Feliz Pascua y Feliz Semana Santa!

Primary and Easter Eggs - So did you know that they don{t really have Easter traditions here. Ya, they go to church and remember the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is really the true meaning of Easter. But when i think of Easter, i think of that and bunnies and Easter egg hunts. But they don{t really do that here. Basically the only thing that they do is make these chocolate eggs by hand and decorate them with frosting and give them to people. I kind of love it! (I got three! ) But ya, we had a primary activity and they asked us to come. I usually don{t have a lot of patience for other people{s children but i figured that{s why we were invited. I need to develop my patience a little bit more. it was good because we are with the Flia. Romero and there are a ton of kids that went - 6 in total. Anyways, they put us in charge of the an activity. So i suggested that we decorate hard boiled eggs. they pretty much looked at me like i was crazy! apparently they don{t do that here. we couldn't even find color dye. So we basically just brought 3 dozen boiled eggs and markers and stickers. And you know what, the kids absolutely loved the activity! I just love weird Gringo traditions. We also told them that we were going to hide their eggs and then they would have to look for them. apparently, another crazy things us gringos do. But they loved it! Moral of the story, it was a ton of fun and we just became tight with all the primary kids.

Mutual and Curse Words - We also got invited to the young women{s mutual activity because we had more investigators and recent converts than actual members. So we went to support and it was a little bit crazy! Our recent converts had brought some friends and they didn't really know about mormon standards. They just went and started cursing up a storm. I personally had no idea at first because i don{t really know curse words in castellano, but i do now... anyways, we tried to convince them to stop but they started fighting with the other girls. It was kind of a crazy mess! So we started singing hymns because everyone likes it when we sing. So they calmed down and we took them home after we read the scripture out of Mosiah 4 :30 - [Watch your thoughts]. We're hoping they learned a lesson from it.

Service and Paint - We also got invited to the branch service project where we painted the elementary school right next to the church. It was pretty fun! I was in charge of the dark green paint and i painted a little bit of everything - the slide, teeter totter, swings, and all that good stuff. They even gave us these jerseys that said Mormons Helping Hands. We looked pretty legite! It reminded me of of my good old days of painting Irving. Good times, great oldies...

Noche de Hogar with Flia. Vega - So we had a family home evening with my favorite family Vega and we made banana bread and compared it with the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a ton of fun! We compared repentance to stirring the dough because it's hard work at times. Anyways, the hna. vega made a joke and passed it to her husband and her son because they haven;t gone to church for a while so he had a lot of repenting to do... we all had a good laugh but I was happy to find out that he learned his lesson. The whole family showed up to church yesterday! I love
Family Home Evening! i hope you are all doing it!

Noche de Hogar with Johana y Cintia - We also had a family home evening with them because they invited some nonmember friends. I absolutely love this family because they don{t appear as the normal mormon family. Before they knew the Gospel, they drank, smoked, swore, and all that stuff. And now they spend their nights reading the book of mormon and singing hymns. the best part about it is that they live with a couple of brothers and they are not members... yet. They have braids and tattoos and look pretty fierce. But when we come to have a FHE, they all sit down and participate. It was quite the sight. We also made no bake cookies and compared it to the gospel. It was fun and their friend even went to church on Sunday!

Yep, life is just too much fun in Villa Independencia! We have lunch every day with the members and I love them to death. Our investigators are pretty amazing too! I really couldn't be happier! I{m so grateful to sacrifice a year and a half to show my love and gratitude to my Heavenly Father and our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ. I know he lives and I{m grateful for everything he has done for me. Thanks for everything! I love you!

les kiero,

Hna. Ellsworth

I am pretty much in love with Villa Independencia!

So I am so stoked to be back in my favorite area. There has been a ton of changes. There is a lot of work to do but I love seeing everyone again. But ya, these were pretty much my highlights from the week.

Flia Romero – Ok these are the main investigators that we are working with and they are pretty much crazy. I love them to death! There are about four or five families that live together and there are a ton of little kids that are just running around and wanting to be baptized. It is quite the adventure. The twelve-year-old girl got baptized the Saturday before i got here. So we are working on her parents now and the rest of the family. The first time I went, we tried to teach the prayer, read the scriptures, and attend church. There was a lot of running around and yelling, but when we started to sing, all the kids stopped, sat down, and sang along. It was quite the sight. We taught the grandpa named Castro and he has a smoking and drinking problem. He wants to quit but he struggles with it. She we took his cigarettes and told him that he today was the day to stop.

Flia Vega – I am pretty much in love with this family! They were the family I found a year ago and they are doing so good. They are a family of gold. We stopped by to see what we could to help the Hermana Vega because she is the new Relief Society President. And she put us to work. We helped her put together the Visiting Teachers assignments. We also helped her some activity ideas and signs and stuff. I was just so happy to see the progress in them. Her husband is in the Elder{s Quorum presidency but needs some help so we are going to have a Noche de Hogar with them this week. We are really focusing on helping the branch to strengthen the members to complete their callings and pay their tithing and such. I love being back in the branch of Villa Independencia.

Actividades - So this week we are going to try to help our investigators and recent converts to know the members more. So we have a relief society activity Wednesday, YW/YM activity Thursday, Primary activity Friday, and branch service project Saturday. I am way excited! We figure that we are going to bring and drop off investigators and brownies every time. There is a ton of work to be done and just not enough time to do it all. And I am way excited for the 25 of May activity of Locro. We did the same thing last year and that is how we found and baptized the Flia Vega, Sergio, and Yohana. So we are hoping and praying for more success this year.

1st Sunday Back - So my first Sunday back was pretty much Amazing! I loved to see all of the members again and see all the changes that has happened recently. The night before we got a call and we were told that we would be giving the talks in church the next time. So i pretty much had 30 minutes to speak with the branch. It went well. I talked on prayer and the Restoration. I am just trying to animate the members because they are kind of tired of the branch. During the gospel principles class, the entire bishopric called just us out of class to tell us that we would start doing activities in the branch. It was quite the shock for the both of us. I talked to some of the members about activities so they are planning on the Locro activity for 25 de mayo. And we are in charge of an activity for the 6 de mayo. And we have a Easter activity this week along with a service project on Saturday. And we also passed by for some inactives for the week and at least three of them came. I am hoping a little bit each week will help...

Well, Hna. Waters and I have a lot of work for us to do. We have plenty of activities, baptisms, and everything to look forward to. But like Dad says, There{s no rest for the wicked! Well thanks for all that you do and everyone should make a call or visit a friend that you haven{t seen in a while. You never know how much it might help them. It{s the small and simple things that bring about the miracles! Love you all!

Les kiero,

Hna. Ellsworth

I'M BACK!!!

Transfers Once Again – Well the big news of the week is that we received transfers and I´m back in Villa Independencia with Hna. Waters. I´m so stinkin´ stoked! I know that I shouldn´t have favorite areas but i definitely think that Villa Independencia is my personal fave! I was about 95% sure that i was staying in Rosedal with Hna. Pond so i was completely blown away when we got transfer calls, but after some thought (and crying), I´ve decided that I´m way excited to be back! I´m sad to leave Rosedal and Hna. Pond but i´m always excited for a new adventure. I´m so game to just get to work here and see the miracles and baptisms. It´s going to be a great transfer!

CENTRO – As for my week, i had an amazing one. So we had p-day Monday and we got to go to Centro. We can only go once every transfer and you can only go if you live in Cordoba Capital. So I went with Hna. Pond for her first time and it was a ton of fun! We ate some Burger King which is probably the first time in my entire life. In my normal life, I had fast food hamburger places like burger King and McDonalds, but here in Argentina, it´s a Little taste of America and I love it. We then went trunky shopping with the other missionaries and it was great! We talked to some cool black guys from Domincan Republic. They work in Centro and they want to go to church sometime. We also talked to some gypsies and invited them to church but i don´t think they are too interested. Vamos a ver! It was just a ton of fun and i pretty much love Centro!

Vacation in Parque Capital - We also went to Parque Capital and had a Splash. It was interesting to get to know another area. It was really nice but kind of hard because there are a lot of rich people that didn´t want to listen. It´s weird how that works. It´s usually the poorer and humbler people that want to listen. But we found a few people and made some 12 year-old friends who gave us crazy bands. Which by the way, i´m loving the crazy band fad!

Splash in Rosedal – The zone leaders and district leader came to our area to work there for a little bit. We had lunch with the Flia Cabrera and we just all walked in. We were six gringos and the Hna. Cabrera. It was way funny! We loved it! And then we went out to work. They found this older man that wants to be baptized but he had an accident and can´t walk now. It´s a little complicated but we´re going to work something out with the members so that he can get to church.

Diego – Diego finally left to his misión. We were going to baptize his sister before he left but the bishop didn´t think it was a good idea because he was afraid that she would stop going if her brother´s not there to take her. It was kind of a bummer but I trust in his judgment. We were there at his house before he left to the airport. It´s kind of sad that he´s leaving because he was pretty much the only member that gave us references but i´m excited for him to go and find the people waiting for him in Chile.

Baptism in Uritorco – We went to a Ward baptism of this new family that moved into our Ward, the family Garcia. It was so awesome! This family invited over a hundred people, half of them not being members. So we went with other missionaries, Pte. And Hna. Salas, Stake President Agazzani, and the Area Seventy and we supported the baptism. We got to chat with them and get to know all of them. And now all the missionaries are going to stop by and give everyone from the baptism a DVD and share a message with everyone. It sounded like a great idea! I´m way excited for it!

Well as you can see life is great here! Time is flying by so i can´t afford to lose one second of it! I feel like I´m kind of in one big deja vu but i´m excited to get to work and find those people that are waiting to have Jesus Christ more in their lives. I figure that if I stay focused, work diligently, be obedient, and have the faith; then we are going to see a ton of miracles this transfer. I love you all!

Les kiero,

Hna. Ellsworth

General Conference is like Christmas... but better!

I had a pretty amazing weekend! It was full of revelation and personal manifestations that God is watching out for me. One huge thing that I have learned and appreciated in the mission is the importance and blessing of General Conference. I have definitely regretted and repented of all the times I fell asleep in conference. General conference is such a huge blessing, and we can´t afford to lose one second of it! I felt like the entire Conference was talking straight to me. I loved the shout out to my mission of Cordoba Argentina. I was excited to hear the shout out to my family heritage of Colonia Juarez. And I was stoked to hear my favorite hymn referenced about three times. And I´m glad to report that all my questions that I brought to the Conference were addressed and answered. I have no doubt in my mind that God knows me and loves me. I think one of my favorite talks was the one about pain and the Atonement in the Saturday session. (bueno, i can´t remember the seventy´s name. oops!) But I really loved what he said about Jesus Christ and us suffering. Jesus Christ suffered for us so that he knows us. Maybe we need to suffer in this life to get to know our Savior better. He definitely said it ten times better but the message gets across. I’m grateful for the mission and being able to understand the Atonement better and apply it to my life. I know that the more understanding that we have of the Atonement, the more desire we have to share the gospel with others. There were a lot of amazing talks on the Atonement and how we can learn through our trials. Basically, general conference is the best, and I´m already starting a countdown for the next one in October. We also went to the setting apart for Diego for his mission. He is now Elder Alvarez, and he´ll be heading to the Chile MTC this Thursday and then to Chile Santiago Norte in a couple of weeks. I already told him to look out for Shan when he gets out. Yep, I told him to look for an hna. ellsworth más capa (awesome) que yo. We´re excited for him, and we know he´ll be a great missionary. Now we are going to start preparing for his mission another youth from our ward named Matias. He should be starting his papers soon. Preparing for the Mission is the best! Well, life is great!! We’re working hard and being obedient, and we’re hoping to see the fruits of our labors soon. I hope all is well, and thanks for the love and prayers! Les kiero, Hna. Ellsworth