Letter number 6.......Countdown to the Caribbean!

Jake is soo excited this week! Enjoying going to the Temple and totally pumped to be able to hear Richard G. Scott! Can't wait to talk to him at 4:40 a.m. from the airport on Monday Morning. Good Times.


This week was super crazy awesome! let me just start of with saying that last week the temple opened up so i was able to go last week and this week! was super great!:) also there have been lots of crazy awesome events that took place, first off guess who came and spoke? 

Richard G. Scott!! It was super awesome! He talked on prayer and here are some of my notes I took.

He started off by talking about how our heavenly father, who is the creator of cosmos and worlds without end, takes time to listen to our pleas, to our thanks and answer our questions. 

He said if you don't find the answer then go to D&D 88:64

personal Revelation comes through prayer most often D&D 6, 8, 9

He has called you to succeed and qualifies those whom he calls.

You can never rush an effective prayer

Don't fear repentance, it gives us hope

The Lord can do anything especially the impossible

Share your deepest feelings with him just as you do with a good friend or your actual father. 

Seek to be pure in heart and align your will with his

If you are on the right path the lord will never let you stray to far before reminding you who you are.

Find periods of quiet time to reflect and pray.

Sometimes it is necessary to struggle to build faith and character.

He said tons of other things but these were the highlights! 

For choir we sung Jesus once of humble birth, twas great.

The rest of the week was pretty boring in comparison to the temple and Elder Scott talking.

I think i mentioned this before, but in the other french zone one of the counselors in the Presidency is President Robinson who was the 2006-2009 west indies mission president!

He told us a ton about the french side west indies, such as we go to Guadalope first, we will be there for two 6 week transfer cycles at the very least with our trainer. when you get there you begin applying for either french Guianna or Martinique. that takes about 6 months so who knows where i will be headed. although when i was at the consolute i turned in visa papers for both guadalope and french guianna soo who knows where i will be going. Cool  facts about Guadalope, they speak perfect Parisian French there so I will not have some funny accent when I get back from going to the islands. same for french giuanna and also martinique. they are all super influenced by france and so their public systems work much like they do in paris. (Pres. Robinson went to Paris on his mission.) the french side has the best hospitals out of all the languages in the WIM and also the least amount of disease because of the cleanliness of the french people. some foods are different but for the most part they eat just like the french. same foods. He told me it was basically like going to France on an Island. 

 Guadalope in specific is known for its waterfalls. He ENCOURAGED us to baptize in the waterfalls, there is a picture in a hall way of one in guadalope. crazy awesome. so excited to go.

We fly to Huston intercontinental and then to the port of spain in trinidad. then a few days later we will fly to guadalope!!!

Crazy! the next time I say hello I will be chilling out doing missionary work in the Caribbean! 

A la prochien!

Elder Lewis

Jake and his District at the Provo Temple

Jake and his district acting cool!

Elder going to Halifax

Letter number 5......2 weeks left in the MTC!

I can feel that Jake is feeling antsy to leave the MTC and get to the West Indies, but seems to be doing well.  I loved the practical joke, I'm sure the Elder didn't, a reminder that they are still 18 and 19 year old boys at heart.  I listened to the Cantique Jake spoke of and I encourage you to listen to it.....extremely beautiful. 

Bonjour,  

 So I really dont have much to say about this week, but this is what we did in general: 
 
Taught alot of lessons.
spoke alot of french.
Tried to speak only french for two days, made it about halfway.

Sung some song for choir that was way to high.

Watched an emeritis 70 talk on tuesday about scripture sudy,
was pretty good.

Yesterday we had the good choir director back, this Tuesday we are going to sing Jesus Once of Humble Birth. 
 
What else? I did a couple workouts on the rowing machine with Elder Gilson who is going to Tahiti. He is a super chill Elder from Alberta Canada, also started playing volleyball during gym time too. 
 
Got a nose bleed for the first time in forever and was freaking out because I liked the tie I had on. Saved by that much... Elder Fraley showed me that you can put a cold cloth on your neck and it helps stop the bleeding. Interesting haha 
 
Elder Call and I started bearing(or however it is spelled) our testimonies in French each night to random senior couple and sisters. 
 
Oh almost forgot, gave a talk in French on sunday! It was President Mangums turn to preside and I knew they were totally going to call me  (he is a family friend). 
 
Did i tell you that Souvien-toi is my favorite hymn(Cantique)? it is only found in the French cantique book but is super sad and good and deep and beautiful. im sure there is a great youtube vidieo of it. 
 
So the kid from Nigeria is super affraid of snakes, so we put a fake snake in his bed. he almost had a hard attack.
  

Anywho love from here to you guys,    

Thanks for the support

 Elder Lewis 

Letter Number 4.....Jakes sounds like himself .....positive and looking and seeing the good everywhere!

Whew....It was so wonderful to hear the positivity in Jake's letter this week and see him looking so happy in all of his pictures.  Jake is great at making friends so it was heartwarming to see him with one of his best friends and to see that he is making connections with  other guys as well.  Only Jake would find someone to do "ab ripper x" at the MTC, well maybe I would too! If you notice with each letter he is issuing a spiritual challenge...let's all take part in these challenges and feel the spirit and teachings of the MTC change our lives.

"THERE ARE HIGH SPOTS IN ALL OF OUR LIVES, AND MOST OF THEM COME ABOUT THROUGH ENCOURAGEMENTS FROM SOMEONE ELSE."
DH LAWRENCE

PLEASE WRITE JAKE "DEAR ELDER" LETTERS AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN TO ENCOURAGE HIM .

Bonjour,

This week was actually super good but I neve know what to really say about all of it.

On tuesdays we have devotionals at the morrison center, and the month of July it was all former 70s because the rest of everyone is on kind of like vaca week, we might get an apostle to come in August. but the speaker who spoke was a former 70 and talked about the importance of becoming a preach my gosple missionary. It was super good, also some other awesome stuff he said, " the work the missionaries do echos through the eternities." "Preach my Gospel was designed beyond the veil and put togeather here" that was super cool because he was on the committee for the making of pmg.

Any who the best part of the week, or at least as far asI can remember was TRC, which is where members come who speak french and we teach them. but this last thrusday the member brough her bilingual (almost tri) foriegn echange student from shanghi. speaks chinoise and francais. a little english, but he started taking the lessons in english and couldnt understand very well so they started coming to the trc. I didnt think our lesson was even that good but the spirt in the room was like anything Ihave ever felt before in my life. It was crazy super awesome.

Watched the 1994 priestood session talk (fall) by Hinkley. called "Dont drop the ball" go to lds.org and watch it, like 10-15 minutes but worth an hour or so of pondering. Great talk.

Couldn't stop laughing in a lesson we were teaching to one of our teachers. someting was super funny about everything.

I'm getting used to the food here, or better yet, a better attitude about the food here. I lost one of the 8 pounds I gained because I  discoved a rowing machine in one of the gym places. I've been doing 5000 yards a day.

Sent off all of my good friends I made in the other french districts to the congo lion and paris. was a little depressing, our hallway is super quiet now. On the other hand there are 47 new french speaking bleus (french people call them blues instead of greens) comming in on wednesday. Pretty exciting stuffs.

Fast sunday was awesome. I had the oppertunity to bless the sacrament in french, super cool.

overcame a cold I have had for two weeks.

bore my testimony in french.

We have missionary confrance on fast sundays were the mtc presidency speaks to us for two hours, was super good.

Watched a recording of elder Bednar who is awesome, who spoke here 3 years ago, was super mind blowing and totally changed my perspective on teaching.

My challenge is for you to find the doctorine behind the application process. it will always be a scripture or a revelation, then find the principal, then you will be motivated to do the application proccess. like home teaching, find the scripture for the application of hometeaching, took me a while but i did. I challenge you to do the same.

Anywho, I have three more weeks from today till i leave for Trinidad and then to Guadaloupe.

4 down. 3 to go. I want the mtc to keep going fast but then I want everying to slow down again. crazy how fast time goes.

á la prochain,

Elder Lewis

side note, if there is anyone who would like this email could you give them it?

Jake's Great Friend Carsen Rosskelly  from Meridian  he will serve in the  Phillippines

Jake's friend Marshal, he will serve in Argentina

Elder Muler from Germany

Jake's ab ripper X companion!

Jake saying goodbye to Elders leaving MTC.....Sad!

Old Zone Leader Elder Martin going to Paris