Conference

This week has been the week of meetings, trainings, and intercambios (I cannot remember that word in English for the life of me...you have google translate). Literally every single day this week I have been out of the house until we left to teach. Thursday we had a meeting for the new trainers, Friday I sang in leadership council at the request of the AP´s, Saturday and Sunday we had conference, Monday I had an intercambio, and then yesterday I took one of the new missionaries out to place a Book of Mormon. But all of these were wonderful and I learned a lot (plus the free food from Hermana Douglas isn´t too bad either).

Every week I feel like my brain is so jumbled when I come to type this letter and I really hope that it will be somewhat coherent. One cool experience with our investigator Aminadia this week...We asked her if she had been reading the Book of Mormon. She told us that the week before she had tried to go to sleep several nights without even thinking about it and then couldn´t sleep. She tried everything she could think of and then finally when she read a chapter she was able to sleep. So she started making sure that she read a little each night and then had the book next to her while she was sleeping so that she could be at peace and get the rest that she needed. The Lord works in mysterious ways my friends. 

I have decided that my mission is going to be focused on less actives if at all possible. In the leadership meeting this week we found out that there are 39,520 members in our mission...and 33,640 are inactive. That means out of almost 40,000 members, only 5,880 are active. I ask myself quite often just what exactly the missionaries before us were teaching...or if they were just simply baptizing whoever they met. Is that bad of me? Probably. Either way, there is a lot of work to be done here with the less actives. So we are going to aim to actually build the kingdom of God here instead of just adding names to a role. 

Remember Ruth? She´s one of the less actives I´ve written about. We felt like we should teach her about the Plan of Salvation this week. When we showed up to her house she asked us 2 questions "What do we need to do in this life to be saved?" and "what is going to happen after death?" And in that moment we knew why we felt that the Plan of Salvation was necessary to teach even though she has been a member almost 15 years. And so we taught her this plan once again. It was a really spiritual lesson and I felt the spirit testify to me once again of the truthfulness of this plan. 

Did you all watch general conference? I certainly hope so. It was amazing! We were able to watch it in English in a "gringo room" with all of the American missionaries in our zone and a couple others. It was a lot of fun. We all brought our favorite American food to share and bought pizza and watched conference together. Because it is far to travel we stayed there in between the sessions as well and just chatted. The miracle of this conference was that we only lost power once! I think that is a record here in the DR. We missed about 5 minutes of Elder Cook´s talk but that was it. We were all so grateful for the consistent power this weekend. Conference is even better in the mission. I didn´t think it was possible but it is. And it was really cool to think that all of my family was doing the exact same thing at the exact same time even though we all live so far from each other. If you didn´t watch conference I encourage you to do so on lds.org. It is such a blessing to have a prophet and apostles on earth living today. They are a guide and support to us. If I had another hour on the computer I would keep talking about all the talks that I loved but suffice it to say that they were all wonderful. 

My "daughter" came today. She is Dominican but studied at BYU for the past year and so is also kind of really American. She is fluent in English and really excited to be able to teach people. I think she will make a great missionary and I am excited to be able to watch her grow as a missionary. I´m definitely going to miss Hermana Ozuna but I am excited for this opportunity to get to know another person and help them gain a love for this work as well. It is funny, last transfer I was worried about having 3 transfers with the same comp. The Lord truly knows us and the things that we need to learn. I truly learned to love Hermana Ozuna with all my heart in this last transfer. We became the best of friends and I know that she is someone that I am going to communicate with my entire life. I´m so grateful that the Lord gave me that opportunity to grow and stretch and accept another person completely...even after 4.5 months of every second together. She is training too and I couldn´t be more happy for her. 

Well family, the church is true. I love my mission. Every second. Every day. The Lord knows us. So well. He knows our needs our wants our wishes and desires and more importantly He knows what is best for us and is willing to let us learn and grow in the best way possible. Trust in Him. Look for His hand in your lives. I love you all!

Hermana Ewell