May 12th, 2010 (Email)

Hello!

It was great talking with you on Sunday, although 40 minutes isn't a very long time. That phone call just kind of blended in with all the other phone calls and it already feels like it was a long time ago. Weird.
Speaking of phone calls, I got a phone call from Dixie (David's Dixie) the other day. She heard that David called me so she wanted to talk with me too. She said that they're preparing to go through the temple within the next couple of months and they were wondering if I could be David's escort. So I asked President and he said yes. (!) She also asked if she could get Elder Rodriguez's address. So I asked President and he said that I could call Elder Rodriguez and ask for permission. (!) I've tried to call him a few times but he hasn't picked up yet. But pretty cool huh?
We had zone conference yesterday. It was really good. President and the Assistants and the Zone Leaders trained us for a while. President taught us how to help people keep their commitments to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. He said that it's very unlikely that a person will get baptized if they don't seriously keep that commitment. So he said that we shouldn't move on to the 2nd Lesson if our investigators don't read and pray about the Book of Mormon after the 1st Lesson. Rather, if they neglect to read and pray, we are to read from the Book of Mormon with them during our following visit. He said that the Brethren want us to invite people to read the Book of Mormon in its entirety from the very beginning. President ended zone conference by giving us some post-mission advice. He shared some of the stuff he shares with missionaries during their departing interviews, since he won't get to have that interview with most of us. This basically sums up what he told us: "Happy wife = happy life." Good counsel. He told us a lot of stuff about marrying the right girl at the right place and stuff like that. He said we should tuck all that information away until after the mission. My next interview with President Sexton will be my last.
Bro. Doug Tice received the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday. Elder Cluff and I got to stand in the circle when he was ordained. He'll be passing the sacrament next Sunday.
Elder Cluff and I have been working pretty hard both in and out of the office. We're trying to do our part to find people that can be baptized. We've set goals and we're trying to teach as many people as we can within the time we have.
I don't know if I told you but a family from the Cerritos 1st Ward just moved into the Atherton Ward boundaries recently. They're the Norris family. I visited them just about every week during the seven months I served in Cerritos. Sister Norris was just endowed last fall. She's married to a non-member named Leonard. She has three kids that are semi-active. They were on our "15 families" list. I'm excited to work with them again. Maybe Leonard will decide to get baptized now.
Hey I just got a call back from Elder Rodriguez! Awesome. He's doing good. He's going to BYU like I said and he's taking about 5 classes. He was excited to hear about all that's going on here in the mission. I gave him David & Dixie's address and phone number so he'll be able to contact them now.
Diana came to church again on Sunday. She's under the impression that she needs to take her time before getting baptized. She's talked with a couple converts in our ward and asked them how long they took to get baptized (no! not that question!) and they said "oh, 8 months" or "oh, a year and a half." Blast. You see, there's technically only 4 lessons that proceed baptism. If she takes forever we'll just end up teaching her those 4 lessons over and over and over and over... She just needs to pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true NOW and as soon as she'll accept an answer she'll get the right one! Oh well. We're teaching her again tonight so we'll so how it goes.
I'm hungry and I need to e-mail President now! Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Tyler J. Lewis