Hello again!
Yeah that hour on Christmas was WAY too short. Anyhow, after that phonecall I had dinner in Compton with the Flores family in the Red Zone again. We ate a LOT of tomales that day of course. And that night we went caroling with the zone leaders and the Compton elders.
Transfers: The area has been split. I'm working in Paramount. Elder Twiss has been moved to work in the 3 polynesian wards with Elder Kemp. Elder HARRIS will be working in North Long Beach with his new missionary. Yep! So they'll be living with me! So Elder Twiss, Elder Harris, and Elder Kemp will all be in my district. I don't know who my new companion is yet because he just landed about an hour ago. I'm going to go to pick him up at 3:00. We still get a car and Elder Harris and his new companion are on bike. There's 8 elders in my district now: Me, new missionary, Elder Harris, new missionary, Elder Kemp, Elder Twiss, Elder Ball and Elder Challis.
Jasmine Lopez did not get baptized on Sunday because she's getting some opposition from her non-member mother. Her mom thinks that she's just getting baptized into the Church to spite her. Her mom and dad are divorced and Jasmine lives with her dad so there's some family issues. Jasmine still wants to be baptized though and her dad still supports her. That will be the new missionary's first appointment with me tonight. She lives in Paramount so I still get to teach her!
So Beatles Rock Band huh? That sounds cool. And that's really neat that Hannah is friends with Deane. And yes it's really bizarre that Ryan's returning today.
Well, that's what's happening! I'll have more for you next week! Hasta luego! Feliz ano nuevo! Or, Happy New Year!
con amor,
Elder Lewis
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
December 22nd, 2009 (Email)
Felices Fiestas!
This e-mail may be shorter because I'm going to talk with you in 3 days! What would work best for the Christmas phonecall is for you to call me at 2:15 your time (1:15 my time).
As you may have read in my letter to President Sexton we're teaching two investigators named Jasmine. They're not related in anyway. One lives in Long Beach and one lives in Paramount. Jasmine Lopez is set to be baptized this Sunday (which would be a miracle) and Jasmine Espino committed to be baptized January 10th. They're both teenagers and Jasmine Lopez has a less-active member dad who said he'd like to start coming back to church. Jasmine Lopez fits right in with our ward because she's half-Samoan.
I went on exchanges with Elder Kemp a few days ago. It was a great day! He's a really diligent missionary and he's got a positive obedient attitude.
That's all for now! Talk to you soon!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
oh yeah
By the way, got the package! 22 lbs of Christmas goodness! Thank you so much! I've got this Fed-Ex thing figured out. They always have a hard time getting into apartments when they're gated so when they try and fail I just call HQ and give them the code to the gate. I hope you liked what I sent. It's not much but it's good stuff. I opened G&G Cox's cheese. That was nice of them! I haven't opened any of my presents yet, well, except Aunt Peggy's present. She sent Elder Twiss and I pillow cases! Which is randomly amazing considering the fact that Elder Twiss has been needing a pillow case this whole transfer! Aunt Peggy said that she knows the temple worker that cleans the Holy of Holies. It's the Recorder Secretary, her boss. Well, I thought I'd just tell you that I got the giant package! Muchas muchas gracias!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
This e-mail may be shorter because I'm going to talk with you in 3 days! What would work best for the Christmas phonecall is for you to call me at 2:15 your time (1:15 my time).
As you may have read in my letter to President Sexton we're teaching two investigators named Jasmine. They're not related in anyway. One lives in Long Beach and one lives in Paramount. Jasmine Lopez is set to be baptized this Sunday (which would be a miracle) and Jasmine Espino committed to be baptized January 10th. They're both teenagers and Jasmine Lopez has a less-active member dad who said he'd like to start coming back to church. Jasmine Lopez fits right in with our ward because she's half-Samoan.
I went on exchanges with Elder Kemp a few days ago. It was a great day! He's a really diligent missionary and he's got a positive obedient attitude.
That's all for now! Talk to you soon!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
oh yeah
By the way, got the package! 22 lbs of Christmas goodness! Thank you so much! I've got this Fed-Ex thing figured out. They always have a hard time getting into apartments when they're gated so when they try and fail I just call HQ and give them the code to the gate. I hope you liked what I sent. It's not much but it's good stuff. I opened G&G Cox's cheese. That was nice of them! I haven't opened any of my presents yet, well, except Aunt Peggy's present. She sent Elder Twiss and I pillow cases! Which is randomly amazing considering the fact that Elder Twiss has been needing a pillow case this whole transfer! Aunt Peggy said that she knows the temple worker that cleans the Holy of Holies. It's the Recorder Secretary, her boss. Well, I thought I'd just tell you that I got the giant package! Muchas muchas gracias!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
December 15th, 2009 (Email)
hello again!
It sounds like the Lewis Christmas Party was good this year. I think I missed the one the year before I left. I had to work or something. I'll go to the next one though!
A few days ago I went on exchanges with the Compton elders. Elder Ball worked with me in our area and Elder Twiss went with Elder Challis and worked in Compton. While they were over there someone broke into their Mazda! And since missionaries pretty much have absolutely nothing that a thief would want all they stole was their garage clicker. Pretty lame. So now they have to go get their passenger side window replaced. Elders Ball and Challis moved out of our apartment today because a new apartment here in Long Beach was opened for them. It's pretty obvious that my area's getting split next transfer-- the new elders will move into our apartment. President Sexton was planning on re-splitting the area before he even sent me here. He told me in our interview that the only reason he hasn't yet is because we don't have enough elders.
Last Thursday President Sexton had our zone go over to the mission home for our District Meetings. Usually we have District Meetings at the stake center but the Sextons wanted to feed us lunch and give us our mission pictures as a Christmas present. They don't even have to let us into their home let alone feed us. In fact one of the general authorities specifically told Pres and Sis Sexton that it wasn't their responsibility to feed us. But they did anyways. So I gave our district their training for the week (about putting commitments at the center of our lessons) and then Sis Sexton fed our zone and the Huntington Beach zone some taco salad. I saw Elder Bliss there! He goes home in February. He told me about David and Dixie's baptism. He baptized Dixie and the other elder baptized David. After lunch President Sexton gave each elder a copy of a parable about the Restored Gospel that came to his head while he was running on the treadmill one morning. It's pretty good. I put it in my mission binder so I'll show you someday.
This week Elder Twiss and I saw a lot of miracles that have to do with prayer. We've been praying more for direction to know where to go to find people to teach. We were led to a street where a lady answered the door on her phone. She looked shocked to see us and she told us that she was just on the phone with her member boyfriend who made her promise that if we were to knock on her door she wouldn't reject us. A day or two later we were led to another lady with a member boyfriend who said she'd be willing to listen to us. And yesterday while we were knocking an apartment complex we found a couple less-active members that'd recently moved to Long Beach from Downey. The younger lady said that a couple days ago she was praying that someone from the Church would come and give her a blessing. She immediately recognized that her prayer had been answered. We called the Elders Quorum President to come (so we could enter the home) and then we gave her a blessing of comfort.
That's pretty much all that's happened this week. A little bit of rainfall but nothing legitimately winter-ish happening here. Hope your having a jolly December and I'll e-mail you again next week and then I'll talk with you on the phone the following Friday! :) Hasta luego!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
It sounds like the Lewis Christmas Party was good this year. I think I missed the one the year before I left. I had to work or something. I'll go to the next one though!
A few days ago I went on exchanges with the Compton elders. Elder Ball worked with me in our area and Elder Twiss went with Elder Challis and worked in Compton. While they were over there someone broke into their Mazda! And since missionaries pretty much have absolutely nothing that a thief would want all they stole was their garage clicker. Pretty lame. So now they have to go get their passenger side window replaced. Elders Ball and Challis moved out of our apartment today because a new apartment here in Long Beach was opened for them. It's pretty obvious that my area's getting split next transfer-- the new elders will move into our apartment. President Sexton was planning on re-splitting the area before he even sent me here. He told me in our interview that the only reason he hasn't yet is because we don't have enough elders.
Last Thursday President Sexton had our zone go over to the mission home for our District Meetings. Usually we have District Meetings at the stake center but the Sextons wanted to feed us lunch and give us our mission pictures as a Christmas present. They don't even have to let us into their home let alone feed us. In fact one of the general authorities specifically told Pres and Sis Sexton that it wasn't their responsibility to feed us. But they did anyways. So I gave our district their training for the week (about putting commitments at the center of our lessons) and then Sis Sexton fed our zone and the Huntington Beach zone some taco salad. I saw Elder Bliss there! He goes home in February. He told me about David and Dixie's baptism. He baptized Dixie and the other elder baptized David. After lunch President Sexton gave each elder a copy of a parable about the Restored Gospel that came to his head while he was running on the treadmill one morning. It's pretty good. I put it in my mission binder so I'll show you someday.
This week Elder Twiss and I saw a lot of miracles that have to do with prayer. We've been praying more for direction to know where to go to find people to teach. We were led to a street where a lady answered the door on her phone. She looked shocked to see us and she told us that she was just on the phone with her member boyfriend who made her promise that if we were to knock on her door she wouldn't reject us. A day or two later we were led to another lady with a member boyfriend who said she'd be willing to listen to us. And yesterday while we were knocking an apartment complex we found a couple less-active members that'd recently moved to Long Beach from Downey. The younger lady said that a couple days ago she was praying that someone from the Church would come and give her a blessing. She immediately recognized that her prayer had been answered. We called the Elders Quorum President to come (so we could enter the home) and then we gave her a blessing of comfort.
That's pretty much all that's happened this week. A little bit of rainfall but nothing legitimately winter-ish happening here. Hope your having a jolly December and I'll e-mail you again next week and then I'll talk with you on the phone the following Friday! :) Hasta luego!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
December 8th, 2009 (Email)
Hello!
So first I'll answer Mom's question that I've kept accidentally neglecting concerning el dia de pavo, o el dia del accion de las gracias-- Thanksgiving. It was a good Thanksgiving if I recall correctly. That was the day of my very first District Meeting as the District Leader. I gave the training about Elder Scott's talk about the spirit of revelation. That afternoon we had Thanksgiving lunch with the Flores family in the "red zone" of Compton. We got special permission from the Mission President to go there only during the daytime that day because otherwise that little section of Compton is completely off limits to missionaries. We ate with the Flores family and some other members of the ward including Bro. Miller, the african-american baptist convert who totally sounds like a baptist minister should sound. That evening we had Thanksgiving dinner with the Ta'aga family. For both meals I had ham. It was a good day.
Something amazingly random and miraculous happened on Saturday. Since we've been here Elder Twiss and I have been following the instructions left in our Area Books and we've been visiting several part-member families including a part-samoan family where the kids are all members but the mom isn't yet because she lives with her boyfriend (go figure! yay california!). The family comes to church and the 8-yr-old named Deja had been preparing to be baptized in the Stake Primary Baptism on Saturday at 4:00. We had been told that her father was a member so we were under the impression that she was a child of record. But that day at 2:30 we received a phone call from Bishop Faleono telling us otherwise. Turns out that neither of her biological parents are members. So the Bishop told us that we had about an hour and a half to make sure Deja Pena had been taught all the missionary lessons, review the baptismal interview questions with her, arrange an interview with the Zone Leaders, get her interviewed and get her all ready for her baptism by 4:00. Miraculously it worked out!
Elder Twiss and I are getting along just fine. He has his difficulties and he gets pretty stressed and frustrated sometimes but thankfully the mission has taught me to be more patient and more understanding. I remember that I received some counsel when I was set apart to look for the good in each of my companions. As I've remembered that counsel and followed it I've been able to look back at each one of my companions in a positive light.
We went on "splits" or exchanges with the Zone Leaders yesterday. It was great. Elder Twiss stayed in our area with Elder Brown and I went with Elder Maready in his area. Their area is HUGE. We taught a lot of spanish people, extended some baptismal invitations, and had lunch with some members and one of my old district leaders who is now a return missionary named (Elder) Thompson. Elder Thompson had a positive impact on my mission. I went on exchanges with him a couple times and I was impressed by his shameless obedience and he gave me some good advice that I still remember. While with Elder Maready we also had dinner with a Mexican Family. I love legit Mexican food. They make really good chili.
Well that's all I've got for this week I believe. Hope you're all having happy holidays. My last christmas package request is for you to send one of my old earflap winter hats, or a toque I should say. It's a tid bit nippy here so I'd like to where one around the apartment. Muchas gracias! Talk to you in a few weeks!
Con amor,
Elder Tyler Lewis
So first I'll answer Mom's question that I've kept accidentally neglecting concerning el dia de pavo, o el dia del accion de las gracias-- Thanksgiving. It was a good Thanksgiving if I recall correctly. That was the day of my very first District Meeting as the District Leader. I gave the training about Elder Scott's talk about the spirit of revelation. That afternoon we had Thanksgiving lunch with the Flores family in the "red zone" of Compton. We got special permission from the Mission President to go there only during the daytime that day because otherwise that little section of Compton is completely off limits to missionaries. We ate with the Flores family and some other members of the ward including Bro. Miller, the african-american baptist convert who totally sounds like a baptist minister should sound. That evening we had Thanksgiving dinner with the Ta'aga family. For both meals I had ham. It was a good day.
Something amazingly random and miraculous happened on Saturday. Since we've been here Elder Twiss and I have been following the instructions left in our Area Books and we've been visiting several part-member families including a part-samoan family where the kids are all members but the mom isn't yet because she lives with her boyfriend (go figure! yay california!). The family comes to church and the 8-yr-old named Deja had been preparing to be baptized in the Stake Primary Baptism on Saturday at 4:00. We had been told that her father was a member so we were under the impression that she was a child of record. But that day at 2:30 we received a phone call from Bishop Faleono telling us otherwise. Turns out that neither of her biological parents are members. So the Bishop told us that we had about an hour and a half to make sure Deja Pena had been taught all the missionary lessons, review the baptismal interview questions with her, arrange an interview with the Zone Leaders, get her interviewed and get her all ready for her baptism by 4:00. Miraculously it worked out!
Elder Twiss and I are getting along just fine. He has his difficulties and he gets pretty stressed and frustrated sometimes but thankfully the mission has taught me to be more patient and more understanding. I remember that I received some counsel when I was set apart to look for the good in each of my companions. As I've remembered that counsel and followed it I've been able to look back at each one of my companions in a positive light.
We went on "splits" or exchanges with the Zone Leaders yesterday. It was great. Elder Twiss stayed in our area with Elder Brown and I went with Elder Maready in his area. Their area is HUGE. We taught a lot of spanish people, extended some baptismal invitations, and had lunch with some members and one of my old district leaders who is now a return missionary named (Elder) Thompson. Elder Thompson had a positive impact on my mission. I went on exchanges with him a couple times and I was impressed by his shameless obedience and he gave me some good advice that I still remember. While with Elder Maready we also had dinner with a Mexican Family. I love legit Mexican food. They make really good chili.
Well that's all I've got for this week I believe. Hope you're all having happy holidays. My last christmas package request is for you to send one of my old earflap winter hats, or a toque I should say. It's a tid bit nippy here so I'd like to where one around the apartment. Muchas gracias! Talk to you in a few weeks!
Con amor,
Elder Tyler Lewis
December 1st, 2009 (Email)
Hello again!
Alright things are on the uphill now. Sorry about how stressed I've been these past couple of weeks. I knew as soon as I received the transfer calls that these first few weeks would be crazy. I'm starting to get back into the groove of things now. I know the area in general. It's a big area for this mission because it's a combination of two areas. President Sexton told me during our last interview that he's probably going to split the area again next transfer. That'll be good.
I'm not exactly sure why this area got white-washed but it may have to do with several things. Two of the elders from the two companionships serving here finished their missions. Elder Barnes used to be serving in the North Long Beach part of my area but he got transferred to Compton with Elder Kemp to serve in two Samoan wards and one Tongan ward (yeah that's crazy.) That companionship's in my district with the other two elders serving in compton for our ward (Elders Ball and Challis.) That makes up my district. Elders Ball and Challis were white-washed into their area too. It may have to do with not having enough missionaries in this mission at the moment. We'll be getting more next transfer so that's probably why President will re-divide our area.
We have some good investigators here. We're teaching a man named Robert who lives in a one-way street area in Paramount. He wants to be baptized this month so we're working with him to help him prepare himself for that. He's interested in learning more about Joseph Smith's history so we're going to talk about that with him tomorrow. We're teaching a couple part-member/less-active families that have been coming to church. We're starting to teach the 10-yr-old son of a less-active lady. The son's name is Dillenger and he wants to be baptized this month and the mom wants to become active in the church again. We found a golden family a couple weeks ago. The parents are Justino and Ingred and they have two daughters. They all speak spanish and are very interested in the message. They have great questions and sometimes they feed us cake when we visit. They're not convinced that they need to be baptized yet since they were baptized catholic but we'll keep teaching them and encouraging them to come to church because they're still very interested.
Thanks for the little package! Thanks for the pez and the epi-pen and the gummy army-men and the letters and the $20 and everything! And especially thanks for the cool WCF ad with Hannah in it! That's awesome! She's definitely famous now.
By the way the parking ticket stuff is all sorted out now. It turns out that the companionship shares equal responsibility when it comes to car stuff so Elder Twiss helped out. Sorry I freaked out so much about it last week. I just happened to get it that morning so I was pretty frustrated. You're right though I shouldn't worry about money.
I got to conduct my first baptismal interview last week. That's one of my responsibilities as District Leader. I interviewed two of the Zone Leader's investigators, a mother and a daughter named Rina and Erika. They both passed their interviews and they both seem excited to be baptized on Sunday. Sadly it turns out that they bailed an hour before the baptism and told the elders that they didn't want to be visited anymore. Hate it when that happens. I told the Zone Leaders about Jessica Maulion and said that there could still be hope.
Dad I think it's awesome how much you've been prospering at your work this year. Both you and Mom seem to have been receiving lots of blessings with your jobs these past couple years. I want to see these websites when I get home so make sure you document some stuff about them.
My spanish is coming along day by day. Each area gives me more opportunities to speak it and use it so it's getting better. The people understand what I'm saying and I understand what they're saying. It's never perfect but the Lord fills in the spaces.
All that stuff sounds just dandy regarding the Christmas package! Muchas gracias! You all have a great week and I'll talk to you in 24 days! Not counting or anything though! ;)
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
Alright things are on the uphill now. Sorry about how stressed I've been these past couple of weeks. I knew as soon as I received the transfer calls that these first few weeks would be crazy. I'm starting to get back into the groove of things now. I know the area in general. It's a big area for this mission because it's a combination of two areas. President Sexton told me during our last interview that he's probably going to split the area again next transfer. That'll be good.
I'm not exactly sure why this area got white-washed but it may have to do with several things. Two of the elders from the two companionships serving here finished their missions. Elder Barnes used to be serving in the North Long Beach part of my area but he got transferred to Compton with Elder Kemp to serve in two Samoan wards and one Tongan ward (yeah that's crazy.) That companionship's in my district with the other two elders serving in compton for our ward (Elders Ball and Challis.) That makes up my district. Elders Ball and Challis were white-washed into their area too. It may have to do with not having enough missionaries in this mission at the moment. We'll be getting more next transfer so that's probably why President will re-divide our area.
We have some good investigators here. We're teaching a man named Robert who lives in a one-way street area in Paramount. He wants to be baptized this month so we're working with him to help him prepare himself for that. He's interested in learning more about Joseph Smith's history so we're going to talk about that with him tomorrow. We're teaching a couple part-member/less-active families that have been coming to church. We're starting to teach the 10-yr-old son of a less-active lady. The son's name is Dillenger and he wants to be baptized this month and the mom wants to become active in the church again. We found a golden family a couple weeks ago. The parents are Justino and Ingred and they have two daughters. They all speak spanish and are very interested in the message. They have great questions and sometimes they feed us cake when we visit. They're not convinced that they need to be baptized yet since they were baptized catholic but we'll keep teaching them and encouraging them to come to church because they're still very interested.
Thanks for the little package! Thanks for the pez and the epi-pen and the gummy army-men and the letters and the $20 and everything! And especially thanks for the cool WCF ad with Hannah in it! That's awesome! She's definitely famous now.
By the way the parking ticket stuff is all sorted out now. It turns out that the companionship shares equal responsibility when it comes to car stuff so Elder Twiss helped out. Sorry I freaked out so much about it last week. I just happened to get it that morning so I was pretty frustrated. You're right though I shouldn't worry about money.
I got to conduct my first baptismal interview last week. That's one of my responsibilities as District Leader. I interviewed two of the Zone Leader's investigators, a mother and a daughter named Rina and Erika. They both passed their interviews and they both seem excited to be baptized on Sunday. Sadly it turns out that they bailed an hour before the baptism and told the elders that they didn't want to be visited anymore. Hate it when that happens. I told the Zone Leaders about Jessica Maulion and said that there could still be hope.
Dad I think it's awesome how much you've been prospering at your work this year. Both you and Mom seem to have been receiving lots of blessings with your jobs these past couple years. I want to see these websites when I get home so make sure you document some stuff about them.
My spanish is coming along day by day. Each area gives me more opportunities to speak it and use it so it's getting better. The people understand what I'm saying and I understand what they're saying. It's never perfect but the Lord fills in the spaces.
All that stuff sounds just dandy regarding the Christmas package! Muchas gracias! You all have a great week and I'll talk to you in 24 days! Not counting or anything though! ;)
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
