Angel Oak

Hello!

I can't believe it is P-day once again! Man today has been filled with so many adventures! Today we actually went with Sister Fowkes and Sister Flinders to Charleston to see Angel Oak and to try and find the light house at Folly Beach. It was super super fun....except that we couldn't find the light house .... so we ended up taking pictures at this tiny light house that we found! Angel Oak was just so much fun! 

This week we haven't done a whole lot because Sister Allred has had a super bad migraine, but we had a couple of funny stories that we can tell! 

So on Wednesday we ended up going over to Sister Roses house to help her with service. She ended up having her Sister in law there with her and a son named Mike. As we were serving we decided to share a message with them before we left because they are non members. We decided to show a video and for 15 minuets Mike kept asking us if the video was about Taylor Swift and I kept saying "no it's about Jesus!" Then he started staring at Sister Allred during the message and says "ya know... you look like Taylor Swift with glasses" it was super funny. After the message, we were about to leave and Sister Roses 2 year old was throwing a fit because she was tired. So Mike told us that if we didn't come back the next day then he would do the same thing so that long story short is how we were able to teach their family about the gospel! 

We were also able to go to interviews with our mission President which was super awesome because I love him! He is very concerned on how we feel as missionaries. And he really took the time to get to know us individually as missionaries. I am super excited to see what these next few months have for us as a mission. 

Sorry for the lack of things going on but I want y'all to know that I truly love this gospel and no matter how things may seem that I am grateful to be a missionary! 

I hope y'all have a great week! 

Love, 

Sister Maigan Lewis 

Faith As A Power

Hey y'all! I hope you've been having an amazing week full of tender mercies and miracles! I love hearing from y'all and seeing your pictures! This week has been super fun and also full of challenges but mostly fun! Today we actually got to go to this horse barn and play with the horses, that's right I said play! Now we can't ride them but I learned how to train a horse to move and to basically do what you say which was super awesome! But sadly I didn't get pictures ☹️! It was a lot of fun and we also learned how to groom a horse! 

We were able to have our first appointment with Courtney and it went really really well! She is very hesitant, but she wants to learn more and it's seems as though she is going to become a member. She just needs to learn more about why we do things. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and it was a lot to take in, so she had a bunch of questions on how it all worked. She actually already knew a lot about the word of wisdom, so she was pretty nervous to give up sweet tea. We were excited when we found out that Sweet tea is the only thing that will keep her from living the word of wisdom which is hard to come by in the south. But overall it was a great appointment and we had her friend Sister Schertz over who actually had just about the same questions when she joined the church

Another cool thing that we have started as a district is A Faith As A Power, which is basically a goal that can only be accomplished by drawing on the powers of heaven. This concept has truly changed my life and my mission. I am super excited to do it as a district. We will learn how powerful we can be, especially because as a district we have 12 people (by far the largest in the zone). Our goal as a district is to put 3 solid people on date before the end of the transfer and I know for sure that we can accomplish it! Especially since the two investigators that we have been working with are so solid and it's super helpful that they were referred to us by members. So tomorrow we decided that we are going to put Brooks West on date for baptism this week. We are so excited because he told us that he wants this to be a commitment. 

This week I have been diving into the Book of Mormon. It is just the most amazing thing. I have been studying acts of obedience while reading the Book of Mormon. Yesterday I was reading where Alma the younger is giving advice to his sons and the first thing recognized is that he tells all 3 of his sons his experience when he became converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. But every time he explains this experience it is worded differently and different parts are emphasized which got me thinking about Joseph Smith and the first vision. With different people he told he emphasized different points of his experience based on what he knew of that person. This is what we as people do when we are telling stories to different people. I thought it was interesting how many people think that fact disproves the first vision to be a lie. When in reality if he told his story about the first vision the same way using the same words every time then we would know that it wasn't true. I also read a verse when Alma is talking to Coriantum about when he was preaching to the Zoramites:

11 Suffer not yourself to be led away by any vain or foolish thing; suffer not the devil to lead away your heart again after those wicked harlots. Behold, O my son, how great iniquity ye brought upon the Zoramites; for when they saw your conduct they would not believe in my words.

12 And now the Spirit of the Lord doth say unto me: Command thy children to do good, lest they lead away the hearts of many people to destruction; therefore I command you, my son, in the fear of God, that ye refrain from your iniquities;

I thought it was interesting that because of Coriantums wickedness he actually prevented people from being able to believe the words of the missionaries or even the prophet. It just reemphasized the point to me that people look at us as missionaries whether we know them or not. And at all times we need to be worthy to wear our tags. Even as members of the church people are always looking and always watching. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be a missionary and I am proud that I am worthy to wear our Saviors name with pride. I pray that when people see me, they can see their Saviors love, and not a disobedient missionary, or someone who is rude, or anything that would draw them away from our Savior. It truly is a privilege and an amazing opportunity for these 18 months to do that. As members of the church. whether you are conscious or not, people are looking to you as an example. Whether good or bad there is someone always watching which again tells us how important it is to always be an example of the believers in word, in thought and in deed. I love y'all so much and I am so grateful for the support and the love each and everyone of you have shown me these past few months on my mission. 

Love,

Sister Lewis 

HUMP DAY!!

Hello! Friends and family!

If you read the title of my blog, you will be happy to know that today is my half way mark on my mission! It is so crazy to think of just how much I have changed and all the people that I have helped grow! I am so excited to see where these next 9 months take me! 

A funny story, yesterday Sister Allred and I went to young women's and one of the leaders, Sister Baughman, was describing different levels of casual to the girls who were going on the youth conference trip up to Palmyra (I'm only a little jealous ;)) and she said that comfy casual is what you wear to Walmart but spiffy casual is what you wear to target. So today we decided to wear spiffy casual at target (jeans)! 

This week has been such a great week in the mission field! Oh my goodness we have seen so many tender mercies and so many miracles this week it is crazy! So like I said a couple of emails ago, we have been working with the ward to give us more refferals. From that we were able to meet a girl named Courtney. She is so awesome and is actually from Arizona like sister Allred which is awesome! But anyway, after working with the Schertz family on getting a refferal from them, we ended up getting them to set up a dinner appointment with us and Courtney right when Sister Allred first came to the area. She loved the message we shared with them! Ever since then she has come to two of our Ward game nights and even took us to the baseball game (where our stake president threw the first pitch). She always sits around and talks to Sister Schertz a little bit about our beliefs and this time after game night she actually asked if she could meet with us and have dinner at her house so we could teach her about life after death (Plan of Salvation). So I am super excited for that and we have it set up to where our member, Sister Schertz is going to come with us who is actually a convert herself! We also were able to meet this week with Brooks West and he has been meeting with us about every two weeks for a month now which normally I wouldn't like that too much (I still don't) but he told us this week during our appointment that he was really sincerely interested in becoming a member of our church. Generally in his appointments we can't teach him a lesson because he just asks us a ton of questions. But we set the expectation for next lesson to teach him about the restoration of the gospel. These two investigators are super solid and we are hoping to put them on date for their next lessons! Right now in the area we have had a hard time finding super solid people on our own but with Member refferals we have been finding people who are so ready for the gospel, which has just boosted my testimony so much of member missionary work! It truly makes the difference and we have gotten so close to our members that way which is just awesome! 

We also were able to go on Exchanges this week and we both were in our area which was super fun. But this past week Sister Allred has been down for the count. I felt like during exchanges that I was back into the swing of things! It was so much fun to go out in my area with Sister Fowkes and we found a guy who told us that we could come back anytime (right then he was busy) and we also were able to nail down a less active to stay at church for 3 hours in two weeks because she always leaves for the third hour! So that was a lot of fun! I also felt like I was able to just do the lords work and it is a work I have grown to love. I love being a missionary and helping other people come closer to our savior and I just love sharing that with those around me. I have such a passion and desire to be obedient and to help others do the same to come completely converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ! 

Recently I have been pondering scripture study and I have realized just how much it can change our lives. I remember before my mission I wasn't able to read my scriptures everyday, or even say my prayers but I have been trying my hardest to Study Giligently, Pray Earnestly, and to Serve Willingly. Those three concepts have truly changed my life. I am so grateful to know that I will always work toward being converted to the gospel because of how much joy it has brought me on my mission even in my lowest of lows it has helped me receive strength I needed. And to truly rely on my savior. I love this gospel with my whole heart and I am so grateful that the Lord has trusted me to be an instrument in his hands! 

It has been such a good week! A hard week. but a good week and I have definitely been strengthened by the Lord! 

I leave this with y'all in the name of Jesus Christ Amen 

Love, 

Sister Lewis 

Charity Never Faileth

Hello Family and Friends! 

I want each of you to know that I just love you and I am so grateful for all of you! This week has been so much fun! I hope y'all had a great Fourth of July and did something super fun! In our mission for the Fourth of July we were put on lockdown at 6pm because apparently the people of SC are a little bit crazy about their  fireworks! 

For the Fourth of July our Ward didn't do anything so most of our ward decided to go to the Summerville 2nd Ward party in Moncks Corner at a lake. We had a member invite us to go with her so we called our Zone Leaders because to get permission to go outside of our area, they ended up telling us that if we could come up with a good reason to go we could go. So we decided that our reason was that they have no sister missionaries in the second Ward, so we went and had so much fun.... but the Elders in the second Ward didn't give us the memo of wearing real people clothes so we walked on the beach of a lake with our skirts on! But when we got to the party there was no food, so we hit up smash burger on the way home from the party. Because we only had an hour before we were supposed to be in our apartment we decided to go to Walmart and print off pictures where we met this lady who said that she has been looking for a church! She ended up helping us when printing off our photos and told us that she just got married and that we could see her at church on Sunday which was pretty cool, except for she didn't come to church on Sunday! But ya know. maybe next week! 

This week has been full of people cancelling appointments and not finding anyone who is interested in the gospel. It was actually really funny because Sister Allred looked at me on Wednesday after like 6 hours of knocking on doors and she says "I think we have hit the record for most people to tell us they aren't interested before we even start talking!" I just laughed because I'm used to this area because I have been here for so long! 

On my mission it has been a quest for me to personally know my savior which has made me think of Christlike attributes. I can honestly say that I have never been so close to the spirit as I study and try to implement these attributes in my life. There is no coincidence that as we become like the savior we are able to more readily and easily listen to the promptings of the spirit! And the greatest of all of these attributes is that of charity where we are able to see each other with spiritual eyes and to know that they are children of a very loving Heavenly Father. As I have been trying to develops these attributes I feel like I notice more the instances where I am not charitable and not patient more than when I am. But I realized just how far I have come. Just this weekend, on Saturday, Sister Allred received some hard news from her family. We had gone and done some service and went to a baptism but after that we decided to go home for some water and to finish up studies. Sister Allred went to the bathroom and I could tell that she was falling apart, so I felt prompted to write her a note telling her how much I loved her and that she could take all the time that she needed. She ended up telling me later that she had only given herself 3 minutes. and 2.5 minutes later is when I pushed the note underneath the door. We almost always never get to hear how much a promoting we receive changes another persons day. But I testify that if we heed those promptings, the first promptings, we will never go astray and we will be more receptive of the spirit! Now is the time to become a deciple of the lord Jesus Christ, now is the time to decide for yourselves whether or not you are going to be converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ or not. If you are going to be ready for the time when he comes again. I plead with all of you to think of the blessings that will come upon your homes, your families, and mostly your hearts as you center your lives on the gospel of Jesus Christ 

"Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;" (1 Thessalonians 1:3) 

I love you all and want you to know just how much you all mean to me, but more importantly, I want you all to know the love that our father in heaven has for you! Whenever you doubt that you must remember that for each and everyone of us our Father in Heaven sent his son to die so that we all could have the opportunity to rid the chains of sin and to live with him again! 

I bear this witness in the name of our lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

Amen 

Love, 

Sister Maigan Lewis 

Happy Fourth!

Hello Family and Friends!

I just want to let y'all know how much I love you! I am so grateful for the little things that y'all do, it definitely makes a difference in my life and in the lives of those around you! 

We have had a great week! The work is definitely progressing! We are working with a Lady named Adrian Morris. She isn't married, but has a 6 month old baby. We have been over and taught her about the Book of Mormon which she told us that she would read and I am super excited for our next appointment with her! Because she is so ready for the gospel and we have a couple members who are super willing to go out with us! We also haven't seen our investigator Brooks West this week but next week we have a set appointment with him and are hopefully going to help him see the need for prayerfully studying the Book of Mormon. We also have been working with Stephen and Trinity our recent converts who are 9 and 10. We actually got a call from their grandmother this week who had a question about Stephen. Long story short they as a family were talking about him getting a cosmetic tattoo and when they asked him if it is something that he would want and his response was "if it is going to keep me from the temple I don't want to." And that just made my heart so happy to hear that he, at 10 years old has that strong desire to go to the temple and to be clean and pure! I am so grateful for being obedient enough that the spirit was able to help me convert him to the gospel of Jesus Christ, how amazing it is to see that in someone so young!  

It's amazing to be a missionary because there are so many miracles that happen in this work. There are miracles that we see and there are huge things that happen. But the hardest thing is to find the small miracles that happen daily to take a minute and to smell the roses. So that's a new goal of mine, to take a minute and to smell the roses because men are that they might have joy. Heavenly Father has never intended for our lives to be miserable, even though trials we may go through seem unbearable at the moment there is one who has been there before. I have recently been thinking of the Atonement and what it means for us. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is more than what I generally think of. The Atonement is a choice that the savior had to make he had to choose once again to drink of the bitter cup, just as Adam and Eve had the choice to partake of the bitter fruit. But our Savior during the Atonement for me took a minute to be bound by the sins that bind me everyday. Everyday I didn't read my scriptures, when I was too stubborn to say a prayer, and when I was so offended that I couldn't forgive. He went through that and found a way to break through those chains that still seem to bind me. Which means that I can do it to just like any of you who may be bound by certain addictions even though they may be small there is a way to turn toward Christ. The one thing that I have learned is the fact that just as much as Jesus Christ atoned for my sins he also atoned for every mistake someone makes against me. Everytime someone sins against me and I don't forgive them is me telling the Savior that his Atonement wasn't enough. Jesus Christ gave his life for his friends and that is who I want to be, I want to be his friend I want to know him. I want to be more than a follower or minister of Christ I want to be the type of friend that he could lay down his life for, the type of friend that knows who he is and not just what he did for me. And I would invite each and everyone who reads this to love as he loves, to live as he lives and to break the chains which bind you in those chains, I know you will only find misery, I was miserable for years before I experienced the Atonement. I know as soon as you break those chains you will find a greater joy, that you will come to know and believe your Devine identity as children of a loving God.  

Now, this was what Ammon desired, for he knew that king Lamoni was under the power of God; he knew that the dark veil of unbelief was being cast away from his mind, and the light which did light up his mind, which was the light of the glory of God, which was a marvelous light of his goodness--yea, this light had infused such joy into his soul, the cloud of darkness having been dispelled, and that the light of everlasting life was lit up in his soul, yea, he knew that this had overcome his natural frame, and he was carried away in God--

I love y'all so much and desire just as Ammon for y'all to have a king Lamoni experience! I bear this sure witness in the name of our beloved Savior Jesus Christ Amen. 

Love, 

Sister Lewis