October 8th, 2012

All right time for another letter I suppose. This week was all right. Of course as we all know this week was General Conference. I don't know where you got the assumption we didn't get to listen to the Saturday Conferences, we definitely did. Conference this week was like...the Superbowl for missionaries. It was pretty fun.

So this week we got our monthly miles cut in half. We used to be able to go 1800 miles a month, but now we can only go 900. Which is really inconvenient because our area stretches out super far. Plus our house is about 5 miles from any actual towns that we work in. And Paola is a good 20 miles away. Because of this, our work has slowed down, because we can't simply go where we want now. It's really stressful and kind of disappointing but oh well. We'll manage.

Anyhow, because of the lack of miles now we've had to do a lot of tracting. Honestly who likes tracting anyways? All in all though we had a pretty good week. We got a new investigator this week named Ben. He had missionaries stop by his house before but he said he wasn't interested. But then he saw a commercial and he decided that he wanted to hear about it now. So we gave him what he wanted, the lessons. And he's now decided to be baptized. He's not anywhere close to being converted yet, but with work he'll get there. He kinda seems like a go with the flow kind of guy, so I don't want us to rush him and get him into something he doesn't really know yet, we want to literally convert him.

Conference I guess was the highlight of the week. For the Saturday session we decided to watch conference at the Church in Paola. And because of our lack of miles to go anywhere, we were in Paola the whole day. But Conference takes a big chunk of the day away so it was a pretty relaxed day. The first session of Saturday was pretty cool. they talked a lot on some really serious and touchy subjects, like abuse, sexual sins, and so forth. Of course the announcement about the mission age requirements going down was pretty intense as well. It was funny watching the faces of the people at conference when the announcement was made, they were blown away.

The second session of Conference on Saturday was a mess for us. We had gone out to lunch and left the Satiellite on and so forth at the Church, but when we got back, it wasn't working anymore, and we had no clue who to call about it or anything. (We were the only ones that actually were at the Church to watch the morning session that day.) The older gentleman that was in charge of everything eventually came to the Church after we attempted to go to the library to watch the afternoon session (That endeavor failed because the library closed at 4 that day.) But we got back when the older guy was there, and he just took us to his house to watch the rest of that session.

Afterwards we went back to the Church to help him fix the Satellite and get the Priesthood session going. Before priesthood session, both Gardner and Paola wards had a combined dinner at the Church which was nice. There was a lot of food, but I could hardly eat anything because my stomach has shrunk a lot since I've been on my mission. I brought my blanket for the morning and afternoon sessions and so I had it there when the priesthood session was going. Me, my companion, and a member Brother Sargent had a good laugh about the blanket. Brother Sargent ended up inviting us over for the Sunday sessions of Conference because no one else had, and it was pretty fun. I brought my blanket.

Anyways all in all it was an ok week. We've been just trying to work and be obedient. Conference was a nice break for us, and now we have P-day, woohoo.

Last week was all right. We've actually had transfers now and I ended up getting a new companion. Funny that I'm already on my third companion. Seems I'm having a lot more companions that everyone else that I came out with. My new companion is named Elder Top. He's from Albany, Oregon, and the best way to describe him is, a hipster. He's 22 and before his mission he went to the University of Idaho getting a music major. He plays Trumpet and Piano, and does Jazz music. He's a pretty interested person, sometimes I hate him, sometimes I don't. But he's a really good missionary. The reason I call him a hipster is he has some interesting clothing choices. He's really into skinny ties, weird fabric ties and so forth. He also wears slap bracelet watches. (You know those slap bracelet things we used to buy at the DI? Now they have those, but they're watches, actually pretty cool.)

Now that I have a new companion, I'm basically completely taking over the area of Gardner and Paola. I'm not the "Senior Companion" but I basically am. I'm helping Elder Top come on in and take over the area. Honestly there's not a lot going on lately. We had a surge of referrals the last two weeks, but now it seems we're getting dropped by investigators and so forth. Our main goal lately has been trying to find some more people. Elder Top has always had pretty good success with tracting, but unfortunately it doesn't really work well for the Gardner area. We went tracting a bit the past few days and we've only gotten one potential investigator. We're trying to work more with the members and get some good referrals from them, but for the rest of the week we have an all right schedule. We have some people that our awesome ward mission leader wants us to start seeing and I've set up some appointments with people that we haven't seen for a while.

Elder Top also had the same trainer as me, Elder M. It's funny because we talk about him a lot, but Elder M. was a lot different with Elder Top than me. Elder Top almost makes Elder M. seem like this super mean guy, but I thought Elder M. was super nice and fun to work with haha.

Things are going well though, just trying to get the area started up and introduce Elder Top to the area. We work all right together, though sometimes he simply drives me crazy. Anyways, I need to write my mission president now, and then I'm going to go and enjoy the rest of my p-day. I'm going to take my companion out to Oklahoma Joe's so it should be a good lunch.

Hey Family how is it going.

I guess its that time of the week again and I'm feeling lazier than ever to write a letter! Ohwell. Things are doing all right here, I guess the biggest news right now is that we're going to have transfers this week. I could be moving to a new area, getting a new companion, or anything really. And I have no clue whats really going to happen this time, it could be anything.

Let's see what happened this week though. We got a few more referrals again which is great. This time they're actually people who wanted to know more, instead of a random LDS member referring someone that's not really interested. My companion is really excited now that we actually have some good investigators so he's not being as apathetic to everything now. He actually wants to stay this transfer now so thats good.

There's nothing really exciting that has happened. We're just continuing to work and to be honest the days are just flying by at this point. I can hardly remember what even happened during the week when its over haha. I'm having a good time though. I just remembered one small thing I guess. The other day the Gardner ward had a big dinner/silent-auction fundraiser. There was lots of good food which is great for a hungry missionary of course. But at the end they had a vocal auction for desserts. Half of the members ended up paying like 20 dollars for a dessert, and then they ended up donating them to the missionaries. We have quite a bit of desserts. Plus my companion got a huge box full of junk-food from his aunt the other day too. We're pretty much drowning in junk-food and so forth. I guess we've also been volunteered to be judges at a chilli cook-off too. DONT WORRY THOUGH, I'm not gaining any weight thank goodness.

Okay anyways, there's nothing much to say, honestly if you want to know anything else just have dad ask me when we're chatting together. There's nothing much I need. I'm could use some more ties. Preferrably blues and oranges. Hinthint. Anyways, yeah I don't really need much and if I do I can just buy it. Anyways take care, ask me questions if you want longer emails or something.

Dear Family and Friends and Mom :I

Don't expect a longer letter cause yours was short Mom pffft. Well first of all since Dad was all worried about it, yes I did get my music thanks. It's nice, I like the Piano music you sent me. Paul Cardell I think? Anyways, this week went by pretty well.

It was kind of a fast week to be honest, nothing really exciting happened we just kind of did what we always did. Let's see, we had a couple of referrals this week. One referral was super weird. I guess some member helped a stranger at the side of the road, and then he ended up getting all of the guys information and then sending in a referral. When we got to the guys house, which by the way was literally in the middle of nowhere, he was kind of just like whoa. I didn't actually expect missionaries here. We've scheduled a visit with him on Saturday, he seems like a pretty nice guy.

Another referral we got, has a mansion literally in the middle of nowhere. He referred himself and wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon so of course we obliged. When we started walking up to his doorstep we were attacked by two rather large farm dogs. Was kind of terrifying. LOL Speaking of dogs, I'm tired of them in general. Everyone and their grandma has a dog here. My companion loves dogs though so he gets their attention and then I don't have to deal with them anymore haha.

Let's see, this week we had dinner with the family that we got baptized last week. It was really fun because they're actually really into video games and when they realized I had played basically every game in their collection they were pretty excited about it. Then we got talking about TV shows as well, they're LOST fans, aww yeah. They cooked us Chicken Alfredo because it's basically my companions favorite meal. He loves brocoli too though. I really hate eating brocoli. :I

ANYWAYS, not much going on around here. I'm doing good, having fun, working hard, etcetcetc. Transfers are coming up, my companion really wants to move to a new area. I think it's not going to happen though. And if he does, he's going to probably open a new area cause President likes to pick on him like that haha. Maybe I'll get transferred but I think Pres wants to keep me here a little longer so who knows.
Good to know that the Utes won, I heard from a billion different people that it was super close. Which is good because last year when we totally owned them it just wasn't the same. But the drama makes the victory so much sweeter. Anyways, take care. Keep encouraging Kira to get back into Church. Tell Ian he's doing awesome for me. I'll try and get some pictures to you all soon, but don't count on it. I'm quite lazy but I'll tryyyyyy. Anyways take care.

Sincerely Elder Ellis

All right email email email. This week was pretty good. It just happens that we had our first baptism. We've been working with an excommunicated member and his daughter, and he was finally given the go ahead to be readmitted to the church. The bishop just decided that they should do that baptism that day, so we received a call at 10 AM if his daughter could get baptized and we could get a baptismal interview. So we had to call President and so forth and we got everything taken care of. So now we have a new convert baptism because the daughter was 12, woo!

We also did exchanges this week. My companion was very adamantly against exchanges, as he's had some issues with it before. Something to do with bed bugs I believe. But our Zone Leaders have been on the District Leaders tail about doing exchanges with us, so we ended up getting forced into it. The deal was we would only do it a half day though. They really wanted to get us a new investigator because for some reason 3 attending sacrament, and 3 progressing investigators wasn't enough for the Zone Leaders. We ended up not getting anything done during the exchanges because Thursday afternoons aren't the best. On the brightside, we ended up getting a new investigator this week, and getting a baptism. So now I think the Zone Leaders are going to leave us alone.

Anyways man I can't think of much else to say now because those were really the main highlights of the week. Other than those happening, we've just been doing a lot of work with some less actives which there's not much to say about that right now. I did get Cecily's mail, but I haven't gotten the other thing yet. My companion was all like what the heck when he saw all these moustache things. Not going to lie I said what the heck too. I was totally expecting the package to just be ties when I picked it up and felt it. Granted I was right, there was one tie in there. I love ties by the way. I want more orange in my collection though.

Moving on, I don't really know what else to say so I'm just going to leave it like it is. I have to write to President anyways, for some reason he thinks I haven't written him in 4 weeks, but I've only missed the last week cause it was Labor Day. Anyways, time for another day of sports and so forth. Take care and I'll write again next week!

Dear Family

Another week down it seems. Time just flies by. Things are allright here, everything is going slow still, and because of the distance of everything we don't get too much work done. Let's see, last week was my first Zone Conference. Zone Conference's are pretty cool, but this one was really really long, a little too long.

My zone was pulled out during some of it because of a special opportunity we have. There's going to be a big Gladus Knight devotional, which is apparently a really big deal. They went through a bunch of rules and stuff so they want it to be perfect. But if we get an investigator there, we get ourselves a ticket, and I'm always down for a nice break. I'm thinking about trying to get a Part Member family to go, the W.'s. Brother W is an African-American non-member, who I think would really connect with Gladus Knight because he's also really into music. He sings for a bunch of different Church Choirs and so forth. His wife calls him a closet Mormon, he's pretty close to getting to the point he might join. We just need to try and get on a more personal level with him and become his friends so he will consider listening to us. He doesn't like strict missionaries who are uptight and instead wants to see us as just normal boys.

Anyways what else happened this week...we started to see a new person. His name is S., he's a less active member. But I don't think he really recalls anything about the LDS church. He asked us to take him through all the lessons so we're doing that. I feel bad for the guy, he has no family around here. He's still single. And he works with horses, so he really seems quite lonely. We want to get him involved with the ward and get him to make friends with everyone.

Yesterday was fun. I don't think I've told you how our p-days usually go so I'll go ahead and talk about that. Usually we sleep in on p-days, our apartment is so clean anyways there's nothing we need to do. We usually go to the library at 10 of course, but yesterday was labor day so the libraries were all closed. Generally after the library though, we go out for lunch. But we didn't yesterday, me and my companion are trying to not eat out anymore. The next tradition that's happened so far is we go to the Vitamin Shoppe. We always end up going because my companion always wants to try a new supplement and so forth. After doing all of our shopping and eating, we go and play some basketball.

Yesterday we had a lot of time because we didn't do the library, so we ended up playing 2 hours of basketball. I'm getting better, compared to when I used to just stand there. I ended up getting really sore from it too. And then the unique thing about Olathe Zone is we always play Volleyball with the stake members. I'm getting a LOT better at that. But it sucks when you get someone who's trying to play everybody's position. Volleyball usually goes for about 3 hours so after that we go home, shower, and then it's time to go to our dinner appointment.

Our dinner appointment last night was the C.'s. They're a really nice family with two young boys. They're really relaxed, to the point that it's a rule we can't go to dinner appointments with them in our proselyting clothes. And they always feed us a meal with bacon in it. Always. Last night we had burgers which were reallllllly good.

Everything's still going good here. Anyways yes I do still need music. Dad said he would work on sending me some. If you bought me an iPod and put some music on it that'd be awesome, but I still want CDs, because I need some music that we can play in the Car. Anyways music isnt really that strict, I can have seminary music. Really anything that is directly LDS church related is fine. For example if it's like a hymn being covered by someone it's okay. I'd really love piano covers of hymns and acoustic guitar covers of hymns if you could find any. But do hurry up so we have some stuff to listen to in the car.

Anyways to your other questions. As far as I know my clothes are fine. The collars of my shirts are getting stained, but that's unavoidable really. I haven't dry cleaned anything yet, but my suit probably needs to be drycleaned. Speaking of which, we probably should've bought me another suit, because I guess when General Conference comes around, we're going to have to be in our suits everyday until the next General Conference. This email is long geez, that should satisfy you for a while though.

Sincerely Elder Nathaniel Ellis

All right time for another letterrrrr.

It's probably going to be a short one...cause nothing has really happened in the past week. I think we're getting to the point where my letters progressively get worse and worse, sorry familio. Anyways, as I said last week, I'm now double-covering two areas that used to have a pair of missionaries for each. Paola and Gardner. Gardner you know about, just a small town with another small town 6 miles away, not much there. Paola on the otherhand is a huge area. We cover about 6 or 7 small towns. So every night when we go for dinner we usually have to drive about 40 mintues to the place. Which means that we spend a lot of time during the rest of the week when we're trying to find our way around.

Anyways I suppose the family I'll tell you about today is...the "H"'s. I don't even know if I spelt that right, but they have a weird last name. Anyways we had dinner with them just last night and they were pretty cool. Brother H is a hunter. He doesn't hunt with rifles and guns though. He hunts with a bow. His basement is completely filled with stuffed animals that he's killed all himself. He has 2 bears, tons of deer, anything you can think of. He even has an otter down there. He brought his baby downstairs with us and she started crying, I thought to myself. I would probably cry if I saw all this as a baby LOL.

Anyways Sundays are pretty fun now that we have two wards to cover. Guess who gets to go to 6 hours of Church of Sundays? This guy. It's gonna be especially fun next week when its fast Sunday and I'll have to go the whole 6 hours on an empty stomach. D:

Anyways sorry this is so short, I'm running out of things to say! We dont have many prospective investigators right now. So a lot of the time we're tracting on doors, which is just lame. And I don't have any fun stories from it, most people just aren't interested, but I haven't had anyone come at me with a shotgun quite yet.

Sincerely Elder Ellis

PS. The 109$ charge from Walmart was a GPS so yah.

Dear Mom,

Wasn't your power bill supposed to drop when I left or something? Haha, why were they even comparing your electric bill usage with the neighbors. Sounds weird but anyways. I'm not even gonna ask about why you guys have been having...moustache parties, but it sounds like Clark had fun. Anyways I guess I have to answer your questions.

Teeth brushing, retainer, washing sheets, first of all never write me that again LOL. I can take care of myself don't worry Mom. The other questions are okay. The new apartment is cleaner than the old one yeah. It's also smaller unfortunately, we don't have room for much, it's only like two rooms. I like the kitchen in the new apartment though. I guess we're kinda supposed to clean up the old apartment but we haven't finished that up yet. We have to call the Housing Missionary to come and take care of everything with us. But we've raided all of the good stuff that's left in the house. Now there's just furniture really. There's a treadmill in there but we don't have room for it, so my old companion is going to come and take it over to Kansas City Missouri where he's serving.

Anyways my new companion is pretty cool. We've been getting along just fine, getting along good actually. We've been having a lot of fun. We get up early at 6:30 and then head down to the Church 12 miles away and work out. He's started me on a Navy Seal training program and it's been killing me.

Our area is really hectic now. I'm covering both Paola and Gardner wards now. Suddenly we have two dinner calendars, completely filled up. So now we have two dinners scheduled every night and it's just crazy. We've also been dealing with the old apartment, so we haven't even really had a lot of time to even visit people. We even have two phones now. Things we'll be easier this week though I'm sure.

Anyways let's see, let me tell you about the "J" family this week. They're a really cool family we had dinner with a couple of nights ago. They have one son that's on his mission in California. Brother "J" works at a boxing store, he gives the missionaries products with defects that they can't sell, but they're still basically brand new so we have all this cool stuff from them. The "J"'s are extremely good cooks. The other day they cooked us brotz which were really good. But the best part were the baked beans they cooked. Real barbeque really is the best. Speaking of which I went to Oaklahoma Joe's which is extremely good.

I guess I should probably describe Paola for you. Paola is super...well I guess I can't say small. But it's super spread out, so it's like a small town with not too many people in it. Theres dirt roads everywhere and so forth it's all right. Anyways things are going good with the new companionship. He's not at all what I expected. I'm safe and fine, and you need to stop worrying about me brushing my teeth Mom. Anyways take care at home everyone.

PS. Sorry I don't have my new address yet. I forgot to write it down before I came here and my companion doesn't have it memorized, but I'll get it to you by next week. Probably earlier cause we'll have to go to the Library again sometime this week.

All right family email timeee.  It's going to be another short one - aww geez sorry.

Okay so this week was the Johnson County Fair.  Which means that basically for half the week I was sitting in a chair handing out popcorn to people.  It was pretty cool.  We gave out a lot of Book of Mormons.  A lot of people tried to bash on us while we were in the stall though which was hilarious.  We also had someone sneak a pamphlet underneath our pile of Temple Pictures.  It was basically "How I escaped Mormonism".  Talked about a lady who was a relief society president and got so caught up in typical anti-Mormon messages she left the Church.  We burned it later that night.  Overall the fair was nice.  It was torture at the same time though because of all the hot girls in short shorts.  Aww man.  ):

Anyways in this email I’m going to talk to you about....the...W family.  I'm not allowed to use their last name so they're the W family.  I'm not sure if I talked to you about them earlier but I'm going to again if I did.  The W family is way nice.  They live in the trailer park.  We visit this family about 2-3 times a week.  They talk and talk and never stop talking.  They're a lot of fun despite how hard they are to control.  They're less active, but we've been getting them to church the past few weeks.

Anyways this week is transfers week.  I'm pretty sure that I'm going to get a new companion and have to take over the area.  I'll still be training though, which means that I'm going to be someone's step-son in missionary speak.  I'm wondering if he's going to be as chill as my current companion, so I'm kind of worried about that.  Anyways tomorrow we find out and then I guess we're going to do transfers on Thursday.  I'm not really ready to take over the area but, I guess I have to do it.  Anyways there’s nothing else much to say.  I'm going to start telling you more about the families I visit because I've been doing a pretty poor job.  

Overall things are going nice here.  It's not been as hot, but this week we have the bike so its bound to get hot.  For some reason the weather is only nice when we have the car mind you.  Anyways, I hope everything’s going well.  Fill me in more about Grandma's condition and everything else.

P.S.

Just sending a small e-mail about transfers:  I'm going to be staying here in Gardner, but now Gardner is being combined with another city called Paola because not much is happening there.  One of the missionaries from Paola is going to be my companion now because his companion is going home.  Elder Whitworth is his name.   I'm going to be moving apartments as well.  So my address is going to be changing so don't send anything to the current address until I give you the updated address next time I get on.  Anyways I better get going.  We have to go from house to house to house tonight so that we can get pictures and say goodbye to all of the families we can.  We have bikes today too so it's going to be pretty bad.  At least with Gardner and Paola combining, I'll be full-time car from now on!

Dear Family and Friends.

Time for another letter. Week 5 I think it is. Nothing much happened last week to be honest. It was another hot week in Kansas. It was our turn to bike last week. 105 degree weather, biking all day. It's pretty much the life. We didn't get any new prospects of any sort last week. We're trying to find new people through some tracting and some member referrals but so far nothing. Things are pretty slow around here in Gardner.

We still have Liza on date for baptism. But she's not kind of been flaking with her appointments lately. She wants to get baptized still. But we don't have a lot of time to teach her. She works at Subway and it seems everytime we schedule something she gets called in for week. This week she went to Church with her Grandpa who is a member at least so that's good.

What else is going on. To be honest not much. We've been doing a lot of home teaching basically. There's a lot of less actives here so we end up seeing them a lot cause we can't get any new investigators. We also had a lot of meetings last week. It was District Leader Counsel so my companion had to go to Independence for a day. So I ended up going on exchanges with a member of my district back in the MTC named Elder Bartholomew. We walked cause he didn't have a bike so it ended up taking us 3 hours just to see one person and by the time we got back our companions were supposed to be back from the meeting.

On the bright side we're getting fed a lot still. We've only had one day so far that we didn't have a dinner at a member's house. Tonight we're supposed to be going to Ryan's which is a really good buffet. All the food is okay though because I'm getting so much work out from riding my bike. I'm going to start running in the morning as well now. My companion and the missionaries have been going to the Vitamin Shoppe lately so I bought some workout powder and some whey protein and stuff so that I could start getting on track with my physical health. So that's going to be nice.

I'm trying to think if anything else is really going on but nothing much is. This week we get a new car, a 2012 Toyota Corolla, it has blue tooth in and stuff, so after we play basketball and volleyball for p-day today we're going to take it back home. This week is going to be the Johnson County Fair and so we're going to be manning the booth for a significant amount of time throughout the week. It's going to be nice because we'll get some new investigators to teach and they'll be coming to us instead of us going to them and knocking on their door. Also transfers are coming up (The 16th) so we have a lot of families scheduling stuff with us before my companion goes home so they can see him one last time.

Anyways I can't think of much else to say, I'm sorry that my letters are gradually getting shorter. I did get Dad's snail-mail and so I'll probably get around to writing back to that sometime eventually. Snail-mail is fine with me though. It's a lot easier to write because I get a lot more time to write it. The library is so rushed because of the annoying time limit though.

Anyways I hope everyones doing fine still. I'm doing all right here. I'll write again next week.

P.S.

Describe my apartment and where I live... Hmm? My apartment sucks. It's super old and worn down. It used to be millitary housing. It's a mess, there’s lots of old stuff people have left behind. The carpet is stained with bike grease and who knows what. The bathroom is disgusting. The apartment is just a mess. The city is all right. It's pretty small. And flat. There’s some nicer neighborhoods, but there’s a lot of trailer parks and apartments. It's mostly just flat around here. We have another city in our area 6 miles away called Edgerton. It literally is just...the Edge. There’s nothing there except some houses, a gas station, and a bar (of course). Everything is just pretty ghetto. There’s a train that runs through all of Gardner pretty much. I don’t know what else I can describe haha.

Dear Family and Friends,

All right I'll probably be way short this week.  It's so hard to think of things to write especially when the weeks go by so fast.  Anyways, I guess the biggest news is we've commited one of our brand new investigators to baptism already.  We had her scheduled for August 11, but she has to attend church two weeks in a row so we've moved it back to August 18.  She couldn't make it to Church because she was double shifted for work but she's definitely ready and committed for baptism.  So I'll have my first baptism soon!

On August 16 we're going to have transfers, so I'll probably get a new companion then and take over this area.  They might keep my trainer here for one more transfer though, I honestly have no clue at the moment.  Next Friday we're getting a new car since our Corolla right now have a lot of miles on it.  We'll be getting a brand 2012 Corolla so it'll be way nice.

On August 7 to 11th is the county fair.  We're going to have a booth in it and the other missionaries in our Zone don't really want to help which is weird.  So I'll probably be doing that a lot, which means we'll have a lot of new potential investigators and so forth because they'll be coming to us instead of us coming to them.

Anyways not much to say besides that.  It's been really hot, like usual.  We've been just working and moving along.  We haven't had any major experiences lately that I can remember.  Last week was kind of slow so yeah.  
I'm glad to see the fam' is doing well.  Doesn't seem like anything too new is going on.  Pretty much the same thing around here.  I'm sure things will get a lot more eventful here once transfers start happening and so forth.  I'm kinda just used to the work now.  Weeks are beginning to feel like days, everything just goes by so fast.  I'm having lots of fun though, I'm getting to know our investigators and members better and I'm beginning to talk and not be so shy.  Anyways I'll be in leadership positions in no time.  And then I'll be home in no time haha.  I'll try and write a little more next week, sorry that this email is so short, I'll probably write back dad's snail-mail with something longer.  Anyways everyone stay safe!

Sincerely Elder Ellis

Dear Family and Friends,

More movies for the Batman series?  I thought this one was supposed to be the last one, maybe I misunderstood you though.  Anyways, I heard about the shooting in Colorado opening night, sounded pretty tragic.

Things are...all right here.  We biked this past week, first week biking.  I'm extremely sore, but it's not too bad.  It's been over 100 degrees every day here now.  Theres a heat wave and it doesn't seem to be ending.  15 miles a day, 100 degree weather.  It's a great work out let me tell you.  It's really miserable, BUT ANYWAYS.

I got the shoebox full of goodies, thanks!  I didn't say send me the Pikachu shirt...but ohwell.  :|  I'm loving the Yo-Yo's, I'm already getting to the point that I can start to do tricks and stuff with them.  Such a loser, but ohwell!  I love how you threw in the Rubik's cube too, I can solve them pretty easily now.  I'm the most happy about my shoes though, now I actually have lounge around shoes I can wear on p-day.  (Our apartment's carpet is gross okay?)

The work is moving pretty slow around here.  We're still teaching lots of Less Active families, I'm getting more acquanted with the ward members now though so thats good.  Generally your trianer is supposed to be with you for 3 months, but he might be getting transferred next transfer.  Which means that I'll probably be taking over the Gardner area already.  We had interviews with the Mission President a few days ago so yeah.  If I pass my lessons off, I might actually start training others already.  I'm not too eager with my lessons though, if I pass those off I have to be District Leader and stuff like that.  ):  I just want to be a normal missionary for now haha.  We're getting 22 new missionaries next transfer which is a lot.  The next transfer after that we're getting 20.  So we're going to have more missionaries coming in then leaving, which means the Missouri Independence Mission is growing still.  We have an estimated 250 missionaries right now.  Which means we're actually  the biggest mission in the world.  (Missionary wise.)
 
Let's see story of the week...last Monday after Dinner we did some tracting.  We were looking for an old pair of investigators from a member referral, we had no luck.  But on the last house we met a lady called Rachel and she let us teach her a lesson.  We taught her the plan of Salvation and she was pretty receptive about it.  She doesn't belong to any Church but she has this video called "The Biggest Gamble" and she pretty much quotes every argument to us from it.  (She gave it to us and we watched it in the Apartment later) She believe pretty much that it's only through Jesus Christ that we are saved.  (Which is true even for the LDS Church)  But she believes in only Repentence and Faith.  She didn't really think works mattered.  And then she started bringing up Hitler and stuff and we were like ohgosh.  We visited her again that week though, she had already read two of the phamplets we gave her, read at least past 2 Nephi.  She even marked and highlighted things in the pamphlets and BoM.  (My companion said this is the first time he's seen someone that was so into the reading and he's been out for 20 months now.)  She still has the same arguments and things but she knows a lot more about our Church so I think we did a pretty good job planting a seed.  We would love to teach her some more, but her husband doesn't want to have anything to do with religion and he has no idea she even talked to us and stuff so she said we can't meet anymore.  We're going to give it a while, but hopefully we can teach her more someday.

I finally got my Church card which means I can buy groceries and stuff which is nice.  One thing I keep forgetting to ask you for is a CD player though, and maybe a small set of speakers.  I'm not sure if you still have my lime green CD player at home or anything, but some music and some CDs would be lovely because I basically have none of that except my companion's music.
Anyways I better get off now.  Hope everythings going good.  I'll write you again next week!

Dear Family and Friends,

 

Okay so time for that weekly letter I suppose.  Hmm I really don't know what to say.  There's a lot of stuff happening.  We usually visit about three people a day and I've had some bad experiences, and some good.

I've met a lot of cool families, just yesterday we were visiting an investigator called Brent, he has cancer and he's really struggling with it.  We don't teach him much because he's in a really tough situation with God right now.  He feels like God has forsaken him and he still has faith in God, but he's just so mad because he's been struggling with the cancer and a recent divorce for so long.  I told him about Aunt Kim and how she died of cancer and it was cool cause then he started to open up to me and connect a little better.  We really just try to fellowship him and stay friends, we might go to Liberty Jail together soon which will be really cool.

One of our investigators got in an accident recently, she had to cancel dinner with us and go to work, and our her way she crashed on a Vesta.  She's not sure what really happened but we went to her later at 10 PM and gave her a blessing.  It was really cool because after we did that, she said I feel better already.  She also recognized that Satan is after her.  She said that he's trying his hardest to not let her change her life, but she said she's not going to give in this time.  I think she might be our first baptism, she's definitely ready, and we also have a few other investigators that are ready.

The other night we taught a guy named Doug, he hasn't visited from Missionaries since 2008 but we managed to just pop up on his door at the right time and he let us in.  We taught him the Plan of Salvation, he's really been struggling lately because his mother had suddenly died, so we taught him the Plan of Salvation to help him get through that struggle.  He said that when the missionaries taught him back in 2008 he was struggling with life, and then we showed up again when he was struggling again.  He's really curious about religion and knows so many different theories, but it sounded like what we were teaching him was completely new even though he had received the lessons already before.

Other than these few investigators, we visit a lot of less active families, a lot of them are really struggling with things and we're trying to get them back at Church.  One family we met was crazy though, the husband had invited us to kinda help his kid's learn about the Church so that they could have that in their life.  They were really nice but then the wife started going on about a bunch of stuff.  She basically said the Church was just for power hungry men and then started going on about Bishops who had affairs and stuff, and how the Church just raises girls to be submissive and stay home.  It was really sad because of how warped her view on the Church was, especially because the Church isn't like that at all, but because of her family she had such a negative view on everything.

I had a few more cool experiences, but for lack of time I'll probably start to wrap this letter up.  Kansas is super hot, we had the car last week, but we get to ride our bikes this week.  My bike is way nice (it was like 700 dollars geez.) but it's definitely going to have to be good if it's going to last for two years.  The people here are pretty nice, but some people are just rude.  People scream at you from their cars and etc.  Doors slammed in my face and all that nice stuff.  But we don't tract from door to door much anymore.  The Church is really trying to have missionaries stray away from that and instead they're trying to get you to have member referrals and stuff because that's really the best way to find new members because they already have friends in the Church and have that fellowship.

In order to drive cars here we have to pass a test which is called Becoming a Level 5 Teacher, we have to memorize points of each lesson and a scripture with each point and then pass it off.  I've been trying to do that because I want to drive a car asap.  My companion is District Leader though so its nice because I just have to pass it off to him.

Anyways, yeah go ahead and send my shoes Mom, send whatever else you want, It's pretty boring around here so I'm totally okay with random toys and stuff.  (I actually kind of want to start Yo-Yo'ing and get good at it on my p-days so you should totally buy me a Butterfly Yo-Yo and like a guide on Yo-Yo'ing, I'm totally serious okay?)  Anyways logo shirts are okay which is why I told you to send me some of my old shirts, but yeah.  I can't really think of anything else I need from home.

I guess I'll wrap this letter up now, things are pretty good here, I'm sorry I can't write more but the Library is way busy today so yeah.  Love you lots Family & Friends, stay well. 

 

Sincerely Elder Nathaniel Ellis

Okay okay okay, so It's time for a big letter.  Wow, it was a REALLY long week.  Yet, it feels like I just got here so that's great.  I guess i'll start from the beginning which was last Wednesday, I'll kinda skip out on MTC stuff, I'll tell you about that later one day.

So Wednesday we had to get up at 1 AM for our flight, showered, finished up packing, and then hauled my 100 pounds worth of luggage down 4 floors.  We ate breakfast in the dark abandoned cafeteria, we had some cereal, it was a nice little snack.  Eventually we drove to the Salt Lake City airport, on the way we saw the fire in Highland?  I'm not sure where it was but it was a fire and it looked pretty dang awesome at 4AM in the dark.  We got to the airport and then we went to the McDonalds there.  We heard music playing and ate McDonalds, it was like heaven since we hadn't had anything besides MTC food for the past 3 weeks.  The music was also nice, I hadn't heard something besides a hymn forever.

Skipping ahead a bit we flew on the airplane.  We had to fly to Denver and then to Missouri.  To Denver, I had a Sister Missionary sitting next to me, and then to Missouri I was completely alone so yeah.  I had no chances to talk to anyone about the gospel but it was all right, I listened to the people across the aile talk and it was pretty interesting.  As soon as we got out of the plane suddenly a blast of heat hit me.  It was intense.  The humidity was crazy, Missouri is definitely not Utah.

For the rest of the day we got to go to visitor centers.  First we went to the new Kansas City Temple, and then we went to Liberty Jail and the Independence Visitor center.  The air conditioning in there was amaaaaazing.  It was a cool experience and I could definitely feel something different about both of them.  We went back to the mission presidents house, did some orientation and then it was time for bed.

Woke up the next morning and it was time for transfers.  I waited around a bit until my companion/trainer finally came.  His name is Elder Meisenheimer, he's pretty cool.  He looks a little like Kira's ex boyfriend Abe, but more...mexican?  Anyways.  I've been assigned to a little town in Kansas for the next three months, it's called Gardner.  On our first day I unpacked and then we went to go to do some appointments.  We don't usually call ahead to anyone, we just show up on investigators doors and they usually let us in.  In Gardner we aren't really focusing too much on new investigators, most of the things we focus on are inactive members. 

For dinner we went to a family called the Jensens, they're really cool, they have 3 boys and a girl.  It was nice going into an actually nice place for once.  (Our apartment is like, terrible.)  They brought an investigator for us to dinner, her name is Liza, she's taking care of her friend's little girl named Denver, Denver is abused and her mother is in jail but Liza can't adopt her and really wants to.  Liza has already taken lessons from the Missionaries before, her mother was so anti that she get baptized.  Fortunately she doesn't care about her mother now so I think Liza is ready to commit to baptism soon.

Sorry my brain is a little scattered, so many things happened, but thankfully I've got it down in my journal.  I met a lot of part-member and less active families, so we've been seeing how they are and leaving them with a little message.  One family we visited was the Cocrofts, he's less inactive and he's really cool.  He's really funny and he kinda looks like the one guy on Jurassic Park that did Law and Order for a little bit.  His brother works at American Crew so he ended up giving me a bunch of hair products to help me with the ladies, it was hilarious.  He has a daughter named Prestley, she was afraid of me.  :(  She warmed up a little, but she still doesn't like me.  Hopefully a few more visits though and she will! 

Yesterday (Sunday) we had dinner at the Livellas, it was really nice,  He works as a national salesman for Sennheiser sound or something like that.  He showed us his studio downstairs and said we were free to come over whenever.  He was grown up as a mormon, but fell away from the Church and has been trying to come back since 04.  Since then he baptized his two daughters, but his wife is still not a member and he tries not to bug her about it.  Secretly she wants to take the lessons from us, but she doesnt want anyone in her family to know about it because she wants it to be a surprise and have no pressure from anyone.  Its going to be awesome because we're going to start teaching her at someone else's house and hopefully she'll get baptized which would just be awesome for Brother Livella.

Kansas is HOT.  For the past few days theres been record highs, the temperature was about 103-108 for the past 4 days.  And I dont have a bike yet so we had to walk everywhere.  I've been walking about 5 miles a day in this small town.  I sweat like crazy.  I've lost 10 pounds already despite the amount of food members are feeding me.  We get to drive a car this next week thankfully though.  (Temps are cooling way down though, week I had to walk was terrible, go figure.)  Agh what else is there for me to tell you guys..

Anyways things are going pretty good so far.  I'm having so much fun and meeting so many people.  It's amazing how much my prayers are being answered.  I'm having so many extremely powerful and personal spiritual experiences.  I know that the gospel is true and I hope I can convey that to other people now.  Keep me in your prayers everyone and hopefully I'll be safe!  By the way I look hideous on my blog, what is up with that.  :(

Don't be shy, send me some letters, I'm getting plenty of email but I would love some letters cause I can reply to them better.  :(

PS.  I'll send some pictures home soon maybe.  You should send me some family photos though Mom, I'd love to have those around. Allright I'll stop writing now, sorry this email is a mess but its so hard to think right now!  D:

THINGS ARE GOING GOOD!

I'm having lots of fun still and tomorrow is my In-Field Orientation.  I'm not sure what that is but I think we actually learn how to proselyte and so forth.

Yesterday was my last day with my TRC investigator Alexandre Paul.  He's been really difficult but our last lesson was simply awesome!  He told us the things he learned about our church from us and it was crazy what he said.  He told us what he learned was different about our church from others.  The things he said were, we believe we can have happiness here on Earth and not just in the afterlife when we die.  We also believe that everyone can receive revelation from the Holy Spirit.  Another different thing was the way our Church started.  We didnt just branch off Catholics like most Christians.  We received a literal revelation from God.  It was cool, we got him to say the prayer and the spirit was crazy.  It was like a wave of the Spirit hit us.  He was really humble in his prayer and he was really thankful for hearing our message.  Even though it was our last lesson with him he committed that he would go to Church and continue lessons with new missionaries yay!

Time for the really cool story though.  Last week in the MTC was a mission president seminar.  All of the new mission presidents were over to learn from guess who? The apostles.  All of them were here.  Running around classrooms occasionally.  We had a devotional last Tuesday where Elder L Tom Perry spoke to us.  He told us about the benefits of living our lifestyle and had so many statistics about the church that were crazy.  The typical American does 48 hours of service a year.  An LDS members does around 470 hours per year.  LDS men live typically 10 years longer than normal Americans.  Women live 5 more years. Other than L Tom Perry there was 10 other Apostles present in the Devotional.  Everyone except Boyd K Packer and someone else I forgot.  All of the first presidency was gone but it was so cool having so many apostles there at the same time.

It was pretty shocking, but I won't lie I did fall asleep halfway through.  I'm always tired its really hard to stay awake here!  Geez.  But i'm getting better and I'm not having problems FALLING asleep at least.  

I'm sorry this letter might not be very long but I'm really tired right now.  Earlier we were pulled away while eating to do some service.  They're renovating a new residence hall and we moved the matresses up there one by one.  I did about 5 and I was done, we had to carry them up 4 floors so it was really tiring.  :(

Anyways I'm about to finish writing I guess.  There's not much I else I can think about thats gone on lately.  And I feel a little time constrained cause of this darn timer on the e-mail use!  :(

June 21st - First Email from the MTC

Dear Family, Friends, and blog.

So I don't have a lot of time to talk on the computer so I'm basically going to send you all one email with most of the stuff that's gone on lately.  First business though, is write me more letters.  It's not the amount of words in the actual letter, it's the number of letters I get that counts.  D: Make me feel popular!  Everyone should use dearelder.com especially if you're emailing me, because I'll get it as a letter the next day and then I don't have to waste time to read it on the computer which I am only given 30 minutes on. 

Everything is going great, I feel bad that I don't miss any of you but I'm having too much fun! :P  We were sorted into districts on the first day.  My district is Distract A, its me, 5 other Elders, and then 4 sisters.  My companion is our district leader which means that its our responsibility to get letters everyday.  And it feels bad not getting any letters so you better send some more!  My companion is really really annoying.  He's so serious all the time, and when he isn't, he's making the worst jokes or movie references.  So most of the time I try and make him hang out with the rest of our district which are way more fun.  We goof around a lot.  The other day we made a slingshot with a muscle band that we were given for exercise.  We shot tennis balls into each others backs.

In my district is one missionary named Elder Parrish, he lives about 2 minutes away from our house back in Centerville and knows a lot of the same people I do.  His companion Elder Warner from West Valley is also pretty cool, the both of them always talk in silly voices such as Prof McGonnagle and Smeagol.  Elder Warner's Smeagol voice is pretty much perfect I won't lie.

There's also Elder McBride and Elder Bartholomew.  McBride basically gets teased by all of us because he's fallen asleep in almost every class or study time.  We give him a lot of grief for it.  My District overall is a lot of fun.  They're apparently surprised at how I am as well.  Originally they thought I was just going to be super quiet all the time and never talk but they were wrong haha.  Elder Parrish received a letter earlier from a girl.  He has no clue who she was and she was saying stuff like "I'll be 18 when you get back, the legal age :) :)" she put a picture of herself in and now we hide the picture in each others beds/scriptures etc.  If you find the picture in your stuff, then you have to sleep with her picture for the rest of the night.  Thankfully I haven't gotten it yet.

My zone leaders which basically manage everyone on our residence floor are AWESOME.  They're both SOLO missionaries, because no one else at the MTC atm is going on the same mission as them.  Elder Massey one of them, is a really interesting character.  He loves anime and video games though so we've become best friends quite quickly.  His semi-companion is Elder Packham, Elder Packham loves Internet memes and so forth so we have a ton of fun.  Theres also a group of Elders going to Armenia, they're basically like a legend now so we call them "The Armenians" one of them named Elder Von Blankenstein is from Anchorage Alaska, we're pretty close and we go jogging together with Elder Massey.  (They're brutal, they don't let me stop and my legs end up killing me at 5 AM, Disneyland was nothing compared to this for some odd reason.)  Elder Von Blankenstein loves movies a lot so we talk about that a lot.  As well as video games.

We study and go to a classroom basically 6 hours a day.  In the classroom we do a lot of role playing for investigators and so forth.  Our teachers role play as an investigator but they're really serious about it, and they never get out of their role.  We're having problems teaching them.  One teachers persona is Shawn, he has no knowledge about the LDS church and its really hard to get him interested in our lessons as well as to personally connect with him.  Our other teacher role plays a teen named Beto, his family is all members and got baptized, he went to all of the lessons with them but didn't get baptized because he wasn't sure that he was ready.  He knows and believes in our church, but he is having a hard time feeling the spirit.

Besides role play we go to the TRC which is basically where we teach people who literally aren't members and volunteer to learn the lessons to get paid. The first guy we teach is Alexnandre Paul, his investigator profile is a Haitian Diplomat living in the Bahamas.  He's really hard to teach because he's so knowledgeable about the Bible.  He also kind of controls the lessons and asks a TON of questions which are really hard for us to answer until the next lesson.

My second TRC investigator doesn't have a persona or anything, it's just them.  He's a 20 year old boy who has become inactive in the church.  A lot of people are encouraging him to go on a mission but he wants to make sure that he's doing it for himself.  He believes in the gospel but he was kind of put back because of church members who were judgemental to him.  We had a really good talk with him just relating personal experiences with him and I feel like we did pretty good compared to Alexandre, we're going to visit with this investigator later next week.  (His name is Cole).
I'm learning a lot about teaching, I had no idea the Preach My Gospel booklet was full of so much stuff.  I'm reading the scriptures a lot, but I find it hard to concentrate and keep myself awake.  I have to draw pictures during classes just so I don't fall asleep, but thankfully I'm still learning a ton because I'm a pro multi-tasker like that.

I really miss my family and friends but at the same time I'm so distracted that I know I'm okay.  I definitely miss being able to communicate with people, so please write me more letters!  It seems my time is running out and its time for me to finish doing my laundry so see ya!

PS2 Seriously guys use DearElder.com and send me packages!   DearElder is free as long as Im in the MTC so until July 4th use it to talk to me.

MTC Address

Seems I already had my address and I didn't know!  For the next three weeks I'll be in the MTC (Missionary Training Center).  Before I head off to Missouri this will be my address to contact me.  For anyone hoping to contact me through mail use this address.  I'll get another address in a couple of weeks and my parents will put that on the blog for me.

Elder Nathaniel Christopher Ellis
MTC Mailbox # 125
MO-INDE 0704
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

Here is my farewell talk that I gave in Church yesterday.  Just one and a half days until I finally leave, I'm super excited and nervous!

Good afternoon dear brothers and sisters.  It’s been a long wait, but the dreaded day that I would have to give a talk in church that would last longer than 2 minutes has finally arrived.  All jokes aside I would like to thank everyone here who has come to support me as I move onto my next step in life.

For those of you who don’t know me I am Nathaniel Ellis, though soon I will simply go by the name Elder Ellis.  I have volunteered and then been called to serve the Lord for two years as a missionary of the LDS faith.  I have been called to serve in the Missouri Independence mission, which is located in the North-west corner of Missouri and much of Kansas.  For many countless years of my life I have prepared myself to go and serve as an LDS missionary for two years.  And today I am grateful to say that my opportunity to serve has come.  For the next two years of my life starting this Wednesday I will completely dedicate my life to our beloved Heavenly Father in order to help spread the one true gospel to our many brothers and sisters around the world.

A few weeks ago when I was asked to give my talk this Sunday I was given the opportunity to choose the subject that I would talk on.  It wasn’t long before I shouted out the first thing that came to my mind; faith.  Faith is one of the most important and wonderful things that we have been given in our Earthly lives.  It can truly create miracles and bring true joy to our lives.

So what exactly is faith?  Faith can be described in various definitions.  A simple definition describes faith as believing in something that cannot be seen or proved.    Alma 32:21 describes faith as a “hope for things which are not seen, which are true.”  Faith is what moved ancient prophets to create miracles.  Moses parted the waters of the Red Sea through faith, Noah built an ark and saved his family from the great flood by faith.  Faith is also what moves all of us in our daily lives. We wouldn’t work each day if we did not have faith by doing so that it would provide us with a living.

Faith isn’t just believing in something though.   We actually have to do actions as well.  We can’t simply believe that work is going to provide us with a living.  We still have to go out and work.  Our faith in the gospel is the same way.  We must exercise our faith with action, we do this by living worthily and by following the commandments that have been given to us by the Lord. 

One of the greatest examples of faith can be shown by the founder of our restored church, Joseph Smith.  One evening while reading the Bible, Joseph read a scripture: James 1:5 ““If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth [scold or criticize] not; and it shall be given him.”  He kept this scripture to his heart and with faith he prayed to God that he could find the true Church.  And with his faith, he received a wonderful answer and created what is today known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

As I’ve prepared myself to go on a mission I’ve tried my best to exercise faith.  Through tithing, prayer, and following the commandments, I feel I have exercised my faith unto Christ.  And I feel this was displayed to me when I had received my mission call. 

Before I sent in my mission papers it was a pretty scary thing.  I had no clue where I could end up going, and frankly any place I’d be going, I knew it wasn’t home.  But I had faith in the Lord that I would be called where I was needed.  So with a little faith I said a prayer and asked the Lord that I would receive my mission call and be at peace with the place that I was asked to go to.

When I had received that nice big envelope with my mission call, I didn’t know what to expect.  Would I go out of state?  Would I have to learn a new language?  I had no clue what was coming.  But despite my doubts, I moved forward and opened my letter.  I read it in my mind before telling my family.  “You have been called to serve in the Missouri Independence Mission” The call was a complete surprise to me, almost instinctively I handed the letter down to my older brother.  Missouri Independence was the same exact mission that my brother had been on years before. 

For those of you who don’t know, going on the same mission that a sibling had been on is not a common occurrence.  When I was sending in my papers to go on a mission, the thought that I would be going to the same place my older brother went never occurred to me.  But when I received that call I absolutely knew it was the place I needed to go.  Through my faith my prayers had been answered and I received a mission call and felt great about it.

Faith is an extremely wonderful thing.  By having faith in God we receive blessings It can grow and grow and bring many numerous blessings to our lives.  It’s like a seed and when treated right, we can help it grow.   So how do increase our faith?  Like I said earlier, we need to take action

Elder Ellis' Blog

Hello everybody Nathaniel here.  Starting Wednesday I will be serving a full time mission for the LDS church.  I will not have computers, a TV, or other common media and I will not be able to communicate with anyone except through letters and email.  On this blog I have asked my parents to post my letters that I send home onto the blog so that others can see how things are going.  They will also post when my address changes and so forth so that you can contact me through mail.