December 26, 2011

Merry Christmas and Happy new year!!

This week was a really good week! This week we had our zone conference and it was amazing! Our mission President had us do a gift exchange, for elders we were to bring a tie that we wanted to trade and for sisters they brought some type of jewelry or accessory that they wanted to trade and we each wrapped one and picked a number from a bowl and got a random one. I got a pretty nice looking red tie, it was really fun! Our Mission President also had us watch a movie "A Christmas Carol" the old version. It was the first real movie I have seen in a long time but it was nice and set the Christmas spirit. This week one of our investigators had to leave town to go take care of her father who recently ended up in the hospital, but we found out that he passed away on Christmas day. If you could keep Vivian and her family in your prayers that would be greatly appreciated. I love this time of year because we were able to do a lot of caroling this week to investigators and members! I don't really know what else to say this week because i talked to my parents on Skype yesterday but I hope all of you had an amazing Christmas! Next week there will probably be more to write about.

December 19, 2011

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

This week has been a really good week! Things have been a little slower lately mainly due to the Holidays and everyone leaving on vacations or being too busy with Holiday parties and things. I was still sick for the first half of the week, I had gotten a really nasty cold but I got a blessing and guess what? It is gone! I think we really take for granted being healthy! But now that I am better my mind is a bit more clear to focus on the work again. Being sick while I am in the Chinese branch was pretty interesting. I got about just every remedy known to man to get better from colds. From regualr cold medicine all the way to Chinese traditional medicine and healing methods. Believe it or not I think it was the Chinese methods and medicine that helped me get better a lot faster. This week we taught our investigator Vivian, she is so amazing. The lessons have been going very well and she comes to church every sunday. This last lesson she started refering to me and my companion as her little angels. Now everytime she sees us or talks to us she calls us her little angels hah. She has recently received opposition from her christian family but she says that she feels what we are teaching is true so she keeps praying for her answer and then she will be baptized. This week was Elder Mensink's birthday, and a member had all four of us missionaries over to their house to have a birthday dinner for Elder Mensink. She asked Elder Mensink beforehand what kind of food he wanted for his birthday dinner and he told her american food such as pizza and hamburgers. Myself, Elder Bray, and Elder Mensink were all really excited and looking forward to the dinner because it has been a while since we have had normal american food. However when we got there it turned out to be the complete opposite of what we expected haha. She decided to just make him a super traditional chinese meal instead to help us all experience the culture...that is the first time I have eaten a whole pigs foot....yummm. Haha needless to say, there were a lot of traditional dishes that I would have never thought people actually ate. For desert we had a really good chocolate cake!

Christmas is this week! Time is flying by way too fast. This will be my last Christmas while on a mission so I am going to enjoy every minute of it! I love you all and I hope everything is going well! I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

December 12, 2011

Happy Holidays!!

This week has been a roller coaster of a week. A lot of success and a lot of non-success, I am sick right now with a pretty bad sore throat. But let me start near the beginning of the week. SO we have been using our phone book that we created and it has been working really well. We found a man named Bruce off of that list and he and his family just moved here from Taiwan and they don't really know anyone around here yet, he is really interested in learning more and also in coming to our English class that we provide every week. He was originally going to try and make it to our Branch Christmas party but he ended up not being able to, but we will be seeing him again soon!

As you could tell we had our Branch Christmas party this week and they created a program that walked everyone through the story of Christ's birth, and I was chosen to be one of the wise men, and we sang "Three Kings of the Orient", it was me, our branch president, and another brother from our branch and it turned out really well! This week as we were tracting in an area we ran into a man who was probably one of the rudest people I have met on my mission, he yelled at us for about 15 minutes and told us to get out of his neighborhood or he would call the Police...even if he called the Police we weren't doing anything wrong so they couldn't do anything to us....the man was probably just having a bad day and used us as a punching bag to vent frustration but it was ridiculous. I just politely told the man that we were allowed to be there but if he really wanted us to go we didn't want to argue so we would leave and then we started walking back to our car and he followed us all the way back to our car screaming and yelling and cussing us out telling us we are a cult....I don't why people have to act like that, but what made it more sad was that he was doing this and saying all of this in front of his little daughter. I hope whatever caused him to be that angry that day will get better so he can enjoy the Holidays.

On the other hand the work in the Branch has been increasing and I am so happy to be working with this Branch mission leader! The members are starting to understand a little more of how they can work together to invite their friends out to church and helping investigators feel welcome. I love this work! I got sick this week, I have a pretty bad sore throat, so if you could all pray that I can get better faster that would be greatly appreciated. I love you all!!

Christmas is coming fast!! Have a happy holiday!

December 5, 2011

Hello everyone!!

This week was a really good week!! We finally finished the project that we have been working on for the past couple of weeks. And by project this is what I mean....So we have been trying to find the best way that we can find and work with all the Chinese people. It is hard for us just to go to neighborhoods and tract because we only talk to a few Chinese and then the rest are all American. A while ago we started to use school phone books and we would just look for the Chinese last names and then go visit the Chinese people that way, but recently we thought of an even more intense idea. We just recently finished our 'White Pages' project. We took the city of Irvine, and went online and used 411.com and white-pages.com, we used about 125 most common Chinese surnames and copy and pasted all of the addresses into one big comprehensive list. We took each address and found the map coordinate to each one so that whenever we are in a neighborhood we know which other people are close by so that way we can work more effectively. We finally finished doing all 125 names for the city of Irvine and then organized it and got it bound. For mine and Elder Bray's area we have a list of over 4,000 addresses. And the other Chinese companionship also has their list of about 3,000 addresses. We literally found the entire Chinese population of Irvine! We have been using it and it has been working wonders! I wish we would have had this a long time ago because now we are speaking to Chinese people literally all day long!!

One of our investigators named Angela has decided to be baptized on the 24th of December! We are very excited, and it will be a memorable Christmas for her! This week we went to a members house to eat lunch with one of our investigators, they asked Elder Bray to make Mexican food for them since he is part Mexican and used to cook it all the time back home. He asked them if they would like it spicy and all of the Chinese people there said "Yes, we love spicy" but Elder Bray warned them that Mexican spicy and Chinese spicy is a bit different, but they told him it wouldn't be too spicy for them. When we ate I thought it was sooooo good! It was pretty spicy but not too bad. It ended up making all of the Chinese members cry and sweat because it was so spicy haha, they said next time they want me to make some kind of dessert instead haha.

I am loving every minute of it out here! I can't believe it is December and still sunny and 70 degrees most of the time, the lowest it gets is in the high 50's. I hope everyone is doing well back home!! I would love to hear from you all!! I love you all! Talk to ya next week!

November 28, 2011

Hello everyone!!

This week has been a really good week! This week we have been discussing a lot of plans of what is going to happen to all of the Asian programs within the mission. We have been discussing about maybe having the borders of our mission be opened so we could go a little further because our Chinese branch is the only branch that is close to those Chinese people for a very long way. We have to write a letter to the presidency of the seventy, so we have been working hard on how we will explain everything. This week our old Branch mission leader moved to Virginia :(, he is one of my favorite people ever! Before he left he treated me and my companion to dinner, we will definitely miss him in the Branch.

Thanksgiving was great! I was really scared because this year an actual Chinese family had signed up to feed us on thanksgiving (last year it was with our American Branch President) so we didn't know what kind of food to expect, but it turns out all of it was normal thanksgiving American style!! They told us that this year they tried their best to help us feel like we were at home for thanksgiving....it just wasn't Elder Kim's normal thanksgiving dinner ha ha. There was a lot of food and I was extremely full! So you don't have to worry mom, I was definitely fed.

I got to go on an exchange with my companion from the MTC Elder Mensink! It was an awesome exchange and we saw a lot of cool miracles happen that day. BUT i don't think anything tops what happened this Sunday!!! This Sunday we were able to teach a friend of one of our Branch Members. We taught her friend and her entire family and the are extremely interested!! We finally found a family!! 5 members of the family baptismal age! Elder Bray and I have been praying for a miracle and working really hard. I feel this just may be that miracle that we have been working for and it seems to have just landed in our lap out of nowhere. I love how the Lord works...you just never know.

Everything else is going really well! I hope everything is going well for all of you! I love you all! I would love to hear from you and I will do my best to get back to you as fast as I can! Until next week!

November 21, 2011

Hello Everyone!!

So this week was pretty awesome!!! There have been some massive changes as well! We have been working together with the other Asian speaking missionaries in our mission and we are going to try and vamp up our English classes that we teach every week. SO we are going to call the Taiwan missions and the Oakland California mission to get their English class materials from them because they all have really well organized English classes. So this week Elder Bray and I went to the mission home to meet with our Mission President so that we could call the other missions and work out the logistics with him. As we were doing that President Bowen leaned over and said "O by the way elders, you and Elder Bray are now zone leaders of a new zone. That is in effect starting now." We thought he was kidding but he wasn't! I am zone leader again, this time with Elder Bray, and we are the zone leaders over the 'Foreign Mission' zone. That is what they chose to call it. It includes all the Korean speaking elders and the Vietnamese speaking elders, all the Chinese and the two Samoan speaking sisters. We have been running around like crazy just trying to get everything set up and organized, it is crazy being a zone leader again, there is always a ton of things to do but I love it.

This week Elder Bray and I taught two of our investigators Mr. and Mrs. Wu. They are from Taiwan and they are the funniest older couple in the world. Well at the end of the lesson Elder Bray and I asked them to say the prayer and the husband volunteered first, so he started praying. This what he said in the middle of his prayer "ganxie Jidu Yesu zhu a, Yesu zhu a, zhu, tian shang de zhu, zhu, tian zhu jiao." Hahaha, ok that is in Chinese (pinyin) but I will translate it into English. He said "Thank you Christ Jesus Lord, Jesus Lord, Lord, Lord in heaven, Lord, Catholic church." Haha it is good to note that they are pretty new to Christianity so he really didn't know what he was saying, but we told him afterward and he was laughing pretty hard. Elder Bray and I looked at each other after we heard him say thank you to the Catholic Church in his prayer, it was soooo funny. Every time we go to their house they make sure to feed us, even when we say we are very full and we just ate she will go to the kitchen and cut some fruit for us, make us a soybean drink and give us some Chinese desert to top it off! That is how a lot of traditional Chinese people are, you cannot and will not leave their house until you are either full or about to explode haha.

This week has been great, there is so much to share but I will catch everyone up next week! I love you all! Until next week!

November 14, 2011

Hello everyone!!

This past week has been such an amazing week! My companion and I have been studying the language very very hard. My companion Elder Bray has been such a great teacher. His Chinese is absolutely phenomenal, and every day we use an hour where he will teach me Chinese and help me learn at a faster rate. Within a 1 hour time limit I learn 30 new characters (so i will be able to read them an know the meanings), then I memorize 20 new words, then I learn a new teaching principle and practice teaching it. Sometimes it feels like my head is about to explode afterward but it has been helping so much! I have seen a huge improvement within just the past two weeks! Our district is now starting to settle in and adjust to the new boundaries, and the work is still going strong. This week between the two companionship's we set a new record of number of investigators that came to church. We had 12 investigators come! 2 of them were the other companionship's investigators and 9 of them were mine and elder Bray's companionship!!! It was pretty intense making sure everyone was taken care of and to make sure we had lessons scheduled before they all left.

This week we had a special meeting with our mission president, he had all of the Asian speaking missionaries go to the mission home and we discussed each language program and helped him to understand more of the background and the best ways to go about the work for those areas. We had to create a plan for the next 5 years, on how we can maintain 5 Chinese speaking elders within the mission at all times....it took a lot of work to figure out when misisonaries would leave and when they need to be replaced and when we could order new ones....it took quite a while, but it looks like we have it all figured out now. The thing that shocked me is most of that plan didn't even affect me at all because I will be gone before it starts taking place...crazy....more like....scary.

Anyway, this week we taught two new investigators that we knocked into on Halloween night. It was such great lesson and the wife wanted to go to church! And she did! but after the lesson we found out that she was actually good friends with a member in our branch! Her husband had to be one of my favorite people I have met on my mission, but his problem is just the fact of how busy he is. He is a nurse and is working pretty much all day long every day. We are planning to set up a time where we can teach him again as well. Elder Bray and I have been working really hard and it seems that the branch loves the foreigner companionship (it is what they call it, even though we aren't the foreigners here ;). We have about 2 baptismal dates set right now with two investigators and we are helping them to reach the goal they have set! We are excited! Elder Bray and I have been thinking of new ideas that we can use to help investigators progress and to gain new investigators. We recently had an idea to bring Elder Bray's ukulele to a dinner and then for the message we shared Elder Bray played the ukulele and I sang "I believe in Christ" in Chinese (we made our own arrangement of the song) they absolutely loved it, so later that night did the same thing at one of our investigators house and they loved it :), after we had a really great lesson. I am loving it down here, and I am so happy I was able to come back to the Chinese branch and work with the Chinese people again. I love you all!!! I would love to hear from you! Until next week!

November 7, 2011

Hello Everyone!!

This week has been one of the best weeks of my entire mission! I am so excited for this transfer! My companion Elder Bray is probably one of my most favorite companions so far! He and I have such similar personalities and the same humour! It is also a very different experience just being in a companionship of two white guys speaking Chinese! The Chinese people freak out every time we talk to them! Elder Bray has amazing Chinese! He served in Taiwan for about 5 months but had to get surgery so he was re-assigned here after he recovered. I am learning a lot from him and we have already been seeing a lot of success just in this first week of the transfer! Last night we taught one of our investigators Yang Jiemei. A year ago I taught her all of the lessons and she was interviewed for baptism and was completely ready and good to go, but then an hour before the baptism, she called us and said she needed to cancel it, then from then on she kind of fell off the map. But recently she has been coming to church again and last night we had one of the most amazing lessons with her and she has set a new baptismal goal for this month!! We are so excited and will just continue to help her prepare! The Chinese is getting better, it has been a long process. It has really taught me to have a lot and lot of patience, because studying Chinese in California is definitely not the easiest thing in the world, in fact it isn't easy at all. BUT I have seen such a big improvement and I know it is because the Lord has chosen me to speak this language for a reason and I am going to use all the diligence I have to learn it.

This week we did a lot of sorting. We had to take the original area book for the Chinese branch and split in half so that we have all the names of the people of who are in each of our areas. It is almost finished! This week was the first time we have ever been able to have one of our District Meetings all in Chinese, and since I'm District Leader I was the one who taught it! It was pretty intense preparing for that but it went really well! This week there was a baptism in our branch! The baptism of our investigator named Jason. Jason is one of my favorite investigators that I have taught on my mission! He is from mainland china, and he already has such a strong testimony that this church is true. I can't wait for all the other miracles that are coming! It has really been such a huge blessing to come out on a mission because I have learned so much and have grown in so many ways that I never could have if i didn't go on a mission. It is the greatest! I love you all! Until next week!

October 31, 2011

Hello Everyone!

This week was a roller coaster of a week, but I say that all in a good way. There are so many changes happening!! The mission president decided that it is finally time for there two be two Chinese speaking companionship's within the Yale Chinese branch, and to have 4 mandarin speaking elders serving all at once! I am now companions with my old companion Elder Bray who is from Connecticut! And Elder Kim is with my MTC companion Elder Mensink! Elder Bray and I are so excited because we will be two white Americans speaking Chinese, and it always has a huge shock factor to the Chinese people and they love talking to us because of it! The branch here has been growing! There has been a lot of success lately and we are sooo excited for how many more miracles will happen now that we have 2 companionship's serving in the branch!

This past week Elder Kim and myself taught our new investigator Jason. Jason is from mainland china and he has soaked up everything we have taught him. He loves reading the scriptures and he loves coming to church. He and I have a special friendship because when we met, we both felt like we knew each other already ;), his baptism is planned for this upcoming Saturday!! I am a little sad though because since there are now two companionship's, our area was split in half and it just so happens Jason lives on the west half which isn't my area anymore so the other elders will continue to teach him and prepare him for baptism, but I will definitely go to his baptism and see him every Sunday!! We have a few other investigators that we are working with and it is going really really well!! I have been studying the language really hard and it has been improving bit by bit!

I will be the District Leader over our new Chinese district with just the two Chinese companionship's! So I can teach all our district meetings in Chinese! Another funny thing to note is what the assistants to the mission president have named our district. The new Chinese district is named "Xili district" which literally means "Baptism District" haha. Pretty cool!

Well I am lovin' it down here in southern California! The weather is getting into the perfect weather of sunny and 70 degrees all the way until about April :) cant beat that!

Well I love you all! Hope to hear from you! Until next week!

October 24, 2011

Hello Everyone!!

This week was the fifth week of this transfer call. I cannot believe how fast the time flew by this transfer, I think maybe it went by so fast because the Chinese branch is so amazing! This week we were able to find 2 new investigators! We went to go see one of the referrals, his name is Jason. Jason is one the most awesome people I have met on my mission. We taught him about the restoration and about the church being restored and he said the entire time he just felt happy and at peace. He committed to be baptized before we even asked him to pray about the Book of Mormon and the message that we share. I started to teach him about prayer and how important it is in coming to know that the Book of Mormon is true and to know what we share is true and he said "I don't think I have to." and I asked what he meant and he said "Because I believe it already" he then said "I have never felt this much happiness and peace in my life as I have felt in these past few minutes. I believe you. It is true." Elder Kim and I were so happy to be able to have that kind of an experience. Jason came to church and so did our other new investigators and they all loved it! The members loved them and every single investigator got invited to someones house for dinner! The branch here does a really good job at loving the investigators and making them feel comfortable. This week we had a dinner at a members house and they fed us a lot of traditional Chinese food. The also had us eat Octopus...that probably had to be one of the most interesting things I have eaten on my mission. I definitely wouldn't go buy it on my own and eat it but it wasn't as bad as it seemed. I think the Lord knew I have been pretty picky about food throughout my life, so he placed me in a culture where they definitely are not picky with what they eat! I just recently found out that one of the recent converts in the Chinese branch is moving to Portland, Oregon temporarily to try and get his green card there, he has been asking me all sorts of questions about Portland haha but I have forgotten most of it ;).

This week we had our district meeting and one of my district members said his stomach had been hurting pretty bad. When we went to lunch and he didn't eat because he said it hurt pretty bad. I asked him where he felt the pain and what it was like and it made me think he could possibly have appendicitis. So I told him to call the medical adviser and see what he should do, but he was stubborn and said he would fine in a little bit. But I took his phone and dialed the number and then put it back in his hand, so he talked to the Medical Adviser and she said it could very well be appendicitis, but that he would have to wait the day out a little bit to see if certain other symptoms came about the would make it more urgent. They are on bike too. Later that day he called me and said they were at a members house and it had gotten worse so he called the Medical Adviser and she told him to go to an urgent care, so we ended our dinner with a member a little short and left to go pick him up at about 7 or 8pm and then we took him to the Kaiser Hospital Emergency Room because all the urgent cares were closed at that time. He got checked in and took him to the back and Myself, Elder Kim and Elder Munguia stayed in the waiting room. Elder Snyder (the one that was hurt) had their phone so he kept sending us updates. Finally he texted us and said that all the tests they did didn't help in finding the problem so he needed to have a CAT scan! They let us go back to the room he was in and stay with him while we waited. His CAT scan result came back a lot later, at about 3am, and we found that he did not have appendicitis but that he had some kind of infection in his smaller intestine. So we had to get a prescription and then go pick it up at a 24 hour pharmacy....needless to say, that is the latest I have ever been up in my entire mission! The prescription solved the problem and he is doing fine now, but it was an a fun story!

I love you all and I hope to hear from you all soon! Until next week!

October 17, 2011

Hello everyone!!

This week has been so great! We had our temple session this past week, it so great to be able and go into the temple and just feel the peace and serenity. It gave me that extra boost to get back out there and work hard! This week we were able to have a FHE (Family Home Evening) with our Chinese branch president and his family and two of our investigators were able to come! Those two investigators are so fun! It is two younger sisters, one is 12 and the other 11, there mom is a member but was less active for a little while. Anyway, the 12 year old, she already attends the high school for her math class! She and her sister are so smart, they showed us how each of them can solve a Rubik's cube in under a minute, it was pretty cool to see. The English class we teach each week is so good! I love talking to all of the students and being able to help them speak English, at the same time they teach me mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese ;), I have picked up a tiny bit of Taiwanese since I have been out, it such a crazy language, I love it :). This week we were also able to get back in touch with one of our other investigators named Angela. She is not Chinese actually, nor does she speak Chinese hah but she just recently went to China and adopted a baby and she wants her baby to grow up with both cultures so she wants her daughter to grow up in the Chinese Branch. Angela is not a member but her mom was before she died and Angela figured "Well, if I want my daughter to grow up in that good of a church, I might as well be a part of it as well". Angela's husband is a CEO of a medical company of some sort so when we went to their house to help them move some furniture around, their house was probably one of the nicest I have set foot in!

Oh and this week as Elder Kim and I were driving to go pick up some other elders I stopped at a left turn light because it turned red and the girl behind us wasn't paying attention and bent down to mess with her air conditioner and rear ended our car...haha boy that was fun figuring out all the info that I had to get and then taking the car to get an estimate and then filling out an accident report. BUT it wasn't my fault so at least I don't have to worry as much. It wasn't that bad, so you don't have to worry mom ;). This week we had a huge branch activity, it was a Hawaiian Lu'au. Elder Kim and I invited over 40 people to come and they all did! They had an amazing dinner and professional dancers come and perform. It was such a huge success, we had over 40 non-members come and almost all of them were Chinese!! So we have a lot of people we were able to talk to and set times up that we could come and talk to them some more! I guess one last thing is that I have finished my Mormon.org profile!! Please go look at it! It is 'Mormon.org/me/4y9b'

I love you all! Until next week!!

October 11, 2011

Hello everyone!!! Dajia hao!!

This week has been fantastic week as always!! The Chinese is still chugging along! We had a lot more opportunities this week to teach our investigators and to teach the recent converts in the branch as well!! I am so happy to be working with these members again! First off, I met Elder Mike McNeil (I hope that is spelt right), who was in my same seminary class in high school! He is temporarily in this mission while he waits for his Visa to go to Brazil! It is awesome to have another Oregonian...and beavertononian at that! We also have a member in the branch that used to live in Tigard and knows a lot of my really good friends all over that area of Portland! Anyway, just had to start with those two cool fun facts!

This week I have been trying so much harder to learn the language as much as I can. It gets a little better and I seem to have the good days but there are a lot of hard days too. But this mission has helped me find a lot of patience and I have gained some really good study habits from it as well. This week we taught our investigator Yang Xiao Man, who is the one I taught a year ago and was about to be baptized. We had a really good lesson with her and we broguth a returned missionary from Taiwan with us. She has been struggling with keeping certain commitments and it has been holding her back a little, so we focused on getting her to keep all the commitments that we give her especially the reading portion. This week I also talked to this really nice man on the street. I just started talking to him and he said that he has friends who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ (Mormon), and he said that he knows who they are and how good of people they are. I asked him if he wanted to know why they live the way they do and he stopped for a second and then said "well...thanks but no thanks, I have known them for a long time and I have looked into the church before...so yeah I have done my research." So I smiled and politely asked "Well, have you ever read from the Book of Mormon?" and he said "No I have not". So I said "Not even opened and skimmed its pages?" and he said "No not really". So I looked at him and said "Well my friend, then it looks like you haven't done your research." I bore testimony of how the only way he could ever know anything we share is true is to read the Book of Mormon and ask God to know if it is true. The Book of Mormon is the Keystone of our religion, because if the book is true, then it means Joseph Smith was called by God as a Prophet and that there is a prophet on the earth today, it means that the priesthood authority of God which is absolutely necessary to perform sacred ordinances is restored back to the earth, and it means that this church The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is that same and original church that Christ himself established, back on the earth again. He seemed to be taken back by my comment to him but then he said "Well, it looks like I haven't done my research. How can I get a Book of Mormon then?".

I love you all!! I would love to hear form you as well!! Until next week!

October 3, 2011

Hello Everyone!

This week has been a really good week!! I am starting to get back into the groove of things! The Chinese has been sooooo fun to speak again and try to pick back up from where I left off. It is not easy so if you could keep me in your prayers that would be great, but I have been given a lot of help with it. This week Elder Kim and I have been working hard trying to find more people that we can teach. It is pretty fun trying to think of new creative ways that we can find new Chinese people to teach. We have two investigators, the Wu family, and they are the two nicest people in the World. They are an older couple from Taiwan and have been recently studying hard to prepare to take the U.S. Citizenship test. We have been going over there to help them practice for 30 minutes and then we share a message with them afterwards. This last time brother Wu asked us if he could share a little testimony about prayer and it was so good! They said if they pass this test they will be baptized, so we are trying to help them! We have been taking a recent convert with us named Hunter to a lot of our lessons and he has got to be one of the funniest people I have met in my life. He and I get along pretty well, but I have some of the funniest stories to tell about him, I probably won't write them here but if you remember and ask me for some when I am home I will tell you ;). This week I came across a quote that really stuck out to me and I have been thinking about it a lot. It has helped me to stay positive in any situation. It is by Joseph Roux and it says, "When unhappy, one doubts everything; when happy, one doubts nothing." It is so true! This week I got to teach an investigator that I was teaching when I was in the Chinese branch before!! We had a really good lesson with her and we are striving to help her work toward baptism again. Other than all that, everything is going so well!! I can't believe it is already October. I love you all!! Until next week!

September 26, 2011

Hello everyone!!!!

This week was soooo amazing! It is literally like stepping into a completely different world!! A world where there is much different food, language, customs, humor, and just everything! I love being back in the Chinese branch! I feel much more prepared for it because I have a much better outlook on it all, I have a lot better study habits and I am just so excited to be back! This week I was able to teach English class again for the first time in a very long time! I was able to teach a lady who is a friend of a member in our branch. She is from Taiwan and she really likes the church, but she for some reason always puts off meeting with the missionaries, so I was able to spend most of the class talking to her about her previous experience with this church and about having missionaries meet with her, it will happen very soon! I am adjusting to using Chinese again, I am surprised because I really didn't forget too much of it, I understand almost everything they say now and I am trying to work on my responding and conversational skills which are bit more slow than the listening is. The branch members were excited to see me again, and I think one of the biggest changes is that we have dinners with members now (we never had them in the singles ward)!! This Sunday I was able to see 'James Pan' receive the priesthood! He is a man that I found by knocking doors while I was a zone leader in Newport, and he is super prepared for the Gospel, he was taught and baptized within 2 weeks and it just so happens that now I come back so I can participate in teaching him the new member lessons!! He was very excited I am there too :). I don't know what else to say other than I am really excited and I am going to be working and studying super hard! I love you all and am very grateful for everything you have done for me and the examples every one of you have set for me. Until next week!

September 19, 2011

Hello Everyone!

This past week was a great week! It was the final week of this transfer and so it ended today. I am transferred back to the Chinese Branch as a District Leader now. I am very excited to be using my Chinese again. I have my Korean companion Elder Kim again!!! Well this past week I realized that the area has really grown on me and I absolutely love the ward I was serving in. The members were amazing the people were amazing. It was actually kind of funny because I had been there for over 7 months (which is a really long time to be in any area). It got to the point where I had knocked every door in the area over 3 times and people on the street knew me by name. I had multiple people that would say "Hi, Elder Ellis!", one night as we were walking there was a guy who drove by (a non-member) and he said "Go Elder Ellis Go!!" ha ha. It was such a neat experience to be able to work with all of those people and the effect we had on them. We had a miracle right before I left. We found a girl that we had talked to before and she had fallen on hard times, but now she is coming to church every Sunday and going to institute classes, she will be setting a baptismal date soon! It will be a lot different for me being a District Leader. Because I went from having the biggest Zone in the mission, to the smallest District in the mission Ha, with only one other companionship besides my own. My trainer Elder Chang finishes his mission tomorrow! This email is probably all over the place because my mind will need a week to get situated back into this area. But I love you all and I hope everything is going well! Write me! (I will try my best to respond, I am not the best at that). Until Next week!

September 12, 2011

Hello everyone!!!

This week has been a really good week! To start off the week I was able to go on exchanges with the assistant to the president. Elder Soffe. He is one of my absolute favorite missionaries!! He has one week left on his mission, it is crazy to think that he will be done so soon. When Elder Soffe and I were out working we decided to go visit a former investigator that neither of us had met yet, when we went to the door his mother said that Mitchell wasn't home and she didn't know when he would be back. So we said we would come by at a later time and then walked around the neighborhood talking to all the people that we saw. When we were about to get in the car I saw a younger man at the first house we visited and I looked at Elder Soffe and said "That's him". I had never met him before but we went and talked to him to find out he was Mitchell, the one we were looking for. He invited us in and we got to teach him, he is a really nice guy. Halfway into the lesson he had to step into the other room to help his grandfather who he takes care of. He came back about 5 minutes later and told us to come meet Uncle Larry the man he was taking care of. We went in there and talked to Uncle Larry, he was very funny and really nice, he is an older man in a wheelchair and can't walk, and he is legally blind. We talked to him for a little bit and then he asked "Do you know where I got my name Uncle Larry from?" and we asked where and he said "From my buddy Frank Sinatra", we thought at first he was joking, but it turns out he really was Frank Sinatra's personal body guard, along with Dean Martin!!! He said Dean used to call him "Blue Eyes". It was a really neat experience! This week our investigator Elaine ended up having to move back to Brazil to obtain a work visa, that was sad but we will have the missionaries meet her again in Brazil. I was on exchanges again later in the week and we walked into a neighborhood and this lady points at us and said "You are just the two I was looking for!", she then said "I called the number on the card you gave me so I could get the address to go to church with you and I found out the bus routes don't go that way" is there any way you could help me?" We said of course and will have a member pick her up for church! We also found out that April, the sister of our recent convert Michael will be coming back to our ward so she can be with her brother, we are very excited about that!! All in all it has been a great week and I hope everyone is doing well! I love you all!! Until next week!

September 5, 2011

Hello Everyone!!
This week was a very busy but very exciting week! We were able to teach a lot of new people. We had a Zone Leader council meeting and we also had a few exchanges. I have found that being a zone leader can be stressful at times but at the end of the day it feels great because I feel like I have done so much. Well this week I went on exchanges with an elder named Elder Nelson. He is pretty new to the mission field and works very hard. He and I had the opportunity to teach one of the craziest lessons I have taught so far on my mission. We taught a man by the name of John. John invited us in and had a table set up for us in his front room. He had a plate with three water bottles there and he had a stack of books and papers right next to his seat. At the beginning of the lesson he asked what our names were and he wrote down each elders name. Throughout the lesson he took notes on everything we said. He would constantly refer to these notes throughout the lesson. We had taught him on exchanges before about 6 weeks previous. This time, he had the notes from the pas two lessons typed up on a piece of paper and he had notes written and marked for each corresponding elder. It was pretty intense. He is a very knowledgeable man and also had printouts from online of the topics we were covering that he had found from various websites, mostly anti-mormon websites. He was asking a lot of questions that he was trying to prove us wrong and was almost bashing. I guess, it is needless to say we didn't get to far in the lesson before I bore my testimony to him and told him that the only way he will know the truthfulness of our message is through sincerity, and that he really wasn't showing that. I told him we will only meet with him if he is willing to keep commitments that we give him and to come to church. He got quiet and said he would do his best. I hope it goes well with those next elders that teach him. I cannot believe how fast time is flying by, I hope everyone is doing well. I don't have much else to add for this week but I hope to hear from all of you!

August 29, 2011

Hello everyone!!!

This week was a good week. It started out with one of the craziest lessons I have taught on my mission. We had a lesson planned for Monday night with our investigator Elaene who is from Brazil. When we teach her we have to go slower because English is not her native language so we usually bring a Portuguese speaking member with us when we teach her. We also have a rule that we need another male present with us if we are teaching a female. So on Monday night the member didn't show up and we tried calling him but no answer, so we were a bit disappointed and made our way to her place to cancel the lesson and reschedule for another day. But it just so happens she had her male friend there named Alijandro (he is from Panama and speaks Spanish) was there. He said he would like to listen so we walked in to teach Elaene and Alijandro, but then her other roommate walked in who is also from Brazil, named Monique, she said she wanted to listen as well. They all have different backgrounds of religion and the English barrier made it crazy to teach all three at once and address each one's concerns. So we got to the portion where we wanted to watch a DVD about the Restoration and we had it play in Portuguese and had Spanish subtitles on for Alijandro. Then halfway into the video their other roommate who is from Saudi Arabia walked in and joined us as well haha. It was a good lesson but boy let me tell ya, it was a tough one, to make sure they all understood at their own level. Anyway, I also had a funny moment this week. We walked into an apartment complex that is gated and locked, after being here for so long I have found which gates are always open and which ones we can easily get in to. We got in and this man I have talked to before (a very rude man) was walking down the path toward us heading toward the pool, with a microwaveable bowl of lasagna in his hand, so I smiled and asked him how he was doing and he said "Do you have a certificate to come in here every stinkin' single day!? Do you have the right to solicit people like this and harass everyone in here!?.....I just smiled and said "Well sir, we have been called by a prophet of God to share this Gospel with the world. However, we do have a certificate that is signed by the Prophet of God that gives us permission to share our message with everyone." He got a little flustered and then angrily said "Try the civic center!!" and then madly shoved a piece of lasagna in his mouth and walked off, so I said "Well, have a good day sir!". There have been a lot of people on my mission that do that sort of thing and it doesn't even bother me anymore, I just smile and love them. We have still been hitting the pavement and tracting all day long, we are on the search for new investigators. I love this work! I love you all and hope everything is going well!! Write me!! Until next week!

August 22, 2011

Hello everyone!!!
Well this week was amazing!! I want to start off by talking about what happened this Friday!! Our recent convert Michael got the priesthood last Sunday and this Friday he baptized his sister April!!!! I can't explain how happy it makes me to see their family growing together and the strength the Gospel is bringing to their lives. Michael told me and my companion that the relationship between he and his sister had been terrible before he met us for the first time. He said he has noticed the peace and the love that the Gospel has brought to his life, and now he and his sister are extremely close and are now both converts to the church and are loving every minute of it!! They are both going to the Temple this Wednesday to do Baptisms for the dead! Our recent converts Michael and Andrew both say they are 100% sure they will serve a mission. It is now only a matter of time!!!!!!!! The rest of this week has gone really well, we are still searching day in and day out for new investigators. We have faith that we will find those that the Lord has prepared. I think missionary work is best once you have been out long enough to realize how much joy you find in the service of others. The days just seem like they are shooting past, and I can't believe that in October I will hit my 6 month left mark...scary! I love all of you and I am just lovin' it down here! The weather has gotten a little bit hotter but that just means it has gotten to about 76-80 degrees ;). Until next week!

August 15, 2011

Hello Everyone!!!

The computer is being weird this week, so I hope this sends ok. Well
this week has been another fantastic week! This Sunday our recent
convert Michael asked me to confer the priesthood on him, it was such
a neat experience!! He then told all of us that his sister has also
recently decided to be baptized!!! And she wants him to baptize her!
It will be this Friday!!! This week we have been teaching our
investigators that are preparing for baptism, one named Elaene and the
other named Tacio. They are two separate investigators we found, but
it just so happens that they are both from Brazil. I have taught quite
a few people from Brazil in this area and I have to say those are
usually the most fun lessons I have had. Their culture and
personalities are just fun to work with! Tacio is a younger man who
came to here to go to OCC (Orange Coast College), he accepted a
baptismal date and so we came back the next time and he told us at the
door that he wasn't really that interested anymore, but I just
continued to ask him questions and started testifying of The Plan of
Salvation and he let us in eventually. The Plan of Salvation really
interests him and I was so happy that the spirit helped me to share
that with him or else we possibly could have lost him. We have an
amazing week planned this week already and we are really excited to
see the miracles that will happen.

I would love to write more but I am crunched on time and the internet
is really bad here, so I will send this while I still can. I love you
all!!

August 8, 2011

Hello everyone!

This week has been a great week! My companion and I have been working very hard to find new investigators. Our teaching pool has shrunk a little bit but we have been seeing some amazing miracles! We taught a first lesson to a new investigator named Elaene. She is from Brazil and speaks Portuguese and is up here going to UCI studying English. We brought two members with us, one who speaks Portuguese and one who speaks Japanese, because Elaene's roommate is from Japan and studying English as well. When we taught Elaene she told us that she used to go to English class in Brazil that the missionaries of our church teach! She also said she took the missionary lessons in English. She said she already believes the Book of Mormon is true and that whenever she has had hard times in the past or struggles, she will always read the Book of Mormon to find answers and to feel peace and calm. She is such a miracle!

I got to go on two exchanges this week where I had the opportunity to work with other Elders within the zone. I love being able to see how many different ideas and ways to do the work there are. We were able to teach a man who has a best friend is a pastor and organizer of a certain church. It was probably one of the most intense lessons I have had yet on my mission. He was taking notes the whole time we were talking and he would ask really deep questions. However during the lesson he started to bash a little bit and he kept twisting what I was trying to teach and share and at one point after I shared my testimony on a principle he asked me a question where he had twisted my meaning and so I told him "You know exactly what I meant. We came hear to share what we believe and not to play with and twist each others words." It was a little bold, but he stopped and the lesson ended very well.

I am loving everything about serving a mission down here in southern California! i am learning so much and it is very neat to be in California where I get to talk to people from literally every race and culture. I think at this point I know how to say the phrase "how are you?" and a few other phrases in 11 languages. the diversity here makes tracting very fun and I am loving every minute of it! I love you all. I hope all is well! O and today was transfers, but I am staying the same along with my companion! I am excited because my companion and I will see many more miracles this week!

August 1, 2011

Before I write the letter, here is a picture from this past week. My companion and I were destined to be companions if you can tell by the picture.

Hello Everyone!!!!

This past week was week number 6 of the 7 week transfer! I can't believe how fast the time has already flown by! We have been in the 'search' mode all week long because our investigators kind of disappeared, so we have been out talking to a lot of people and knocking a ton! This week we taught a less active member named James that some other elders referred to us. At the beginning of the lesson we could tell he wasn't taking it that seriously, and I asked him what he has liked so far about meeting with the other missionaries. He said "It is awesome because they never make me do stuff"....well, his answer didn't sit well with me and my companion and I bore very strong testimony on how we don't live the gospel or go to church to be entertained. We told him the reason is because we need our Father in heaven. We must be closer to him and continually strive to be as close to him as we can. Church is not meant to be a fun zone, it is something sacred that cleanses us and brings us more into touch with our Heavenly Father, it is sacred. Because it brings us closer to our Father in heaven we have what we call Joy..."not fun or temporary happiness". Pure joy that only comes through living the way that God has commanded us to live....we went on a bit more with our testimonies but it was really powerful and by the end of the lesson it had completely changed his whole outlook on it, and he said he wanted to go to church. I love this work, it is just the greatest :).

I got to go on exchanges with my former companion Elder Bray in the Chinese branch! I still remember my Chinese! I have seen so many blessings with this language, but it is still very hard. I am so happy to be a missionary in exactly this mission. It stands out to me as a testimony, that the Lord knows exactly where he puts his missionaries and why. It seems as though I have been tested in every area of my weaknesses but also been able to use my strengths to the fullest here. It is really nice to take this time to stop putting focus on myself and put on those that are around me, it really makes life a lot happier and easier. I love you all! I hope everything is going well! Until next week!

July 25, 2011

Hello Everyone!!

This past week has been a pretty good week! On Monday my companion and I went to UCI (University of California Irvine) and talked to everyone we saw. I saw this young man locking his bike up and I said "Hey, you ever talked to the Mormons?" and he laughed a little and said that he actually hasn't before. He invited us in and we taught him and two other of his roommates. It was a great lesson and it was interesting because they were all from different religious backgrounds. One was raised Christian and had a good knowledge about the bible, the other was catholic and rarely went to church, and the other was raised in a Chinese family who had no religious background at all. They accepted to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it, they recently cancelled our next lesson but we will check on them in a couple of days to see where they are at. We recently got a new ward mission leader and he is so good! We were kind of struggling to meet and correlate with the other one, but the new one is so excited about the work and he has already been coming to lessons and helping us out so much!

Our mission president told us he wants us to make our own mormon.org profiles!! So I already made mine and now it is being processed, but it should be up soon for everyone to see. To my family who reads this, even my relatives...make a Mormon.org profile! It is such a good way to share your testimony with the world and the world really needs it today. We have been meeting with our recent convert Michael and his sister as well, his sister has been coming to church every sun day and she is doing so well, and working toward her baptismal goal, she lives in a different area though so this week we passed her off to different elders. However this last lesson we taught with Michael and his sister, his mom joined us! It is such an amazing thing to see that Michael is being such a great example for his entire family! He also said this Sunday that he wants to work toward serving a mission!!! This transfer has this week and the next and then we will be in a new one, it is very crazy how fast time goes. I love you all, I hope all is going well. Until next week.

July 18, 2011

Hello everyone!!

Ok, well I don't have much time again....being a zone leader is crazy, but i love it! This week our investigator Michael was confirmed a member of the church!! He is so happy and it is an amazing experience to see how much he has progressed in these short couple of weeks! We were able to meet with Michael's sister who is not a member, and it was a great lesson about the restoration of the Gospel, and she accepted a baptismal date!! We went on a few exchanges this week and I had the chance of working with some other elders in our zone! I find it so interesting to see how many different ways things can be done. it truly amazes me how the Lord has placed so many people in our path! This week we had interviews with our new Mission President, so Elder Coons and I got to do 9 hours of training the elders and sisters of our zone while 1 by 1 they were interviewed!! We were a little nervous about teaching all of them but we got a basic outline of what we wanted to teach and then the spirit took us the rest of the way, and in the end it went very very well! I love this mission and this opportunity to be out here serving the Lord and serving everyone around me! I love you all, I promise I will start writing a bit more in my emails haha, things will get a little less hectic soon and I will let you know all that has been happening! I love you!! until next week!

July 11, 2011

Hello everyone!

We have a new mission president! President Bowen is absolutely amazing! We had the opportunity of having him come with us to teach one of our investigators named Jocelyn. I admit, we were pretty nervous to go teaching with the mission president, but it was one of the best lessons we have ever taught, the spirit was so strong!

This past week and few days have been some of the best of my entire mission so far. It started out with a lot of knocking and finding but we saw amazing miracles. Our investigator Michael was baptized on sunday!!! He asked me to baptize him so that was the first person I have personally baptized on my mission. It was such a beautiful baptismal service. He has such an amazing story. When I was on exchanges with another missionary we saw a young man playing basketball, so I walked up to him and started talking to him. He eventually walked over and sat down with us at a bench. We taught about the Restoration of the Gospel, at the end we invited him to pray but he wouldn't pray with us, so I told him to pray silently, and he did. He said afterward that he felt tingly and pretty happy, so we scheduled another meeting and left. At the next lesson we asked him if he had been reading and praying and he said he tried but didn't do much. We focused on helping him know the only way to receive and answer is through reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. We struggled the next couple of lessons but then at one particular lesson, I had a strong feeling to tell him "Michael, I know that you already know it is true. What are you willing to do to show your faith?" and he just said I don't know, defintiely not going to be baptized. At another lesson, we brought members with us and they were recent converts themselves, after that lesson he started reading like crazy from the Book of Mormon, he came to church every sunday and he started going to institute as well. He told us later, that one night he was walking to his house and he stopped and had an overwhelming feeling come over him that brought him to tears, and he said at that moment he knew it was all true and that he needed to be baptized. He has such a strong testimony!! It was interesting because from the first time we met him, I knew he was special, I could just feel it, despite the fact it wasn't easy.

I also got word this week from an investigator I taught named Tony. We found him a while back also while I was on exchanges and we taught him everything and passed him off to different missionaries back in his hometown because he wanted to be baptized where all his family could come. He was baptized this saturday!!!! There have been so many miracles out here. I am in awe at how much the Lord really loves each and every one of us. I love this Gospel and I love being a missionary out here in southern California! I hope everyone is doing well.

July 1, 2011

Hello everyone!!

Today is my P-Day because we get to go to the temple today! So I will not have a P-Day this upcoming monday, but it will be the following one. Anyway, I guess I can a short little recap on what has happened in the past couple of days so far. My companion and I have been trying to find new places that we can find the college aged people, and it has been a lot of knocking and talking to everyone we see. We were a little sad this week because we had lost contact with one of our investigators for a little bit but we got back in contact with her last night and taught a lesson with her. She had a family emergency that she had to take care of and that was why she was out of town and didnt respond. She wants to be baptized and has been telling all of her LDS friends that she will be! She is a standup comedian as a hobby, and she is pretty funny and very fun to teach. We have also been teaching two other investigators, named Michael and Andrew and they are both loving the lessons and coming to church. We are working with them on setting a goal to be baptized and it seems like that time is very soon now! Please include them in your prayers if you can! This week they have been renovating our apartment and we have to be out of our apartment from 8am-5pm everyday. They have almost finished the kitchen and they will be giving us a washer and dryer which will be awesome!

Today our new mission president, President Bowen and Sister Bowen arrive!! It is sad to see President and Sister Watrous leave but I am excited to work with the Bowens as well! I don't have much more to add to this, I guess thats what happens when you end up with two P-days in one week ;). Well I love you all! I hope everything is going well!

June 27, 2011

Hello everyone!!

This week has been fantastic!! my new companion is great, the ward is helping out a ton and we have been seeing all sorts of miracles throughout our zone! I can say it was a little intimidating to have this much responsibility this soon in my mission but it has helped me grow so much! I find the best way to get through tough times is to read the scriptures and without fail I always find help and counsel on the specific things I have been thinking about or going through! my new companion Elder Coons is probably the coolest elder I have met on my mission, he is a powerful teacher and he and i get along very very well. We work super hard and smile all day long! We taught so many lessons this week for our area, 11 other lessons with 3 member present lessons!! We have about 3 amazing investigators right now that are progressing very well. I love seeing the change in investigators lives as they keep the commitments we extend. This week our apartment is being renovated, so there are plastic sheets hanging everywhere, we literally have no kitchen. They tore all the walls down! There is wood everywhere. I am so excited for when it is over though because we will have all new appliances and a washer and dryer for us!!! We wont have to pay for them anymore!!!! I say it over and over again but i know this church is true! It really is! The Gospel of Jesus Christ needed to be restored, not changed and reformed to a good enough version, it needed to be literally brought back by the hand of God in its purity. And my testimony is that it has. I love you all and the amazing examples that have been set for me! I hope to hear from all of you! Until next week! ( sorry I am in a hurry again this week...got more things to do)!

June 20, 2011

Hello everyone!!

I will have to make this a quick one this week! We had transfers today! I am now Zone Leader 1 in the Newport and Irvine zones! There are 28 elders and sisters in our zone and 5 districts! I have a new companion named Elder Coons and he is awesome! I am so excited for this transfer, it will be great! This week we found two new investigators and they both came to church this Sunday and loved it!! Our current Mission President and his wife are leaving on July 1st when we receive our new mission president, President Bowen from IDAHO FALLS ;)!!!! This mission is the greatest thing I ever decided to do in my entire life. I love being out here and serving other people. I have really found, that when you are feeling bad about yourself or if your mind starts to dwell on your own concerns a little much, then think of how you can help someone else, and get up and go serve others and you will find that you will be happy. Your problems will seem less important. It works! I thank you all so much for the support you have given me and I only wish to show my appreciation by working my hardest and enjoying the opportunities I have out in the mission field. Sorry this week is so short, but I will catch everything up next Monday! i love you all!!!! Until next week!

June 13, 2011

Hello Everyone!!!
This week was a very very good week! We had the last Zone Conference I will have with this mission president, President Watrous and Sister Watrous. On July 1st we will be getting our new mission president, President and Sister Bowen from Idaho Falls, Idaho(which is pretty darn cool if you ask me...them being from my birthplace and all ;). It is definitely crazy how fast time has flown by during my mission! Well this week all of the colleges ended school and so everyone went back home, so the work has been a little slower and tougher because not as many young single adults are around but we have been finding some great ones that are sticking around for the summer! This week I had one of the most spiritual experiences of my mission that I want to share, hoping to inspire anyone reading this.

I was on a companion exchange with my old companion and trainer Elder Chang again. He and I felt impressed to go to a certain apartment complex. We knocked on a door and a girl answered the door, we asked her if she had talked to Mormons before and she said "Yeah, he is one" and pointed to a guy that was on the other side of the room. When he saw us he immediately invited us in. We went and sat on their back porch with him and he told us that he is a member and had served a mission, but he has been less active for a very long time. We found that he has had some very rough experiences since he kind of fell away and he has been thinking about it all a lot more just in the recent past. He told us that it is funny we came that day because the night before he had decided in his mind that he wanted to go back to church and try to change his life around. I felt impressed to share very specific scriptures with him that I really have never shared before. Then I felt impressed to say to him "This is your second chance. I know you can overcome this, I have full faith in you. You can get yourself out of this rut that you have fallen into. I have faith in you and I know the Lord has given you this opportunity to get out." He got really quiet and then started to cry very hard. After a minute or two he looked at me and said "How did you know that?.....How did you know that?", I was a little confused at what he was meaning but then he said "I have been praying to God a lot lately, specifically to send someone into my life that has faith and trust in me and can tell me I can get out of this rut I am stuck in...and you just said that. You don't even know me....how did you know? You answered my prayers" and he continued to cry. It was a very spiritually strong experience that I have been thinking a lot about. The Lord knows his children and he will use others as the angels on earth that can pick us up when we are down or need help. I believe that when we make the right choices and live our lives according to the Gospel we will be in the position where God can use us as a tool in his hands to bless the lives of others. I love this Gospel and I know it is true with all of my heart! I love you all and hope all is going well! Until next week!

June 6, 2011

Hello everyone!! (Dajia hao!)

This week has been a really good week! Our mission has a special theme this month called "walk with the spirit month". We have decided to cut our mileage on our cars to half this month, so that we can spend much more time out on the streets and in neighborhoods trying to find people to teach! my companion and I planned to go to a specific neighborhood just because we felt like it. When we got there we felt we should go knock on the apartments in the middle of the complex, and something amazing happened...to give background to this story...we used to teach a Brazilian investigator, his name is Davi. He was one of my favorite people to teach ever! He used to come to church every Sunday and was progressing really well, however he ended up moving and he never told us where he went and we were never able to get a hold of him again. It made us sad because he was doing really well and he just kind of disappeared, but we did know he moved to somewhere else still within Orange County......but then again, that isn't saying much because thee are so many people in orange county it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. BUT we knocked on this door and we talked to a man for a while, he wasn't interested but after we asked him if he knew where college age people lived and he said his neighbors are and they are Brazilian. So we went and knocked on that door, and jokingly said to each other while waiting "what if Davi was to answer the door?" and guess what DAVI ANSWERED THE DOOR! We found him!! It was so great! We taught him a lesson and he is getting back on track. I enjoy so much working with the people here in Southern California, and the weather is just always amazing! I can't believe what my life would ever be like without the experience of what I am doing now. It is preparing me in so many ways. This Sunday our recent convert Andrew blessed the sacrament!!!!!! He also asked me at church what I did to prepare for my mission because he wants to prepare fully for his mission when he can go in a year! There is no greater thing to hear than that! I love this work. It is true! God and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith, they called him as a prophet. The church and Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored in its fullness!! And that is something I cannot keep to myself, no should you. Tell the people around you! I love you all! Until next week!

May 30, 2011

Hello Everyone!!

Well this week was a bit harder for us, we had to do a lot of finding and good ol' knocking. We met a man named Matt and he goes to a christian university down here, he was a very open and nice man, we taught him about the Book of Mormon and he was very interested. We had to end the lesson kind of abruptly because he got a call from a client that he works with and he had to go into work, but we set up another time to meet and the second lesson went well, I was not there though, we were on exchanges because I got to go serve in the Chinese branch with my old companion Elder Bray for a day! I miss that branch a lot, we got to have authentic Chinese food (I honestly didn't think when I got out here I would ever get used to some of that food, but now it has really grown on me!). We taught a lesson with a recent convert that had just been baptized in the Chinese branch, he has a very strong testimony and he is already trying to share the Gospel with his family and friends! When I was in my old area I found out the a member of the Chinese branch that I worked with was asked to have a Mormon.org video profile made of her. Her name is Shu Chih, you may see her profile and video on there soon. While Elder Bray and I were tracting in a neighborhood we saw a security guard walking around patrolling the area so I walked straight up to him and started talking to him. He was a very nice man and we had a conversation about how beautiful temple square in Salt Lake is and about the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He said he has always liked our church the most out of any he has seen, we invited him to meet with the missionaries and he requested that we send the missionaries that live by him to his house to teach him! In one of the neighborhoods I saw a younger kid who looked Chinese out playing basketball so we talked to him and he told us he has been trying to find the right church for him, he said he has been waiting to be baptized because he has always felt that he should wait until he found just the right church! So we taught him about Joseph Smith's experience and bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and we set up anther time to come and meet with him again!!! I love this work! I have learned so much that really anything is possible when we put our faith in the Lord and then just plain ol' work hard! I have come to know that serving a mission definitely has it's challenges but the good things of it all far out weigh the unpleasant moments. This Gospel is true! I love you all!! Until next week!

May 23, 2011

Hello Everyone!!!

Alllllllright!!

This week has been a week of work work work! We had a lot of lessons planned for this week but every single one fell through. However, we kept positive and we actually found a lot of new investigators and we taught a lot of new people! This Sunday our investigator Andrew was confirmed in sacrament meeting!! i had the opportunity of confirming him, it was a very neat experience! He said that his mind is set and he is going to go on a mission! It will be a year from now because he has to wait a year, but he is already reading Preach My Gospel and is preparing for a mission! i do not think there is anything that has given me greater joy on my mission than to see a convert with this strong of a testimony and such a huge desire to serve a mission himself! It just makes me smile :). In the area I work in it is the Young Single Adult ward, so that means we usually only find and contact people at the apartments where young people are. Since I have been here there are only about 5 places we ever go, so I have knocked on about every door 3 times now, and everyone, member and non-member knows me by name haha. But this week we found a new apartment complex with a lot of singles!!!!!! We have already found a few investigators there! We are teaching one now named Chad and he seemed like the most unlikely person we would ever teach but he has turned out to be one the most honest and desirous investigators we have at the moment. I have definitely learned on a mission you CANNOT judge a book by its cover. The Gospel is for everyone and I fully intend and do give everyone a chance to hear the Gospel. I think this week has also been a record for the number of Anti-Mormons we have come into contact with. it just makes me sad to see, how out of their way one will go to say bad things about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. However on one specific occasion we had a neat experience with one Anti-Mormon in particular, it was after we had already ran into quite a few of them so I was trying to think of new ways to talk with them. The man told us we were a cult and that we believe all sorts of weird things, but as he continued to talk I remembered about a book that was given to my family not too long ago from a member of our ward, i think it was the Loveland family. They gave us a Green Eggs and Ham book by Dr. Seuss, except they had replaced Green Eggs and Ham with 'The Book of Mormon' and changed a few sentences of it. ANYWAY, I remembered that book, and I asked the man two questions. I said "Have you ever read the Book of Mormon?" He said "No", then I said "Have you ever one to our church to see what our services our like?" he said "No"...Then I said "hmmm, well it seems like you have Green Eggs and Ham syndrome", he looked at me kind of confused but I explained and told him how he says that our church is a cult and that we believe in all sorts of things (I don't know how he came up with some...they were pretty out there), but i told him how he has never read the Book of Mormon and he has never gone to our church, I related how he is like the man in Green Eggs and Ham that said he didn't like it because he refused to try it. The whole analogy left him speechless and i invited him to come to church and read the Book of Mormon and then we left ;). I thought it was pretty cool haha. But anyway, this week has been great and it only seems to get better and better every week! I love it. I love you all and hope everything is going well! Write me! Until next week!

May 16, 2011

Hello Everyone!

Well, this last week was the final week of this transfer! We worked very hard and we spent a lot of it getting our two investigators ready for their baptisms on Sunday. We had one of the baptisms fall through because we have to work something out with his living situation before he can be baptized. But we did have the Baptism for Andrew this Sunday! As he was going into the font we realized that something was wrong with the drain and that the water level had gone way down, they had to do it 3 times to make sure he was completely submersed in the water, he was laughing about it afterward. He has the most amazing testimony and I have grown so much from teaching him, because he has really taught me. My companion and I are staying the same this transfer however this transfer will only be a 5 week transfer compared to the normal 6 week, for our new mission president that will be coming on July 1st!! Because we had transfers I don't have much time to write in this email today but I want you all to know that I am doing well. The people down here in California are so great! I cannot believe how fast time is flying by especially when you just get lost in the work! I love you all! I will write more next week!

May 9, 2011

Well, I know I just wrote on Friday but it is my P-day again this week so I guess I can write about what has happened in the past two or three days since I last wrote. On Saturday we had two appointments fall through but it was okay because we were led to talk to a few more amazing people! We did however have a very important lesson with the father of our investigator Andrew that is going to be baptized this upcoming Sunday! His father said he wanted to meet with us as well so he could get a better idea of what his son is getting into, he had been exposed to some anti-Mormon things so in our first meeting with the father we helped try and clarify some of the misinformation he had. But on Saturday we were able to do a church building tour and walk him around it and talk about what we believe and how the church works, the spirit was very strong and he seemed very surprised about some of the things we shared with him, but in a good surprised kind of way. And then we walked with him around the Newport Beach temple that is right across the street, the spirit was even stronger there and he is interested now in learning more! On Sunday we announced the baptisms of Pierce and Andrew for this upcoming Sunday! They are both very excited! So are my companion and I! We are going to be seeing them everyday of this next week and will be working with them. Pray for them! This will be an amazing week! It was great to call home for mothers day! I LOVE MY MOM! I hope everyone had a good mothers day as well! I hope everything is going super fantastically for everyone! I love you all! Until next week!

May 6, 2011

Hello everyone!!!

The reason I am writing today is because my P-Day was changed from Monday to today which is Friday because we get to go to the temple today! There has been so much that has happened since the last time i wrote...I guess to start...On Thursday the 28th (my year mark) Elder L. Tom Perry came and spoke with the California Anaheim mission and the California Long Beach mission combined! It was such a neat experience to listen to an apostle of the Lord! Surprisingly enough the first 10 minutes of his talk was about marriage and I think he realized he was off topic because he eventually said "Well, that has nothing to do with what I came to speak about so lets get down to business" haha, he is 89 years old but he seems in his 40's by how lively he is! He focused on the Book of Mormon and studying it deeply. It was an amazing talk! My companion and I taught a new investigator named Andrew this week. Andrew has been going to The OCC (Orange Coast College) Institute and taking classes on the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. He is the most diligent investigator I have ever met. He even asked one day to tract and knock doors with me and my companion so we said sure. When we did, he would ask people questions as well, it was such a cool experience that I have never had before. He is going to be baptized on the 15th of may! We are super excited! He is someone I know for a surety I was meant to come here and teach him. We also have been working with our other investigator named Pierce, and he has been struggling to set a baptismal date, we decided with him that we would all fast and pray on fast Sunday that he would receive and answer about his being baptized. We had a very spiritual lesson with him before we broke our fast and he said the prayer to end our fast. The spirit was so strong and he received his answer and he will be baptized on the 15th as well!! We have seen so many blessings come from the Lord in our area and I know it is because of the faith and effort we put into the work. I am one that really trusts in the Lord with my whole heart that if we have faith and work our hardest, the Lord will follow through with blessings. We had exchanges with one of the district leaders in our zone and I got to have Elder Chang come work with me in our area for a day. Elder Chang was my trainer :). It was really neat to work with him again and realize that a lot of the things I do were modeled after him. That night Elder Chang and I were walking down the street just before we were about to go exchange back with our companions and we ran into a college student named John. I asked him if we could share our message with him and he said sure. We walked over to a nearby park and then taught him about the Book of Mormon. At the end of the lesson we committed him to be baptized on the 22nd of may and he said yes!!!! We will be referring him to a different singles ward because he lives out of our boundaries. I have seen so many blessings it is such an amazing opportunity to be doing this work!!! I will be writing again in 3 days on Monday so I can write more. I love you all and hope to hear from you!! Until next week!

April 28, 2011

Today is Elder Joshua T. Ellis' 365th day in service as a Missionary!!! His 1 year mark and for me (his Dad) tomorrow begins his count-down from 365 days. Not that I miss him at all or anything. So I am posting a "Blast From The Past" picture just for fun ;)

April 25, 2011

Hello Everyone!!!

This past week went very very well!! In our zone altogether we had two baptisms! One of them was a big miracle, she is a lady who is 65 and has been going to church her whole life, she has not been baptized because she has an extreme fear of water, because when she was young she almost drowned. This past week the elders and the ward helped her to finally make the decision to be baptized and within 3 days were able to practice and prepare to help her be baptized and she was! We started out this week by going on a three day exchange with a companionship in our zone. I worked in our area with Elder Toland, he is a great elder. We worked pretty hard and had one day of back to back lessons, probably one the most busiest days of my mission so far! Every hour of our day had a lesson and dinner was a backup plan ;) (that tends to happen a lot). On my mission there have been a few times when I have a very special spiritual feeling or experience and one happened this week. We were talking to a lot of people that were outside in this particular neighborhood, and while we were walking around a man came up to us and said "How much do you know about the Mormons?" and it turns out he was a member. But he referred us to his less-active son who lives in the complex we were at. We went and visited the son and he invited us in, we talked to him for a bit and then set up a time to meet with him again. The next night we went back and taught him and his non-member girlfriend. During the lesson I had a strong feeling that I know him and I remembered him. Something I can't quite describe but it was very special to me. I am excited to help him get back on his feet in the Gospel again. This week was a lot of just plain hard work and talking to everyone and I have seen so many blessings come our way. I can't believe my year mark is in three days! I was reading a talk this week by Elder Marion D. Hanks and it was about finding joy through Christ. He focused on something I haven't really put much thought into before. But he said "We all know we need God. We love him and we absolutely rely on him." Then he said "But I find that rarely do we consider that God needs us. Each and everyone of us." I know that we really are all children of God and because of that, everything we do in this life has an impact on others. We should never think less of who we are. God is on our side and we can always come off conqueror! I love this work, and I love all of you! I hope all is going well! Until next week!

April 18, 2011

Hello everybody!

Ok, where do I start...This week all of the missionaries had their interviews with the mission president. My companion and I being the Zone leaders had to prepare a training lesson for all the other missionaries at the building while the interviews were going on. We worked pretty hard on the lesson and it turned out very well! All the missionaries loved it. And our topic was on asking questions. I have realized that asking questions is easy, but asking the right questions or even good questions is very difficult. We had another stake report with the Newport stake this week. A stake report is when my companion and I meet with the stake presidency and give a report with everything missionary wise that has been going on in the zone. This was my second time around so it went much more smoothly for me. The man that was presiding is the 1 counselor of the stake presidency and his name is President Watkins. He is such an amazing man! I could literally just sit all day and listen to him talk about the Gospel because he has such a strong testimony and desire for missionary work! This week I have really been focusing on improving my contacting and teaching, and not over thinking anything. The Lord has been helping and blessing me so much! I know the Lord put me in this area for a reason because I am learning the most here. I have found that the reason that sometimes situations seem like they are laser guided toward our weaknesses or strengths is because they are. The lord knows where we will best learn and who will have the biggest impacts on us. I know the Lord knows each and every one of us. He loves us all. One other cool thing that has happened lately is that my companion and I were at the stake center the other day and a man was cleaning out the library. He asked us if we wanted the old ensigns that were in there because they weren't keeping anything over 3 years anymore since it is all online. We said yes and recently I have been reading general conference addresses from 1972 and they are AMAZING!! I get to look at super young pictures of Elder Thomas S. Monson ;), and Elder Gordon B. Hinckley. I love this work! I hope all is well! Until next week!

April 11, 2011

Hello Everyone!

This past week was the first of the new transfer!! It feels good to start out with a lot of new members in the zone I am over and to just try and renew a sense of faith and urgency in my own area. We have had a ton of meetings and administrative stuff this week, but the little time we did go tracting and street contacting and teaching, was SUPER effective! I know that was a huge blessing from the Lord!!!! This past week we were walking down the side walk and I saw a girl across the street and I decided to say hi to her and try to contact her from the other side of the street. She happily waved and said hi back, we stood there for about 7 minutes yelling over cars that were driving by and talking about the Book of Mormon and her friends that were on missions. I invited her to let us come and share the message her friends are sharing with other people in the Philippines. She said yes and the next day we went and taught her. She is now a new solid investigator! I find that at the beginning of my mission I would be really timid talking to people around me and I hated awkward conversations where the people just look at you and don't say much, but now I thrive on it :). The more I understand how much the message of the restored gospel means to me, the less timid I get, because I know for a fact it will help others and I am going to be the one to let them know how they can accept it. I have also learned that no one is too good or too less for the gospel of Jesus Christ, no matter who they are, what they have done, or how they treat us. We had the opportunity of teaching one of our investigators named Jay. We hadn't seen him since the first day of last transfer and we knew this lesson had to be really good and toward his needs, but we weren't exactly sure what his true needs were. So my companion and I prayed and studied a lot for him. During our lesson I had a scripture come instantly to my mind as Jay was talking and I told him the question he was asking was answered in a scripture that I felt like I should share with him. After he read the scripture he looked up and said, how did you know to share this with me? And I told him, because the spirit wanted me to. From there he opened up and shared with us his true feelings and concerns and we were able to help him. I know the Lord is in this work! Missionaries have the privilege to be a part of it, but in no way does the success come from what we do. It is the spirit of the Lord. I hope everyone is doing well! I have to cut this one short because I am running out of time. I love you all!! Until next week! Zaijian!