Letter number 11...........Patience and Compassion!

I have been so worried about  Jake's companion, Elder Tolman, who had to have his toenails removed! To hear Elder Tolman talk of it , you would have thought he was going for a walk.  His courage and faith were very inspiring to me.  Mission life has ups and downs, but all of these wonderful young men and women sound positive, happy, and are learning to dedicate their lives to the Lord. They are forgetting themselves and going to work.  A life lesson we can all learn from.

Sooo,

This week I litterally did nothing for the most part. That is because Elder Tolman has had ingrown toenails for 6 months and got an infection so he had to get them removed... so he had to stay in Tuesday-Friday.

On tuesday I was with my district leader Elder Pratt in  Point a Pitre. He is a super awesome guy and a great missionary. Point a Pitre is on foot, and man  did we sweat a lot.  That is ok because even the locals sweat a lot!  We met this man who was inactive and paralyzed, we helped him mop his floor and shared with him a brief message from Ether 12.

Also later in the day we had a ton of things fall through, and so we walked to the grand camp which is like. probably 50 giant 8 story appartment buildings. Some are super pôor and some are nicer,  still super crazy. Taught a lesson in there to a member and then made the long trek home.

the next three days went like this:

arise

eat

study

stare at the wall

play uno

and repeat...

But all is well because  we still had some really good lessons with our most progressing (he didnt come to chruch) investigator Gary Pilia,  his mom is  a member and he is really progressing. He speaks alot of Creole so it is hard for me to understand his responses to my questions but the Creole (Hatian and Guadalupian) will come. His mother has to have dialisis right now, as do tons of people we meet, Kidney failure is just a super common thing here.

One note: people here live to be rediculously old. I have met more 80 and 90 year olds than people under 30. just crazy.

Ate a gigantic fresh avacado. that's what i'm talking about. Also it is the end of guava season so i have had beaucoup of those as well.  Fresh guava juice is about 100 times better than the artificial stuff in the states. 

We also taught on Sunday this old Catholic lady and her daughter, who likes to go off on tangents and didnt pray. but the older lady prayed.  You could tell that she definitely knows Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I think she is going to love the plan of salvation, she talked very longingly about her deseased husband.

24 hour no food or WATER fasts here are insane. but the spirit is good and next week is general conferance. super excited!! 

Alsooo, for p day we played soccor, and then an intense game of ultimate frisbee! Thanks mom for that!! also found a 30 or 40 year old ship wrecked oil tanker. needless to say... we explored it...

Love you all, try your hardest to work with the missionaries!! It makes the work so much more effective!! 

Elder Lewis

Questions asked by Moi.......me, his Mother!

What are the Members feeding you?

1.  The members feed us all sorts of things, but we dont eat with them too often saying there is only 13 in our branch who are active. but we eat lots of duck. we had a super french meal from soeur louisaint who is an accupucturist. it was delish. we eat at bakeries at least once every couple of days baggetts and patiseries!! that is where it is at:)

What was your p-day activity last week?

2 We didnt really have a big activity. sometimes you do one sometimes you dont. 

3 the language is going really well and i am really starting to comprehend the most part of what people say. im also learning a bit of creole (haitian and guadaloupian) here and ther. talking is not to big of a problem. teaching is hard sometimes because you are not very flexible in the way i can talk right now.

How are your allergies?

no alergies! 

Super happy about isabelle and all of her acomplisments!! 

I loved the pictures of your yoga stuffs!! in the park!! 

Thanks for sending me Shayla Shaners thing. that is super cool!!

Hey one thing about packages, unless I cant get it here, dont send it, because it is super expensive for us on this side. Just put money in my account and tell me what you want me to get!!

Love you so much,

Elder Lewis