Letters from Canada: This Great and Marvelous Latter-day Work

Hello!

Quote of the week:

Elder King: "...That's why I did it, I was like, 'yolo,' ya know?"

...greenies. Sigh.

Well, we have 5 WONDERFUL investigators on date for baptism! September 6, September 20 (but she's moving to Fredericton this week:(), two on October 5, and one on November 8. We're getting pumped!

I talked about it a little bit last week, but here's Preach My Gospel's definition of hope, which I've really tried to apply recently:

Hope is an abiding trust that the Lord will fulfill His promises to you. It is manifest in confidence, optimism, enthusiasm, and patient perseverance. It is believing and expecting that something will occur. When you have hope, you work through trials and difficulties with the confidence and assurance that all things will work together for your good. Hope helps you conquer discouragement.

It's natural for people, when things get hard, to be discouraged. I've written about that a lot over the course of my mission. But that's not God's way. When we're stressed, and it's impossible to find a solution, and nothing's working out like it's supposed to, we're facing it wrong. We're supposed to face our trials with a bright confidence, with enthusiasm, and without discouragement.

And so that's what Sister T and I have really been working on ever since we got together. We were struggling to find anyone to teach, the investigator we were teaching to bring to baptism wasn't progressing well, almost no one we stopped would listen to us, we couldn't even find less active members to work with. It was just rough, we had the desire and energy and willingness to work, but nothing was coming from it. But we buckled down and we made the really hard choice to be happy about it all and work with an enthusiastic attitude, without getting discouraged. And we really, truly believed that the Lord would bless us for our efforts, one day. And it stopped mattering when that was.

Well it's really been starting to happen and the Charlottetown missionaries are on fire! With the elders, we have a total of 8 people preparing for baptism all in the next 3 months, and we couldn't be happier. It's a great time to be a missionary. I'm grateful to be a part of this great and marvelous latter-day work. I know the value of making the hard choice to choose to have a good attitude.

Love you. Still, congrats to all my friends who are returning with honour. I feel overwhelmingly grateful to be a part of the lives of some of God's best servants.

Sister Lewis

Blurry picture...Julia* (recent convert) came out contacting with us last night. You could feel the missionary spirit oozing out of her. This is a typical view of the boardwalk in the evening...two happy girls in skirts talking to a couple with a dog.

My last zone conference ever! Sister Wilkinson. I LOVE HER.

Charlottetown (technically the view of Cornwall from Charlottetown).

I like Wendy's.

Sister Jungheim and me. I was her STL for a few transfers before she left for Newfoundland, and she just got off the rock, so I got to see her again!

The Amherst sisters!!! Sister Smith and Sister Spencer. I was Sister Smith's STL from the beginning of my mission until I got released, and I love her.