3.31.2014

My computer crashed and now I'm out of e-mail time..... SIGH. I'm sorry for a lame e-mailing week. Expect a great one next Monday.

J'AIME MA FAMILLE.

Letter that Sister Lewis recieved from a missionary in Bolivia.  It was sent in April of 2013.  We received it in Februaryof 2014 and forwarded it to Canada.  She got it in mid March 2014.

Chiac Keyboard

Je suis si heureux.

Salut!

This has been quite the week. I had a great breakthrough with the French this week and am now much more capable. Not anywhere near fluent, but I'm working hard at it. Praying for the gift of tongues everyday. Depending on the Lord to help me when I talk to His children.

Tuesday was my birthday, and I got blessed by friends and family from home, and also by the Lord! Heavenly Father decided to bless Sister Olson and me with some direction to walk down a certain street that night after a long day that didn't feel like we got a lot done, even though we did. We walked down that street. It wasn't even in our area, and it wasn't even speaking the language we were supposed to speak, so we really shouldn't have been there. But we went because we felt like we were supposed to. There was a total of one person walking on that street, and so it seemed like it would be a waste of time. And the person was also walking in the middle of the road instead of on the sidewalk, so it was slightly uncomfortable to stop them. But it was my turn and I stopped her anyway--the sole person on the street.

And she told us she was searching for a church and that she felt like God impressed her to walk down that street when she did. Her name is Dominique*.

We went out of town Wednesday night to go blitz the sisters' areas in PEI for 3 days. Picked up new investigators, trained, talked to a ton of people. It was tiring but felt good. Saturday we spent the first 6 hours of the day either in Skype meetings or travelling back to New Brunswick. We arrived back in Moncton late Saturday afternoon, about an hour before our appointment with Dominique. We street contacted and went to the appointment.

We taught Dominique the message of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She accepted it, and wasthrilled about it. Nothing made her more excited than to know that this was Christ's church, and that it was being lead by priesthood authority today. She rejoiced when she heard that. She told us God had been preparing her for that her whole life. Then she asked us how she could be baptised by priesthood authority.

Simone* (22) is getting baptised April 12.  Amanda* (28) is getting baptised April 17. And Dominique (24) is getting baptised April 19. The three of them came to church yesterday. Simone introduced herself as "Sister Quartier*" to the ward. She had gone on her first date ever with a guy in the ward this past week. Amanda talked to all the other moms in the ward and asked for an interview with the bishop, just to talk to him about her baptism. Dominique was just bright at church--reaching out to everyone, being excited to meet them, participating in lessons, asking questions, bearing her testimony, reading the scriptures, and just utterly glowing.

Sister Olson and I were out of our area for about 3 days this last week. We were a little stressed to come back and actually reach our goals. But what we forgot about was that this is the Lord's work, and He did His work, even while His missionaries were gone. He prepared people and blessed them. And we are blessed to be the little insignificant tools to bring these people to Christ. It was a humbling experience again this week to see so many people I love be in church, exactly where their Heavenly Father wanted them to be. I have never experienced such great happiness as I've found on my mission. There is a joy that is found by doing missionary work that any other joy can't imitate.

Mon témoignage, c'est simple. Mais je sais que le service est le meilleur moyen de ressentir l'amour de Dieu. Il change mes faiblesses en forces. Je deviens une meilleure personne.

Avec mon amour,

Sister Lewis

Cette fille est sur le feu. [This girl is "on fire".]

I don't really know if "sur le feu" is a real French term... I basically just directly translated that..... Mais c'est vrai en englais.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY LITTLE SISTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8 has become my favourite age on my mission:)

Quote of the week:

Elder Widdup (DL)--after asking me to recite this week's scripture in French: "Ok, that was really good, Sister Lewis. There were a few words here and there, but people will really be able to feel the Spirit from what you're saying.

Me: -.-

This was an amazing week!

Two Fridays ago, on the 7th, the zone leaders challenged every area in the zone to invite 20 people to learn about the gospel that day. The mission's contacts have gone down (http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/64352/Pass-along-cards-personalized-printable-pass-along-cards.html - read that entire article) in the winter months because it's been a lot harder to find people out (and the ones who are out in several feet of snow are all crazy, right?:)). Plus Friday is our day that's packed with meetings, so we only had about an hour of finding scheduled in, and it's really difficult to find that many people in an hour. So when Sister Olson and I got the text challenging us to do that, our hearts sank a little because we didn't know if we could make it. But we wanted to. In fact, we became determined to reach 20 contacts that day.

It required a lot of sacrifice. Shorter meals, rearranging plans, giving other things up to have more finding time scheduled. We were speed walking everywhere, talking to ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE we saw. It was hard. It got awkward at times. It stretched us. But we ended up exceeding 20 contacts.

And we got home that night and felt so good. We had just pushed ourselves beyond what we thought our limits were. So we decided to do the same thing the next day. Sunday night, we had this new-found determination and did everything we could to reach our goals. And there were a lot of them that seemed really out of reach that we reached anyway because we had faith and did EVERYTHING in our power to reach those goals.

Monday we met every single one of our goals, and exceeded in a few of them. And we continued to work like that and realized Saturday afternoon that we had reached all of our weekly goals early, and that the week could end right then and we would have a successful week. We continued to push ourselves and reach our goals. This week, we reported some of the best numbers I've ever seen. We hit or exceeded all of our goals. We ended up talking to 228 people instead of the 150 we set the goal for.

This work is addictive. Seriously. Reaching the goals is one thing, but it's another to watch so many people I love develop a faith in Jesus Christ. Yesterday, we had 4 investigators at church and 3 less-actives we've been working with. It was an overwhelming experience to see all those people I have prayed for, planned for, and worked for where they were supposed to be.

Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven!!!

Love,

Sister Lewis

Photo posted to facebook on the Mormons of Atlantic Canada page.  Zone Conference

The following two photos sent by a senior missionary couple in the mission.

These next three photos were sent by Elder Erickson's (far right) mom!

Here are the photos and video Sister Lewis sent home.

...On our way home from Bathurst. We met the other sisters at the Miramichi chapel:) Isn't it cute? 

Photos taken when the blizzard was dying down.

Je viens des États-Unis​.

Good morning!
 

Quote of the week--after Sister Olson asked a man in Dieppe if we could share a message with him
 

Man: "Ummmm... Pas right now."
 

Classic Chiac, folks.
 

This week has been a little crazy. I went up to Bathurst for exchanges and worked with Sister Vera again! It was really fun to work with her and in a brand new sisters area. We talked to a lady (in French of course) who worked at a bakery. The conversation went something like this.
 

Lady: "Et d'où venez-vous?"

Me: "Je viens des États-Unis."

Lady: "....Comment?"

Me: "Les États-Unis d'Amerique?"

Lady: [blank stare]

Sister Vera: "Obama? The USA?"

Lady: [shakes head slowly, confused] "Je n'ai jamais entendu parler de lui avant."

Me and Sister Vera: [dumbfounded]
 

On my mission, I have been present at one baptism for someone I taught--Isabelle*. Of the people I've had a hand in teaching, 5 of them have been baptized so far. We have 2 on-date for baptism right now who I didn't find and who I haven't taught very much. It has made me really aware of how little the missionary has to do with conversion. For these people, it's taken vastly more people than just Sister Lewis to bring someone into the Church. We have a baptism coming up at the beginning of April, and at least 9 missionaries have had a part in finding and teaching her. Almost all of the young mothers in the ward have fellowshipped her. Most of her extended family are members living in Alberta. They've been working on her her whole life. There have been so many people who have influenced her above the 2 lessons I've been present in so far. Sister Olson and I will probably see her baptism, but that doesn't represent the force behind her--both divine and not--that has helped her come so far.
 

Love you all!

Sister Lewis

 

Saying goodbye to Shannon*  (you only say that in a British accent)



Saying goodbye to Cassandra*.



Said goodbye to one of the cutest families of investigators ever, the Boghossians*.  Isaiah on the left and Meron on the right.



A teary goodbye with Sister Hebert.



Saying Goodbye to the Belucci family  :(



Saying goodbye to Paola*....They gave me a necklace and Brazilian keychain and chocolates!!!



Sister Gochnour and I had a bad DQ addiction.  Took one last run together.  <3



And this photo was scavenged by me (sis. L's mom) from Sister Gochnour's blog!