Dear Family and Friends,
Hurrah for Israel!!! I am so grateful for this work of
the restored Gospel! In case you were wondering I am ecstatic for the
announcement that Missionary ages have been lowered for both the Elders and the
Sister serving in the army of God! Hurrah for Israel! I am so
grateful for the opportunity especially that it will give to the young women of
the Church to serve God in this regard. What an amazing chance it is we
have. I would urge everyone who reads this to prayerfully consider the
reason why Heavenly Father has allowed this to happen. This work needs to
progress faster, more rapidly and more widespread than it currently is.
He needs us to serve and he is making it possible for more and more of his
children even now. How I wish that this would have been an option for me
when I was 18. I don't know that I would have responded and taken
advantage of that blessing, but it hope that I would have. Serving the
Lord is the greatest blessing that I have ever undertaken in my lifetime.
This Gospel has blessed me so very much and I know that when we spread it
everyone involved will feel God's love and sustaining hand! I love this
work and am grateful to be here in Citrus Heights California right now!
What a ride these past months have been!
Well enough about that I simply and amazingly enjoyed
General Conference. I especially love every talk that speaks about missionary
work because that is the job I am now called to do. Except for Elder
Nelson's talk—he really put a lot of responsibility on us!! It was an
amazing spiritual feast that I was glad to be a part of. The beginning of
this week was really a tough one. We had a lot of disappointment in our
work, and even a few people that are avoiding us now who we were excited to
work with, but these past two days have blessed my life so much as to fill the
void that I was feeling, and now I am overflowing with gratitude for the
Miracles that are happening. Yesterday after Conference we went and had a
lesson with Steve and Chantelle, one of the young families that we are
currently teaching. Our lessons was filled with the Spirit as we taught
about the Prophet Joseph Smith and answered there questions. At the end
of our lesson we invited them to be baptized as they came to know these things
were true. They both agreed heartily that they would. They also
promised us that they would read by our next lesson. At the close of the
lesson Steve said a simply amazing prayer asking the Lord to guide them to
where they should be! What a blessing. In the evening we met with
Randy helping him to be ready for his Baptism Interview and Baptism both coming
up this week. He is just ready to be a member. After Priesthood
conference he is ready and excited to hold the Priesthood as well! In the
evening last night we got a call from Bishop Weight, who by the way is simply
an amazing man. He informed us that he had met with a Family of four
yesterday who is ready to receive the missionary lessons! There is a husband
and wife, and two teenage sons who were all given copies of the Book of Mormon
as well as a chapel tour and invited to meet us! I was jumping up and
down as Bishop was telling us and I am so grateful that he did. We are
hoping to teach them this week, we will let you know how it goes. By the
way they met the Bishop through the Recent Convert Melody Jacobs! She is
a jewel! What a great example to me! Two more miracles now!
Yesterday we also met a lady named Wanda. Her daughter is a member of
just two years, and she has seen the difference in her daughter. Wanda
was taking the discussions from the missionaries in New England before she
moved, and just this week moved into our Ward Boundaries to live with her
daughter. We are excited to start working with her as well. Finally,
our last miracle, Melody Jacobs has an 11-year-old son with high functioning autism.
He has a desire to be baptized so we have just been waiting for his dad to sign
a permission form for him to be baptized. This morning before our studies
Melody texted us and informed us that his dad has signed the form, and she
wants him to be baptized on the 17th of November! Things are going crazy
here in Tempo Park, and Elder Ashby and I have set a goal to have 10 baptisms
together by December! We are praying like crazy for the strength to
accomplish this goal and if everything works out we just might achieve
it! The Gospel is true and I love it!
Elder Ellsworth
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