Hey My Family!
So this week I had an Austausch (FYI – switching
companions and working for a day with that other missionary in their area.) I
stayed in Schaffhausen and Sister McEwen went to Winterthur. It went well!
Here are some pics from that exchange when she
served with Sister Miriam Lohman.
Afterwards Sister Lohmen sent this message to Sis
Kate:
“Hallo meine Lieben, habt beide eine schöne Woche,
Wir sehen uns Freitag.. Sister Lewis, ich habe den
Austausch mit dir sehr genossen!!! Du bist echt klasse..” (Translated that means – “ Hello my friends.
Have a wonderful week, We’ll see each other on Friday. Sister Lewis, I really enjoyed the exchange. You are really great.”
Hey Family, do you want to talk on Christmas? It
will probably maybe be about 7 or 8 my time on Christmas day. If that works. (Answer = YES! Although
at midnight our time I don’t think she’ll be chatting to the little ones!)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LINDSEY MY BEST-OF-SISTER!
We also had a Special finding day for some elders
in our district where we went and sang Christmas Songs and handed out Book of Mormons
wrapped like presents. There were missionaries and members there singing
together. I talked to a man from Denmark for forever and I now have an open
Invitation to visit him and his wife, and his friend that he was with, in
Denmark. And the missionaries in Denmark have a killer referral coming their
way.
I love you Family! Thanks for your Messages in my
calendar. I love it.
(This week I got up at 3:15 am to "chat" with Katie....which means emailing back and forth. It's only the second time I've done this during her mission. So the following are excerpts from a those conversations, and answers to some of my questions.)
Do you ever go to Christmas Markets to find people to talk with? So we went to a couple minutes of
a Christmas market the other day and I took some Pictures. Alt Stadt is the cutest. But a lot of the Christmas markets are on
Sunday. I also saw a way cool one in the Train Station in Zurich.
We don't knock like they used to.
We still knock sometimes but we don't plan to knock. Does that make sense? If
you're in an area and your Train doesn't leave for 30 minutes and there's not
so many people out then you might knock.
Are you staying warm enough? For now. I think I'll die in
January. And I'm pretty sure I lost my gloves on the bus this morning. That
would be my third pair that I've lost. I know, I'm terrible.
Did you do anything special on Thanksgiving? My Trainer who is still in the Wien Zone said that the whole Zone got together and had a Thanksgiving dinner that the Senior couple in Wien made. So that made me miss being around Americans! My cute companion gave me a Thanksgiving present but my Thanksgiving dinner was hot chocolate and mango (two of my favorite things so that wasn't so bad!). But yeah that's my story about Thanksgiving.
Do you ever get discouraged? So you asked about me getting discouraged. I get sad because people don't progress the way I want them to, but I have never gotten all that discouraged. You read last week about how Sister McEwen was feeling down. And while she was feeling that way and I was sitting on her bed with her she just started naming people that have let us down... people we had such high hopes for. But I know they all made progress and not everyone is ready to accept the Gospel right this minute.
I should probably feel really discouraged right now actually, but I just don't really. I had this same feeling in the MTC. Sometimes I feel like I'm floating on a cloud of prayers. Things just never get that bad for me! And I really do feel like a lot of it is because of all of the faithful prayers that People say for me.
I said something about wishing for different numbers in my email to President Miles (each missionary writes a weekly email to their Mission President), and he said this:
“Be patient, obedient and invite everyone. That is all the Lord expects from us. Our success is in the invitation, not the baptism. That success belongs to the Lord and the Holy Ghost.” (I love this, because a mission really is about offering to others that which has so much value to us. The Lord wants us to share our love for Him and his Word, but beyond that it is the Spirit that testifies of the truthfulness of the Gospel. Missionaries can invite the spirit, but they are not the ones who convert the individual....the spirit converts when an individual is willing and wanting to find out the truth for themselves.
Before I got off, I asked if there was anything else she wanted me to tell me. Just thanks for all the letters and Cards!
This is an excerpt from a note to a friend - So now I'm here and my companion is a Scot who was
actually in the MTC with me! This is our second Transfer together. She's hilarious.
I'm one of two American missionaries in Switzerland and the other goes home
after this Transfer (Actually there's a Senior couple who might be
part-American too. Not really sure. At least I'm one of two Young American
missionaries in die Schweiz.). In my Zone in Wien we had two People my first
Transfer in our Zone who weren't American and one the next Transfer, so that's
a huge difference between Switzerland and the rest of our mission.
Switzerland was it's own Mission not so long ago, and it still kind
of feels like it is sometimes. It's just impossible for American
missionaries to be in Switzerland now.
The Work of Salvation is fabulous! I'm
so happy to be a missionary.
I love my Advent calendar! The whole thing was worth it because I got to read a really nice note from Liz yesterday that I don't think I ever would have otherwise gotten.
I love my Advent calendar! The whole thing was worth it because I got to read a really nice note from Liz yesterday that I don't think I ever would have otherwise gotten.
Okay so my email for this week was mostly my chatting with you. But check
out these Mormon Messages!!
There's one on Grapes and one on roofs. Also, watch
the new Mormon Message about the Kids giving These gifts of themselves for
Christmas. Give your own Special gift this Christmas!
Also, watch Elder Holland's Mormon Message about
chastity called "Stay within the lines."
Also, Mormon Messages are just the best. Find your
favorite and share it on your Facebook!
From Sis McEwen:
“This week has been super! I think I need to come
up with a better word than amazing but words just cant describe how much this
work really means to me. I have learned so much and well I love it.
This week I got a huge blessing in my path. We
were heading home from contacting someone who wasn’t there and well we had
nothing else planned so we were gonna go home and do language study, something
that both of us need, but i remember looking over and these people were talking
in English and I had this thought that I should talk to them but ignored it as
they looked really busy. Five mins later I told my companion I think I need to
talk to them and she said then do it, thinking she just might do it but nope. I
finally did it and to my surprise they were going the same way and we end up
talking for such a long time and then they invited us to go and get a drink and
talk about our Religion. We end up speaking all night and he came to church
(the wife is a late sleeper). Not only that he had a program that can help with
one of our members …the Lord just blessed us so much. I remember walking home
and thinking what if I hadn’t listened to the sprit? The night would have
been totally different. We truly need to follow the sprit, then and only then
can our father in heaven help us. I was so thankful for this blessing that was
put in my path, we can do it we just have to look what is in front of us and
grab it. People are everywhere . Listen to the Spirit that guides you. He knows
your power.”
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