10/2/17

We just got pictures this week.  No time for a weekly letter.  He is training a Missionary right out of the MTC.  Elder Alston from Springfield, Oregon.

 Elders Alston and Ellsworth

 Arriving "home".

General Conference egg...not as good at General Conference Cheesecake or Cinnamon Rolls

 Some kind of moth??  That's his shoe, for size.

 This is the chapel.  It’s not dedicated yet so I think it’s okay to take a picture of it. 

I WISH I could tell about my week.  About and the temple and picking up my companion and the power outages for three nights straight but I have no time.  Other Elders need to get us the computer.  I’m sorry !!!

9/25/17

 This was a good week. We were able to have a baptism for Paul. He was a former investigator who came back to town last week. Hopefully he will be able to come to the temple with the branch this coming Saturday. We have to make sure we prepare him for that as well :)

But overall, the week was pretty good. It just went by fast.

This was Elder Skog's last week in the field so it went by like a blur. It’s all well. I will miss Elder Skog. He was a good friend and I definitely learned a lot from his actions.

So, the transfer news: Duh duh duhhhhh. I will be going on transfer to an area called Asamanketwa. (aus (like the British version of saying butt a bad way) -ah-maughn-kit-t-wa.--It will be so fun to see how you say things when I get back :)) It’s just the neighboring area that the sisters used to be over. I’m white-washing it and on top of that I’m training! woo who! Super ton of work to do now! Yay! If you can’t tell from my cyber tone, I’m really scared and anxious but I know for sure President Simpson has received revelation and I’m happy for the opportunity that will send me to my knees a ton :) I’m so excited to work, you don’t even know!
All is well :)

But as for this week the only interesting thing that happened was I saw a dead dog right before I came in to email, so that was cool. It will probably be gone when I go back out--somebody will have a good dinner tonight #Ghana. :)

I’m alive and well and happy to start working hard.

The little girl in the picture is my best friend ever

Also, I look like a young Snape.

9/18/17

This week was good.  We were able to have a sweet Sacrament meeting. 

But on Saturday we were invited over to the senior couple’s house for dinner and right before we ate, the Mission President and his wife show up!  So, we’re all like shoot, this is going to be fun…and it was! 

The best part of that night was when the senior couple looked at my companion and I and said “Elders my friend here is coming over tomorrow at 3 for a lesson, will you be able to make it?” I think the best way to describe our reaction is my referencing The Best Two Years movie, where they open up their planner and it’s completely empty and they say "Yeah, it looks like we can squeeze you in!”  That is literally what it felt like!  We had no one planned for Sunday, but you can’t say that when the Mission President is right there.  We had a good laugh about that after.

Now, that lesson was pretty sweet.  It took about 2 hours, but we gave him all he needed to know if the Church is true.

That was really how our week went it was fun and I’m glad we were able to teach and testify of this restored gospel.

Well I don’t have my card reader so I can’t send pictures.  I really don’t have any anyway but I don’t have it because we climbed a mountain today and I didn’t think that would be too useful on a mountain :) 

I love you all and I know this church is true!

Elder Skogs goes home next week.  My new (greenie) companion (I will be training) and I will be white-washing a new area right next to my old area.  It will be hard because there were no Missionaries there before us to show us around.  Also remember, there are no addresses so we won’t know the where the chapel is, or where the Branch President lives and there are no investigators, that we will know of… We won’t even know the boundaries of the area so it should be a fun experience. 

9/11/17

This week was kind of not a “Mission” week.  All I can say is we went and visited some of Elder Skogs’ friends on Friday…we went to Accra and just hung out at their place the whole day.

We were able to have a wonderful Sabbath day and I truly was so happy I could partake of the Sacrament and renew my covenants.  That’s what it’s all about.

Also, there was a question in Elders Quorum that led to the answer “Follow the Prophet”.  That is pretty much the answer to all conflicting views of the gospel or anything.  I say if President Monson came out right now and said by way of revelation the first great commandment is that we need to wear neon yellow socks then by all means, THAT IS THE NEW COMMANDMENT! That’s really all we need to put our faith in when these questions and concerns come up. :) 


I don’t have much time today but I do have pictures and some videos.  =)

9/4/17

This week was pretty much the same.  Nothing new. I went on exchange with the district leader, Elder Jorgenson (he is actually from riverside), and his area is sweet.  He has so many children to teach which is my favorite because children are funny :)

But then the week continued and we had a sweet District meeting on the Book of Mormon and just how awesome it actually is.  Our mission president invited us to start reading 2 chapters a  day out of the Book of Mormon.  So, we started September 1st and by December 31st we will be done with the whole book. I’ve been doing that but I started in Second Nephi 30, because that’s where I was already.  There are some sweet scriptures from 2nd Nephi through Jacob.  Just wow!

My favorite one has to be Jacob 1:19 because it applies to me as a missionary and how I need to work with all my heart, mind, might and strength because I don’t want the sins of these people upon my head.  Also, I loved Jacob 4:5 just because the Doctrine there WAS COMPLETLY different to what Joseph Smith grew up with…that with Adam and Eve being amazing people. I mean Joseph Smith was a prophet and even if he wrote the Book of Mormon, he’s a pretty dang good reformer.  Thankfully he translated it and it’s a true scripture.

I’d explain the pictures but I can’t see them.  All I know is we saw a dead bird last Sunday :)

 Riding in a Trotro (taxi), dragging a wheelbarrow 

 Day of Service--Mormon Helping Hands

 (this is Liz, I think he looks like Uncle Sterling here)

 Dead bird in the wash water

 Not evceryday do you see Megaman playing lacrosse riding a crab

 OHHH YEA WE HAD A BAPTISM!! IT WAS SWEET!

8/28/17

Entire Ghana Accra West Mission with  Elder Renlund

This week was good.  I honestly forgot what happened.  However (as we all know) as I continue to write, I figure it out.

So, last Monday, the Senior Couples in this District (not a Stake) (they are sweet--they have 9 children and remind me of Grandma and Grandpa Ellsworth) (I didn’t tell them that because people always play like they are offended when I tell them they remind me of my grandparents) had the activity for the FHE at the Chapel.  It was a fun activity--they had toy cars (no idea where they got them) but they set up a relay race with them.  Super fun!

Then we did stuff and other things…OH YEAH!  It rained really hard! So, all of our plans for Tuesday failed because nothing happens in Ghana when it rains.  We went inside a container (it’s pretty much one of those metal containers that they have at shipping docks with a roof on it) that’s a business and we hid from the rain in there.  It was a sewing shop and the lady (turned out she’s a member) had a hand cranked sewing machine.  When it started to rain she literally stopped and went to sleep. She was completely covered.  It was raining so apparently that means nap time.

Other than that, not much happened.  I did read a scripture in Luke that emphasizes my point I made last week about doubts of faith and doubts that are rude. It’s in the book of Luke chapter 5 verses 5-6. This shows emphasizes my point, because Simon Peter could have said "you know it didn’t work before, so I shouldn’t follow this commandment now".  But he didn’t! He trusted the Savior and because of his faith (and then his work) he was able to receive the blessings.

Also in verse 8, I’m pretty sure that’s when the Spirit testified that Jesus was the Christ.

I FORGOT MY CAMERA!!!!! NOOOOOOO!! I HAD A SWEET, SIMPLE ANIMATION THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry.  Well we had a baptism and there was this sweet animation thing I did.  Next time.

There was a dead bird in our wash water. I felt kind of bad, but he did his purpose in life so don’t worry about him (see bible dictionary revelation of John #4 Pg. 763).

Overall a sweet week.  Sorry no pictures!

love you all!

--

HEY I FOUND OUT HOW TO CHANGE THIS THING

-Elder Ellsworth

8/21/17

So, this week I headed out to a new area.  Luckily a member in Swedru offered to drive me all the way to my new area so I took the opportunity.  I love that member! He is just a sweet dude trying his best to do the right thing. After that car ride to my new home I got settled and went out to go do stuff like normal.

We had some good days of work and a really funny story for a mid-week break.  So there was an All Africa Service Project on Saturday, and so Wednesday night at mid-week, they were announcing it and the Brother got up and said "next Saturday" and someone shouts out "No it’s this Saturday" and the brother said “yes I know, next Saturday” and they were just arguing and then EVERYONE had to add their 2 cents to the matter, so the whole building was just a bunch of shouting about what it should be, “this” or “next” and I just looked at the senior couples and just started to laugh with them. It was just unnecessarily funny.

After that we did other things (I have a bad memory chip)

But! Saturday was the service project thingy-thing and our assignment as a branch was to start at one side of the Branch boundary and walk the whole main road to the other side just cleaning up the dirt and chopping the bush away and burning all the junk.  So, like the good boy scouts we all are we took a bunch of dead weeds and burnt them right under all the trees on the side of the road.  I wish I had a picture haha Luckily, no natural disasters or actual disasters happen in Ghana so the fire didn’t spread for some reason or another :)

BUT with that service project--Mom you'd be so proud because I actually worked!  I didn't just go and stand around like I did when we helped someone move.  I worked so hard I got like 8 blisters and a super sore back.  It hurts to sit, but we made the road somewhat better :) 

Then during personal study on Sunday (actually I was led by the service project--whilst swinging my cutlass (sword)(better known as machete) at a bunch of leaves my mind shot back to fig leaves and Adam and Eve and also I read in Mark about how Jesus cursed the Fig tree and I wondered if there was a connection there.  So, I thought about why Jesus cursed the fig tree in Mark and I didn’t really understand why he would do that. I mean I couldn't really believe it was because he was hungry and it didn’t have anything to eat on it.  That just didn’t seem like something Jesus Christ would do so I then went to the Bible dictionary and while turning the pages I said in my mind “this cannot be here, the bible dictionary has so few things, how could fig trees be here?”  But I still turned to the page just to make sure and I found it and it completely explained why He cursed the fig tree it was sweet that I found that answer!

But I tell that story to show the difference between doubt and questions of faith and to show that we need to ponder when we don’t know the answer and that Heavenly Father always answers our prayers. Some are not when or what we expect, but they all require work and a sincerity of heart.

Okay, back to the faith and doubt thing:

My thought about the bible dictionary could truly be said that that was a doubt.  But then if we look at what it led me to do it shows that it was a question of faith somehow. The difference is that after my thought of “oh this cannot be true" I didn’t stop pursuing my course. True it might have been because I just wanted to prove myself right, but I still kept to my original thought of let’s check here.

Now Doubts are not good. Doubts have us stop keeping our covenants while questions or even disbelieving of faith have us questioning but continuing with keeping our covenants and commandments until a sure answer is found.

Some people might say "it says Christ will be born in Jerusalem in the Book of Mormon, I don’t know what that means" and then they stop reading right at Alma 7: 10. That is a doubt. That is not good. But the one with the question of faith will say "it says Christ will be Born in Jerusalem I don’t know what that means but I’ve felt the spirit while reading this Book so let me continue on and pray because if this book is true then there HAS to be an answer so let me continue and that answer will come".  

Don’t doubt. Keep the promises you’ve made. You know and have had it testified to you keep that testimony strong or it will go away.  faith is like a ball. only the ball is forever on a slope and there are no plateaus.  Either you work to keep it going up, or stop and let it roll back down.

Love you all a bunch this is my 4th area in 10 months--I’m a traveler 

So the new apartment we painted.  I put tape on it spelling out my companion's name and it looks sweet! Now it will be there as long as the paint is there!!! I was gonna put mine but I  didn't have enough tape :) 

We have play dough in the new apartment

I get bored 

really easily

This is banku and I drove the whole thing until the very end.  It's a workout 

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HEY I FOUND OUT HOW TO CHANGE THIS THING

-Elder Ellsworth