Letter Number 92

I cannot tell you the great privilege and humbling experience it has been to blog for my Son's mission in the West Indies.  With every letter, my Missionary Son has born testimony of the Savior, Jesus Christ.  He and his companion's have encouraged me to try harder and do better in my in life.  These humble missionaries are truly inspiring in their work for the gospel.  Their goal, to  help others have more fulfilled lives as they fill their lives with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I will miss having a missionary and the spirit that it brings into our home, but how wonderful to have have Jake where he is accessible in every day life..to talk and share with.  

I know the gospel is true and that what Elder Lewis has been preaching for 2 years with his wonderful hard-working companion's does change lives.  I know we can be sealed to our families and live with them forever.  I know God lives and answers each of our prayers. 

Rebonjour Mes Amis,

This week was a pretty great week, lots of movement with the new transfer and whatnot but good nevertheless. This last week went by quick as a good friend ELder Savage left, he is a great missionary, and so is elder Stewart-Johnson(another 

companion from Texas, what are the chances?) . It is really interesting to be with a missionary under a year, I havn't had a missionary this young since training Elder Sims last April. We are really working on teaching in unity and I find it is a great oppertunity to help him better his teaching skills and French. We are still teaching Olivier and Claudia, Claudia the Brazilian member and Olivier the non-member boyfriend getting married and baptized in August. I'm starting to have quite a few trips to foreign temples that I would like to make. The Vestrice family in Fort de France and this family here. Great things are happining. 

Yesterday was Pentacost and so we moved p-day to today. There are always off days in France. and when everyone is off, it is like the street is just dead. I remember in Fort de France the day after Easter and it was super empty, the city had nobody but us in it it seemed.... untill you walked past the cathédral. 

LIFE IS GOOD

THE MISSION IS AMAZING

I'm ready to do some missionary work back home as well.

Je vous aime tous,

Elder Lewis 

Jake's Last District in Martinique

Letter Number 91

I am sitting at the computer crying!  This will be the second to the last time I will actually blog for my amazing missionary Son, Elder Lewis.  I feel it has been an immense privilege to do this for him as his Mother. He has preached the gospel to me on many many occasions.  I will miss these letters from my Son, but look forward to visits and calls and vacations together.  Jake has a testimony of Jesus Christ as his Savior and Redeemer.  I have seen it grow and change into a different deeper version of conversion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I am humbly grateful for the blessing of raising this Son and being a part of his life.  My children are a great gift from God.   May we all learn from these young strong Missionaries serving all around the world. They are so selfless. 

Rebonjour

The last transfer call has been received! I'll be in Gosier (here) with Elder Stewart-Johnson! He started in Basse Terre four transfers ago and it will be pretty good. It was a great week and there was lots That happened and to do still.  The Thai woman Ananya and her husband Xavier came to church and are doing really good in their progression towards baptism.  A family I taught in Fort de France is getting baptized on Saturday (Pierre Louis and Wilta) pretty cool stuff. 

I'm not really in a mood to write lots of stuff as I am a little sick. But the Work cannot stop now nor never, every second becomes more and more precious as the clock keeps on ticking. It is weird to be so close to the end yet not really think about it, it only motivates me to be a better missionary. It is all about the moment. What happened before is in the past and everthing that is in the future will worry about itself. The moment is ours, we make it what it is.

I have learned that communion with God is not by spoken words but as Paul stated " with groanings which cannot be uttered" Rom 8:29 therefore it is truely the Spirit which maketh intercession for us.  Every second we have an opportunity to learn to receive revalation. We teach our Spirits to comunicate with The Infinite. This week I was pondering quite a bit on the 1993 CES devotional "the voice of the spirit" by Elder James E Faust 

i recommend it,

I love you,

Thank you for your prayers

Elder Lewis

Jake posing by some graffiti that summarizes his feeling about being a missionary

Letter Number 90

Our Skype with Jake was wonderful..they all have been.  That was our fourth Skype and gone was the nervous new "Missionary Mom" and in her place sat me..."new confident senior missionary mom"  I am sad to have the spirit of the mission leave my life as this special time and correspondence ends, however the desire to have my Son in my life physically outweighs that.  He is a great Son. I cannot wait to wrap my arms around him and give a great big hug. 

After skyping my family I was just realizing how wonderfully blissful reunion it will be in the mansions above coupled with eternal glory to see again and rejoice with our loved ones. I can only fathom that, it must truely be as it is said a fullness of joy. To add with that coming back into the presence of our Heavenly parents will be extrodinary. What a beautiful plan which was fabricated from before the foundations of this world, which alows us all to go back to the Father and be eternaly linked to our families. That is a knowledge that is so precious in these times, think of how many youth would be more obedient if they only understood the full plan. I love watching people learn and apply these truths to their own lives, there is nothing more rewarding than helping another brother or sister feel the love of our Heavenly Father. It is like light and life and meaning pouring into their eyes. as well as mine. 

This Church is perfect, full of people who are imperfect, all striving to be more perfect in Chirst. 

What a great thing it was to see my family, it was like a small bonjour before saying BONJOUR 

This week I could elaborate upon but I will tell you a temporal story that was pretty funny,

So I was walking around the church grounds where many Iguanas wait on the rocks by a chain link fence. Now if you don't know this Iguanas are super fast, like hyperspeed. But there have been many attempts by missionaries to catch them. Sometimes it works,  not often. So I was walking and there was three. Two were lightning speed and got through the fence before I got close, the third however was much slower and was too fat to fit through the fence. As it repeatedly hit the fence I thought " I could just reach out and grab it by the tail" and BAM! I grabed it and hung it up so it was off the ground. It was super fullfilling. Nothing like catching an Iguana before District Meeting. 

Love you all,

Elder Lewis

Elder Lewis and Elder Savage

Jake Captures an Iguana!

Elder Lewis' Last District

Letter 89..and One Week To Skype!

It seems strange that I will see Jake in 2 months.  Almost surreal that he will sit at our dinner table and chat with us, but that he is the same but even better young man than he was 22 months ago.  I have seen how a dedication to the Lord can hone and change who we are.  I am excited to be with him, but want to testify again, that the mission is a wonderful life-changing experience. 

This week was again great, there were so many things that have happened in the last few weeks there is not really anytime to sit down. This week was for the most part planned and all we worried about was what we were teaching and how to help each person. We had a great desire to turn around this area and it is exactly what has happened. The Lord has heard that groaning of our spirits and has answered it. This area is truly turning around like the sun is coming up. Lots of exciting things. The more we believe people are going to get baptized the more frankly they accept baptism. Great week. 

Olivier (bet you didnt know that that means olive tree) and Claudia are getting married in Agust and he will be baptized just after. We got to their shop where we teach them and we bassically just listened to them talk about how there conversion is super strong and that there is so much to do in the gospel but it is all posible. It all makes for a good life. there is a self relience program that just launched here and it is pretty cool, I dont know if you already had that but it is a great system.

We had to take the Zone leaders to the airport at 5 or so this morning so I'm pretty toasted. Then we played tennis for a few hours, you would never believe how much fun it is to play tennis

Love you

Elder Lewis

Elder Jake E. Lewis' address
Residence les Paletuviers

Appt. 17

Modong sud

97122 Baie Mahault

Guadeloupe

french west indies

Guadaloupe

 caption

Elder Lewis and Elder Savage...ummm those are some big bananas!

Oh The Waterfalls of Guadeloupe