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

Life, life is good!

Dear Family and Friends,

Things have been pretty crazy here in California.  This past week has been an absolute blur!  I can't believe how fast this week has seemed to slip away from me.  I am grateful that it has gone fast, but it is a little scary to think that I have now been here in Antelope for two whole months!  Not only that transfers are coming up again pretty fast, this is week four allready!  I don't want it to go too fast because I love my time out here serving the Lord.  It will be interesting for me this transfers to see my companion go home.  Especially because he will spend his last night with me here!  It will be pretty odd.  I am really excited for him, but it makes me think about going home a little bit too much, I still have four more transfers to finish strong with after he leaves, so I will keep my head in the game and work hard.  

I have had a bit of a struggle week.  I love Elder Grover, but he has some quirks that drive me crazy, and this week they seemed to be  very prevelant in our lives.  Multiple times we had talks and at the end of them we both walked away frustrated, but all is worked out now, and things are good.  This past week I got my first taste of the Spanish life.  I went on exchanges with our Spanish District Leader Elder Correa.  He is a good kid.  He has only been out for three months and he has a great fire for this work.  It was a cool time for me, and the dinner we ate was awesome, they were like these carne esada hamburgers, with melted cheese and all of the good stuff.  Isaac will be very jealous of them.  It was cool to have a taste of his mission out here.  Elder Grover and I also had Elder Barney with us one day this week.  Elder Barney is a missionary that has some physical handicaps, he still wanted to serve a mission so he was called to a unique one.  He goes out with the missionaries around the south of the mission every day.  His home is in Lincoln, so he lives with his family who take him around to different companionships to allow him to sere the Lord.  He has such a strong testimony, and he is a hoot to be around.  We also were able to pick up an New Investigator from tracting this week.  Her name is Porsha.  She is a young mother, and was willing to accept a copy of the Book of Mormon, and a return appointment for the next day.  When we went back we had a nice lesson on her front lawn and talked about the Book, and how it testifies of Jesus Christ.  It was a great expirience.  We also have a couple named Gary and Kay we are hoping to pick up this week sometime.  We helped them two weeks ago to paint their new house, and last week to move in.  They are looking for a new church because they don't like theirs.  They are older and are both in power chairs, so it is going to be awesome.  Gary weighs over 400 pounds so he will a beast to baptize, but we can handle it!  Life is good.  I am looking forward to another great week, it will be busy!  We have zone conference on Wednesday, then Zone Leader Council on Friday, as well as we need to do our transfer inputs on friday as well.  We will be running around like crazy, but I like it that way!

I am grateful for my mission, I am so grateful for the lessons I have learned during the course of my service.  I have grown so much.  Something that I am working on personally right now is changing the reason I do things.  I am trying to be an obedient missionary, but I don't know if it is for the right reason.  I want to be obedient from now on because I love my Father in Heaven, and my family, current and future.  I want to work hard because I love my neighbor, and want them to expirience greater joy in their life.  I try to do the right things, but what is the motivation behind my actions?  I want to purify my heart and do it for the Lord, and not for anything else.  I love you guys and thanks a bunch for all that you do!  

Almost forgot, Elder Grover and I also gave talks in the Singles Ward on Sunday, once again I was missing Mom and Dad because they need to write those for me.  Don't worry though my homecoming talk will be another chance for you guys to serve me by writing it for me!  haha

With Love,

Elder Ellsworth

Things are looking up in the Antelope Zone!

Dear Family and Friends,

I struggled quite a bit this past week.  I don't know what it is, but I really didn't have the desire to get out and work for a couple of days.  We still were able to have a successful week, but I just wasn't super focused on the Lord's work for a bit.  But on Sunday we were able to figure it out.  I think the real thing that makes me feel like a missionary is getting out and working.  So days when it takes us a while to get out and do some real work, it is hard for me to focus!  So I am looking forward this week to being able to get out and work my tail off.  

We had a disappointing week in terms of investigators.  We did meet one awesome couple, and picked up another investigator.  But we also were asked by our bishop in the YSA Ward to drop Marez, even though he wants to be baptized.  I am really disappointed about that, but we need to support and sustain him, and the bishop does have his reasons.  We had a good meeting on Sunday when once a month we go with the mission presidency and report on the work stake wide.  Things are looking up, and we have a good group of missionaries that are willing to work hard.  I do have one upsetting set though.  It was the missionary that last transfer was released as a district leader because he wouldn't follow the rules.  He is being a pain this transfer.  He is trying to not be a part of this zone because he dislikes me.  Oh well, I will just love him anyway.  Also we had an exciting weekend.  Friday night we got home, and our power was out.  Not any of our neighbors, but just us.  Turns out our Power bill had not been paid so the company turned it off.  And they didn't turn it back on until Monday.  So we stayed over at the Spanish missionaries’ apartment all weekend.  Now we have moved back home yesterday so that is going good.  

So this new family I talked about is awesome.  We met them because President Weston requested that we go help a lady with some service in our area.  She needed help painting this house.  We did not really know why she did.  But we went and did anyways.  So this new couple is moving from South Sacramento to Antelope, and they are both interested in finding a church which is right for them.  As we were painting Gary and Kay were talking with us (we had the Spanish elders with us as well) so we had Elder Edwards and myself painting and teaching Kay on one side of the room, and Elder Grover, and Elder Correa on the other side teaching Gary!  It was great.  We haven't picked them up yet, but we are looking forward to teaching them this upcoming week, while we help them move in tomorrow.  Things are really looking up in the Antelope Zone!  Thanks a bunch for everything.

With Much Love, 

Elder Ellsworth

Transfers continue to fly by.......

Dear Family and Friends,

Well things are going well still, and I am trying my best to work hard and be obedient.  This past week has been one of the craziest of my entire mission.  We have been running around like crazy, I have been a bit sore, and things are going good in our areas.  So I will do my very best to put into words what is happening in my life.  So we have had a problem companionship in our zone.  I love and respect both of them, but they just can't love and respect each other!  So they had a big problem last Friday morning, and almost got into a fist fight as a result.  So we had to split them up like I told you.  Well because of that President did not feel that they should be left together for the time being, so Elder Grover, and myself were left to the task of splitting those bone-heads up this week.  We went on three exchanges with them, as well as one with the Spanish Elders.  So the only days that Elder Grover, and I were even together were Monday Wednesday and Sunday.  It was a crazy week.  

Elder Grover got the shaft because on every exchange he left the area.  So I was home all week.  Which was good because I would not have wanted to ride a bike with my shoulder like it is, sore.  I think that we still had a pretty successful week though.  WE were able to stay busy, knock a lot of doors, and set up a lot of return appointments.  In the end last week we taught around 17 lessons.  It was a lot of fun and very successful.  I grew to love these Elders.  Each one has his own strengths, and I may not love everything that they do, but they are good kids, and have great desires.  I went on exchanges with Elder Frei for two days this week, he is a convert of just over a year!  I got a lot of respect for him when I learned that his family practically disowned him when he converted from Catholocism.  They were even less thrilled about him coming out here on his mission.  He has sacrificed a lot to be here.  I am grateful for his wonderful example to me.  

Our Investigators are doing well.  Nobody is doing super great.  The dates that we set with Marez and AJ are not going to happen on the original scheduled days, but that is okay we still love them, and will help them to come unto Christ.  I am really excited for this upcoming week because we have a lot scheduled, and a lot of Potential.  I hope to be able to Thrash Antelope with the Spirit in the coming weeks and months!

Also you are right Transfers are today!  Luckily Elder Grover and I although we were not together last week, will be together for the remaining six weeks of his mission.  It should be good, because our area is looking good.  Plus he is an absolute stud-muffin.  I am grateful for all that he does to serve me and this zone.  He has a big heart, and is very calm, and thoughtful while I just try to jump in fully clothed sometimes.  I have learned many great lessons from him.  But also every companionship in the zone is getting shuffled these transfers, which makes me super sad because like 3 of my favorite missionaries are heading to new areas, and I will miss them a lot!  I hope our new peeps coming in are awesome as well.

Finally my shoulder is doing very  well Mother.  It has been sore for a lot of this week, but now it is great.  This morning I even went out and jump-roped.  It was a lot of fun.  It is still tight, but I will work it out by the end of the week.  Also sad note, I don't know if I ever explained this to you, but in our new house all of the missionaries that are going home, their last night, and those coming in, their first night stay with us.  So it is a lot of fun.  But hard to sleep.  Last night we had the ones going home, they just wanted to stay up and talk.  I was very sad to have my mission papa Elder Thompson going home today.  It has been many many months since we served together, but I still have a great love and respect for that amazing Elder.  You guys should look him up and have him to dinner or something.  He lives in Utah county, and is a nice guy.  

Well I am about out of things to say.  The Church is true, and I am grateful to be a missionary here, now.  I love you all a lot and look forward to talking to you on Mother Day!  Which just happens to be on Sunday!

With Love,

Elder Nick Ellsworth