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