Dia de la Madres

Dia de la Madres! :) Tengo la mejor mama en el mundo!!!!!


Hello Familia!

So Hermana Nelson has informed me that I am leaving the best parts of my week out of these emails and that I need to try to redeem myself. Being Sister Nelson's companion we have funny experiences at least weekly almost daily. Okay so....

Story #1

So Sister Montes, la hermana de Mexico, still lives in our pad with us. One time we were standing to get on the train so I told her I liked her hair. "Me gusta so pelo." Well she thought I said pedo, which has another entire meaning. So she started laughing and gave me a funny look. Pedo means fart. I would only learn this type of stuff through a native. So that's how I came to know that. Hermana Nelson has this book that she studies her spanish in and she found this phrase that says, "?Quien se pedorreo?" She asked me if I would say it to Jonnathan one day. I asked her what it meant, and she didn't tell me so I said i'll think about it once I find out what it means. Later we go to our dinner appointment with Hermana Cuesta. Hermana Cuesta is this ancient little old lady from ecuador in our ward that loves to have us over to her house for dinner every week. She is a little bit crazy but I love her to death and I look forward to visiting her. We were sitting at the table waiting for Hermana cuesta to come out from the kitchen. Sister nelson was talking about Jonnathan and then something about our lesson for later that night and then out of no where it clicked. I totally knew what the phrase meant from earlier. We both started laughing as we both enjoyed the moment of what it meant. Then Hermana Cuesta came out and asked us what was so funny. I didn't want to really tell her exactly cause its bathroom humor and we are missionaries so you have to be sensitive to that type of stuff. Yet sister Nelson presented it in such a way that by the end it was perfect and we had Hermana Cuesta laughing so hard there were tears rolling down her face too. So it just turned into this big joke.

Later that night we were walking off the train with Jonnathan after the bomb lesson that was taught with this member Joel. All of the sudden i turn around after talking to this man on the train about a passa long card that I had and Jonnathan turns to me and asks me .. ?Quien se pedorreo?" I looked at sister nelson and was so embarrassed. Nelson and Jonnathan just laughed at me hysterically seeing my embarrassment now that the joke was out in the open. Then Jonnathan in his little english/equadorian accent he says, i don't even know how to say that in English.

Story #2.
We are teaching this family from Ecuador. Diego is the husband and he is married to Fernanda. Fernanda is pregnant and they have one little girl named Genesis; age 2. Super cute family. We found Fernanda through English class. We started teaching her English class through her home and then we would share a little bit of the gospel with her at the end. She was nice but wasn't quite sure how much interest there was. She wasn't reading in the BOM that we left her. Then we randomly volunteered ourselves to help them paint their house.... so we helped Diego paint the house which turned out to be a great few hours to talk about the gospel and teach him some great principles. Anyway so we got to talk about the gospel and then they fed us some good food after. I think that kind of confused him actually but sparked more curiousity which is cool. They fed us some really good ecuadorian food which was fun. She went to the market to buy the crabs and came back and put them in the sink. Sister nelson was vegetarian before the mission keep in mind... so I thought it would be funny to call her over and introduce to her what would be dinner shortly. Diego shortly comes over and starts ripping off the legs. Sister Nelson wasn't sure quite how to react to the dying crabs and Diego didn't quite know how to react to her reaction. lol. Then eating the crab soup was a totally new experience cause you have to peel the shell and break it open. Dig all the goodness out of the middle. Pretty sure Sister Nelson's crab flew half way across the room as she tried to open it. So funny. She was a little frazzled as we left but I was proud of her for overcoming and eating the crab soup. lol Then when we left, I bet you can't imagine what we smelt like.... lol. Yep - congrejo, aka crab. So we were under the gun to get to our next appointment and we were running from one place to the next. We got on the 7 train which was packed and headed to the next stop. I'm sitting next to this little peruvian guy talking to him about Temples and sister nelson has gotten pushed up to the back of the train with a little group of Mexicans. She is sitting there and pretty soon this Russian lady next to her says "Wow, it smells like fish." Sister Nelson hesitantly says sorry we just ate crab soup from ecuador. The lady offered her some lotion to try and cover up the smell but she politely declined thinking that crab and fruity lotion wouldn't be a better combination. Then the little group of mexicans behind her start talking in Spanish about how she smells like fish and it smells really bad ( thinking sister Nelson didn't understand them). Finally, at this point poor little Sister Nelson has had a enough so she turns to them and says, "Permiso, Hablan espanol?" The reply "si, si".... Then sister Nelson looks them in the eyes and says, "Yo tambien! (me too)" lol. You should have seen all their little eyes. It was so funny when they realized she knew exactly what they were saying. We smelt like crab the rest of the day all the way until we went to correlation that night with the ward leaders and other missionaries in the district. It was really funny as we walked in and we told them our story and they all started giving us a hard time. Anyway i hope something good comes from our Painting house, crab soup story. Diego really wants to be a good father and have a strong family. So he became really curious and asked us if he could come to church when we painted. We said of course. They still haven't come because Fernanda is draggin her feet about taking the kids but hopefully things will start to progress. We thought that we lost them for a little bit because they weren't answering our calls but then we bumped into Fernanda randomly at the market yesterday and she invited us back over on Tuesday. She was really nice and said she has been really tired. She is due in about 4 weeks. She told us Diego has been reading in the book that we left her and that she read a couple of pages as well. We were really excited about that.

Story #3.
So a couple of weeks ago we went tracting and we had the miracle and opportunity to teach 3 new families which all became new investigators. Which according to PMG just means you have taught one lesson and have a specific return appointment. So one of these families are from Ecuador. Juan is the father and very religious evangelist. Yet he says he has a friend from our church and I don't know if that friend really is a member but he really did have a book of mormon already and he told us he liked it very much and that he had read in it a little bit. Said it was pretty much the same as the bible because it had similar parts and such. The mom Rosa is nice but also has a hard time paying attention to us. Then they have a girl Alexandria. So I was able to teach them the restoration and they told us they could come back the following week. As this return appointment was coming up I was trying to get a hold of him to confirm but we decided to just stop by to remind them instead. We got off on the wrong stop so we were going to have to walk a couple of extra blocks coming from the wrong direction. So we were walking down roosevelt st when some guy approaches us on the street. I look over and see that it is Juan. The exact person we were going to see. Coincedence? I think not. :) So we start talking to him. We asked him about our appointment and he said yes but wasn't very commital which always turns sketchy. Turns out he's "working" he's a salesman for Herbal life and so he starts showing us all the products and all the cool things they have. I actually like Herballife. It was really big in Thailand too. Sister nelson being the Genious that she is asks if she can get a pamphlet. But he doesn't have one with him so he asks us if we want to go to the building with him. We didn't really want to but something else told us we should, so we did. Then while we were there he offered us a tester thing for $4. Honestly and truely I had no desire whatsoever to do it and neither did Sister Nelson so we politely told him we needed to get on our way. We already had our backpacks on and ready to go when I felt like very strongly i was passing my appointment for the following night away. So I stopped mid sentence and said. Actually, Juan i do, I would like to try your aloe, bebida, smoothie whatever thingy majigy. You should have seen Juan's face light up like a lightbulb. He was so happy so then his supervisor came out and I tried all this stuff. Aloe, Protein shake, and this herbal tea stuff... it was all good but it was just comical. I had no desire whatsoever to drink it but I was just hoping it was some sort of inspiration and that it really was helping our pool grow. lol. They told me the aloe could have a "cleansing affect". I finished the 3 testers they had and was about to leave. It only took about 20 minutes. They asked me if I needed to use the restroom before I left which I thought was weird. I told them no. I put my back pack to go and then it hit... On second thought.... where is the restroom? lol. My comp. just gave me that look like, you have got to be kidding me. Just thinking the whole situation was hysterical. So while i went to the restroom, Hermana Nelson taught Juan a 5 minute lesson on the word of wisdom. Which he absolutely loved and told us he totally agreed with. So we wished him well and told him we would be stopping by the following night about 7. Don't worry the scenerio goes on. I'll try to not make the story gross by giving details but just know that it was really funny. So we start walking down the street. I'm feeling good but I can tell things are moving around in the intestines. Which isn't a bad thing since some days I feel like nothing is moving from all the hispanic food we eat. So we are walking I'm talking to sister nelson and telling her I'm never sacrificing myselt again for an appointment where all of the sudden this burp just comes out of nowhere. It wasn't loud or anything but it STUNK! One of those things where you surprise yourself and the the person next to you that happens to be sister nelson. Smells like garlic and a little mix of other stuff. I'm mortified and she is laughing trying to compose herself. We are both in shock. I didnt even eat garlic, to my knowledge but maybe it was part of the health drink. not sure... I don't even think burps usually stink. At least mine don't... lol. This one definitely did. So my body was sacrificed a little, yet our appointment was savaged for the next night. We went with Darwin ( our ward correlator) to teach this family. Juan wasn't in house but when he heard we were there he came back. We got more of the family in on it. I'm SO glad darwin was there to help me because sister Nelson's voice was still gone and I had pretty much every Christian background there in the room with us. Catholic, Evangelist, Jehovah Witness, and nondenomiational Christian. All in the same lesson. It was a little overwhelming but they were really cool. They kept asking all these questions so of course they answered them but it ended up being really long. We were all ready to get out of there by the end of the night but it was good. Hopefully we will go back there too. Juan ended up coming to sacrament meeting the next day which was good. He said that he liked it. So the Herbal life experiment was worth it! Maybe we will go visit again. lol jk.

Ya so those are my funny stories for the last little bit. I hope I was able to write them in such a way that you were able to enjoy them.

So I g2run Hermana Nelson is having a freak out attack from her email. Her older sister just sent her a picture of her dog that she left home; Butch. Butch is a little shizsu? How do you spell that? I have no idea. Hermana Nelson's mom asked Kim her older sister to take the dog in for a hair cut. So Kim took it in for a haircut.... shaved it all the way with the exception of a mohawk that starts at the head and goes down the back until the tail. Then dyed the mohawk red and gelled it to stay. Sister Nelson doesn't know quite what to think :) I think it suits the dog just fine. :) Oh and here's another food for thought. What would you think if I told you I saw this person that had a tattoo across the bottom of their back that says, "We all make mistakes" blown up in big lettering. lol i don't know who would want that for the rest of forever. She also has really cool sleeves of tattoos that actually looked kind of cool in comparision to the others I've seen. There are so many crazy people in New York and when i saw that tattoo it just really made me laugh.

Gospel is true. I love you!

Hermana Lewis

Mommy!  You are the coolest mom ever! Hey I finished the BOM this week! Just like you! You rock! Seriously those chapters in Moroni are the best aren't they? It was so cool to take a clean book of mormon that has never been written in and just mark the daylights out of it. I never realized just how much it is a testament of Jesus Christ. I marked yellow in the book for every time it said Jesus's name. I don't think there are more than 10 pages that don't have yellow on them. Then next color in there is red which is anything that talked about the great plan of redemption and the atonement. The book of mormon talks so much about the atonement and the importance of the savior in our lives. I am so grateful for the atonement. i love it so much.



Happy Mothers Day Sunday! Can't wait to talk to you! i love the letters that you sent me this week. Just think from here on out I'll be home for your next mothers day. Weird... where does the time go out here. Some days it feels like it will never end but I know I'm going to blink and it is going to be completely over.



Thanks for being so good to my friends mom. You are a wonderful person. There are very few people I can think of that are as influential as you. You are a great source for good. Way to lift others to better and brighter places. Sometimes its hard not to suck in the bad energy around you and just to not loose faith. We are so capable of anything and everything, such potential.