01/29/18

Sorry Fam! Transfer Day is hectic! No time to write a proper email, but let me just tell you I am FINISHING MY MISSION IN MABVUKU HALLELUJAH COUNT YOUR MANY BLESSINGS! Sister Diing and I are still together! 

Love you! Have a great week!

Sister Lewis

(Not only was today transfer day for Jenna, but I had to tell her that there was identity theft on her debt card; and I needed her to figure out what classes at BYU she wanted to take for Spring Semister.

She she had not time to email today. So sorry! Kathi)

01/22/18

Hey Fam!

Sorry for the craziness of no group email last week! My companion and I had to get something done, so we didn't really get so much time to email. I don't even have a ton of time left today, but I will write something quick about last week and this week!

Highlights: 

Monday: We had a super fun family home evening with Reuban (recent convert) and his mom (nonmember). We played games, we ate cake, we shared scriptures! It was so fun! I can't wait to do Family Home Evening with my future family haha. 

Wednesday: Exchanges with Sister Wamaitha! She is from Kenya, and she is pretty new on mission. I LOVE HER SO MUCH. She is such a powerful teacher for someone who is so new on mission! I loved teaching with her all day and being around her. We saw like a WHOLE BUNCH of people that day...we had like 7 or 8 lessons. Great day!

Thursday: WE FOUND THE MOST POWERFUL GUY EVER. Or should I say he found us? So we were walking by on the street and he stopped us and called us into his gate. A member of our church named Jack (19) was with his uncle, Eric. Eric called us over and was like, "I know this church and I want to learn more about it." We have been teaching him ever since. LITERALLY HIS WIFE IS ALSO SUPER PREPARED. We are planning on having them get married and baptized in February. I can't even explain how awesome he is. He keeps all his reading commitments, he comes to church with his whole family, he is just awesome. He was even giving Jack fire on Sunday because Jack missed church hahaha. I love that family tooooo much. I wish you could hear the comments the wife and the husband give. They just GET the gospel. God really does prepare people!

Saturday: I hit 16 months on mission? What the heck? EPHRAIM GOT BAPTIZED! He is a super cool kid. He is like 12 and he was so ready to get into that water haha. 

Sunday: This day was a miracle. We had like a million investigators come to church? And a bunch of less-actives that we had visited came? Like? Sometimes I love working as hard as I can and just seeing the blessings that come.  Not all of the blessings that come are immediate, but they do come! I love being a missionary. WE ALSO SAW ERIC SO OF COURSE, BLESSED DAY.

Monday: FHE again with the Makarutse family! Powerful family. Members for a few years. We went and cooked for them and then had FHE! 

Tuesday: ZONE CONFERENCE! Yoh this one was super good. The mission has decided to give us smart phones so that we can help people do family history work! We only get to use it when we want to help someone put in their family history, and we have to be careful because smartphones can be a huge temptation, but it is SO COOL! Literally there is no difference between the work for the living and the dead, so I love this opportunity we have.

Wednesday: EXCHANGES WITH MY LITERAL FAVORITE PERSON EVER, SISTER OMONDI. She is also from Kenya. Oh my heck me and this girl are best friends. We had a great day. I haven't laughed so much in a long time. WE ALSO SAW ERIC SO YOU KNOW, #BLESSED. 

Thursday: BEYONCE CAME BACK! But she moved to a different area...she is still in Mabvuku, but she lives in the other sisters' area. LIFE IS NOT FAIR. Oh well, as long as she gets the gospel in her life, anyway. 

Friday: ERIC. Taught him and his wife about the Book of Mormon. I just love those people guys literally we are teaching so many people, but I love them. 

Sunday: Church! Also amazing. Lots of people came, so blessed. 

Happy Birthday to Lenzie, Grandma, Barbara and Jake in January! I love you and can't wait to spend some of your next birthdays with you! Love you guys!

I am out of time, but I am SO GOOD. I think I am working harder than I ever have on my whole mission. I am trying to make every minute count! I am sorry group emails these days are so rushed, but my mind is just elsewhere. I know you guys love being updated, but it is reallllyyyy hard these days to sit and write a proper email haha. 

We are going with all 10 sisters in Harare on an activity today, so wish us luck! See you all next week!

Sister Lewis

01-15-18

No group email this week, sorry guys! NO time!

Love, Sister Lewis

01/08/18 (9 weeks till Jenna comes home--from Jenna's Mom!!!)

Hey Fam!

Well, things are finally settling down it feels like here in the New Year. The weeks are still flying by, and I can't even keep track of them. We are officially halfway through this transfer, even though it feels like it just started. Let me tell you a little bit about this week!

Monday: MLC Dinner was super fun as always. I got to say my goodbyes to SISTER PARK SHE LEFT I AM SO SAD SOS COME BACK PARK. Seriously, I loved that girl too much. It was so special to be able to hear her final testimony as a missionary. 

Tuesday: MLC was amazing! It was a little bit scary because I had to report alone this time since Sister Diing is still new, but it was a good MLC. We got a lot of things done, I feel like. We also got to go to the area in the evening. 

Wednesday: Interviews with President! It was good. He gave me some really great advice, and of course I always love any time I get to spend with him. We taught a lot of lessons after interviews, too!

Thursday: Weekly planning! The lessons we had that day were super powerful, too. Man. This week we were praying to be able to find some prepared families to teach, and we had little miracles throughout the whole week! Father led families kept being dropped into our laps. It was awesome. 

Friday: Lessons on lessons on lessons! 

Saturday: Full day of lessons again haha. Lots of finding, lately. 

Sunday: Church! We meet from 12 to 3 now which is so weird! I have started in the morning my whole mission, but it is kind of super nice. We get to do personal study in the morning now instead of in the evening. Church was great as always. I had this super awkward moment yesterday haha. So during sacrament meeting, I felt the Spirit tell me to go bear my testimony during fast and testimony meeting. I never have done that before because as missionaries I think we are just supposed to let members do it. I got up and started to walk toward the front and then I got scared and walked straight out the door! Hahaha my companion followed after me and gave me the confidence that I needed to just go follow the Spirit! It was good.

Can I just say how grateful I am for the Word of Wisdom this week? Eish. I don't know why, but we have met a lot of people drunk this week. Maybe it was the holidays, I am not sure. I was thinking too much about it, though. I was grateful to my Father in Heaven for having more wisdom than I have. I felt prompted by the Spirit to think about alcohol in particular. I thought long and hard about it, and I realized that alcohol has never done one single good thing for me in my whole life. It has, however, caused some heartache in my life. The gospel, on the other hand, has given me every good thing. I am so grateful for the Word of Wisdom and my personal commitment to following it.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Sister Lewis

Vana

Perks of Borrowdale

BFF's

Tanatswa

I like tomatoes now

Compa chilin'

Drive in Selfie

How I feel in about 9 weeks

<3

Flowers from kids

Model Makanaka

Puppies

I won

My other half

Eunice

Yamikani

1/1/2018

Hey Fam!

Well, I don't even know where to start to be honest haha. Merry Christmas? Happy New Year? Eish. I honestly am kind of at a loss for words haha. Let me try to catch you up on my life since the 18th of December.

First of all, I am still in the same area! YAY! I love Mabvuku too much, and I really want to stay here until I go home. I am not sure if I am going to, but I am praying for that. I love the ward TOO MUCH. My companion and I have been working really hard to make the ward grow. Beyonce MOVED I was so sad haha. We are teaching a lot of really good people right now, though! One cool thing that happened from last week was meeting with Brother Prosper (15). So we had visited with Prosper a few times before Christmas, and he was just a cool guy! Get this...he literally STAYED HOME from a vacation with his family just so he could meet with us...man. I have never been so impressed like I was then. We visited him on Christmas because we knew he would probably be lonely and it was just the nicest lesson. We read from Alma 7 and talked about Christ...I can't even explain how powerful the Spirit was!

Friday before Christmas we also got to walk with a less-active woman named Emily who is almost blind to CAROL NIGHT! It was super fun. I don't know if she will ever come back to church, but my companion and I just felt like we really did the right thing. We had to walk with her from far and then back again. Since we walked back at night, she totally relied on us to get her there safely. She is someone I will always remember. It was a tender mercy to meet Emily. It made me realize how we always should do the right thing even if we aren't sure about the result of our efforts. 

SATURDAY 23RD OF DECEMBER WAS HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MISSION DAUGHTER SISTER TONGA LOVE YOU FAM I MISS YOU WHY DID YOU GO TO GWERU WITHOUT ME?! OFATU OFA'ANGA.

Sister Diing is so fun! So here is the whole story...she was born in Sudan, moved when she was five to Kenya, and then moved right after that to New Zealand where she grew up....and then moved to Australia as an adult to work. Confused? I'm not! She is super fun! We work really hard together, which has been awesome. We talk talk talk hahaha I think we never shut up. 

Skyping my family on Christmas was AWESOME! Pretty much everyone was talking about me coming home, which was crazy. I actually don't like the idea of coming home in 10 weeks, but that is reality! I am excited to see my family, though, yoh. MAKOROKOTO TO JAKE AND JAIME FOR HAVING MY NEWEST NIECE! I can't wait to meet her!

Happy Birthday Dottie! I was thinking about you this week as I knew it was time for your birthday to be rolling around! I hope you had a great week!

Literally my life is in chaos right now, but good chaos. I have never been so busy in my life. I feel like I can't catch up, but then somehow miraculously I am like given extra time by God to get everything done that I need to get done. I am happy being busy!

I love you all so much. Please no one is allowed to talk about me coming home soon haha. I am excited for 2018! My only goal is to read the Book of Mormon everyday, and I am confident in that goal.

I am honestly so scattered, so this is the end of the email. Hopefully next week my mind will be more gathered together haha. Sorry if I didn't get to email all of you, I didn't have so much time as tonight is MLC dinner. LOVE YOU ALL!

One last thing...I have begun to commit the Living Christ to memory...I can't even explain the miracles it has brought into my life. TRY IT. You will see. I can't describe the personal growth I have felt. I am a totally different person since I have tried to do it! I have also been given the capacity to memorize things FAST! Yoh. I was shocked how easy it has been to memorize.

Love you! Happy New Year! Wishing you all the best that 2018 has to offer you!

Sister Lewis