Called To Colombia: Elder Jared M. Lewis' Mission Blog: Week 52: The Best First Year: Elder Lewis hits his 1 year mark!

Hola Familia!

So, this week, completing a year! Crazy how fast that went by, thinking about it right now, today, it was a year ago that was my farewell. Wow, where did that time go? Well, I just wanted to share with you guys the things that I have learned in the past year, and there have been a lot of things:

I believe that the first thing that I have learned is to have faith that is unbreakable in Jesus Christ. My faith has grown so much until even as I talk about it right now, my heart burns within me because I know that he is my Savior. I have had many experiences that have testified to me of the truth of that and I feel like I am on the road to a close relationship with him. The other thing that I have learned, is in Spanish Todavia falto mucho. I still have a long way to go. So that’s another thing that I have learned is humility. I still struggle trying to keep my temper sometimes, but I know that I can do it if I remain humble. If I just keep in mind that I have a lot of faults and that I am not always right, and if I can just put a smile on my face, just no matter what, then I will be ok. Something that I have learned especially this week. Those two things have really been what I have learned, along with a host of other things. I now speak Spanish, for one thing. I am still trying to improve that, but as you can tell, I am starting to think a lot in Spanish, makes it so that I cant speak English, that I cant switch between the two very often, or I cant switch between them very fluently. If I am speaking English for a long time, maybe on a P-Day with another gringo, then I am thinking in English, but then during the whole week I am thinking in Spanish, so when I am speaking English it’s a little rocky. Lets see… this year I have read the Book of Mormon, I believe, I have read it twice. 2 ½ times. One time in English at the beginning of my mission, and one time, almost two times in Spanish. I have also read the whole missionary library, including Jesus the Christ, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I have just enjoyed so much having this time to learn about my Savior. My views have become clear on many things, including how many things that I still have to learn. But this year, I have a big year ahead of me. I think this is where it really gets going from here on out. I am ready. I am ready to just make it a good year. Teach repentance and baptize converts and go out there and I guess I could say change lives, but the life that is going to change most is mine.

So this week has been really crazy. On Monday, I kinda told you guys but we went to Playa Blanca, it was a Zone activity, I will be sending pictures of that next week. On Tuesday, we went to Multi-Zone conference, in a city nearby called Duitama. It’s about ½ an hour away by bus, ½ hour, 45 minutes. So we went over there, came back worked in the area for the rest of the night, for another 2 hours. We got back, and in our Zone we have Yopal, which is 5 hours from Sogamoso. And they got to the station in Sogamoso and found out that their bus had already left for Yopal, and that the next one would be leaving at 1:30 in the morning. And on top of that, a bridge had fallen inbetween here and Yopal, and so what they would have to do is do like a layover where they would get down to the bridge, they would have to walk across with all their bags and boxes and stuff they were hauling from Multi-Zone and get on a bus on the other side back to Yopal. We don’t want them doing that at like 3:00 in the morning, so we had them come back to our house. Which is something that we didn’t expect. So we had to put our plans that night on hold, that was about 7:00. Then on Wednesday, we went and had interviews with President, again in Duitama. By the time we got back, we had to pack our bags and go to Bogotá where we stayed in an area called Salitre with some Zone Leaders over there. That was a lot of fun.

This week, the Pope has come to Colombia as you have all heard. It has been a BIG BIG deal. Dad says that suddenly everybody would be Catholic, and that’s true. They are saying stuff like “what a blessing it was to have the Pope here and to enlighten us and to train us”. Actually, I think it was a good thing, it’s just that everybody is going on the Catholic thing now, so our work is going to be interesting for the next couple of weeks.

Alright, so Wednesday we went to Bogotá, Thursday we were in a leadership council in Bogotá that lasted the whole day, that was really great. It was a meeting from 9:00 in the morning to 3:00 in the afternoon, and it just filled us up to the brim. Got to talk about what was going on in our mission, what’s happening, what we need to do better. So, that night we went from the chapel in Alhambra to the temple. There’s a McDonald’s right by the temple so we went to McDonald’s and then we went and did a session in the temple with all of the missionary leaders and that was really great to be able to go to the temple. I had a good experience there. I think that’s the strongest that I have ever felt the Spirit in the temple. I just felt so calmed. Such a peaceful feeing. Especially because it has been a crazy week. I have been so stressed out this week, and it’s tough on your companionship and it’s tough on everything and we didn’t have that much time to work on our area and there’s that stress too. Sometimes you just feel like you are failing. I just felt a really peaceful feeling in the temple. I know that it is a house of God. So we left the temple at about 10:30 at night and we went over to the what do you call it… the porta? The bus station, and we took a taxi to the bus station, and went from the bus station and it was really interesting, while I was buying the tickets, they usually give us the tickets from here to Sogamoso for 20,000 Colombian Pesos, but he wanted to jack it up to 25, and I was fighting him about it and while I was fighting about it a Grandma pushed me out of the way and bought the last tickets, so we had to wait until 11:30 to get on the bus and then we got back to Sogamoso really fast actually probably 2:30-3:00 in the morning. But that was irritating. But ya. Then Friday we had the opportunity, we got back at 3:00 in the morning but we still had to get up at 6:30, so it was kind of a heavy day. We got out and worked, we found a couple of good people, we caught up with a couple of our investigators. This week, Lord willing, Alverson will be baptized. He really means a lot to me, when me and Elder Coop went to teach him the Word of Wisdom on an intercambio, we went there and we had suggested to them that they watch the testaments, and they were watching the testaments right as we walked in so we watched the last 15 minutes of the Testaments with them. And we all ended up crying. It was just amazing. Alverson is a big guy, he was in the army, he is 22, big big guy, but we just watched as tears rolled down his face and the Spirit testified to him that those things are true. Also, as we taught the Word of Wisdom, which normally isn’t the most emotional of all lessons, but he shared with us that his Dad had died for failing to live that commandment. Of course he didn’t know about it, but he had lung cancer because he smoked so much. So that really hit his heart hard. So he received his answer through prayer, and now he is going to be baptized on Saturday and I am very grateful for that. Just one thing, he is a referral from his sister, who he is living with, and his sister and her family are members. The thing is that her little daughter, Jackie, fell off of a chair and smacked her head on the ground, on the tile, and was throwing up and a bunch of stuff. So if you guys could pray for Jackie, that’s really hard for them right now. I am hoping that Jackie will pull through, and that Alverson will be baptized this Saturday. So if you guys could include Jackie, Jackie Niño, in your prayers I would appreciate it. On Saturday we worked some more in the area, we had an activity, a blood drive that we went and helped do, Sunday, we went and met with some of the members, nothing really big to report there. One thing, we went to visit, on Sunday night, Carlos Huerta, who is actually a new investigator that we found a couple weeks back knocking doors. He let us in, taught him a lesson, and gave him a Book of Mormon. He called me on Tuesday saying that he had read a ¼ of it and said that he wanted to read more. The unfortunate thing is that we haven’t been able to catch him since then, so we are hoping to be able to do that TONIGHT.

Well you guys, this has been a long recording, but a lot has happened this week. I am very grateful to the Lord and for his blessings. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission and I am so grateful for the things that I have learned this year. I am hoping to push forward to make this the best year of my life. So far, I could probably say that this has been the best year of my life. I am hoping to make this next one even better. My testimony is this: I know that God lives. I know that he has restored his Church through Joseph Smith. I know the Book of Mormon is true and that it was translated by a Prophet of God. I know that the Book of Mormon is the evidence of the Restoration and if anyone will read it they will come closer to God by that book than by any other. I know that really, God works miracles through that book. I have seen it. I have seen a single verse put somebody to tears and change their life. Most of all I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that he is my Savior and Redeemer. I love him. I am getting to know him. The more I know him, the more I love him. I worship and adore my Savior for what he did and what he does and what he will always do. He is magnificent. I testify of these things, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

-Elder Lewis