teaching people. We taught six solid lessons yesterday.
Elder Beverley is doing well. I've been encouraging him to speak more. He's still kind of quiet but he's doing better. I told him that as a missionary you must "open thy mouth" as the Lord teaches throughout the scriptures.
Elder Harris and Elder Black are doing great. They're on bike and they've been working real hard. They are teaching lots of great people and have several people with baptismal dates. Elder Black is from Montana.
So about Catalina Island. It's a couple hours from the shore so it's its own area and there are only two elders stationed there at a time. It's supposed to be a really tough area because it's so small and everyone's been talked to already.
Being a District Leader is going good. I'm getting used to the daily routine of calling people and checking up on the elders' investigators and reporting to the zone leaders. I go to bed exhausted every night so I'm happy about that.
Have a dandy week and I love you!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
I went fishing this morning! A Samoan man from our ward with a last name I can't yet pronounce took all six of us missionaries to the pier and we fished for a few hours. We call the man Ani. That's his first name, pronounced "Angee". He's paralyzed from the waste down, which made driving with him interesting. He drives with some sort of metal cane contraption and he said he used to drive with a baseball bat. I'm pretty sure he's paralyzed because of something that happened in his past gangster life. He's been wanting to take us fishing for a while so after getting permission we decided to take him up on the offer today. That was my first time ever fishing in the ocean. We were right across from the Queen Mary. I didn't catch anything but Elder Black caught a starfish. A pelican flew up onto the pier and I touched it. I took some good pictures.
Elder Beverley and I have been having tons of success lately. We're teaching several new people. We're teaching a couple named Javier and Margarette and also her grandfather named Jose. Javier is in a wheelchair and he went to church on Sunday. They're all super excited about the gospel--- well, at least I'm sure Javier and Margarette are. Jose's an old man from Chihuahua and sometimes I wonder whether he's really awake during some of our lessons. But anyway all three of them have set baptismal dates. Javier and Jose want to be baptized on the 31st and Margarette wants to be baptized Feb 6th. But first we need to make sure Javier and Margarette either get married or have one of them move somewhere else. Law of Chastity lesson will be fun as usual. We're teaching a bunch of other people too. In fact yesterday we spent the majority of the day teaching people. We taught six solid lessons yesterday.
Elder Beverley is doing well. I've been encouraging him to speak more. He's still kind of quiet but he's doing better. I told him that as a missionary you must "open thy mouth" as the Lord teaches throughout the scriptures.
Elder Harris and Elder Black are doing great. They're on bike and they've been working real hard. They are teaching lots of great people and have several people with baptismal dates. Elder Black is from Montana.
So about Catalina Island. It's a couple hours from the shore so it's its own area and there are only two elders stationed there at a time. It's supposed to be a really tough area because it's so small and everyone's been talked to already.
Being a District Leader is going good. I'm getting used to the daily routine of calling people and checking up on the elders' investigators and reporting to the zone leaders. I go to bed exhausted every night so I'm happy about that.
Have a dandy week and I love you!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
January 19th, 2010 (Email)
Good afternoon!
This week we taught many people. Most of our investigators with baptismal dates don't anymore either because they're not really that interested, not keeping commitments, or can't be baptized at this time. One was so drunk when we visited him that he just about fell over. He mumbled a lot and smelled pretty bad. He's not keeping the Word of Wisdom or the Law of Chastity and we haven't seen any improvement so we had to stop visiting him. Two of our investigators are co-habitating and they have no intentions of moving out or getting married. We're still visiting them a little because the boyfriend comes to church and they're still way interested in learning. We'll see if they'll keep some of the other commandments. And an old hispanic man we've been teaching told us that he killed a man in Mexico and served 6 years in prison for it! We'd still have him be interviewed by President Sexton if he had a testimony and would come to church but he's not progressing very much.
We do have some great investigators too though. We're teaching a person named Johnathon who's about our age and he keeps most of his commitments. He's set to be baptized on the 31st. He needs to come to church first though. And we're also still working with Jasmine Lopez. We haven't been able to see her for a couple weeks because she's been going to her mom's place on and off and missing our appointments but we're set to visit her tomorrow.
It's been raining a lot for a few days now. It's not really "cold" or anything but it is pretty wet.
Elder Beverley and I are doing good. We went to the doctor today to have them test his blood for his diabetes check-up. He's progressing with his teaching. He's still pretty nervous but with time I suppose he'll get more confidant. I'm starting to notice that on my mission I've been blessed with the ability to talk with all sorts of people. My last two companions have been really nervous about talking with black people and shady gangster people but I don't seem to have any reservations. Most of them get along just fine with me.
Elder Harris and Elder Black are doing awesome. They're going to baptize a couple black ladies over the next couple weeks!
Elder Beverley and I found an amazing taco place last week called Don Chente. They make their own tortillas there and they serve legit mexican food (not american-mexican. There's a huge difference.) I don't know if I've told you this but fish tacos have become one of my favorite foods. I've learned to like seafood on my mission. I still don't really like octopus but I like shrimp and normal fish. But fish tacos, when made right, are where it's at.
All 3 of the Lord of the Rings movies Dad?! Wow! Glad to hear you're both feeling better. And I'd like to learn more about what the world would be like without the moon. That's actually pretty creative.
Gracias y les amo mucho!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
This week we taught many people. Most of our investigators with baptismal dates don't anymore either because they're not really that interested, not keeping commitments, or can't be baptized at this time. One was so drunk when we visited him that he just about fell over. He mumbled a lot and smelled pretty bad. He's not keeping the Word of Wisdom or the Law of Chastity and we haven't seen any improvement so we had to stop visiting him. Two of our investigators are co-habitating and they have no intentions of moving out or getting married. We're still visiting them a little because the boyfriend comes to church and they're still way interested in learning. We'll see if they'll keep some of the other commandments. And an old hispanic man we've been teaching told us that he killed a man in Mexico and served 6 years in prison for it! We'd still have him be interviewed by President Sexton if he had a testimony and would come to church but he's not progressing very much.
We do have some great investigators too though. We're teaching a person named Johnathon who's about our age and he keeps most of his commitments. He's set to be baptized on the 31st. He needs to come to church first though. And we're also still working with Jasmine Lopez. We haven't been able to see her for a couple weeks because she's been going to her mom's place on and off and missing our appointments but we're set to visit her tomorrow.
It's been raining a lot for a few days now. It's not really "cold" or anything but it is pretty wet.
Elder Beverley and I are doing good. We went to the doctor today to have them test his blood for his diabetes check-up. He's progressing with his teaching. He's still pretty nervous but with time I suppose he'll get more confidant. I'm starting to notice that on my mission I've been blessed with the ability to talk with all sorts of people. My last two companions have been really nervous about talking with black people and shady gangster people but I don't seem to have any reservations. Most of them get along just fine with me.
Elder Harris and Elder Black are doing awesome. They're going to baptize a couple black ladies over the next couple weeks!
Elder Beverley and I found an amazing taco place last week called Don Chente. They make their own tortillas there and they serve legit mexican food (not american-mexican. There's a huge difference.) I don't know if I've told you this but fish tacos have become one of my favorite foods. I've learned to like seafood on my mission. I still don't really like octopus but I like shrimp and normal fish. But fish tacos, when made right, are where it's at.
All 3 of the Lord of the Rings movies Dad?! Wow! Glad to hear you're both feeling better. And I'd like to learn more about what the world would be like without the moon. That's actually pretty creative.
Gracias y les amo mucho!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
January 5th, 2009 (Email)
Buenas tardes!
My new companion is Elder Beverley from Salt Lake City Utah. He's a good elder. He lives around "Taylorsville" if you know what that is. He's kind of nervous still but he's getting used to it all. He's diabetic so that's interesting.
We've had some good experiences this week. We committed four people to baptismal dates over the course of the week. Not all of them are very solid and we're having a hard time getting in contact with most of them but we thought it was neat that they all said yes to the baptismal invite. The zone leaders were pretty excited. We're working with Robert Hullett again because he said he's willing to move out of his girlfriend's apartment by the 10th and he has a desire to live the word of wisdom. He committed to be baptized on the 17th. Two of the people with dates were just people we invited to be baptized on initial contact- their names are Johnathon and Edgar. And the last person with a date is named Frank Hernandez and he's really friendly but he doesn't show much commitment. We haven't been able to contact Jasmine Lopez all week though we've tried every day. We set up an appointment to visit her on Thursday though so we'll see how that goes. We did see her last Tuesday and that appointment went really well. She still really wanted to be baptized and her dad still supported her but they just didn't want to set up a date yet. So what we planned to do during our weely planning session is we're going to set up a day for her to have a baptismal interview with the zone leaders "just to see how she'll do." ;) And then she and her dad will see that she's way prepared and we'll move on forward and baptize her! That's the plan at least. We'll see how it goes.
It's really fun having Elder Harris and his greenie Elder Black living with us. Elder Harris has already organized the kitchen. I had the rest of the apartment all clean for them when they moved in and they were pretty excited about that. Elder Harris and Elder Black are on bike so they're exhausted by the end of the day. I can't count on my hands how many times Elder Harris has yelled "my anus is bleeding!"
Yesterday Elder Harris and I got bored during our dinner break so we looked through the Ensigns and found the three most attractive daughters of Zion in the ensigns and made a collage we entitled "Search Ponder and Pray." One is of a girl studying the scriptures, one is from the cover of the "steadfast and single" edition with the girl sitting at her desk pondering, and one is of a girl praying over her probably Dutch Book of Mormon. I took a picture. ;) Dont' worry, we're focused!
Elder Beverley and I ran into a drunk man up north in Paramount who stopped us and started exhorting us to go to Catalina Island. He told us "you should ask the Lord in a prayer-- tell him that Martell, who may have had a few too many drinks, came and told you that your leaders should send you to Catalina Island." Then he said a prayer for us which kind of went like this: "Please bless that these young men may be able to reach the stars, maybe not on their 100th try, but perhaps on their 101st try they'll just nick one of those stars. And please bless that they'll be able to meet the people you would have them meet, and that they'll have beautiful children. Amen." It was classic.
I've been really busy as a District Leader. The zone leaders are having me call all the elders in my district every night to check up on how their investigators with baptismal dates are doing. Elders Kemp and Twiss had a baptism on Sunday. That's pretty cool.
Well that's all folks! Have a great week and keep up with the running! Love you!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
My new companion is Elder Beverley from Salt Lake City Utah. He's a good elder. He lives around "Taylorsville" if you know what that is. He's kind of nervous still but he's getting used to it all. He's diabetic so that's interesting.
We've had some good experiences this week. We committed four people to baptismal dates over the course of the week. Not all of them are very solid and we're having a hard time getting in contact with most of them but we thought it was neat that they all said yes to the baptismal invite. The zone leaders were pretty excited. We're working with Robert Hullett again because he said he's willing to move out of his girlfriend's apartment by the 10th and he has a desire to live the word of wisdom. He committed to be baptized on the 17th. Two of the people with dates were just people we invited to be baptized on initial contact- their names are Johnathon and Edgar. And the last person with a date is named Frank Hernandez and he's really friendly but he doesn't show much commitment. We haven't been able to contact Jasmine Lopez all week though we've tried every day. We set up an appointment to visit her on Thursday though so we'll see how that goes. We did see her last Tuesday and that appointment went really well. She still really wanted to be baptized and her dad still supported her but they just didn't want to set up a date yet. So what we planned to do during our weely planning session is we're going to set up a day for her to have a baptismal interview with the zone leaders "just to see how she'll do." ;) And then she and her dad will see that she's way prepared and we'll move on forward and baptize her! That's the plan at least. We'll see how it goes.
It's really fun having Elder Harris and his greenie Elder Black living with us. Elder Harris has already organized the kitchen. I had the rest of the apartment all clean for them when they moved in and they were pretty excited about that. Elder Harris and Elder Black are on bike so they're exhausted by the end of the day. I can't count on my hands how many times Elder Harris has yelled "my anus is bleeding!"
Yesterday Elder Harris and I got bored during our dinner break so we looked through the Ensigns and found the three most attractive daughters of Zion in the ensigns and made a collage we entitled "Search Ponder and Pray." One is of a girl studying the scriptures, one is from the cover of the "steadfast and single" edition with the girl sitting at her desk pondering, and one is of a girl praying over her probably Dutch Book of Mormon. I took a picture. ;) Dont' worry, we're focused!
Elder Beverley and I ran into a drunk man up north in Paramount who stopped us and started exhorting us to go to Catalina Island. He told us "you should ask the Lord in a prayer-- tell him that Martell, who may have had a few too many drinks, came and told you that your leaders should send you to Catalina Island." Then he said a prayer for us which kind of went like this: "Please bless that these young men may be able to reach the stars, maybe not on their 100th try, but perhaps on their 101st try they'll just nick one of those stars. And please bless that they'll be able to meet the people you would have them meet, and that they'll have beautiful children. Amen." It was classic.
I've been really busy as a District Leader. The zone leaders are having me call all the elders in my district every night to check up on how their investigators with baptismal dates are doing. Elders Kemp and Twiss had a baptism on Sunday. That's pretty cool.
Well that's all folks! Have a great week and keep up with the running! Love you!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
