"But I don't know how to read" - September 29, 2014 - From Luzern

Sister Katie at the Swiss Temple with Sister Oswald, her  companion

Hi Family!

Life is good/hard.  Luzern is gorgeous Sometimes I don’t think I’ll ever be able to come back to Switzerland enough.  I should live here for awhile. 

Last week we went up the Rigi! (this is a cogwheel railroad that goes up the the to of Rigi Mountain)...  which was awesome and free with a GA (rail pass)  Soon we will go up Pilatus.  Which is not at all free but we will do it anyway.  I love Pilatus.  It is a way cool mountain.  It makes me happy when I can see it.  I just wish we had time on P-Day to hike it.

Quess what? Sister Kervinen is in my district!  And she’s my sister training leader!  I just love her.  

I went on an austausch (exchanges with another missionary companionship) to Olten this week with Sister Wüst. I saw the Rivella (a kind of bubbly drink)  and the Lindt/Sprüngli (chocolate) factory just during our normal working day. Olten is very industrial. We had an awesome lesson with a less active they hadn't met before.

I got your package! Esther Jäger came to visit a friend in Luzern last weekend who is actually an active member. She told me before I left Solothurn that usually when she come to see her for a weekend she would sleep in and her friend would go to church alone but that because I would be there she would come. So she was there for my talk! Which went really well because I had Sister Wüst correct my German when we were on austausch. And Esther brought me my package.

This week we saw an awesome former investigator who hasn't been seen in forever. I called her up, made an appointment, and this week we were there. She is amazing, but her husband is really against any kind of organized religion. So we'll see what we can do.

Something I have learned, or maybe just internalized, on my mission is how incredibly precious people who are less active are to Heavenly Father.  I mean, of course they are, we all are, but He will never stop reaching out to them.  And I am privileged to be a part of that.

I don't even know how to explain today and the fact that I am emailing SO LATE. Basically, we went adventuring with a member family today for P-day and it was incredible (Lauterbrunnen Valley was very pleased to have me back even if it was just for a little while). (ahhh....Katie and I have wonderful memories of hiking down into this valley from the Kleine Scheidek and then the next day hiking from here up to Obersteinberg and then the next day to Murren) 

 And we had a really good spiritual family home evening and we were doing service by showing them around (Sister Oswald and I together are pretty good tour guides if I do say so myself). So that was today. Hopefully all the kids will go on missions now. The quote of the week is from from Sister Thornton to her 5-year-old (is she 5? I think so?) daughter.

Sister Thornton: "I would be so proud of you if you went on a mission someday. That is such an honorable thing to do."

Sophia: "But I have to know how to read first."

We also saw Nancy, and talked to her about defending her faith to her friends. She is a less active and I really hope we can make so much progress with her.

Our appointment with our friend from the city tour didn't work out because their schedule changed, but don't worry we're going there tomorrow. CAN'T WAIT.

Well, life is good. We found some potential investigators this week. That made me really happy. We met an Austrialian today in Lauterbrunnen who will be in Luzern for the weekend and will hopefully come to general conference!

I loved schwestern versammlung!! (this is referred to General Women's Conference which took place this last weekend.  It is a worldwide broadcast for the sisters of the church). I love the focus on the fact that our church is a global one. The gospel of Jesus Christ is for everyone. We watched it at a member's house in English it was great.

I love you all!  Sister Lewis a.k.a. Kate

Dancing in the rain?