February 27, 2012

Guess what folks....just 50 Days to go and Elder Ellis will be home!!! But for now here is his letter home:

Hello Everyone!

Ok, so this past week has been pretty good! Elder Mensink and I have been working very hard trying to find new investigators, because as of late we have had a lot stop meeting with us. We have knocked a lot of doors this past week! I never thought I would enjoy knocking on doors on my mission but the longer I am out here the more fun it becomes. I love meeting and talking to new people. I learn a lot from it and I love just getting outside and talking to people! On Tuesday we had the new Chinese speaking elder come in!!! Elder Winters. He is from Georgia and just came from the MTC. His Chinese is pretty good, especially just coming from the MTC. We are all very excited to have him here and the branch love it too!

This week while we were knocking, we picked a street and were going house to house. We came to one door and a Chinese man answered, and he looked oddly familiar but I didn't really think much of it. He let us in and we taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel. He really liked and about halfway through his wife came and joined us. We taught a really good lesson and then at the end I asked him if we could have his phone number, so he went and grabbed his phone, but he didn't know what his number was or how to find it on his phone so I asked him to hand it to me and i just typed in our number and called our phone so we could have his. To my surprise, when our phone got the call it popped up with a former investigators name....it completely caught me off guard, so I looked at the mans face again and I realized right away that I had taught him about 1 and a half years ago when I first came to this mission! Back then he had gone back to China and then we lost all contact with him, because we had taught him in a park and didn't have his address, but we just randomly found him again while knocking! It was a pretty neat experience, because once I recognized him he recognized me. I look forward to going back and seeing him again!

This week we also knocked into an old lady from China. She agreed to have us come in and teach her. We sat and talked with her for a little bit about what she holds dear and what she believes in. She said she has tried to believe in God and Jesus Christ before but she ended up not believing just because there is no way to absolutely prove there is a God. We had a very good lesson with her about developing faith, and at first it was going very well, but then halfway through she started being kind of rude and raising her voice and telling us faith is blind. As she was speaking I was trying to say a silent prayer in my heart because I didn't know how to respond but then I had thoughts just come out of nowhere. I told her I completely respect her beliefs and ideas and opinions, but I felt very strongly to let her know why faith in God is important. Even right now I can't remember exactly what I said but it was a very neat experience because I know I was being helped with what to say. After I finished speaking she had nothing else to say, and I invited her to pray to know if what we are sharing is true (the member and my companion must have thought I was crazy, because she had already refused to pray and it didn't seem like she wanted any of what we were sharing)...but when I asked her, she looked at me and softly said "Yes. I will" and she did! We also invited her to go to church but she said she won't be doing that but she said that she was very grateful for us coming but she really needed to think over what I had just shared with her. I had a distinct feeling that she knew it was all true. It was a very neat experience, but really hard to explain so I hope you at least get a broad idea. We found 6 new investigators this week! All from just knocking door after door after door! I know the Lord is blessing us as we stay diligent, even though I am in a tougher area, we will see miracles and we will see success! I am lovin' it here! I hope you are all doing well!