What's up in Utah?

Dear Family, and Friends

Well life out here in the mission is as usual crazy.  It never seems to slow down.  It is this week going to be week six of the transfer once again, and a week from tomorrow I could be transferred for the last time.  Who knows though.  I believe that I will be transferred one more time before my mission is through, but I am not sure if it will be next week or the following transfer.  It should be exciting either way.  I would love to stay for a couple of reasons, and I would also love to leave Antelope for a few reasons as well.  I love Elder Simons, we work very well together, and we just have very similar personalities.  It is a lot of fun to be with him.  I really love a lot of our Investigators.  I also really enjoy working with Brother Round, he is the Ward Mission Leader in our family ward.  He is such a sarcastic guy, but we get along great, probably because we both give each other a hard time.  Somedays we gang up on Elder Simons as well.  It is great.  I am very tired of being a Zone Leader though.  It just takes away from the time we get to proselyte, and I don't like dealing with other Elders problems very much.  It keeps things interesting, but I don't love it that is for sure.  I also am worn out of working with this Ward.  In Particular our family Ward.  They are very good people, but just really hard to work with, and not super supportive or friendly in missionary work.  I will also miss the Singles Ward, I really like a ton of the members there.

Next week will be very nuts.  Because of some things that happened this week.  We have two baptisms of people that I have worked with here coming up which should be great.  Mark Andrews, is a great guy.  He is married to a member who was baptized about 4 years back.  So he already had a basic knowledge of what it meant to be a member of the church.  He has lived a rough life, and hasn't always been a great guy, but he wants to change now, and be a better man.  We have been teaching him for about 2 months.  We picked him up because he called us and wanted us to come and teach him about Christ.  We are excited to see him enter the Waters of Baptism next Saturday.  Alicia is from our Young Single Adult ward.  We met her when she came to church with a friend and wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon.  However she lives out of the mission.  But this week on Saturday we had a lesson with her, which was great as usual.  She reads the Book of Mormon every single day and already knows that it is true.  She also reads our pamphlets that we leave with her and knows the material before we teach her about it.  When we passed her off to the Sacramento Missionaries, she told them she still wants to be baptized next Saturday so they agreed.  So we will attend her Baptism in the morning, and Elder Simons will baptize her, then we will run back to our baptism with Mark.  It will be an amazing day.  I am very excited.

We had a miracle on Sunday as well.  Passing off Alicia, is one of the hardest things that I have had to do on my mission.  But on Sunday we met a new guy named Frank.  He is Polynesian.  He has his girlfriend out on her mission right now, and he reads from the Book of Mormon every day because she encourages him to.  He has grown up around the Church and he has felt the Spirit very strongly at our meetings.  We had a lesson with him yesterday at the chruch and we were able to set a date for his baptism on the 25th of August, but as it turns out he might live outside of the mission as well.  We will sort things out though.  Life is treating me very very well.  I am grateful for the many blessing that I have felt in my life, and I hope to be able to be a great tool in the Hands of God.  I love this work, even the hard days.  I love this time I have to be a tool in the hands of God.  This Church and Gospel are true. 

Dad, I hope that you have a blast up there in the Wind Rivers, I am super jealous of your trip, and someday in the near future we will have to go up there as well.  I love backpacking!  Well thanks a ton and a half you guys rock!

With Love

Elder Nick Ellsworth

Sorry- July 16th letter

Dear Family,

Things are going really really, well out here in the mission field.  I am so grateful for this gospel in my life, and I am grateful when I have an experience when I fell my Father in Heavens hand reach out and give me amazing experiences.  I want to tell you about one this week.

Alicia was a girl that we met in our singles ward a few weeks back when a friend brought her to church.  We gave her a Book of Mormon and encouraged her to read from Moroni Chapter 10 and then to start from the beginning.  So I did not see her again for a few weeks, until she came to church last Sunday.  She was excited and she wanted to have a lesson with us.  But she lives out of our singles ward area.  That was okay, but I was not super comfortable with teaching her because in the end we would have to hand her off anyways.  But we decided to set up a lesson anyways.  So Monday evening we met with her, mind you when we saw her at church I gave her a Restoration Pamphlet.  When we came to the lesson she told us that she had read the entire pamphlet, and the chapter in the Book of Mormon we had left her, and then she had started from the beginning, not only that but she has already had a spiritual confirmation that the book is true.  She accepted a date to be baptized for the 28th of July.  It was awesome our second lesson on Saturday was amazing too.  Then on Sunday we found out that for sure we are going to have to hand her off.  But we will be able to attend her baptism.  It is going to be very hard because she is the most prepared person I have ever had the chance to teach before.  I am grateful for the lessons I have been able to teach her though.

So about that phone call funny story.  So we had just hooked up Elder Simons GPS to Bluetooth with our phone while he was driving I typed in our home phone number as a joke, and was threatening to call home, and he leaned over and hit the button to call you.  I hurried to hang up the GPS but the phone was still calling, then you called back and I had a heart attack.  So I apologize that it happened, and now you know my cell phone number.  So ya, it was a joke that backfired on my part.  But I still love you guys and I am doing really well. 

Well thanks so much for everything you do.  Have a great day and an amazing week.  I will talk to you next week.  Transfers are coming up soon, so who knows what will happen!

With Love,

Elder Ellsworth

Sorry about last week....

Dear Family and Friends,

Well last week was pretty crazy.  I sent you that letter that I promised on like Friday so you should get it soon, I will give you a breif synopsis of what down.  Two missionaries didn't get along, and one of them ended up getting transferred over it.  I was not really thrilled about the one that ended up leaving the area, but I will make due.  It was a very stressful week, but that is okay, I had a good one anyways.  We were in a meeting with President Weston, talking about what was happening, and he told us "Elders welcome to Priesthood Leadership, stay on your toes"  It was a good week, and I am grateful for the lessons that I learned, I just wish that things would not have worked out the way that they did.  This week was awesome and crazy as well.  Well it was to say the very least a week of some of the highest highs of my mission, and a few of the lowest lows.  I am probably more frustrated then I have ever been my whole mission with members.  I feel like Elder Simons and I are working our tails off out there in the heat, and the members just simply are not stepping up and supporting us.  There are a lot of good people here in Antelope, but they just miss the bill when it comes to Missionary work.  I think that it is a problem church wide that members think that our 55 thousand missionaries are just going to go out and do the work, and we will sit back and watch.  It is a joint respionsibility that we all share, and a lot of times members just don't understand that.  So my frustrations this week reached an all time high in that regards.  And it was also a week of the highest highs in these regards.  I had the chance to have my personal interview with President Weston on Tuesday afternoon.  We had a very nice talk together, and I told him of the many frustrations that I have with the Wards that I am serving in, and he told me that I need to remember the lessons that I have learned out here on my mission for a future time when I will be a Bishop.  I felt like telling him that he should not put that evil on me, but I let it slide anyways.  He also is always so positive and builds me up, he always tells me how good of a job I am doing here in Antelope, even though I have my weaknesses.  I am grateful for the things that he does for me.  I love him and I sustain him in every thing that he asks me to do.  We also this week had our zone leader council on friday.  I found out that we once again in August are having a member from the Quorum of the Seventy coming to tour our mission, I know that the Lord is very mindful of me because when President Weston announced who was coming my eyes welled up with tears.  Elder Craig A. Cardon of the first quorum of the Seventy will be coming to the mission on the August 22nd.  I am very excited to meet your mission president Dad.  I will wear your nametag that I still have in honor of you Father. 

 

I love my mission, and I am so grateful for the many blessings that I have received.  The Lord blesses me and sustains me, and carries me through even the hard times, and I rejoice through the good times.  I am so grateful that I am out here on my mission.

 

So I have decided and am going to attend college at the University of Utah Valley.  I hope that that is okay with you guys.  I will be applying to it in the next few weeks, and will let you know how it goes.  Also I got those pills on Saturday thanks for the refills!

 

With much love,

Elder Nick Ellsworth

Only a partial letter......

Dear Family and Friends,

 

I just finished one of the most stressful weeks of my entire life.  It was a doozy.  We had an amazing week planned, especially because the week before we were working our buts off, and we got a lot of things done.  So we were looking forward to a good one, little did we know what this week was going to be like. 

We started off Tuesday was a great day.  We had Elder Barney with us, so it was not super productive, when we have Elder Barney we can't go tracting, or about our normal activities, so we really just got to our appointments.  I always love being with Elder Barney because he really invites the Spirit, but it is very tiring having him with us, because into every house we visit, we have to help him every step of the way.  He has Serebral Palsy, so he can't walk on his own, he has a walker that he can get around in pretty well though.  He also is very smart, he is really all there upstairs, but he does not speak very fast.  But he can crack jokes just like anybody else can.  What a great day it was on Tuesday life was good.  We even set  a baptisimal date Mark Andrews for the end of July, so we look forward to that date with anticipation. 

Tuesday evening things got interesting.  We got a call from President Weston on Tuesday afternoon asking us what time we could be home, and help him out.  There was a companionship in our zone, that needed to be split up, and they needed to both stay over at our apartment.  It was a very stressful situation.

 

Hey I am not going to be able to finish this email. so I will write you a letter and send it this evening!