Hello Familia! Como Estan?
It’s been awhile since I’ve
recorded, but now I have a cell phone without a virus, so maybe I will be able
to pass this recording on, we will see.
Well, here I am in Bogota, trying
to get my feet on the ground here. As you guys know, I was made District Leader
last week… why did they do that? (haha) It’s interesting because I only have a
district of 4 Elders. Me, my companion, Elder Lopez, and Elder Mareja. All 4 of
us are of different nationalities, I’m American, Elder Silva is Brasilero,
Elder Lopez is Peruvian, and Elder Mareja is from the Philippines. It’s really
been interesting. During District meeting, we have a progress meeting and then
we play a game. We did “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” in 4 different
languages. Spanish, English, Portuguese, and Tagalog. Tagalog was the hardest
for sure. It was so weird. Lets see, what do I have to tell you guys? Lots of
things… I am starting to learn a little bit of Portuguese… I don’t know I have
been studying pronunciation a little bit, its really weird Portuguese… But I am
afraid of really diving in because it’s going to mess with my Spanish. So I
don’t know. My companion has a thick, thick accent and sometimes it’s hard to
know whether he is speaking Spanish or Portuguese. Surprisingly, though, I can
understand both pretty well.
Well, this
area is HUGE! Its two areas put together, and they had 4 Elders in this area,
and they split it in half between 4 Elders. They took 2 missionaries out for
whatever reason, (I think it’s because there aren’t enough Elders in the
mission, the rumor is that we are going to get 2 more back here next transfer.)
But for now we are running 2 areas, me and Elder Silva, and it takes 2 hours to
walk from one side to the other, if not more. It’s frustrating a little bit, it
seems like we don’t have enough time. This area is VERY VERY poor. It’s the
trashy side of Bogota. I think the South end of Bogota is worse, but for our
mission, this is the trashiest place in our mission. There is graffiti everywhere.
Including on the gate around the church. It’s everywhere, trash in the streets.
It’s really weird though there are all these houses and they are really poor
and look like they are going to fall apart, but sometimes you walk in and they
are poor, and sometimes it’s actually rather nice. We are living in a house
that is really nice, it has 4 floors and the first carpet that I have seen here
in Colombia. Granted, it’s not good carpet, its almost like tile, but we have
HOT WATER. I have been enjoying that a lot. I am taking 2 showers a day
sometimes because I love it. It’s very cold here in Bogota, we walk around in
sweaters and coats, which is very different than Bucaramanga. People are very
different here, The people aren’t that cold, but the members are. They are less
open. It’s kinda weird because the members in Bucaramanga are like “Elders!
Elderes!” but we do get quite a warm welcome, but some don’t like us. But I
hope to be gaining more trust with them. Right now we have been pulling some
long hours trying to get everything organized, and that’s been my life for the
past week.
We have a
family, familia Guerrero, that their son just passed away 6 months ago and they
have been searching on all sides for something that will give them hope. They
have been to the Baptists, the Evangelicals, the Jehovah’s Witnesses,
everything. She was actually in Argentina and visited a temple, and she found
what she was looking for and received answers and now we are teaching her
family. They should be baptized the 21st of May. Four of them. It
was kinda cool because we went and met with them, this lady named Jennifer had
her sister there, and she wanted us to teach her the Plan of Salvation. So we
did. The next time we came she brought her mom. She sat her mom down and said:
“Mom. I want you to listen to this. This is really good. I want you to know
this.” So we taught her the Plan of Salvation. It’s just been so cool. So cool
to see her face. I don’t think theres that much faith in members of the church
in many parts.
Today for
P-Day I am going to be sending some pictures of what we did. We went to a
member’s and we….Como se llamas..? we cooked? Ya we cooked. I don’t know,
there’s not too much to tell.
We have a
baptism this week of a muchacho, a boy, that is 11, his uncle will be baptizing
him this week. We need to finish up some teaching with him and then he will be
ready. We’ve started teaching his parents too so it will be good for them to
see him get baptized.
Well we are
praying hard here in Jordan, I hope the Lord has blessed you so much, because
he has blessed me so, so much. He has blessed me so very much here. I can
honestly say that this has been the hardest week of my mission (seriously it
has been SO hard.) My companion lost not 1 companion but 3, and I am his second
companion, and if you have ever been on a mission you know that your second
companion kind of sucks because he’s not your trainer, and on top of that he
lost 2 others that were in the house. I’ve been trying to give him some space
for that and sometimes I miss Bucaramanga, the weather, the people, it’s really
the land of my heart. BUT I can honestly say that I am happy and I have no idea
why. I am happy. Because of all the things that I see, because of other
people’s lives. I was talking to a member the other day, (they gave us dinner,
arepas) and he has served as everything from Bishop here in Bogota here in some
of the hard times, to Patriarch. He told me about a time where (Note
from Jessica: there is a name of a branch of the church that Elder Lewis states
here, but I don’t understand him clearly enough to tell the name. So just know
it was a remote branch outside of Bogota.) brought in people, 8 hours
out of Bogota, they brought in a whole branch to get patriarchal blessings and
as I watched him talk about it, he got very emotional. I just saw such
humility in his eyes. I don’t know, we had to go, but I couldn’t interrupt him. the feeling was too good. As I listened to him, he started to cry, and I
started to cry, and my companion looked at me weird but I just felt so good. Just
seeing all the joy, the pure joy in his eyes of having had the opportunity to
give these blessings to these people, as well as working in the temple. He
talked to me about how he’s been taught in the temple by the Lord. It really
just made me think.
Well, I
hope you have enjoyed my jabbering, but for a spiritual message, this week I have
had some homework from President, to kind of get me to lead, It’s been
different. I can’t just follow now, I have to stand on my own two feet. I was
reading a conference address by President Nelson that was talking about Power
in the Priesthood, and how we have to seek it. We have authority, but do we
have power? If we ask the Lord to teach us and give us power, he will do it. He
loves to teach us. But we have to get past “Polite recitations” of past,
present, and future events during our prayers. It hit me hard. I have been
really trying to pray for more power through him. We can pray to know how to
pray to him. So, invitation: pray to the Lord to ask him how to pray. Ask him
to teach you. Like any loving father, whose son or daughter asks them to teach
them, he’s going to teach you. How happy would he be if we ask him to teach us?
The Lord has taught me so much here.
I love you
all. I hope you have enjoyed these couple of minutes. I will talk to you later.
Chao Chao!
-Elder Lewis
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