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

Fun stuff!

So we had a pretty good week! We had a lot of interesting experiences and saw some interesting stuff. But i´ll try to find the funnest things that happened this week. Like the great advice of my older brother - ¨¨ïf you´re not having fun, you´re not doing it right!

Obedience Committee - I am proud to announce that Hna. McDonald and I are the Obedience Committee in the Zone Oeste. Pretty much that just means that we can call anybody in the zone and drop cane on obediente. It is a pretty sweet calling and i pretty much love it! We got one elder to take off his bracelet, another elder to get home on time, and another elder to wake up on time. We´re just dropping cane all over the place. I even got mentioned in three of the elders' interviews with President. It´s kind of a fun calling because i just quote mine and grandpa´s favorite scripture – D&C 82:10 – ¨I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say. But when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.¨ I love this scripture and it is so true. If you want to receive the blessings of the Lord, just be obediente!

Splash in Uritorco – We´re going to start doing splashes every week in the zone. And we started in Uritorco. We all did intercambios and i got to spend the day with Hna. Martinez. It was pretty fun! And we got to go to McDonald´s for lunch and I had to order for about 10 people. It was crazy but it was worth it because we had mcdonald´s and donuts for lunch – a little taste of heaven aka america!

Splash in Rosedal – we also had a splash in our area and it was a ton of fun too. We made the goal to do one more than the other splash and we got to it! I´m pretty competitive and i fell like we can always do at least one better. And we also put nicknames for each one of the companionships. Por ejemplo – the area 9 de Julio had the nickname Jamba Jugo. They were all things of the States with a Spanish Accent. It was pretty nerdy but a ton of fun! It´s the little things that keeps me going.

Entrevista con Pte.- And we had interviews with President and it went very well. He gave me some new ideas to do in my barrio. Like he always says, we need to do things that we have never done before if we want to see new results. So ya, we are pretty excited! And he told me that he wants to start doing splits with the hermanas in other areas because they are a lot more new hermanas than old ones. So i might be going to another area this week or the next to help out another hermana/area. I´m pretty stoked! It sounds pretty fun!

Vicente and Church – We found this awesome new investigador this week named Vicente. He´s 73 years old and he´s Evangelist and way funny! We couldn´t really teach him because he lives alone and we didn´t have a member with us so we invited him to church. And he even came but never entered into church because he was too embarrassed to go inside because he saw someone go in with a suit jacket. He was wearing his church best, but it wasn´t anything close to a suit. It was way sad! But we talked about it and explained a little bit more and told him that we would go together next week.

Talk in Church – So we showed up to church yesterday discovering that our names were on the programs. Apparently they forgot to tell us beforehand, so they gave me and Hna. McDonald time to talk in Sacrament Meeting. I was pretty excited because i´m used to that sort of thing. Thanks to being the bishop´s daughter before the misión and now being a missionary, I´ve already played that game several times. But poor Hna. McDonald had never experienced it. But I´m happy to report that she did a fantastic job. She did her mother proud! She talked about the plan of salvation and our live on Earth. Everyone complimented her on her Spanish. And then I gave a talk on the Light of Christ and how we can do the small and simple things to see the miracles and bring about the salvation of many souls. (Mat 5:14-16 y Alma 37:6-7) I was kind of happy about it. I´ve decided that I kind of like giving talks in church, but only kind of…

Awkward Silence with Eli – We taught Eli this week and she´s still preparing for her baptism next week. She got a few doubts this week so we kneeled down and prayed. Afterwards, we just sat and waited. There was a silence for about two minutes and then the member that was with it couldn´t handle it anymore. So she tapped Eli and Eli was crying. She had seen the image of Christ after her prayer, and she had no doubts that she needed to be baptized. It was a pretty intense experience. I love the influence of the Spirit and how we really can know the truth of all things through the power of the Holy Ghost. That is a pretty powerful gift that the Lord gives us. I hope that i never take advantage of this great gift and privilege. I love the influence of the Spirit and the experiences that we have through it.

well, i love you all and keep following the Spirit and having fun!

les kiero,

hna. ellsworth

Dreams of White Dresses

Alright, I´m going to be completely honest and tell you that I have no idea what to write this week. It has been a long week and not a lot of interesting things have happened. The end. Ok, just kidding, but seriously it has been a pretty long week. We are in the triple digits in the temperature and I´m getting more tanned and blond. We have been struggling with finding people to teach because everyone goes off to vacations. It´s probably the worst thing to do to walk in the siesta when everybody is sleeping in their houses and it´s a 100 degrees outside. I´m not a fan! And we tried to knock doors and we actually had a naked guy come to the door. Awkward!!! But thankfully, we keep on going and find the blessings.

But we are teaching Eli and she´s pretty awesome. I can´t remember if I told you about her but she studied with the missionaries before but didn´t get baptized because she had a complication. Anyways, she asked us to pass by urgently and she wants to get baptized now. It was pretty much a miracle! Anyways, in our first charla we talked to her about prayer and how she needs to ask Heavenly Father if she needs to be baptized. And then we explained that she has to wait for the answer afterwards. Here´s the example I used… Sometimes we say our prayers and then end it with Amen and get up and go on with our day or go to bed. But really, if we were talking to a friend or family and we asked a question, we would wait and listen for the answer. It is the same with Heavenly Father. We always need to wait and listen after our prayers so that we can receive the answers. And it is always a good idea to have a paper and pen to write down the impressions that we receive. So we explained that and invited her to do that. So she does and you want to know what happened. She saw herself dressed in white and Jesus Christ with his arms open. If that´s not a direct and specific answer to a prayers, I don´t know what is. It was pretty amazing!

And the same thing happened to another lady that we are teaching, the familia Gutierrez. Actually she´s the one with the hellian kids, but we taught her and and we ended it with a prayer. She then asked us why she saw herself dressed in white while she was saying the prayer. Crazy, right!? Anyways, they are amazing but they just have to make it to church on their own. But we are trying to help them to get there. We also have another investigator that had studied with the missionaries before and asked us to pass by urgently and she asked us if she could get baptized! Adriana is pretty awesome but she left to go to vacations. But she has a testimony of everything and is excited for her baptism. But ya, we are just seeing a ton of miracles and blessings! The mission is great and I love you all! Keep all of the missionaries in your prayers and remember that every member is a missionary. Go and Do!!

Love ya!

Hna. Ellsworth

Email home on Jan. 17th: "Come What May and Love It"

Well this week has been way too much excitement for me. But I am so very happy to report that we received transfers and I will be staying with Hna. McDonald in Rosedal for another six weeks. Woot! Woot! The other hermanas have moved on to bigger and better things but I am very grateful for their work and help in these last couple of weeks. We have shared a lot of great moments together and I’m definitely grateful for their help in improving my gringa accent. Well this week was full of exciting and dramatic moments. But as always, I’ve tried to take the counsel of Elder Wirthlin - "Come what may and love it!"

Broken Toilet – So we started the week with a broken bathroom. Apparently the Argentinean toilet can not withstand four hermanas. Well, it broke on a Saturday night and we couldn’t get anyone to fix it until Monday. I’m glad that we sanctified the Sabbath day but let me tell you, I was not a happy camper about it. We ended up having to use the bathroom in the church, which is a thirty minute walk. Yep, another blessing that I have taken for granted. Well, not anymore.

Oops President, we lost one… Saturday was probably one of the most dramatic days of my entire mission. I was working with Hna. McDonald with the help of a member and we were in an amazing appointment with this beautiful family. Anyways, I had my phone off and when we left, I found six missed calls from the other hermanas. I called them back to find out that they had split up. The mini missionary was lost, alone, and crying in the street. So we had to run and find her and I had to call the zone leaders, and then talk to the assistants and mission president. Ya, it was pretty crazy. We finally found both of the hermanas and they just started sobbing in my arms. Anyways, to make a long story short, they’re both fine now and I learned the importance of patience and charity.

10 Hellions in the Church – Well the other companionship invited a couple of families to church that had a ton of kids. But there was a communicational error. They explained church to be a place where you get breakfast and you have a little party. So all the kids came alone and the parents stayed home to sleep. So we had a ton of kids asking for food and a party. We had to explain that we were in a house of the Lord and that they would be learning about Jesus Christ. I am sad to say, but they were a tad bit disappointed. They started teaching the other little primary kids (and the gringas) curse words and even started to find with a couple of them. They were out of control and the primary teachers were begging for our help. Anyways, we finally ended up searching for the parents and asked them to control their kids. They decided just to take their kids home. It was kind of a sad, but I think it’ll be fine. But we don have to go make cookies for all of the primary teachers now. At least it makes for a good story in the journal.

Anyways, I ran out of time to write but I’m excited for this new transfer with Hna. McDonald. We are going to baptize and work hard and be obedient and see all of the Miracles. I love being in the mission and learning all of these fun lessons. And having that fun reminder to come what may and love it!

Love ya,

"Do Your Best" and "Dance in the Rain"

Well the mission work continues in Rosedal. With doubling our forces, we have also doubled our efforts and results. We have twice as many investigators, baptism dates, church attendance, and everything. The Lord is truly blessing the hermanas in Rosedal. I have a had a lot of amazing experiences this week and I would like to share a couple of things that I have learned this week.

So I have been dubbed the first hermana district leader. I have to say that i´m a little proud of my title. (I know that pride is a sin. I´ll try to repent.) But I have learned a lot from the short calling and I´ve decided to be more grateful for all of my leaders in the mission and church. I´ve decided that it is not as easy as it looks. But I have learned a lot about patience and charity and all of those other great Christlike attributes. I absolutely love the other hermanas! It´s crazy because we all have our strengths and weaknesses. I might have more time in the mission than all of the other hermanas put together, but honestly I am learning more from them than I could ever teach them. I am so impressed with the other hermanas. One is a mini-missionary and the other has a week in Argentina. Neither of them know the area, investigators, members, ni nothing. But they went out on Sunday morning to search for investigators. They arrived late because they got lost, but they brought four of our investigators with them! It was AMAZING!!

The Lord honestly blesses when we do our best. Just always remember that´s the only thing that the Lord asks of us – our best. Whenever I have some hard times, I think of my grandpa´s counsel - ¨Do Your Best! Just work on getting better. Don´t become perfect or you might be translated.¨ I love that! I realized that I´m not perfect but I can do everything I can to do a little bit better and become more like Him. It´s a hard process but i actually have been studying the Christlike attributes a ton. And i have had a lot of revelation and understanding of charity and patience this week. I really can feel the stregnth and help of the Lord with me. It´s crazy! I really do feel like an instrument and the hands of the Lord. I love the mission and how it shapes me to be a better person. I still have a ton of imperfections and a long way ago but i´m grateful for the things that i´m learning.

Another quote that has helped this week was one I found in my journal from Liz (THANKS LIZ!!!! I love it!! And p.s. the grass hair is growing and I named her Macarena, nickname Maca!) Here we go - ¨Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it is about learning to dance in the rain.¨ I have applied this quote in my life literally. There has been a lot of rain and I remember one day in particular. We had a hard day with appointments not being there or not having time. We passed by an inactive and talked with her and then she kicked us out while it was raining. We left and then it started to rain harder. It was not one of my happier moments but then I remember this quote and I decided to apply it to my life. And you know what happened, I felt this overwhelming feeling of joy! That is what life is all about. We have trials and problems and challenges, but if we can just learn to smile and enjoy it, we can find the happiness and joy that only our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ can give us. I just want to testify that I know that Jesus Christ lives. I know that Heavenly Father loves me and knows me. Everyday I work on having a closer relationship with Him and I can see the blessings and tender mercies in my life. I love you all and I hope you too do your best and learn to dance in the rain.

Les amo,

Hna. Ellsworth