Monday, July 17, 2017 | Week 15

Hello again!

This week we had Zone Conference again, very early in the transfer. There we met President and Sister Hales! They are a very nice couple that are excited to here, but it must be pretty overwhelming to take over a very established mission. They're gonna be great though!​

This past week marked my 3rd month on the mission. That's already over an eighth of the way! So strange. 

So there's this street that we already have two investigators on, who live right next to each other. Well this past Wednesday we came in contact with yet another next door neighbor of those two! She is willing to have us over and teach her now too! That's three investigators all living side by side. Talk about convenience!

Guys I actually am noticing an improvement in my Spanish! It's pretty exciting. It's kind of strange though, some moments I can seem to speak with no issue, and others I can barely answer the simple question of "Where are you from?". My understanding is getting a lot better and I could actually follow most of the conversation going on in Elder's Quorum yesterday, which is pretty amazing considering all of them basically don't move their mouths when they speak haha.

On Friday we got to help out with a car show! We helped direct the cars and let them know where to park. At one point there was a big line of these cars trailing into the street, stopping a ton of traffic. It was a mess so I started going around and telling the drivers to form a winding line in the parking lot to save space and not trail off into the street; I felt pretty accomplished directing traffic and preventing a disaster haha. All of the cars were pretty awesome.​

Saturday, the son of the branch president, Angel, was baptized. It's been a while since I've been at a baptismal service. It's always an awesome experience. We have yet to baptize anyone ourselves, but that's alright. Whatever happens, happens. I'm still happy to be helping people come to this Gospel, even if they don't readily accept it all yet. Each person needs to go at their own pace.

Also at this baptism there was Horchata - enough said.​

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That was about all that happened that was out of the ordinary this week. Other than that, lessons happened, Spanish happened, all that is usual happened. Still loving it out here. The mission is awesome. Ya'll should do one haha.

Have a great week!

Elder Lewis

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P.S. If you need my address, it's still this:

Elder Jared Lewis
1901 S. Ave. H, Apt I
Portales, NM   88130

Monday, July 10, 2017 | Week 14

Espero que tuvieron una buena semana y 4 de Julio!

My 4th of July was pretty neat! We all got together as a district and ate at a members home for dinner (I don't know why on earth they wanted to feed 8 missionaries at a time), went to the church building in Clovis to play games, then finally finished off the night watching fireworks.​

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Other than that nothing really out of the ordinary happened this week. We did focus a lot more on helping less active members out though, which is really helping them to feel more welcome. I've learned that sometimes we need to really strengthen the ward or branch, because there is no sense in simply baptizing someone and then forgetting them. I've found that home and visiting teaching is very important. The missionaries that visit these less actives can only do so much, but it's the members that can really help them feel welcome, because eventually the missionaries are swapped out, but the members stay. Home and visiting teaching visits shouldn't really be a simple thing to check off for the month. When we are asked to visit a family we should do all we can to serve them. If they're less active, we need to do all we can to make them feel welcome and loved. We don't have to only share the gospel with non-members, ya know!

Anyway, it was a good week with these visits. But yeah again we did the usual zoo and animal shelter services. We also helped some members clean up their property on Tuesday, and others with installing a/c on their roof on Saturday.​

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Otras cosas, todavía estoy aprendiendo Español. Puedo entender and hablar un pocito más cada semana. Portales is still really hot and stormy. Texas is still big and flat. The sky is blue and the grass is dead, all those things. Words are boring so I have a lot more videos this week! I hope everyone is doing well! Love ya'll. Tengan una buena semana!

Elder Lewis

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Monday, July 03, 2017 | Week 13

Hey everyone!

Transfer 2 has started this past week and this transfer will be 7 weeks because President and Sister Heap finished off their 3 years and we have President and Sister Hales now! Elder Bean (Elder Zeagler's companion, far left in photo) and Elder Dunn (Elder Sealy's companion, far right in photo) are in our district now this transfer. Elder Zeagler is the district leader, not just co-district leader now.​ 

Lots of service this week. We came across a family that was moving into their home this week and we stopped and helped them. We also got to help out at the Portales police station and give food and water to lost or stray cats and dogs there.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Helped out at the zoo with making a ramp out of a pile of dirt (photos and videos unrelated other than it was the same day at the zoo).​

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Helped a member family in Clovis move. Helped replace parts of a perimeter of a sandbox (which required digging super long poles out of the ground) at a daycare.​

 

Washed a lot of fire trucks as well which also involved me getting completely soaked; I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner haha.​

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We got to milk a cow at a members home too! That was an interesting experience. We got some raw milk from them though.​

As for the teaching and lessons this past week, well, things are still going I guess. Everyone works like all the time here and so it's pretty difficult to ever get a hold of people and actually teach lessons. When we do though, it's great, and I can see that it helps them, but we have to actually meet them more. We seem to be meeting with different investigators and less actives every week because we don't have a clue when they are or aren't available. But each of these individuals are still being worked with little by little. We just gotta doing all we can to help them.

One thing that I have come to understand this week while talking about Temples with a less active, are the covenants we make. I've noticed growing up that I've look at covenants as something we promise to do and we are blessed for it. I've come to understand that covenants, these commitments, are only for our benefit. We are already commanded to do things, and largely the covenants we make expound on that, and so these covenants that are made guarantee us blessings. All we have to do is make and keep them and we will receive the promised blessings. Our Heavenly Father will not back out on his promise. Make covenants through the ordinances and keep the commandments and it will only benefit us. Making covenants aren't anything that we should shy away from, out of fear of being possibly restricted more, because we would only be robbing ourselves of promised and eternal blessings. Just a thought.

Anyway I hope everyone is having a good week! See you all in the next!

Elder Lewis

Monday, June 26, 2017 | Week 12

Hola! 

Saturday night were transfer calls! Elder McMaster and I are still staying in Portales! The only changes really to our district would be Elder Field and Elder Cichoski (up in Clovis) leaving. Everyone else is staying! It's kind of funny how everyone's transfer calls are almost like another mission call every 6 weeks. Call pranks are pulled often too since everyone is anticipating the phone call haha.​

This week's awesome experiences: two blessings for the sick! Earlier this week, Tuesday, we visited a less active who has some sort of skin condition on his foot. We offered a blessing and I anointed the oil and Elder McMaster sealed it. All in Spanish, whew! Then Thursday evening we visited another less active who is anemic, who asked that we give a blessing. This time around I did the sealing! Luckily she speaks English so I was able to do it in English. It was such an awesome experience and both of these individuals were so grateful. These past weeks have been both the least eventful and most eventful weeks at the same time, which doesn't make any sense but it's still somehow the case!

I'm happy to say that my Spanish is still improving! I am doing a bit better each week with understanding what others are saying, and being able to somewhat respond in a very broken Spanish. 

I've noticed that Alma 7:11-13, which talks about the Atonement, really applied a lot this week as we shared that scripture. Especially verse 11 where it talks about pains and sicknesses. The people that we shared it with all found it to be a great help to them in their life, and a good reminder of what Christ did for each one of them, and each one of us. 

Jesucristo nos ama. Y yo sé que Él está aquí por cada uno de nosotros. Estoy agredecido por Su expiación y sé que Él venció dolor, enfermedad, y muerte para todas las personas. Y sé que Él vive otra vez.

I'm still having a blast out here. I'm happy to hear from everyone! 

Tengan un buen tiempo este verano!

Elder Lewis

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