El letter.....

Life is has been hard during the past little while.  With sickness and sleep deprivation, lost papers and exchanges.  But the world is looking to be one the UP side!  

I feel that we have been getting less contacts, but the ones we do get feel far more worthwhile, more solid contacts.  I met this lady who lives in Evanston, Wyoming, and whose sister has cancer in the area, we had an amazing conversation and got talking about the impending snow shoveling to be done.  We are invited to come do all the shoveling we want!!

We also helped the local Catholic Nuns put on a food bank and helped them out! The Catholics and The Mormons teamed up to save the world!!  We helped back to back days and put in hours with two different companions.  The first day was with Elder Pooley my comp, and the second was with Elder Kelly on exchanges.  It was funny when they all of a second didn't recognize one of us.

Spending time out here is certainly an eye opener to the possibilities for my life.  I have a more sure plan of what I want to do and how I want My Life to go.  I thank the Lord so much for both the challenges and the blessings he gives me.

Elder Ellsworth

Conference Weekend

WOW!! This conference has been so amazing!  So many amazing talks from the seventies and also the apostles!! Elder Hollands talk during the Saturdayymorning session was AMAZING, about the sermon on the mound!  It was so funny and shined a light on something I didn't know much about.

 "The final commandment in the chain is sure to do the job, 'be ye there perfect, even as your Father in Heaven' with that concluding imperative, we want to go back to bed and pull the covers over our head" 

I always enjoy Elder Hollands talks as he makes me laugh while also making me feel insufficient. :P 

Another talk that I feel so much had an impact, was Elder Anderson, he had an amazing talk on Conference Talks, a bit meta.  But the final message at the end where he read a few lines from the words that Elder Hales prepared.  I could feel the spirit and emotions coming from him as he remembered and honored a dear friend who had passed away not even 5 hours prior.  The love each of the apostles feels for the others is so amazing and to have the strength to give a conference talk even while mourning is simply so beautiful to me.

The last talk I want to point out for this email was Elder Richard J. Maynes of the seventy, he talked in the priesthood session.  The story of his fathers business and the refusal to accept bribery was so amazing to me.  I felt the spirit speak to me specifically when he said the words "Listen Rick, once you take a bribe, or compromise your integrity, it is very difficult to ever get it back. Don't ever do it.  Not even once."  This stood out to me so greatly and I was so impressed by the message of integrity that it represented.

A quick update on WW,  not much has changed recently and we are still just working with out RC,  we also started teaching the Allyssa and her son, Kaelin, the lessons again even though they are recent converts that don't remember much from the first time around.  Also here are some dope photos in the next email I'll send.

Elder Ellsworth

The long lost missing email......

Well this has been quite the interesting week.  I ate Escargo with Thierry, who is an amazing cook, but I'm not the biggest fan...  I think my family would so proud of me! There has yet to be something placed in front of me that I haven't ate, although there have been plenty of things I haven't taken seconds from. :)

The most awkward dinner I have ever ate happened this week as well.  We were eating tacos with some members.  Their dog is blind in both eyes and had an eye infection in one eye.  During the course of dinner, one the teens took off the cone of shame so the dog could drink.  Because the eye was irritating it tried scratching to resolve the pain and ended up ripping it's own eye open.  It started crying out in pain as it's fluids in the eye leaked out.  All of the children started crying and freaking out in different ways and the Dad told us to keep eating the tacos while the bleeding dog continued to howl in pain... my appetite had left the house when I saw what had happened, but I had to keep eating in silence has the family lost it.  

Elder Pooley also found out he isn't allergic to peanuts that night and his favorite candy is Reese's.  So it wasn't all bad!?

Being a missionary up here in the mountains is AWESOME even with the jacket weather.  The mornings are around here are freezing.  Most mornings are 30 degrees and don't get better til the sun wakes up!  So the thermostat is working and the windows are all closed.  Tracting nowadays are different because I'm no longer sweating from walking around, now we wear big jackets!  The work that we do has shifted a great deal to working with less actives, the Bishop gave us a great deal to do and we are struggling to get in contact with those people.  We do our best but fall short sometimes.  I hope to do better and do the work the Lord has assigned me!  

Elder Ellsworth 

PS... I tried to send this last week but a video corrupted it and didn't send, sorry...

Life in WW

The Mountains got COLD!! this week.  It got so cold so quick that I have been a little sick ever since.  It hit out of nowhere and even with all my blankets I'm still cold.  What the heck, this is supposed to be SoCal.  Somewhere it doesn't get cold in the middle of September.

Anyways, so Wrightwood has become an interesting place recently. The temperature dropped suddenly with no warning and I started living like it's winter.  The world is different right now, with no investigators and cold nights, it feels like a different area.  My experience here in California as a missionary has been very slow this week.  Not a single door opened to us as we tracted, and all the people we street contacted have outright rejected our message.  It is very discouraging to be here at the moment, but I will stand tall even with all the down times.  The high moments are settling and now we just have the grunt work ahead of us.  I went on a few different exchanges the past two weeks and was able to experience some hilarious moments with Elder Richins and Elder Sutherland.  Elder Sutherland is one of the Phelan members and we had a blast the other day.  We had no food ready to eat so we made all our own.  He made Pepper Jack Chicken BBQ sauce wraps.  And I made tortilla chips by frying corn tortillas.  No oils burns were had, or at least serious ones (sorry mom)  And exchanges with Elder Richins were crazy because we went tracting out in the desert and met a lady who belonged to "The Church of What's Happenin Now".  She told us that "whatever makes us happiness, is what needs doin".  She was for sure a missionary story.  

Missionary work is changing me for the better!  My favorite book right now is Jesus the Christ.  Every chapter blows my mind!  Learning more is what life is all about right? anyways thats' all for now

Elder Ellsworth