5/29/17

A Missionary is Born!

Hey guys! This week has been HECTIC for sure haha. It was a good week, but all the things happened. Let's start with Monday...

Monday: So I think I mentioned last week I had to go to Harare to pick up Sister Tonga, so I emailed at the office. It was so good to see ALL the missionaries around the office. I saw so many friends! All the missionaries who went home were getting their last interview with President, so I got to see all of them for sure. I was literally at the office all day, which almost killed me. The thing about being a missionary is that we don't do well sitting down in one place for a long time. 

Tuesday: GOODBYE SISTER NAFULA. GOODBYE SISTER ANYANGO. GOODBYE ELDER MAHLANGU. A ton of missionaries left on Tuesday morning because their mission was finished! I think we had like 13 or so leave. I was so sad to say goodbye to one of my best friends on mission, Sister Nafula. So after all of the trainers had a meeting with President about how to train and stuff. After that, we ate lunch. After lunch, A LITERAL MIRACLE HAPPENED. I GOT TO GO BACK TO MY OLD AREA IN KUWADZANA. So when I left Sister Park in Kuwadzana, She was training Sister Mzunga. Well, Sister Mzunga is finished with 12 week and now she is training her own missionary! So Sister Wells, Sister Mzunga, and I got to go work in Kuwadzana for the day while we were waiting for our trainees. I SAW TREVOR AND ASHLEIGH AKA MY FAVORITE PEOPLE EVER. I was so over the moon that day haha. SISTER TONGA ALSO CAME ON TUESDAY! So on Tuesday night we got to have dinner with President and Sister Mkhabela with all of the trainers and trainees. It was so yummy. We had lasagna and it was amazing holy cow. MY DAUGHTER IS SO CUTE AND SO SWEET I LOVE HER. We had to sleep in the transfer house again on Tuesday night.

Wednesday: Training, training, training. We had to be at the office by 8 on Wednesday for breakfast, and then we had a few hours of training for the trainees. We ate lunch, and then we had to get a lot of things done at the office like interviews for Sister Tonga and stuff. We ended up leaving for Bindura like at 2 or something, so we got home around 4. Sister Tonga unpacked and we went to shop for some food. We didn't get to proselyte on Wednesday just because we had heaps of things to do and we were both SO TIRED! 

Thursday: Weekly planning #1 for Sister Tonga! It was a little brutal to me to make her do weekly planning right after having sat on a plane for 30 hours and at the mission office forever, but it had to be done! She was a trooper. Then, we finally got to go out and have some lessons. Do you want to hear the biggest tender mercy ever? We did not have a single fall through the whole day! We saw every single person we planned to see! Sister Tonga did great for her first day. She has a powerful testimony. 

Friday: We had lessons all day again! Sister Tonga got to meet the Muzaradope Family, and she LOVED THEM SO SAME. She really does have a huge love for people, so shout out to her for being just like her mission mother! 

Saturday: Makorokoto (congratulations) to Sister Promise for being baptized! We met Sister Promise with Sister Jili, and she just got baptized this past weekend! It was awesome! Sister Tonga is spoiled because she got to have a baptism her first week haha.

Sunday: Promise was confirmed! And Sister Tonga's first Sunday! So I had to teach Primary this week (it used to be Sister Ndhlovu). Can you guys even believe I taught children who don't speak a lick of English? I taught them a simplified Plan of Salvation lesson and it was awesome! We taught a lesson to Brother Kaingo who is going to be married and baptized this weekend if all goes to plan! SOS I NEVER SIGNED UP TO BE A WEDDING PLANNER LIKE THIS HAHA.

So training is amazing. I have been humbled so much. I am learning to rely on my Savior so much more than before. I can't even live without Personal Study these days! I am happy! I am healthy! I am loving mission and working hard! I am nearly halfway done which is crazy and doesn't even make sense to me. I LOVE YOU ALL! Have a great week. Say your prayers!

Love, Sister Lewis

(This is Jenna's Mom--I email Sister Talemwa who was Jenna's trainer. She referred to Jenna as her  "daughter" at one time and I asked Jenna about it. When you are a trainer you call your new missionary your "daughter." Now that Jenna is a trainer Sister Talemwa refers to herself as a "grandmother." So Sister Tonga is referred to as Jenna's "daughter."

When Jenna has approached her "hump day-halfway mark" she will send a picture looking pregnant!

It represents that she has been out 9 months on her mission). (Not sure what the Elders do!)

Our Chapel

Cutest Chubby Baby

Muzaradope Weirdos-haha!

Exchanges with Sister Bondo

Sister Nafula and I

May 6 baptism of 9!

Sister Ndhlovu and I!

River the Elders baptized 9 in!

Jonathan (the car)

5/22/2017

Training?

Guys, I am so confused right now. Transfers brought me SURPRISES for sure haha. Let me make you wait until the VERY END OF THE WEEK lol. BUT to tease you... I am emailing in Harare right now...

Monday: Nothing happened other than emailing lol.

Tuesday: Our final district meeting! We decided to be unified and have combined district meeting again so that we would be able to hear all the testimonies of the four missionaries in our zone who are going home literally tomorrow. We got to have a bunch of lessons, which was sweet. We got to see Tendai (our recent convert) and she gave us some referrals of her friends for us to teach! Sweetest girl ever for sure. 

Wednesday: Lessons on lessons on lessons. My favorite lesson of the day was with Tanaka and Dorica! They are both Muzaradope children as well, but they were gone for school holidays. They came back and wanted to be baptized with the rest of their family! So we have been teaching them. This lesson was incredible because we didn't even teach! We asked Itai, Thelma, Israel, and Pebneg to teach Dorica and Tanaka and THEY LITERALLY TAUGHT THE WHOLE PLAN OF SALVATION PERFECTLY. I was so proud. Almost cried. 

Thursday: Weekly planning! Teaching! Nothing else really happened lol. 

Friday: Lessons/BAPTISMAL INTERVIEWS. Tanaka and Dorica were interviewed by Elder Tuua and THEY PASSED! We were so happy, and so were they! They are sweethearts. 

Saturday: Baptisms/TRANSFER NEWS! The baptisms for Tanaka and Dorica were awesome! They were smiling so big. They bore beautiful testimonies afterwards! So after the baptisms, we got our transfer news. Sister Ndhlovu is leaving Bindura :( She is going to serve in Tafara with Sister Leatu'u! And me, I am staying in Bindura and....TRAINING A NEW MISSIONARY. Her name is Sister Tonga, and she is from Tonga haha. I am emailing at the mission office in Harare. I have to stay here a few days to wait for Sister Tonga to get in. I don't even know how I feel. Excited! Scared? Happy! Sad Sister Ndhlovu is leaving. So I am very confused right now haha but everything is okay. 

Sunday: Saying goodbye to people/packing! 

So yeah! That is my news for the week. I am so excited that the Lord has trusted me to train a new missionary! I will love her like crazy for sure. I have to take this time to share my love for Sister Ndhlovu, though. She has been an incredible companion to me. I have grown SO MUCH in the past six weeks with her as my companion. She has loved me like crazy, and always been there for me when I needed her. We laughed every minute of the day and taught lessons and worked like CRAZY! She has been my rock. I cried for sure when I found out she was going. I am grateful forever that my Father in Heaven gave me such an incredible human being as my companion, even though it was only 6 sweet weeks. I LOVE YOU NDHLOVU! COMPA BABY!

I hope you all have a great week! Happy Birthday to my brother Jason who turns THIRTY ONE this week! You old sekuru. and Happy Birthday to my beautiful Aunt Marcy who is turning THIRTY this week ;) . Haha. Love you all! 

My theme of the week/next two transfers:

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." -Proverbs 3:5-6

I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVES.

Sister Lewis

5/15/17

Hey everyone!

This has been a crazy week, but also an incredibly amazing week! I got to see my beautiful mother's face yesterday, so I am still floating on air over that! Here goes nothing...

Monday: Emailing, food shopping, packing for exchanges, etc...

Tuesday: District Meeting! We talked about making lesson plans, and it was a great meeting! Sister Ndhlovu and I were able to teach Sister Promise, who is the cutest human being ever. She is our age and she is preparing to be baptized this month! We taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it was so cool to see how much she understood. We love teaching Promise because she always comes so spiritually prepared for our lessons! After we taught her, we had to go home and pack for exchanges in Harare! President Limu (our District President) drove us up to Harare and it was fun to talk to him for a little while. 

Wednesday: EXCHANGES IN MABVUKU!! Guys you have no idea how excited I was for these exchanges! I got to go with SISTER BONDO! Do you guys remember Sister Bondo?! She lived with me in Gweru for like four months and we were best friends in that house. We always wanted the opportunity to be companions, and we got to for a day! She goes home in like 6 weeks, and I loved learning a ton of things from her. We talked, laughed, and had a great time all day. She is the sweetest person ever. She has such a big heart! I will be so sad to say goodbye to her in a few weeks. 

Thursday: Coming back from exchanges! We had some crazy things happen that morning, so we didn't even get back from Harare until like 12. I like Harare,but it was SO GOOD to get back home. We taught a few lessons and then had to help the elders grab baptismal clothes from our chapel. We unpacked, ate, and passed out! Lol I almost forgot to tell you guys that I got my first ticket EVER!! So in Zimbabwe, the police just stand in the middle of the road and pull over whoever they want to (they don't have speedometers, so pulling people over with probable cause is not a thing). They pulled me over to check my fire extinguisher, safety triangles, and spare tire. TURNS OUT THAT THE SPARE TIRE WAS FLAT. Haha shout out to the APs for giving us their car with a flat spare. It was only a $5, and I didn't even try to talk my way out of it because I was trying to obey the law of the land lol. So today we are getting a new spare!

Friday: Friday was a crazy day... So turns out the elders needed MORE baptismal clothes because they ended up baptizing like 20 people on Saturday...but I will get there later! So we went to the chapel and my companion was really sick there. One of the elders gave her a beautiful blessing and then we went home. She called our mission president to talk to him and his wife about her sickness, so they came up to visit us. President Mkhabela was pretty worried about both Sister Ndhlovu and I, so we are thinking that he wants to take her to Harare at the end of the transfer to get better medical care, but we will see. I might be having a new companion next transfer, but we will see. I hope and pray that I stay with Sister Ndhlovu for one more transfer, but whatever happens I will be okay! 

Saturday: COOLEST DAY EVER OKAY! So the elders in Aerodrome baptized 12 people IN A RIVER. I REPEAT. THEY BAPTIZED IN A RIVER. Coolest thing ever? Yep. We got to go and witness their baptism. It was so cool. I love seeing people be baptized. It was an incredible service. Then we got to go the baptism of some other elders who baptized 7 people, but it was just at the chapel which wasn't as exciting haha. Cool day of seeing people be baptized and also preparing our own investigators for baptism!!

Sunday: I GOT TO TALK TO MY FAMILY WOOT WOOT. So I also went to my normal two church services which was cool, but I GOT TO TALK TO MY FAMILY WOOT WOOT. I was so happy. I talked to them for like 3 or 4 hours I think. They are all so good and so beautiful! I loved talking to my mom on Mother's Day. I am so blessed with a great family!

Things are good here in Bindura. I think I can anticipate some changes coming up soon, but I know that with my Savior by my side I can handle any change that comes. Please continue to include Sister Ndhlovu in your prayers. She is getting better everyday! I love you all and I love this gospel. I am happier than ever, and I know I owe it to my Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. 

I LOVE YOU ALL. Have a great week! 

Sister Lewis

5/8/17

Ndhlovu did Nafula's hair and I did Beckstead's

Elephant Cloud

Lewis, Rachel, and Ndhlovu

Chalton being a G

Compa and I

Beautiful Sister Poshia

The Bride

5.8.17

Hey Fam!

Are you ready to hear about the craziest week of my life on mission? Here it goes-

Monday: After emailing, my companion did Sister Ndhlovu's hair. While Sister Beckstead and I were waiting, we decided that I was going to braid her hair, as well. Sister Ndhlovu and I were joking around about opening our own hair salon, so look out for that coming soon ladies and gents! We also had a lesson with Tendai (I will tell you more about her later) in preparation for her baptism!

Tuesday: District Meeting! It was kind of a crazy district meeting because we decided to combine with another district to help figure out how we could help the people of Bindura. It was super fun! It was nice to hear some other ideas from different people with the same issues. Then my companion and I went out to TEACH! We got to see Tendai again, and Mercy as well, who was also baptized this past week. We also had a nice dinner with the Pepa Family, some recent converts to the church. 

Wednesday: Lessons on lessons on lessons. We saw the MUZARADOPE family, also in preparation for their baptism. I will talk more about them later, as well. So do you want to hear a crazy story? No? Too bad! I am going to tell you anyway. SO Retreat is a mountainous place, right? The investigators that we were visiting told us that there was another family who wanted us to come and visit them. They told us it was a little bit of a walk, but we agreed. They sent their daughter to lead the way for us. We hiked this mountain for I think at least 1 mile and then we arrived at the house of the people who wanted to see us and THEY WEREN'T EVEN THEIR haha. So then we hiked the mile back and saw some other people. #missionarylife

Thursday: Did I mention that my companion is sick? She got like a sinus infection or something, but she also has really bad asthma, so she was really affected. We ended up having to go to the hospital on Thursday, which took up almost the whole day. She is okay! But we are still working on getting her better. They thought she had MALARIA and I almost died I was so worried haha but it was not anything that bad. She got some medicine and then we went out to teach a few short lessons! We had to do weekly planning in the evening. 

Friday: So here is the beginning of all of the crazy crazy stuff. We had interviews with President Mkhabela on Friday, which meant we were at the chapel from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. After interviews, we had to run our District Leader (Elder Tuua) around from place to place to interview all of our candidates for baptism. Part of the interviews were in Retreat, so we had to go super far. We started interviews like at 3 p.m. and finished at 9 p.m. because we had to do so much driving. It was crazy!

Saturday: SO GUYS SISTER NDHLOVU AND I HAD A MARRIAGE AND THEN WE BAPTIZED 8 PEOPLE AFTER THAT. Now do you see why things were so crazy? We had a WEDDING! I don't have pictures on my camera, so I will send them when I get them from Elder Tuua. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you have to be legally married before you can be baptized if you are living with someone. Noboth Muzaradope and Poshia Manyara were living together, but not legally married. They wanted to be baptized, so we helped them to get married! After the marriage, Noboth Muzaradope (49), Poshia Muzaradope (33), Itai Muzaradope (16), Thelma Muzaradope (10), Israel Muzaradope (13), Pegneg Mudzingwa (17), Mercy Kuyeli (9), and Tendai Sibanda (15) were BAPTIZED!

Sunday: Awesome day of confirmations!

GUYS I AM OUT OF TIME SO I WILL TELL YOU MORE NEXT WEEK BUT PRETTY MUCH I AM OVER THE MOON ABOUT THE WHOLE WEDDING/BAPTISM THING. Please include Sister Ndhlovu in your prayers! 

I LOVE YOU ALL

Sister Lewis

5/1/2017

Hair in process

Nafula, Mncwebe, Mayett and I

Zone Conference Swag!

Elders took some selfies!

Weekly Planning hit hard!

My Junior Sunday School

SMiling normal for once

Ndhlovu with her Primary Class 

Macadini! 

Muri sei shamwari yangu? How are you my friends?

This week was so fun and spiritual at the same time! Hopefully I will remember everything that I need to tell you all haha.

Monday: So you already know that last week Monday was crazy for us. Sister Ndhlovu and I both braided our hair (there will be pictures this week!) and it took longer than we thought because we ran out of braids so we had to go buy more...it was just a hectic day. SO WORTH IT THOUGH BECAUSE I AM IN LOVE WITH MY HAIR. I don't ever want to take it out even though I know I have to haha. 

Tuesday: ZONE CONFERENCE!! We had a four zone Zone Conference which was crazy. Usually it is just 2 zones combined for Zone Conference, but because of things that were happening we combined with 4! IT WAS SO FUN! There were so many missionaries there haha. I got to see almost all of my mission friends. I saw Sister Bondo, Sister Kayembe, Sister Park, Sister Thomas, Sister Namugenyi, Elder Allen, Elder Barnett, and a TON of other people. It was so fun. It was also a super spiritual conference. We talked a ton about studying, and it gave me some really good ideas about how to study more effectively as a missionary. Obviously I loved the conference because studying the scriptures is my favorite part of life! We left Bindura at 8 a.m. and returned by 7 p.m. so the whole day was just used for Conference.

Wednesday: Back to work! Sister Ndhlovu and I had a ton of people to see this week to prepare for the baptism that we are having this upcoming weekend. I will tell you more about all the people that we are baptizing once they are baptized! I am so stinking excited, though. Of course we ended up in Retreat visiting my favorite family, the Muzaradope family. They are investigating the church and preparing to be baptized. The parents are not yet legally married, so we are going to have a wedding/baptism for them! I AM SO PUMPED! On mission you get to be so many different things, including a wedding planner!! 

Thursday: Weekly planning took a toll on us this week haha. We were both so tired and sitting for 4 hours in a row was hard. I sent a picture of the way my companion was sitting by the end of planning haha. We had a few really good lessons on Thursday. There was this one investigator who was like, "I want to come to your church because every time you are at my house, I just feel this weird feeling in my chest. It is a really good feeling, but it leaves whenever you leave." HE WAS FEELING THE SPIRIT, GUYS. We had never even spoken to him about the Spirit and he was just telling us how he felt different about our church. Hallelujah when things like that happen haha.

Friday: Oh, my way. This day was SO BUSY!! We were just seeing all of the people and it was crazy. We have a ton of investigators in Retreat now, which means we get to spend more time there, which is cool. Again we got to teach the Muzaradope family. I can't wait to tell you guys more about them next week holy cow my whole email will just be about that family haha

Saturday: We went to the Elder's baptisms, which was cool. I love watching people get baptized. It never gets old to me even though I have seen it so many times. We had a few good lessons on Saturday, but the day was super crazy haha. We went and cooked lunch for this member family in our branch and it was fun! Sister Ndhlovu cooked the sadza and I cooked the matemba (small fish). 

Sunday: Favorite day of the week, as always. We had 12 investigators attend sacrament meeting and then 5 came in late!! THAT IS 17 PEOPLE Y'ALL. It was SO AWESOME!! We taught some lessons and then went home to write letters in the evening. It was a sweet Sunday. I am now teaching Junior Sunday School (boys and girls 12-18) in Retreat because they don't have teachers. IT IS SO FUN! It is not even really Sunday School haha it is more like Mission Prep because I have them learn things about missionary work at the end of each lesson. THEY ALL MEMORIZED THE FIRST VISION I WAS SO PROUD. 

This week was super powerful, but it was so crazy and hectic that Sister Ndhlovu and I are using our Preparation Day to REST!! We are working like crazy.

Some of you have asked about the weather since I mentioned it last time in my email. Bindura is cold these days haha I always wear a jacket. I have warm enough clothes. It is not like Utah freezing, but since I have been in warm weather for like a whole year now, it feels so cold. I am in so much trouble when I come home because the snow might literally kill me haha.

HAPPY 60TH BIRTHDAY TO MY OLD MAN THIS WEEK!! MAY THE 4TH BE WITH LITTLE JEFFREY!! I love you, Dad!

I love you all! I had a fabulous week, as always! I hope you all are well. Sorry if I didn't email some of you this week, I was trying to respond to some of the other emails I didn't get to finish. LOVE YOU!

Sister Lewis