letter number 21.........Jake has a new motto!

I think Jakes "new" motto sounds more like him than the beat down kid from last week.  To notice your blessings......well, it brings happiness and a sense of peace.  I was so happy to hear that he was able to get out on foot  AND enjoy some time at the beach on P-day. Jake received his Christmas package and devoured his Chocolate chip cookies.  Brown sugar is a rarity in the Caribbean, so even if he could duplicate my cookies, the ingredients would be hard to find. The humidity makes it almost impossible to get or store. He was soo incredibly thankful for all of the goodies in his box, it was all very worth my time.....and it filled my heart with joy!

Hey There Everybody,

The sun is always shinning even when it is rainning. I think I adopted that motto this last week while the heavens were opened and blessings and rain fell upon us. To tell you first about the rain. When it starts to rain here, get under something as soon as possible, soon after a bucket or 10 will fall on your head and you will be super soaked to the bone.  We got lots and lots of rain this last week. It was actually really nice to have a change from just the heat. Even got down to like 70 degrees for a moment in the night. It almost felt like it was the christmas season. But now it is back to mid summer weather. haha crazy Caribbean. We did have a great day at the northern most point in Guadeloupe, Anse Bertrand. At the beach and  this
giant rock that gets hit by waves we stood on it, and the waves came, and we got 100 percent soaked to the bone by the spray. It was incredible, and a nice release from a long time without a p-day activity.

But that all is besides the point,

Some highlights from this week were..... an exchange with Elder Peterson from the Gosier area, taking a day on foot in down town Morne A L'eau and contacting, seeing members, trying to get into upstairs appartments to talk with people. Which can be very hard, they have the shops down below and secret passages that lead to the doors above, super entertaining, and also was very productive. We have had an investigator at chruch for 5 weeks now in a row and she is moving twards baptism. Also, my mom sent me a christmas tree and I am very happy about it:)

Other than that, probably a lot of stuff happened that i forgot!

That"s what journals are for I guess,

Love you all,

Elder Lewis

Basically a Caribbean Cemetery!

My Handsome Missionary Son! Love him

Great Fun!

If you haven't been to the Caribbean...it doesn't get much better!

Missionary Santas........I couldn't resist!

Out Preaching the gospel!

Letter 20.....Hard Week in the West Indies!

This was a hard letter to read, but rejection goes with the territory and I know that Jake will be fine.  He has an excellent Senior Companion and I'm sure next week he will be up again. I was so glad that he went to the scriptures for comfort and understanding.  These missionaries are amazing!  

So it still feels like august? 

But this is what went down this week,

This week was super great until the weekend. We wern't able to accomplish any more than last week, but there was not a moment we were resting. This week we had alot of progress with our investigators who were moving toward baptism this next week.  At the same time we were running around all of Guadeloupe trying to figure out how to pay bills and use routing number and help others with cars, and file reports. We can now say that we are very good at all of this..... at least to our understanding.... we really wanted to have a week where we were like go go go all the day long,  and we got it. 

Then Saturday hit. The whole week we had been pretty bashed on our faith, people calling us liars, polygamists, worshipers of Joseph Smith, but Saturday was really a hard day. It started off with a great session of studies, but immidiatly after we had a lesson with two atheists one who is a physics professor (or was 20 years ago) and dean of a French university, the other is a proffessional artist. They basically told us that we were young and believing and that we couldn't tell them we know that it is true because we have no solid evidence. We tried to explain, we tried to use scriptures, but they couldn't allow themselves to believe in the slightest what we were saying. She is even 200 pages into the book of mormon after a week and he read up to jacob and stopped. It was a long lesson that was very battering.

Then our investigator who was getting baptized this next week on the 7th, who had prayed and received multiple responses that yes our church is true, Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith was a true prophet, but her evangelist pastor called her. He told he that we were just polygamists, and we worshiped Joseph Smith and all these super terrible lies. At first she didnt believe him because we talked and we showed her that we don't do these things but she decided ultimately to stop coming to our church because she had responsibilities in hers. we talked it out in a really good lesson, and she said she would come one more time. Latter that day, we went to her neighbors house and we saw her walking away, she told us that she didnt mind if we came over once and a while but she wasnt coming to church.  She told her neighbor and now she told us she never wants to see us again. 

We were feeling pretty beat down, and then we found a sweet appartment so we can move out of the church. So that was like the cherry on top of a bad day. We also had an amazing lesson with another member referral.  she came to chruch for the 5th time, but she says she isnt ready to accept baptism.

So the whole Helaman 5:12, "... devil will send forth his mighty winds, yea his shafts in the whirl winds, yea when when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, he shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and woe, because of the rock upon which you are build which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

The hail and the storm will come, satan wants to have power over you but he can't till we give him it by sinning. Stay strong, trust in the Lord, and know that these things are true, know that the Book of Mormon is true, know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, know that Jesus Christ lives, and that he sits at the head of this chruch. Know these things because they are true. 

Psalms 27:14 (or maybe 13)

Whew! long week, but I went to bed absolutely exhausted every night, so nevertheless, it was good:)

Also happy thanksgiving!

Love,

Elder Lewis

Letter 19

Thanksgiving without Jake.....not as much fun as with! So happy he and Elder Tolman like to cook.

Hey Guys,

This week was also great. We continued to try our best to be obedient and also be super diligent. we have seen lots of miracles this week that came from a couple of fasts we did with members. First off,  we fasted with the Mother of the(   ) familly. This family is  all non- members except for her and she was really dicouraged about her 6 sons and them not being in the gospel. So we fasted with her and she was super excited.... well she had to do dialysis (for whatever reason tons of people have to do dialysis here, probably because it is one of the capitals of rum in the world) so we fasted for her not with. We fasted and we had a couple weeks of down time, but then all of a sudden, she gave us a family referral who lived just up the street. the mother has a baptismal date for the 7th and has allready come to church twice now. Also her kids are preparing to be baptized on the 24th of this month. Great miracle. 

Also, one of the sisters in the ward who has given us pages of referals, we finnally started making lots of progress with two of her friends. The one is atheist and she said she would  read the Book of Mormon in a couple of weeks (entirely) . Also, the other friend who was a Jehovah Witness, but then left the church because they left her and didnt support her in the time she needed it, we had a super powerful lesson with her about the holy ghost. She listened very intently and it was really great. 

Also all of the people who we taught with a member this week came to church and one other, for a total of five a l'élgise on sunday. The work is progressing here in Morne à L'eau.  

 We had the experience  to teach in english just the other day! We are teaching this lady from Saint Martin and she prayed about Joseph Smith. She discribed the expeirance as a joy that filled her heart, and was with her though out the day, but she said she thinks she is too young to be baptized so she wants to wait till she is 40 so she can go to carnival(it is mardi graw but Caribbean style, probably just the biggest sinning fest in the world, not to bad here but in Trinnidad the missionaries dont go out for three days) . We are working with her.

People always are expecting the prophet to look like moses with a gigantic staff, robe and beard. 

We had a Thanks giving dinner on monday, me and elder tolman stayed up super late making it. I think I perfected my mothers potatoes. delish.

Welp, that is basically everything!! 

Love you all bunches! Happy Thanksgiving!

Elder Lewis

Jake in the back of their van ready to take all of the food he and Elder Tolman prepared for Thanksgiving

Breakfast of Champions!  Jake is a pretty healthy eater.....and a great cook.

Deep in spiritual contemplation!