It's been a while since I've emailed. There's a lot to say and not much time to say it. I may as well start from the top though. Sunday, the 21st we said goodbye to our zone at the MTC and left the next morning (at 3:30am) for the SLC airport.
We first flew from SLC to Denver, then on to Lubbock, Texas, arriving mid-day.
We had instructions and orientation the rest of the day and the next morning, until we headed off to our areas on Tuesday afternoon. My first area is in Portales, New Mexico!
ABOVE: President Heap, on the left.
ABOVE: More orientation with President Heap and Assistants in the back along the railing (at the mission home).
BELOW: Those in for transfers, new arrivals like me, and missionaries coming in to go home the next day.
BELOW: My MTC companion. He's heading off to Carlsbad, NM, about 2 1/2 hours South/Southwest of me.
ABOVE: This is our Portales District. It takes in Clovis, NM also. Our Spanish Branch meets in the Portales Ward building. The New Mexico/Texas border is just to the east of us about 20 miles.
BELOW: Our Portales District. 6 Elders, 2 Sisters. We have a car!!
BELOW: My trainer is Elder McMaster. He's been out for about 6 to 7 months and he's my trainer. He also went to the Provo MTC, Spanish-speaking. He's from Cottonwood Heights, Utah.
My district is pretty awesome. I've become good friends with everyone already. Some of us got to wash firetrucks on Saturday as a community service, which was pretty sweet. The insides of the trucks are very interesting. Apparently, the past Elders here have been doing it for a while on a regular basis.
ABOVE: Elder McMaster in the background
BELOW: Elder Zeagler and I. He is one of our District Leaders that live in Portales also (English-speaking). Elder McMaster and I are the only Spanish-speaking in Portales. Up in Clovis, NM, just north of us, there is one Spanish-speaking Sister with an English-speaking companion. (Notice the TLM we sprayed with window cleaner on the windshield)
Elder McMaster and I attend a Spanish branch here in Portales and man, it's tiny! There's only like 6 or 7 different families. We intend to increase that number. :-) We actually were both asked to speak during Sacrament meeting and we did, all in Spanish. It was about a 10 minute talk, only because I spoke so slowly because mi Español no es bueno. Luckily, our Branch president is pretty cool and also speaks English, so I'm not clueless all the time, haha. Sunday school and Elder's quorum went over my head completely. I could barely tell where the lessons were going. Oh well, I'll get there with time, haha.
On Memorial Day, Monday, we got to run in a 5k fun run in Lubbock! It was called the "Conquer Hunger Run" where people bring/donate food for a food shelter. They do it every year and the missionaries have participated in the last couple years. All the Elders in our zone, as well as the assistants and our mission president and his wife ran it...all in white shirts and ties! Everyone did very well. I did...alright, I guess, haha. I ran it in almost exactly 30 minutes. It was a fun day! Though running a 5k dressed in a shirt and tie in hot Texas sun is probably something I'll never care to experience ever again, haha. Thank goodness we were allowed to wear shorts and tennis shoes!
BELOW: Our Mission President, President Heap, on the right with the hat.
BELOW: Me and Elder Taylor from our Zone. Some other missionaries wanted to see who was taller.
BELOW: Everyone who ran from our Zone and the mission office.
Yesterday (Tuesday), we had helped Elder Field and Elder Zeagler, our district leaders, who also live in Portales, move out of a horrible home they had been living in and into a nicer apartment. It took basically all day until like 6pm, which is the time the library closes. The library was closed Monday, of course, because of Memorial Day, and so our P-day was moved to Tuesday, and because of the move, we didn't have time to email yesterday, so here we are emailing two days after P-Day. As you probably know, my P-Day is normally Monday, so if everything goes well, you'll all hear from me again next Monday.
As for the actual missionary work, things have been a tad slow. Lots of appointments falling through or people that we struggle to keep in contact with. Contacting hasn't been too successful either, but we've got a few potential investigators out of it. It's obviously difficult but things are still good.
I am loving my time out here and I'm learning a lot. I wish I had more time to email each and every one of you, but time is much more limited for email in the field than the MTC, where we were allowed to check our email daily, but not respond. Out in the field, I can't read emails except for on Mondays, so half my time is reading through them all - WHICH IS GREAT!! Don't get me wrong...just saying it takes a bit more time than in the MTC.
I love you all and hope everyone is doing well! Keep sending photos! I love seeing and hearing how things are going for everyone.
Until Monday!...hopefully!
Elder Lewis
BTW... my address is:
1901 S. Ave H, Apt. IPortales, NM 88130
(If you look up the address on Google Maps, the pin doesn't exactly match where we're at, which is a little south of the pin and on the right in a complex of 12 duplexes in 6 single story buildings. We walk to the church because it's just southeast of us on the same block. We just cut through the field and a dirt road. The Google Maps picture looks brown and ugly because it was obviously Winter time.
ABOVE: The Portales Elders in a warped mirror.
BELOW: After helping the other Elders move, my companion wanted to look at other T-shirts.
ABOVE: The Zone Leaders brought a couch for the other Portales Elders.
