Monday 26 March 2012

Man Things Are Good!

Hi Everyone,
So let me just say that I am so happy about Deeann and I congratulate her. I am so happy for everyone. Also that's awesome that Ali is learning Slovak. I am super excited for her.
I am doing so good. Transfers is on Wednesday and I am staying in Rotterdam and my comp Elder van de Graaff is going to Amsterdam as assistant to the President and I am getting Elder Da Cruz who is from Brazil. It is gonna be a party cause the stake here in Rotterdam is starting a Portuguese speaking group so that means that they will have a sacrament meeting in Portuguese and we got a new set of missionaries and one of them speaks Portuguese and so does my comp so that means that I will have to sit in a lot of Portuguese lessons. The past week was great we had so much success and set 2 new baptismal dates. We had a lot of our investigators come to church and I am just thrilled with excitement because of all the good things that are happening. I love my mission so much. Its not always easy but so worth it. I love people. General conf is coming up which is so exciting. I don´t have much time cause we had a district P-day. I love you all and appreciate all the support. Happy Easter and love the Lord.
 
Elder Ellis
 
my address is still
Elder Ellis
Baroniestraat 18A
3051 ED Rotterdam
Nederland
 
P.S. enjoy the summer

Monday 19 March 2012

Amazing Week

Hi Everybody
 
Man I am doing so good and am so happy, the sun is shining and spring is on its way. We had a fantastic week.
First I want to share something cool and funny, so I decided last week that I needed to work on loving people more and so I prayed that I would have the opportunity to love more. Well the next day my companion and I were getting along but I was very easily frustrated and a lot of things just seemed to bother me. Well I just want to say that it was not my companions fault. I later realized what I prayed for and learned that loving someone is not just something we do when everything is fine and dandy but we need to love people even if they bother us or things are not going our way. Just like being happy, if everything is great and perfect its easy to be happy when in all reality things don´t always go our way. It is an art to learn to be happy in any circumstance. That is one of the things that I learned this week.
Now I want to apply this more specifically to the gospel. For example like keeping certain commandments, I have taught the law of Fasting to some investigators who reply : "oh I can do that I mean there are days when I hardly eat anything anyways" that is no sacrifice. If we keep commandments just because they are easy to keep then we miss the point and the DOCTRINE behind it. In a time when its hard to keep commandments and we keep them anyways we are so much more blessed.
       Enough of my preaching. Here is a miracle. We were driving in our car one day when we felt the need to turn right on a certain street actually furthering us from our desired destination. When we got there we stood confused not knowing why we were there. We made the best of it, listened to the spirit and talked to people who crossed our path. One guy was from eastern Europe and was on his way to school or something but referred us to his apartment building where other students lived, the intention was to talk to one of his friends and hope that he would be interested. We knocked the door and a German guy opens the door and we contact him, he was in a hurry so we did not have much time to talk( a quick side note, when I found out that he was from Germany I was like hey I am from Austria which is really weird to say because we are from different countries and if I were in Germany and I heard someone speak German I would´nt be like hey I am from Austria, I am not sure if you all get what I mean,....anyways.) So we wrote down his info and left. A couple days later we decided to look this guy up the inspired area. On the way to his building a lady passed us with a 20ish old guy and a 5ish year old kid. We talked to them and asked if we could share a message with their family, we walked to their home and there were 7 people in total, 3 generations, friends and a neighbor girl. We set 5 baptism dates and the mom of the family used to go to church and was looking for the church where she lives now. Its a huge miracle. I love you all and miss you.
 
Love Elder Ellis

Monday 12 March 2012

Hey Ya'll

Hey
 
It has been such a good week. Just so you know we had a Zone P-day today so I don´t have much time.
Well we are seeing so much success as we are obedient to the new way of doing missionary work.
I was on 2 x-changes this past week so we drove a lot. Especially me because I stayed in Rotterdam both times.
It was really cool and so much fun.
So I just want to share a miracle. On Thursday we had a journalist from a well known news paper follow us around to see what we do and write an article about the Mormons. Well the entire day went so good. We had to travel with the Metro which is an underground train system. We talked to people everywhere. He asked if we talk to people on trains or busses if we travel and we told him that we do but we are not allowed to contact people unless we start some casual conversation or if they contact us. Well after we said that I just looked around and a guy a few seats over asked me what it said on my name tag so I started a conversation and was able to tell about the church. The Lord just put the guy there for us. It was so amazing. The guy also asked if we ever come across people who used to meet with us but stopped and I ended up talking to some guy at a tram station who used to talk to the missionaries like 7 years ago. The lord put people like that on our path all day. I sure hope that the guy will write a good story.
Well I love you all and I gotta go.
Love
       Elder Ellis

Monday 5 March 2012

Thank You

Hi Everybody
 
First I just want to say thanks for all the motivating e-mails from my family and all letters that have been sent to me. I am so thankful for all the prayers that are directed at me and other missionaries.
 
I have had a great week. A couple questions were asked: Yes I am a Zone Leader and my address is: 

Baroniestraat 18A
                                                                                                                                                               3051 ED Rotterdam
                                                                                                                                                                Nederland
 
So Heavenly Father has blessed us with so many miracles, I just want to share a couple. 
We try to talk to everyone. One day this guy passed us and I thought to myself that he is a 40ish year old Dutch guy who is probably not interested in our message. I was looking through the dirty window like President Monson said in a General Conference talk (there is a good video about that on Lds.org). However as I passed I decided to talk to him anyway because who am I to judge. We did and he seemed sad and was interested to learn more about the Book of Mormon, we made an appointment. Towards the end of the conversation that we had with him he started smiling and walked a way with a smile and looked more happy. I know that as we talk to people that the spirit will touch them and they may not know why they feel peaceful or happy but it is because of the spirit coming into their lives.
Another miracle, this one is so tight, we contacted a Mongolian family on the street who spoke a little Dutch but it was hard to understand. We made an appointment. When they walked away and left our sight we typed the address in our phone map and it did not exist, we were so sad because its an awesome family so we ran the direction that they went and chased them down. Down the road we barely saw them walk into a Metro station. We spoke with them again and this time they wrote down their address for us and we had misspelled it by 1 or 2 letters. At the end of our re-contact a Dutch man approached us and asked us a question about the Bible, so we talked to him and while talking to him another girl came and contacted us and asked for some magazines, I talked to the guy and Elder Van De Graaff talked to her. We got both their information and God placed us on their path. It was so amazing. The girl thought we were JWs so she wanted the watch tower, but still. We are being blessed for doing our best.
 
I am also starting to get to know the members a lot better which really helps. I really love the members of the church.
All of our Investigators are doing really good and it is so cool to see them make progress toward eternal life. I love this work. I also love hearing miracles from home about missionary work. I love the Gospel.
 
Today we cleaned the apartment really well which is so nice especially when you get home at night and your tired, you just want to sit down and plan for the next day and be happy. A great missionary from Tonga who used to serve in Bullhead City said in his departing testimony "Be Happy" It is so true. It is up to us to be happy. We need to be happy even when things are not going good. That is especially when we need to be strong and happy. My testimony has grown so much since I came on my mission for the lord.
 
Oh man I found out the name of my new Mission President. Brother Robinson and Sister Robinson.
It will be so sad when President and Zuster Brubaker leave! I love them so much and they are spiritual giants.
 
We also had a Zone Leader Council this past week which was so cool and uplifting. The Ward here in Rotterdam is opening a Portuguese Group in April which will be so awesome because there are a ton of Portuguese speaking people in Rotterdam. That means that Rotterdam will be getting an extra set of missionaries who speak Portuguese. It is an exciting time for all Portuguese speaking people and actually all of us.
I am excited to see what will happen.
 
I am loving my mission and I know how much longer I have so please don´t keep mentioning how much longer I have because it keeps reminding me. I just love it here so much. (I am not upset or mad , I am just saying.) Thanks!
 
I love you all so much and miss you all. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints was restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. The Book of Mormon is the Word of God and it testifies of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ lives. This missionary work is Gods work. We are all a part of it and are building the kingdom of God preparatory to the second coming of Christ.
Much Love
 
Elder Ellis