Yo amo la vida!

I love the mission and I love life! Ya, there are trials and challenges but you just have to learn from them and look past them and see all the blessings and miracles that are in our lives. And I know that i have a ton of blessings and miracles in my life. Here are just a couple that i have seen this last week!

Flia. Chacon – So we live in the house of the members called the Family Chacon. I just have to tell you that they are pretty much my family my Argentina. I just love this family! They help us with anything we need and they are just constantly serving us. Hno. Chacon makes signs for a living so he made this huge, huge, huge sign for the open house. And he made some other ones of the Proclamation to the World, and Eternal Families, and the Plan of Salvation. It´s a cool sight to see. Anyways, they are just a great family and a good example to me.

Capilla Abierta – We had the Open Church House and it was a ton of fun. We invited some of the other missionaries and they were in the streets with signs about the Open House. We had refreshment, movies for the Little kids, and we were giving a discussion about families. We compared the récipe of banana bread with the récipe for a happy family. We used the scripture in 2 Nefi 5 and it worked out really well. We had a lot of visuals and ended the presentation with a video from Mormon Messages. It was so cool! We didn´t have as many people as we wanted but we did doublé the church attendance on Sunday for our Branch Conference. And now we are getting ready for 25 de Mayo for an activity of Locro. The theme is ¨Somos Locos por Locro!¨ Everyone is really excited!

Intercambios with Johana y Cintia – After the Capilla Abierta, we had a Ward council with all the leaders and the Stake Presidency. They talked about reactivating members. We are a huge part of this new system they have called the 5 Families. We have to visit a Menos Activo family daily. But after the training meeting we all went out and searched for a member that hadn´t gone to church for a while. At first nobody volunteered to go (even though it was a Little late at night, we automatically were volunteered as missionaries.) But then I stared down Hna. Vega and she volunteered with her Relief Society counselor. And then I volunteered Johana (Young Women´s) y Cintia (Primary) because they were sitting right behind me. And then everybody else joined in. It was a cool sight to see. We did intercambios with Johana and Cintia because they didn´t know what to do. So I went with Yohana and Cintia went with Hna.Waters. We went and visited three hermanas that haven´t gone for months. And check it, all three went to the Branch Conference. You just have to love misión work especially when you see the results!

Moto Misioneras – After our visits we were way far from the pension and it was already after 9. So we got a ride from Cintia on her motorcycle. Now in case you don´t know, i have never been on a motorcycle because i have a big fear of them. I just don´t like them. But i got pushed on one with Cintia and Hna. Waters. I tried to use the excuse that we couldn´t as missionaries but i couldn´t find it in the Mission Manuel. It wa wierd to ride a moto in a skirt, But it was fun. I´ve somewhat overcome my fear of motorcycles. But with our luck, we had 7 different members see us as we were riding home. Que vergüenza.

Flia Romero – So we´re still working with this family to get them baptized. They need one more attendance to church and they´ll be good. They have the teachings and the desire but they just need to make it to church. They were going to go to church this Sunday but then the dad got sick. I don´t know if it was just an excuse or the work of Satan. Either way, Carmen was pretty upset that she can´t be baptized this Sunday. But she´s excited and committed to go to Sunday because she wants to be baptized before the Locro Activity. Her daughters and nieces want to be baptized too when they make it to church. We all gave them nicknames because i was trying to distract them one day from fighting. So Rocio is Sugar and Carolina is Honey and Sandra is Maza and Melena is Candy. Yep, it´s fun to hear them yelling out their nicknames when we walk up to their house. And check it, every single one of them can say my last name, kind of sort of.

Testimonio – Yo quiero testificarles que yo sé que esta iglesia es verdadera. Yo sé que el evangelio puede cambiar las vidas de las personas. Lo he visto mucho en mi misión y el evangelio ha cambiado mi vida mucho. Estoy agradecida por el Libro de Mormón y yo sé que tiene todas las respuestas que necesitamos. Hay que buscarlas y encontrarán. Yo sé que Pte. Monson es un profeta de Dios y estoy agradecida por su consejo que recibí de la Conferencia General. Yo sé que Dios me ama y me conoce. Yo lo sé todos los días cuando ore. Yo sé que Jesucristo vive y nunca lo voy a negar. La iglesia de Jesucristo es verdadera y puede bendecirnos en todas las cosas. Por eso, estoy en la misión para ver los cambios y bendiciones en las personas. Y digo estas cosas en el nombre de Jesucristo, amén.

¡El Reino de Dios o NADA!

Hna. Ellsworth