WEEK 69 - NO BLOG!!

only 11 weeks left for this sweet missionary!   Lots of planning today for her to return to go to BYU summer school, so she must have not had time to do a blog.

If she comes home April 9th, 2015, we are hoping her homecoming talk in church will be the 12th.   We will let you all know when we know.

thanks!
Ryan

WEEK 68 - The One from the Beginning Again

This week has been crazy busy. NO new missionaries came to our mission this last week, Its probably because they opened a new mission in La Paz, called el alto! Cool right! Bolivia has 5 missions now. Woop Woop. So President says we are all new missionaries and we are all starting over. So this is my first transfer! So see you all in 18 months! haha. Hermana Wright is training me and I'm training her and we are all going through the 12 weeks of training again. Which I really love. Because that program the "first 12 weeks" is super awesome.

  

   We are really trying to magnify our calling as missionaries! I love being creative and doing so many things! We want to go above and beyond. We are getting to know and serve the members better this week, looking for new ways to find investigators (I think we are going to have great results this next week), and trying our best to contact daily. We still have room to improve but everyday we are a little better. We practiced the first vision and the baptismal question all week. We really felt a new love for the first vision and the restoration. I love the Restoration! Its the greatest. After such a long and dark apostasy, full of changes in doctrine and laws and ordinances to conform to the philosophes of men, we so needed a Restoration! We need our Savior to restore his church so we can have the priesthood so the families could be forever and so we could be baptized and cleaned of our sins. The restored church, this church is the only church that has our freedom and the authority that can wash us from all sin! I can't even imagine how horrible the apostasy was and how rooted Satan was in the hearts of men and it makes me think in what ways I fall into apostasy and what ways do I teach from my own doctrine and false principles and changes the rules and laws of the mission to conform to my own philosophies and comforts. I only want to teach simple small truths, teach by the spirit and do as the Lord tells me through his leaders he has sent to represent Him. Can you believe that a long time ago men got together and changed the laws of God so they wouldn't have to stretch themselves so much, so they could live in their sins that they loved so much. How often do we do that? We make excuses and change the norms of God to fit the world and our life styles. Well God doesn't change! he just doesn't. His laws are the same, we are free men, we are free to choose for ourselves if we want to obey or not and what we want to do, but we do not chose the consequences, those will always be the same. so I asked my self this week, am I changing the laws of God to fit my life better or am I changing my life fit His laws better?

 

  I invite you guys to do the same, cause I just love you all so much. We aren't perfect and I'm still working on it. Everyday a little bit better. I'll never be perfect until that I am resurrected, but I want to keep getting better. He loves us so much and he wants us to have a beautiful life. It really is a beautiful life and the greatest test of life is obedience. Obedience brings beauty, light, happiness and freedom, its bring the blessings of heaven and gives us an everlasting peace.

 

P.S. This week The big award goes out to Craig, Gayle, McKay, Delanie and Porter!! That's for the awesome package I loved it so much! I love every part of it and ate the Carmel popcorn in two seconds (got a stomach ache).   My companion and I love the new music, The little drummer boy is our jam. Thank you so much, love you guys tons!!

 

Hermana Ellison

WEEK 67 - The One with some Pictures of Bermejo

    I'm back in Tarija in a different place and Ward. It's called Progreso. My companion is Hermana Wright. She's from Utah! My first American companion! It's weird to talk English. But she is so awesome and we have alot of fun.

 

I'm just going to send some pictures of my last couple of days in Bermejo.

I'm sure going to miss Bermejo... when it thunder storms so bad that the lights go out every night and we just live with candles.  

We got to go to the Christ, which is a big statue of him there in Bermejo, we had to walk up alot of stairs to go there. We also got to go to the bridge where Argentina and Bolivia are divided! So I was in two countries at once! Wow... I've been to Argentina ha!

 

Hermana Ellison

 

 

WEEK 66 - The One for Zion

    This week has been interesting! ...To say the least. I had an intercambio with one of the other sisters, the Hermana Hiskey and it was so great! We saw so many miracles. Especially with one sister named Silvi, who is just like this angel, and she is passing through a few difficulties but was so open. She was nervous to let us in to her small room but her and her two daughters were so filled with the light of Christ, and even though they are going through so many things, she wants to learn more and accepted the invitation to be baptized. 

    To be short... our mission President had a revelation this week and is now taking all the sisters out of Bermejo, (The 4 of us). He says with the few missionaries we have right now Bermejo is a little bit dangerous and he'd like to take the sisters out. So tomorrow we will have an emergency transfer and leave Bermejo. I have no idea where I;ll be going. 

    I'm super sad. Bermejo is like the heavens! I love it so much here and I'm so grateful I had the chance to come here. This Saturday Christian H, an old investigator was baptized. He was a former investigator because he always came to church with his wife who is a member but always told the missionaries he didn't want to be baptized. We decided to start to visit him again and planned a noche de hogar with a prafully picked hermanadored do oro. The sweet couple planned a lesson about starting a family and having children... it was really beautiful noche de hogar and they expressed their feelings that they wanted to have children but couldn't. That night we prayed that the Lord would bless them with children. A day later we vvisited them and to our suprise his wife was pregnant! With this new turn of events his heart was softened and as we taught him the first principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ he accepted the message and agreed to be baptized. It was such a wonderful experience to watch this ordinance and to hear his testimony that he understood the purpose of baptism and that he knew the church is true. 

    I've never been in an area for such a short time and then having to leave and it really shows me that truly we are working for Zion. That this is the Lords church and he will do what He wants. Maybe no one here will remember me or my name; maybe no one still even knows my name for the short 4 weeks I was here, but I loved them and I served them and I worked for Zion. I prepared the carpeta de area and mas for people that I hardly know because I love my Savior.  I know that he loves his sheep and I know that I am only his instrument. These are not my members and not my ward. It is the Lords and he knows best. So I will go where you want me to go dear Lord, and I will be what you want me to be. 

 

Hermana Ellison