Transfers.....The end of the Crusade

I am so excited right now. When I read the email from Nick tears came to my eyes. I really feel overjoyed with the news.

This week has been a little tough for us, but we've been hanging in there. Things are really looking up for this area, though. We have a baptism scheduled for this upcoming Sunday, as well as a baptism for the 25th of April. I'm really bummed that I am leaving, West New York and the people I have come to know here have really taken a very special place in my heart. However, I know that the Lord has work for me to do in a new area, and I am ready to serve. "I'll go where you want me to go, Dear Lord"
So, yes, we got the transfer news last night, and the time has come for me to leave West New York.

These last two transfers have been a huge challenge for me. More mentally and emotionally than anything else. Finally the sleep issues are starting to get resolved, and in my next area I will be able to hit the ground running without the burden of extreme exhaustion that I've had here. I've tried my best to work through it, but it has most certainly been an uphill battle these last few months, but I made it through. I feel like the Lord has blessed me and that He is pleased with me. He has certainly been testing me these last few months, and I pray I have proven faithful.

I am so glad for the time I have been in West New York. This has been the area I've been in the longest on my mission, and will be the longest. It has been a huge blessing, I have learned so much from many of the people I've taught and worked with, I've learned a lot about enduring trials and overcoming discouragement, and how to be a leader. I certainly hope that I can take the lessons I have learned here to my next area and work hard to bring about the Lords work.
I know that this is the Lord's work, and I know that He guides us. I love being a missionary.

Today we are going to make some stops and say goodbye to some of the members. It is really hard for me to leave this area. However, at the same time, I'm excited for what lies ahead. This area has certainly been an area full of growth, personally. I have really learned to overcome my weaknesses, and how to overcome discouragement. The sleep problems have also taught me a lot about preserverance (spelling?)

Also, President Bahr called me last night to tell me I'm being released as District Leader. I've learned a lot from that opportunity as well, from being a district leader. I probably will not have more leadership in my mission, but it was a good opportunity to learn and grow.

Also, I may be heading to my last area. I'm not sure, but either the next area will be my last area or I will have one more afterwards. I only have 5 months left, so who knows where I'll go or be. As the hymn says "I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord."

I love you all so much, and I hope things continue to go well for you. Good luck in Italy, I am sooooo jealous. I hope everyone else has fun in Canada. Again, I am a little jealous. Do you know what? I have never even met Elsie. They have sent me pictures, I need to meet her at some point when I get home... but anyways.

I love you!

Elder Isaac Ellsworth

Mom's note: Elder Ellsworth did not know where he was being transferred to when he wrote. They don't tell them until the conference the next day.
Also, for those of you who don't know who Elsie is, she is my brother, John's adorable little girl. She is nearly 3 but Isaac has never seen her.

Crazy Day

Today has been a little crazy. We had a choir practice in Caldwell, and then we played sports down there, and went to the office, we are barely starting on our P-day stuff. It was a lot of fun, but I don't think it was worth it, as we now don't have time to finish everything we need to do.

This week has been good we are starting to get everything turned around a little bit. I'm still extremely exhausted all the time, but I am doing a little better. I got the package you sent recently. Unfortunately the earplugs didn't work, so I'm still on the couch. But I'm doing alright.

In other news. Right now we have 2 baptismal dates. We have this awesome investigator named Carlos. We've been teaching him for about 2 or 3 weeks. He has a baptismal date for the 4th of April, either before conference or in between sessions. We also finally got a hold again of Javier and set him with a date for the 25th of April. Things are going well.

Also, quick note, Transfers will be in one week from tomorrow, so do not send anything to the house address, I may not get it for a while if it gets there late, it would probably be better to send all the mail through the mission office for this week.

I love you all so much and i hope that things go well for you, I'm sorry this email is a little short, but I promise I will write more next week. I'm going to get those glasses ordered today, and hopefully everything will work out better now with the sleeping, I hope so.

By next email I should have the information about whether or not I'm getting transferred, I'm pretty sure that I'll be leaving West New York, I've been here for quite a while.

Love,

Elder Isaac Ellsworth

March 15

On Saturday we got hit with a very bad storm. Huge amounts of wind and rain. Elder Butler and I were in most of the day, as we were already sick, and didn't want to get worse. The three times we left the house to go to appointments we came back absolutely soaked. On Sunday we still had a lot of wind, but not as much rain, and it is still raining a little bit today. It's been a little crazy with the weather, but we're managing.

Things are still a little slow in the area, but we are doing well. hopefully once I start sleeping I'll be able to focus and work better and we can get things going more in the area. This week the Ward Mission leader wants to organize a "blitz" of our area with the members and missionaries to get the work jump-started. Hopefully it helps a lot.

This week we got an awesome new investigator. His name is Carlos. On Tuesday I went on exchange with Elder Hoover, and we taught him at the church. Last Sunday he had just shown up, and Elder Hoover and Elder Ward set up an appointment with him. We taught him the message of the Restoration, and at the end of the lesson he gave the closing prayer. In his closing prayer he thanked God for sending the prophet Joseph Smith! He also accepted a soft baptismal invite! I know that soon we'll be able to set him with a baptismal date. We have an appointment today at 6:00.

Sorry that this email is a little short. We have a guy coming to fix our telephone line for our fax machine, and we need to be there between 1 and 5. hopefully he comes earlier so we have time to do stuff.

I love you all so much, I hope you have a great week. I'll send a snail mail letter today as well, I have something I need to send to you.

Love you,

Elder Isaac Ellsworth

Rough week but moving forward with faith

This last week has been a pretty rough week. More than anything the biggest problem remains that I am not sleeping at night. I have been so exhausted, I'm still hanging in there, but the going has been a little rough because of the insomnia.

This week has also been a little rough, and more than a little discouraging, we spent 13 and a half hours this week looking for people, most of it knocking doors and stopping by less actives on the ward list and former investigators, but we found no new people to teach. We even began with a fast last Sunday and asked the Lord to bless us that we could find 6 new investigators this last week, and we found none. Which makes me wonder, what is it that we are doing wrong to not allow Heavenly Father to answer that prayer. One thing is that we have not been opening our mouths and contacting everyone as we should be.

Saturday and Sunday, however, gave me a lot of new hope for the area. I've been feeling a little depressed lately, partly because things are going really rough in the area, but mostly because I am so tired all the time. By Saturday I had just about lost all hope, That evening, however, we had a missionary fireside aimed at helping encourage the youth to serve missions. Brother Mathusek from the stake high council, who had recently returned from being a mission president in Atlanta, Georgia, was there as one of the principle speakers. During his talk he also mentioned the environment of the spirit and the miracles that Missionaries live in and see, and it was inspiring.

During the rest of the meeting I sat next to him and Translated to Engligh for him (he doesn't speak Spanish) and in the middle he stopped me and whispered into my ear. "Sometimes in Missionary work you have to go throught the grime, and the sludge, before you can really appreciate the wonderful experiences you can have. Once you make it throught those, the Lord can bless you, and when you look on those times in the future, they will still be joyful." or something along those lines, and that really stuck out to me. Yesterday Brother Mathusek also came to our ward and gave a lesson in third hour encouraging all the members to do missionary work, and it was an amazing lesson. I came out of there really inspired.

When I got home that day I said a prayer. I asked for forgiveness in not opening my mouth, and I promised him, I told the Lord that I was going to go out that day and talk to 10 people about the book of Mormon. and I asked Him to put someone in our path that would be prepared to hear the gospel. The 7th person I talked to was very interested and we have an appointment to go by on Friday. It was a miracle. Several others accepted pass-along cards and said that they'd call the number. I know that the Lord is in this work.

Um, in other news, I finally got the holds removed from BYU. Last week I wrote them an email asking them what else I lacked, but they wrote me back telling me they removed the holds. I now have my registration priority date, April 2, to register for Fall semester. Again, thank you dad for taking care of that for me. Now things are smoothed out, and I can register. I can't believe ( still ) that it is already time to start thinking about college. Although it is not my number one priority, missionary work is.

Also, In 2 days I hit my 18 month mark. I am so old.
Ok. Here are three pictures.
The first one is of my companion Elder Butler. There is also a story behind this picture. The lady in the background is Sister Bernal. We stopped by the laundromat to set up an appointment, and while there she made a joke about Elder Butlers last name, and so we gave him a white towel and had him pose like a butler, it was pretty funny, as you can see sister Bernal was laughing pretty hard.

The second picture is of our new apartment on Moving day. It was a little rough, it took us about a week to get fully moved in, but the apartment is looking great right now.

The third picture is me. I have this really thick tie, and I wanted to see how thick I could make the knot, and as you can see, the knot is really thick. But the tie is really short. Elder Butler said it looks like how Tongans tie their ties. It made me laugh. I have one more picture I want to send, but I will have to write another email to do it.
I love you all and miss you so much. I hope you are doing well, and I can't wait hear from you again next week.
Love,
Elder Isaac Ellsworth

Marching along.....

Wow, it's hard for me to believe that March is already here. I have almost no idea of where February went. Things have been going well here. We are still trudging along a little bit. Things are still a little slow in the area, but this week we are focusing a lot on finding, and hopefully can jump start things and start off the new month strong.

This week we got pounded with snow. It started snowing on Thursday and it snowed straight through all of Friday as well. In total we got hit with about 26 inches of snow. On Friday we helped a few people shovel their walkways. We were not far from our house, and we saw a lady trying to shovel, just her and her two sons, who were about 10 and 8. We offered to help and she accepted. It was a lot of work, it took us about an hour and a half to complete it, afterward she tried to offer us money, we didn't accept it, but she did give us some wool socks, which was very kind of her.

The first picture attached here is not from this last snow storm, but from one a couple of weeks ago. Dad wanted a picutre of me in Missionary Clothes, so here it is. There is this sign on Boulevard East in West New York that I thought was pretty cool, I thought the slogan was hilarious "A good place to live and shop" I disagree, but oh well. Maybe a good place to shop, but other than that...

On Saturday Jacqueline and her family moved. They moved out of our area, but they are still in the ward. They live in Fairview. When we helped them move, it was ONLY myself and Elder Butler, Jacqueline and her husband. By the end of it I was so worn out. The second picture is me goofing around in the moving van. It was good, her husband wants to invite us over sometime, he wants to cook for us to say thank you.

Then the third picture is from the baptism we had a week ago. Gilberto Luna. They are a really awesome family. Sister Benal really wants to move to Utah. She has actually been looking for a place in Orem, she found one apartment around 400 N and 400 W. She really wants to move there, and if it all works out for them, that's great. She wants to go out there and take a look around the neigborhood (spelling?) and everything, but she said that she doesn't know anyone out there who could help her. I was thinking about offering to give her your email so she could get in touch with you mom, if that'd be alright with you. Just let me know what you think. They are a really awesome family.

On this last Wednesday we had interviews with the mission president. I was talking to him about college, departure, etc. I have set the date for my departure. I will be coming home on August 25th. That means I have less than 6 months left on my mission.

Thank you dad for taking care of that debt I had to the school. That could have ended up really bad. I guess it was from the testing center or something, and I had completely forgot about it. Hopefully now I'll be able to find out my registration date and everything.

I love you all and miss you so much. I hope that things go well for everyone. I will write to you next week.

Love,

Elder Isaac Ellsworth