Never coming home

First off, something happened to my weekly email group, so I had to
start over this week and don't remember who was in it. So if you're
getting this and don't want it, let me know :) haha

Okay, So ever since day one I've loved the mission. Granted it's been
hard and sometimes I've wanted to give up, but I've loved it. But the
reason I say this is because I don't think it was until this week that
I realized how much I truly do love it here. I've officially decided
I'm never coming home cause I NEVER want to stop being a missionary!

So... let me explain what happened this week and why I've come to this
conclusion. So there's this weird virus going around that lasts
forever and it's like the flu and a bad cold mixed together and it's
just awful, and our mission nurse essentially quarantines anyone who
gets it. Haha so up to this point in my mission I've never had me or
any of my companions be sick enough that we had to stop working and
stay in. so, when 3 of the 4 of us in my apartment got the bug and had
to stay inside, it was the first time I've had to take a break from
doing missionary work since I got my name tag. And it was TERRIBLE! At
first I tried watching bible videos and Mormon messages and whatnot,
and after an hour of feeling like I was just watching tv and wasting
time, I was ready to rip my hair out! Entonces... I've come to the
conclusion that I'm just never going to leave the mission (lo siento
mom 😬). I can't imagine life without being a missionary! And the
reason I share all this is because I just want you all to know how
happy I am and that I am 100% confident this is the best decision I
have ever made. Anyone debating/considering going on a mission.... DO
IT! I PROMISE you won't regret it. It definitely won't be the easiest
thing you ever do, it will test you and try you, but it is SO worth
it. I promise. 

On that note, let me tell you about our week! Obviously not a whole
lot happened, but we actually set a baptismal date with our
investigator, Marta! It's set for November 22, but currently she works
Sunday's so we're praying she'll be able to get that changed so she
can come to church and get baptized!

We also picked up a cool new investigator this week named Arturo. He
is such a hoot. We had his number in our phone so we called it last
week, and he wanted to set up an appointment with us. So we show up at
his house the other day for our appointment, but there wasn't any
females home so we couldn't go in (just one of the rules we have). So
we start talking with him at the door and he just tells us "I'm sorry,
this is too awkward. I can't do this. Can we, like, go to the park?"
Hahaha so now we meet with him at the park. But it's all good, he's
awesome.

Oh also, the other night at 2am we heard something on our deck and
were SURE somebody was trying to break in and spent a while reacting
as most girls would..... Turns out it was a family of raccoons.
#awkward.

Lastly, next week I won't be emailing until nov. 4 (my 1/2 way mark
) cause it's temple week! So don't worry when I don't write
Monday :)

Well, that's all for this week! I love you all and hope you have a
great week and a happy Halloween! Stay safe :)


Pictures:
1. So, when I first started getting sick I took a nap during lunch one
day. Then after I had to convince my companion I wasn't sick, I was
just a little tired and that I'd be fine. So, I put my shoes on and we
went out tracting. A few hours later, she looked down at my shoes and
noticed they weren't the same.... Turns out I was extremely out of it
and actually was sick. Haha this is one of the most embarrassing
pictures I've sent home but the story is worth it 
2. This is our zone (Santa rosa north) and the Santa Rosa south zone
with our stake president

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Officially living in Santa Rosa!‏

I'm officially living in Santa Rosa! First off I have to tell you that
the address they gave me last week was wrong, so don't send anything
there! If you already have don't worry about it, it's just the zone
leaders' apartment. But anyways, here's my real new address:
5199 Old Redwood Highway Apt. 75
Santa Rosa, CA 95403

So anyways, I absolutely LOVE it here. Rosa is so beautiful and fun!
And I have an amazing companion who is literally the nicest human on
the planet, and 2 other roomies who are some of the best hermanas in
the mission, so all is well here! This week was a struggle because we
whitewashed into basically nothing, and really didn't have any info to
go off of, but we're starting to get to know the area and find our
investigators. It's definitely an adventure though! Our zone is super
fun though, we have the APs in our zone who have helped us out a ton.
And I think I've seen president wright more in the past week than I
did in the past few months that he's been here!

As far as investigators, I don't have a lot to give updates on, sorry!
We do have one investigator named Marta who asked us in our first
lesson with her what the requirements for baptism are, which was super
awesome. She has tons of potential and we're excited about her.
Hopefully we can set a baptismal date with her this week, so keep her
in your prayers!

I want to share a scripture with you that I read this morning and
absolutely loved. It's heleman 14:30, and it says, "And now remember,
remember, my brethren, that whosoever perisheth, perisheth unto
himself; and whosoever doeth iniquity, doeth it unto himself; for
behold, ye are free; ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for
behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made you
free."
How great is it that we get to choose WHATEVER we want to. God will
never force anything on us and will ALWAYS give us our agency. WE
choose our actions, which means WE are the reason for our
consequences. Choose the right, people. It makes you happy  have a
great week, I love you all and you're always in my prayers!

Love,
Hermana Lewis

Pictures:
So apparently some of my pictures last week didn't send. So hopefully
they'll go through today! And the first one is me and my roomies! The
one next to me is Hermana Akre, my companion, then Hermana
Melgar-Fetzer, then Hermana Rosas

2. Me and the harris's, my absolute favorites. They were just in Utah this week and met up with my family and got a picture with them, so I had to make sure I got a picture with them as well :)

3. Oscar, leti, Jacqueline, and I at the baptism!

4. Haha this is Ernestina and her husband. Ernestina is one of our amazing golden investigators and her husband is a super loud obnoxious funny guy. we came up to the door that day, he was sitting at the table eating dinner with nothing on... Luckily we saw nothing haha but hence the robe 

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I'm going to ROSA!

Well, I'm getting transferred to Santa Rosa! And I get to be in a SPANISH WARD! I've only served in english wards my whole mission and I was really hoping to be able to go to a spanish branch next.. but I got even better than that! It's the only spanish ward in the mission so I feel pretty lucky :) So before I tell you all about my new area, let me just tell you that waiting for transfer info is probably the HARDEST test of my patience there is! We're supposed to find out friday nights and the anticipation leading up to it kind of feels like christmas, but not like a normal christmas. it's like a christmas where you don't actually know if santa is even coming and if anything good or bad is coming your way, so you just anxiously wait. then you find out that it's going to be postponed to sometime on saturday, but you have no idea when and where you'll be and it's just a roller coaster of anxiety. But after an extra day of agonizing waiting, finally it came around dinner time saturday and I am SO stoked!

So my companion and I are going to be whitewashing (which means both missionaries in that area were transferred out and they're bringing two new ones in) and I'm a little nervous about that, but I'm excited. My new companion is Hermana Akre which I'm also super stoked about. I've never met her but I do know she's from canada and that pretty much everyone in the mission loves her. Something else that's kind of cool is that my zone leaders will be elder muncey, whose aunt is my mom's best friend, and elder hastings, who many of you probably know because I went to high school with him. It's going to be a good transfer! I'm definitely sad to leave my companion and dixon and all the amazing people here, but I know the Lord needs me somewhere else and I can't wait to see what he has in store for me.

As far as what happened this week, we actually had an amazing weekend with Oscar and Leti. I'm not sure if I've told you all about them before, but they're this family with a 9 year old who we absolutely love. We've been working with them a ton lately and it's really cool to see them finally making progress. They have so much potential and I KNOW they're going to be baptized someday, it's just a matter of time :) But anyways, they FINALLY started keeping commitments and they came to a baptism in woodland with us on saturday and then on sunday they even showed up to the barbecue we had out at the Lane ranch! It was kind of a homecoming party for the bishop's son/birthday party/farewell party so a lot of people from the ward were there and it was good to have them socializing and making friends with the ward.

Well... I'm honestly not quite sure what else to share with you this week! We had such an amazing week I don't even know what I can report back to you! It was one of those weeks where by the time I found out I was getting transferred, I didn't want to leave all the amazing investigators we have and the amazing supportive members. I've learned so much here in Dixon and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I had to serve here. But I KNOW that our mission president is inspired and that he's sending me exactly where I need to be. Wish me luck in Rosa! I've updated my new address at the bottom :) Love you all!

Love, 

Hermana Lewis 

Pictures: (Sorry only one of the pictures worked #4 but I sure would have liked to see #5!)

1. Lane ranch barbecue!

2. Me and the harris's, my absolute favorites. They were just in Utah this week and met up with my family and got a picture with them, so I had to make sure I got a picture with them as well :)

3. Oscar, leti, Jacqueline, and me at the baptism!

4. Me and Jackie, an adorable member who we go to service for every week

5. Haha this is Ernestina and her husband. Ernestina is one of our amazing golden investigators and her husband is a super loud obnoxious funny guy. we came up to the door that day, he was sitting at the table eating dinner with nothing on... Luckily we saw nothing haha but hence the robe 

Hermana Suzanna Lewis

sister-suzie.blogspot.com
3076 Marlow Road, apt. F234

Santa Rosa, CA 95403

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CONFERENCE! (obviously)‏

Well I think it goes without saying that I loved this week because we got to watch conference! My companion and I were talking the other day about how we kind of look forward to conference like it's Christmas, which just shows you how much of a difference the mission has made on me! I can't believe I only have one more session in the mission! But anywho, I'll come back to conference later in my email.

So what happened this week... honestly, conference made me forget just about everything that happened before then. Remember that cute hispanic couple we found late at night downtown last week? Well, funny story. So they actually didn't know their address or phone numbers, but they tried their best to explain where they live to us. They told us they lived by the catholic church on the top floor of a set of apartments. Well, the catholic church here is pretty much surrounded by apartments, so when we headed over there to try and find them, we felt a bit overwhelmed. We knew we weren't going to have time to knock every door and worried they might not even be home, but we decided to get to work and try to find them. I kid you not, the FIRST door in the FIRST apartment complex was them! And we almost skipped it cause it looked suuuuuper american (not that we profile people.. but sometimes you've got to use the context clues), but then we thought "that would be really embarrassing if we skipped it and it was them." So there they were! They are just the cutest and we were so grateful God helped us find them so quickly :)

I can't think of much else that happened this week.. we visited sandra (the one who doesn't want to be catholic anymore) and she's doing well! We showed up at her house at 8:40 thinking we could have a short lesson with her.... WRONG. We started the lesson and it went pretty well for a bit but then by 9:00 she was talking about water on mars and how we're going to pollute it and the lesson didn't quite end how we'd planned.. but what really matters is that we're still teaching her and she's still interested, even if she's also interested in crazy world news too! Oh also, we're still visiting with Jessica and she's doing super well. She was able to watch a bit of conference with her family which is good, cause they're not quite supportive of the church. So hopefully their hearts will be softened a bit!

Anyways, back to conference. I hope you all got a chance to watch at least some of it! Elder Durrant talked about "ponderizing" scriptures which I absolutely loved. I want to extend that same challenge to each of you, to "ponderize" a scripture every week! Meaning, pick a scripture, take what you feel that you need from it (doesn't need to be verbatum), and put it somewhere you'll always see it and memorize it! I'll share with you my scripture for this week. It's found in 1 Ne 11:17 and it says "...I know that [God] loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." I love that because it's short and sweet and couldn't be more true. We don't know everything, but we have a father in heaven who loves us, and that's one of the most important things that we could know. 

Love you all! I hope you enjoyed conference as much as I did and that you have a lovely week!

Hermana Lewis

Pictures:

Sorry, I only have one this week, but this is the prescott family! They are crazy and fun and adorable and remind me of home, so I had to get a picture with them. Also, they have the most beautiful dog ever, right?!?!

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