Transfers

I am indeed getting transferred. We received the Fax Sunday morning before heading off to go to PEC. I am leaving and Elder Cauffman is staying here in Englewood. We have to leave from here to go to the transfer conference by about 12:00, we have to travel all the way to Short Hills. Speaking of Which I need to look up driving directions.

Emily sent me some pictures of the new puppy. He is so cute. Also, did Mom die her hair red? or is it just because of the light in the picture? Anyways, He looks really adorable
I do not know whether or not I will get the chance later today or tomorrow to send another email, if not, then you may have to wait until next Wednesday to find out where I've gone! I'm sure I'll at least be able to write and let you know. My only hope is that I go to a Spanish Ward, and I also think it would be cool to be in a walking area.

I have no idea where though, I actually kind of like the surprise. Not knowing until the conference, then finding out when they read the list, I kind of like the suspense. Some missionaries don't like it. It does kind of stink having to tell the members when they ask you "Where are you going?" to have to say "I don't know yet." But that's okay. I know that wherever I go the Lord will bless me. I know that the Lord will send me to where I need to be, and that if I respond with faith "I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord" the Lord will bless me in my work. I know that the church is true, and that Jesus Christ is our Savior, and I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I love you all so much, and I miss you, but I know that this is where I need to be. I can't wait to talk to you all a week from Sunday! Love, Elder Isaac Ellsworth.

Transfers

Transfers are actually next Wednesday. We actually find out on Saturday if either of us are getting transferred. I hope I don't get transferred, but at the same time a really want to. I want to serve in a Spanish area again. Actually, what I would really like is to serve in a Spanish Ward. Both my areas so far have been in English wards with Spanish translation provided, kind of like what they used to do in our ward before the Spanish Branch in our stake was organized. So, if I get transferred, I hope I go to West New York, or Union City, or somewhere where there is a Spanish ward.
However, we are still working hard here. The members here are working with us a lot more. We had a really awesome member-present lesson with Brother Abraham, who came with us to visit a media referral named Sheila. It went really well, and Brother Abraham bore a powerful testimony about the power of the Holy Ghost.
As you were talking about Spencer's talk in Church, It reminded me about something that our mission president and others have said on multiple occasions. He said "The way you serve your mission will be a pattern for the way you will live the rest of your life." It was a statement that really struck me. These two years, and the faithfulness and attitude I serve with these two years will be the same way that I will serve in the church the rest of my life. That was something that really struck me. I hope and pray that I can live and serve well. This week on Saturday we had a Ward Party. We had a game night, and we talked about ideas for family home evening. It was a lot of fun, and we played fun games like apples to apples, which was especially funny with the group I was playing with. However, the party was a bit of a dissappointment, no one we invited came. We also had none of our investigators come to church that we invited. This weekend was a little down heartening, but since then we have been working hard, and have gotten a few really good new investigators. We haven't been able to get in contact with Keashawn again, but we've been trying hard.
I'm glad to hear that everyone at home is doing well. That's awesome that Emily has got a new puppy. It's weird to think that I'll never see this one, but I have work to do here. It's also really awesome that Nick is getting caught up. I'm glad to hear that he is doing better, sometimes I wish I could be there to help him more, but on the other hand I think that I can do more good here, even though I only get to write once a week. Tell Ian to keep it up in Scouts. That is awesome that he's been getting some merit Badges. Interestingly, Space Exploration and Computers were two of the ones that I got my very first Pow-wow, that's really neat that Ian got those Merit Badges as well.
Oh, mom and dad, I did spend a little bit of personal funds today. I bought a photo album, and we are not allowed to spend MSF (Missionary Support Fund) money on any photo stuff. Next time I have film to develop, which won't be until a few weeks probably, I'll have to pay for that with Personal money as well. I love you all and miss you so much. I'm really excited to talk to you on Mother's Day. The only thing that kind of stinks about it being on Mother's day, is from Christmas to Mother's day it is about 4 1/2 months. So, that's good. However, from Mother's day to next Christmas is 7 1/2 months, so, while Mother's day is great, Father's day call would put the call closer to the middle of the year. However, I'm with Mom on this one.

Love you,
Elder Isaac Ellsworth

:)

This week has been really good. We are getting really close to having a baptismal date! Keashawn is progressing really well. Last Wednesday we had an appointment with him at 12:30, after I had written email, and we taught him the plan of salvation lesson. He had a lot of really cool questions, and he really wants to know. Well, at the end of the lesson I extended what we call a "soft" baptismal invite. "Keashawn, when you know that this is true, would you be baptized" sort of thing, and without any hesitation he said Yes. Well, that's not the best of it! On Saturday we missed an appointment with him, Saturdays are not the best day for him we think. But on Sunday he came to church. AND he brought his cousin Rob with him. It was pretty cool. They got there two hours late, and only made it to priesthood, but it was really awesome. they BOTH made really awesome comments in class. Keashawn even said that next week he would like to bring his 12 year old brother to church as well. We have another appointment with Keashawn later today, and Rob is going to be there as well, we haven't taught Rob at all yet, so we are probably going to teach the first lesson again. We also are going to watch the Restoration video.

I'm glad to hear that things are going well at home. I think that "Puddinghead" would be an even more humiliating name than Muttonhead. I'm glad to hear that Emily is excited. It's weird to think that I will most likely never see this puppy. It's also really weird to think that I have been out here for so long. Seven months! the time is going pretty fast.

Oh, I wanted to tell you one more story. Last night we got a really cool new investigator. HIs name is Frank Opong-Wiredu. We got him as a media referral, he had requested a free Lamb of God DVD, and when we originally got the text message we looked at it and were really confused, and didn't know how to pronounce his last name. We thought it was a mistake. Sure enough, when we got there that was his name. He is really open, and we mostly talked about hardship, and trial, and taught a little bit about prophets. He seems really open, and asked us if he could meet with us once a week. It was really cool.

Nick, Emily and Ian , keep up the good work in school, I love you guys a ton, and am excited to hear from you all and to talk to you in a month. I looked and there are 4 sundays left, and three more Wednesday email until Mother's day. Not that I'm counting down the days though.
Love,
Elder Isaac Ellsworth

7-2

Winter here is still holding on for dear life. This morning as we headed to the library to do email, we were hit with a freak snow flurries. I don't know what's up with the weather here. It's not too bad, though. Well, conference this last weekend was really amazing. Out here we sometimes will measure time by a few important events. Conferences, Temple trips, and calls home. So, by that, this was my second conference in the mission. Here we watched conference at the chapel. The Saturday and Sunday normal sessions were shown in our chapel in Englewood, and for priesthood we had to go to Emerson. The sessions were good, and I learned a lot. For the Sunday Morning session our ward had a breakfast/brunch thingy. We had pancakes and eggs and stuff, it was good. That session there were about 20 or so people from our ward that watched it at the chapel, the other sessions there were only 5 people, including us missionaries, there to watch it at the chapel. I think a lot of the members have BYU TV on their cable, so they watch it at home, there are probably a lot as well that don't watch it at all. This conference I really appreciated it a lot more. I think that back home a lot of the time I took it for granted. I really appreciated more the significance of Conference as we tried to explain it to and invite investigators to come. We actually had three that came. Nubia and Fransisco, two investigators from Colombia, came for the breakfast, then went back and watched it in Spanish at Brother Mata's house. It was awesome. This last week has been pretty stressful. Last week we had to go on Wednesday to do some service in Morristown. We cleaned up the woods behind the mission home. It was fun, and a good service opportunity. I got to see Elder Quirino and Elder Kemp, and even Noé, and investigator that I had taught in Rockland that got baptized two or three weeks after I left. The only problem was that doing the service killed our whole P-day. Basically all we got done that days was Laundry and Email. We didn't get any shopping done, and then we got back about 6:30. Showered, and headed off to Correlation with the Ward Mission Leader. On the way we hit a pothole, which dented the inside of the rim of our tire, and damaged the tire itself. Instead of Correlation, Brother Rumble helped us to bang the rim straight and to fill up our tire. (We also discovered we had no spare tire.) Then the next day we had to go to Pepboys and get the tire replaced. I still am having pretty bad insomnia, so I am getting more and more tired, but I love doing the work. Conference was good though, it gave us a kind of spiritual recharge. Thank you for the package. It arrived at the office last Wedensday, or before I think, and then the Zone leaders had it, and finally brought it to me on Monday. Thank you so much, that is a really nice umbrella. I gave my old one to Elder Cauffman because he doesn't have one, and I kept the one I just got from you guys. I'm glad to hear dad, that you are doing better. I was so sorry to hear that you got hurt. Was it really bad?
I hope that everything is going good. I hope that Mom enjoys clear creek. I love you all, and I can't wait to talk to you in a month. Love, Elder Isaac Ellsworth. P.S. 7 months in 2 days.

April 1

April has indeed arrived. Hopefully Spring is here for good. It's finally starting to warm up. We've been playing around in the 50's and 60's for a little while, and instead of snow we are now getting rain.
I'm also glad that it's a new month because that means we are no longer so limited on miles. We just need to be a little more careful this month.

Things here in our area have been going well. I really am doing a lot better. It feels good too, because Elder Cauffman and I are very busy. Missionary work is just so much more satisfying when you are busy. Last transfer I think I wasn't as satisfied with the work here because we weren't quite as busy. I felt a lot of the time that we weren't accomplishing anything. It's not that we weren't working. We knocked a lot of hours, but I felt like we weren't doing quite enough, and it wasn't as fruitful as my first area.
This last week we had a really neat experience. We had set up an appointment with a potential investigator by the name of James. Elder Amundsen and I had knocked on his door one of the last days we were together. The appointment had been rescheduled several times when we would call him the night before and he'd reschedule. Yesterday we had the appointment, and we went over and he was there, and we had a really good lesson with him. And we invited him to attend General conference and we set up an appointment with him again for next Tuesday. After the appointment with him we went and knocked the rest of the apartment complex where he lived. Elder Amundsen and I had only knocked one or two buildings. We knocked for about an hour and a half, and no one was really all that interested. Most were Baptists that went pretty locally. The very last door we knocked on we met a young man, about our age, by the name of Keashawn. He invited us in, and we talked for a while. We had a really awesome lesson, and we invited him to conference as well. He said that he'd probably even come to all 4 sessions of conference. He was really awesome. He even made the comment that a few days ago that he had been praying that God would send him something. He said something to read, or some of his words. When I talked to him on the door he was really interested when I mentioned the Book of Mormon, and he asked for a copy, and I gave it to him on the doorstep, before even inviting us in. It was an amazing experience.

So, you wanted to know how Sundays are here? Well, on a normal Sunday we still wake up and get ready at 6:30, and then we usually have PEC (priesthood executive committee) at 8:30. We meet with the Bishop, his councilors, the Ward Mission Leader, the Elders Qurom President, and Brother Amado is usually there, but I'm not sure what is calling is... and we discuss the Mission work in the Ward. PEC starts at 8:00 but they have us come at 8:30 so that when we get there we can get started right away with talking about missionary work. Sacrament in our ward starts at 10:00 am. And afterwards I usually go to the Spanish Sunday School and Elder Cauffman goes to English Sunday school. Then there is Priesthood. After church we are usually among the last to leave because we usually have to talk to people, set up appointments, etc. And usually have to talk to the bishop, who does a few interviews after church every week. We have appointments in the afternoon and evening, but we usually don't get a whole lot of tracting in that day of the week.

This week of course is General Conference, which I am very excited for. Over here the sessions are from 12-2 and 4-6, priesthood goes from 8-10 pm. We don't attend more that one ward. The wards are pretty far spread out, and almost everyone out here does there meetings at 10-1. This last week we had two investigators at church, both were the husbands in Part-Member families. We should have some more coming soon. We have a few investigators that are progressing really well. I'm also pretty excited to call home on Mother's Day, but that's still a way's away. Well, like a month. Still, I'm excited to talk to all of you again. It kind of sucks that we only get to call home twice a year, but I know it's for the best, otherwise too many missionaries would get WAY too distracted.


I love you and miss you all tons. I hope to hear from you again. I also hope to hear from Nick next week. He hasn't told me how his trip to Haiti went... Hopefully I'll get an email from him next week.
Love you all, Elder Isaac Ellsworth