September 21, 2009

New week!
Well this week wasa great member week. We had over 5 members come out with us. This area is great. Not to mention president martineau ran a meeting after church with the ward missionaries and leaders and it was great! We are really trying to turn this work into more of a member directed work than a missionary directed work. It should have some great results and i am pumped. We have a lady recent convert who's husband didn't get baptized and he doesn't like it when she brings it up but he comes to church this week. I hadn't even met him yet but i still Had a great feeling that we were going to be able to touch him in some way that the sisters hadn't been able to. There are so many great members that want to feed us and everything here in this area. Some are even willing to buy us groceries even though they hardly have money for themselves to eat. The puerto ricans definitely are a kind loving people. They have many weird habits such as stopping on the freeway on-ramp. That is probably one of my biggest pet peeves. They come to a complete dead stop before merging. No matter where they are. The freeway and other roads everywhere, its annoying. There is a little family we found yesterday that seem great and i am way excited to see how far they get. We went finding with a member and it was a great little first lesson. We have another appointment next sunday and i am pumped. My companion is great we get along good but he seems to hog the lessons. I don't know if thats just because he doesn't think i teach good enough or what, but i like switching off more often.

September 14, 2009

So no lettersssss....???

Well this week was good. Burned a shirt on the beach for my year mark. i also needed to ask you to send me my august Bank statement please. BEcuase i talked with president and he should be putting the money i spent on groceries from my home card back on. or at least send you a check for it because there was a mistake in the system and i ended up with too much money and wasn't my fault. but if you could send it to me that would be great!the sooner the better. But yea THis week was good we taught many good lessons and had members go out with us for hours on end. It was awesome! we are getting fed a lot. i'm going to get fat! but yeah! Not a whole lot to tell i wrote a letter and will try to send it today! Love You!

September 8, 2009

Well today i am in a funky mood trying to snap out of it. reading about Josh and Galina going to BYU-Idaho made me jealous. but more just what happened this morning has caused me to make my mood different. We are losing our car becuase the sisters crashed it bad right before we got it. So they are taking it to get it fixed. and becuase we are both brand new and know nothing and have 1/8 of our mission in our area we need a car. so they are taking our car and giving us the "Mission Gua Gua" that is puerto rican for HUGE VAN!
Today for p-day i am the chouffer of 7 elders in the mission gua gua. pronounced as in gua-temala gua gua
Crazy! That will be our proselyting car for 2 weeks. its a 17 seater! learning how to drive for my future family! =) but
visitors. The white handbook says no visitors becuase it can distract us for long periods of time. So they cannot come visit me. But they are more than welcome to leave something for me in the mission office. Notes letters cookies money... ) no letters. or whatever. which is just the mail address that you write me at. but yeah! Nothing super exciting. here is what i wrote to my mission president
This week has been kind of strange taking a while to get used to puerto rico again. It is a great place just much different from the islands. I am using papiamento words all over elder arce is too. we catch each other saying them pretty often. This week i noticed the importance of a good branch mission leader. He is probably the ideal ward mission leader. In the sense he knows were the investigators live. He was able to tell us about their challenges and was able to tell us what there needs were. He even told us that when they taught the second lesson the spirit wasn't able to be there so well becuase there were too many distractions. He is on the Ball! Honestly the greatest one i have seen so far. Not only that he only has 3 years in the church. He reads he studies. He takes serious being a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints. It is amazing! I Love it in this ward! I just need to completely get used to spanish and puerto rico again!...
it was kind of short becuase dont have a lot of time. This week i am sending you four memory cards...=) i got a new 4G card for $15 so it should last me a while so don't worry about taking a while to send them back. just don't forget to send them back.
The area is great just like i said huge. Half of my zone and about an eighth of the mission. CRAZY!
I Love You! Tell Josh i am excited for him and love him. and Galina the appropriate equivelant.
I miss you and apologize for a not so long or descriptive letter. I will write you a letter with more love and feeling.
WOOHOO!! I am a missionary of Jesus Christ!

September 1, 2009

So this week was good. We picked up some new investigators that were awesome we explained joseph smith and what he experienced and as we explained his question of which one is the true one and she felt the same way she shouted I HAVE THAT SAME QUESTION! and then the next day we taught another lady that said "there can't be as many truths as there are churches. Its not possible but how do i know which one is true? How can i know what baptism works. It was one of those moments you just want to scream it out THIS IS THE ONLY TRUE ONE! but we went about it in a way trying to let her find the answer in the scriptures. My companion said he was glad we had that lesson (on saturday night) because he didn't want to go with the area as dead as it was. So we taught that lesson and last P-day i called president to ask him what was happening and he told me to buy normal food because i was staying. So i did and we enjoyed our food. Then on sunday in church we had a problem. Members started argueing and i tried to calm it down and then the members started telling us that is was our problem and how they didn't feel like anyone even recognized them as members of the church (mission president, the church as a whole) and we just kept explaining to them we come to church to feel the spirit and learn from the scriptures not to see other people or rely on other people. things just kept getting worse. So i called president after church and talked with him for a little while he was very concerned and so just asked me elder ellis...what should we do. i told him my thoughts and he said he would call me back. So we rode our bikes all the way out to westpunt. it was a 45 minute bike ride. and had a lesson and then started to ride back and president called me... "elder ellis. i have decided to close barber." SHABAM blow to the heart. i was excited for next transfer i was excited to keep trying to help the members. "and you have a plane to puerto rico tomorrow morning at ten oclock." SHABAM SHABAM. Two more blows to the heart. i felt like i was in the middle of the desert(i really was) and dying of thirst and tired as all get out. and the only hope for help was a car coming up...and it drove right past (it really did) i just felt like a failure. I know the work here is just as important. but there was just a little sadness getting sent back from the islands so soon. i flew back yesterday and now i will be whitewashing an area with another island elder. i have mixed feelings but ultimately i know it is the same mission and doesn't matter where i am at. The brothers and sisters here need the gospel! I hardley know any of the missionaries here in puerto rico now. Its amazing how many people come and go in a short 5 months. BUT I AM PUMPED FOR REAL AMERICAN FOOD AGAIN! YEAH!
I Love being a missionary!