Well, I've still got some time, so I'll write you some more.
On Sunday Elder collier and I were asked to visit the Primary and teach the chillins about the 4th Article of Faith. That was fun. Those kids are hilarious. When teaching them about the gift of the Holy Ghost I taught like thus: "Have any of you ever taken a drink from the ocean?" To that I got various answers, some of them being "yes." "That's gross!" I said. "Well, normally we don't drink from the ocean because it's filled with bacteriums and amoebas which are bad for you. Well, I was watching a show once where a person took some water from a lake and put it over a fire to boil it. When he did that he killed all of the bacteriums in it so he could drink it. Well, the Holy Ghost is just like that..." The kids had lots of comments and answers to questions. One of them rose his hand and said "[something, something, something, gibberish we didn't understand] GLAD TIDINGS OF GREAT JOY!" To that I said "Yeah! The Gospel does actually mean glad tidings of great joy. Good job!" I didn't know what else to say. And when Elder Collier asked them what the Holy Ghost was the three-year-old asian kid raised his hand and said "Hole. When you're stuck in a dark hole you need a ladder to get out." I guess he heard the word "holy" and made a connection with the word "hole." I don't know. Anyway that was a fun experience.
All of the missionaries currently serving in Chile are accounted for (there are some missionaries from my MTC district serving in Concepción, Chile.) The only conern we have is that President Sexton can't get hold of Elder Henriquez, one of the Assistants who just went home last transfer. We all hope he's okay. An 8.8 is a HUGE earthquake. I learned in my geology class that the earthquake scale goes up exponentially. 8.8 is pretty crazy.
Well, I should go now. Love you!
Friday, March 19, 2010
March 2nd, 2010 (Email)
Hello!
Yep, I've hit the 18 month mark.
Things have slowed down in the office because I'm all caught up on the things I'm supposed to be doing. The last two hours of the day I usually spend reading the Ensign, studying spanish or skimming through stuff saved on the computer. President has started giving me random side projects-- for example the other day he told me to start re-taping the boundaries on the giant map of the mission on the wall by his office. That shouldn't take very long though. President has had a hectic week. He's had to send four elders home- one for back problems, one for personal reasons, one for not being prepared, and one for a random mysterious stomach problem. The last one hopefully will come back in a couple weeks though. So President has been a little stressed lately. Along with all that we're having a missionary from Mongolia come to our mission this week-- right in the middle of the transfer. He's getting kicked out of Mongolia because of visa problems. One day Elder Collier and I came and had dinner in the kitchen here and we stopped by President's office to say hello. He was sitting in a chair in front of the transfer board pondering and trying to figure out what to do. He was kind of doing what I imagine to be something like "Missionary Tetris."
Our ward mission leader and his wife are awesome. Brother and Sister Minus will be moving to St. George in August so we can go visit them whenever we go down there. They're the ones who live in the little neighborhood called Naples. Their next-door neighbor is Paul Williams (rainbow-connection guy) and the Minus's are trying to set us up to teach him. They had lunch with Paul Williams and his wife a couple weeks ago. Paul Williams' wife is actually an inactive member of our ward.
On Saturday I was on splits with one of the zone leaders named Elder Warburton. We were knocking on the Peninsula. All of a sudden a car raced by, its horn honking at the mailman who was crossing the street. From the driver's seat a lady yelled out "There's a tsunami warning!" Elder Warburton and I looked at each other, befuddled. I asked him if we should leave. We decided to just keep knocking. Nobody else seemed concerned or even aware of any problem. Had there been a tsunami we would have found ourselves in a precarious situation-- after all, we were on a peninsula. Turns out there was a tsunami warning but it wasn't anything dangerous. It was just kind of funny because that lady was the only person on the whole peninsula who seemed to be particularly alarmed.
I've been having some really good studies lately. I've been studying mostly about the Restoration. I've noticed that the first three books of the Book of Mormon explain quite a bit about the Restoration. 1Nephi and 2Nephi often refer to the Restoration as a restoration of knowledge- particularly of the knowledge of the true Redeemer (see 2Nephi 10:2 and 30:5-8.) So on that note I started studying about knowledge. John 8:32 and John 17:3 make it clear that knowledge of the truth, especially a correct knowledge of the nature of the Godhead, is essential for one's salvation. Jesus Christ in Luke 11:47-52 talks about the restoration and apostasy pattern, and says that when the apostles and prophets were killed "the key of knowledge" was taken from the people. The key of knowledge is found in the Lord's prophets and apostles-- the priesthood and the gift of the Holy Ghost. President Sexton shared this verse from the Book of Mormon during our office staff meeting: 2Nephi 9:20. Here God's holiness is linked with his knowing all things. So if God's purpose, His work and His glory, is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man as He says in Moses 1:39 (or, in other words, to help us become like Him) and if knowledge is what makes God who He is, then of course there needed to be a Restoration. Church is true.
We haven't been able to teach Michelle lately and Nick and Zack are doing about the same. Things should start picking up soon. We're finding good potentials, the ward is preparing some great referrals, and the bishop and the ward mission leader are doing everything they can to help us in our missionary efforts. Miracles are bound to happen.
That's funny about the General Authorities coming to our ward. Was that Elder Jensen Elder Jay E. Jensen? He's really neat. He came to the MTC while I was there.
Have a fantabulous week!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
Yep, I've hit the 18 month mark.
Things have slowed down in the office because I'm all caught up on the things I'm supposed to be doing. The last two hours of the day I usually spend reading the Ensign, studying spanish or skimming through stuff saved on the computer. President has started giving me random side projects-- for example the other day he told me to start re-taping the boundaries on the giant map of the mission on the wall by his office. That shouldn't take very long though. President has had a hectic week. He's had to send four elders home- one for back problems, one for personal reasons, one for not being prepared, and one for a random mysterious stomach problem. The last one hopefully will come back in a couple weeks though. So President has been a little stressed lately. Along with all that we're having a missionary from Mongolia come to our mission this week-- right in the middle of the transfer. He's getting kicked out of Mongolia because of visa problems. One day Elder Collier and I came and had dinner in the kitchen here and we stopped by President's office to say hello. He was sitting in a chair in front of the transfer board pondering and trying to figure out what to do. He was kind of doing what I imagine to be something like "Missionary Tetris."
Our ward mission leader and his wife are awesome. Brother and Sister Minus will be moving to St. George in August so we can go visit them whenever we go down there. They're the ones who live in the little neighborhood called Naples. Their next-door neighbor is Paul Williams (rainbow-connection guy) and the Minus's are trying to set us up to teach him. They had lunch with Paul Williams and his wife a couple weeks ago. Paul Williams' wife is actually an inactive member of our ward.
On Saturday I was on splits with one of the zone leaders named Elder Warburton. We were knocking on the Peninsula. All of a sudden a car raced by, its horn honking at the mailman who was crossing the street. From the driver's seat a lady yelled out "There's a tsunami warning!" Elder Warburton and I looked at each other, befuddled. I asked him if we should leave. We decided to just keep knocking. Nobody else seemed concerned or even aware of any problem. Had there been a tsunami we would have found ourselves in a precarious situation-- after all, we were on a peninsula. Turns out there was a tsunami warning but it wasn't anything dangerous. It was just kind of funny because that lady was the only person on the whole peninsula who seemed to be particularly alarmed.
I've been having some really good studies lately. I've been studying mostly about the Restoration. I've noticed that the first three books of the Book of Mormon explain quite a bit about the Restoration. 1Nephi and 2Nephi often refer to the Restoration as a restoration of knowledge- particularly of the knowledge of the true Redeemer (see 2Nephi 10:2 and 30:5-8.) So on that note I started studying about knowledge. John 8:32 and John 17:3 make it clear that knowledge of the truth, especially a correct knowledge of the nature of the Godhead, is essential for one's salvation. Jesus Christ in Luke 11:47-52 talks about the restoration and apostasy pattern, and says that when the apostles and prophets were killed "the key of knowledge" was taken from the people. The key of knowledge is found in the Lord's prophets and apostles-- the priesthood and the gift of the Holy Ghost. President Sexton shared this verse from the Book of Mormon during our office staff meeting: 2Nephi 9:20. Here God's holiness is linked with his knowing all things. So if God's purpose, His work and His glory, is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man as He says in Moses 1:39 (or, in other words, to help us become like Him) and if knowledge is what makes God who He is, then of course there needed to be a Restoration. Church is true.
We haven't been able to teach Michelle lately and Nick and Zack are doing about the same. Things should start picking up soon. We're finding good potentials, the ward is preparing some great referrals, and the bishop and the ward mission leader are doing everything they can to help us in our missionary efforts. Miracles are bound to happen.
That's funny about the General Authorities coming to our ward. Was that Elder Jensen Elder Jay E. Jensen? He's really neat. He came to the MTC while I was there.
Have a fantabulous week!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Feb. 23rd, 2010 (Email)
Good morning!
Dad, thanks for sharing that experience with me about the last 3 months of your mission. I didn't know that. I told President Sexton about it since he's here talking with us. He said that he talked with President Bubert the other day and told him that I'd be here in the office as the mission secretary when he comes. President Sexton told him that I'm Roger's nephew and then President Bubert told him a little about Roger's family. The switch will happen June 30th.
It was another great week working here with Elder Collier. Things are going well in the office. One day I had to do a lot of catching up (the elder I replaced was behind on his work) and so I had to print out 92 letters from President to the recent converts baptized over the past several months. And then President had to sign all those letters, and then I had to print out addresses for all their envelopes, and then I had to put all those letters in the envelopes, lick them until my whole mouth tasted like glue, and separate them according to their zones. It wasn't something complicated--it just took a long time. And thus we see that one should not procrastinate the day of his recent convert letters.
Elder Collier told me that this last week was the most productive week he's had in this area since October. I'm glad I could be here to be a part of it. Bishop Kovacs and many other members of the Atherton ward are working hard to find people for us to teach. Bishop found us a part-member couple named the Casons. They live in some military apartments near the borders of our area. They're young newlyweds. Carlton is the husband and he's a less-active member. Michelle is the wife and she's not a member. We taught them a lesson with the bishop and it went really well. We extended a baptismal invite to Michelle but she said she'd have to pray about it a lot first. They said we're welcome to visit them whenever we'd like. A miracle happened at church on Sunday. A woman named Sister Miller finally came to church. She's a less-active lady who I'd met long before coming to this area. Sometime last year I had to go on exchanges with an elder working in this area named Elder Newby. Remember when we came to Disneyland the July before my mission and we saw those two elders on bike in downtown Long Beach? Turns out one of them was Elder Newby. Anyway while I was with him we went and visited the Millers. They weren't keeping their commitments and they expressed little interest in coming back to church. Anyway now that I'm with Elder Collier I can see that the Millers have come a long way as the missionaries have kept visiting them weekly. Sister Miller is reading Alma and she's said that she likes that book a lot. And then this Sunday she finally came to church. That's the first time she's come to church in years probably. Elder Collier has never seen her at church and he's been here since October. And she said she may come for Sunday school next week (she just stayed for sacrament this time.) Anyway, that was a miracle. Elder Collier and I have also been teaching a couple young men. We're teaching a 17-year-old named Nick. He's an investigator and he has a good heart. Of course being in High School he's a little caught up in the things of the world but that's normal. Yesterday he was telling us that if he decided to be baptized he said that his mom wouldn't be against it. Hopefully by next week I'll be able to tell you that he has a baptismal date set. I learned from David Ramos that many miracles can come from converted youth. We also visited a 13-year-old member named Zack who looks like a 16-year-old named Zack. His parents are re-activated newlyweds and they're working so hard to help their son. He's a videogamer who previously has expressed very little interest in the church as far as Elder Collier has told me. But yesterday we taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ using the old water, pepper and soap trick to teach him about the Gift of the Holy Ghost and he got it! He said that he'll come to church this Sunday in his tuxedo. Nick and Zack seem like kids that could go down either path so they really need good influences in their lives. They've helped me recognize just about how much I really owe to my parents and my priesthood leaders.
Bishop Kovacs taught Elder Collier and I a cool word during church on Sunday: EQUANIMITY. It means to be able to handle stress and pressure calmly and patiently. It's synonymous with the word meekness. I just thought that it was a cool word.
During my studies I've been listing scriptures that have influenced me throughout my mission. Here's some of them you could look up:
2Nephi 31:17-21 -- "this is the way"
Mosiah 4:10 -- "if you believe all these things see that ye do them"
Mosiah 4:12-15 -- the gospel blesses individuals and families
2Nephi 32: 5 -- the gift of the Holy Ghost "will show unto you all things what ye should do"
D&C 121:45-46 -- the power of virtue enables one to have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost
Helaman 14:30-31 & John 8:32 -- the intelligent use of agency requires knowledge of the truth
Mosiah 2: 22,41 -- "ye should consider on the blessed an happy state of those that keep the commandments of God."
There are more but these are enough for now.
Hey I was wondering if you could send me the addresses of Bro. Green, Bro. Tebbs, Bro. Porter and Bro. Bradshaw. I'd appreciate that.
Don't worry Mom I understand that you get busy with work. On P-Days I'm usually too busy to write anyone other you and the converts I taught. And when I'm not busy on P-Days sometimes I just need a break.
Dad I was wondering if when you send me those pictures if you could also try and send me another copy of that CD. The one I have just has half of a Jeff Tweedy song saying "I heard the voice of Jesus/I heard the voice of Jesus/I heard the voice of Jesus" over and over again. And I'm really really excited for those pictures by the way porque les amo mucho!
Love you long time! (that's the name of a band that a young hip couple in our ward used to be in-- brother and sister harris. they live on the peninsula.)
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
Dad, thanks for sharing that experience with me about the last 3 months of your mission. I didn't know that. I told President Sexton about it since he's here talking with us. He said that he talked with President Bubert the other day and told him that I'd be here in the office as the mission secretary when he comes. President Sexton told him that I'm Roger's nephew and then President Bubert told him a little about Roger's family. The switch will happen June 30th.
It was another great week working here with Elder Collier. Things are going well in the office. One day I had to do a lot of catching up (the elder I replaced was behind on his work) and so I had to print out 92 letters from President to the recent converts baptized over the past several months. And then President had to sign all those letters, and then I had to print out addresses for all their envelopes, and then I had to put all those letters in the envelopes, lick them until my whole mouth tasted like glue, and separate them according to their zones. It wasn't something complicated--it just took a long time. And thus we see that one should not procrastinate the day of his recent convert letters.
Elder Collier told me that this last week was the most productive week he's had in this area since October. I'm glad I could be here to be a part of it. Bishop Kovacs and many other members of the Atherton ward are working hard to find people for us to teach. Bishop found us a part-member couple named the Casons. They live in some military apartments near the borders of our area. They're young newlyweds. Carlton is the husband and he's a less-active member. Michelle is the wife and she's not a member. We taught them a lesson with the bishop and it went really well. We extended a baptismal invite to Michelle but she said she'd have to pray about it a lot first. They said we're welcome to visit them whenever we'd like. A miracle happened at church on Sunday. A woman named Sister Miller finally came to church. She's a less-active lady who I'd met long before coming to this area. Sometime last year I had to go on exchanges with an elder working in this area named Elder Newby. Remember when we came to Disneyland the July before my mission and we saw those two elders on bike in downtown Long Beach? Turns out one of them was Elder Newby. Anyway while I was with him we went and visited the Millers. They weren't keeping their commitments and they expressed little interest in coming back to church. Anyway now that I'm with Elder Collier I can see that the Millers have come a long way as the missionaries have kept visiting them weekly. Sister Miller is reading Alma and she's said that she likes that book a lot. And then this Sunday she finally came to church. That's the first time she's come to church in years probably. Elder Collier has never seen her at church and he's been here since October. And she said she may come for Sunday school next week (she just stayed for sacrament this time.) Anyway, that was a miracle. Elder Collier and I have also been teaching a couple young men. We're teaching a 17-year-old named Nick. He's an investigator and he has a good heart. Of course being in High School he's a little caught up in the things of the world but that's normal. Yesterday he was telling us that if he decided to be baptized he said that his mom wouldn't be against it. Hopefully by next week I'll be able to tell you that he has a baptismal date set. I learned from David Ramos that many miracles can come from converted youth. We also visited a 13-year-old member named Zack who looks like a 16-year-old named Zack. His parents are re-activated newlyweds and they're working so hard to help their son. He's a videogamer who previously has expressed very little interest in the church as far as Elder Collier has told me. But yesterday we taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ using the old water, pepper and soap trick to teach him about the Gift of the Holy Ghost and he got it! He said that he'll come to church this Sunday in his tuxedo. Nick and Zack seem like kids that could go down either path so they really need good influences in their lives. They've helped me recognize just about how much I really owe to my parents and my priesthood leaders.
Bishop Kovacs taught Elder Collier and I a cool word during church on Sunday: EQUANIMITY. It means to be able to handle stress and pressure calmly and patiently. It's synonymous with the word meekness. I just thought that it was a cool word.
During my studies I've been listing scriptures that have influenced me throughout my mission. Here's some of them you could look up:
2Nephi 31:17-21 -- "this is the way"
Mosiah 4:10 -- "if you believe all these things see that ye do them"
Mosiah 4:12-15 -- the gospel blesses individuals and families
2Nephi 32: 5 -- the gift of the Holy Ghost "will show unto you all things what ye should do"
D&C 121:45-46 -- the power of virtue enables one to have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost
Helaman 14:30-31 & John 8:32 -- the intelligent use of agency requires knowledge of the truth
Mosiah 2: 22,41 -- "ye should consider on the blessed an happy state of those that keep the commandments of God."
There are more but these are enough for now.
Hey I was wondering if you could send me the addresses of Bro. Green, Bro. Tebbs, Bro. Porter and Bro. Bradshaw. I'd appreciate that.
Don't worry Mom I understand that you get busy with work. On P-Days I'm usually too busy to write anyone other you and the converts I taught. And when I'm not busy on P-Days sometimes I just need a break.
Dad I was wondering if when you send me those pictures if you could also try and send me another copy of that CD. The one I have just has half of a Jeff Tweedy song saying "I heard the voice of Jesus/I heard the voice of Jesus/I heard the voice of Jesus" over and over again. And I'm really really excited for those pictures by the way porque les amo mucho!
Love you long time! (that's the name of a band that a young hip couple in our ward used to be in-- brother and sister harris. they live on the peninsula.)
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
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!
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!
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
February 9th, 2009 (Email)
Hello again!
I got transferred today. Funny story. So it turns out that I'm the Mission Secretary now. I got one of those leadership phone calls from President Sexton last week and this time I was in for a big surprise! :) Now I'm companions with Elder Collier, probably one of my favorite missionaries in the whole mission. He's the Financial Secretary. He was my District Leader when I was with Elder Rada and my Zone Leader when I was with Elder Harris. So, about that package you sent me yesterday, I don't know when it will get to me. Sometimes mail get stuck at places for a very long time when it gets sent to the wrong apartment. Maybe could you call Fed-Ex and have them send it to the office instead? Right now any mail should just be sent to 6500 E Atherton St Long Beach CA 90815 since I'm going to be more or less living here from now on. I'm e-mailing you from the mission office right now in fact. I get my own computer with two screens. President Sexton uses it sometimes since he doesn't have his own computer in his office over there. It sounds like I have a great area to work in now. I get to work in Seal Beach and Naples, a couple of the nicest places in the mission. It sounds like I'm going to be very busy over here. I'm in the office most days until 5:00 and then we have dinner and then we teach people from 6:00 until 9:00, which honestly is when most teaching happens anyways. We don't do office work on the weekends or P-Days. So there you go! That's what's happened. And Elder Harris is taking my place as District Leader up in North Long Beach.
I was wrong about Sister Choi going home today. I found out while I was getting trained by Elder Dunn (former Mission Secretary, Elder Beverley's new companion) that she goes home next month. I get to do her papers, arrange her flight plans and whatnot. I'm not exactly sure how to do that yet but I'll figure it out. When you get the letter from President Sexton telling you that I'm an office elder now keep in mind that I'm actually one who makes those letters. ;)
The Cordoba family didn't commit to baptism yet but when Elder Beverley and I visited them last night we found out some good things about them. They're a golden investigator family. They told us that if they were to commit to being baptized they'd really be committed. They're not going to say yes until they mean it. I like people who take their commitments seriously. Their daughter Tonya is like that too. She wasn't there last night but they were telling us that she's been asking them about the Church and she said that if she were to join she'd take it seriously. When she was 15 she made a promise to herself to stay chaste until marriage and her parents said she's kept that commitment until this day. She was wondering what types of rules we have in the Church and so the Law of Chastity was a convenient one to mention. I wish I could stay and keep teaching that family but I'm also excited for my new assignment. Paramount was a challenging area for me. White-washing and area while being a District Leader and a Trainer was quite a load for me. But I'm definitely thankful for that opportunity and I've grown from that experience.
Love you tons! I'm sending you all something special in the mail today so you should get it probably on Friday. Happy Valentine's Day!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
P.S. - My P-Day will be on Wednesday next week due to Zone Conference being on Tuesday so don't be sad if I don't e-mail you until then. My e-mail account is a little different now but I still got your e-mails. My address is tyler.lewis@myldsmail.net.
Me again. I realized I always forget to tell you more about my companions. Elder Collier is from Atlanta Georgia. He's been in the mission for one less transfer than I have. He's a great missionary. Alright that's all. Love you!
I got transferred today. Funny story. So it turns out that I'm the Mission Secretary now. I got one of those leadership phone calls from President Sexton last week and this time I was in for a big surprise! :) Now I'm companions with Elder Collier, probably one of my favorite missionaries in the whole mission. He's the Financial Secretary. He was my District Leader when I was with Elder Rada and my Zone Leader when I was with Elder Harris. So, about that package you sent me yesterday, I don't know when it will get to me. Sometimes mail get stuck at places for a very long time when it gets sent to the wrong apartment. Maybe could you call Fed-Ex and have them send it to the office instead? Right now any mail should just be sent to 6500 E Atherton St Long Beach CA 90815 since I'm going to be more or less living here from now on. I'm e-mailing you from the mission office right now in fact. I get my own computer with two screens. President Sexton uses it sometimes since he doesn't have his own computer in his office over there. It sounds like I have a great area to work in now. I get to work in Seal Beach and Naples, a couple of the nicest places in the mission. It sounds like I'm going to be very busy over here. I'm in the office most days until 5:00 and then we have dinner and then we teach people from 6:00 until 9:00, which honestly is when most teaching happens anyways. We don't do office work on the weekends or P-Days. So there you go! That's what's happened. And Elder Harris is taking my place as District Leader up in North Long Beach.
I was wrong about Sister Choi going home today. I found out while I was getting trained by Elder Dunn (former Mission Secretary, Elder Beverley's new companion) that she goes home next month. I get to do her papers, arrange her flight plans and whatnot. I'm not exactly sure how to do that yet but I'll figure it out. When you get the letter from President Sexton telling you that I'm an office elder now keep in mind that I'm actually one who makes those letters. ;)
The Cordoba family didn't commit to baptism yet but when Elder Beverley and I visited them last night we found out some good things about them. They're a golden investigator family. They told us that if they were to commit to being baptized they'd really be committed. They're not going to say yes until they mean it. I like people who take their commitments seriously. Their daughter Tonya is like that too. She wasn't there last night but they were telling us that she's been asking them about the Church and she said that if she were to join she'd take it seriously. When she was 15 she made a promise to herself to stay chaste until marriage and her parents said she's kept that commitment until this day. She was wondering what types of rules we have in the Church and so the Law of Chastity was a convenient one to mention. I wish I could stay and keep teaching that family but I'm also excited for my new assignment. Paramount was a challenging area for me. White-washing and area while being a District Leader and a Trainer was quite a load for me. But I'm definitely thankful for that opportunity and I've grown from that experience.
Love you tons! I'm sending you all something special in the mail today so you should get it probably on Friday. Happy Valentine's Day!
Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis
P.S. - My P-Day will be on Wednesday next week due to Zone Conference being on Tuesday so don't be sad if I don't e-mail you until then. My e-mail account is a little different now but I still got your e-mails. My address is tyler.lewis@myldsmail.net.
Me again. I realized I always forget to tell you more about my companions. Elder Collier is from Atlanta Georgia. He's been in the mission for one less transfer than I have. He's a great missionary. Alright that's all. Love you!
