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!

Elder Simons is the worst companion ever!

Dear Family and Friends,

 

Well things are going really well!  I am so grateful to be here, and for this service that I have been able to do.  I want to have more, but I get scared every time I think about how long I have been out, and just how short it really seems!  I don't want this to be over!  So I will make every second count while I am still here!  I love this work, I love serving the Lord, and how good I feel as I do so.  I love trying to be better and to improve.  I love it when I make progress, and something makes it through my thick skull, and I am disappointed when I make stupid mistakes, and bad choices.  I am ready and willing to improve.  I am also very grateful for new challenges and oppurtunities.  I was just kidding with the heading of this email, because I love Elder Simons.  I think he is going to be one of my very favorite companions.  He is just like me.  We both love sports, we love to work hard, and we love to be obedient.  I am so excited for this time that I get to serve with him, I hope that it lasts for a while!

 

This first week we have hit the ground running, and we had an absolute killer week.  We didn't get to the Mission Standard for member present lessons, but everything else was very good.  I am excited to work hard and find a lot of success in these next few week with him.  Elder Simons is from Draper Utah, and he has been out for 13 months now, so I am 4 transfers older than he is, and excited to be with him.  In other good news, we got a truck this week.  I mangaed to talk the mission car coordinator into giving us a truck , so today we traded in our Malibu and got a silver Silverado, just like the past two I have driven.  I am excited, it should be a whole lot of fun.

 

 The work is progressing well in both of our wards, things aren't as good as they could or should be, but I hope to be able to improve that.  I have been pretty frustrated with the work this week though.  Just for the fact that I don't feel like we have the ward support behind us in either of the wards that we serve in.  There is a lot of good people, but they are just not that helpful, or willing to do things, or fellowship.  It is pretty tough to get members to teach lessons with us, and other things are frustrating me as well, but I know that the Lord will bless me for patience.  We were asked to speak this past week in our Family Ward, so I have been speaking in church a lot recently, but that is a good thing.  I spoke about missionary work, and how members can be involved, who knows, maybe it inspired somebody to change.

 

I want to tell you about a couple of good experiences I had this week.  One we were walking through and apartment complex to go and see a former investigator, and all of the sudden this girl drove by in her car.  She looked like she wanted to say something to us, but she just kept driving.  We kept walking, and suddenly she stopped backed up and called us over to her car.  She asked us what the "good word" was and we were excited to tell her.  Hopefully this week we will be able to starte teaching Precious regularly.  Second we went to contact this former investigator named Hugh.  We stopped across the street, and walked over to Hugh's door.  A dog was barking inside the fence, so we didn't want to go in.  But Hugh came out and talked with us.  Not the Hugh we were looking for, but his father.  He was so nice, we gave him a Book of Mormon, and testified of it's truthfulness.  He told us if there were any church that he would join it would be ours.  He also said that there was a void in his life that he doesn't know how to fill.  Something is missing!  I know that Hugh is searching for this Gospel.  We meet with him again this upcoming week.  I am excited.  Also in a lesson with Marez, we have reset a baptism date with him.  We hope that he  can be baptized on July 14th. 

 

Well I am tired, and need to go.  We have more mountains to climb before this day is through.

With Love

Elder Ellsworth

Transfers are so short

Dear Family and Friends,

It always amazes me how quickly a transfer comes to pass.  It is so crazy because I feel like it goes week 1..2..6 and then it is on to new challenges.  So this week has been absolutely crazy.  President Weston has really changed how things have worked in the past with the outgoing missionaries, but now it is a whole week affair.  So on Tuesday afternoon Elder Grover had his departing interview, holy cow if there is a way to distract a missionary for his last week, I think that his might do the trick.  On Tuesday it was good though because we had Elder Barney with us, so it was a great day.  On Wednesday we were on exchanges with the AP's.  I was with Elder Rockwood, who is simply a beast mode missionary.  He is awesome, and we had a lot of success, and fun while we were together.  Thursday President Weston took all of the outgoing missionaries for a temple trip together.  So I got to see a bunch of my old buddies there.  That was a chunk of our day gone in a flash!  The rest of the day on Thursday went very well.  We were able to teach a lot of lessons that day, and we met a nice Philipino man who said that we could come back this upcoming Sunday so hopefully good things pan out there.  This Friday was also strange.  There was a south mission leadership meeting.  Because Elder Grover was going home a few days afterward, even though he is a zone leader, he was not invited, so I was with both of our District Leaders in a trio for the day.  Finally on Saturday we had a normal day to proselyte together.  It was such a nice relief to have.  I am so grateful for the many lessons and things I have learned by serving with this Gentle Giant.  He has taught me a lot, and is such a good missionary.  Plus I promised him that when he comes to school in Utah, and that he can date and marry my sister, so we will see him again!

Today was craziest day of my life.  So we have the missionaries that are going home stay with us the night before they go home, well that was last night.  So we had ten people staying over.  Naturally we didn't get to bed until 1 in the morning.  Well the problem this time is that because my companion was going home with them, I had to go to the airport with them and the AP's to escort.  Their flights started leaving at 6 am and we had to be there at 5 am so I had to wake up at 2:30 am to shower, and go back to bed until they were ready.  So I am very tired today.  It was way trippy to go back to airport I haven't seen in 18 months.  It was way weird.  I also felt special kicking it with Elders Rockwood and Norwood.  Today I get Elder Simons around 2 pm so I am way excited to start this next chapter of my mission.  We are going to work hard and be exactly obedient.  It will be awesome!

I luv yo gutz!

Elder Ellsworth

P. S. I got a letter from the Ellsworth Grandparents yestzzz

I'm emailing you on Monday! Shazam!

Dear Family and Friends,

Well it is pretty crazy how fast time flies, because this upcoming week is week six again.  It feels like I got transferred to Antelope like only two days ago.  I can't believe how fast it is going.  Elder Grover goes home at the end of this week, so we got to work our butts off to make his mission finish strong.  He is BEAST-MODE.  He puts up with my teasing and I love him a lot.  It is going to be hard, and I hope it doesn't make me trunky when I send him home.  He leaves next Tuesday at like 4 o’clock in the morning.  I’m not getting up to see him off.  I need my beauty sleep.  So I know for a fact that I will be getting a new companion.  This is a first on my mission.

Things are going well in our area.  I am very grateful that we have been able to find so much success.  We are hoping to pick up a trio of investigators from our YSA ward but we will see how it goes this week.  Our family ward is still going very well.  We have a lot of work right now, so it is pretty exciting.  I hope to be able to keep it up this next week.  We don't have anybody that is super close to baptism at this point but we have a bunch of investigators that I think will be baptized in the future.  Dorothy is in her 70's.  She is a black lady who grew up in Ogden Utah.  She is madly in love with Elder Grover.  We talked this week about temple work for the dead, and she said she wanted her ancestor’s work to be done.  I bet she will be baptized at some point.  Gary and Kay are still doing well.  They haven't read yet, or attended Church, but are still trying to get settled into their new home, so it is understandable.  They are great, and they love us missionaries, they fed us some dinner after a lesson this week, after we left we drove to our signed up dinner and had dinner again.  It was fun.  Mark Andrews is married to an active member of the Church.  They are going through marital problems, and Mark wants to meet because of it.  But he is doing good.  He does not have any Christian background so pretty much everything that we teach is brand new to him, and he likes to ask us about the Cavemen and how they fit in with Adam and Eve, but it is okay.  He finally came to church this week, so hopefully he keeps on progressing.  We also are meeting with Marez again.  We were asked to stop for a week or two by our bishop in the YSA ward, but he is okay with us meeting with a couple of restrictions.  So we had a lesson with Marez yesterday and he is doing good.  He said the opening prayer, and asked God to help him to know, he even said that he can go home after and pray and ask God if the things we were going to teach him were true.  It was really touching and I think he is starting to get it—even though he is a little rough around the edges.

I can hardly believe that my 21st birthday is tomorrow.  I am excited, but not really.  I will go out and have a good hardworking day and that will be my present to myself.  Plus we have Elder Barney with us tomorrow, so it will be a good day.  Well, it is time to go.  I get to email this morning because we are having car troubles again and at the same dealership for the same problem!  yay

I love yalls gutz!

Elder Nick Ellsworth

CRM

Arrgh!

This is my third attempt to email you and I am getting tired of trying so it will be very short and to the point.

This week was good, I was able to work hard with Elder Grover, and to be blessed and find a bunch of new people to teach.  We actually found 6 New Investigators.  All of which were through our own efforts.  We look forward to help these great people to come unto Christ.

I did get a chance yesterday to see the Transit of Venus.  It was just a spec on the sun from what I saw but it was cool.  I wish I would have had those glasses just like two weeks before they would have been cool to watch the Eclipse in!  Oh well. 

Cool story, so last week on Sunday our Singles Ward did a "Break the Fast" dinner.  So after church we had a spaghetti dinner.  I was talking to the boyfriend of one of the sisters in the ward (he is from south Sac area) and we started talking about missions.  Through our talks I found out that he not only served in the same mission as Spencer Harris, they were MTC companions and later Zone Leaders together!  It was awesome to talk about a friend that I have not seen in 2.5 years now!  Apparently Spencer was a stud muffin in his mission and was an AP for a few transfers!

There are a million more things I could talk about for last week, but I really am not in the mood.  I love you guys, and hope you have a good one.

Love, 

Elder Ellsworth