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!
Monday, September 26, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
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!
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
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
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
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!
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!
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