Ellis' last e-mail

Dear Mom and Dad,
I feel a little lost. A little sad. And a little guilty. My mission is finally ending. I´m thrilled to be seeing you in a week and excited to begin a new phase of my life, but I feel like I´m giving up something beautiful and meaningful and epic. I feel sad to leave and guilty because I´m also happy to go home. Even in these last few weeks I´ve continued to learn and progress to become a more effective missionary and it hurts to know that upward trajectory will be abruptly cut short in a week. I could be so much more effective, teach much better lessons, baptize more people, if I could just have a few more months here. I feel guilty that I haven´t worked harder or baptized more people or been more "meticulously obedient".
However, I´ve also matured enough to realize that this angst, while real, is as generally pointless as angst usually is. However I feel about it, my mission will end in a week, so I might as well just do my best and make the best of it and be happy.

Some reasons to be happy:
Today I was allowed to call my converts to invite them to a fireside where we can meet again. It was kind of a surreal experience to call people I have had almost no contact with for months. I called sweet little Evelyn and the phone was weird and her voice sounded tiny and about a million miles away. Ok, that sounded angsty again. But one of the blessings was talking to Hna Danes, who is now serving in Hurlingham, when I called to ask for numbers. She told me that a woman that I contacted during my last week in Hurlingham was baptized on Christmas and that her daughter was baptized last week. And she told me that she and her companion found a woman I taught once with Hna Navarro who is going to get baptized this week! Her name is Máxima. It was a miracle because M´s brother came to visit and told her he had just been baptized and M said-- "oh, I think I have a pamphlet from your church". She pulled it out and her brother saw my and Hna Navarro´s names and our phone number and said--"they have to come teach you!" So her brother called the number and Hna Danes and her companion started teaching Máxima again and now she is getting baptized this week! I´ve probably written our phone number on a pamphlet less than a dozen times in my entire mission (for safety reasons), but miraculously I left our number on M´s pamphlet! Máxima is the fifth person who has been baptized from contacts I´ve done in Hurlingham, apart from my converts (the others being that mom and her daughter and two references I passed to the elders when I realized my investigators lived in their area) My time in Hurlingham was challenging in many ways and I spent two different transfers without baptisms, but Heavenly Father has worked miracles so that people I contacted or taught could get baptized. It´s a testimony to me of what preach my gospel says: no effort is ever lost! All our good efforts make a difference, even if it doesn´t seem like it at the time!

And when I called Claudio Banega (dad of my first two converts) in Luján, he told me that two weeks ago the family was SEALED IN THE TEMPLE IN URUGUAY! I was so so so so happy. I want to cry just thinking about that.
Speaking of going to the temple, Andrés is going to go in March to do baptisms for the dead for the first time!

Another reason to be happy: Hna Navarro sent me a super cute email encouraging me in my last week on the mission and Katie sent this amazing email saying how important it has been to her to be able to serve a mission simultaenously with me! That made me feel really happy. Yay for good friends!

News of the week:
We had four investigators in sacrament meeting! That is the most we have had as a companionship. Silvia´s son Bryan came (but not Silvia because she was sick), an awesome member brought his kid neighbor (future baptism for Hna Pullan I bet), Carlos (my homeless investigator who actually isn´t homeless cause I realized he lives on my street in an apartment with his sister.) came, and a Peruvian chef we contacted on the street last week miraculously showed up by himself (but we are going to let the elders teach him because he is single and lives alone). So that was exciting. Unfortunately, none of my investigators who had previous attendances showed up, so that means no more baptisms for me. I´m sad about it, especially because I love love love Aylen and really wanted to see her baptism, but I´m ok with it. Andrés baptizing Ariel was pretty much the most fantastic baptism I could have hoped to end my mission with, and my Hurlingham miracles give me hope that many of my investigators will be baptized in the coming months.

Anecdote: According to Preach my Gospel, the Book of Mormon answers the "questions of the soul"-- deep questions about life or personal questions about your own problems. I´ve found this to be true during my mission. Yesterday I had an interesting experience with this principle. The answer to the question "Why should I not abort my baby if I´m a single mom with three kids living in the villa with few economic resources?" is found in 1Nephi 17:1-8. Incidentally, verses 2 and 3 also answer the question "Why did Hna Clark not need to freak out about the health consequences of Argentines feeding her meat and no whole grains for 16 months?" But yeah, we are going to keep working with this investigator and help her realize that abortion is not the solution to her problem. I sure hope we can get through to her.

This week my goal is just to help as many people as I can and express as much love as I can for my investigators, for my companion and for Heavenly Father. I´m going to work as hard as I can and try to leave my area with lots of investigators with baptismal dates.

Thank you for 18 months of support, emails, and letters. I love you and I´ll see you in a week!
Love,
Ellis

P.S. Almost forgot. Priorities for our epic Argentine adventure: visiting converts. I´ve realized I probably won´t be able to see everyone, but top priorities are Celeste and Elvira, Gastón, Evelyn, and Olga in Hurlingham, César, Ariel and Andrés in Ramos (in the villa) and the Banega and Reyes families in Luján. I want to go to church in Luján, because that is the best branch I served in and you will love it. If we have time to make it to Las Heras that would be neat, but my "converts" there may not remember me that well because I wasn´t actually present for their baptisms, so it might be kind of awkward and a lot of travel time. When you arrive we can have "weekly planning" and figure out how to balance convert visiting with visiting dad´s areas and doing cultural stuff, shopping for gifts to bring home, etc. I don´t know what there is to do in the capital, but lots of stuff I´m sure. You will probably, I mean definitely want to see the basilica in Luján (is that an appropriate Sunday activity? Hmm.) We could probably easily visit everyone in Hurlingham and Ramos in one day.

Ellis writes on January 9th

Dear Family,

Thanks for all your emails! This week everyone emailed me except Dan. (get on it, Dan!) Emma-- yes, I would love to speak to the Young Women! We can make plans when I get back. Ben, I will make sure to send the mission hat before I leave the country. Eliza, I hope it helped you to pretend to be me!

Thank yous:
Please tell Grandma Campbell that I got the mini English hymnbook that she sent me in the mail for Christmas. I love it! It is beautiful and I will use it often.

For the information and enjoyment of Mom and Dad and everyone else who sent me Christmas money, I have acquired the following:
* really fun Argentine leather sandals to wear after the mission-- my feet will be blue with north Idaho cold, but incredibly attractive. :)
* a cook book with healthy Argentine recipes (including the best whole wheat muffin recipe ever)
* a stylish Argentine top to wear after the mission
And I still have half of my Christmas money left!
Thanks to everyone!

News of the week:
We postponed Ariel´s baptism because Andrés was late to church last week and didn´t recieve the priesthood as scheduled. I clarify that he was late because he brought three small grandchildren to church walking, not because he slept in. He is perfect. Anyway, this Saturday Ariel will get baptized by his grandpa! My convert is baptizing my convert! I couldn´t be happier. . .well, maybe if Ariel´s mom, Miriam, would come to church. We are working on that.

Aylen (my pregnant investigator) quickly became one of my favorite investigators. She wanted to keep all the commitments we asked her to make and she was very happy to be preparing for baptism. And she was thrilled to see us every time we came over. But then she missed church on Sunday. So we are swinging by tonight to see what happened. I hope everything works out.

Sorry, I wish I had time to write more, but I don´t. I love you all and hope you have a great week doing the things you do! Ben, good luck with that baptism!

Love,
Ellis

Happy New Year!

Dear Family,

Thanks for all the news and emails. The story about the uni-teddies cracked me up. It would be nice to have one around to protect me from angry street dogs, just in case (though there are many fewer dogs in Ramos than in my other areas).

Last week went much better than the two weeks before! We´ve been struggling with low numbers of lessons with a member present and doing all our contacts. I feel much happier about our performance last week. Even though we continued to have problems with members standing us up, we were able to achieve all 15 lessons with member by teaching family members of recent converts. We also became bolder about challenging people to baptism and were able to help three new people accept baptismal dates.

I have been thinking a lot about how to help my investigators become worthy converts prepared for a lifetime of activity in the church. I have been trying to explain the why behind the commitments we extend and focus our lessons around the commitment we want them to keep. I´m trying really hard and there have been some good results-- two of our investigators, Aylen and Ariel, have been learning to read the Book of Mormon and pray every day. I continue to search for inspiration to know how to help our investigators be more self motivated to keep commitments. I want them to be more excited about reading and praying, etc, on their own. I think that bearing more powerful testimony and explaining the importance of a personal relationship with God might be some of the keys to more improvement.

Last week my testimony of God´s love for me and for everyone increased in strength. I felt like I understood with more power how willing God is to forgive us, how patient he is with us, and how much he wants to help us progress. Feeling God´s love more strongly helped motivate me to have a more positive attitude and keep trying despite my weaknesses. And it made me want to show my love back to Him by constantly improving as a missionary.

New Years was fun but uneventful. We opted to spend our extra hours knocking doors, then returned to the pension to order ice cream during nightly planning. We even went to bed on time. . . though we woke up at midnight to watch the fireworks again. The goal I set for myself this year is to work at applying the Atonement more fully in my life in three main ways: by finding peace and joy even in times of difficulty (have a positive attitude), by pleading for strength from the Atonement to be more patient, diligent, and kind, and by loving myself and others more completely, with more patience and forgiveness.

I´m doing my best to make this the best transfer of my mission-- I want to do as much good as I can in the next month. Our goal is to help four people get baptized. This weekend Ariel, the grandson of my convert, Andrés, is getting baptized. I´m hoping his grandpa will be able to baptize him. That would be really special.

You´ll be happy to know that Hna Pullan is speaking better Spanish every day, participates fully in the lessons and extends commitments, and is learning to develop good working relationships with the bishop and ward members. We have been teaching with more unity lately too. She is fantastic!

Have a wonderful first week of 2012! I´m so glad the world hasn´t ended yet! Haha. Now people will stop asking me my opinion about it all the time.

Love, Hermana Clark