WEEK 74 - The One Where my Eyes Changed

I don't know what else to say but that I have the best companion in the entire world. I'm so grateful that the Lord trusts me with her and gave me the privilege of being with the best missionary. She is truly converted and humble and I want to be like her. This Monday I was in Santa Cruz for our monthly council meeting and the president pulled me aside and told me that he was going to have me train or be sister trainer, but that he just wanted me to do this and be with the best missionary in the mission and that she was going to be my companion... she is fairly new in the mission(3 or 4 months) and president gave me some specific instructions and I immediately knew she was amazing. She is from Antelope California! So about 30 minutes from my house and we were endowed in the same temple of good old Sacramento.
   This week I don't think I've ever been so guided by the spirit in my whole mission as I have this week. Thanks to being in the hospital for two weeks we had no cita fijas for the week, but the Lord blessed us more than ever before. Every cita we went to was there! We had days full of success and miracles, literally every day we saw a miracle. We have received so many referrals from the members and they are so excited to share the gospel with their friends that we hardly have to ask for referrals, right as we are about to ask the question they are already giving us a referral. The majority of the people we are teaching are either a referral, know a member or a Pf.  Everyone we have that will be baptized this month are just people that just showed up at church, people that just came to us searching. I have felt the hand of my Savior so strong this week. At first I didn't understand the Lord, I didn't understand this cambio and then he just showed me so many miracles and he said to me, "This is my work, this is my work, they are mine and you are too." I know what I need to do this cambio and it's magnify my calling and be someone that the Lord can count on. I just want him to know I can do what he asks me. I don't know what I did to deserve so many blessings from the Lord, but I love him so much. I've never seen so many miracles, my eyes are changed forever.

Hermana Ellison

 

My new companion

I found avocados!

Airport in Tarija

WEEK 73 - The One to Catch ya up!

  Blog this week! super short!

 

You all know I was in the hospital...it was the worst!!  But, the hospital staff was really wonderful and I was taken care of.  Thank you for your prayers and faith.  It was very hard for me to not be out working. I never thought anything like that would ever happen to me so that was very hard as well to understand what the Lord was doing and what he wanted from me but he protected me. This cambio has been the only cambio that I fasted every weekend... and it just happened to be the one cambio that I needed those blessings the most. MY thoughts went to Isiahs 58, when he talks about fasting. I love the verse 8 and 9, when it says that if we fast when we pray he will say "Here I am" and I have felt that this past week. When I was in pain or depressed (which my body went into from the 7 calmantes or pain medication they gave me) I cried unto him and he said "Here I am". And I know he would bless me because I am his covent daughter and I was prepared to receive his blessings and protection. Now I'm just ready to get back to work! I'm so grateful for fasting.

   This week I officially start my last cambio!!!! I can't believe it and I just want to finish strong. I'm going to Santa Cruz today for a leadership meeting and I will receive my transfers there.

 

Hermana Ellison

 

 

WEEK 72 - The One with the Hosptial

Since some of you may not know on Friday morning we received an email from Elise's Mission President:

    Dear Brother and Sister Ellison,  

Your daughter has had severe pains this past week and been in and out of the hospital.  In conjunction with the Area Medical Advisor in Lima, who has coordinated with the doctors here in Bolivia, they have decided to remove a kidney stone that is causing quite a bit of pain. 

My wife would like to call and give you more details if you could send me a cell number. 

She has had a blessing from a member of the stake presidency there in Tarija and is in very good hands.  We are seeing to all the details to make sure that everything goes well. We love her and are so blessed by her example of faith and courage. 

So when parents get an email like this, a little panic sets in.  Mostly from not knowing or not being able to talk with you child.  We did speak to Sister Willard, President Willard's sweet wife briefly after this email to find out the details.  Elise was at the hospital and they were going to be doing some procedure in a very short amount of time.  Apparently, Elise was very sick over the weekend, which we knew about from her last blog, but what was really going on was something worse than flu or virus.  On Monday night, or Tuesday early morning, she awoke with tremendous pain and had to go to the clinic or hospital; she was sent home after some treatment, but the same thing happened the next early morning..about 4am.  She awoke to tremendous pain and went in again.  Now we are not sure what happened between then and Friday morning but now you are all caught up. 

After discussing the procedure with Sister Willard, we were still worried, but confident in the Lord's plan to take care of our daughter.  It was a blessing to hear from Sister Willard and learn of the great love and admiration that they both have for her.  She could hardly speak about her without crying about how wonderful she is and how if they only had a Son...they would want her for a daughter-in-law.   

After the call, we just had to wait.  Wait for Sister Willard to call us back to let us know how she did.  She was going to try and get us a call with her, but this became impossible to have in the hospital.  

After some time of waiting, we got the call and Sister Willard tells us that she did not have Kidney stones, but a very bad kidney infection.  That along with a heavy dose of antibiotics her procedure was done and the two or three days in the hospital was the next step.

After that, I had too much time to worry and read up on Google what a bad kidney infection could be or do.  I had questions.  I sent them to President Willard for him to get them to the LDS doctor stationed in Lima Peru.   He answered very shortly after that...that the hospital was in good condition, the medical personal was excellent and they knew what they were doing.  Elise was not in a dirty hospital with dirt floors or no pillows or blankets, but was in good hands.  WE had a few very good friends, even offer to fly us out there to be with her.  We went with having faith and did not make any flight arrangements.  

After fasting and many prayers, Elise was released from the hospital in 24 hours.  The many updates from  President and Sister Willard have been wonderful.     

She is now home resting for the next several days.  It has been Carnival in Bolivia, which means she couldn't go out anyways, or email us; what a blessing it was for Elise to have the well needed rest and not feel bad for not going out to teach and find the people of Bolivia to share her glad message.  She is clearly a disciple of God and loves His divine message.  She is a worrier fighting the battle that she promised to fight to deliver the message to her wayward brothers and sisters.  She is committed to that task until her work is done.  She will not come home early or stop doing what she needs to do until April 10th....or after if you know Elise.

I love her and have a great testimony of Prayer, Faith and the ability to know that our Heavenly Father does have a plan for each of us and that even though we don't know it, can't control it always we can choose to be a part of it and Love it, no matter what the outcome may be.  He loves us and only wants us to be happy.   We must know Pain to truly know Love and joy.

Hope Elise is writing this again next week.  She can fill in any details that are still unknown to us.

Yours truly,

Ryan Ellison

Thank you so much for such a Great Missionary President couple "The Willards"

WEEK 71 - The One in a Long Time

Sorry I don't write blogs anymore I've been so busy! But these last couple of weeks have been amazing! We've been working in the family history area a lot! I've been looking at my family tree and we have an ancestor that worked on the Salt Lake temple! and Grandpa Bill has a huge line of people!! Who did that? His line goes back to Scotland!!! Isn't that so cool! I'm Scottish: wee lassie!

Also, we helped this new convert put her dads information into her family tree, he died three years ago and we sent his work to the temple... she was so happy!!! It was so cool!

We had this family that just came to church the other Sunday and they were like: "we want to be baptized!" haha. So the dad and the daughter are getting baptized... isn't that crazy?

We had some difficulties with some investigators this week but we are praying for them and we know the Lord will help us find their needs. I was very sick on Sunday so I was unable to go out all day, which is a first for me. I felt like I was on my death bed, with a fever and pain, but I made a goal to talk with more then 10 people everyday... I don't know if it was a good a idea but around 7 o clock I put my skirt and plaque on and went out side to talk to 10 people. I said a big pray to have the energy and I was okay! I felt so good as I opened the door... Like the powers of sickness and of Satan were nothing. He doesn't want us to talk to people and maybe I didn't do a lot; the first person we talked to rejected us... but I know there is no time to hide this message we have. I want everyone to hear and there is so little time. About the 6th person I felt pretty dizzy and weak so I said another prayer and we finished off talking to 11 people and we met a wonderful father walking with his little girl and it was such a  blessing to walk to meet him and share this message with him. Then I went home and fell on my bed, content and dead on my bed.

 

Love you guys!

 

Hermana Ellison

 

 

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