ADDRESSES!‏

Okay, I had to make that the subject line cause if any of you are like
me, you read the subject and skim the email and that's about it. Haha
so anyways, I need addresses from anyone who would like to get a
Christmas card from my comp and I... So please send them! Thank you :)

Oh my goodness, this week was absolutely crazy! We were literally
running from place to place trying to fit everything in. I mean I'm
definitely not complaining about that, but my poor greenie! Speaking
of which, she is amazing! She got here at 5 am Wednesday morning and
had been driving through the night, so in the training meeting
president told me "your companion got 2 hours of sleep last night, so
I give you permission to take her home and let her sleep for the day."
So after we finished our meeting, her and I started heading home and
she asked me what we would be doing that day, so I told her president
said she could sleep all day, and she said "what? I don't wanna do
that. Let's go." Haha so off we went! We got to work and had a great
day and have been doing great ever since. She is such a great
missionary already and is a convert of only a year and a half! And her
name is Hermana Garcia. We've been working super well together and are
having a blast. Since we do have two areas combined into one now, we
are crazy busy, but she's handled it super well and I'm really excited
for what is to come this transfer.

So this week, we had thanksgiving of course which was so much fun. We
had early morning service setting up for a nativity festival that will
be this weekend, so that took most of our morning. Then we headed to
the turkey bowl which was super fun and most of the missionaries and a
lot of members showed up. Then we went to an old folk's home to wish
the residents happy thanksgiving and visit with them, which was super
fun cause they all had very big personalities and were absolutely
hilarious. Then we went to our thanksgiving dinner which was
definitely different than any of my thanksgivings in the past, but I
sure wouldn't change it for anything. After dinner we had appointments
with a few families and one of our investigators who doesn't have
family here and had no plans for the night so we took him a pie which
was fun. It was definitely a thanksgiving that I will remember and
cherish forever.

As far as our investigators goes, we have a new investigator up in
healdsburg, our new area, who is super ready to be baptized, he just
doesn't know it yet... :) so basically we're just working really hard
with him and trying to help his testimony grow.

We also just picked up two new investigators yesterday! They were
investigating the church a long time ago, but then one of the members
showed up to church with them and they want to have us start teaching
them again! So that was a tender mercy :)

To close today I just want to tell you all how grateful I am for the
gospel in my life. Especially having thanksgiving this past weekend,
I've definitely been able to see what a blessing it is in my life and
how truly lucky I am to be here on a mission sharing that with others.
I'm thankful for all the experiences I've been able to have here, for
all the trials, for all the things God has taught me and continues to
teach me, for my family, my friends (so, all of you:), for truly
everything. Seriously, we are so blessed! Just take a moment this week
to count your blessings :) love you, hope you all had a great
thanksgiving and that you have a wonderful first week of December! 

Love, 

Hermana Lewis 

 Pictures: 

1. Matching w/ Hermana Steiner 

2. Saying goodbye :( sorry don't mind our crying 

3 & 4. Me and my cute comp! 

5. Some of the cute members in our ward decorated our door for thanksgiving!

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Miracles and transfers ‏

First, sorry for the long email! I had to make up for not emailing last week!

This week we had an amazing experience while tracting that I wanted to
share. We were knocking doors, and it was funny because as we were
knocking this door, I turned to my companion and said "I bet the
elders have tracted these apartments a million times. Oh well!"
(Background info-we cover the same are as our zone leaders, who are
English missionaries. But they live at the apartment complex we were
tracting that day). My companion says to me "hey, we're hermanas. Who
knows, maybe they'll let us in." Just then the door opens, and the
woman who answered, Susan, said "oh my goodness, sister missionaries!
How exciting! I saw you walking across the street and hoped you'd come
to my door- all we get here is elders. Come on in!" As ironic and
funny as that was, we were stoked that she was so happy to see us. She
explained to us that she's a member, but her mother isn't and is very
afraid of religions and God because of some traumatic experiences she
went through as a child. We talked with her for a few minutes and she
told us a bit more about her story, and how she was actually visiting
her brother's house, where he and her mom live. The biggest shock was
that she then told us "yeah, he's active, but I'm not. I lost my
testimony." We definitely weren't expecting that from her, but it gave
us a great opportunity to talk about testimonies with her, and then we
invited her mother in to watch a video we had wanted to share with
them, and she said yes! And right then, her brother walked in the door
:) so, we shared the video with the three of them and the spirit was
so incredibly strong. By the end, we all had tears in our eyes and
Susan told us she hadn't felt the spirit that strong in years.

I can't express to you how grateful I am for this inspired work. And
experiences like that are the reason I know without a doubt that this
work truly is inspired. Sure, we go through times of trial and
sicknesses and failure, but I know I'm here for a reason and God puts
me exactly where I need to be at all times. And with that said,
transfers are this week! So president is doing things differently now,
and we don't find out who our companion is or where we're getting
transferred to until transfer meeting. We just find out if we're
staying or leaving though, and I'm staying! I kinda knew I would, but
either way I'm stoked about it :)

I got a call from our zone leaders though on Saturday who informed me
that I'm going to be having a baby! Aka, I'm training! I'll be honest,
I'm terrified. But I know it's going to be a great thing. So actually
lucky for me, I already know who my companion is because she's the
only Hermana coming in. President invited us over for dinner with the
APs and tech elders last night because one from each of our
companionships is going home so he thought it would be fun. So
anyways, they told me a bit about her and so I know she's a native
Spanish speaker but lives in Oregon, and her name is something really
cool and long and hyphenated haha so I forgot it... But I'll tell you
next week! Oh also, my companion and I are going to be absorbing the
healdsburg elders' area, which is a city just north of Santa Rosa. So
we're kind of whitewashing again, but keeping our area. It's a bit
confusing, haha but the good thing is I've got the lord on my side so
it will all work out!

Friday we had la fiesta del día de acción de gracias! which means the
thanksgiving party. It was so much fun! The whole ward got together
and we had a huge thanksgiving dinner, and then after they had a dance
party. And since we couldn't really join, bishop kindly involved us in
the party by spraying whipped cream in our hair  it was so fun to
get the ward together and we actually had quite a few less actives
there.

Well, since it is the week of thanksgiving I just want to tell you all
how grateful I a, to have you in my life. I'm grateful for my family,
my friends, the gospel, my amazing mission president and the
opportunity I have to serve here, and for every single other blessing
that God has giving me. I hope you all have an amazing thanksgiving! I
love you with all my heart!

Love, Hermana Lewis

Pictures:
The first 3 are at our trip to the beach last week, then us at lunch
with hermano Navarro at the amazing Peruvian restaurant he owns, and
the last one is me with Charlie Brown. Haha they have those all over
Santa Rosa because the guy who created that is from here.

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The worth of souls is great‏

Well, mainly I just have the weekend to update you on! So we had zone
conference on Friday, which was amazing as always. We combined with
the other Santa Rosa zone and both San Rafael zones, so there was a
lot of us there. We learned a lot about how to be better missionaries,
and my companion also had to give her departing testimony which was
crazy  speaking of my companion, she has an AMAZING singing voice,
and there's also an elder in our zone who belongs at Juilliard, so the
two of them are asked to sing for pretty much everything, and somehow
I got dragged in as their pianist. So I had to accompany them for a
song at zone conference and at church on Sunday, and let me just say
I'm regretting not practicing hymns like my mom told me to growing up!
Listen to your mothers, people! Oh also, president and sister wright
both spoke in our ward yesterday, so I got to see them quite a bit
this past week

We had a super amazing service project this Saturday, where the stake
got together downtown to feed the homeless and give them winter coats
and clothes and stuff. It was so cool cause all us missionaries were
asked to show up in our lovely yellow helping hands shirts and go
around meeting people. So I just got to chat with homeless people for
a few hours and I absolutely loved it! They were so grateful and
appreciative for everything and it was so amazing to find out all
their back-stories. It gave me a little taste of how God sees all of
us, and that everyone has a story and deserves to be loved, regardless
of who they are. I know without a shadow of a doubt that we are all
children of a loving Heavenly Father, who knows your back-story, who
watches over you, and loves you more than you could ever know.

"Remember, the worth of souls is great in the sight of God." -D&C 18:10

Love you all! 

Hermana Lewis

Pictures: 

1. Me with president and sister wright at zone conference 

2. The 6 girls of us girls in our zone at the temple (yes, we're the
hardly visible dots there in the middle) 

3. Me and my companion  

4. Car ride to the temple! (Party in the back seat ) 

5. Awkward selfie

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Hump daaaaay!

Today officially marks 9 months in the mission field! It's honestly
super bittersweet, I can't believe how fast time is flying. But
anyways, I feel super fortunate that I got to spend my hump day at the
temple :)

This week..... My comp caught the bug, which was a bummer :( but we're
all healed now and back to work! Our area is still struggling a but
but we were able to find some super cool less actives this past week.
We found two families, the Velazquez and the Payans, who are so
amazing and ready to come back to church but just aren't sure how to
do it. So, we're really hoping we can help them out with that :) other
than that, we're just trying to keep finding the elect!

Um, honestly I don't have much else to say and we're writing emails in
the car today and I'm getting carsick... So that's all for this week!
Sorry! I've got some good pictures for you though! Love you all! 

Hermana Lewis 

1. Our view on the way to the temple 

2. On Halloween, we had to stay in that night so we had a carmel apple party  

3. Our zone 

4. My cute grandma sent me a hump day shirt and a camel haha so I had
to get a picture of that!

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