I am really running out of clever comments to put as the Subject...

To the Fam,

Well I have a great love for Elder Ashby.  He is a great guy and I have really appreciated him.  He is very teachable and willing to learn.  I think that he truly just wants to be a good missionary.  I hope that we can continue to see the great success that we currently are being blessed with—things are just going amazing in our area.  This week was filled with miracles as well.  Going into the week we had three young families that we were hoping to be able to start teaching.  And lone and behold we were able to pick one of them up and have a pair of lessons this week.  Their names are Jaime and Stephanie.  So Jaime is Columbian and Stephanie is American.  Together they have two beautiful young girls and Stephanie's niece lives with them also.  We had spoken with them a few times before and this week we had a lesson set up with them on Wednesday evening.  But I kind of figured it would just be blown off by them.  I didn't have a whole lot of faith as we were biking over there.  I honestly almost just decided not to go, but thought that we should give them a chance.  When we knocked on the door, Jaime invited us right in and we sat down for a lesson.  It went well and we were invited back for another lesson on Sunday.  So yesterday we had a member with us named Ryan who was amazing.  We taught the Restoration, but it didn't go as well as I would have hoped.  Ryan really picked up the slack for us and it was great.  At the end we invited them to prepare to be baptized and they accepted a date for the 3rd of November to prepare for.  It should be great to teach them.  We also still have two young families that we are hoping to teach starting this week, and I will let you know how it goes.

Unfortunately Ken who I told you about last week isn't meeting with us for the time being.  He got really overwhelmed when we tried to help him quit smoking and he doesn't really want to meet.  I feel bad but I don't know that I would do anything differently if I could go back.  He has his agency.  He is a nice guy and his son who is a member spoke with us and we asked Ken's son to speak with Ken and ask him to continue to meet with us.  I think Ken will when he is ready next time we will take things slow.  Randy is also doing really well.  We have had to push his baptism date back two weeks because he wasn't attending church as much as he should have but he is still looking forward to that day on October 12th.  We will continue to work with him and help him prepare for that day.  The children Derek and Grace are also doing well.  Grace wasn't at church—but that is okay—we will keep encouraging her.  She really does want to come unto Christ through baptism so there shouldn't be any problems with the 20th.  Derek will probably be baptized on the 20th as well.  So we will be very blessed in the month of October. 

Well things are good.  I find that going through the 12-week training program with Elder Ashby is turning out to be hard.  It is really impossible to not know how much time I have left when I am going through a program that keeps track of weeks!  So I am trying hard not to focus on how much time I have left out here.  But honestly, it is pretty hard a lot of the time.  I am not trunky, but I do think about it daily.  Finally in other news we found out this week that we will be moving in the next two weeks to a nicer place, but without the Zone Leaders.  It should be good though, and I am not worried about it.  It is a big distraction to be living with other Elders that is for sure.

Well I love you guys bunches,
 Elder Ellsworth

I love everything!!!

Dear Family and Friends

Life is good in the California Roseville Mission.  Things have been crazy these past few weeks, but I look forward to the assumption that it will start to calm down now.  This past week has been a roller coaster, and I want to get off now, and enjoy the view!  Well I will tell you a bit about my week.  So shortly after emailing you guys last Monday, we went home, and Elder Van Leuven got trunky and packed up his bags, so that we could drive him to the mission office, and see him off.  I was sad to see him go, we had a lot of fun together, and got a lot done at the same time, so it was good.  That evening I hung out with my roomates/ zone leaders Elder Netane, and Elder Arnett.  Elder Arnett was transferred as well so Tuesday night we spent some time for him to pack up his bags, and get ready to go.  In the evening we went and made some visits and taught a few lessons as well.  Wednesday things got crazier.  In the morning, I had to be back in Antelope for some meetings starting at nine.  So when I got there all of the trainees were there, as well as a whole group of trainers.  So there was 18 Trainees, and 18 trainers at this meeting, it was a huge group.  We met with President and he pumped us up to train, and challenged us all to be super obedient, and work really hard.  Then we met back together again, and we were assigned our new companions.  I was the very first missionary called to the front.  Soon after me Elder Ashby from Pocatello Idaho was assigned to serve with me!  I was so excited because he just looked like a stud.  As we talked and got to know each other a bit, I liked him even more. 

For Elder Ashby's first week we had a lot of success.  We already had 2 baptism dates set, and by Sunday night we had an additional two more set.  It was awesome, Thursday afternoon, Elder Ashby committed our Investigator Ken Prince to baptism which was awesome, and things are just going great.  We have had a bunch of meetings we have attended. so we have not had as much time as I would like to tract and stuff, but the few times that we have he has been a natural at it, and really just friendly.  He is not super self-confident in sharing the Gospel, but who is when they first come out on their missions.  I look forward to being able to learn and grow here in Tempo Park with Elder Ashby.

Saturday was a very special day for me.  Dorothy McDonald whom I taught over in Antelope was baptized Saturday morning.  I don't know if I told you this, but Elder Grover and I found Dorothy while tracting!  She asked Elder Simons and me to both be in the font with her for her baptism, and we were happy to oblige.  It is always so sweet to be able to see such faith, especially because her family tried to stop her from joining the Church.  One of the speakers who is a great friend of Dorothy, promised her that if she made and kept these Baptism Covenants, that there would come a day when her Children, as well as her ancestors would call her blessed for it.  There was power and the confirming witness of the Spirit in those words, and I hope that it comes sooner rather than later.  The baptism also pumped up Elder Ashby, and when I sat back down after getting dressed, he leaned over and told me that we were going to have one soon.  Oh yes we are!  Also at the Baptism was a lady whom I am not sure of her name.  My last week in Antelope however while tracting with Elder Simons we knocked on her door as well.  Now she has a date to be baptized!  It really strengthened my testimony that tracting works, and we can find people doing it!  It was a sweet day, a tender mercy of the Lord.

Things are good life is good, this church is true, and this Gospel can't be beat!  Because the Lord is with us nobody can stand against us.

With all the love that I possess. 

Elder Ellsworth

Why is September slipping away like this?!

Dear Family

Transfers are in, in the California Roseville Mission. Drumroll please: Elder Nicholas Ellsworth will be a Trainer, as well as a District Leader for the upcoming Transfer.  Obviously I didn't do a good enough job the first time around as one, so they needed me to learn a few more lessons while giving it a second go.  Honestly though, I kind of suspected that I was going to be both of these since our current District Leader had been here a while and was getting ready to take off to a new area.  Also Elder Van Leuven and I get along pretty good but I will be sad to see him go.  However we have some plans to go and hike down to Havasupai next summer so that will be a blast!  

So what else is new?  These past few weeks I have been having a lot of trouble with my stuff.  For example, my tire for my bicycle—I had yet another flat, and when I peeled it off of the rim for the last time, I stripped it clean, away from the bead, so It wasn't even fixable, so I spent 60 bucks at the bike shop to go and get it replaced.  Saturday night as we were riding home all of the sudden my bike seat snapped off of the post, and when I went to explore why I almost died.  The bolt that held it onto the post had snapped in half.  So I rode home standing up the whole way.  And then also on Saturday I discovered a hole in the side of my second pair of shoes, this time not in the sole of them, but a rip down the side of the leather right next to the sole.  So that was fun.  So my seat post I am going to have to replace, I fixed it for now, but I will need a real fix soon, but it is going to cost me like 40 bucks at least.  I want to buy a good one if I end up replacing it!  Finally as I was playing Pday basketball an unnamed Elder (whom I have been serving with for the past two weeks) punched me in the face on accident and it chipped my tooth!  This week has been awesome!!!  Don’t worry—I am in good spirits and I will call and check up on my tooth. 

Thanks for getting me the new shoes; I am going to need them with the rainy season coming up.  I look forward to the challenges that lie ahead of me, and I hope to be a great trainer for my new companion.  He is going to be a stud I bet.

Love ya,
Elder Ellsworth

Labor Day!

Hello Family and Friends,

Well this week was crazy.  On Tuesday morning I was assigned to serve with a new companion for the next couple of weeks named Elder Van Leuven.  He is a great missionary.  We served around each other many months ago up when I was serving in Mount Shasta he was in the Redding 2nd Ward.  For six months we knew each other, and then I left and we have only seen each other a few times since.  Elder Van Leuven was a zone leader until this last transfer when he dropped for the remainder of his mission.  It is going to be fun to serve with him, but it will be short lived because he goes home on the 11th of this month!  That is when transfers are, so I will be once again getting a new companion.  This time I have been informed that I will be training a new missionary.  So for my final two transfers I will be here with him hopefully.  Holy cow time has been going fast though.  It really just seems like yesterday is when I left Redding Zone on to new adventures, and now we have been reunited for now.  

In other news the work is going really well.  We have a couple of investigators that we have set baptism dates with and several more that are getting close.  The soonest baptism that I will be participating in is the baptism of Dorothy.  I taught her back in Antelope and she is getting baptized on the 15th.  She has requested that both Elder Simons and I be in the font with her, which will be awesome.  I look forward to that one.  Two weeks later on the 29th we have a man named Randy being baptized.  This week was our first lesson with him and he is really ready to accept the gospel.  He has already read the entire Book of Mormon and believes that it is the word of God.  He was being taught by our zone leaders and now we will be able to see him baptized soon.  Also we still have a baptism date with the 9-year old girl named Grace.  She wasn't at church because her Dad was sick, so we will catch up with them next Saturday.  Also coming up very soon is the baptism of Derek.  He is also 9 years old and his parents really want him baptized as soon as possible.  We are going to work with them, and see what our options are.  They had this Thursday in mind but I’m thinking a little bit different than that, possibly the 15th or 22nd.  So I really am hoping that with all of this success coming up my new missionary companion can get really excited about missionary work.  This will be much different than the area that I started in because when I first arrived in the mission as a new missionary, Cottonwood was dead!  I look forward to the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in this work!

Well I also wanted to tell you about a sweet lesson that we had yesterday afternoon.  We have an investigator named Sean.  He has been meeting with the Elders here for about 5 months.  He is willing to meet with us, but his wife has never been very supportive and has never sat in a lesson with either.  But she is okay with him doing so.  So last Sunday in our lesson, at the end we offered Monica (Sean's wife) a copy of the Book of Mormon and she accepted it.  This week as we were sitting down to teach the lesson on the Restoration; Sean called Monica into the room right before we started talking about the Church that Christ set up upon the Earth.  She didn't look enthused but she came in and sat down and listened.  The Spirit was very strong, especially when we spoke about the First Vision.  I loved that lesson.  Near the end I told them how grateful I was to be in their home, and testified that I had felt the Spirit and its peaceful presence while we were talking.  I asked if they had felt it too and they both said they did.  I explained how the Spirit testified of Truth, and that is the same way in which God is going to answer their prayers about the Book of Mormon.  It was awesome.  At the end we asked that if they came to know that these things were true, would they follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding his authority, and Sean told us yes he would.  And Monica also nodded her head.  It was an amazing lesson, and next Sunday when we meet we will try and set a baptism date with them!

Something that happened on Sunday that absolutely inspired me was when our recent convert Melody, got up in church and bore her testimony of all the great things that she is going through right now.  She spoke about how she is happier now than she has been in a long time.  She also read a scripture from the Book of Mormon that really spoke to her when she read it.  It was in the Book of Mormon in the Book of Mosiah.  It is Mosiah 4:20 and she said that as she was reading it the Spirit spoke to her and she was touched by it.  It was awesome to hear her bear her testimony.  It pumped me up to be a good missionary.  It was a very rewarding experience.

Life is good while serving the Lord.  I love this work, and am excited to be here and that the work is progressing so well.  I look forward to the following weeks, and months!  

I love you all very much, 

Elder Ellsworth