Feb. 17th, 2010 (Email)

Hello again!

David Gutierrez called you!!?? That's so cool! When I was teaching him he'd often pull out his phone and say that he was going to call Mom and say hello for me. I always told him not to though. He looked up my name on the internet in his phone and found our home number. Thank you for letting me know that he's still active. I love that family. That's one I plan to visit after the mission.
Life in the office is going well. I'm always pretty busy. A lot of work goes into travel arrangements for arriving and departing missionaries. The stuff I have to do isn't really complicated; it just takes time. I submit baptismal records to Church Headquarters, send letters to elders' parents from President, organize elders' files and work out their visa problems and flight plans, etc. And sometimes President has us go do random assignments. Last week he had Elder Collier and I, the Assistants and the Zone Leaders go with him and Elder Blake (vehicle coordinator) to the Arcadia Mission to pick up some new Chevi Malibus for our mission-- and then he had us all split up and each drive a car back to the office. So I was alone in a car outside of the mission. Well, I followed President all the way back on the freeway so I wasn't really alone alone, but kind of. It was still pretty awesome. He must trust us quite a bit because he's usually pretty strict about us not leaving our areas and never being alone. And then he let Elder Collier I take one of the Malibus for us to use for ourselves. Perks! Another good thing about the office is the Blakes. We work in the office with a senior-couple and their daughter. Elder and Sister Blake are really nice and their daughter is really nice too. Sister Lisa Blake (the younger) is a little handicapped but she's actually really smart and does a great job working here with her parents.
Last week President while President Sexton was walking out of the office he stopped at the door and decided to tell the Blakes and Elder Collier and I who the new mission president will be. He said his name is President Bubert and he's from Bountiful. Then he went on to say that I'll probably still be here in the office when he comes and he'll be depending a lot on the Blakes and I to help President Bubert make the transition as the new mission president because he probably won't really know much about what goes on in the office. So I'll probably get to spend about two weeks working with President Bubert here (it's against church policy to have a missionary finish their mission in the office so that's why I'll only stay here for a little bit when he comes.) Elder Colllier is on his 4th transfer in the office so that's about how long missionaries normally stay here. So it sounds like President wants me to gain experience here so I'll be ready to help President Bubert out when he comes.
Some transfer info: Elder Harris is still with Elder Black so he doesn't have a new companion. He's doing fine. I get to call a lot of the missionaries in the mission and they often call me so I've already talked with him. And Elder Beverley is with Elder Dunn in Paramount. Elder Twiss got transferred to Whittier.
I love the Atherton Ward. We have a great bishop and a great ward mission leader. The ward is very missionary minded-- they have 15 ward missionaries!! They're good at giving us referrals. Brother Minus is our ward mission leader and he was actually baptized a year ago. He was taught by Elder Rada. He's a very man and he lives in a place called Naples which looks a lot like the Naples in Italy from what I've heard. We had lunch with Bro. and Sis. Minus outside right next to the canal. Our area includes the coast so we've proselyted by the ocean a few times (not on the beach but in the neighborhoods by the boardwalk on the peninsula.) One night we were led to a woman from Ogden who's not a member and just recently moved to the peninsula. It was a great experience of being led by the Spirit. Hopefully we'll get to teach her soon because she sounded interested. We've started teaching an inactive man named Bro. Gowen who suffers from amnesia and short-term memory loss due to a biking accident he had in 2001. He can't remember the '90s and has to write down every little thing he does and plans to do each day. He's very accountable though. He went less-active when he was about 18 years old. He's in his 50s now. He can't remember names well and can barely remember the day before-- but he remembers to keep the commitments we leave him because he writes them down in his notebook. So, ironically, the man with amnesia remembers to keep his commitments. He read 3Nephi chapter 11 on Sunday and actually remembered quite a bit about what he'd read. We had a really powerful lesson a couple days ago. We taught him about the Restoration and committed him to pray daily. He had us write a reminder in his notebook so I wrote the words "Did you think to pray?" in a place where he'd see it every day.
Elder Collier is a great missionary. We get along really well and I'm really enjoying working with him. We've had a lot of great experiences already so I'm more than just fine with the new assignment I have and the new area I'm working in. Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
P.S.-Hope you liked the Valentine's package I sent you. I don't wear my lavalava every night as pajamas but sometimes I do. I got the package you sent me. Thanks mucho! I love the Power Rangers and the Looney Tunes T-shirts. And those dried apple chips were way good. I kept them in my drawer as an office snack. One thing though- the CD you sent me doesn't work. It only has about half of a song on it and it just skips over and over again. I think the problem may have been either the type of CD or if you pulled the songs off of my old i-pod that could have caused issues too. Whatev. Gracias!