Hermana Hermione

So we got transfers this weekend and I'm staying in Rosedal. I'll be here for Vicente's baptism. Woohoo! Hna. McDonald went off to blank an area in La Falda and i'm going to miss her. But I know that she is going to be an amazing missionary. But ya, I got my new companion, Hna. Pond. She is pretty amazing, I already love her! She's from Phoenix Arizona and has about 4 months in the mission. She is a ton of fun and has a ton of excitement and faith, so i'm excited to see the miracles that will happen this transfer.

I know it's going to be an interesting transfer because they are changing the limits of our ward/area. They are cutting the limits right behind us and we're losing a ton of members to the other ward. We are losing the primary president, young women's president, young men's president, 1^st counselor in the bishopric, mission leader, and some more key calling. But we should be getting a lot of new members too. It's going to be pretty crazy! I'm excited to see what happens. But what ever does happen, I know that it is the will of God. And i'm excited to have a new area to work in. It's going to be great!

So random side note, I bought one of the coolest things ever this last week – a real legit Hermione Granger wand. Ya, you read it right. So there is this member in my ward that makes the harry potter wands. he makes any and every character – Harry, Hermione, Voldemort, Dumbledore, etc., etc… so i bought the legit Hermione wand for Rachel. and hna. mcdonald got the Harry Potter wand. We may have had a wizard duel in the pension. Don't judge us! But ya, i made a deal with the member that if i could find more customers for him that I should get a percentage. We ended up on deciding that he would give me a free wand box. so I have already sold about 10 among the missionaries and I have just started. I am pretty stoked about it! I might even buy one for myself. ya, my mtc dream is coming to life. I always thought that the mtc was like Hogwarts and that we were all training to be wizards aka missionaries. But instead of having a magic wand, we have the Book of Mormon. I just love applying the Gospel to everything.

We{re getting ready for Vicente's baptism this week. He went out of town for a few days to go sell his house and I missed him a ton. I'm always worried when I can't have daily contact with our progressing investigators because I know Satan works day and night with them. But we are going to pass tonight with Hna. Pond and Diego, so it'll be awesome! He's kind of a shy, old man and some of the members are kind of scared of him. I had no idea!! He's always shy at first but after the visit, he just opens up. I have seen a huge change in him and I'm so excited for his baptism. We just have to work with the members more so that he has some fellowshipping.

Life is great and I absolutely love the mission. And I absolutely love the people. I've decided that charity and love is the key to the mission and the key to life. If we just learn to have charity for every one of our brothers and sisters, we will definitely change and then we can help them change through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I love the mission and the opportunity to serve my Heavenly Father. This Church is true! I LOVE YOU ALL!

Les kiero,

Hna. Ellsworth

If you want the monkeys to dance, Talk to Tarzan...

So we had a random Zone Conference this last week. We got together with our zone and another zone to hear about some of the changes of the mission and things like that. Nothing too exciting happened. But it was nice tender mercy for me. It’s always good to hear from Pte. Salas and see all of the other missionaries. They talked a lot about growing our faith and our goal to double our baptisms. We got 100 baptisms last month and we’re going to do it again and again until we triple the baptisms. The faith of the mission is growing and I’m excited to be a part of it. We almost didn’t make it to the Zone Conference because we didn’t know about it. We lost our cell phone and we didn’t have any communication with our leaders for about a week. So our zone leaders had to call our bishop. So our bishop and the first counselor showed up at our pension at 10 pm on Friday night. We were already in our pajamas and everything. At first we were scared because we couldn’t think of anybody that would come to our pension at 10 at night. But then when we found out it was bishop, we were just embarrassed. It’s all good though. We had a good laugh about it afterwards.

So I’m happy to report that we have a companionship of Zion. At first we decided that we were Lucy and Ethel. But then we kept on fighting about who got to be Lucy. So then we decided that are definitely the Gilmore Girls. Just think about it, it’s perfect! I’m definitely Lorelei because I’m the mom and then Hna. McDonald is my hijita Rory. Anyways, we were pretty happy that we figured it out and it was just cool because it’s both of our favorite shows. We’re kind of sad to think that it has to come to an end because transfers are this next week. But we definitely had a great three months together.

We are excited for our investigators and how they are progresando. We have an investigator named Clara that is trying to quit smoking. She is really struggling but she started out with 3 packs a day and is down to 1 pack. We’re trying to help her quit that last one with little candies that have scriptures on them. I hope it works. We are also excited for Vicente who loves everything that he can learn. He can’t read but he listens to 2 CD´s of the Book of Mormon everyday. And he absolutely loved the Restoration movie and asked if he could keep it. I love seeing the change in people when they come unto Christ. We are seeing a lot of miracles in Rosedal and it’ll be interesting to see what changes are coming our way this next week. But whatever happens, I know that it is the will of the Lord and I’m just grateful to be here on the mission. I love you all and cuidense.

Les kiero,
Hna. Ellsworth

Blessings and Trials

So I am just going to say that my week was full of challenges and trials. But I was perfectly at peace and happy with that because we were going to have a baptism. I am pretty used to that. There is always a ton of huge trials before a huge blessing like a baptism. Anyways, it did not turn out as I had imagined but at least I know that Heavenly Father still loves me. So here is how it went down. We were all ready for the baptism Sunday. The baptismal font of was full and the program was planned and everything was ready to go. Everything except the person that was going to be baptized. She never showed up to church. We were really worried because everything was good and ready the day before. So we called and called but we could not find her. We even passed by during church to see what happened but she was not there. Anyways, we were pretty bummed about it but we are always just try to remember to put in our trust in the Lord and His will.

Anyways, we had called our district leader to tell him not to come to the baptism because it wasn{t going to happen. He was in Sacrament meeting so we just left a message. But when he got it, he came straight over. It was kind of weird but it was a good feeling to see our mission leader and district leader looking for us in the streets on Sunday. The elders and our mission leader and bishop were all good to us and motivated us. They know that we put a lot of hard work into this and they have faith that she will be baptized another week. I think they were all expecting us to cry because we are girls but we are pretty tough!

Anyways, after church we were still pretty bummed for Eli. But we had a meeting with Elder Arnold, the 70 of the area. He had come to speak to the new members and investigators. And the missionaries were invited with their investigators. So we went with our investigator Vicente and he loved it. Elder Arnold has a very special spirit. But the great tender mercy for me was that I saw a member that impacted my mission the most and I got to chat with him for a while. And the cooler thing was that I got to talk to one of my converts. She had come from Villa Independencia and she was telling me about her beginning trials of being a member. She has been tried a lot but she keeps pushing forward because she said she had buenas maestras. It was good feeling. She is 2^nd counselor in the RS and doing her visiting teaching and everything. I was so excited for her. So ya, I know that there are trials and not everything works out like we want it to. But I also know that Heavenly Father loves me and if we are doing our best we will always be blessed. I love the mission and I love all of you!

Les kiero,

Hna. Ellsworth

Que se yo...

I don´t have much to say and I thought about not writing a email but my mom says that i have to. So here you go…

Ayuno de la Obra Misional – So we passed by all the members of Rosedal that go to church and it took all week to do. We passed by to remind them about the Ward Fast about misión work. And we got everybody to write down 5 people that they love and don´t know about the gospel. And then they fasted for at least one of them and for all of our investigators and such. It was way cool! We received a few references in Church and we´re excited to see more miracles! And it was fun to see all the members giving us juice to drink. It´s way hot these days and i always like to give everyone the opportunity to receive the blessings. (there´s a way cool scripture in John about it but i can´t remember specifically…) it was fun to see how many glasses of juice I can drink in a day. The count is about 15… without using the bathroom. It was the smartest game but it was definitely interesting.

Surprise Lesson in Church – I showed up to church yesterday and had to give a surprise Lesson in Gospel Principle´s class. I always get a tad nervous when i have to get up in front of a bunch of people and teach a lesson in a foreign language without preparation. But i think it went well. I wanted to watch a movie called Together Forever (pretty much my favorite misión movie EVER!! I love the last song, thanks to Al. If you haven´t seen it, you should!) But the primary was using the dvd player so I gave the lesson about the three most important prayers (Christ´s Prayer in the garden of Getsemani, Joseph Smith´s prayer in the Sacred Grove, and our personal prayer). I hope it was able to answer a few questions of our investigators. I can´t wait until I can give my first lesson where i can actually prepare it beforehand. One day…

Well, I have actually ran out of time and things to say. But I´m grateful for all the miracles that are going to happen. I love you all and until next week…

Les kiero,

Hna. Ellsworth