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.