*ps. The Lewis Family will be speaking LIVE with Elder Lewis via Skype on Christmas Day! SO... nows your chance... want to ask him a question? hows the mission? is is his spanish coming along? whats the food like? etc.... leave it in the comments, and we will read him those questions and get you an answer!
Its been a great week! Zone
Conferences this week, and lessons throughout the week…. Wait there’s a lizard
on the wall… Anyway, 3 zones, and had trainings with President Laney and the
Zone Leaders. I really learned a lot. And then we taught lessons again. We had
a lesson Thursday. We went to the familia Bautista, they are all members except
for Angie, and we taught her the plan of Salvation. At the end we challenged
her to be baptized. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said “I would
love to, but I sin too much.” She has a little girl and is pregnant, and is
living with a guy. He is actually a good guy. So she has some problems. But in
that moment, the spirit was in the lesson. Elder Zuniga and I testified with
all of our hearts, with all the power of the Spirit that we could muster, that
His grace is sufficient. That we cannot go too far and that his arms are always
waiting to receive her, but that yes, it might be hard, but it is never too
late. And when we testified we truly felt the love of the Savior. She was
crying and I was crying. As we did this and closed in the name of the Savior,
after a moment of silence, I realized right then that I am powerless to help
these people, that it is all in the Savior, that he is all powerful. It is one
of my favorite moments when this happens. Next time we will teach her about the
4 principles of the Gospel. I am excited for that.
Friday, we had half the mission
come to Bucaramanga, to a chapel that is about ½ an hour away from here.
Expensive by taxi. About 1200 Colombian Pesos, which is roughly $4.00. so super
cheap, but expensive. We went there and an Area Seventy spoke about living for
the principle not for the law. Am I obeying just for the law or am I looking
for the principle? We will only be happy if we are living for the principle,
doing things for the purpose not the law. The good thing is that even if we are
living for law right now, we can find out the reason why. There is always a
reason, and when we find out we are grateful, and when we are grateful, we are
happy.
After that, we went and played
games. I got to see Elder Watts who was in my CCM group, which was super cool
because we were both talking in Spanish, which was way more than we could have
done a month and a half/ two months ago. Right now, me and Zuniga, who speaks
perfect English, we have started to alternate between English and Spanish, and
it just kinda happens we don’t even notice it. I have started to screw up my
English just a little bit. The other day I was asking somebody where they were
from and I said “Que Este.. . Where?” and Zuniga laughed at me and I said
“what?” and he said “really?”. I mess up sometimes. Anyway, if you have never
played games with a group of Elders and Sisters, its super fun. We also did
sketches. Ours was a huge success! We
also did gift exchanges! I got an American Football from Elder Lopez. The thing
was that it was double wrapped in tape, so it took me a good 15 minutes to saw
it open with my teeth. He was laughing the entire time. We had a dinner as well, and each zone
prepared an American Christmas Carol. After that we all got together in our
native nationalities, and we talked about our Christmas traditions. A little
trunky, but cool. Then we got gifts from the mission. We got a tie and a
hymnbook cover, that is personalized with my name and mission on it and a
directory with all the missionaries in the mission on it.
Then Saturday we helped move some
things for a member in a store right by our house. Whats nice about living here
in Floridablanca, is that there are a lot of things very close. Sunday we went
to our meetings and then had a lesson with an Investigator who was having a
hard time with her son, and she wasn’t going to celebrate Christmas. Well, we
walked in and all her decorations were up! This was kind of an emotional
moment. The son was really kinda despondent, he didn’t want to talk a lot, and
then Zuniga started joking with him and I chimed in. We taught from Jarom in
the Book of Mormon, and Elder Zuniga told him that he wasn’t reading his
scriptures, that’s why he had fallen away, after only 6 months from returning
from own mission in Bolivia. So we talked to him and I felt the spirit fill me
and I talked to him about his mission and what he did. He said I just cant find
the motivation to read the scriptures. The spirit is kinda funny, sometimes it
prompts you like “say this”, and other times it just takes over and the words
just come. This is what happened this time. I talked to him about his mission
and how every morning its hard to exercise, and shower because its cold. But in
the end it feels so good. But by the next morning, we forget again. And then I
asked him “Have you forgotten? Do you believe what you told those people those
2 years? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior?” He got uncomfortable and said “ok, ok I do
believe with all my heart, but when I came back everybody expected me to be
some superhero. I just cant live up to that.” So he fell away for a short time.
He told us that he was insecure about that. After he said this, it was a moment
where we felt “NOW we can help you!” Now
we call him every morning and tell him to get up and read his scriptures. So
that was really cool.
We had a lesson with familia Uribe,
a couple of cool things happen. First, Sofie, Andres' daughter, (reminds me of
Cici), her Spanish is so funny! Anyway, we asked her to say the prayer (she is
2) and she did! And Andres and Elisa
were standing in the doorway, watching her pray, and I know that they felt
something because Andres walked back in with tears in his eyes. Anyway, we
talked to Hermana Uribe and her daughter about “is the gospel still beautiful
to you? Have you forgotten?” and they felt something. We are working with them
and are seeing progress. Hermana Uribe is like a mom to me here in Colombia.
Anyway, We will talk to you all on
Sunday. Hasta Lluego!
Elder Pace and Elder Lewis
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