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

A Get-to-Know My Investigators

Hey peeps hey!

I don´t know if I have anything too interesting to share with you all this week. I´ve almost been in this area for about 6 months and I feel like I know just about everything. But obviously not everybody because there are still a ton of children of God that are waiting for the truth. So we are working with a ton of great people that I´m hoping will progress and go to church and be baptized. We find a lot of people that read and pray but then they always have a ton of excuses when Sunday arrives. But I have faith in all of these people that they will get baptized in April.

Ana Luz - She´s a nine-year-old girl that was going to be baptized yesterday but her dad didn´t want her to get baptized. She doesn´t need his permission because her parents are separated and her mom has custody of her. But the problem was that she went to go visit him for the holiday weekend, and he didn´t bring her back until after church and the planned baptism. It was pretty much a bummer. But Diego is going to baptize her before he leaves, so I’m not going to get upset about it. We had a Noche de Hogar with their family and the Flia Cabrera, pretty much my two favorite familias in the ward. We talked about the recipe of a happy family in 2 nefi 5. And then we ate some sandwiches and talked Gaston (the inactive brother of Diego) to go to Seminary. We are way excited for them. And then we were a tad late so we linked arms and started to run down the street to their house. It was definitely crazy but a ton of fun!

Carla y Tina - They are a cute mom and daughter. They love the Book of Mormon and learning about the Restoration, but they are struggling to understand why they need to be baptized again because they were baptized in the Catholic Church. It´s a very good question that a lot of people have here. We explain about the Priesthood and the restored gospel on the earth. But really the key is to pray and ask God. They really liked Church, so I hope that they can recognize their answer and accept the invitation to be baptized in April.

Gladys, Eliana, Raisa, Ivón - (who´s first name is Nori!!) - Yep, they are a way cute family of all girls. The youngest daughter is called Ivon but her first name is actually Nori. Is that the coolest thing or what?! And also the daughter of Vicente is named Nora but they call her Nori. I was pretty excited when I heard it. But we are working with them, and they are loving everything; but they need to get to church. They live pretty far away, and there are always health problems. But they are excited to go to General Conference. Me too!!!

Diego y Paula - They are such a cute little family that needs to get baptized! Paula´s family is all members and has always liked the church and reads the Book of Mormon. But her husband has never had too much interest. But he has had a complete change in his life. He has quit smoking, drinking, and wants to focus on having more unity and love in his family. So we are working with them; they just need to get married. They have a lot of trials with work and health and even an evil spirit. But we´re going to help them get there.

Eli - She has a testimony and church attendance and everything, but she is just afraid of the baptism. She had a baptism about a month ago, and she wants to try again; but she´s struggling to keep her commitments. She is going through a hard time in her life right now. She broke up with her husband of 5 years, quit her job, and is starting her life over. She also has some health problems. We try to help her and explain to her that Satan is working on her hard because he does not want her to be baptized or happy. But I hope she can understand and make the right choice. Anyways, there are some more; but I ran out of time. I absolutely love all of these people. They really are children of God, and they all deserve to know the gospel of Jesus Christ so that they can live it and receive the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Church is true, and I’m grateful to have that knowledge in my life. I love the handful of people that still remember me and everybody else.

Les kiero,
Hna. Ellsworth

oh snap!

This week has been fun and exciting like always. I´m excited to be with Hna. Pond in Barrio Rosedal. We have a good district and a great zone and we´re excited to see all the miracles that are happening in the Mission Argentina Cordoba. Go MAC!!

Entrevista con Ana Luz – So we had the bautismal interview for Ana Luz yesterday. I can´t remember if I have talked too much about her. She is a nine-year-old girl that we have worked with for a long time. She is the little sister of Diego that wants to get baptized but her mom wouldn´t let her. But we have been working with her, praying, fasting, and the miracle happened that she´s getting baptized this next week. We´re pretty excited about it! So our district leader came for the interview (Elder Flaherty that lives about 5 minutes from our house. Trippy, eh?) And while he was doing the interview, we were outside eating pomegranite and spitting out the seeds. It was way fun! And we were speaking about three different languages. We were speaking (Diego and his brother), English (Hna. Pond and E. Rust – a new gringo), and ASL!!! Yep that´s right! Shout out to Kris!!! Woot! Woot! The girlfriend of the brother of Diego is definitely deaf. So I just tried to talk to her in Spanish ASL. Diego taught me a couple of words and then I just made up the rest. It was awesome! We talked about her day and her shoes and i´m not sure about the other thing, but we had a good laugh. We also taught her about the gospel and baptism. It was way cool! Pretty much, it was the best Sunday that we had in the mission. I loved it!

Tower of Cups - We had an activity for the Relief Society this week and we went early to help them set up. Anyways, funny story happened. We were putting out the glass cups because they ate dinner. Well my comp started to stack a tower of glass cups. It was pretty fun until it all fell. It looked like something that would happen in a movie. Anyways, it was just us in the room so we tried to clean it up before the other hermanas saw. It was way funny and we cleaned it up beautifully. We told the hermanas afterwards and it was all chill. But they wouldn´t let us carry anything else that was breakable. Y bueno… The activity was way fun, they ate dinner and had a movie and stuff. It was cool!

Intercambio – We also did an intercambio with the hermanas this week. I went to Alto Alberdi to work with Hna. Martinez and she got sick. It was the lamest intercambio that I have ever done. I tried to track down two minis but it didn´t work out. I got left without a phone, keys, lunch, nothing. But it was all good because Hna. Pond continued working with Hna. Lopez in Rosedal and they put two fechas bautismales and had a ton of success. I´ve decided that I´m a huge fan of intercambios when we can work because you really can work and learn from other missionaries. I´m kind of jealous of the elders in that way because they can work with a lot of different people.

Nuevo Lider Misional – We saw a lot of changes in the ward this last week and we have a new mission leader. We´re excited for him because it´s always good to see change. I don´t know him yet because he just moved into the ward but his brother-in-law is the one that makes the harry potter wands. And his wife went to the mission at Temple Square so we can chat in English. I´m stoked for that! And we´re excited that he can start out with the baptism and we´re preparing for more! We´re just loving the miracles that we are seeing in Barrio Rosedal.

Well, our companionship has become the activity´s committee of the zone so we have a ton of elders waiting on us so they can go play soccer and monopoly. It should be fun! I´m really excited for this week because we are going to start working more with the members. They are a ton more members to get to know in the new neighborhood. So we are going to have lunch over there and get to know them better. I´m really excited for the work that we are doing and the miracles that we are seeing! I love you all!

les kiero,

Hna. ellsworth

Changes

This week has been crazy, full of changes happy and sad. But ya, i love change. It´s always exciting and it helps us to progress! So check it…

Cambios en el barrio – So they are changing the Ward limits this week and we went to a special conference in the stake. They are changing the limits of Parque Capital, La Madrid, Alto Alberdi, 20 de Junio, AND Rosedal! It´s pretty crazy stuff. We´re losing 25 members and getting 25 new members. It´s pretty crazy because we lost a ton of our leaders, but we´re excited to see the changes that will happen this next week. We also got a few investigators that have baptism dates. They are this cute family with the Mom and two kids. Her youngest daughter Anita, who is 10, has already gone for a long time. Now her mom and 18 year old brother are starting to go too. We´re excited to get to know them better and help them prepare for their baptism.

Convenio – So we decided to make this covenant with God this week. We read a talk by this Mission president that talked about miracles in the misión when we make a covenant with God. It´s pretty intense stuff but we wanted to make a deal. We promised all of our faith, obedience, and diligence to get four baptisms in this month of March. We made a specific promise that we would teach a certain number of lessons every day and bring a new person to church every week, if we could save jsut 4 people. We talked to our misión president about it and he´s excited for you. We got special permission to do everything possible to get our goals. We have seen such a ton of miracles! One day we put a goal to have lesson with member, but our appointment failed us. So we didn´t have a member nor appointment. We didn´t know what to do, and then we found our member friend Diego in the street, who gave us a reference to pass by in that very momento. I love trusting in the will of the Lord and seeing the miracles! We´re way excited for this convenant and seeing what happens.

Last Zone Conference – Last Friday i had my very last Zone Conference. And yes, i did cry. I was doing good but then they put up a list of all of the missionaries that were going home this transfer and the next one. Anyways, one of the elders put it down wrong and it said that i was going home this transfer. Yep, my eyes just automatically watered up. I regained composure and went up to Pte. Salas and asked him why he wanted me to go home early. Jaja. He didn´t even notice that it was written down wrong, but he went and changed it. But ya, we have a tradition in the misión that the fieles (faithful) have to give their testimony in their last zone conference. So I gave mine with about 10 other missionaries. It was a bittersweet momento. But we had a great zone conference where we talked a lot about new things that we can do to find success. Apparently our misión has grown in the faith. We went from the 12th (out of 14) baptizing misión in our area and now we are at 3rd. It was really awesome to see the change and the growth that we have done in just this year. And we are going to keep going and increasing in our faith. I love Zone Conferences!!

Yep, the misión is great! Don´t ever doubt it! I love the work we are doing and the change i´m seeing in others and myself! I love it and I love all of you! Help the missionaries this week!

Love ya,

Hna. Ellsworth