My Busy Week

Hello Everybody,

Well my week has been great and extremely busy. 
On Monday after P-day we had two appointments which both went really well.
On Tuesday we had District Meeting and to be honest I was not that well prepared to teach, it was good though. I now know to take a little more time to prepare. We then waited for a delivery of new chairs for the Church and unloaded them and put them in the church. When we got back to our own city we had two really good lessons and set a baptismal date with one of the investigators.
On Wednesday I had a District Leader Council in Leiden at the mission office. I was gone all day and I went with Elder Sanford while my companion and Elder Sanfords Companion stayed in Apeldoorn.
I would finish my e-mail but the library is closing. I love you all
Love Elder Ellis

The Life of Elder Ellis

Hello!

 

How is everybody? I am doing pretty good and am excited to change things around. Now you all are probably wondering what I mean by that.

The mission and actually all missions of the church have a new schedule to go by. Our main focus is to find and teach Families. haha really funny. When I first heard that I just thought to myself: "Yeah that is what we always look for to begin with, it's just so hard to find a family" Well we had a training that made it more clear to me on how we would find and teach more Families. Now back to the new schedule. It is a lot different than the one I went by the past 9 months (in the field) but it is gonna be so awesome to live by it. I am exited because I know that it will build the kingdom. I am praying to increase my faith and ability to teach with good dutch and to teach simply to get the point across.

I will let you all know what its like.

We found 2 new investigators this last week and they are very nice women. They don't know each other. They both are excited to learn a lot and accepted to make a calender of how often we will come by. I learned that our investigators need to know that we come to teach and that there are certain topics that we need to cover. So many people just like talking but it goes no where besides all around the gospel (topic wise that is).

We also met with a really cool lady (member) who unfortunately has not come to church for a while. She said that she wants to come back. Sweet.

On Thursday we had Zone Training where we heard about the changes from our Mission President. It was very good training.

After the training I went on exchanges with one of the Elders working in Zwolle. It was really fun to be back in my old city. I was able to look up one of the former investigators. I love Zwolle. We also found two new investigators who are awesome and who we had really good lessons with. Unfortunately one of the investigators was hit by a car the night after we found him. His dad text us and told us that our appointment won't go through because he is in a coma. I hope that he will recover to full strength.

Really quick some updates that I forgot to mention a while ago. When I used to work in Zwolle we had 2 solid planned baptisms. Both of the wonderful ladies have not been baptized yet. One is still investigating but needs time and the other stopped contact because she was antid. A Family that was and is so awesome went inactive while I was there it started but now they no longer come to church at all. It is so sad to see those kind of things.

A little better news. On Saturday we had our last open house in Leeuwarden. We talked to a ton of people again and I gave a church tour in German to a lady from Hamburg. I also talked to a really cool Canadian guy. It was a great success.

When we were waiting for the train before going home a lady started asking questions about our faith or believe in front of a ton of people and we had to really stand for what we believe. I hope that some of the people around us now have something to think about .

I love you all and I must go. Thanks for all the support.

Love Elder Ellis

Hey Everybody

I am very thankful for all the e-mails and letters just so you all know. I may not always be able to respond right away but I am very thankful. I love you all.

So let me see if anything cool happened this last week.....

Let's start with Tuesday. I gave my first District meeting and that went really good and it was fun. I also realized how everyone loves to get distracted on other things but to be honest the biggest distraction is gone since I am now teaching and focused on what needs to be covered. I love calling the Elders from the District Sunday nights and even though it does not always seem like it, I am trying to be a good example for the District. I am so far from it but I am working on it.

After the District Meeting we finally had a guy come to check out the leak in our bathroom and it should be taken care of soon.

Man I love Branch council where we talk about the investigators of the area with the leaders from the Branch. It is a spiritual environment where we can seek inspiration from everyone to help us with our responsibilities in the area.

On Thursday we worked with Aswin again. Man he is so Awesome. He is the Best!! we taught a sweet lesson to a nice lady and we all felt the spirit.

On Friday we were looking for someone and could not find her house so we were just in this area wandering around till we came across a guy who was about to take a washing machine into this lady's house and he jokingly said "Oh two strong young guys, who came just to help" We were like sweet can we help and they were like"No it's good" But they finally let us help and we carried it up a floor up a Dutch stair case which goes straight up and each step is tiny. It was fun because most people don't like getting help.

Saturday we had another open house in Leeuwarden and my comp and I talked to a little over 400 people all together. We were so busy but I have to admit he was on fire. He just talked to everybody. I also helped a guy who got robbed right after getting money from the bank. He speaks Farsi or Persian its the same but he also speaks Dutch. When the police came I had to give a report of what he told me. I just contacted him like a couple minutes after he was robbed. He is a really nice guy.

Oh we ate dinner with the Loorbach family 3 times this week, Aswins family. They are so awesome and so nice. I love um so much.

I also forgot to mention that I was on exchange with Elder Bjork who is one of the Zone Leaders and we had so much fun and found two new investigators and had a few awesome lessons that day. I love that Elder. I love this work and I love learning about the Gospel. I am also excited to go on more exchanges with the other Elders in the District. Well I love you all and am so grateful for the support and the prayers and everything. You all stone.... I mean Rock! haha I came up with that while writing a letter to someone. anyways

The gospel has been restored by the Prophet Joseph Smith and I know that it's true. I Love Jesus!

Love Elder Ellis

Yo

I have realized that writing a subject for every e-mail is kinda, well dumb, cause I run out of ideas.

Hello

I am doing good and I hope so are all of you.

I am starting a new week in a new transfer and at the end of this transfer I will hit my year mark, well beginning next transfer. Not that I am thinking about my time I just can't believe how fast time is going by. I just can't imagine my normal life anymore.

On Tuesday we had a cool appointment with 2 investigators who are not interested in our message but our well-being. So they make us Delicious healthy food and gave us frozen pasta sauces to take home and freeze. They are so awesome. We do talk about why we are on missions and they can't believe that we would at our young age leave all worldly things behind to talk to people about the gospel. I hope that they think about it and come to realize eventually how beautiful and important the gospel of Jesus Christ is.

I did have a pretty painful day on Wednesday, my back pain is getting worse but I am learning that if I walk in a handstand to my appointments that the pain goes away. JK I do have a muscle stem thingy which really helps I just have to be more consistent with it.

We had an appointment with a young guy who tryed to convince us that religion is false. I went out of that appointment with a strengthened testimony. HE has really good points but my testimony was able to withstand. Only cause I study, pray and go to church very consistently.

On Thursday we had a sick appointment with two new investigators who are super positive. The Mother started crying when we told her that she can be with her son forever. At the end of the appointment she said the prayer and she cried through it and man the spirit was strong.

I have learned a lot about Revelation for myself and for those I teach. Sometimes we plan for an investigator and we then teach something completely different because we were lead by the spirit and we then find a concern that was stopping them from progressing, even if it means that we can't set a new baptismal date because they need to really do things on their own. I am sorry if this last sentence is confusing, it sounded much better in my head.

On Friday it was perfect weather , the sun was shining but it was fresh outside and we went and did service in a members yard.It was fun. He then in turn fed us. I love service.

On Saturday we did another open house in Leeuwarden and talked to alot of people. I talked to an Austrian and he is actually from Salzburg and his dialect which I thought I could speak was hard to understand. I tried talking back with my Salzburger dialect but apparently that no longer exists.

On Sunday we had stake conference and it was fun to see all the members from Zwolle. We had an awesome day.

I Love You All. My time is up.

Love Elder Ellis