Message in a Bottle: I look forward each day to the strong spiritual experiences that I pray for and God blesses me with.

Hey, guys!

So since the big shock of staying twice as long, nothing really big has happened. Studies have continued, food hasn't changed. The leaves have fallen more, but that's not that exciting. On Wednesday for TRC, we changed it up, though. Instead of giving two 15 minute lessons to two different french speakers, we gave one 30 minute one to someone over skype. We talked to a Peruvian Quebecois. Not the easiest accent to understand. He had been a member for like a year and a few months, so teaching him really felt like inviting others to come unto Christ compared with the former missionaries who had been members their whole lives that we have been teaching.

We are also starting teaching less actives. Our teachers have been pretending to be less actives from their missions and we come and visit with them. Our first day doing that, another teacher came in to help. Elder Edmunds and I taught him, while the rest taught our teacher. It's hard! So the two of us are teaching him as well as our teachers, and we've been working hard to find his needs.

We're also finishing up with our teachers. We have one more lesson with them as our investigtors, and we're starting to say goodbyes. We'll get new Tahitian speakers. We'll also gain in our class some french speakers who are learning Tahitian. Being fluent in French, they're just coming six weeks after us.

We got flight plans for leaving for Tahiti on the second. Super frustrating when you know it's wrong. The Elders going to Barbados who came in with us are leaving in a week, too, so it's tough.

One thing I've noticed here is that when people are assigned a lesson, and are guided by the spirit, everyone says things that they wouldn't normally think of, and everyone ends up learning stuff. It's really cool, and I've seen a lot of that here.

I'm super excited to start learning Tahitian. We've been slowly collecting Tahitian stuff like a hymn book, a bible from the old Tahitian district, etc. I can't wait to actually get my studying materials and get fluent! I've learned more Bislama than Tahitian recently. I actually wrote a story in Bislama.

Ol dakdak laekem blo kakae fish. Hem laekem tumas kachem fish. Wan dei, Hem wantem kakae shark. hem swim lo sal wata wetem faet ol shark. Ol dakdak happy from se hemi kakae ol shark lo first dei.

Petty good, eh?

Okay, and more spiritual. We watched a video on the Atonement with some of a talk from Elder Holland and some of President Eyring. It's something like "Missionary work and the Atonement". It was super good, and the spirit was incredibly strong. Watch the video, or find the talk. We talked about the Atonement and I'm telling you, my testimony of it quadrupled in that 45 minute discussion of it. I can't remember any specific parts anymore, but I felt the spirit super strongly. I've been been praying super hard lately, and between praying, feeling the spirit like that, and focusing hard on questions I have, I've felt really close to God and my testimony has really strengthened. I've recognized God's hand in my life each day better. That's the best part.

Things are great here in the MTC. I look forward each day to the strong spiritual experiences that I pray for and God blesses me with. I've come to love everyone here, and I've grown close to my district, my teachers, and most of all God. I know he's there for us, and I know he has a plan.

Until next week!

Elder Lewis