This email is going to be a bit short this week but I hope you´ll all forgive me for that! Also, if there is Spanish in here...forgive me. You have google translate. I´m losing my English. Today was transfers! Hermana Santana and I are still together because she´s still in training. Hermana Aleman left to be a sister leader and so Hermana Allen has a new companion. She seems nice and it will be good to have her in the house.
It was a marvelous week as always down here in the DR. We had a few meetings with President the last week and it is always so cool to hear his insights and be spiritually fed and recharged. Some of the senior couples even made a "Thanksgiving dinner" for us for Zone conference and I don´t think I´ve ever been so happy to see a Mormon casserole in my life. Senior missionaries are new in this mission and they are definitely a blessing. I have been eating rice and beans for 7 months now and anything different is more than welcome. haha. We talked a lot about faith this past week in conferences and such and it was a good reminder and good time to reflect about my own faith and how I´m doing with that.
We are teaching a young Haitian named Filemon. He´s a medical student at the university here and is really smart. He is interested in finding what he calls the "true doctrine" but he definitely has a lot of questions and ideas about just what that entails. Every lesson is interesting with him because he thinks of questions I have never even thought of but I thoroughly enjoy it because it means that he is actually interested in INVESTIGATING for the truth and not just accepting what people say or wanting to "hear the word" like so many people here. This last week he had a lot of questions about why we recognize Sunday as the sabbath day. Hermana Douglas has been encouraging us to find scriptural evidence for all of the claims that we make. Luckily earlier in the week I had felt impressed to study more thoroughly the sabbath day. When he asked me I was able to turn to Acts 20:7 and explain how Peter became the prophet after the death of Christ and they began to institute the sacrament on the first day of the week in remembrance of His resurrection. As he continued to press the matter I told him that his real duda was not with sabbath day but with whether we have a prophet or not. I explained once again the role of prophets and how he can know if Joseph Smith was prophet, by prayerfully reading the Book of Mormon. It was a really interesting lesson and we were able to feel the spirit really strongly. I hope we´ll be able to see him progress a little more because he would be an incredibly strong member of the church.
The other thing I wanted to share this week is about a few members. I have met some incredible people here in the DR that are such great examples of faith. In our ward we have one brother who has made it his goal to find and help reactivate less active families through his home teaching. He is a perfect example of actually fulfilling his calling as a home teacher. He works with us and arranges appointments for us to come with him and teach the families 1 or 2 times a week. Then he passes by a few other times and will drive to pick them up for church. It is incredible. Every time we see him he asks about our other investigators and reports on his efforts of finding people for us. He is an incredible example of truly living the faith and helping share the gospel.
We have members that will volunteer to leave with us for 4 hours at a time to help us visit people. Others that have become involved in calling the investigators to remind them for activities and other things. I am here to testify that this work does not do ANYTHING until the members become involved. And more than just involved, until the members take over and the missionaries are the support. We have seen incredible progress in this ward since the time I came. Now we are having members call us to tell us about visits that they have made without us and there is nothing that makes me heart happier than to hear about people sharing their testimonies and helping build the kingdom of God.
One woman in our ward has become one of my heroes. She is incredible. This woman is so faithful and lives one of the humblest lives. She lives in a tiny 2 room house with no refrigerator and limited electricity. Her parents died when she was 10 and she found the gospel as an adult. She takes care of her grandkids while her daughter works. Up until recently, she cared for another toddler whose parents are drug addicts. When he was born she offered to help care for him so that he could have a better life. She started basically raising him and only asked for money to be able to feed him. A few weeks ago his mom informed her that she would not be able to care for him any more. We visited her that day and this loving woman cried into my shoulder as she told me how worried she was for that little boy. She is an incredible example of faith, humility, and love. She told us she has only ever missed church twice in her 25 years as a member. Once because a relative died and the other because she was out of town and searching for a chapel and by the time she found one it was too late. She said that she wants to make sure she keeps her baptismal covenant and that the Lord knows that she was committed to Him in those promises. In the past week we have received 5 references from her. She is older and has problems with her legs and trouble walking but she still makes time to leave with us several times a week. She says it gives her purpose. She is the member caring for the cat that we rescued. Why? Because this woman is the definition of living faith and exudes love. I absolutely love her and have learned so much from her.
I invite you all to examine your faith. Not only what you think but how you ACT on it. It´s been interesting for me to do the same the past week and really see where I am. I think that too often we are like Peter who tells the Lord that he is willing to die for him and then within the same day denies him 3 times. Or who goes to Gethsemane and then falls asleep. I think we all have a great DESIRE to have faith and to do good but then we tend to fall short on actually falling through. Luckily we have a loving Savior there to help us when this is the case. Think of a way to improve your faith in Him. A way that you can love another person.
I love you all! This work is true. It is of the Lord. He loves us and knows us and I am so grateful to be here and humbled to be called as a representative of Him.
Hermana Ewell
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