The highlight of the week was receiving Emily’s first email after one week in the MTC. Her preparation day is Thursday. Then later that day we received a letter in the mail and then pictures by email. It felt like a gold mine of a day! We were so happy to hear that she is doing well and loving her experience.
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| Hermana Lewis & Hermana Murray visiting the Provo temple. |
Hey family, you're not going to believe this, but it's true! Emily's teacher in the MTC is a good friend of mine!
Back in the summer of 2011, I worked early morning custodial, and was paired with a guy from Colonial Juarez, Mexico, and who spoke very good English (Julian Barrio). We became fast friends, and Danielle and I have gone on a couple of double dates with him and his wife. Well, I was chatting with him via Gmail tonight, and he told me that Emily is in his district!!! This is what he said to me:
"She is awesome. Her and her companion are awesome. They are very nice and very focused on the work. She is doing great with her Spanish and teaching skills."
Anyhow, small world! It's wonderful to have someone you know get to teach your own sister in the MTC. It was like when I was in the same zone as the missionaries Bryan taught.
That was fun to hear how she was doing from her teacher. Emily's room is only 6 doors down from cousin Myreel. She loved the chance to see her.
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| Hermana Murray & Hermana Lewis having lots of fun together. |
Recently Crismon has met with some religious leaders in Damascus. This small town just south of Gresham has had some internal conflicts among city members and also negative feelings towards the Mormons. Marlo Dean (works at C-Tech) opened some doors for Crismon to visit with other church leaders and the two of them had some good visits. He felt there was some softening toward the church.
We had a good month in our Reliv business in January. We reached a goal that we had been working towards for a number of years. We advanced to the Senior Director level. That won’t mean anything to anyone else, but it was an important step in our business and we felt the hand of the Lord blessing us and helping it to come together.
I’ve enjoyed sharing Reliv with several of Ondalynn’s friends. One who last Nov. was in tremendous pain from a bad fall that occurred a year ago. It was so wonderful to see her begin to change over a week, then month, and now able to go back to work. Another friend that lives around the corner from Ondalynn was a good friend with Ardene back in Minnesota. She happened to be in the same ward as the Daem’s and Ardene was her RS President. Ardene helped her tremendously during a difficult time. The way that Ondalynn connected that she knew Ardene was kind of comical. One day when she was at the Vance’s, Ondalynn said to her children, “You need to hurry and do your “Big-5.” Her friend said, “I know about Big-5.” She had heard that from Ardene to her children. Oh…the Lewis traditions live on and connect us together around the world! We use to say, it’s a small world in the church, but now I think we can say, “It’s a small world in the Lewis Family.”
Friday afternoon I babysat Bryson, Isaac, and Paxton while Ondalynn taught an Art Class at the school for Sydney and Julia’s classes. It’s a nice break for me to be “Grandma.” I love it! It was also nice to have her friend come by and hear her share that she feels better just after a few days on Reliv. We love sharing hope!
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| Bryson dusting to surprise his Mom. Notice the stacks of items to try to get up higher. |
Last Friday night with the temple closed for a month, we had an open night. We visited Vaughan and Suzi Lewis in our ward. She has cancer, but is doing well on treatments. It was so nice to visit with them and get better acquainted with their family. We are blessed with many good friends.
Last Sunday while Visiting Teaching, Melissa, McMullen, one of the sister’s I visit, she gave me some yummy soup. Her kindness was enjoyed many times throughout the week.
Our weather has been mild compared to the huge snowstorms in UT and back East. Our prayers are with you. We’re grateful that Durelle and Oscar’s family is safe and they have power.
Happy Birthday wishes to our beautiful daughter, Meredith, on Feb. 1st, who turned 26. Then birthday wishes to her husband, Bryan, today, Feb. 10th. Her baby is due in less than two weeks, and Evelyn's birthday is in a couple of weeks. Little Christian's birthday is the first part of March. So, yes, all five in their family will have birthdays within 5 weeks of each other! Good luck, Meredith, keeping up with all those celebrations over the years! We love you!
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