Dear Dad,
The bus salesman are still hard at it here in Argentina. They do exactly what you described. I guess some things haven´t changed in the last 25 years. They sell stuff in the trains too. My announcement in the bus was thrilling, but not terribly effective in proselyting terms. I handed out the new mini pass a long cards about eternal families, but no one wanted an appointment. I want to try again this week though, if Sister X is up to it.
I´ll share more in the family email, but Sister X is actually Sister Hannah Pullan from Payson, Utah. She is the second oldest in a family of five kids-- three girls and two boys just like us. She studied art at BYU before her mission. She described her artwork as glorified paper snowflakes--- apparently she draws pictures and then cuts out the shapes. I wish she had a picture to show me. I haven´t yet asked her if we have any mutual acquaintances from BYU. She speaks very little Spanish, but she has that fresh out of the MTC spirit of wanting to work hard and share the gospel. We practiced contacting this morning-- she impressed me because she kept trying despite several rejections and struggling to speak. I noticed though that she seems to soften people´s hearts. When people realize she doesn´t speak Spanish well, they listen harder and are more polite. It´s kind of cool. I think we will work well together.
[Ellis said she would write more in another family letter, but we didn't get one!?]
Love,
Ellis
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
"May I Have a Moment, Fellow Bus Travelers?"
Dear Mom and Dad and Siblings,
Here is the big news: Hermana X hasn´t arrived yet. All the new missionaries are stalled because of visa problems. There are supposedly arriving this Friday.
Meanwhile, Hna Azcurra was transferred to Junin (in the middle of the country) and Hna Reales (from Cordoba) is my new companion for a week. Hna Reales will also be training and has been serving in Libertad. She has to leave her area for a week to work with me in Ramos. She´s been worried about her area and her investigators, so I feel bad. We did get to visit Libertad and work there for an afternoon though. Otherwise she is a great companion.
One of the highlights of this week was contacting a whole bus at once for the first time in my mission (with Hna Azcurra before transfers). I thought I would be terrified, but about 5 minutes before I did it I started feeling the Spirit really strongly and I was excited to invite everyone! I asked permission from the bus driver, then made an announcement to the whole busful of passengers. I talked about the Restoration, bore my testimony, and invited them to church. I loved being able to invite the whole bus at once! I felt a little bit like the prophet must feel when he has the opportunity to speak to the whole world at conference!
The rest of the week was a little more difficult. Daniel, my new miracle investigator who read half the Book of Mormon all by himself and wanted to get baptized, could not be found the whole week and didn´t come to church. I couldn´t find one of my other investigators with a baptism date, Rubén, either. And a recent convert has returned to an old addiction. WHY MUST THESE THINGS HAPPEN TO THE RECENT CONVERTS??? AAAAAAH!
Despite all that, I tried to work hard anyway and remind myself to have a good attitude. I know if I keep working hard to plan and reach the key indicators and if I love my investigators and the people I will be able to have success here this transfer. Another good point of the week was setting a new baptismal date with the mother of two recent converts. She promised to pray to know if she should get baptized. I´m going to help her recognize her answer this week.
I´m sorry I don´t have time to write more or answer your questions. Ask me again next week and I will answer. I love you all!
Love,
Ellis
Here is the big news: Hermana X hasn´t arrived yet. All the new missionaries are stalled because of visa problems. There are supposedly arriving this Friday.
Meanwhile, Hna Azcurra was transferred to Junin (in the middle of the country) and Hna Reales (from Cordoba) is my new companion for a week. Hna Reales will also be training and has been serving in Libertad. She has to leave her area for a week to work with me in Ramos. She´s been worried about her area and her investigators, so I feel bad. We did get to visit Libertad and work there for an afternoon though. Otherwise she is a great companion.
One of the highlights of this week was contacting a whole bus at once for the first time in my mission (with Hna Azcurra before transfers). I thought I would be terrified, but about 5 minutes before I did it I started feeling the Spirit really strongly and I was excited to invite everyone! I asked permission from the bus driver, then made an announcement to the whole busful of passengers. I talked about the Restoration, bore my testimony, and invited them to church. I loved being able to invite the whole bus at once! I felt a little bit like the prophet must feel when he has the opportunity to speak to the whole world at conference!
The rest of the week was a little more difficult. Daniel, my new miracle investigator who read half the Book of Mormon all by himself and wanted to get baptized, could not be found the whole week and didn´t come to church. I couldn´t find one of my other investigators with a baptism date, Rubén, either. And a recent convert has returned to an old addiction. WHY MUST THESE THINGS HAPPEN TO THE RECENT CONVERTS??? AAAAAAH!
Despite all that, I tried to work hard anyway and remind myself to have a good attitude. I know if I keep working hard to plan and reach the key indicators and if I love my investigators and the people I will be able to have success here this transfer. Another good point of the week was setting a new baptismal date with the mother of two recent converts. She promised to pray to know if she should get baptized. I´m going to help her recognize her answer this week.
I´m sorry I don´t have time to write more or answer your questions. Ask me again next week and I will answer. I love you all!
Love,
Ellis
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Looking Forward to Training Sister X
Dear Mom and Dad,
I really enjoyed your emails today. I liked the idea of being in the right place at the right time and it made me think of how important it is in the mission (and in life) to be punctual. I really, really, really have to work on that. I do feel good though about being in the mission at this time of my life, being in Ramos at this time in my mission, etc. I feel like I am in a position to create lots of positive changes in myself and in my area and help my companion in the last three months of my mission. I´m gearing up to train Sister X in just a few short days. Dad, thanks for your talk outline. It was actually really good. I liked the diagram. I feel like this transfer has taught me a lot about not letting the box in your diagram limit my choices. I´ve been doing pretty well about expanding the box or dealing constructively with the limits I face.
This transfer is ending a few days early, on Thursday, so I´m about 72 hours away from meeting my hijita, the long awaited "Sister X", as I think of her. I´ve been praying for her almost every night since I found out I was going to train. I hope I can do a really good job of helping her. President Carter definitely knew what he was doing when he put me and Hna Azcurra together this transfer though. She has taught me so much about being friendly and expressive to the investigators and about planning well and working productively. I was in a productiveness rut when I got here, but she helped me pull out of it. I´ve also learned a lot this transfer about being patient and not being moody or irritable. It´s been humbling to see how impatient and irritable and moody I really am, but I´ve really been able to improve this transfer. I arrived in Ramos in a very moody state and Hna Azcurra has a strong personality that sometimes rubbed me the wrong way, but I prayed a lot and tried to serve Hna Azcurra and pray for her and feel confident so I could pull out of my moodiness. It worked! Heavenly Father helped me heal some of my moodiness and I´m learning to keep the rest of it under control and be merciful instead of impatient. I really learned to love Hna Azcurra and we learned to work well together and be unified. I feel like all of this is preparing me to be an excellent trainer for Hna X.
Eek! I´m almost out of time as always. Big news of the week:
* We achieved all 5 of the key indicators our mission is focusing on! It was our goal to be able to achieve all five this week and we did it! We had 8 investigators in sacrament meeting and we have 5 investigators with baptism goal dates! I´m really excited for this month because all 5 investigators actually really want to get baptized. They have challenges, but I think that they can all make it! They are:
* Carlos, my homeless investigator. We are going to ask him this week where he sleeps and talk to the ward council to see how they can help. I´m going to teach him to read too. And help him quit smoking.
* Rubén, a really fantastic 17 year old kid who this week recieved an answer and told us he knows the church is true! We just have to convince his mom that he doesn´t need to get baptized in the Catholic church first. Err. . .
* Andrés (55ish) is the most prepared of my investigators. He is so humble and his heart is so ready to receive the gospel! He says he knows the church is true! He has to quit smoking though.
* Braian (14), the nephew of the young men´s president. Just when I thought he wasn´t really interested we had a really spiritual lesson with him and when I asked him if he wanted to follow Christ he said yes, so he can start a new life and move forward! He is going to get baptized in 2 weeks!
* Daniel (23), is our miracle of the week. We found him on Thursday and he listened to us explain briefly the Restoration. He said it was a sign that we had found him and told us he thinks the 2nd coming will happen in Argentina. I thought that was kind of weird, but we ran into him again later that week and he said he wanted us to pick him up for church-- excellent! When we went on Sunday to pick him up he had a Book of Mormon that a non member friend had given him and he had already read until Mosiah! He said this is the perfect church and that the Book of Mormon says all the things he already thought but hadn´t found in any other churches. He asked all by himself how he can get baptized! I´m really excited for him! I´m sure that when he learns more doctrine his wacky ideas (which I think are just because he is really intelligent but not very prudent) will fade away. And he miraculously already gave up drugs and drinking weeks before he met us. So the only thing he has to give up is smoking, which he says won´t be a problem now that he has his baptism to motivate him.
Anyway, I´m really excited about all 5 of my investigators. I think Gaston was the beginning of a new phase in my mission. Before, most of my progressing investigators were women. Now all my progressing investigators are men with smoking addictions (except for Rubén, who fortunately doesn´t smoke). Gaston update: Hna Navarro wrote to me and told me that Gastón doesn´t answer her phone calls and that he is back together with his old girlfriend, who was against him going to church. He still hasn´t been confirmed. I feel heartbroken, in a missionary sense, because he was one of my best investigators ever. I keep praying for him that he will read the Book of Mormon and pray and that those things will bring him out of the rut he is in and back to church so he can be confirmed and be a real member.
One more experience: After finding out about Gastón, I was thinking about all my converts and about the recent converts here in general and how so many of mine and so many of them are inactive or have other problems. And I felt really sad that my mission hadn´t produced very many people who were really firm, active members in the church. Why is retention so hard? But I prayed about it and felt that each of the people I had taught was incredibly important to Heavenly Father and that he was really grateful to me for having helped them. In my heart I know my efforts haven´t been wasted, even though right now it seems like the results aren´t what I hoped for. Heavenly Father has not forgotten about my converts or ceased to love them or bless them because some of them are inactive or less active. I have to hope that with time all of them will return and experience the full blessings of the gospel.
Though, I just have to say that Olga looks like a ray of sunshine. I got a letter from her thanking me for teaching her the gospel, and Hna Navarro told me that in her prayers Olga always promises that she will be true to the church forever! I hope she can go to the temple next year! I can´t wait for you to meet her. Go Olga! One more thing-- Hna Navarro´s visa came! She is going to Venezuela this week I think. Which means President Carter´s prayers that she would stay went unanswered. Seriously. My hija is so fantastic that the mission president prayed that her visa would never come so she would stay in the mission. I will miss her, like I already do, but I´m happy for her that she gets to serve the people she was called to serve.
Ok, I´m really out of time. I love you and I miss you loads. Please pray for me and my converts and for Sister X! Thank you for your emails and prayers and support!
Love,
Ellis
P.S. Christmas package ideas: (really) small toys or candy that I can hand out to the kids of my investigators. Spending-money for souvenirs would be great. I don´t really need anything else, especially because I´m coming home one month later. But if you can send something for sister X and hot chocolate and energy bars, that would be great. And letters from all of you of course.
I really enjoyed your emails today. I liked the idea of being in the right place at the right time and it made me think of how important it is in the mission (and in life) to be punctual. I really, really, really have to work on that. I do feel good though about being in the mission at this time of my life, being in Ramos at this time in my mission, etc. I feel like I am in a position to create lots of positive changes in myself and in my area and help my companion in the last three months of my mission. I´m gearing up to train Sister X in just a few short days. Dad, thanks for your talk outline. It was actually really good. I liked the diagram. I feel like this transfer has taught me a lot about not letting the box in your diagram limit my choices. I´ve been doing pretty well about expanding the box or dealing constructively with the limits I face.
This transfer is ending a few days early, on Thursday, so I´m about 72 hours away from meeting my hijita, the long awaited "Sister X", as I think of her. I´ve been praying for her almost every night since I found out I was going to train. I hope I can do a really good job of helping her. President Carter definitely knew what he was doing when he put me and Hna Azcurra together this transfer though. She has taught me so much about being friendly and expressive to the investigators and about planning well and working productively. I was in a productiveness rut when I got here, but she helped me pull out of it. I´ve also learned a lot this transfer about being patient and not being moody or irritable. It´s been humbling to see how impatient and irritable and moody I really am, but I´ve really been able to improve this transfer. I arrived in Ramos in a very moody state and Hna Azcurra has a strong personality that sometimes rubbed me the wrong way, but I prayed a lot and tried to serve Hna Azcurra and pray for her and feel confident so I could pull out of my moodiness. It worked! Heavenly Father helped me heal some of my moodiness and I´m learning to keep the rest of it under control and be merciful instead of impatient. I really learned to love Hna Azcurra and we learned to work well together and be unified. I feel like all of this is preparing me to be an excellent trainer for Hna X.
Eek! I´m almost out of time as always. Big news of the week:
* We achieved all 5 of the key indicators our mission is focusing on! It was our goal to be able to achieve all five this week and we did it! We had 8 investigators in sacrament meeting and we have 5 investigators with baptism goal dates! I´m really excited for this month because all 5 investigators actually really want to get baptized. They have challenges, but I think that they can all make it! They are:
* Carlos, my homeless investigator. We are going to ask him this week where he sleeps and talk to the ward council to see how they can help. I´m going to teach him to read too. And help him quit smoking.
* Rubén, a really fantastic 17 year old kid who this week recieved an answer and told us he knows the church is true! We just have to convince his mom that he doesn´t need to get baptized in the Catholic church first. Err. . .
* Andrés (55ish) is the most prepared of my investigators. He is so humble and his heart is so ready to receive the gospel! He says he knows the church is true! He has to quit smoking though.
* Braian (14), the nephew of the young men´s president. Just when I thought he wasn´t really interested we had a really spiritual lesson with him and when I asked him if he wanted to follow Christ he said yes, so he can start a new life and move forward! He is going to get baptized in 2 weeks!
* Daniel (23), is our miracle of the week. We found him on Thursday and he listened to us explain briefly the Restoration. He said it was a sign that we had found him and told us he thinks the 2nd coming will happen in Argentina. I thought that was kind of weird, but we ran into him again later that week and he said he wanted us to pick him up for church-- excellent! When we went on Sunday to pick him up he had a Book of Mormon that a non member friend had given him and he had already read until Mosiah! He said this is the perfect church and that the Book of Mormon says all the things he already thought but hadn´t found in any other churches. He asked all by himself how he can get baptized! I´m really excited for him! I´m sure that when he learns more doctrine his wacky ideas (which I think are just because he is really intelligent but not very prudent) will fade away. And he miraculously already gave up drugs and drinking weeks before he met us. So the only thing he has to give up is smoking, which he says won´t be a problem now that he has his baptism to motivate him.
Anyway, I´m really excited about all 5 of my investigators. I think Gaston was the beginning of a new phase in my mission. Before, most of my progressing investigators were women. Now all my progressing investigators are men with smoking addictions (except for Rubén, who fortunately doesn´t smoke). Gaston update: Hna Navarro wrote to me and told me that Gastón doesn´t answer her phone calls and that he is back together with his old girlfriend, who was against him going to church. He still hasn´t been confirmed. I feel heartbroken, in a missionary sense, because he was one of my best investigators ever. I keep praying for him that he will read the Book of Mormon and pray and that those things will bring him out of the rut he is in and back to church so he can be confirmed and be a real member.
One more experience: After finding out about Gastón, I was thinking about all my converts and about the recent converts here in general and how so many of mine and so many of them are inactive or have other problems. And I felt really sad that my mission hadn´t produced very many people who were really firm, active members in the church. Why is retention so hard? But I prayed about it and felt that each of the people I had taught was incredibly important to Heavenly Father and that he was really grateful to me for having helped them. In my heart I know my efforts haven´t been wasted, even though right now it seems like the results aren´t what I hoped for. Heavenly Father has not forgotten about my converts or ceased to love them or bless them because some of them are inactive or less active. I have to hope that with time all of them will return and experience the full blessings of the gospel.
Though, I just have to say that Olga looks like a ray of sunshine. I got a letter from her thanking me for teaching her the gospel, and Hna Navarro told me that in her prayers Olga always promises that she will be true to the church forever! I hope she can go to the temple next year! I can´t wait for you to meet her. Go Olga! One more thing-- Hna Navarro´s visa came! She is going to Venezuela this week I think. Which means President Carter´s prayers that she would stay went unanswered. Seriously. My hija is so fantastic that the mission president prayed that her visa would never come so she would stay in the mission. I will miss her, like I already do, but I´m happy for her that she gets to serve the people she was called to serve.
Ok, I´m really out of time. I love you and I miss you loads. Please pray for me and my converts and for Sister X! Thank you for your emails and prayers and support!
Love,
Ellis
P.S. Christmas package ideas: (really) small toys or candy that I can hand out to the kids of my investigators. Spending-money for souvenirs would be great. I don´t really need anything else, especially because I´m coming home one month later. But if you can send something for sister X and hot chocolate and energy bars, that would be great. And letters from all of you of course.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
My First Baptism in Ramos
Dear Family,
Thanks for your emails! I was really excited to hear that Ben arrived in Brazil. It sounds like his mission is going to be fantastic. I pictured him showing pictures from the church pamphlets to that little Brazilian boy and I inwardly made that "awww" sound. My brother is a missionary! I{m excited to keep getting his letters. Ben, I'm going to try sending you the mission hat and some alfajores to Brazil. I hope they don't melt and that I have enough time next p-day or the p-day after that.
Oh, and I'm really excited to have you come pick me up. Maybe on that last Sunday we can go to church in Lujan. Some of my best Sundays were in Lujan. But I'll think more about that in a couple months.
News of the week:
* Cesar got baptized! He didn't smoke and he passed his interview with flying colors. His baptism was nice. Not very many members came besides his family, but an old investigator of other sisters, a homeless man named Carlos, came to the baptism. Maybe we can start teaching him again. On Sunday Cesar was confirmed. He is very happy to be a member. On Sunday night we took him tracting with us and he bore an amazing testimony in an on the street lesson that we taught. He said the gospel had changed his life 100 percent and he invited the girl to learn more and be baptized! His faith and enthusiasm really impress me.
* I'm getting to know the ward here better and I really like it. There are some really great members who are willing to help us. And on Sunday we got a new mission leader (the old one was called into the bishopric), Hno Cordero, who seems excited to work with us. I'm going to work really hard to win the ward's confidence. I feel a little intimidated because I have big shoes to fill-- Hna Azcurra had 8 baptisms two transfers ago, a record here. But I guess I just have to work hard and hope for the best.
* This week we started teaching a new investigator named Ruben, also an old investigator of other sisters, and the younger brother of an investigator who really wasn't progressing. He is 17 and this time around seems ready to accept the gospel. He kept his commitment to pray the first time we invited him to do it and he came to church on Sunday with his adorable little brother Nico (9 years old and reminds me a little bit of Dan). Now he has a baptism goal date for November 5. What a neat kid!
* We had a pretty good Sunday with 6 investigators who showed up. One of them was Carlos, the homeless man who came to Cesar's baptism. After church we set an appointment to teach him in the church. I hope he progresses and that we can help him out. Braian (14) came too. He is the nephew of a family in our ward and also has a baptismal goal date, though he still has some doubts. I think he will get baptized though.I was a little disappointed that David and Maira didn't come (the arguing couple, David is Cesar's younger brother). There is some sort of drama between them and the rest of the Monserrat family and they've stopped visiting the rest of the family, so they probably missed church to avoid seeing them. We are going to have to work with them on that.
Well, I'm out of time, but I hope you have an excellent week. I'm off to keep teaching and preaching, "a full," as we say here, in the monoblock with Hna Azcurra!
Love,
Hermana Clark
Thanks for your emails! I was really excited to hear that Ben arrived in Brazil. It sounds like his mission is going to be fantastic. I pictured him showing pictures from the church pamphlets to that little Brazilian boy and I inwardly made that "awww" sound. My brother is a missionary! I{m excited to keep getting his letters. Ben, I'm going to try sending you the mission hat and some alfajores to Brazil. I hope they don't melt and that I have enough time next p-day or the p-day after that.
Oh, and I'm really excited to have you come pick me up. Maybe on that last Sunday we can go to church in Lujan. Some of my best Sundays were in Lujan. But I'll think more about that in a couple months.
News of the week:
* Cesar got baptized! He didn't smoke and he passed his interview with flying colors. His baptism was nice. Not very many members came besides his family, but an old investigator of other sisters, a homeless man named Carlos, came to the baptism. Maybe we can start teaching him again. On Sunday Cesar was confirmed. He is very happy to be a member. On Sunday night we took him tracting with us and he bore an amazing testimony in an on the street lesson that we taught. He said the gospel had changed his life 100 percent and he invited the girl to learn more and be baptized! His faith and enthusiasm really impress me.
* I'm getting to know the ward here better and I really like it. There are some really great members who are willing to help us. And on Sunday we got a new mission leader (the old one was called into the bishopric), Hno Cordero, who seems excited to work with us. I'm going to work really hard to win the ward's confidence. I feel a little intimidated because I have big shoes to fill-- Hna Azcurra had 8 baptisms two transfers ago, a record here. But I guess I just have to work hard and hope for the best.
* This week we started teaching a new investigator named Ruben, also an old investigator of other sisters, and the younger brother of an investigator who really wasn't progressing. He is 17 and this time around seems ready to accept the gospel. He kept his commitment to pray the first time we invited him to do it and he came to church on Sunday with his adorable little brother Nico (9 years old and reminds me a little bit of Dan). Now he has a baptism goal date for November 5. What a neat kid!
* We had a pretty good Sunday with 6 investigators who showed up. One of them was Carlos, the homeless man who came to Cesar's baptism. After church we set an appointment to teach him in the church. I hope he progresses and that we can help him out. Braian (14) came too. He is the nephew of a family in our ward and also has a baptismal goal date, though he still has some doubts. I think he will get baptized though.I was a little disappointed that David and Maira didn't come (the arguing couple, David is Cesar's younger brother). There is some sort of drama between them and the rest of the Monserrat family and they've stopped visiting the rest of the family, so they probably missed church to avoid seeing them. We are going to have to work with them on that.
Well, I'm out of time, but I hope you have an excellent week. I'm off to keep teaching and preaching, "a full," as we say here, in the monoblock with Hna Azcurra!
Love,
Hermana Clark
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Sincerity May Be Fatal
Dear Family,
Arg! I accidentally deleted my whole email that I was in the middle of. So this is going to have to be super fast and lame:
People Updates:
I asked special permission to call Hna Navarro about an old investigator because I was freaked out. She told me that he didn´t get confirmed because he had some Word of Wisdom problems over the weekend. His ex-girlfriend started pestering him again, which must have freaked him out because he got pretty upset and depressed, hence his reaction. He was with her for 2 years, so I guess that´s a lot of baggage to get over. But Hna Navarro promised that she will keep trying to help him and that she is going to get him to talk to the bishop. I hope he can get confirmed soon!
Hna Navarro also told me that Shandy, an investigator I found in a street contact in Hurlingham, has a baptismal date with her daughter, Tamara! And Pamela was supposedly going to be baptized yesterday! So Hurlingham is looking good!
Here in Ramos, César didn´t smoke all week! If he can keep it up he will get baptized on Saturday! Woohoo! And Andrés came to church again and is praying to know if the message is true. He arrived all by himself again, on time, in a collared shirt! He is golden! His daughter, Marilina, mysteriously disappeared to her sister´s house over the weekend and didn´t go to church, but we are going to try again to teach her this week. David and Maira came to church again this week. We taught a lesson about being children of God to them this week to try to help David with his jealousy issues. I felt the Spirit really strongly as we taught David about his divine potential. He has made some big mistakes in his life, but that doesn´t change his divine worth and potential and the Atonement is there to help him change!
Funny story of the week: I am learning from Hna Azcurra how to see the positive in other people. After a lesson in which an investigator told us that sometimes she watches her boyfriend sleep and feels like suffocating him with a pillow, Hna Azcurra said about our investigator, "She is so wonderful! I love how sincere she is!" Can´t argue that. More sincerity might be fatal.
Well, I love you! Thanks so much for your emails and prayers. Dad, your itinerary idea sounds good. Let me know if you have any questions. I hope you all have a wonderful week! Forward me Ben´s email when he writes.
Love,
Ellis
Arg! I accidentally deleted my whole email that I was in the middle of. So this is going to have to be super fast and lame:
People Updates:
I asked special permission to call Hna Navarro about an old investigator because I was freaked out. She told me that he didn´t get confirmed because he had some Word of Wisdom problems over the weekend. His ex-girlfriend started pestering him again, which must have freaked him out because he got pretty upset and depressed, hence his reaction. He was with her for 2 years, so I guess that´s a lot of baggage to get over. But Hna Navarro promised that she will keep trying to help him and that she is going to get him to talk to the bishop. I hope he can get confirmed soon!
Hna Navarro also told me that Shandy, an investigator I found in a street contact in Hurlingham, has a baptismal date with her daughter, Tamara! And Pamela was supposedly going to be baptized yesterday! So Hurlingham is looking good!
Here in Ramos, César didn´t smoke all week! If he can keep it up he will get baptized on Saturday! Woohoo! And Andrés came to church again and is praying to know if the message is true. He arrived all by himself again, on time, in a collared shirt! He is golden! His daughter, Marilina, mysteriously disappeared to her sister´s house over the weekend and didn´t go to church, but we are going to try again to teach her this week. David and Maira came to church again this week. We taught a lesson about being children of God to them this week to try to help David with his jealousy issues. I felt the Spirit really strongly as we taught David about his divine potential. He has made some big mistakes in his life, but that doesn´t change his divine worth and potential and the Atonement is there to help him change!
Funny story of the week: I am learning from Hna Azcurra how to see the positive in other people. After a lesson in which an investigator told us that sometimes she watches her boyfriend sleep and feels like suffocating him with a pillow, Hna Azcurra said about our investigator, "She is so wonderful! I love how sincere she is!" Can´t argue that. More sincerity might be fatal.
Well, I love you! Thanks so much for your emails and prayers. Dad, your itinerary idea sounds good. Let me know if you have any questions. I hope you all have a wonderful week! Forward me Ben´s email when he writes.
Love,
Ellis
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
First let me Freak Out and then I'll tell the Good News
Dear Mom and Dad,
I just read the numbers from last week in Hurlingham and it said 0 confirmations! What happened to Gaston???!!!! Why didn't he get confirmed? Why didn't I fight with the bishop to let him get confirmed during his baptismal service instead of two weeks later after Conference? What was I thinking? AAAAAAAAAGH! I'm freaked out. I hope it was a mistake. Sometimes the office elders are sloppy when they enter the data. And yes, I know it's not my fault if he didn't get confirmed. Gaston is responsible for his own addictions. But, WHYYYYYY? I am really upset. And I{m sure Hna Navarro, who is even more sensitive than me, is miserable about it. AAAAAAAGH!
OK. Deep breaths. We are now focusing on the good news.
For example, this week was better than last week. I'm slowly but surely learning my way around Ramos Mejia and learning to love the area. I've actually only seen a small part of the whole area because the monoblocks and the casitas nuevas are so full of people willing to listen to us that we spend all day there. There is so much potential in this area!
Cesar is still trying to quit smoking, so we reset his baptismal date for the 22 of October. I really hope he makes it! Fortunately, I think his awesome recent convert family is giving him good support.
On Thursday we had interviews with President Carter. I sat down on the couch in his office and one of the first things he asked me is if I would like to end my mission by training again. I said yes and he said, good, because the Spirit has been telling me for the last couple of weeks that you should train again. He said my next companion is going to be a North American sister! Yikes! So I have to teach her Spanish AND teach her the ropes of the mission. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm glad I know how my mission is going to end: I will spend my last two transfers in Ramos, training a North American. I feel good about that. President says it's a great opportunity to leave my legacy in the mission.
President also told me that I shouldn't worry about trying to judge myself and my mission, I should just focus on what I've been able to learn and accomplish. He said I'm a good missionary who loves the people and cares about the work. It was really nice to hear that. I'm going to try to follow his advice and stop trying to grade my mission.
Aaaaand I asked President Carter if it was OK (by which I mean, not a Sin) to let you come pick me up at the end of my mission. His answer was sort of that it's officially discouraged but pretty much OK with the big 3 (i.e. First Presidency) for parents to pick up missionaries. And he assured me that it is OK to have fun (albeit low key mostly spiritual fun) before being released. And then he said that if his dad had served in BA, he would jump on the chance to visit Argentina with him. And he said that visiting their kids' mission has the potential to change parent's lives. And he said it was my choice. So I thought about it and it took about 3 minutes to realize I was needlessly freaking out and that I really want you guys to see the places where I served and meet the amazing people I met and baptized. And it would make my converts feel special if I visited them with you. So if the funds are there, START PRACTICING YOUR PORTEÑO SPANISH! So here's the deal: sometime in the next two weeks you need to call the church travel office and tell them you are coming to pick me up and what the plans are so that they can buy me a flight home with you. As for your flight to Argentina, I recommend that you arrive on Monday, which I think is the 30th of Jan. We can work out the details in a couple more months, but just so you know I mostly just want to visit everyone of my areas and converts with you and go some places that dad went. President says there is some cool stuff in the capital that I'll see during the end of the mission tour that I might want to show you guys, so we can fit in a little bit of tourist stuff too if you want. OK, that's it. Back to focused-on-the-mission mode.
Funny story from Sunday: We went to pick up Maira and David, a couple from the Monserrat family who we are trying to marry and baptize, to take them to church. We clapped at the gate and shouted (nicely) at their open window for them to come out and come to church. First, David appeared at the window looking very sleepy.
David: "No, hermanas, we aren't going."
Us: "Why not? Come on!"
David: "I want to go, but Maira doesn't want too. She's tired."
Us: "Maira!!!!" Maira appeared at the window.
Maira:"I do too want to go! I got up and got ready but David didn't want to go. I was going to leave him but he told me "if you aren't going with me you aren't going anywhere.""
David again: "That's not true. I wanted to go but Maira wanted to sleep in."
Us: "Well, obviously you both want to go to church, so get moving!"
They sure gave me a lot of laughs. In the end, they both got ready and came to church with us. Sometimes being a missionary feels more like being a mom with lots of overgrown children. I sure hope Maira (20) and David (27) can figure things out and get married and baptized.
Miracle of the week: On Friday it was raining buckets and very windy and all our appointments fell through. We started knocking doors and Marilina had compassion on us and let us in. We taught her and her dad and on Sunday they came to church all by themselves! After church we introduced them to about 5 million members so that they would feel fellowshipped and then we showed them the baptismal font and invited them to be baptized on the 29th of October. They said yes! WOOHOOO! Good times in the mission.
OK, I'm out of time as usual but please pray a lot for Gaston so he can work through whatever is going on and get confirmed. And if you can, please pray for Cesar so he can stop smoking. Thank you so much for all your wonderful emails and letters. If I don't respond with more commentary to what you said it isn't because I didn't pay attention, it's because I didn't have time to write everything. I enjoyed the thoughts you send me in your emails. I'm praying for Ben that his visa gets here soon and that he loves being a missionary in California. Say hi and I love you to Emma, Eliza, and Dan for me! And tell Dan thanks for the drawing of the mirror of reflections. I loved it and pinned it to my bulletin board. I love you!
Love,
Ellis
I just read the numbers from last week in Hurlingham and it said 0 confirmations! What happened to Gaston???!!!! Why didn't he get confirmed? Why didn't I fight with the bishop to let him get confirmed during his baptismal service instead of two weeks later after Conference? What was I thinking? AAAAAAAAAGH! I'm freaked out. I hope it was a mistake. Sometimes the office elders are sloppy when they enter the data. And yes, I know it's not my fault if he didn't get confirmed. Gaston is responsible for his own addictions. But, WHYYYYYY? I am really upset. And I{m sure Hna Navarro, who is even more sensitive than me, is miserable about it. AAAAAAAGH!
OK. Deep breaths. We are now focusing on the good news.
For example, this week was better than last week. I'm slowly but surely learning my way around Ramos Mejia and learning to love the area. I've actually only seen a small part of the whole area because the monoblocks and the casitas nuevas are so full of people willing to listen to us that we spend all day there. There is so much potential in this area!
Cesar is still trying to quit smoking, so we reset his baptismal date for the 22 of October. I really hope he makes it! Fortunately, I think his awesome recent convert family is giving him good support.
On Thursday we had interviews with President Carter. I sat down on the couch in his office and one of the first things he asked me is if I would like to end my mission by training again. I said yes and he said, good, because the Spirit has been telling me for the last couple of weeks that you should train again. He said my next companion is going to be a North American sister! Yikes! So I have to teach her Spanish AND teach her the ropes of the mission. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm glad I know how my mission is going to end: I will spend my last two transfers in Ramos, training a North American. I feel good about that. President says it's a great opportunity to leave my legacy in the mission.
President also told me that I shouldn't worry about trying to judge myself and my mission, I should just focus on what I've been able to learn and accomplish. He said I'm a good missionary who loves the people and cares about the work. It was really nice to hear that. I'm going to try to follow his advice and stop trying to grade my mission.
Aaaaand I asked President Carter if it was OK (by which I mean, not a Sin) to let you come pick me up at the end of my mission. His answer was sort of that it's officially discouraged but pretty much OK with the big 3 (i.e. First Presidency) for parents to pick up missionaries. And he assured me that it is OK to have fun (albeit low key mostly spiritual fun) before being released. And then he said that if his dad had served in BA, he would jump on the chance to visit Argentina with him. And he said that visiting their kids' mission has the potential to change parent's lives. And he said it was my choice. So I thought about it and it took about 3 minutes to realize I was needlessly freaking out and that I really want you guys to see the places where I served and meet the amazing people I met and baptized. And it would make my converts feel special if I visited them with you. So if the funds are there, START PRACTICING YOUR PORTEÑO SPANISH! So here's the deal: sometime in the next two weeks you need to call the church travel office and tell them you are coming to pick me up and what the plans are so that they can buy me a flight home with you. As for your flight to Argentina, I recommend that you arrive on Monday, which I think is the 30th of Jan. We can work out the details in a couple more months, but just so you know I mostly just want to visit everyone of my areas and converts with you and go some places that dad went. President says there is some cool stuff in the capital that I'll see during the end of the mission tour that I might want to show you guys, so we can fit in a little bit of tourist stuff too if you want. OK, that's it. Back to focused-on-the-mission mode.
Funny story from Sunday: We went to pick up Maira and David, a couple from the Monserrat family who we are trying to marry and baptize, to take them to church. We clapped at the gate and shouted (nicely) at their open window for them to come out and come to church. First, David appeared at the window looking very sleepy.
David: "No, hermanas, we aren't going."
Us: "Why not? Come on!"
David: "I want to go, but Maira doesn't want too. She's tired."
Us: "Maira!!!!" Maira appeared at the window.
Maira:"I do too want to go! I got up and got ready but David didn't want to go. I was going to leave him but he told me "if you aren't going with me you aren't going anywhere.""
David again: "That's not true. I wanted to go but Maira wanted to sleep in."
Us: "Well, obviously you both want to go to church, so get moving!"
They sure gave me a lot of laughs. In the end, they both got ready and came to church with us. Sometimes being a missionary feels more like being a mom with lots of overgrown children. I sure hope Maira (20) and David (27) can figure things out and get married and baptized.
Miracle of the week: On Friday it was raining buckets and very windy and all our appointments fell through. We started knocking doors and Marilina had compassion on us and let us in. We taught her and her dad and on Sunday they came to church all by themselves! After church we introduced them to about 5 million members so that they would feel fellowshipped and then we showed them the baptismal font and invited them to be baptized on the 29th of October. They said yes! WOOHOOO! Good times in the mission.
OK, I'm out of time as usual but please pray a lot for Gaston so he can work through whatever is going on and get confirmed. And if you can, please pray for Cesar so he can stop smoking. Thank you so much for all your wonderful emails and letters. If I don't respond with more commentary to what you said it isn't because I didn't pay attention, it's because I didn't have time to write everything. I enjoyed the thoughts you send me in your emails. I'm praying for Ben that his visa gets here soon and that he loves being a missionary in California. Say hi and I love you to Emma, Eliza, and Dan for me! And tell Dan thanks for the drawing of the mirror of reflections. I loved it and pinned it to my bulletin board. I love you!
Love,
Ellis
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
First Week in Ramos Mejia
Dear Mom, Dad, Eliza, Emma, Dan, and Ben (please forward this to Elder Clark),
Thanks for the emails you sent this week and last week (I finally read them all). Reading your emails is one of the highlights of my week. Last night I read a letter Mom sent with photos of her hiking adventures and letters from Ben. Mom, you look thinner in that photo! And your hiking adventure sounds way fun! Ben, I hope you will enjoy your (hopefully) last week at the MTC. The MTC is a great place to be, but also a great place to leave! I will pray this week that your visa comes on time so you can serve those great people in Brazil who are waiting for you. I´m often surprised by how busy the rest of you are with work, callings, school and extra activities. Do you feel as busy as your letters tell? I´m glad that you are having fun, learning, and achieving so many things.
Here are the highlights/the news of my week:
* Being in a new area is HARD. I was pretty teary on Monday and Tuesday. I kept thinking about my converts in Hurlingham, especially Gastón. I visited him every day for over a month and spent a significant amount of mental time worrying if he was happy, if he was reading the BoM, if he was smoking, etc. Suddenly having a new list of first priorities was, well, disorienting. I find myself still thinking of lessons to teach to him or to Olga or Pamela or to Elvira and Celeste. I still worry about how to reactivate Evelyn´s family. Other hard things: in Hurlingham I knew where EVERYTHING was and where I was in every moment (once a guy in the street said he lived near the train station in a house with leopard print curtains and I knew EXACTLY which house he was talking about and where it was), but here I feel super disoriented and have to follow Hna Azcurra around blindly. And, yup, it´s hard to go from being a trainer and directing lots of things to having to be directed because I´m still getting to know the investigators and the area. A lesson in humility. And of course I miss Hna Navarro. But slowly things have been getting better and I feel like I´m going to be able to leave my old area behind and give full attention to my new calling in Ramos Mejía.
* Here is the good stuff: a ward mission leader who took time out of his day to make us invitations to general conference---the other WMLs I´ve had weren´t as involved in their callings. And the Monserrat family, Hna Azcurra´s HUGE miracle family of super recent converts who love us to death and give us referrals every day! There are about 16 of them, some of which haven´t been baptized. One of them is César, a 42 year old single dad who is trying to quit smoking so he can get baptized. My experience with Gastón is really helping me to help him! Good thing number three: Hna Azcurra is fearless and very goal oriented and good at managing time, so that is helping me a lot. Good thing number four: teaching in "los monoblock" and "las casitas nuevas", the housing projects in our area. The rest of the area is really well off, but in the housing projects we have a lot of really receptive investigators. More details next week.
* Other stuff: our pension is one the 3rd floor of a 14 story apartment building in front of the train tracks. This is definitely my most urban area.
* General Conference was pretty great. I listened to all four sessions in Spanish, which was cool. My favorite talks were Elder Uchtdorf´s talk adn the talk about teaching with the Spirit. I almost teared up in teh talk about the elder who wore his dad´s mission coat to the same Japanese mission his father served in. It reminded my of how Dad and I both served in Buenos Aires. I thought about how Dad was listening to that talk at exactly the same time I was and probably thinking of me like I was thinking of him. I love you Dad! We planned to have about 10 investigators in the conference, but none of them showed up. :( That was disappointing, but at least lots of the new converts in the Monserrat family came. They are a really neat family!
* A BIG highlight of the conference was that Sebastián, Gastón, and Celeste came! (we share a stake center) They were really happy to see me. Gastón seems to be doing ok. I sure hope he stays strong with not smoking so he can get confirmed next Sunday. Hna Azcurra and I walked in a couple minutes late to the Sunday morning session and when I looked around to see who from Hurlingham was there, I saw Gastón and Celeste cuddling as they watched the first talk! I THINK TWO OF MY FAVORITE CONVERTS ARE GOING TO START DATING! FUTURE ETERNAL FAMILY! It makes me really happy. Elvira missed conference because she had to go to the capital, I´m not sure why. :( I was hoping to see Olga, but Hna Navarro (who I was THRILLED to see and who was thrilled to see me!) told me she got sick! I felt really bad because Olga didn´t want to get baptized because she thought she would get sick again and has no one to take care of her because she lives alone. So like any missionary would I promised her that God wouldn´t let her get sick for being baptized. Then I promised the water would be warm, and it wasn´t! (next time I´ll have to fill the font personally). Olga swears that the water didn´t make her sick, but I still feel guilty. I hope she gets better soon.
Well, I´m out of time. I love each one of you and pray for you often. Have a fantastic week!
Love,
Ellis
P.S. I´ll give you a final answer about the picking me up thing next week. Mi cabeza sigue dando vueltas.
Thanks for the emails you sent this week and last week (I finally read them all). Reading your emails is one of the highlights of my week. Last night I read a letter Mom sent with photos of her hiking adventures and letters from Ben. Mom, you look thinner in that photo! And your hiking adventure sounds way fun! Ben, I hope you will enjoy your (hopefully) last week at the MTC. The MTC is a great place to be, but also a great place to leave! I will pray this week that your visa comes on time so you can serve those great people in Brazil who are waiting for you. I´m often surprised by how busy the rest of you are with work, callings, school and extra activities. Do you feel as busy as your letters tell? I´m glad that you are having fun, learning, and achieving so many things.
Here are the highlights/the news of my week:
* Being in a new area is HARD. I was pretty teary on Monday and Tuesday. I kept thinking about my converts in Hurlingham, especially Gastón. I visited him every day for over a month and spent a significant amount of mental time worrying if he was happy, if he was reading the BoM, if he was smoking, etc. Suddenly having a new list of first priorities was, well, disorienting. I find myself still thinking of lessons to teach to him or to Olga or Pamela or to Elvira and Celeste. I still worry about how to reactivate Evelyn´s family. Other hard things: in Hurlingham I knew where EVERYTHING was and where I was in every moment (once a guy in the street said he lived near the train station in a house with leopard print curtains and I knew EXACTLY which house he was talking about and where it was), but here I feel super disoriented and have to follow Hna Azcurra around blindly. And, yup, it´s hard to go from being a trainer and directing lots of things to having to be directed because I´m still getting to know the investigators and the area. A lesson in humility. And of course I miss Hna Navarro. But slowly things have been getting better and I feel like I´m going to be able to leave my old area behind and give full attention to my new calling in Ramos Mejía.
* Here is the good stuff: a ward mission leader who took time out of his day to make us invitations to general conference---the other WMLs I´ve had weren´t as involved in their callings. And the Monserrat family, Hna Azcurra´s HUGE miracle family of super recent converts who love us to death and give us referrals every day! There are about 16 of them, some of which haven´t been baptized. One of them is César, a 42 year old single dad who is trying to quit smoking so he can get baptized. My experience with Gastón is really helping me to help him! Good thing number three: Hna Azcurra is fearless and very goal oriented and good at managing time, so that is helping me a lot. Good thing number four: teaching in "los monoblock" and "las casitas nuevas", the housing projects in our area. The rest of the area is really well off, but in the housing projects we have a lot of really receptive investigators. More details next week.
* Other stuff: our pension is one the 3rd floor of a 14 story apartment building in front of the train tracks. This is definitely my most urban area.
* General Conference was pretty great. I listened to all four sessions in Spanish, which was cool. My favorite talks were Elder Uchtdorf´s talk adn the talk about teaching with the Spirit. I almost teared up in teh talk about the elder who wore his dad´s mission coat to the same Japanese mission his father served in. It reminded my of how Dad and I both served in Buenos Aires. I thought about how Dad was listening to that talk at exactly the same time I was and probably thinking of me like I was thinking of him. I love you Dad! We planned to have about 10 investigators in the conference, but none of them showed up. :( That was disappointing, but at least lots of the new converts in the Monserrat family came. They are a really neat family!
* A BIG highlight of the conference was that Sebastián, Gastón, and Celeste came! (we share a stake center) They were really happy to see me. Gastón seems to be doing ok. I sure hope he stays strong with not smoking so he can get confirmed next Sunday. Hna Azcurra and I walked in a couple minutes late to the Sunday morning session and when I looked around to see who from Hurlingham was there, I saw Gastón and Celeste cuddling as they watched the first talk! I THINK TWO OF MY FAVORITE CONVERTS ARE GOING TO START DATING! FUTURE ETERNAL FAMILY! It makes me really happy. Elvira missed conference because she had to go to the capital, I´m not sure why. :( I was hoping to see Olga, but Hna Navarro (who I was THRILLED to see and who was thrilled to see me!) told me she got sick! I felt really bad because Olga didn´t want to get baptized because she thought she would get sick again and has no one to take care of her because she lives alone. So like any missionary would I promised her that God wouldn´t let her get sick for being baptized. Then I promised the water would be warm, and it wasn´t! (next time I´ll have to fill the font personally). Olga swears that the water didn´t make her sick, but I still feel guilty. I hope she gets better soon.
Well, I´m out of time. I love each one of you and pray for you often. Have a fantastic week!
Love,
Ellis
P.S. I´ll give you a final answer about the picking me up thing next week. Mi cabeza sigue dando vueltas.
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