Well Dad,
I let it roll off this last week. Something came out of his mouth that really made me think in a meeting. He said. Sometimes I know I can be a hard person to work with but if you just show your love for me I will show my love for you. So I am trying to find qualities I really admire. This last week we have been studying the Christlike attributes and I read Charity and love. It mentions that True love for your fellow men is ignoring their faults not saying or thinking negative things about people not pointing out peoples faults or weaknesses and just as mosiah 4 talks about Everyone is a beggar on the earth. Everyone. We may beg for different things and in different ways but we are all dependant on our heavenly father for everything we have. Its behind me. They are men… simple as you said it.
Today we are going golfing! P-day acitivity. For 15 dollars. Clubs and tee time and golf cart=) the first and maybe one of the last times I will ever golf. Man its spendy. And they are telling me that’s cheaper. Whew.This week was mas o menos. We have been making the Armor of god so we have cardboard all over our apartment. I have had a cough for the last month and this week it moved to my nose as well. I might go in to see a doctor soon but I don’t know. We aren’t going very far with our investigators. They just don’t come to church. We dropped a little on finding this last week so we don’t have an inflow of new people to keep teaching. My time is shorter today because we are in a public library and they will shut us off when students come in. We taught our first English / Spanish class this week and a Preach My Gospel class as well. We are trying to turn the members into finding machines missionaries! Instead of complaining about how no one works with us we are trying to help them learn how to work. =) man Marisa is great! She is a very responsible dependable person! She did that in less than 1 week. I have been teaching all the other missionaries magic tricks and so now everytime the Zone leader calls he asks me to do a magic trick over the phone….still working on that one. We had a great service project with our member from Hawaii and they made us dinner while we did service and he was making KIMCHI! They are all about this natural stuff and she is fighting cancer so supposedly kimchi is on her list of food that is acceptable to eat. She’s crazy. But their house is beautiful I will take pictures next time we go. I was told I could have surfing lessons when I return from this member from Hawaii. His daughter teaching lessons and is always willing to teach return missionaries. WoohoO! We had to drop a few people because the just don’t progress one is really excited and says he wants to find the true church of jesus Christ. So Many people are just catholic because their whole family is and find that the book of mormon is true and can’t leave the catholic church because they don’t want to change. The other elders that had a baptism never got their confirmation because he moved to the states. Kind of a bummer there. But yeah. This morning in my book of mormon study I was reading in Ether chapter 12 and they are saying that they can’t write because of the awkwardness of their hands. That they are afraid the gentiles will make fun of them. And the lord replies. Fools mock, but they shall mourn. WOW! I am still scared to talk to younger people because I am afraid they will laugh at us of make fun of us. My fear was taken away this morning. This week I ate shark! WOohoo! Tastes like chicken but soft like fish. Really good! WoohoO! That’s all I can think ofTalk to you next week. Love You!
February 17, 2008
Well family,
This area is hard but not as hard as my last one. We are finding people to teach just not getting too far with them. We lost two great investigators that know the church is true… They have come almost every Sunday for the last 5 months but they don’t feel the desire to be baptized and said they feel pushed too much and need a break. That was a bummer. A family we are teaching didn’t show up to church on Sunday… =( their kids are so cute. Everytime they see me they put their fingers in their fists like they are doing the magic trick I do… by the way. My next surprise package I would love some new magic tricks… Some of the desired ones…. The rubberband broke for my “BITE OUT QUARTER” so another “BITE OUT QUARTER” trick would be a great one. Also I left my ROUGH DECK at home. That is a great one as well. And the Dollar store sells what is called a SVENGALI deck. Also my VERNET THUMB tip is breaking. And which ever ones you guys can find are gladly welcomed. I have been doing the print a business card one a lot with pass along cards to little kids.. =) they love it! Most magic sites have a kit of different tricks and if not you an just search for these things.
Mom… Money… We are going ice skating today as a zone. So I am trying to not use that card at all but I am going to be using it today and then will have to get my license soon as soon as I get all the paperwork and stuff. Elder Jones is his name and then next day we had a flat tire… so we called him and he said “BEFORE YOU SAY ANYTHING I want you to know your mom loves you. And I said well thanks I sure love her too…. And he said no really I your mom wants you to know she loves you. I just talked to her and she sure speaks highly of you. I said thanks and he said “elder ellis. Your mom really loves you” “many missionaries would die to have the supporting mother that you have” It was kind of awkward because I didn’t know what to say back to him. But I want to say I love you mom! I really do! Thank you for everything. I didn’t get the authorization paper sent to you because forgot to print it but I am printing it today and sending it tomorrow.
My week other than that… Our new phones got set up and are way cool. They have GPS… it got shut of half way through the week but they are thinking about turning it back on as a tool for us because NO TOWNS HAVE MAPS!!! Google has better maps than the cities have. We can’t get maps with streets or anything on it. So they might get the GPS set up on these phones so we can save miles and see our areas from a birds eye view. It would be cool. But the problem is still not necessary. Other than that had another fun Sunday of translating for a sleeping old man. =) he came down from the sates for an AIR FORCE reunion. He’s pretty cool just an old man walking around on earth till he gets his new calling in the eternal realm.
Well its time to head out but sorry this week wasn’t too eventful. Busy a lot of finding… and I am working with another person to quit smoking! I will be a pro at helping people quit smoking by the end of my mission… Hopefully baptisms too… Todavia…
Adios mi familia! Les amo! Mama Te amo! Muchisimo!
Les extrano
This area is hard but not as hard as my last one. We are finding people to teach just not getting too far with them. We lost two great investigators that know the church is true… They have come almost every Sunday for the last 5 months but they don’t feel the desire to be baptized and said they feel pushed too much and need a break. That was a bummer. A family we are teaching didn’t show up to church on Sunday… =( their kids are so cute. Everytime they see me they put their fingers in their fists like they are doing the magic trick I do… by the way. My next surprise package I would love some new magic tricks… Some of the desired ones…. The rubberband broke for my “BITE OUT QUARTER” so another “BITE OUT QUARTER” trick would be a great one. Also I left my ROUGH DECK at home. That is a great one as well. And the Dollar store sells what is called a SVENGALI deck. Also my VERNET THUMB tip is breaking. And which ever ones you guys can find are gladly welcomed. I have been doing the print a business card one a lot with pass along cards to little kids.. =) they love it! Most magic sites have a kit of different tricks and if not you an just search for these things.
Mom… Money… We are going ice skating today as a zone. So I am trying to not use that card at all but I am going to be using it today and then will have to get my license soon as soon as I get all the paperwork and stuff. Elder Jones is his name and then next day we had a flat tire… so we called him and he said “BEFORE YOU SAY ANYTHING I want you to know your mom loves you. And I said well thanks I sure love her too…. And he said no really I your mom wants you to know she loves you. I just talked to her and she sure speaks highly of you. I said thanks and he said “elder ellis. Your mom really loves you” “many missionaries would die to have the supporting mother that you have” It was kind of awkward because I didn’t know what to say back to him. But I want to say I love you mom! I really do! Thank you for everything. I didn’t get the authorization paper sent to you because forgot to print it but I am printing it today and sending it tomorrow.
My week other than that… Our new phones got set up and are way cool. They have GPS… it got shut of half way through the week but they are thinking about turning it back on as a tool for us because NO TOWNS HAVE MAPS!!! Google has better maps than the cities have. We can’t get maps with streets or anything on it. So they might get the GPS set up on these phones so we can save miles and see our areas from a birds eye view. It would be cool. But the problem is still not necessary. Other than that had another fun Sunday of translating for a sleeping old man. =) he came down from the sates for an AIR FORCE reunion. He’s pretty cool just an old man walking around on earth till he gets his new calling in the eternal realm.
Well its time to head out but sorry this week wasn’t too eventful. Busy a lot of finding… and I am working with another person to quit smoking! I will be a pro at helping people quit smoking by the end of my mission… Hopefully baptisms too… Todavia…
Adios mi familia! Les amo! Mama Te amo! Muchisimo!
Les extrano
February 10, 2009
Hello Family…=)
I am so sorry to hear about all of your sicknesses. I have been a little sick this week too. Pday keeps getting moved. It is usually Monday but gets changed on holidays on transfer weeks and on Zone conferences. So the last few weeks have been all those. This next week unless something comes up (these Puerto Ricans always have random holidays) I should be writing on Monday morning. New area. Hmmm Far west. There are always problems with Dominicans Smuggling drugs but the area is actually really clean. There are a whole lot of tourists so we speak English a lot. ACTUALLY…. In church us missionaries have to translate the meeting to English for the tourists and there are a lot of members that don’t know Spanish here. So this Sunday I spent all of priesthood session Slaughtering the English language. There was an old man and all the other missionaries told me it was my turn so I started translating for him. He fell asleep and I decided to keep going just to practice my translating skills which need about 5 more years time and they will be understandable. He fell asleep and started drooling all over. A contstant stream of Saliva for about 30 minutes without breaks… I was way impressed. The 2nd counselor in the bishopric thinks his mission was the best and tells us if people don’t get baptized its because we mess up and aren’t doing things right. He’s a hard one to work with. My new companion is Elder Jed Barker. He is from North ogden Utah and his dad owns a dairy farm. He’s a great guy. Funny, nice and still workin on the speaking aspect of Spanish. So he understands and I speak…He looks a little like Jared Haynes from forest grove. The area Rincon supposedly has the best surfing on the island. There is a member whose daughter teaches surfing lessons. And yeah…I think I’m going to come back and learn how to surf. This member is a mason from Hawaii and has built his whole house! IT’S A CASTLE!!! No JOKE!!! I will get picture when we go help him but he’s made it all with his own hands and it is beautiful! The best part is he makes it up on the fly. He doesn’t have blueprints just makes it up as he goes. Its amazing! He was just baptized about a year ago and going strong! He’s an awesome BUFF Hawaiian guy. I got to witness my first Puerto Rican baptism. And unfortunately its not as cool as elder kholer’s pictures, we have fonts in the chapels here…although if I get sent to the islands they baptize in the ocean! =) Who knows. I lost our keys this week. Left them in church on Sunday. So last night we spent a little while walking back and forth trying to get copies of our dueños key…the hardware store was closed but the lady let us in and copy the key. We copied it and then walked home tried it and it didn’t work so we walked back and she fixed it and then gave us an umbrella to walk home with so we went back and returned the umbrella this morning. Unfortunately we didn’t talk to her about the gospel at all. We aren’t perfect and just because I got a black badge on doesn’t make it easy to just talk to anyone about the gospel. I’m fixing that though. I am so excited to dedicate the rest of my life to missionary work. Through my family through my callings and through my job. Missionary work is in ever facet of our lives and I wish we could help the members realize that a little more. This Zone conference we had Elder Binia or Vinia something like that from the first 70. He shared with us that the best way to fix a problem is “Be and example and Testify” Not to assign someone to speak on the topic the next Sunday and not to chastise people either. My goaland ideal missionary is one that is always an example and always testifying. I can’t wait to help missionaries out after my mission. Being one of the members that is always willing to teach and always willing to help them out. And GIVE REFFERENCES! Now many times we have lessons set up and pass by and people aren’t there and people don’t tell us or anything. However. These members think it is our fault and that we aren’t teaching good people and who knows what else. Always help please! PLEASE! Our brothers and sisters need the gospel in Portland Oregon! Other than that yeah Life is great as a missionary! I left my pillow in arecibo…=( and now I have to wait for someone to bring it over here. I don’t know if I’ll ever get it. =(
I Love You all! Hope all is well and praying that you can all be healthy. I miss you and will talk to you later.Love Elder Ellis
I am so sorry to hear about all of your sicknesses. I have been a little sick this week too. Pday keeps getting moved. It is usually Monday but gets changed on holidays on transfer weeks and on Zone conferences. So the last few weeks have been all those. This next week unless something comes up (these Puerto Ricans always have random holidays) I should be writing on Monday morning. New area. Hmmm Far west. There are always problems with Dominicans Smuggling drugs but the area is actually really clean. There are a whole lot of tourists so we speak English a lot. ACTUALLY…. In church us missionaries have to translate the meeting to English for the tourists and there are a lot of members that don’t know Spanish here. So this Sunday I spent all of priesthood session Slaughtering the English language. There was an old man and all the other missionaries told me it was my turn so I started translating for him. He fell asleep and I decided to keep going just to practice my translating skills which need about 5 more years time and they will be understandable. He fell asleep and started drooling all over. A contstant stream of Saliva for about 30 minutes without breaks… I was way impressed. The 2nd counselor in the bishopric thinks his mission was the best and tells us if people don’t get baptized its because we mess up and aren’t doing things right. He’s a hard one to work with. My new companion is Elder Jed Barker. He is from North ogden Utah and his dad owns a dairy farm. He’s a great guy. Funny, nice and still workin on the speaking aspect of Spanish. So he understands and I speak…He looks a little like Jared Haynes from forest grove. The area Rincon supposedly has the best surfing on the island. There is a member whose daughter teaches surfing lessons. And yeah…I think I’m going to come back and learn how to surf. This member is a mason from Hawaii and has built his whole house! IT’S A CASTLE!!! No JOKE!!! I will get picture when we go help him but he’s made it all with his own hands and it is beautiful! The best part is he makes it up on the fly. He doesn’t have blueprints just makes it up as he goes. Its amazing! He was just baptized about a year ago and going strong! He’s an awesome BUFF Hawaiian guy. I got to witness my first Puerto Rican baptism. And unfortunately its not as cool as elder kholer’s pictures, we have fonts in the chapels here…although if I get sent to the islands they baptize in the ocean! =) Who knows. I lost our keys this week. Left them in church on Sunday. So last night we spent a little while walking back and forth trying to get copies of our dueños key…the hardware store was closed but the lady let us in and copy the key. We copied it and then walked home tried it and it didn’t work so we walked back and she fixed it and then gave us an umbrella to walk home with so we went back and returned the umbrella this morning. Unfortunately we didn’t talk to her about the gospel at all. We aren’t perfect and just because I got a black badge on doesn’t make it easy to just talk to anyone about the gospel. I’m fixing that though. I am so excited to dedicate the rest of my life to missionary work. Through my family through my callings and through my job. Missionary work is in ever facet of our lives and I wish we could help the members realize that a little more. This Zone conference we had Elder Binia or Vinia something like that from the first 70. He shared with us that the best way to fix a problem is “Be and example and Testify” Not to assign someone to speak on the topic the next Sunday and not to chastise people either. My goaland ideal missionary is one that is always an example and always testifying. I can’t wait to help missionaries out after my mission. Being one of the members that is always willing to teach and always willing to help them out. And GIVE REFFERENCES! Now many times we have lessons set up and pass by and people aren’t there and people don’t tell us or anything. However. These members think it is our fault and that we aren’t teaching good people and who knows what else. Always help please! PLEASE! Our brothers and sisters need the gospel in Portland Oregon! Other than that yeah Life is great as a missionary! I left my pillow in arecibo…=( and now I have to wait for someone to bring it over here. I don’t know if I’ll ever get it. =(
I Love You all! Hope all is well and praying that you can all be healthy. I miss you and will talk to you later.Love Elder Ellis
Dear Family… Ok i am really sorry but this letter is going to be really short. Well I am being Transferred again to an area called Aguada it is over on the northwest side of the island. I will get to see beautiful sunsets. My companion will be Elder Barker. Not a clue who he is but they say he’s cool. Uh this week was just as hard. We don’t have much luck and have seen lots of Zeros. My companion and I got in an argument. About numbers and goals. I’m not saying I was right but neither was he. About how we should set our goals based on what we have been achieving and not just out of the blue what we think we can do. We had all zeros last week and this week I said. Lets set goals that are a little lower so we can feel like we are progressing. He thought that it was ridiculous to set lower goals when there is always the way to make the goals. But we weren’t doing it. I don’t know. It was dumb and now its over. I leave tonight and stay in Arecibo again then head over there with Elder Luna who has finished his mission. We sat down and talked the other night and I asked him how he has remained so strong in his mission. I have never heard nor seen any trunkyness from him, whereas my companion never stops. He told me in very simple words. (Not that I can’t understand complex Spanish) Because it’s too short and there is too much time to worry about it. There are these photos of Baptisms and these photos of my family at home. They aren’t going anywhere (his family). But if I don’t focus on finding more of these (photos of baptisms) then I will completely regret the time I have spent.
Simple and made such a huge impact on me. I don’t want to be a “Buck Dog” or trunky. My companion is always talking about home… his dads corvette and his 4 girlfriends he’s written off and everything. Man I am ready for a change. He is great but he is hard to deal with pride wise.
Max our awesome 19 year old investigator dropped. We were teaching him and his grandma said she didn’t want us to come by he was sad about that but then we asked if we could stop by to see if he wanted to come to church. We did and talked with him and he told us that he feels good when he reads the book of mormon but when he goes to a Christian church he feels the same way. He told us “When I leave my grandma I will look into it more.This really made me sad. Mainly because he was going so strong. Ugh. I Had a great interview with president and he said he would not be the least bit upset if we spent all our time with members. He told us he wants us to turn the members into finding machines. MEMBERS ARE VITAL IN MISSIONARY WORK!!!! 1 in 8 Refferences from a member is Baptized. There is a graph… Out of 1000 houses we knock… 50 will let us in…25 will actually be there 10 will let us come back 5 will have a baptism date and only 1 will actually get baptized. MAN!!! MEMBERS ARE VITAL!!! Please help the missionaries. A brother in our ward this week taught an awesome lesson in priesthood. He said. Elderes Hermanos. Los misioneros no estan aqui para hacer esta obra solos. Nosotros no debemos ayudar a los misioneros. Ellos están aquí pro un propósito para ayudar a NOSOTROS…
Translated. Elders Brothers. The missionaries aren’t here for this work by themselves. We shouldn’t help them, they are here to help US in this work. We are seeing it the wrong way.
Man I hope they listened. There is a brother that fell from 2 stories and landed on his head a cranial facture and bled from both ears. He was in a coma for a while and now is in his house already. Only 23 days in the hospital and is now walking and doing almost everything as before. What a miracle I have been able to see in this. !!! =)I will send a letter to the ward soon. Today is way busy because we have a whole lot to do with transfers because they switched it up this transfer. Strange but busy busy busy!
I Love yoU! Sorry this is shorter and rushed. Bye!
Simple and made such a huge impact on me. I don’t want to be a “Buck Dog” or trunky. My companion is always talking about home… his dads corvette and his 4 girlfriends he’s written off and everything. Man I am ready for a change. He is great but he is hard to deal with pride wise.
Max our awesome 19 year old investigator dropped. We were teaching him and his grandma said she didn’t want us to come by he was sad about that but then we asked if we could stop by to see if he wanted to come to church. We did and talked with him and he told us that he feels good when he reads the book of mormon but when he goes to a Christian church he feels the same way. He told us “When I leave my grandma I will look into it more.This really made me sad. Mainly because he was going so strong. Ugh. I Had a great interview with president and he said he would not be the least bit upset if we spent all our time with members. He told us he wants us to turn the members into finding machines. MEMBERS ARE VITAL IN MISSIONARY WORK!!!! 1 in 8 Refferences from a member is Baptized. There is a graph… Out of 1000 houses we knock… 50 will let us in…25 will actually be there 10 will let us come back 5 will have a baptism date and only 1 will actually get baptized. MAN!!! MEMBERS ARE VITAL!!! Please help the missionaries. A brother in our ward this week taught an awesome lesson in priesthood. He said. Elderes Hermanos. Los misioneros no estan aqui para hacer esta obra solos. Nosotros no debemos ayudar a los misioneros. Ellos están aquí pro un propósito para ayudar a NOSOTROS…
Translated. Elders Brothers. The missionaries aren’t here for this work by themselves. We shouldn’t help them, they are here to help US in this work. We are seeing it the wrong way.
Man I hope they listened. There is a brother that fell from 2 stories and landed on his head a cranial facture and bled from both ears. He was in a coma for a while and now is in his house already. Only 23 days in the hospital and is now walking and doing almost everything as before. What a miracle I have been able to see in this. !!! =)I will send a letter to the ward soon. Today is way busy because we have a whole lot to do with transfers because they switched it up this transfer. Strange but busy busy busy!
I Love yoU! Sorry this is shorter and rushed. Bye!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)