Hey!
First off, parents: please don't send the package to the mission home. The zone leaders said it'd be difficult for me to get it before the next zone conference and I don't know when that'll be. So please just send it to the apartment. Thanks!
It's been an interesting week. First off let's talk about last Wednesday. That wasn't a fun day. The night before I woke up in a cold sweat and I threw up from the top of the bunk bed all over the wall and carpet. Don't be alarmed though I'm fine now. I felt fine enough the next day to proselyte but I still felt relatively like crap. Elder Rodriguez had whatever I had too (it was probably just the 24-hour flu), but not quite as bad. He didn't throw up. His illness involved the other extremity. That day got really rough when we were fed dinner. Twice. David and Dixie fed us burgers. They brought out their pet python and we watched it eat a live mouse! That was disturbing. I've got pictures so you'll get to enjoy that visit someday. After that dinner we were fed by our ward mission leader, Bro. Park, in his great and spacious building of a home. Have I told you about this guy's house? I don't think I have. It's a multi-million dollar mansion. The Parks are from Mongolia or something oriental like that and Bro. Park's an orthopoedic(?) surgeon so he's LOADED. He has a great and spacious building in Huntington Beach too for the weekends. His home is rejunkulously ginormous. Well, after that dinner I wanted to die. Both those meals were fantastic but I was sick and I hadn't ate anything solid that day for a reason and though I've definitely gained weight I'm still not a very big guy. I ran into this problem last night too. Dinner appointment with a sister form the ward AND with David and Dixie. And it's always a feast at David and Dixie's. I'd almost finished shrimp pasta when David asked me "Why are you sweating? Ha look at him!" I was way too full. I managed to eat it all though. Then they gave us more shrimp.... And then they gave us dessert... I was so full last night it's not even funny.
Well back to last week. Remember Raymond, the random guy who wanted to get baptized? Well things changed last week. We went to visit him and Suzanna let us enter the apartment and she was in tears yelling on the phone. That was the least funny most awkward half an hour of my mission thus far. Here's the deal: apparently Raymond and Suzanna are not married. They're engaged. That day they'd had an argument and that night they were in the process of breaking off the engagement. She was hysterical. Raymond stopped by for a second and left. I'm not sure if we've been dropped or what but things are no longer solid with Raymond. We gave Suzanna a priesthood blessing and then we had to leave. She came to church on Sunday and said things are going better now and she had her ring on still so things might be good enough for us to go back. But still - Raymond is not married. Cohabitation is happening. So the baptism cannot happen yet.
We got so close to getting Jason Patterson baptized! He's so ready! He had the baptismal interview and everything. But his wife still won't let it happen cuz she doesn't want to change from her heavy-metal rockin' ways and she keeps telling him "I didn't marry a Mormon!". I don't mean to judge but one parent is definitely setting a more firm foundation for that family than the other. Whenever we visit Jason his Mormon music's playing in the background. He has many copies of the scriptures. He's read the standard works several times. He's read TONS of church stuff and TONS of anti stuff and after like 18 years of investigating the church he's disproved all the anti stuff he's read. His testimony's uber-solid and he wants so badly to be baptized and set an example for his kids. So I am justified when I say that we are SO FRUSTRATED WITH HIS WIFE!!! We want so badly to teach her but she won't have it. She's not mean to us or anything. I think she puts on a pleasant facade for us. Jason says she knows that if she'd listen to us she'd believe. She just doesn't want to change.
Oh well. On a happier note we met Joseph. Joseph is this black kid who's about 18 years old and he's really nice and he's way open to whatever we teach him. He's digging the whole idea of the Book of Mormon and there being a prophet on the earth. He talked to his pastor about it and his pastor told him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon!?!?! Yeah. Weird for a pastor to say but Joseph's gonna do it.
On Sunday David Ramos asked me to confer upon him the Aaronic Priesthood. That was an awesome experience. Not all missionaries get to ordain one of their investigators to a priesthood office. I feel very priviledged. So now David's a priest. He's going to be such a strong member. His testimony's very strong.
Yesterday was different. Elder Rodriguez and I went on splits with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Esterholdt. I had to drive all day yesterday. Scary? Yes. But we're both alive. We taught Joseph yesterday. Elder Esterholdt was very bold with him. It was great. We read 3Nephi 11 with Joseph and Elder Esterholdt said "You do realize that what we're saying is that our church claims to be the ONLY church with the authority to baptize, right?" Joseph said "Yeah that's what I like about you and that's kind of why I let you guys in in the first place." Joseph seemed to really be into that chapter of the Book of Mormon and just really excited about the general idea of there being new scripture.
Elder Rodriguez and I have a new investigator named William who's going through a hard time. He lives in a sober home and helps out with the people there trying to overcome addictions. He's unemployed and broke. He wants us to teach him and baptize him and he made it very clear that he really needs help from the church to get him back on his feet. This may sound like he's trying to take advantage of what the church can offer but I'm pretty sure he's sincere. He said baptism is his first priority because he wants to experience that rebirth and start over. We're happy to help him on the road to baptism.
There's been this exhibit happening at the stake center called "Reflections of Christ" and it's really cool. It's a bunch of photographic art portraying the life of Christ. It's really powerful stuff. The missionaries of this stake were asked to act as guides for the people visiting the exhibit. Elder Rodriguez and I served Saturday night and we're going again tonight. It's a great opportunity for us to find new investigators cuz non-members get a chance to have us deliver a small framed copy of one of the pictures to them.
Sabrina Sanchez is getting baptized tomorrow! It looks like I'm going to get to baptize her! That'll be a great experience. Sam's still on the fence. We still don't know what's happening with Raymond. Jason's still awesome but stuck. The field's still white!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
Nicoles
David's Baptism
Dead Cockroach
December 2nd, 2008 Letter
Dear Mom, Dad & Hannah
I'm going to try and send you the SD card. If this is a padded envelope and the SD card's in it I succeeded. If this is a normal envelop with no SD I either didn't have time or I found a different way to send you some pics. If this is a padded envelope with no SD card...that's not good.
I'm eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich right now and it's great. I haven't had one of these since the MTC. After writing letters and eating we're hopefully going to play flag football again. Last week's P-day's flag football session was fun. I was way sore afterwards though. Worth it.
After P-day's over we're visiting Raymond. Can you believe the story about us finding that guy? Raymond said he knew God sent us there yesterday for a reason. I feel like we just said hello and he responded with "Baptize me!"
Well I'm going to try and write some other people today so this one's going to have to be short. But this week's email was big again. And I'm going to try to send you my pics so that's an email/letter/picture triple bonus.
The blog's looking good Dad. I loved it. It was like having the Internet access all over again!
And your Virtue talk was amazing Mom. Virtue is defiantly something this state's lacking.
I haven't had a chance to ride my bike yet. It looks sweet though! Thanks! And irons are unheard of because 1. no time 2. wrinkle free white shirts work themselves out eventually. I know it's a mother's nightmare but don't worry it's all good and I don't need an iron. Speaking of a mother's nightmare, if you get the pictures - 1. Don't worry, the cockroaches are about 80% dead now 2. yes, that possum lives outside our apartment. At least I'm pretty sure it's a possum. It was too big to be a rat I think. Well anyway.
I LOVE YOU!
Love
Elder Tyler Lewis
I'm going to try and send you the SD card. If this is a padded envelope and the SD card's in it I succeeded. If this is a normal envelop with no SD I either didn't have time or I found a different way to send you some pics. If this is a padded envelope with no SD card...that's not good.
I'm eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich right now and it's great. I haven't had one of these since the MTC. After writing letters and eating we're hopefully going to play flag football again. Last week's P-day's flag football session was fun. I was way sore afterwards though. Worth it.
After P-day's over we're visiting Raymond. Can you believe the story about us finding that guy? Raymond said he knew God sent us there yesterday for a reason. I feel like we just said hello and he responded with "Baptize me!"
Well I'm going to try and write some other people today so this one's going to have to be short. But this week's email was big again. And I'm going to try to send you my pics so that's an email/letter/picture triple bonus.
The blog's looking good Dad. I loved it. It was like having the Internet access all over again!
And your Virtue talk was amazing Mom. Virtue is defiantly something this state's lacking.
I haven't had a chance to ride my bike yet. It looks sweet though! Thanks! And irons are unheard of because 1. no time 2. wrinkle free white shirts work themselves out eventually. I know it's a mother's nightmare but don't worry it's all good and I don't need an iron. Speaking of a mother's nightmare, if you get the pictures - 1. Don't worry, the cockroaches are about 80% dead now 2. yes, that possum lives outside our apartment. At least I'm pretty sure it's a possum. It was too big to be a rat I think. Well anyway.
I LOVE YOU!
Love
Elder Tyler Lewis
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
December 2nd, 2008 (Email)
Hey!
OK first thing first: Christmas list eh?Here's what sounds good to me: candy, restaurant gift cards, cool ties, letters, candy, letters.... and cool ties. And pictures. Yeah that sounds about good. If you send me stuff I will like it. And I will eat it. I wonder how much I weigh now... Ever heard of Claim Jumpers? Their Sirloins are DIVINE.
No Sam didn't get baptized last week :( She needs to get baptized before Elder Rodriguez leaves! He's been in Buena Park for almost 9 months now and he's been working with her for a long time and she has a testimony and she's had several baptism dates but no go! She says she knows its right. But her mom says otherwise. But it'll happen. Well see.
Yesterday INCREDIBLE things happened! So all of our appointments seemed to be ditching us for the first half of the day. So we decided to knock some doors before visiting David and Dixie. For some reason some stuff happened during the first three doors so that it took a while before we could reach door 4. We herd the alarm going off in Door 2 so we checked the front and back of the apartment but we saw no fire. Door 3 complained that we woke him up (4:30 in the afternoon) All sorts of stuff happened so that we arrived at door 4 JUST AS the guy who lived there was arriving home. The wife answered the door as the husband came from behind us and walked in his apartment. 5 minutes later we found ourselves in the apartment talking and starting a lesson. The wife's name is Suzanna and she's a member. The husband's name is Raymond and he's not. They told us they haven't been to church for months. Raymond had been taking the lessons before they moved to this apartment in September but he said he didn't do "the last thing." We asked if that last thing happened to be baptism. He said "Yeah! That! I need to do that! Can we do that? Where's the church? When can I be baptized? Can you give me the lessons again?" So we taught them lesson one, they commited to come to church and we set a date for Raymond's baptism -- Dec. 14th. Yeah. Amazing. Then we visited David and Dixie and they fed us amazing mexican food again and we gave their daughter Delilah a Priesthood blessing (she has crazy dreams and sleepwalking stuff so they talked to the bishop and he told them to ask us to bless her) I got to be voice so that was neat. Okay, so their son George is 13. Here's what's happened with him since we started visiting them: he's gone to church, he likes church, he's EXCITED for church, he asked for a button up shirt and slacks, and during this appointment we found out he cut his mohawk and told David and Dixie that he wants to be baptized. Wh-h?-!so...yeah. Wow. Amazing things are happening in Buena Park. And Sabrina Sanchez is still good for Dec. 10th. I think I told you about her right? Her dad's a member - she's not. She's 21 and she's turning her life around- she's meeting with us, repenting, quitting coffee, praying, reading the scriptures, and getting baptized on the 10th. It's gonna be a great month.
Thanksgiving was good. We ate with the Woolfenden family. They had 4 huge dogs and 1 little one so that was crazy. We ate Thanksgiving dinner OUTSIDE under the blue sky and sunlight. Oh to be in California. :)
Elder Rodriguez is the hardest of the hardcore. Yeah. He's an amazing Elder and I'm blessed to have him training me. It's so cool to live with the District Leader and the Zone Leaders. Elder Esterholdt is the oldest Elder in the mission and I'm most definitely the youngest. Elder Berardy and Elder Rodriguez call me Lucky Charm Lewis now whenever something amazing happens. I got it a bunch last night after we told the ZLs about Raymond. But I know that it has nothing to do with me. THE LORD DOES HIS OWN WORK!!!
Love,Elder Tyler Lewis
(P.S. I'm going to try and send some pictures on the other computer now so that's on its way. I'm kind of nervous about sending the SD card and it's not even close to being full yet so I'm going to try this first.)
OK first thing first: Christmas list eh?Here's what sounds good to me: candy, restaurant gift cards, cool ties, letters, candy, letters.... and cool ties. And pictures. Yeah that sounds about good. If you send me stuff I will like it. And I will eat it. I wonder how much I weigh now... Ever heard of Claim Jumpers? Their Sirloins are DIVINE.
No Sam didn't get baptized last week :( She needs to get baptized before Elder Rodriguez leaves! He's been in Buena Park for almost 9 months now and he's been working with her for a long time and she has a testimony and she's had several baptism dates but no go! She says she knows its right. But her mom says otherwise. But it'll happen. Well see.
Yesterday INCREDIBLE things happened! So all of our appointments seemed to be ditching us for the first half of the day. So we decided to knock some doors before visiting David and Dixie. For some reason some stuff happened during the first three doors so that it took a while before we could reach door 4. We herd the alarm going off in Door 2 so we checked the front and back of the apartment but we saw no fire. Door 3 complained that we woke him up (4:30 in the afternoon) All sorts of stuff happened so that we arrived at door 4 JUST AS the guy who lived there was arriving home. The wife answered the door as the husband came from behind us and walked in his apartment. 5 minutes later we found ourselves in the apartment talking and starting a lesson. The wife's name is Suzanna and she's a member. The husband's name is Raymond and he's not. They told us they haven't been to church for months. Raymond had been taking the lessons before they moved to this apartment in September but he said he didn't do "the last thing." We asked if that last thing happened to be baptism. He said "Yeah! That! I need to do that! Can we do that? Where's the church? When can I be baptized? Can you give me the lessons again?" So we taught them lesson one, they commited to come to church and we set a date for Raymond's baptism -- Dec. 14th. Yeah. Amazing. Then we visited David and Dixie and they fed us amazing mexican food again and we gave their daughter Delilah a Priesthood blessing (she has crazy dreams and sleepwalking stuff so they talked to the bishop and he told them to ask us to bless her) I got to be voice so that was neat. Okay, so their son George is 13. Here's what's happened with him since we started visiting them: he's gone to church, he likes church, he's EXCITED for church, he asked for a button up shirt and slacks, and during this appointment we found out he cut his mohawk and told David and Dixie that he wants to be baptized. Wh-h?-!so...yeah. Wow. Amazing things are happening in Buena Park. And Sabrina Sanchez is still good for Dec. 10th. I think I told you about her right? Her dad's a member - she's not. She's 21 and she's turning her life around- she's meeting with us, repenting, quitting coffee, praying, reading the scriptures, and getting baptized on the 10th. It's gonna be a great month.
Thanksgiving was good. We ate with the Woolfenden family. They had 4 huge dogs and 1 little one so that was crazy. We ate Thanksgiving dinner OUTSIDE under the blue sky and sunlight. Oh to be in California. :)
Elder Rodriguez is the hardest of the hardcore. Yeah. He's an amazing Elder and I'm blessed to have him training me. It's so cool to live with the District Leader and the Zone Leaders. Elder Esterholdt is the oldest Elder in the mission and I'm most definitely the youngest. Elder Berardy and Elder Rodriguez call me Lucky Charm Lewis now whenever something amazing happens. I got it a bunch last night after we told the ZLs about Raymond. But I know that it has nothing to do with me. THE LORD DOES HIS OWN WORK!!!
Love,Elder Tyler Lewis
(P.S. I'm going to try and send some pictures on the other computer now so that's on its way. I'm kind of nervous about sending the SD card and it's not even close to being full yet so I'm going to try this first.)
November 25th, 2008 Letter
Dear Mom, Dad & Hannah
1. Yeah my bike's right here.
2. The fires are done but they were pretty close. It smelled like a campfire everywhere for a few days.
3. The Proposition 8 hasn't been a problem. Everyone pretty much agrees with us that I've met so far. Dixie said she voted No but it gave us a chance to explain why the church was so serious about it and we're going to give David & Dixie a copy of the Family Proclamation next time.
4. I'm good. Money's fine. You can send me some cookies and candy if you want though. :) As long as you send letters too!
5. I'll send you some pictures soon. I've only taken like 74 pics so far so the SD card's not even close to being full yet.
I remember Tori Welk! She was in one of my math classes Junior Year of High School. And I saw her whenever I filled the vending machines at Taxworks.
Tell Jeff Meachum to say hello to Elder Darbo and Sisters Maughan and Stratford when he gets to Virginia. That's awesome!
Today we played flag football for our P-Day activity. That was way fun actually. I thought I'd hate it but it was a blast.
As you could probably tell from my email I'm on a definite high point of my mission. I'm hoping that it only gets better from here. I'm LOVING it! Nothings more satisfying than seeing someone accept the gospel and get baptized.
I don't have hardly any time to write letters so please tell my friends on the blog to be patient. I know I owe Jackie and Launa a letter each but I'm just really really busy now. Not that that's a bad thing.
I LOVE YOU and please write!
Love
Elder Tyler Lewis
1. Yeah my bike's right here.
2. The fires are done but they were pretty close. It smelled like a campfire everywhere for a few days.
3. The Proposition 8 hasn't been a problem. Everyone pretty much agrees with us that I've met so far. Dixie said she voted No but it gave us a chance to explain why the church was so serious about it and we're going to give David & Dixie a copy of the Family Proclamation next time.
4. I'm good. Money's fine. You can send me some cookies and candy if you want though. :) As long as you send letters too!
5. I'll send you some pictures soon. I've only taken like 74 pics so far so the SD card's not even close to being full yet.
I remember Tori Welk! She was in one of my math classes Junior Year of High School. And I saw her whenever I filled the vending machines at Taxworks.
Tell Jeff Meachum to say hello to Elder Darbo and Sisters Maughan and Stratford when he gets to Virginia. That's awesome!
Today we played flag football for our P-Day activity. That was way fun actually. I thought I'd hate it but it was a blast.
As you could probably tell from my email I'm on a definite high point of my mission. I'm hoping that it only gets better from here. I'm LOVING it! Nothings more satisfying than seeing someone accept the gospel and get baptized.
I don't have hardly any time to write letters so please tell my friends on the blog to be patient. I know I owe Jackie and Launa a letter each but I'm just really really busy now. Not that that's a bad thing.
I LOVE YOU and please write!
Love
Elder Tyler Lewis
