Sorry this letter wont be so long. We are going to go to THE BEACH today! Woohoo! but this week was a great week. Like always. Ups and downs Goods bads but I AM A MISSIONARY!SOY MISIONERO! MI TA MISHONERO! IK BEN EEN ZENDELING!
This week as well i really realized how much i love spanish! I LOVE IT! it is so much easier for me than papiamento. Just becuase it makes sense to me. Papiamento doesn't make sense becuase its too easy! I have gotten used to the spanish grammer and structure and so anyhting other than spanish structure throws me off even english sometimes. I feel like it is my second native language. Although it isn't, i feel that confident with it. I can understand almost everything. I am learning new words everyday but i feel fluent and feel like it is a beautiful language. Now papiamento will be the same soon. But Dutch... uhhhh... There arent as many people here in aruba that speak just dutch nor are there many that know it good enough to really teach me. I need a dutch for dummies book. a very basic book.
but yeah. I will be feeling great when i can understand it good. I want to learn many languages. many more =) French i am working on a little with some hatian people. and as well our neighbors are from the philippeans so maybe a little tagolog. Who Knows! but yeah this week I learned many great lessons. This week i was very humbled by someone that knew a whole lot about the bible. I tried to convince him but tried to do it by logic with scriptures from the bible and he would bring back other scriptures from the bible or tell me more about the story of that person in the bible. There are many scriptures that i have in my head that prove (to me) certain things. But i really don't know as much of the background. I remember the part in chapter 5 of preach my gospel that talks about answering doubts with the book of mormon but i just kept wanting to prove him wrong with the bible. I made a great mistake and the contact never really got anywhere. He did invite us to go back but i have quite a process of repentance to go through in regard to the first impression that he got of me and the church. It wasn't anything bad just back and forth bible bashing. But he knew much more. Then our next cita i tried to really apply what preach my gospel says and use the book of mormon and the testimony i have to answer their doubts. I felt the spirit so strong! I really did i knew that i was doing what i needed to do.
I love debating. I do, but as i learned this week I don't know as much about the Bible as I would like but i do have a testimony that it is true and that the Book of mormon is true as well and by sharing that testimony i felt strong and like i had the help of my heavenly father. It was great. The best part was at the end of the lesson they were talking to each other and i know they understood. They understood perfectly it was a great exerience!
That is my week more or less. I learned a lot. about the scriptures and about everything! WOoHoO!
I Love you all! Mi Ta Stima Boso! Yo Amo a ustedes! (sorry dutch will come)
Elder Ellis...
May 25, 2009
This week was very good. We had a bunch of great opportunities one of them being we were talking to an investigator and she just kind of got quiet and started to say somethings about joseph smith and asked us a few questions. Then she sat there and looked at us and said “elders. I read the pamphlet and to be honest with you, I feel that joseph smith was a prophet. I find it very hard for someone to make these things up. I also don’t understand how so many people could have just said that no one can see god. Then on top of all that while I was reading I just felt so much peace. So much Joy” the best part for me was when we finished the lesson finished talking about everything she just sat with a smile on her face and we asked if she had anymore questions and she said “oh no… they have all been answered.” She was so excited to read the book of mormon. She said I need to learn more about this. If it is true then I need to live it. As well she did have some questions about what exactly was the book of mormon and so we read in the introduction with her. She saw the Nephites and Lamanites and said “these names sound like they’re Egyptian, where are they from?” Then we explained to her that the book was written in reformed Egyptian and you could just see everything kind of click in her head. It was such a wonderful experience and only one of many we have been able to see here and I know that it is all because we are contacting so many more people. We’re not perfect but trying to talk to everyone.
We did have many other wonderful experiences this week as well and another one real quick was…We were getting our car fixed and we were waiting, discussing something, and a man walks up to us. We greeted him and he told us he was the mechanic working on our car and had taken it through the carwash. He told us. “The carwash is the only quiet time I have on this job.” He said he was able to just sit and relax for about 4 minutes. He listened to a song about Joseph smith and came out to ask us what the name of the CD was because he wanted a copy. We told him and asked to come over to his house to share more about the gospel. The part in preach my gospel is true! As we look to find people the lord puts them in our path. And sometimes they even come to us. I will definitely keep Natalee in my prayers and janna as well. and yeah i will write her a letter... Have you guys sent me a letter yet? becuase i haven't gotten one...
Today i went to go try to get a little coin purse to put all my coins in because they lowest bill is 10 flourines so i want something small to be able to keep them all in the same place. and so i met this lady she is from colombia and she says i speak better spanish than she does. She is a very cool person. I feel like i have a good friendship with her. He name is Josephina. She was sitting there and didn't have any of the purses i wanted. =) sounds funny huh. But i just started talking to her. She was shocked that we leave of family and friends for two years and that we buy our own food and have to live on our own and everything. She told us to come to her house to have colombian food... =) AREPAS!!! i haven't ever tried them but i am excited next sunday we've got lunch at her house. Then as well we are going to teach her and her husband and her nine year old kid. =) I am very excited. It will be great! My companion and i don't agree on many things and so it is really hard to work with him. He made us go to the store to get new wash mitts to wash the car becuase he washed something else with them... He has to have a seperate set for everything. and we can't use the same bucket to wash the car that we use to mop the floor. He tells me "I owned my own car washing business before the mission just trust me I know" so I just throw my hands in the air and say "your money =) go for it."
He is a "great" driver... =) and all of his companions have "complimented" his driving... I'm trying not to pick on him... its is just too easy some times. But it is really helping me be a nicer person and work on my christ like attributes. Just like missionary work you can't just be perfect at treating people with respect. It requires constant effort and conciousness of all people. Missionary work is the same you don't just get good at it sitting around. Nor with the time you have out. It requires constant effort.
I was studying in Matthew 24 today. and it makes me so sad. So many people don't read the bible don't study the scriptures... if they did they would know that there is one right way to do it. That God does have His way. In matthew 24 it explains alot about the false prophets. False Christs and how the ELECT will be decieved. It makes me sad that so many people don't really pay attention. The bible itself warns of that and says that the world will know and the coming of the son of man will be like the storm of lightning. Whew. So clear to me and my testimony has been strengthened so much by reading the bible and reading joseph smiths translation and reading all of the other works we have to study in the church. Joseph Smith was a prophet of God! The book of Mormon Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenants asnwers all our questions left unanswered by the bible. Almost every question people have for us we can answer by the book of mormon or bible. The sadness comes from people's lack of desire to search for it.
Maybe its because I am a missionary that I am so excited but I just don't know how someone wouldn't be concerned about doing what God wants. I don't Get that.
But I Love Being a Missionary!
Mi ta stima pa ta mishonero!
Me encanta Ser Misionero!
ik hou van zijn een zendeling!
Elder Ellis
We did have many other wonderful experiences this week as well and another one real quick was…We were getting our car fixed and we were waiting, discussing something, and a man walks up to us. We greeted him and he told us he was the mechanic working on our car and had taken it through the carwash. He told us. “The carwash is the only quiet time I have on this job.” He said he was able to just sit and relax for about 4 minutes. He listened to a song about Joseph smith and came out to ask us what the name of the CD was because he wanted a copy. We told him and asked to come over to his house to share more about the gospel. The part in preach my gospel is true! As we look to find people the lord puts them in our path. And sometimes they even come to us. I will definitely keep Natalee in my prayers and janna as well. and yeah i will write her a letter... Have you guys sent me a letter yet? becuase i haven't gotten one...
Today i went to go try to get a little coin purse to put all my coins in because they lowest bill is 10 flourines so i want something small to be able to keep them all in the same place. and so i met this lady she is from colombia and she says i speak better spanish than she does. She is a very cool person. I feel like i have a good friendship with her. He name is Josephina. She was sitting there and didn't have any of the purses i wanted. =) sounds funny huh. But i just started talking to her. She was shocked that we leave of family and friends for two years and that we buy our own food and have to live on our own and everything. She told us to come to her house to have colombian food... =) AREPAS!!! i haven't ever tried them but i am excited next sunday we've got lunch at her house. Then as well we are going to teach her and her husband and her nine year old kid. =) I am very excited. It will be great! My companion and i don't agree on many things and so it is really hard to work with him. He made us go to the store to get new wash mitts to wash the car becuase he washed something else with them... He has to have a seperate set for everything. and we can't use the same bucket to wash the car that we use to mop the floor. He tells me "I owned my own car washing business before the mission just trust me I know" so I just throw my hands in the air and say "your money =) go for it."
He is a "great" driver... =) and all of his companions have "complimented" his driving... I'm trying not to pick on him... its is just too easy some times. But it is really helping me be a nicer person and work on my christ like attributes. Just like missionary work you can't just be perfect at treating people with respect. It requires constant effort and conciousness of all people. Missionary work is the same you don't just get good at it sitting around. Nor with the time you have out. It requires constant effort.
I was studying in Matthew 24 today. and it makes me so sad. So many people don't read the bible don't study the scriptures... if they did they would know that there is one right way to do it. That God does have His way. In matthew 24 it explains alot about the false prophets. False Christs and how the ELECT will be decieved. It makes me sad that so many people don't really pay attention. The bible itself warns of that and says that the world will know and the coming of the son of man will be like the storm of lightning. Whew. So clear to me and my testimony has been strengthened so much by reading the bible and reading joseph smiths translation and reading all of the other works we have to study in the church. Joseph Smith was a prophet of God! The book of Mormon Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenants asnwers all our questions left unanswered by the bible. Almost every question people have for us we can answer by the book of mormon or bible. The sadness comes from people's lack of desire to search for it.
Maybe its because I am a missionary that I am so excited but I just don't know how someone wouldn't be concerned about doing what God wants. I don't Get that.
But I Love Being a Missionary!
Mi ta stima pa ta mishonero!
Me encanta Ser Misionero!
ik hou van zijn een zendeling!
Elder Ellis
May 18, 2009
Well family. This week was another great week! I felt so great going through each day and we sat down and realized i hadn't counted all of my contacts each day so i just went with what i had remembered. The wonderful miracle i have been able to see is as i contact more people, try to talk no matter how horrible my Papiamento may be i have the ability to do it. My Papiamento is much better than i thought it could be with just two weeks here. I am able to understand more or less what people are telling me and i am able to teach lessons with my companion.Really this week i feel like my ability to speak Papiamento has increased a ton. I feel like the more and more i try the more the lord allows me to learn the language faster. What a blessing. My Spanish i feel like it is just already another language i speak. No longer do i have trouble understanding people when they talk to me. I feel like it is just a natural thing. I know these blessings are blessings from obedience. Are blessings from work. I haven't sweat as much, smelled as bad, nor enjoyed contacting and talking with people as i do now. I still have more work to do and can improve greatly but i am working.
This week as well i had a huge humbling experience we were talking to a lady that is Jehovah witness. We were talking and asking about the reading we left with her and what she had thought about it and so she just said that it wasn't in the bible so she had some doubts. We kept talking to her and i kept trying to use the book of Mormon to answer her questions but forgot a very important part which my companion quickly reminded me of. As we started talking i was looking for a scripture to share and out loud my companion said...Elder Lets just listen...and i was frustrated. I wasn't trying to fight her wasn't trying to bible bash just sharing a scripture from the book of Mormon. Her heart softened immediately. We started listening. She explained how all the way up until the moment of her baptism as a Jehovah witness she didn't feel good. She felt stressed pressured and just didn't feel like she received an answer.. Then as she got baptized she did. But then she just continued and said she was really just looking for truth and thought she had found it. Then She continued and said... Remember that pamphlet you gave me.... My husband read it took it to work to show his friends and then told me to ask you guys for that book. She told me to pay you for how much it is because he wanted it. Then we gave her one and she asked if she could have her own...she wanted to be able to read it without him taking it. =) When she explained her husband wanted to read it i was shocked. He had started the conversation by saying "I'm Catholic, and She's Testigo" But then how his heart was softened.
I know these things happened by our hard work! I know they happened by obedience. We Taught 16 Other lessons this week! In total Lessons we taught over 25 lessons. WOW!!!
This week was a wonderful week to see peoples hearts softening. There was one contact that started out really bitter towards us and said we had changed the bible and that we don’t worship God. We just talked with him and he started to quiet down and then as we finally ended up the conversation he didn’t want to learn more but oh how his heart was softened. We had many opportunities like that this week. Many!
We also had an opportunity with a member on Sunday she said when she was a kid she was taught that God is only a spirit. So she couldn’t understand that God has a body of flesh and bones. That was pretty hard for her. She has some work to do to strengthen her testimony.
I was listening to the conference talks and something stood out to me so much! President Uchtdorf said “THIS CHURCH IS NOT A SECOND HAND CHURCH! YOU CANNOT RECEIVE THE BLESSINGS BY WATCHING OTHER FULFILL THERE RESPONSIBILITIES!” that’s my translation from the Spanish translation. Not sure if its word for word. BUT GREAT! WOW!
Guess what. I was asked to direct in church again. Then asked to give a talk again. Then asked to teach Sunday school. Then asked to teach priesthood. =) Fun day! I really enjoyed it and it was one of the greatest priesthood lessons that I have been in since before my mission. Not because I taught…but because the spirit guided a discussion just like the manual says it should be. Great!
That was my week. Our Investigator Delia’s Cousin died this week. It was hard to teach her and hard for just about everything but she’s slowly feeling better and better.We had so many lessons.. So much everything. Time is passing by so fast. !!! aaAAAHhhhHH!
I Love you! My Papiamento is in no way shape or form perfect but getting better. But Spanish…Now it is just polishing….=) learning new words from other countries.
Love you all,
Elder Ellis
This week as well i had a huge humbling experience we were talking to a lady that is Jehovah witness. We were talking and asking about the reading we left with her and what she had thought about it and so she just said that it wasn't in the bible so she had some doubts. We kept talking to her and i kept trying to use the book of Mormon to answer her questions but forgot a very important part which my companion quickly reminded me of. As we started talking i was looking for a scripture to share and out loud my companion said...Elder Lets just listen...and i was frustrated. I wasn't trying to fight her wasn't trying to bible bash just sharing a scripture from the book of Mormon. Her heart softened immediately. We started listening. She explained how all the way up until the moment of her baptism as a Jehovah witness she didn't feel good. She felt stressed pressured and just didn't feel like she received an answer.. Then as she got baptized she did. But then she just continued and said she was really just looking for truth and thought she had found it. Then She continued and said... Remember that pamphlet you gave me.... My husband read it took it to work to show his friends and then told me to ask you guys for that book. She told me to pay you for how much it is because he wanted it. Then we gave her one and she asked if she could have her own...she wanted to be able to read it without him taking it. =) When she explained her husband wanted to read it i was shocked. He had started the conversation by saying "I'm Catholic, and She's Testigo" But then how his heart was softened.
I know these things happened by our hard work! I know they happened by obedience. We Taught 16 Other lessons this week! In total Lessons we taught over 25 lessons. WOW!!!
This week was a wonderful week to see peoples hearts softening. There was one contact that started out really bitter towards us and said we had changed the bible and that we don’t worship God. We just talked with him and he started to quiet down and then as we finally ended up the conversation he didn’t want to learn more but oh how his heart was softened. We had many opportunities like that this week. Many!
We also had an opportunity with a member on Sunday she said when she was a kid she was taught that God is only a spirit. So she couldn’t understand that God has a body of flesh and bones. That was pretty hard for her. She has some work to do to strengthen her testimony.
I was listening to the conference talks and something stood out to me so much! President Uchtdorf said “THIS CHURCH IS NOT A SECOND HAND CHURCH! YOU CANNOT RECEIVE THE BLESSINGS BY WATCHING OTHER FULFILL THERE RESPONSIBILITIES!” that’s my translation from the Spanish translation. Not sure if its word for word. BUT GREAT! WOW!
Guess what. I was asked to direct in church again. Then asked to give a talk again. Then asked to teach Sunday school. Then asked to teach priesthood. =) Fun day! I really enjoyed it and it was one of the greatest priesthood lessons that I have been in since before my mission. Not because I taught…but because the spirit guided a discussion just like the manual says it should be. Great!
That was my week. Our Investigator Delia’s Cousin died this week. It was hard to teach her and hard for just about everything but she’s slowly feeling better and better.We had so many lessons.. So much everything. Time is passing by so fast. !!! aaAAAHhhhHH!
I Love you! My Papiamento is in no way shape or form perfect but getting better. But Spanish…Now it is just polishing….=) learning new words from other countries.
Love you all,
Elder Ellis
May 11, 2009
Mijn Liefde Moeder
As it was Mother's Day last Sunday the 10th we received a telephone call from Elder Ellis. Although there is no letter from Elder Ellis this week, we had a wonderful time talking with him. He told us many stories, quoted scriptures, bore his testimony in Spanish and told us how it is even more hot and muggy in Aruba than it was in Puerto Rico. He is having the experience of a lifetime and loves being a missionary. His love for the people in that part of the world is tremendous and his love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is most evident. We all look forward to a letter again next week.
As it was Mother's Day last Sunday the 10th we received a telephone call from Elder Ellis. Although there is no letter from Elder Ellis this week, we had a wonderful time talking with him. He told us many stories, quoted scriptures, bore his testimony in Spanish and told us how it is even more hot and muggy in Aruba than it was in Puerto Rico. He is having the experience of a lifetime and loves being a missionary. His love for the people in that part of the world is tremendous and his love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is most evident. We all look forward to a letter again next week.
May 4, 2009
e largu karta
ok. Well This week... HMMMMM
Well lets just say i have been on 4 flights in the last week. I am flying back to aruba today. We came down taught people i am learning papiamento and still can't do a contact very good in it so i just give up a little and speak in spanish. I just haven't had time to study papiamento. but i will be learning it much better this next week when i finally get into my own apartment. We had a wonderful meeting with president. All the "Island Elders" It was a very humbling experience. or an experience in which i prayed for humility. he told us that this transfer he hand picked who he wanted down here in the islands. Last trasnfer he had several misisonaries down here that were not obedient nor were doing the missioanry work like it should be done. But he told us that this transfer he has specifically chosen the best missionaries to come down to the islands. He said that the islands have to be a place that baptizes. It has to be a place that leads the mission. He told us he only expects and will accept the highest obedience from us here. We need to pull up the slack. He said he needs us to show the rest of the mission how to work. I felt like i didn't deserve to be here. Honestly the feelings of inadequacy are setting in a little. But the strengthening comfort from my heavenly father help a lot!!! It is a much different culture here. There are millions of cultures. In the airport they anounce everything in like 5 different languages. English Spanish Portuegues Dutch and Papiamento. people here are from all over the world. Everyone that owns a little snack store is chinese. Everyone that is white is from holland people from haiti people from the dominican ecuador columbia ALL OVER!!! the meeting yesterday was in english spanish and papiamento. =) BUT after this meeting with president... it was a great meeting by the way. After this we went to go have lunch... Treat from president... =) islands=) but then we had to leave before the food came out to make it to the airport. They said they were going to bring us our food in the airport. We left... Got in the airport there was a problem with the tickets so we barely got it worked out. There was traffic so we never got our food!!!! AAAHHHH but we barely made our plane. We got to aruba. I made it through immigration but the other elders didn't... I had to go downstairs and wait all by myself with all our luggagefor about an hour. Watching the stairs hoping i would have a companion soon. No one came....Then finally one elder made it through because he had a ticket home since he only has 2 months left on his mission. CRAZY! We The other elders got sent back to curacao we went that night and tried to get in to the other apartments to get them clean clothes. One of them we had the key and the other we had to break in. We broke in and got them clean clothes then left and had to Jerry rig the door so it would "lock"...=) then the next day we had a plane back to bring them their clothes....Thats why i am here =). BUT president bought the tickets for the wrong day. so we had to change the tickets and we finally made it in... Then our plane which was for two oclock was delayed to 6:15 =) super.... So we finally got in. We made a quick stop by presidents hotel to give him some ice cream... since he has had an even crazier week than us. Then yesterday i had the funniest experience i have had yet. =) We went over to a return cita... We called for the guy and no one came out so we knocked on his door and called again. Finally a guy came running out of his house. Not the same guy we talked to last time. He was breathing way heavy and touching his chest. Then through his arms out with huge eyes and looked up to the sky. Then i thought he was going to give me a big hug but luckily he didn't. Then we were trying to figure out what was wrong. He was drunk or very intoxicated by other drugs. He invited us in and we didn't go in. (threesome Elder Ainge Elder Cramer and i) he started to pull us in one by one. So we went in and he did the same thing he just wanted us inside. He started touching elders cramers arm and smelling it and touching it to his forehead. Then elder ainge gave him a passalong card. He looked at the picture of jesus christ and almost passed out. Then elder Cramer (freaked out) asked his name and his eyes got really big and he said "e kosecha" which means the harvest in papiamento he siad it over and over.... We didn't knwo what was going on then realized elder ainge's planner was sticking out of his poicket he had a picture that said e kosecha on it. so he was reading it. It was way creepy. Then he told us to wait he went into another room. I watched him walk down the hallway and the next thing i knew the other elders were gone. They ran out the back door. I didn't want to leave but i guess they were scared. So i ran out too, jumped the fence and ran down the street a little. Next thing we know he's behind us. Walking down the street yelling for us to come back. Elder ainge shouted "Another Day!" Then we kept walking and about 5 minutes later while we were contacting someone we got a call... we didn't answer it becuase we were talking to someone in dutch....(i didn't understand a thing) Then after i checked it and IT WAS HIM!!!! he called us and thanked us for bringing god into his home and wanted the free DVD... =) it was a hilarious experience just becuase it was so weird and the other elders got so scared. =)
I have had a fun week. I head back to aruba at 4 for me... about noon for you...something like that...??? On flight 9h 2998 Dae Dutch antilles express if you want to track it. From CUR to AUA
I Love being a missionary!
ok. Well This week... HMMMMM
Well lets just say i have been on 4 flights in the last week. I am flying back to aruba today. We came down taught people i am learning papiamento and still can't do a contact very good in it so i just give up a little and speak in spanish. I just haven't had time to study papiamento. but i will be learning it much better this next week when i finally get into my own apartment. We had a wonderful meeting with president. All the "Island Elders" It was a very humbling experience. or an experience in which i prayed for humility. he told us that this transfer he hand picked who he wanted down here in the islands. Last trasnfer he had several misisonaries down here that were not obedient nor were doing the missioanry work like it should be done. But he told us that this transfer he has specifically chosen the best missionaries to come down to the islands. He said that the islands have to be a place that baptizes. It has to be a place that leads the mission. He told us he only expects and will accept the highest obedience from us here. We need to pull up the slack. He said he needs us to show the rest of the mission how to work. I felt like i didn't deserve to be here. Honestly the feelings of inadequacy are setting in a little. But the strengthening comfort from my heavenly father help a lot!!! It is a much different culture here. There are millions of cultures. In the airport they anounce everything in like 5 different languages. English Spanish Portuegues Dutch and Papiamento. people here are from all over the world. Everyone that owns a little snack store is chinese. Everyone that is white is from holland people from haiti people from the dominican ecuador columbia ALL OVER!!! the meeting yesterday was in english spanish and papiamento. =) BUT after this meeting with president... it was a great meeting by the way. After this we went to go have lunch... Treat from president... =) islands=) but then we had to leave before the food came out to make it to the airport. They said they were going to bring us our food in the airport. We left... Got in the airport there was a problem with the tickets so we barely got it worked out. There was traffic so we never got our food!!!! AAAHHHH but we barely made our plane. We got to aruba. I made it through immigration but the other elders didn't... I had to go downstairs and wait all by myself with all our luggagefor about an hour. Watching the stairs hoping i would have a companion soon. No one came....Then finally one elder made it through because he had a ticket home since he only has 2 months left on his mission. CRAZY! We The other elders got sent back to curacao we went that night and tried to get in to the other apartments to get them clean clothes. One of them we had the key and the other we had to break in. We broke in and got them clean clothes then left and had to Jerry rig the door so it would "lock"...=) then the next day we had a plane back to bring them their clothes....Thats why i am here =). BUT president bought the tickets for the wrong day. so we had to change the tickets and we finally made it in... Then our plane which was for two oclock was delayed to 6:15 =) super.... So we finally got in. We made a quick stop by presidents hotel to give him some ice cream... since he has had an even crazier week than us. Then yesterday i had the funniest experience i have had yet. =) We went over to a return cita... We called for the guy and no one came out so we knocked on his door and called again. Finally a guy came running out of his house. Not the same guy we talked to last time. He was breathing way heavy and touching his chest. Then through his arms out with huge eyes and looked up to the sky. Then i thought he was going to give me a big hug but luckily he didn't. Then we were trying to figure out what was wrong. He was drunk or very intoxicated by other drugs. He invited us in and we didn't go in. (threesome Elder Ainge Elder Cramer and i) he started to pull us in one by one. So we went in and he did the same thing he just wanted us inside. He started touching elders cramers arm and smelling it and touching it to his forehead. Then elder ainge gave him a passalong card. He looked at the picture of jesus christ and almost passed out. Then elder Cramer (freaked out) asked his name and his eyes got really big and he said "e kosecha" which means the harvest in papiamento he siad it over and over.... We didn't knwo what was going on then realized elder ainge's planner was sticking out of his poicket he had a picture that said e kosecha on it. so he was reading it. It was way creepy. Then he told us to wait he went into another room. I watched him walk down the hallway and the next thing i knew the other elders were gone. They ran out the back door. I didn't want to leave but i guess they were scared. So i ran out too, jumped the fence and ran down the street a little. Next thing we know he's behind us. Walking down the street yelling for us to come back. Elder ainge shouted "Another Day!" Then we kept walking and about 5 minutes later while we were contacting someone we got a call... we didn't answer it becuase we were talking to someone in dutch....(i didn't understand a thing) Then after i checked it and IT WAS HIM!!!! he called us and thanked us for bringing god into his home and wanted the free DVD... =) it was a hilarious experience just becuase it was so weird and the other elders got so scared. =)
I have had a fun week. I head back to aruba at 4 for me... about noon for you...something like that...??? On flight 9h 2998 Dae Dutch antilles express if you want to track it. From CUR to AUA
I Love being a missionary!
April 28, 2009
Mi Ta Stima Boso
Hello! Family! That is the language I am learning now! Papiamento! AAAAHHHH! It is just like the beginning of my mission! Just like I am right back with a trainer. It is much like a desert here. I honestly feel like I just started my mission again! I feel like I have a much higher bar to work for. President sends people here who he trusts and also people he knows need help learning to work and be obedient. I hope its not the latter. =) Dutch is something that presidents asked that we learn but the papiamento is what everyone speaks. So when I get home I will bear my testimony in English Spanish Papiamento and Dutch! My goal is to get the hang of Dutch before this transfer is over. My mind will be swimming in lanuages. It already is. I sent you guys the tape player and you can hear i can't make up my mind some times on what language to use. for example the word pueblo in spanish doesn't have an exact translation that I can think of it means town and people but to say pueblo just makes more sense to me.
I was in my interview with president and at the very end while he was saying the prayer Islands popped into my mind... =) and so I said. Hey president. I don't want to bother you so I will only say it once...If you ever have the chance to send me to the islands I would love it!
he then replied well how can you know if you've never been? and I said I dont know but I would love the experience. and he replied what a coincidence because you're going on monday! I didn't believe him. But now I'm here. Its much different. Cactus here. Still coconuts and stuff but not so green. More iguanas. I am in curacao right now and on friday I get on another plane to go to Aruba. =) Here in curacao there are tons of white people so you think they are gringos and want to speak english to them but they are all from holland and speak dutch! AAAHHH! GIFT OF TONGUES! I need it. But yes...As for this journey of my mission... Just like the beginning only now I am more comfortable with teaching I just need to learn the language. I don't have a whole lot more time but I just want you all to know that I love you and that more than ever if you could keep me in your prayers so I can get this language down quickly. I love you!
I left my old area. A fabulous family that would have gotten baptized. and the president closed my area after me. So now there are only two missionaries in that ward. I believe that bishopric will be changed here soon. Who knows.
Heat wise. I am pretty much just starting over again... and its only going to get hotter. I sweat nonstop and smell horrible all day long. from when I get out of the shower until I soap up the next day. Its a great feeling I'm thinking after the mission I will only need to shower like once a week. It will be so cold I will never sweat nor do anything because I will be so cold. who knows. That is a long ways away. Shorter than it was. And shorter again. "I'm older than i've ever been and now I'm even older...and now I'm even older."
AAAHHHH!!! I have mixed feelings about being here. I am excited and can't wait to get to Aruba. but the language just like at the beginning is a little overwhelming.
Tell people... especially Galina...that I will only get letters every three weeks. So don't write me a whole ton.... I mean you could but I wont get it for a while. President will be here on Friday. He will bring mail so if you want to send me something do it today or tomorrow and I will get it on Friday hopefully! But probably not. Everything will be sent to the office address because the mail here is even slower. They told me it took a thanksgiving card till february to arrive. So it would be faster to send it through the office and hope President doesn't lose it on the plane=) no big packages...it is hard for president to bring big packages for all 20 missionaries down here. I Love you all time to go! STUDY YOUR DUTCH!
April 21, 2009
Hello. Well This week was great! Here is a great Story… =)I really love being a missionary. We had an amazing experience this last week. I talked a little last week about a family we received. We were fasting for 2 of our investigators to be able to get closer to baptism. It was one of the most dilligent fasts I remember doing in my life. I did everything according to how I have learned to fast. When we closed our fast not even 10 minutes after we recieved a phone call. It was the elders from mayaguez with a refference for us. Someone that had shown up at church and wanted to come again. We had his name and phone number and were ready to call. We didn't end up calling till wednesday. But we were in the area where they live, and called them to see if we could set up a date to come back. He asked us if we had time that same day. We said..."Well were pretty close are you home?" He excitedly said "yes yes i'll come down to let you in" He came down and we started talking with them just to get to know them The first things they said were "I was baptized but she isn't baptized, We're not married but talked to the bishop about getting married and she wants to get baptized when she learns the charlas, and her son wants to get baptized but has to wait till he's 8." So we taught them and then they were asking us to come back. They want us to come by as frequent as possible came to family home evening last night and everything. I Am SO EXCITED FOR THIS FAMILY!It reminds me of Jesus Christ. When he was suffering in the Garden of Getshemany He always turned to the will of the father. In Mosiah 4:9 talks about the many things of god which we cannot comprehend.We started our fast for these two investigators. They aren't progressing very fast but He still blessed us. One of them actually stopped progressing but still he blesses us for our sacrifice. I Love Being A Missionary
I wrote that in a letter I sent you. They are amazing and tonight we are eating dinner there. =)
This week we also had some good lessons and some bummer lessons. I am learning a lot about talking to people in preach my gospel. There are so many promises there that if I really just talk to everyone then we will have more people to teach that we will have more things to do.
On Saturday we went over to Santos and Marias to eat dinner and teach them Spanish. We were teaching Spanish and it started to rain.. Dum Dum Dum. Then the lightning started dum dum dum. Then as it was time to go home the rain started even harder like it is doing now. 90 and raining. =) but then we were heading home and they live out in the boonies. So we were going on curvy roads and on the biggest curve we started hydroplaning. I turned the tires and got them to grip again but before I could get it out we hit the guard rail. At about 20 miles an hour. We dented the front bumper and that was it. Didn’t break the light nothing just dented the front bumper. Then we were over at chory’s house (an awesome member) who owns a tire shop, and he looked at the car and said “bring it by my place tomorrow and we’ll fix it.” So we took it over and one of his employees just took the bumper off and popped it out and then chory sent us over to his brothers tire shop and he gave us some Satin Wax. And we put it on and now its almost as good as new. AMAZING! This member is amazing He feeds us all the time he Fixes our car for free and wont let the mission pay him. And then on top of it Feeds us even more. When I leave this area I am going to miss his family! We are teaching his son right now to prepare for a mission… (he’s 12) =) they want him to start early.
But I am fine one elder in back wasn’t wearing his seatbelt and So now I don’t start the car without all seatbelts on. He had to write that he wasn’t wearing it on the report. We called and talked with the car coordinator and told us not to worry about it just get on with the work and be more cautious next time.
That was my week… By the way no one else in the car got hurt either. We’re all fine.
WOOHOO! Only one more week of this transfer. New Companion? New area? I will know next Monday. =)
I love you miss you!
I wrote that in a letter I sent you. They are amazing and tonight we are eating dinner there. =)
This week we also had some good lessons and some bummer lessons. I am learning a lot about talking to people in preach my gospel. There are so many promises there that if I really just talk to everyone then we will have more people to teach that we will have more things to do.
On Saturday we went over to Santos and Marias to eat dinner and teach them Spanish. We were teaching Spanish and it started to rain.. Dum Dum Dum. Then the lightning started dum dum dum. Then as it was time to go home the rain started even harder like it is doing now. 90 and raining. =) but then we were heading home and they live out in the boonies. So we were going on curvy roads and on the biggest curve we started hydroplaning. I turned the tires and got them to grip again but before I could get it out we hit the guard rail. At about 20 miles an hour. We dented the front bumper and that was it. Didn’t break the light nothing just dented the front bumper. Then we were over at chory’s house (an awesome member) who owns a tire shop, and he looked at the car and said “bring it by my place tomorrow and we’ll fix it.” So we took it over and one of his employees just took the bumper off and popped it out and then chory sent us over to his brothers tire shop and he gave us some Satin Wax. And we put it on and now its almost as good as new. AMAZING! This member is amazing He feeds us all the time he Fixes our car for free and wont let the mission pay him. And then on top of it Feeds us even more. When I leave this area I am going to miss his family! We are teaching his son right now to prepare for a mission… (he’s 12) =) they want him to start early.
But I am fine one elder in back wasn’t wearing his seatbelt and So now I don’t start the car without all seatbelts on. He had to write that he wasn’t wearing it on the report. We called and talked with the car coordinator and told us not to worry about it just get on with the work and be more cautious next time.
That was my week… By the way no one else in the car got hurt either. We’re all fine.
WOOHOO! Only one more week of this transfer. New Companion? New area? I will know next Monday. =)
I love you miss you!
April 13, 2009
Aaron Ellis to me show details 9:00 AM (3 hours ago) Reply
Hello family. I went to the doctor today. I told her about it all and she perscribed me a few simple small medicines and one is for allergy to see if thats what is it. I also talked to her about the........... She said she thinks its trauma from the bicycle and that she will put me on an antiinflamatory to see if thats what it is she also doesn't want me to ride a bike for a while... uh... hmm
She said i do need a better bike seat. and I am looking around here but there aren't a whole lot of bike stores. This week. We had a few great lessons with our investigators and we are helping a few get closer to baptism. This last week we really had a big Breakthrough with our investigator Zully. Her mom Madeline is the one who got baptized already. Madeline says things like “I just wish my family would understand this message so That they could know about the temple and about how our families can be together forever. That has really brought me So much Joy this week also makes me miss the fam as well but more joy than anything else. I really realized that The reason I came out was because I loved my family. I knew that we have the chance to be together forever. I know that god loves us and has given us this opportunity. How wonderful are the opportunities we have. We also had some great lessons with Madeline’s mom. Who is close to baptism as well and Madeline said about her. “Shes hard to get to but when she understands that she can see her children that have died again she wont waste any time getting baptized. So we are planning to talk more about the Families in the Plan of salvation.” We found out one of the biggest doubts Zully Had was serving a mission. She thought that the church just calls you to serve a mission. So we talked to her about that and how its something that you apply for and that brought comfort to her. But we did explain that She will be making a covenant to always be a witness of Christ. We answered questions and helped her realize that she can have answers easier if she just gets baptized. Her mom testified of the Holy Ghost and it was wonderful. We fasted for her to get closer to her baptism and a few hours after we ended our fast we saw these blessings we were finally after 6 month able to Crack this M&M Find what was inside. She talked more openly with us and asked questions for the first time. Even corrected us on a few things. It was a great lesson. I have now gained a strong testimony of the Fast. BUT something else I want to make sure I do is follow up because just like faith without works a fast without works won’t work either. I can Prepare my field for rain but if I am not harvesting it when it comes it wouldn’t have been worth it. I had a great week in that sense. In Puerto rico and every other Catholic Country, they celebrate the Holy week. Or in Spanish “La Semana Santa” This week people don’t have school places are closed and SO MANY PEOPLE WORSHIP THEIR CROSSES AND STATUES OF JESUS AND MARY. Man it is honestly so sad. Something I noticed as reading through doctrine and covenants is that In Gods Judgement he has his church and then all the rest are one. There is the one true church and then all the rest are Together forming as described in The vision of the Tree of life. So many people say the one thing that bugs me the most. They have 2 phrases that they say all the time. “Si dios Quiere” or in English “If God wants it.” And “Solo Hay un Dios” “There is only one god.” They say it but they don’t mean what they say. They don’t understand it. If there is only one God then why do the different religions explain or describe such different Gods. The scriptures mean what they say. One Lord One Faith One Baptism. Ephesians 4:5 I don’t get it. But on Friday we got to go to the house of Elsie. Madelines mom and we watched the Processional. There were thousands of people walking through the pueblo (town center?) Walking behind three big things they were carrying. A Huge cross. A Statue of Christ Carrying his cross. And a Statue of Maria. It was scary. Completely drove the spirit away. We didn’t stay long just because it was so disheartening. I couldn’t believe that they were so engrossed in this tradition. They were reciting prayers. Another thing that I just don’t get. They recite these prayers but reject the teachings that Christ gave about the prayer. In matthew 6 he teaches the apostles how to pray. He tells them in this manner pray. And gives them this example. BUT right before that he tells them NOT TO USE VAIN REPETITIONS. And TELLS THEM NOT TO PRAY IN THE STREETS AND ON THE CORNERS TO BE SEEN. I don’t understand how they say they follow Christ but break the first two commandments by worshipping Mary and then don’t follow Christ’s teachings. But for this reason I am here. I am here with HOPE. Ether Chapter 12 is my favorite chapter in the Book of mormon. There are 4 or 5 verses that I absolutely love. Starting with the trial of your faith. The Faith in verse 4 Faith is a hope for a better world. This chapter explains the progression of life. Or the mission or anything. Starting with the faith I have the faith That I have been sent here for a purpose to teach those that are ready to listen and who have decided to open their hearts and follow the direction in proverbs 3:5. I have been trying my faith My faith is put to trial every day when I see someone who I know I should contact knowing that God has called me to talk to all. But I never let my faith waiver and try to always follow through to see the blessings of this trial. Then as it explains in verse 26 in Ether 12. Fools mock but they shall mourn. I know that although they may mock and make fun of us and throw rocks at us whatever, it does not change the fact that I am here to handle it and serve. Explains the prayer and the blessings in verse 27 and says I the lord give weaknesses unto man so they can humble themselves before me. And when they come unto me Then shall I make their weak things become strong. Just like was said in general conference. The lord shapes the back so we can carry the burden. This week in church in someone’s testimony he said “Dios no va a quitar el cargo pero dara fuerza a la espada para que podemos sostenerlo” I am so grateful to be a missionary and to be able to bring this message to the people. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY! I really do It is by far the hardest thing I have ever done but the Most rewarding the most satisfying the most Strengthening Work I have ever done. I Love You Family! I Really Do. I miss You and I wish you all a great week!You son and Super Dooper Missionary. (Well trying… Then shall your weak things become strong =)P.S. I encourage you to find the smiley face in the book of mormon. There is one I have found for sure. =) I love it!
I Love You!Les Amo. Mama Te amo!
Hello family. I went to the doctor today. I told her about it all and she perscribed me a few simple small medicines and one is for allergy to see if thats what is it. I also talked to her about the........... She said she thinks its trauma from the bicycle and that she will put me on an antiinflamatory to see if thats what it is she also doesn't want me to ride a bike for a while... uh... hmm
She said i do need a better bike seat. and I am looking around here but there aren't a whole lot of bike stores. This week. We had a few great lessons with our investigators and we are helping a few get closer to baptism. This last week we really had a big Breakthrough with our investigator Zully. Her mom Madeline is the one who got baptized already. Madeline says things like “I just wish my family would understand this message so That they could know about the temple and about how our families can be together forever. That has really brought me So much Joy this week also makes me miss the fam as well but more joy than anything else. I really realized that The reason I came out was because I loved my family. I knew that we have the chance to be together forever. I know that god loves us and has given us this opportunity. How wonderful are the opportunities we have. We also had some great lessons with Madeline’s mom. Who is close to baptism as well and Madeline said about her. “Shes hard to get to but when she understands that she can see her children that have died again she wont waste any time getting baptized. So we are planning to talk more about the Families in the Plan of salvation.” We found out one of the biggest doubts Zully Had was serving a mission. She thought that the church just calls you to serve a mission. So we talked to her about that and how its something that you apply for and that brought comfort to her. But we did explain that She will be making a covenant to always be a witness of Christ. We answered questions and helped her realize that she can have answers easier if she just gets baptized. Her mom testified of the Holy Ghost and it was wonderful. We fasted for her to get closer to her baptism and a few hours after we ended our fast we saw these blessings we were finally after 6 month able to Crack this M&M Find what was inside. She talked more openly with us and asked questions for the first time. Even corrected us on a few things. It was a great lesson. I have now gained a strong testimony of the Fast. BUT something else I want to make sure I do is follow up because just like faith without works a fast without works won’t work either. I can Prepare my field for rain but if I am not harvesting it when it comes it wouldn’t have been worth it. I had a great week in that sense. In Puerto rico and every other Catholic Country, they celebrate the Holy week. Or in Spanish “La Semana Santa” This week people don’t have school places are closed and SO MANY PEOPLE WORSHIP THEIR CROSSES AND STATUES OF JESUS AND MARY. Man it is honestly so sad. Something I noticed as reading through doctrine and covenants is that In Gods Judgement he has his church and then all the rest are one. There is the one true church and then all the rest are Together forming as described in The vision of the Tree of life. So many people say the one thing that bugs me the most. They have 2 phrases that they say all the time. “Si dios Quiere” or in English “If God wants it.” And “Solo Hay un Dios” “There is only one god.” They say it but they don’t mean what they say. They don’t understand it. If there is only one God then why do the different religions explain or describe such different Gods. The scriptures mean what they say. One Lord One Faith One Baptism. Ephesians 4:5 I don’t get it. But on Friday we got to go to the house of Elsie. Madelines mom and we watched the Processional. There were thousands of people walking through the pueblo (town center?) Walking behind three big things they were carrying. A Huge cross. A Statue of Christ Carrying his cross. And a Statue of Maria. It was scary. Completely drove the spirit away. We didn’t stay long just because it was so disheartening. I couldn’t believe that they were so engrossed in this tradition. They were reciting prayers. Another thing that I just don’t get. They recite these prayers but reject the teachings that Christ gave about the prayer. In matthew 6 he teaches the apostles how to pray. He tells them in this manner pray. And gives them this example. BUT right before that he tells them NOT TO USE VAIN REPETITIONS. And TELLS THEM NOT TO PRAY IN THE STREETS AND ON THE CORNERS TO BE SEEN. I don’t understand how they say they follow Christ but break the first two commandments by worshipping Mary and then don’t follow Christ’s teachings. But for this reason I am here. I am here with HOPE. Ether Chapter 12 is my favorite chapter in the Book of mormon. There are 4 or 5 verses that I absolutely love. Starting with the trial of your faith. The Faith in verse 4 Faith is a hope for a better world. This chapter explains the progression of life. Or the mission or anything. Starting with the faith I have the faith That I have been sent here for a purpose to teach those that are ready to listen and who have decided to open their hearts and follow the direction in proverbs 3:5. I have been trying my faith My faith is put to trial every day when I see someone who I know I should contact knowing that God has called me to talk to all. But I never let my faith waiver and try to always follow through to see the blessings of this trial. Then as it explains in verse 26 in Ether 12. Fools mock but they shall mourn. I know that although they may mock and make fun of us and throw rocks at us whatever, it does not change the fact that I am here to handle it and serve. Explains the prayer and the blessings in verse 27 and says I the lord give weaknesses unto man so they can humble themselves before me. And when they come unto me Then shall I make their weak things become strong. Just like was said in general conference. The lord shapes the back so we can carry the burden. This week in church in someone’s testimony he said “Dios no va a quitar el cargo pero dara fuerza a la espada para que podemos sostenerlo” I am so grateful to be a missionary and to be able to bring this message to the people. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY! I really do It is by far the hardest thing I have ever done but the Most rewarding the most satisfying the most Strengthening Work I have ever done. I Love You Family! I Really Do. I miss You and I wish you all a great week!You son and Super Dooper Missionary. (Well trying… Then shall your weak things become strong =)P.S. I encourage you to find the smiley face in the book of mormon. There is one I have found for sure. =) I love it!
I Love You!Les Amo. Mama Te amo!
April 6, 2009
Sorry these last few days have been way busy tons of driving and not a whole lot of work done but a lot learned. I will just about know the whole west side of the island when i finish my mission. The best part is its a small island so it wont change much when i come back. =) BUt this week aside from an awesome conference we had contacted a guy last sunday that really wanted to talk to the missionaries. So we went on friday after our weekly planning session. We showed up and first thing he said in english (he speaks english) was. I TOLD YOU TO CALL ME BEFORE YOU CAME. immediately I am thinking OH crap...in my head. but then he said. But don't worry about it i need to talk to you guys. He said that three times previously missionaries had come by but never returned. He wanted the book of mormon every time and no one brought it back to him. So i told him we had it for him and then talked. He told us that we showed up on the perfect day and if I would have called him he wouldn't have answered nor let us come over but he was glad we just showed up. Turned out his Dad died a few days before and he had just burried him that same day. How sad it was but he accepted us and let us teach him a lesson which was a little long but really good. I feel bad however becuase my companion doesn't know perfect english and so I taught too much. I should have trusted in him and the spirit to say what needed to be said because its probably the same with him and my spanish. I feel really bad about it and from now on i am going to trust in him and his english. It was weird to be on the other side of the spectrum. But Other than that this week was not so productive. We had a wonderful zone conference I got a doctors appointment set up for next week. because i have had a cold now for about 2 months.
As far as the pain I was having. It is fine and Nurse Jones said that since it isn't hurting now that it should be fine. But if it starts hurting or other symptoms then i need to go in right away. but she said according to my description it sounded fine. That call scared the crap out of me. We were driving and sister jones told me she needed to talk to me when i could be in private. so i asked her if i could talk to her later that night. So the rest of the day i was terrified. "What happened. Why does she want to talk to me what happened to my family." I had the worst day ever worrying about everything. then finally the day ended I called her and she said... Ok.. Elder. You father called and told me something. and myheart sank "I knew something must have happened", he says youve been having pain........". It was about all I could do to not start cracking up! Oh Man that was one of the funniest things I had ever heard. Sister Jones asking me about that........ =) all my worry went away. That was about two weeks ago but still brings a smile to my face.
Yesterday i was uh... Jumping on my bed. =) HAILEE WHEN PARENTS SAY DONT JUMP ON YOUR BED THERE IS A REASON.. I was on my trip down and my foot just happened to catch on the bed frame next to my bed. and Boy did it feel and bleed great! SUPER!!! I cleaned it out and put a bandage on it. Should be fine but it hurt like crazy! =)
Well don't have too much more time. But I love you!
As far as the pain I was having. It is fine and Nurse Jones said that since it isn't hurting now that it should be fine. But if it starts hurting or other symptoms then i need to go in right away. but she said according to my description it sounded fine. That call scared the crap out of me. We were driving and sister jones told me she needed to talk to me when i could be in private. so i asked her if i could talk to her later that night. So the rest of the day i was terrified. "What happened. Why does she want to talk to me what happened to my family." I had the worst day ever worrying about everything. then finally the day ended I called her and she said... Ok.. Elder. You father called and told me something. and myheart sank "I knew something must have happened", he says youve been having pain........". It was about all I could do to not start cracking up! Oh Man that was one of the funniest things I had ever heard. Sister Jones asking me about that........ =) all my worry went away. That was about two weeks ago but still brings a smile to my face.
Yesterday i was uh... Jumping on my bed. =) HAILEE WHEN PARENTS SAY DONT JUMP ON YOUR BED THERE IS A REASON.. I was on my trip down and my foot just happened to catch on the bed frame next to my bed. and Boy did it feel and bleed great! SUPER!!! I cleaned it out and put a bandage on it. Should be fine but it hurt like crazy! =)
Well don't have too much more time. But I love you!
March 30, 2009
Hello Family,
This week was great. It was a lot of work and at times a little discouraging but because of my numbers this work is becoming more and more enjoyable. My companion and I were talking this week about how we are enjoying finding more this week. We started counting our contacts and because of this I feel like I am working more and getting more done. It is a great feeling. This next week should be good as well. Although we are losing miles this next month and so we are going to be moving all around either on foot or on bike.
We had some great lessons this week and I really enjoyed the spirit I felt in most of them. We spoke with a member that is on the virge of divorce. Because of this he has been really sad and we started sharing scriptures with him and he like always loved it but as well the spirit was so strong SO STRONG!!! Oh man I loved that lesson. He was touched by it and his wife who hasn’t come to church in months came! Woohoo! She came.
I was writing my email to you but it all got deleted again… I hate that. But this letter will be a little short because I don’t have a whole lot of time left. But this week was a great amount of work with a great amount of being completely wiped at the end of the day. It is kind of taking me back to my first transfer but without the feelings of wanting to go home. Man it is hard to believe that 1) I already have almost 7 months as a missionary. 2) that my first transfer was so hard. It really was a huge change. A huge shock to my attitude, my life. I just always thought about home about what I wanted to do when I got back what I could have been doing if I were home instead, all of the things that I did before.
Now it is almost completely different. The mission is hard but the wonderful opportunities are so amazing! Not having the worry about homework about work… I just know that every day I go out to find people and teach people. The simple truths of the gospel. I do have to work with some meatheads at times but the amount of blessing I receive are so worth it. The wonderful feelings I receive are so much more than I deserve.
Our stake president had an awesome meeting last night for the priesthood. All of the missionaries were in a room and teaching a priesthood ordinance. I taught about dedicating graves. The stake president started by telling all the men. “It doesn’t matter if you have 95 years in the church… If you have a month, welcome. If you have a day, I would like to personally welcome you. If you have been in the church more than a year more than 50 years I want you to know this night is your night to be quiet. Your night to listen to these trained missionaries. Then we taught all the priesthood ordinances and then afterward when we met all up again the brothers started arguing about how to do a blessing. It was pretty funny to watch how heated it got but the president just said “brothers please. Just listen we are reading this straight out of the General Handbook for the church. It doesn’t matter who taught you where you read it before…we are reading it tonight straight out of the book.” Then a member stood up (who just got home from his mission) and said “brothers. You are all acting like Pharisees. Listen to the stake president. Listen to the book that the prophet has approved. Forget what our fathers did listen to modern day revelation.” President pretty much ended the meeting with that and it was great. It was fairly entertaining. But a great activity.
We are getting a new mission leader for our ward. He is great. He has a strong testimony and is in Guiness book of world records for the only person to live from a stage 3 west nile virus. Hector Morales. Look him up.
We are going to be training him straight from the Preach my gospel DVD’s DAD… you should get them for the ward. Watch them use them. They gave us as missionaries so much excitement to do this work! Really they are great.
Well I love you! Have a wonderful day!
This week was great. It was a lot of work and at times a little discouraging but because of my numbers this work is becoming more and more enjoyable. My companion and I were talking this week about how we are enjoying finding more this week. We started counting our contacts and because of this I feel like I am working more and getting more done. It is a great feeling. This next week should be good as well. Although we are losing miles this next month and so we are going to be moving all around either on foot or on bike.
We had some great lessons this week and I really enjoyed the spirit I felt in most of them. We spoke with a member that is on the virge of divorce. Because of this he has been really sad and we started sharing scriptures with him and he like always loved it but as well the spirit was so strong SO STRONG!!! Oh man I loved that lesson. He was touched by it and his wife who hasn’t come to church in months came! Woohoo! She came.
I was writing my email to you but it all got deleted again… I hate that. But this letter will be a little short because I don’t have a whole lot of time left. But this week was a great amount of work with a great amount of being completely wiped at the end of the day. It is kind of taking me back to my first transfer but without the feelings of wanting to go home. Man it is hard to believe that 1) I already have almost 7 months as a missionary. 2) that my first transfer was so hard. It really was a huge change. A huge shock to my attitude, my life. I just always thought about home about what I wanted to do when I got back what I could have been doing if I were home instead, all of the things that I did before.
Now it is almost completely different. The mission is hard but the wonderful opportunities are so amazing! Not having the worry about homework about work… I just know that every day I go out to find people and teach people. The simple truths of the gospel. I do have to work with some meatheads at times but the amount of blessing I receive are so worth it. The wonderful feelings I receive are so much more than I deserve.
Our stake president had an awesome meeting last night for the priesthood. All of the missionaries were in a room and teaching a priesthood ordinance. I taught about dedicating graves. The stake president started by telling all the men. “It doesn’t matter if you have 95 years in the church… If you have a month, welcome. If you have a day, I would like to personally welcome you. If you have been in the church more than a year more than 50 years I want you to know this night is your night to be quiet. Your night to listen to these trained missionaries. Then we taught all the priesthood ordinances and then afterward when we met all up again the brothers started arguing about how to do a blessing. It was pretty funny to watch how heated it got but the president just said “brothers please. Just listen we are reading this straight out of the General Handbook for the church. It doesn’t matter who taught you where you read it before…we are reading it tonight straight out of the book.” Then a member stood up (who just got home from his mission) and said “brothers. You are all acting like Pharisees. Listen to the stake president. Listen to the book that the prophet has approved. Forget what our fathers did listen to modern day revelation.” President pretty much ended the meeting with that and it was great. It was fairly entertaining. But a great activity.
We are getting a new mission leader for our ward. He is great. He has a strong testimony and is in Guiness book of world records for the only person to live from a stage 3 west nile virus. Hector Morales. Look him up.
We are going to be training him straight from the Preach my gospel DVD’s DAD… you should get them for the ward. Watch them use them. They gave us as missionaries so much excitement to do this work! Really they are great.
Well I love you! Have a wonderful day!
March 24, 2009
Well family this week. Hmmm. Many things going on. Many changes and now we are out of miles in our car so not able to visit our investigators. Which is great. Not necessarily something I enjoy.
We had a great meeting with the bishopric here. It was one of the Most spiritless meetings I have ever been in. I left kind of upset and unexcited to do the work. But decided to just stick it to em and found like crazy Sunday night. It was good. And Monday yesterday we had a great time as well.
We had transfers on Wednesday and I got a new companion Elder Esturban. He is from Guatemala in the City south mission. So Ben might have served in his ward. My roommate matt might be serving in his ward right now. Pretty cool. He was almost a professional skateboarder right before the mission. He sent in his papers and everything and got his mission call then two weeks before he left he received an offer to be sponsored on a Guatemala competitive skate team to go compete all through central America. The missionaries spoke with him and said he just needed to pray and know what he needed to do. He prayed and received the strongest answer of his life that a mission was exactly what he needed to do. He is now in the mission and says that his family never thought he would serve a mission. That he was not worthy nor had the disres to serve a mission but decided to change. He came out and has been struggling since. He hasn’t broken any rules to get him sent home but has done quite a few things that aren’t so good. He came into this transfer tired of being a joke missionary. Tired of having the ward refer to him as Travieso or Mischief. So I am working hard with that. His biggest problem now is music that isn’t appropriate for a missionary. We are going to send those home pretty soon here. =) He’s Changing and I hope for the rest of his mission.
He has more time in the mission and for that I think he is the Senior comanion. He has a month and a half more than me. But he said he was told I am the senior companion. Either way we are both trying to work hard. Missionary work isn’t easy. And it takes some desire and diligence to not be lazy. To leave on time to not take too much time for lunch and so we of course still have a lot of room to improve but we are trying.
Today we are out of miles we are out of Money and so this P-day is going to be a beach day I’m thinking. =) Volleyball or something. Although I am excited for just a day of rest.
In Aprils Liahona or ensign for you guys it talks about a new book being published Volume 1 of the Joseph smith papers. It is a 30 volume series with two books coming out every year started this December. It is journal entries papers and anything that we have about or form joseph smith. Pretty cool sounding if you ask me. So ya. Check into it.
Last night we had Family Home evening at Chory’s house like normal but right before we had our Consecrated Finding time. We finished and walked back to the house and on our way home someone stopped us. He told us his life sucked and he wanted to change it. That he doesn’t agree with catholics and other religions because they worship Mary and all that. He said he is coming to church this next week Woohoo! He told us he was going to kill himself last night. So we talked to him and told him that god has a plan and not to worry. It was a nice little talk that we had with him. I felt great afterwards.
Other than that. Yeah
Life is great I’m am missionary. Got a lot of letters the other day. Mom that picture of you is beautiful! I showed it to our recent convert Madeline and she said “OH MY. HER EYES!!! YOU LOOK JUST LIKE YOUR MOM. HOW GORGEOUS!!!” =) she was amazed at how blue your eyes are.
JOSH WOOHOO!!! WAY TO GO!!! BRO!!! Hailee My favorite song from Wicked is
I’M DEFYING GRAVITY =)
I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY
We had a great meeting with the bishopric here. It was one of the Most spiritless meetings I have ever been in. I left kind of upset and unexcited to do the work. But decided to just stick it to em and found like crazy Sunday night. It was good. And Monday yesterday we had a great time as well.
We had transfers on Wednesday and I got a new companion Elder Esturban. He is from Guatemala in the City south mission. So Ben might have served in his ward. My roommate matt might be serving in his ward right now. Pretty cool. He was almost a professional skateboarder right before the mission. He sent in his papers and everything and got his mission call then two weeks before he left he received an offer to be sponsored on a Guatemala competitive skate team to go compete all through central America. The missionaries spoke with him and said he just needed to pray and know what he needed to do. He prayed and received the strongest answer of his life that a mission was exactly what he needed to do. He is now in the mission and says that his family never thought he would serve a mission. That he was not worthy nor had the disres to serve a mission but decided to change. He came out and has been struggling since. He hasn’t broken any rules to get him sent home but has done quite a few things that aren’t so good. He came into this transfer tired of being a joke missionary. Tired of having the ward refer to him as Travieso or Mischief. So I am working hard with that. His biggest problem now is music that isn’t appropriate for a missionary. We are going to send those home pretty soon here. =) He’s Changing and I hope for the rest of his mission.
He has more time in the mission and for that I think he is the Senior comanion. He has a month and a half more than me. But he said he was told I am the senior companion. Either way we are both trying to work hard. Missionary work isn’t easy. And it takes some desire and diligence to not be lazy. To leave on time to not take too much time for lunch and so we of course still have a lot of room to improve but we are trying.
Today we are out of miles we are out of Money and so this P-day is going to be a beach day I’m thinking. =) Volleyball or something. Although I am excited for just a day of rest.
In Aprils Liahona or ensign for you guys it talks about a new book being published Volume 1 of the Joseph smith papers. It is a 30 volume series with two books coming out every year started this December. It is journal entries papers and anything that we have about or form joseph smith. Pretty cool sounding if you ask me. So ya. Check into it.
Last night we had Family Home evening at Chory’s house like normal but right before we had our Consecrated Finding time. We finished and walked back to the house and on our way home someone stopped us. He told us his life sucked and he wanted to change it. That he doesn’t agree with catholics and other religions because they worship Mary and all that. He said he is coming to church this next week Woohoo! He told us he was going to kill himself last night. So we talked to him and told him that god has a plan and not to worry. It was a nice little talk that we had with him. I felt great afterwards.
Other than that. Yeah
Life is great I’m am missionary. Got a lot of letters the other day. Mom that picture of you is beautiful! I showed it to our recent convert Madeline and she said “OH MY. HER EYES!!! YOU LOOK JUST LIKE YOUR MOM. HOW GORGEOUS!!!” =) she was amazed at how blue your eyes are.
JOSH WOOHOO!!! WAY TO GO!!! BRO!!! Hailee My favorite song from Wicked is
I’M DEFYING GRAVITY =)
I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY
March 17, 2009
Ok this week! Whew. Me and my companion really wanted to finish out strong. He talked with a few investigators telling them he’s leaving this week and tried to get them to church because of that. Telling them that he would love to see them in church before he left. It worked with one and he loved it so much that he wants to come back next week. I taught the gospel priciples class this week AAAHHHH In spanish and on prophets and 1 whole hour! AAAHHH. Man it was scary. But we had our investigators ask a lot of questions which was great!
Monday for P-day we went to Caborojo to play arouind on the beach. We played football. There were some women sun bathing so we had to wait till they left. We played football in this coco feild. (coco is coconut in spanish) There were tons of coco trees and also these little spike things on the ground like they have at the beach house. We all took of our sandals because they were sandals and we didn’t want to play in em. So we were running all over and by the end my feet were very bloody and i have marks all over them. It was wonderful! They are healed now. Then we started a tradeoff with elder parodi from spain. He is pretty cool but i like having a gringo much more. You have to work a little harder to get along with a latino. Becuase the language isn’t there and also because they are a very different people. But yeah he was my companion for a day. We met with Madeline.....Last week we left her with this last Saturday to pray about to be baptized. She told me “Elder ellis don’t pressure me” and i told her i was just offering and she had her agency to choose. So we asked her to pray. Then at this Cita on Tuesday (cita is spanish for appointment) i called in the morning to comfirm and told her i was waiting for her answer and we would talk about it on Tuesday! So Tuesday rolls around we had a few more principles to teach and then here came the baptism question. We taught and asked. And she said yes! I didn’t believe her at first so i asked her again. She replied and said “Elder Ellis be careful or i might not” so i just sat there content as ever. What a great feeling of joy came over me. We taught over all the lessons. The cita was 3 hours. Way too long but we resolved doubts and Set a baptismal date. We asked about her daughter Zully and she still didn’t want to be baptized. So we just accepted it and moved on. She told me the water had to be warm or else she would get sick. So we devised a plan. Wednesday we got companions back and we worked hard. Thusrday we had a lesson with madeline again just to makes sure she was firm on her way to baptism. She was doing great.
Then we went and met with Madelines mom. Madeline gave her mom a book of mormon and her mom has read to Jacob 5 already and loves it. She asks us questions and we went over to teach her the first lesson. She honestly taught us. We went through and she told us things we forgot or didn’t mention and it was perfect. Friday we had another tradeoff and i was with elder galloway from redding california. He is way cool, a great elder and we enjoyed it thouroughly But we went and helped some people paint. I wore shorts.... Stupid. Man i got over 30 mosquito bites on my legs. Honestly. I stopped counting at 30. My leg was bright red. Luckily i didn’t get Denghey. That wouldn’t be fun!
Had a great afternoon and then we went home to go make dinner and i started making some pasta and we got a phone call. It was Maria Ramos. She told us she had dinner for us! Man it was amazing! Holy cow!!! We also got to meet her friend and he knew everything about the bible but wouldn’t listen to us. Said “oh it says that in the bible i don’t need the book of mormon. It was kind of a bummer but man dinner sure was great!
Then Saturday arrived! Elder Galloway and i arrived at the chapel at 8. We started filling up the font for 1 oclock and also we threw in some odd 40 pots of boiling water to try to heat it up a little. Didn’t do much becuase it was still cold... BUT it made it not freezing. We also in that time helped set up for a Quincenera. Or a 15th birthday party (like a sweet 16) They lady said this one was a small one and a small one costs over 3 thousand dollars. It was honestly like a wedding reception. Man.... Way to much for a 15 year old girl.
The baptism rolled around and it was wonderful! She was way excited her mom was way excited and the bishop was way excited. The bishop told us not to go visit her anymore... we continued to visit her because she wanted us to. And she finally got baptized. Like i said still working on her daughter. But we’ll see. Then on Sunday we had church and everything and Madeline was so happy to be there and we had her mom there as well. He mom said she felt like she was breathing pure air. =) she lvoed it and said it was a little long but loved it. Then as well we had an investigator named tony who we haven’t taught yet. He came and loved it. Said in elders quorum that He loves this church because he learns in church not just listens. And as well the other investigator said he would come just to say goodbye to my companion and so he came and Loved it as well and now he is excited to come back! MAN IT WAS GREAT!
Sunday afternoon we went and taught madeline about temples and sacred ordinances and she loved it. She has a goal to make it to the temple as soon as she can. Then on Monday yesterday we stopped by to each lunch at her house. She told us she had a dream about the temple. =) She said she saw everyone in white. The spirit was so strong and she was able to feel the presence of god and that she knew she had to make it to the temple as soon as she could. We were also talking with Herminio the man in the picture i sent you. He is her “boyfriend” more or less on and off. And we were talking and she reffered to going somewhere with everyone and i just shot in “after you get married in the temple right =)” Her eyes got huge...=) it was pretty funny. THEY JUST NEED TO GET MARRIED!!! HOW HAPPY THEY WOULD BE! ESPECIALLY IN THE TEMPLE!!! Oh man.
This week was a wonderful week... oh by the way I am staying! My comp is going ZL and i am going to be a Senior companion this tranfer! AAAAHHHHH I ONLY HAVE 4 TRANSFERS AND I’M GOING TO BE A SENIOR COMPANION!!!! That is crazy! Downright crazy!
****Maybe this is just what i am hearing i will know for sure tomorrow we’ll see!
It’s going to be a great transfer. I will be having a baptism or three. Woohoo!
Well i think that covers it all. My apartment is old gross and i am cleaning it up like crazy this week. Elder galloway and i are talking about doing some District cleaning one p-day at one apartment and the other at the other. Our sinks leak and the washing machine is almost unusable but these things will get fixed this transfer. My comp didnt want to call the reyes but i’m going to do it . The reyes are the housing coordinators and will get everything fixed. So i’m going to clean things up and get the stuff fixed. This morning we cleaned our couch and found some delightful Cockroach egg sacks. They are like little Mike ‘n’ Ike size black things full of eggs and then in a little while all these little baby cockroaches come out =) we have a kitchen drawer that every time you pull it out a few cockroaches run out and under all the utinsels. That will get cleaned and sprayed this week. Other than that i Love Being a missionary! Really!...
JOSH BETTER BE EXCITED TO GET TO THE GREATEST PLACE ON EARTH! Man i wrote that letter to galina and it made me realize how much i loved BYU-I My comps brother is going and he had the chance to go but he doesn’t think he wants to. He’s going to miss out.
But yeah! Love You all! Bye!
Monday for P-day we went to Caborojo to play arouind on the beach. We played football. There were some women sun bathing so we had to wait till they left. We played football in this coco feild. (coco is coconut in spanish) There were tons of coco trees and also these little spike things on the ground like they have at the beach house. We all took of our sandals because they were sandals and we didn’t want to play in em. So we were running all over and by the end my feet were very bloody and i have marks all over them. It was wonderful! They are healed now. Then we started a tradeoff with elder parodi from spain. He is pretty cool but i like having a gringo much more. You have to work a little harder to get along with a latino. Becuase the language isn’t there and also because they are a very different people. But yeah he was my companion for a day. We met with Madeline.....Last week we left her with this last Saturday to pray about to be baptized. She told me “Elder ellis don’t pressure me” and i told her i was just offering and she had her agency to choose. So we asked her to pray. Then at this Cita on Tuesday (cita is spanish for appointment) i called in the morning to comfirm and told her i was waiting for her answer and we would talk about it on Tuesday! So Tuesday rolls around we had a few more principles to teach and then here came the baptism question. We taught and asked. And she said yes! I didn’t believe her at first so i asked her again. She replied and said “Elder Ellis be careful or i might not” so i just sat there content as ever. What a great feeling of joy came over me. We taught over all the lessons. The cita was 3 hours. Way too long but we resolved doubts and Set a baptismal date. We asked about her daughter Zully and she still didn’t want to be baptized. So we just accepted it and moved on. She told me the water had to be warm or else she would get sick. So we devised a plan. Wednesday we got companions back and we worked hard. Thusrday we had a lesson with madeline again just to makes sure she was firm on her way to baptism. She was doing great.
Then we went and met with Madelines mom. Madeline gave her mom a book of mormon and her mom has read to Jacob 5 already and loves it. She asks us questions and we went over to teach her the first lesson. She honestly taught us. We went through and she told us things we forgot or didn’t mention and it was perfect. Friday we had another tradeoff and i was with elder galloway from redding california. He is way cool, a great elder and we enjoyed it thouroughly But we went and helped some people paint. I wore shorts.... Stupid. Man i got over 30 mosquito bites on my legs. Honestly. I stopped counting at 30. My leg was bright red. Luckily i didn’t get Denghey. That wouldn’t be fun!
Had a great afternoon and then we went home to go make dinner and i started making some pasta and we got a phone call. It was Maria Ramos. She told us she had dinner for us! Man it was amazing! Holy cow!!! We also got to meet her friend and he knew everything about the bible but wouldn’t listen to us. Said “oh it says that in the bible i don’t need the book of mormon. It was kind of a bummer but man dinner sure was great!
Then Saturday arrived! Elder Galloway and i arrived at the chapel at 8. We started filling up the font for 1 oclock and also we threw in some odd 40 pots of boiling water to try to heat it up a little. Didn’t do much becuase it was still cold... BUT it made it not freezing. We also in that time helped set up for a Quincenera. Or a 15th birthday party (like a sweet 16) They lady said this one was a small one and a small one costs over 3 thousand dollars. It was honestly like a wedding reception. Man.... Way to much for a 15 year old girl.
The baptism rolled around and it was wonderful! She was way excited her mom was way excited and the bishop was way excited. The bishop told us not to go visit her anymore... we continued to visit her because she wanted us to. And she finally got baptized. Like i said still working on her daughter. But we’ll see. Then on Sunday we had church and everything and Madeline was so happy to be there and we had her mom there as well. He mom said she felt like she was breathing pure air. =) she lvoed it and said it was a little long but loved it. Then as well we had an investigator named tony who we haven’t taught yet. He came and loved it. Said in elders quorum that He loves this church because he learns in church not just listens. And as well the other investigator said he would come just to say goodbye to my companion and so he came and Loved it as well and now he is excited to come back! MAN IT WAS GREAT!
Sunday afternoon we went and taught madeline about temples and sacred ordinances and she loved it. She has a goal to make it to the temple as soon as she can. Then on Monday yesterday we stopped by to each lunch at her house. She told us she had a dream about the temple. =) She said she saw everyone in white. The spirit was so strong and she was able to feel the presence of god and that she knew she had to make it to the temple as soon as she could. We were also talking with Herminio the man in the picture i sent you. He is her “boyfriend” more or less on and off. And we were talking and she reffered to going somewhere with everyone and i just shot in “after you get married in the temple right =)” Her eyes got huge...=) it was pretty funny. THEY JUST NEED TO GET MARRIED!!! HOW HAPPY THEY WOULD BE! ESPECIALLY IN THE TEMPLE!!! Oh man.
This week was a wonderful week... oh by the way I am staying! My comp is going ZL and i am going to be a Senior companion this tranfer! AAAAHHHHH I ONLY HAVE 4 TRANSFERS AND I’M GOING TO BE A SENIOR COMPANION!!!! That is crazy! Downright crazy!
****Maybe this is just what i am hearing i will know for sure tomorrow we’ll see!
It’s going to be a great transfer. I will be having a baptism or three. Woohoo!
Well i think that covers it all. My apartment is old gross and i am cleaning it up like crazy this week. Elder galloway and i are talking about doing some District cleaning one p-day at one apartment and the other at the other. Our sinks leak and the washing machine is almost unusable but these things will get fixed this transfer. My comp didnt want to call the reyes but i’m going to do it . The reyes are the housing coordinators and will get everything fixed. So i’m going to clean things up and get the stuff fixed. This morning we cleaned our couch and found some delightful Cockroach egg sacks. They are like little Mike ‘n’ Ike size black things full of eggs and then in a little while all these little baby cockroaches come out =) we have a kitchen drawer that every time you pull it out a few cockroaches run out and under all the utinsels. That will get cleaned and sprayed this week. Other than that i Love Being a missionary! Really!...
JOSH BETTER BE EXCITED TO GET TO THE GREATEST PLACE ON EARTH! Man i wrote that letter to galina and it made me realize how much i loved BYU-I My comps brother is going and he had the chance to go but he doesn’t think he wants to. He’s going to miss out.
But yeah! Love You all! Bye!
March 9, 2009
Hello Family this email wont be very long because we have a Zone activity in Caborojo at the bottom of the island and it starts at 2…
This week my companion was sick and we had to stay in for almost three days so we didn’t get a whole lot of things done but we did have a wonderful lesson with our investigator Madeline and Zully. They have been investigating for over 6 months and Know the church is true just have a desire to gain more knowledge before baptism. So we have been working on that and when we passed by to teach her we talked a lot about baptism and prayer. She still hasn’t prayed with us. So we worked on that I wrote down the prayer on my whiteboard and included the handsome missionaries as something she is grateful for and she started cracking up and always says that when she sees me now. =) she prayed for the first time with the missionaries though. My companion is going zone leader we are pretty sure because tonight we are doing another trade off with the Zone leaders. That’s two this transfer. Ugh. I am staying and the other elder is coming up here. So yeah. I have been writing galina regularly so I will make sure to send her a BYU-I pumped up letter. =) She’s awesome. Other than that we had a lesson with Madeline and her mom who we haven’t taught yet and found out her mom has read all the way to 2nd nephi . THROUGH IT TO JACOB… crazy we haven’t even taught her. She wants to read it all and we told her to pray about it to find out if it is true. She said “I don’t need to pray you silly teenagers. I already know it is true.” =) WOW we haven’t even taught her. Then I talked directly to Madeline. And said Madeline we have three principles left to teach you then the next step is baptism. Will you be baptized on Saturday. Her eyes got really big and she said… well….i will pray about it and tell you yes or no on Tuesday. If I feel no I will have a date for you. =) SHE IS GOING TO BE BAPTIZED!!! Then another investigator said he is coming to church because he doesn’t want my companion to leave without seeing him go to church. Woohoo! And then we are teaching a 16 yearold kid from the states that was questioning us on repentance because he hit his dad. We were telling him that Christ founded only 1 church and we need to find that church. We told him he needs to find it and he told us well if you know what church it is just tell me! So we told him and he wants to come to church as well and he is going to read and everything. AWESOME!!!
Well I gotta go. I will write a letter with some other things. And my memory cards. Still didn’t get those sent out. Love you Bye~
This week my companion was sick and we had to stay in for almost three days so we didn’t get a whole lot of things done but we did have a wonderful lesson with our investigator Madeline and Zully. They have been investigating for over 6 months and Know the church is true just have a desire to gain more knowledge before baptism. So we have been working on that and when we passed by to teach her we talked a lot about baptism and prayer. She still hasn’t prayed with us. So we worked on that I wrote down the prayer on my whiteboard and included the handsome missionaries as something she is grateful for and she started cracking up and always says that when she sees me now. =) she prayed for the first time with the missionaries though. My companion is going zone leader we are pretty sure because tonight we are doing another trade off with the Zone leaders. That’s two this transfer. Ugh. I am staying and the other elder is coming up here. So yeah. I have been writing galina regularly so I will make sure to send her a BYU-I pumped up letter. =) She’s awesome. Other than that we had a lesson with Madeline and her mom who we haven’t taught yet and found out her mom has read all the way to 2nd nephi . THROUGH IT TO JACOB… crazy we haven’t even taught her. She wants to read it all and we told her to pray about it to find out if it is true. She said “I don’t need to pray you silly teenagers. I already know it is true.” =) WOW we haven’t even taught her. Then I talked directly to Madeline. And said Madeline we have three principles left to teach you then the next step is baptism. Will you be baptized on Saturday. Her eyes got really big and she said… well….i will pray about it and tell you yes or no on Tuesday. If I feel no I will have a date for you. =) SHE IS GOING TO BE BAPTIZED!!! Then another investigator said he is coming to church because he doesn’t want my companion to leave without seeing him go to church. Woohoo! And then we are teaching a 16 yearold kid from the states that was questioning us on repentance because he hit his dad. We were telling him that Christ founded only 1 church and we need to find that church. We told him he needs to find it and he told us well if you know what church it is just tell me! So we told him and he wants to come to church as well and he is going to read and everything. AWESOME!!!
Well I gotta go. I will write a letter with some other things. And my memory cards. Still didn’t get those sent out. Love you Bye~
March 2, 2009
Hello Good Week!
Well this week looks like I am writing to a bunch of busy bodies.Well this morning has been crazy! We woke up to go get my license and so we showed up the guy told me I have to call the Oregon office to get a letter of clearance to get a Puerto Rican drivers license so they gave me the number and now I am waiting till they open to call and have them fax it over here. Then we went to go finish the rest of the papers. I had to go make some copies then I had to go to a medical exam to get that part signed for 12 dollars and then pay for 12 dollars worth of stamps for some odd reason. And then now I am waiting for the office to open to give them a call and ask them to fax the sheet over. We had an exchange this week and I was down in Caborojo… Lucky ducks! Man they get fed so much. We were going all over because the elder down there Elder Parodi is from spain and just started his mission. He didn’t quite know what to do. It was fun. He told me about their siesta and crazy schedule in spain that they don’t eat dinner till 11 PM. He talks funny too. His Spanish is very different. He uses the Vosotros form which is older Spanish and no one uses it here or in much of latin America. For example we were contacting and he asked a boy “Cuantos sois en su familia?” in the ustedes form it would be cuantos son en su familia. In the Yo form Ser would be conjugated into soy. So this elder from spain has a little bit of a lisp and loses his s’s so he said sois but the boy thought he said soy… so he would be asking “how much am I in your family” instead of “how many are you, your family” The boy was way confused. =) I was pretty entertained. He also says vale all the time which is just a filler word like right or yeah or you know… it was an interesting experience. The cough is going away little by little and Sister Martineau said that I should take Sudafed to see if it makes it go away and if it doesn’t she wants me to go into a doctor. This week we didn’t have too much success but we have a lot of citas set up this next week with members and the Zone leaders are asking us to go on splits. So it will be interesting this next week. Today we are planning on going and playing volleyball on the beach but the thing is we need to find a beach with a volleyball court without girls. Man… that’s a hard one. If not we will just play in the church. Gonna be fun! Last week we went to the driving range not to golf golf because they had some dumb rules and we didn’t have any clubs. I am one of the worst golfers I have ever seen. But we got some sweet pictures you have to see. Today I plan on sending two more memory cards home. A 1 gig and a 2 gig. This lst week we did a lot of finding a lot of walking and little teaching. This island is not as easy as it would seem. Everone seems to be Catholic. Although as a member pointed out to us last night (who used to be catholic) in their bible or one of the bibles their church has used they took out the commandment of graven images and replaced it with and explanation of another commandment. So this member was confused… in his bible class he raised his hand and asked the teacher… If it says ten commandments why are there only nine? And the preacher asked him to be quiet and ask the question later. He said he went time and time again and asked everyone and all the members and no one knew so he finally went into a different church and asked and he gave him a different bible and told him to check that one. FINALLY HE FOUND IT. He said he realized why the catholic church had taken that one out and covered up their mistakes. He said he wanted nothing to do with the catholic church after that. Then he told us he was on the edge of creating his own church teaching what he read to be true not what a pastor dictated to the people. Then right in the moment of his need the missionaries showed up on his doorstep. They taught him and three weeks later he was baptized . he shared this with an investigator that hasn’t found her desire to be baptized yet. She knows it is true but just wants to make sure she is doing the right thing.It was a great time for her to see such a strong testimony. Then she asked us about a scripture in first nephi. Her mom was talking about the book of mormon and asked her why god would go against his own commandment and ask nephi to kill laban. She couldn’t let go of this one. Then Madeline our investigator said “Mom I am positive that god had a reason for him to do this. We don’t know why god gives us commandments. “ we showed her further in chapter 4 of first nephi where it says that it is better for one man to perish than a whole nation dwindle in disbelief. “she shouted… I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT!” she stood up for what she knew to be true and she didn’t even know it was true. Her testimony was strengthened greatly…now she is working on the last few commandments we have to teach and then hopefully next week she will set a baptism date. =) I am almost positive I am staying in the same place this next transfer because my companion has been there for 6 months and I think he is going zone leader. WoohoO!
Well yes one other story. There is a kid from new York named Michael that we contacted and then the other day we were walking and someone shouted and said “hey gringos… Hey gringos” so we turned around and he wanted to talk to us. He said he had got in an argument with his dad and felt really bad. And wanted to feel better. He asked us what he could do. We taught him a little about repentance. He listened and was excited to go apologize to his dad. Then we also invited him to church and he said yeah yeah I am going to church with my mom. And we showed a little disappointment and he asked, what it doesn’t matter what church does it? And we asked him what do you think? And he said no of course not. And then asked well how many churches did Christ set up when he came to the earth? And he answered well only 1. Then we asked. And how many do you think are true today? And he said uh 1. We shrugged our shoulders and he said ”I need to find this church” so I am hoping this week we get the chance to work with him and he comes to church next week. WoohoO! He’s awesome. And speaks English!
That’s my week. More happened but that’s the stuff I remember at the moment.
Love you all,
Aaron
Well this week looks like I am writing to a bunch of busy bodies.Well this morning has been crazy! We woke up to go get my license and so we showed up the guy told me I have to call the Oregon office to get a letter of clearance to get a Puerto Rican drivers license so they gave me the number and now I am waiting till they open to call and have them fax it over here. Then we went to go finish the rest of the papers. I had to go make some copies then I had to go to a medical exam to get that part signed for 12 dollars and then pay for 12 dollars worth of stamps for some odd reason. And then now I am waiting for the office to open to give them a call and ask them to fax the sheet over. We had an exchange this week and I was down in Caborojo… Lucky ducks! Man they get fed so much. We were going all over because the elder down there Elder Parodi is from spain and just started his mission. He didn’t quite know what to do. It was fun. He told me about their siesta and crazy schedule in spain that they don’t eat dinner till 11 PM. He talks funny too. His Spanish is very different. He uses the Vosotros form which is older Spanish and no one uses it here or in much of latin America. For example we were contacting and he asked a boy “Cuantos sois en su familia?” in the ustedes form it would be cuantos son en su familia. In the Yo form Ser would be conjugated into soy. So this elder from spain has a little bit of a lisp and loses his s’s so he said sois but the boy thought he said soy… so he would be asking “how much am I in your family” instead of “how many are you, your family” The boy was way confused. =) I was pretty entertained. He also says vale all the time which is just a filler word like right or yeah or you know… it was an interesting experience. The cough is going away little by little and Sister Martineau said that I should take Sudafed to see if it makes it go away and if it doesn’t she wants me to go into a doctor. This week we didn’t have too much success but we have a lot of citas set up this next week with members and the Zone leaders are asking us to go on splits. So it will be interesting this next week. Today we are planning on going and playing volleyball on the beach but the thing is we need to find a beach with a volleyball court without girls. Man… that’s a hard one. If not we will just play in the church. Gonna be fun! Last week we went to the driving range not to golf golf because they had some dumb rules and we didn’t have any clubs. I am one of the worst golfers I have ever seen. But we got some sweet pictures you have to see. Today I plan on sending two more memory cards home. A 1 gig and a 2 gig. This lst week we did a lot of finding a lot of walking and little teaching. This island is not as easy as it would seem. Everone seems to be Catholic. Although as a member pointed out to us last night (who used to be catholic) in their bible or one of the bibles their church has used they took out the commandment of graven images and replaced it with and explanation of another commandment. So this member was confused… in his bible class he raised his hand and asked the teacher… If it says ten commandments why are there only nine? And the preacher asked him to be quiet and ask the question later. He said he went time and time again and asked everyone and all the members and no one knew so he finally went into a different church and asked and he gave him a different bible and told him to check that one. FINALLY HE FOUND IT. He said he realized why the catholic church had taken that one out and covered up their mistakes. He said he wanted nothing to do with the catholic church after that. Then he told us he was on the edge of creating his own church teaching what he read to be true not what a pastor dictated to the people. Then right in the moment of his need the missionaries showed up on his doorstep. They taught him and three weeks later he was baptized . he shared this with an investigator that hasn’t found her desire to be baptized yet. She knows it is true but just wants to make sure she is doing the right thing.It was a great time for her to see such a strong testimony. Then she asked us about a scripture in first nephi. Her mom was talking about the book of mormon and asked her why god would go against his own commandment and ask nephi to kill laban. She couldn’t let go of this one. Then Madeline our investigator said “Mom I am positive that god had a reason for him to do this. We don’t know why god gives us commandments. “ we showed her further in chapter 4 of first nephi where it says that it is better for one man to perish than a whole nation dwindle in disbelief. “she shouted… I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT!” she stood up for what she knew to be true and she didn’t even know it was true. Her testimony was strengthened greatly…now she is working on the last few commandments we have to teach and then hopefully next week she will set a baptism date. =) I am almost positive I am staying in the same place this next transfer because my companion has been there for 6 months and I think he is going zone leader. WoohoO!
Well yes one other story. There is a kid from new York named Michael that we contacted and then the other day we were walking and someone shouted and said “hey gringos… Hey gringos” so we turned around and he wanted to talk to us. He said he had got in an argument with his dad and felt really bad. And wanted to feel better. He asked us what he could do. We taught him a little about repentance. He listened and was excited to go apologize to his dad. Then we also invited him to church and he said yeah yeah I am going to church with my mom. And we showed a little disappointment and he asked, what it doesn’t matter what church does it? And we asked him what do you think? And he said no of course not. And then asked well how many churches did Christ set up when he came to the earth? And he answered well only 1. Then we asked. And how many do you think are true today? And he said uh 1. We shrugged our shoulders and he said ”I need to find this church” so I am hoping this week we get the chance to work with him and he comes to church next week. WoohoO! He’s awesome. And speaks English!
That’s my week. More happened but that’s the stuff I remember at the moment.
Love you all,
Aaron
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!
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!
January 26, 2009
Pues Buenos Dias Mi querida Familia! Gracias por escribir la carta. Estaba triste porque no tenia una carta. Pero después de escribir la carta a presidente Recibi una carta! =)
Well This week was wonderful! Let me tell you! We started our week with a wonderful phone call from president Martineau. He told us. Elders. Your Area has never been a good finding area. BUT has never lacked in baptisms. You just have to go about it a different way. You need to make sure you are working through your members and really working on strengthening your less actives. Less finding more strengthening reactivating and bringing people back to the fold. So that we did. We started focusing a little more on this subject of finding the members and working with all of them. At the same time we changed a couple things. My companion…Knows Spanish, thinks he knows more than he does but he knows Spanish. He usually tries to get to know the people much better at the very first. This week I suggested we just make them quick and to the point. We are missionaries preaching a message of the Restored Gospel. So this is we did. This week we had less finding time than all of our previous weeks. Although when we focused our message on this small simple Fact we were able to see much more success. This week we had a goal of 7 new investigators. We received 6 ! Woohoo! One of them is named Max! He’s from new York and we just taught him on Saturday. We contacted him the same time we contacted Eduardo, He lives right across the street from Eduardo. We had to drop Eduardo this week because he doesn’t want to progress. He said. Well. I think god knows that I am busy in my life right now so he understands that I’m not ready to be baptized. This made us sad but instead of getting down we walked across the street to talk to max whom we hadn’t taught yet. He let us come in and talk with him we talked to him and found out he knows much more English than Spanish. So he is yet another person we are teaching in English. We taught him. Then that night we had a priesthood meeting with David Bednar and President Eyring…They were in Jamaica for a whole Caribe “Area Conference” It was pretty neat. But max agreed to come. We explained to him more about the church and he was excited to get to know some people. He is from New York he’s 19 and moved here because he didn’t like home and wanted to come help his grandma. So that is what he is doing. He is way cool. We taught him yesterday and Set a baptismal Date for the 25th of February. Hopefully I won’t get transferred. Who knows. The whole time we were teaching him he kind of had a half smile waiting to burst out I asked him what he was thinking if he had anything to say or ask. He replied. “Well I haven’t smiled this big and been this happy since before things at home got bad. He knows the church is true started reading from the beginning of the book of mormon and loves it! He said he has read books from other churches before and none have felt as right as this one. We also had an exchange this week. My companion went with one of the assistants and the assistant’s comanion was my companion. He has three transfers in the mission. Only 1 More that me. So I was way nervous. It was a great calming experience . The work did not stop. I am very comfortable with where my Spanish is at because frankly his was horrible. He tried hard. He just is having a hard time. Not only that but we had 2 new investigators on our exchange day. WONDERFUL! The lord Helps Gringos! We did fine. I Loved that day. He was a little weird, messy and girly but it was wonderful day! President made a new rule this last week. Someone will be getting a new MP3 Player back home… He is not allowing MP3 Players. We can have CD Players but not MP3 Players. So the new one I just got for free will be getting home soon. Not till next week though when I get my mission money. This next week we get to go pick and squeeze canya. Or Sugar Cane. =) I’m excited about that one. I am loving being a missionary and loving teaching the gospel! I miss home and will be excited to come home but not till that time rolls around. I Love Being a Missionary!
Thanks for all your love and support!
Elder Ellis!
Well This week was wonderful! Let me tell you! We started our week with a wonderful phone call from president Martineau. He told us. Elders. Your Area has never been a good finding area. BUT has never lacked in baptisms. You just have to go about it a different way. You need to make sure you are working through your members and really working on strengthening your less actives. Less finding more strengthening reactivating and bringing people back to the fold. So that we did. We started focusing a little more on this subject of finding the members and working with all of them. At the same time we changed a couple things. My companion…Knows Spanish, thinks he knows more than he does but he knows Spanish. He usually tries to get to know the people much better at the very first. This week I suggested we just make them quick and to the point. We are missionaries preaching a message of the Restored Gospel. So this is we did. This week we had less finding time than all of our previous weeks. Although when we focused our message on this small simple Fact we were able to see much more success. This week we had a goal of 7 new investigators. We received 6 ! Woohoo! One of them is named Max! He’s from new York and we just taught him on Saturday. We contacted him the same time we contacted Eduardo, He lives right across the street from Eduardo. We had to drop Eduardo this week because he doesn’t want to progress. He said. Well. I think god knows that I am busy in my life right now so he understands that I’m not ready to be baptized. This made us sad but instead of getting down we walked across the street to talk to max whom we hadn’t taught yet. He let us come in and talk with him we talked to him and found out he knows much more English than Spanish. So he is yet another person we are teaching in English. We taught him. Then that night we had a priesthood meeting with David Bednar and President Eyring…They were in Jamaica for a whole Caribe “Area Conference” It was pretty neat. But max agreed to come. We explained to him more about the church and he was excited to get to know some people. He is from New York he’s 19 and moved here because he didn’t like home and wanted to come help his grandma. So that is what he is doing. He is way cool. We taught him yesterday and Set a baptismal Date for the 25th of February. Hopefully I won’t get transferred. Who knows. The whole time we were teaching him he kind of had a half smile waiting to burst out I asked him what he was thinking if he had anything to say or ask. He replied. “Well I haven’t smiled this big and been this happy since before things at home got bad. He knows the church is true started reading from the beginning of the book of mormon and loves it! He said he has read books from other churches before and none have felt as right as this one. We also had an exchange this week. My companion went with one of the assistants and the assistant’s comanion was my companion. He has three transfers in the mission. Only 1 More that me. So I was way nervous. It was a great calming experience . The work did not stop. I am very comfortable with where my Spanish is at because frankly his was horrible. He tried hard. He just is having a hard time. Not only that but we had 2 new investigators on our exchange day. WONDERFUL! The lord Helps Gringos! We did fine. I Loved that day. He was a little weird, messy and girly but it was wonderful day! President made a new rule this last week. Someone will be getting a new MP3 Player back home… He is not allowing MP3 Players. We can have CD Players but not MP3 Players. So the new one I just got for free will be getting home soon. Not till next week though when I get my mission money. This next week we get to go pick and squeeze canya. Or Sugar Cane. =) I’m excited about that one. I am loving being a missionary and loving teaching the gospel! I miss home and will be excited to come home but not till that time rolls around. I Love Being a Missionary!
Thanks for all your love and support!
Elder Ellis!
January 20, 2009
This week… Wow. Well since we had P-day Tuesday and have it Tuesday again the week went by a lot faster. We worked hard with our investigator Eduardo and worked hard to find more people as well but unfortunately we didn’t have any success. Well we did find one person. We go back to teach him today. I am really disappointed about this week and need to go get happy. We had P-day moved again because of Martin luther king day yesterday and because we didn’t know it was going to be a holiday had planned appointments today. So we are barely fitting in our email and other stuf today which makes me disappointed and then on top of it the computers here are basura or trash and I have only a little while left. You email sizes were great this week. I’m fine with having a little longer emails because in this area I don’t get mail at the house only 1 time a week and only have family writing me because I guess none of my friends know how to write. On top of that we have a CAR meeting and I love the members here it is just extremely difficult because our branch is split into 3 missionary areas and we have only a few members to go out with us. Eduardo our only investigator is having troubles with his car and can’t afford to get it fixed so he was having a hard time with that as well. We asked him if we could do anything for him and he told us that he needed toothpaste. So we went and got him toothpaste then brought it to him and talked to him for a while. About an hour and a half. He was having such a hard time recognizing the times in his life when he has to choose God first or others first. He talked about how he doesn’t feel welcome in the church because of all of his tattoos and we asked him if he would not get anymore tattoos if God asked him not to. He hesitated and said well if it is god telling me to. Thenw e asked well if god told his servants to tell you not to get anymore tattoos would you get them and he still hesitated. Then we asked him if your girlfriend asked you not to get more tattoos would you…and he said of course not. So we talked with him for a long time and share with him the importance of putting god before everything in our lives. He realized that he was putting his girlfriend in front of god and felt bad about that and wanted to change. While we were sitting there I felt prompted to share with him about jesus Christ. At times we want what we think is best and leave god out of the circle. When Jesus Christ was suffering in the Garden of gethsemane He even the greatest of all The only perfect man to ever walk the earth pleaded for the suffering to go away…but pleaded with his fathers will in mind. Please take this cup form me if it be thy will. What a great example Jesus Christ is to all of us. Enduring the trials as they come Choose the right even when its hard because just as Christ did. We can ask for help we can ask for things to go away and if it is his will they will go away. President has been sharing a lot from the movie Facing Giants. I don’t remember much form it but the quote he uses is preparing for rain. We are always preparing for rain. We don’t know when it will come but we are always preparing for it. If not it will come and just as the people with Noah they will be washed away. I am loving my reading in Alma 50s It is some great war chapters and what amazes me is how much Moroni always has a plan. For everything he is always preparing. He prepares in times without fear he prepares still in times of War and he prepares after he wins the war. What an amazing example he is.I Love being a missionary. Its hard when all of your num,bers are 0s. We had 2 other lessons this week and that was it. No one at church. Eduardo finally found someone to fix his car and so couldn’t come to church because the only day this guy could do it was Sunday. Other than that a lot of finding and we didn’t find many at all.Now we gotta head off to our other appointment and then have the meeting tonight. Woopdeedoo!
I love you! This week I missed Christmas more than I did at Christmas. Remembered all of the wonderful Christmases I have had with my family.
I love you! This week I missed Christmas more than I did at Christmas. Remembered all of the wonderful Christmases I have had with my family.
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