Awesome

That is awesome to hear that Nick is graduating! I am so proud of him. I remember that I wasn't very excited/happy at the practice either, it was really boring, but I was really glad that I was there the actual day of graduation.
That is really awesome Nick, class of '09. This time next year he'll probably be preparing for a mission! I am very excited for you. Good luck next year at school also!

I can't believe that May is almost gone. Next week It will be June already!! That is crazy in so many ways! Next month Nick'll be turning 18! Wow! I still have a hard time believing how old everybody is, I haven't even been gone for a year, and at Mother's day I was so surprised. Nick's voice sounded deeper, and Emily and Ian sounded more mature, and I was really kind of stunned. Time really has been flying here.

I also can't believe that the transfer is almost over. We have today, then next week, then the Wednesday after that is transfer conference. Today is actually Elder Memmott's last P-day, next week they are going to the temple, then the next Tuesday he is flying home.

We've had a pretty good start to the week. We haven't been able to get out and do any tracting, but that's because we have been so busy. Monday I was on an exchange in Dover with the Zone leaders, and Yesterday was an amazing day. We had two Member-present lesson yesterday, one in Spanish with a new investigator. We had our first appointment with a Media referral. She was really cool, and seemed really interested. Then we had another appointment with Jeff Rascoe, and Juan came with us to that one as well. Juan is really helpful, and a really awesome member. He loves coming out with us, and he speaks both English and Spanish, so he really has been a great help to us this week. Jeff even said he'd come to church, and when we invited him to be baptized, he said that he feels he isn't ready, but it is something he wants to do. He said that he wants to "follow that path", and he really is doing really well.

I am doing well here, I had been getting discouraged, we hadn't had a new investigator in almost 3 weeks, but the exchange with Elder Hammond really helped to renew my faith. I know that this is the Lord's work, and that He directs us. I am excited for the good that we can accomplish here. I hope Elder Boyer and I are still together for at least 1 more transfer. I want to actually have a companion for more than just 6 weeks...

I love you all and miss you all. I'm glad to hear that you are still doing well. Love, Elder Isaac Ellsworth.

May 20th- "I"ve run out of clever tag lines"

Well, another week has come and gone, I can hardly believe it! Today I am emailing from Ledgewood NJ, we came here to do our P-day with Elder Kempler. His companion as well as Elder Duncan's companion, Elder Memmott, went to see the Statue of Liberty this week. In our mission they have a statue trip every transfer for the departing missionaries. Elder Memmott is going home this transfer. He keeps saying that he can't believe how fast 2 years went by.
It sounds like you have a busy week. I was reading the list and it made ME exhausted. So, right now is field day. I am so excited to hear that Nick is graduating!!! I always knew he could do it! You'll have to send me pictures from the ceremony tomorrow. Elder Boyer's sister is also graduating tomorrow. Are they having it in the Marriott center?? Wait, is that this week or next week???? either way. (It is actually next week, Isaac is a week off)

Oh, quick story. Elder Boyer and I were knocking the other day, like we always do. We were talking about things, and part of our conversations was about how, a lot of people, when we say who we are assume that all Mormons are from Utah. Well, in all my previous companionships, Except with Elder Barker, I was from Utah, but my companion is from like, Missouri, or California, or Wyoming, well, we're both from the same high school, so we really can't disprove the theory. Well, we were talking and he said "I'm just going to say from now on I'm from Puerto Rico" and I joked back, "I'm from Canada, we'll just jump back a generation and say where our Mom's are from." We chuckled about it, and that was that. A few days later we were talking to this lady, and when we asked if she had ever heard of our church she said that we were a cult, and she was worried for our souls, and then she asked us if we were from Utah. I said yes, then Elder Boyer just said "I'm from Puerto Rico" and I tried hard not to laugh, and she just kept going off on us.

We've been doing well here. This is probably the strongest ward I've been in. It's a really good-sized ward, and the ward-mission program is really good. The ward mission leader, Brother Bean is a really nice guy. The missionaries, we are just finishing up a program that was started 2 trasfers ago. They called many of the member families on 42 day missions. They made up little call letters and call packets. The call letter said something like "you have been called to serve as a missionary in the New Jersey Clinton Ward. It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 42 days. You will prepare to invite your friends to come to church, to meet the missionaries, etc." It was really neat. The member families set goals as to how many invitations they were going to make during the 42 days. Several of the families have finished now, and we are doing the "homecoming parties" We have a little video that the missionaries made, and we have them sare testimonies, it really is a neat ward missionary-type program. This week has also been really neat, we had a really awesome lesson Yesterday.

Well, Yesterday was an interesting day, full of ups and downs. Yesterday morning we got a call from a member in our ward, who's husband is not a member, and has been meeting with missionaries for about 3 years. Last week we invited him to set a goal, a date, when he wants to be ready for baptism. well, it was going good, but him and his wife had an argument in the middle of it, and it was a mess. Well, yesterday she called us and told us that he doesn't want to meet with us. She said she thinks he's embarassed, so we lost an investigator Yesterday.
Then, later in the day we had a really awesome lesson with our 1 remaining investigator, we had a member come with us, and the lesson went really well. His name is Jeff Rascoe, and he is really awesome. He had been meeting with the Sister's about 6 months ago, and we looked him up in the Former's section of our area book, he is doing really well.

Things are going well here in Clinton, but it is a little down-heartening. We knock for a long time, we work really hard, but nothing ever comes of it. For example, we knocked for 4 hours on Monday, and we got 1 potential investigator, who, when we called her, proved to be really not that interested. We will continue to work hard and pray, and hopefully we'll be able to see some success here.

I love you all and miss you so much. I hope everything is going well for you back home.

Love, Elder Isaac Ellsworth.

May 13th

Wow, just thinking about today, today is exactly 3 months before my 20th birthday. That means that 1 year ago, around this same time I was starting/ filling out my mission papers. A got my call in about a week or so a year ago. It's hard to believe that it was so long ago! In three months I turn 20! I was thinking about it, and I will probably only have the one birthday on my mission. If I have to come home a few weeks early for school, then I will come home 2 days before I turn 21, so I only get the one birthday on my mission. I was so happy to talk to you guys on Sunday. It kind of sucks that now it will be 7 months until my next call home, but when I get there it will feel like only yesterday was Mother's day. I'm glad you got the card, I thought that you'd enjoy that.

Oh, mom asked about the story about Keashawn. Right about that moment we were already pushing the hour line, and so I couldn't tell it then. Well, we had tried stopping by Keashawn's several times, and could never reach him. The phone number that we had was not working, the line was not being paid or he didn't have minutes. One day we tried stopping by, and when we knocked on the door it was answered by a man who we had never met before, and when we asked for Keashawn he said "We're having a conversation right now, could you come back later?" we tried to make it back, but we were unable to make that day. We stopped by the next day and the same man answered the door, and when we asked if Keashawn he said that Keashawn didn't live there anymore. As we talked to him we found out it was Keashawn's dad, Kiani. He invited us in, and we started teaching him. He said that Keashawn had a lot of problems, and that he had alllowed Keashawn to come and live at home with him, because Keashawn had wanted to turn his life around, but that he was doing those bad things again, and for the sake of his 11 year-old son, he had to ask Keashawn to move out. When I heard that it made me think of Sarah, and that situation. He told me that he hoped that we'd be able to help him help his son. And he even agreed to come to church. I never found out the end of the story, because I got transferred, but I had the feeling in that short meeting that Kiani was truly searching for truth and help, and that we could really help him. So, that was that story, I never found out what happened to Keashawn, we got a phone number from Kiani to contact him, and were trying to set up another appointment when I got transferred. Things have been going well here, this is definitely the most rural area I've been in. It is very beautiful here though. We totally got a lawn mower yesterday, and the mission president has asked us to mow our lawn every P-day. Elder Memmott did that this morning.
Umm, everything is going really well still. I love you and miss you so much, I hope that everything is still going well. I was so happy to talk to you on Sunday, and I'm glad to hear everyone is doing well.

Love,
Elder Isaac Ellsworth.



P.P.S. I will be developing a roll of film today, and buying socks, so that will come out of personal money.. and, next week there will be pictures to send!

Clinton, N.J

I am now in Clinton NJ. I am actually now on the complete opposite end of the mission from where I was before. I am in the absolute most south-western part of the mission. Just to the west of my area is Pennsylvania, and just south of my area is the Cherry Hill mission.

As for my new companion, well, Mom probably knows his Mom. My companion is Elder Boyer, and him and I went to high school together and graduated the same year. When they called out our names that we were going to be companions we both just yelled, "No way!" We are also about 100% positive that Mom teaches his little sister, and probably has met with his mom in Parent Teacher conferences or something. It is really weird, and a lot of people have just said "Really, that's odd" when we say that we went to high school together, and are now not only in the same mission, but missionary companions.

My area here is really different then before. It is a lot more rural than my last area. The houses are really spread apart, and there are a lot of rich people in our area. It is also weird, because we live half an hour out of our area. The ward is split into two areas. We are the Clinton South Elders, and we cover the bottom 1/2, well a little more than half the land mass of the ward boundaries. About 70% of the Members of the ward live in the Other Elder's area, which is called the Clinton North area.
It is also really neat because we are in a brand new Zone. At Zone conference they announced that they were splitting up Zone 8 and creating a brand new Zone, Zone 9! Our Zone leaders are great, and we have some really awesome goals to make this new Zone really take off.

I am also really excited to call home on Sunday. It is really hard to believe that it is almost Mother's day already. We are not 100% sure on what are schedule is going to be like, but we will probably and most likely call around 7:00 or 7:30, so back home that would be 5:00 or 5:30-ish. It is also really hard to believe that Sunday is also my 8 month mark in the mission. It seems like yesterday was Christmas call. The mission is really flying by, but I still have a long while to go. Emily driving??!! scary. Just kidding. most of Mom's gray hair's where probably my fault I'm sure Emily won't do as horribly. I still can't believe how old Emily is. Whenever people ask me how old my siblings are I always have to think about it. I start to say, well my sister is 13 , and ... no, she is 15, and Ian is... By the time I get home from my mission I'll be really confused.
Oh, by the way, I did get that letter from Grandma, and it was really good too, I got it just in time. Hopefully letters from the Mission office won't take as long now, we are not as far from Morristown anymore.

Oh, I sent a Mother's day card home, hopefully it gets there before Mother's day. I bought it on Saturday, and I didn't finally get it in the mail until today. I had filled in out and gotten it stamped and addressed and everything, and kind of forgot about it.. oops. I love you all and miss you so much. I am really glad to hear that Nick is doing well and got caught up. That is really awesome to hear. I wish him the best of luck when he goes off to college in the fall. Oh, BTW, we get to go to the temple in either June or July, I'm not sure how we'll get there or if I'll need money, but that will be an upcoming thing.

I can't wait to talk to you on Sunday, and Happy Mother's Day. Love, Elder Isaac Ellsworth.