Life is great!

Hello Happy Family!

 

Mom!! I got your 2nd Easter package, the one you sent around April 16, so no worries! If the first one doesn´t arrive, and if it was stolen, I hope whoever stole it enjoyed the big Brazilian chocolate Easter eggs. I guess I can´t get mad at the person, at least he/she´s got good tastes!

 

Well this week went great, despite some frustrating things. Fábio is great, he already seems to know everything (he´s been semi-taught by his member friends for around 3 years) and has been coming along great. Unfortunately he didn´t make it to church yesterday because of family visiting, and them not being supportive at all on top of that, but we´ll work that out in our next lesson. Sadly, Benvindo dropped himself. In our last visit with him this past week, he was still completely polite, and even said how he knew the church was true and that accepting baptism is what God wants him to do, but he wants to choose the path he´s on, knowing it is the wrong path. My prayers are still with him.

 

We got a lot of references (14) passed to us from the executive secretaries, and were able to contact 6 of them. Whether they were a build-up count over several weeks before the execs gave them to us, or a blitz of references, it´s great stuff! One we taught Saturday night, named José Pedro, and his wife, brother, and (oldest daughter) listened to us, and asked good questions later. The brother (unique name that I can´t remember right now) asked a lot, and it was great to see some people who were really studying the gospel themselves. When I mentioned and started turning to James 1:5 they all whipped out their own Bibles and turned to it on their own - that´s never happened before on my mission! So finding interested people, and a family on top of that, is great stuff!

 

Now the things to laugh about. Two Cape Verdian Elders stayed with us for two or three nights, because they had to renew their visas before going to the Azores (lucky ducks). One of them, Elder Duarte, is really funny with the bit of English he knows, and aside from that he´ll just say lots of funny things with his Cape Verdian accent. After he had already seen how stressful the office can be, Elder Bennett told him we were going to put his name on the list for President to consider as office elders, and he said, `Oh, if you do that, I´ll find your address [after the mission], write it on a big envelope and send a bomb to your house!´ Anyways, we practiced driving again at that abandonded parking lot this week, twice, and we went with the execs both times. The first time went fine. The second time when we pulled into the lot, we noticed further up the road a big police checkpoint was being set up. After about 5 minutes or less of me practicing around we saw a group of 6 to 8 police officers signaling us with their flashlights and whistles to stop. They come over and ask for license and registration, and we give them the car insurance and other stuff necessary, and explain that I did not yet have my Portuguese driver´s license, and I was practicing around to learn stickshift. They told us to get out of the car, and even to ´keep our hands visible´, and asked more questions which just led us to explain further that Elders Bennett and Craig had their licenses and had driven here, not unlicensed me. So after a few minutes of silly lecturing, they said Elder Bennett and I would wait with them while Elders Craig and Bryant would go to the office and get my Texas driver´s license (which they had taken from me so they could get it ready to exchange for a Portuguese one). The other police officers seemed to not be worried at all after finding out we were missionaries, which was good since some of them had big shotguns. (Smile and wave boys, cute and cuddly...) So Elder Bennett and I walk over with them to their checkpoint spot and keep talking to two of the officers, which turned into more of a contact than any kind of ´detainment´. Haha, one of them had eyed our nametags and said ´Hey, I have a question...´ and I guessed right ´... why are we all named Elder?´ (Helder is actually a name in Portuguese and sounds exactly the same.) He smiled and asked ´Yeah, why is that?` (I guessed because that has to be one of, if not the most frequently asked secular questions for Portuguese speaking missionaries.) Anyways, we talked with them about how we´re here for two years straight to talk to people about how families can be together forever because of Jesus Christ´s sacrifice for us, and left them with pass-along cards. I think I´ll like police officers a lot more if I contact them from now on! Not that I intend to get pulled over or anything, but hey, it´s a good way to get their attention, right? Muahaha...

 

Well, that´s about it for this week. I love all of you! Have a great week! Tchau,

--Elder Spencer Ellis

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Awesome blossom!

Hello beloved family!

 

Well, good to hear Zach will be making it home safe and sound soon. But (still focusing), it´s also great to hear the news from everyone else! Infelizmente, still no package(s), but this week, for sure, they/it should come. However, the idea of not reporting the arrival of the packages to motivate ya´ll to send even more is quite a temptation. But don´t worry, I´m still honest. (Blast!)

 

This week has gone great! A week from yesterday was when we told the ward leadership about that Family Plan of watching those videos about eternal families and stuff, and one of the sisters, the young women´s leader (I think), called us up very soon after (that Sunday night I think) and scheduled a family home evening with us and a friend. His name is Fábio, he´s a really nice 18 year old young man, and has wanted to be taught the lessons for quite some time (around 3 years?) but his familiy hadn´t wanted him to. So now he´s 18 and wants to be taught whether they want to or not, (sorry for the rhyming,) and pretty much said he wanted to be baptized. Working with members bringing in the truly elect/ready - the way it´s supposed to be, and I love it! It was really funny because Benvindo had come, with his brother Mário and a friend named Zé. Every time we´ve been with them Mário always gets on Benvindo´s case, calling him a bum who won´t do anything with his life if he doesn´t man up and be baptized, even though he himself isn´t interested in joining the Church. (He´s said ´a church is just a building, it´s the people that count´, not all that into organized religion and stuff.) And Benvindo was blown away at the sheer willingness of Fábio. He was saying `Oh man, it´s really hard, I´ll let you know, but I have so much respect for you for having the courage to do what I can´t. I´m honored, please, shake my hand!´ We had another lesson with just Fábio and that member family (Manuela Cintrão is the mom & young women´s leader, her 13/14 year old daughter is named Joana) on Saturday. Fábio wasn´t able to make it to church because he had relatives visiting, but we marked our next appointment for Wednesday. Man, inspiration is great stuff! Keep it coming, Pres. Torgan! And the Men upstairs...

 

Well, nothing really beats that bit of news. This past week was transfers, kind of helping the departing missionaries on their way, and a lot of welcoming the greenies and training them on how to use the Lord´s funds wisely. I love recalling Bishop Flake´s summary, ´don´t do stupid things´. (That was him, right?) With transfers, I´m still here as a financial secretary with Elder Bennett, and the new executive secretary elder is an Elder Bryant from Conroe, TX. Great to have some more Texans, even though now the other elders tease me about being a Utahn now. Anyways, other than that is the same old helping missionaries out with their house-stuff and other needs, etc etc. Hope everyone has a great week! Love all of you!

 

--Elder Spencer Ellis

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Speechless

Hello dearest family! ... Wow! I was honestly shocked when I read Mom and Dad´s news about moving to SLC. Some questions - what does Curriculum Department and Boundaries Commitee mean, and/or deal with? What will your new housing situation be? I could have sworn I had a dozen questions running through my head when I read the news - such as why?? - but where the Lord sends, we go, right? Right. A gold star to Mark and Aup for the hilarious email/post. One clarification - I have never had nor will ever have any inner struggles of confusion about the World Cup. Brazil has 5 titles, and that´s all I will say since I should not open up such a can of contentious worms as a full time missionary... or any kind of disciple of Christ for that matter. Loves!

 

So, this week has gone well. (I´ve decided to be more descriptive this week.) Rachel´s letters to Elder McFarren and myself finally arrived last Tuesday (muahaha!) but I was somewhat disappointed as I was expecting other letters as well from Mom, Dad, Em, Joy, Darrell, and the boys. But life goes on. Elder Bennett was very ill on Thursday - throwing up and diarrhea all day - and later that night President Torgan directed us to go to the hospital to check with a doctor. We expected it to be a long stay - like an over nighter or two - but he started mending up and we were released and got back home at around 2 in the morning. Amazing what an IV pumping medicine into your system and rest will do in such a few hours. Proselyting wise, a tad slow, but we´ve finally been able to announce the new family plan thing that President Torgan wants us to be doing to the ward leadership today. This new family mission plan consists of having a calendar of 3 Family Nights a week with different member families wherein they invite nonmember families to come. We watch the short video Finding Happiness and a clip from the Together Forever dvd (the one of the parents talking about how their daughter died but can have hope and joy knowing that death won´t separate a family sealed in the temple that keeps their covenants), talk a bit more about the importance of families, and see where it goes from there. One sister in the ward has already set up a family night for Wednesday. I´m excited!

 

Other news... we found out we´re getting a senior missionary couple who will arrive in August, and they´re ´office specialists´, somehow meaning they´ll be working in the office. I have no idea how that´ll divi up who gets what office responsibilities, but we´ll see down the road. Well, that´s it for this week. Love all of you, and I hope ya´ll have a great week!

--Elder Spencer Ellis

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not so fast said slow...

Hey beloved family! Glad to hear everyone is doing so well! Thanks for the news and such. General Conference was awesome! I never leave disappointed, although since that seemed to be a very family/parenting-focused conference, I will enjoy it all even more when I´m married with a family of my own. Pois. Everything is going well. Office is slow, and other things, but I haven´t snapped yet, and this too will pass. Pres. Uchtdorf´s talk was very applicable, especially since Waite really is my middle name! Just wait, but still do everything we can and should, the best we can. But on the bright side, I´m getting the hang of more and more things. And we´re ready to get out of the office and work with the members, especially applying President Torgan´s ´Family Plan´ at such a timely opportune moment after that family oriented conference. Coincidence? Nah. I love all of you, and hope ya´ll have a great week! Tchau!

--Elder Spencer Ellis

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.