Hello my family!

Welp, today is transfer day. I am staying in Laurel and my 2 companions are leaving. They were so fun. I will miss them lots. I am receiving Sister Lin. She is from Taiwan. I love it. She only a transfer in so she is new. I keep getting the newbies. She reminds me so much of my friend Eno. Do you remember Eno? I love her. She is also from Taiwan. If you could somehow get a hold of Eno to let her know that would be awesome. I know that she is my friend on facebook.

Yes, I am now a trainer at the VC. There are 4 of us so we work at the VC a LOT more. I will be at the VC about 5 shifts a week. We have training meetings with all of the sisters every Friday morning and then we always have our trainer's meeting afterword for like 5 hours. It will be a new responsibility but the sisters are so awesome that I'm sure it will be great.

I saw Cameron Lewis last Saturday! He is engaged! Well, I don't know if that is public information yet but I met the girl. She is so awesome! I liked her a lot. I love Cameron. He is so funny. It was so fun to see him. I was talking to some kids next to the Christus so I didn't see him come in and then a man comes and sits RIGHT next to me on the bench. It was so weird because he was so close. I turned to say hello to him and he was just grinning. I laughed and I gave him a hug...I figured it was fine:) I love that I get to see people that I know all the time. It is funny.

I love hearing about all the miracles! Oh, it makes me so much happy! I did give Karen the bear. She loved it. She is going through a really hard time right now so she really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for doing that. She commented on how nice my parents were for doing that. I said, "yeah, they are the best ever". And, it's true. You are the best ever.

Coolest thing ever, Elder Bednar is coming to speak to our mission next Saturday!!!!! WHAT?! I love him. He is so awesome. I have a lot of different amazing stories about how Elder Bednar's teachings have impacted me so the fact that he is coming is so awesome. He will be speaking to us, DC South mission and the Baltimore Mission. I wish Trent could be here. Elder Bednar is such a great teacher. I always learn so much. He spoke when I was at the MTC and it helped me at just the time I needed help. I'm very excited to say the least.

Some of my favorite sisters left today. Sister Liddiard, Gordon, DeAgostini, and Sister Perez. Oh how I will miss them. I cried. I'm such a bawl baby. They are wonderful missionaries and so fun. I hope that they will be able to call you and that you will be able to meet them. They are all so great!

Well, the mission life is good. I had a great transfer. It was a nice renewal. I have had a couple of dreams about how much I love the mission. One dream I had to go home early and it was awful because i knew it wasn't time yet. I am supposed to be here and learn. It is very challenging at times but SO good. I love the people. The ward is great. I love all the leaders. They are so fun. This is the most important work ever. There really is nothing else in life better than the gospel. It is what heals us and makes us happy. I know that all people need to feel that in life. I love this gospel so much. I love my Savior. I love my Heavenly Father. I'm so grateful for a prophet on the earth. I love the Book of Mormon. There is so much power in the Book of Mormon. It is true! 

Thank you for being so wonderful. I think about you all the time. You all mean so much to me! Keep me posted on everything!

Love,

Sister Lewis

First off, please let all the birthdays know that I wish them a happy birthday. Sorry, it is hard to keep up with all of the birthdays when half the time I don't even know what day of the week it is let alone what month. I hope you all forgive me. I will be better about it when I get back.

I am excited to talk to you all soon. Mom, we are not allowed skype at all. Sorry. We can't use member's computers either so my voice will have to do. What time of day is best to call?

We had an opportunity last week to have a training meeting with the temple president and his wife in the temple. We got to ask questions and they got to speak to us. I was bawling. I love the temple SO much. I couldn't stop crying just thinking about how wonderful the temple is. I am so grateful for it. Everyone should prepare to go inside. It is the best place in the world. I love the blessings of the temple. Heavenly Father is the best. I love my Savior. The Spirit was so strong. Oh, I am so blessed to be in this mission. There really are no words.

The past couple of days we have had special training by a guy from Salt Lake. It was so good. This Visitor Center is a special place. I sure do love this gospel so much!

Next week are transfers. I really hope I am not transferred. I like this area and my apartment is awesome. It is long drive to the VC but it is fine. My companions are awesome. They are fun. Some of my favorite girls are leaving next week though and that makes me super sad. I will miss them a LOT.

Well, I don't know if I'm really supposed to mention it because it will not be announced till tomorrow morning at training meeting, but I was asked to be a VC trainer. There are 4 sisters that are called as trainers for the VC. I guess it is kind of like Zone Leaders or something when compared to Elder stuff. We work with the AP's at times and just handle VC stuff. Of course I feel super inadequate but I will do what I am asked because I know Heavenly Father knows best and this is His work. It will be a new responsibility. We shall see how it goes. I'll just be praying a lot in order to accomplish what He needs me to accomplish. I love the VC Directors so much. It is such a blessing to have them here. I really do love all the leaders and people serving here. They are all so great. Again, I am so blessed.

I pray for you all, all the time. I'm so excited for your anniversary party! I'm sure it will be a blast! Today for p-day we went to the Amish market and they have the most delicious strawberry rhubarb pie. I wanted to buy it and send it to you for your anniversary because I know you would have LOVED it but it would have been mangled by the time it got there. It was so fun to go there though because they are all Amish people. They are really nice and make delicious food! It was fun.

Well, I don't know if I have other news. It sounds like you are all doing good. I'm so happy to hear that. Tell Dobbie that I love the teddy bear jacket and I know that Karen will love it too.

Keep me updated on everything! I love you all so much!

Love,

Sister Lewis

Background:  "Dobbie" is Janell's nickname for her twin sister, Jodee. - Val

You had a BUSY week! That is awesome! Sounds like a ton of fun and I hope that I can go on a fun trip with you all when I get back home:)

Easter was so wonderful! My miracle is that I knew I had to give a talk in church and I felt a lot of pressure. I read about the resurrection all week and prayed to know what I needed to say. The morning of the talk I prayed that during my personal study that my pen would just write. I only had a couple of ideas and didn't know how to piece them together. Once I started studying I just wrote. I found a talk by Elder Oaks that I based it off of and a couple of experiences popped into my head. My prayer was answered. My talk was written the morning of. I knew it was because I had studied before hand about it and was somewhat prepared for it. Heavenly Father is so awesome and nice to me:) I shared an experience about a lady that came into the VC a long time ago and asked if we were Christians then why did we not have a cross symbol anywhere. That experience started off my talk and then I went with Elder Oak's talk. His talk is really good and you should all look it up. I then talked about Dobbie. It is funny that I have been talking about her a lot lately. After my talk there was a cute down syndrome boy and his dad that came up to me and said that they liked my talk. The kid is so cute. So at least a couple people liked it:)

After church Michelle got baptized! She is so awesome! I love her a lot. She is a kindergarten teacher in DC. Her parents and a couple of her friends came. I ended up singing with another sister "I Stand All Amazed". It was funny. I guess the water was freezing and Michelle HATES the water so needless to say, that experience wasn't the best for her but everything went well! She is so good. I have been so blessed to have been able to meet such wonderful people on my mission.

Later we went to the VC and in walked my friend Danny! Danny is the autistic boy that comes in to see "Sister Lewis". We are best friends. His dad loves to bring him in because he gets so excited to come in. The dad really wants to meet you two. I keep telling him that I don't know if you will be coming but if you do that we would go up and visit their family in Fredrick, MD. It is a very nice family. He keeps bringing in members of his family to meet me. He told me that he tells them about me. Apparently he is so appreciative that I am nice to Danny but he realizes that Danny and I have a bond. I love seeing Danny. He is a nice boy. I saw another down syndrome boy that came right over to me at the VC and we chatted for a while. I love it.

After that I got to see Tasha and Perla! They did the Garden and it was Fabulous! I loved it! I was fun to hear that music again. The place was packed and I saw a lot of my friends. Easter was a great day!

Well, it has been a good week. Yesterday we had Zone Conference and President and Sister Matsumori gave a workshop about how to answer hard questions since we will be dealing with a lot of media because of the presidential election. We learned about a website through mormon.org that answers a lot of tough questions. It was good information and I recommend you all check it out or tell others to go there. It is mormonnewsroom.org I think. It was such a good workshop. Pretty sure President Matsumori will be an apostle someday. He is such a great man. I love his wife too. They are wonderful people.

Today we had a zone activity. It was fun.

I don't know if I have anything else to report. I love you all so much and I am SO grateful for such a wonderful family. I sure did luck out big time. What a blessing to have goodly parents. You all are such wonderful examples to me. Keep me posted with everything going on.

LOVE YOU!!!!

Sister Lewis

Family!

Hello there! It sounds like you have been having a lot of fun without me...as it should be. Maybe when I get back I will be able to go to all those fun places that you get to go:) I got your Easter present..thank you! Email time is the hardest because I have to try and remember all that has happened this past week. Conference was last weekend and I LOVED it! I never feel like it is long enough. I guess I have come a long way since I was younger where conference was forever long. It goes by too fast now. I love all of the messages. A few of our investigators came and that was a miracle. We watched the first session with Michelle who is getting baptized this Sunday. She is so fun. I will be friends with her after the mission for sure. She make me laugh so hard! I'm excited for her baptism. I was asked to speak in church this Sunday, no pressure since it is Easter! Oh golly. I'm pretty sure that they only asked me because my last name was the only one that he could pronounce so I am the one giving the talk. It is the same day of the baptism. I kind of wish I didn't have to worry about a talk on the baptism day but it will be fine. I am using this opportunity to invite all the people we are teaching which they will be more likely to come to church if I say that I am speaking and want them to come. I just hope and pray that it is not going to be terrible. Pray that it will be fine. I need it for sure. It is about the Resurrection. Sometimes I wish I could just read talks given by apostles since they say it best. Oh well, it should be fine:)

So, I am reading Jesus The Christ like I have mentioned before and I love it. I am toward the end of the book now so it is pretty intense. But because I am reading it I have a new found desire to go to Jerusalem. Yesterday at the Visitor Center I was informed that there was a couple there from Israel. So I went up and started to talk to them and found out that they are from specifically Jerusalem. I got the chills from it. We talked about Jerusalm and places where Christ was. The husband said that he wasn't religious or a believer but he respected other's beliefs. His wife I guess is a bible teacher there. I had a wonderful conversation with them about the temple. I mainly listened to them though because I was learning from them. There was nothing magnificent about what we talked about but there was a cool feeling as we were talking. I know it was because we were talking about the Savior. Toward the end of our conversation the wife turned to me and asked if she could ask me a personal question. Her english wasn't too good but she really wanted to ask me something. She asked if Lewis was my name. I said yes. She then turned to her husband and he told me that it is a Hebrew name. I had no idea. He said that the 'w' in eastern europe and where they are from are 'v's. So it is Levi, from that tribe. That tribe teaches the importance of the temple or something like that. I got the chills again. They asked if it was my first name or my last name. I told them it was my last and he said it was even more important them. He said the 's' at the end signifies more that you are a part of that tribe of Levi. The wife just smiled real big. I wish they had more time to spend at the VC but they had to go. I was definitly benefitted by their visit. There was something special about it. The church doesn't print any material in Hebrew because it was an agreement they made with Israel or something like that so I couldn't give them anything in their language, but it was a cool experience none the less.

Last night we met a potential investigaor named Benjamin from Ghana. He was so great. He had such a strong spirit about him. We talked about the gospel and he asked if it would be ok for us to come by once or twice a week to talk about it....um...ok! He goes out of town on Saturday for about 6 weeks but when he gets back we will help him out with his request. We told him that we would call him often during the weeks he is gone and he loved that idea. We explained the Book of Mormon and he said, "I feel that it is true what you say about it. It makes sense to me". Um, yep. He is ready. I love that. He is such a good person.

Today is my companion's birthday so we are going to celebrate it...don't know how yet but we will. I am going to get my hair done first because it looks so bad. Just to let you know mom, next week is when I have p-day on Wednesday. I know I told you it was this week but I was mistaken. So make sure that your letter is written before Wednesday. I am super excited for Carrie getting married on the 20th. I don't know if I told you that but yep. I'm so happy for her and so sad that I am missing it but I know it is so wonderful!

I love you all so much. Keep me posted on everything!

LOVE YOU!

Sister Lewis