Hello, beloved family! I hope everyone is fit, fine, and fantastic! I am loving life and making the most of each day.
Today I hit my 9 month mark--officially hump day! WAAAA!! I can´t believe I´ve already been serving nine months and I only have 9 more! This time literally has flown by! AHHHH!!! But, I am going to treasure every day I have left and just take one day at a time.
Note: My MTC companion told me the sisters in her mission take 9 month ´pregnancy´ pictures on hump day. I thought that was pretty funny, so I took some today too! Hahahaha! I know, I´m still pretty crazy. :) But you gotta know how to work hard AND play hard, right? ;)
We´re working hard, preparing Altair and finding new investigators to be baptized--prosperous ones since that´s what Dad wants. ;) I love every day. I am very grateful to be alive and to have this marvelous opportunity to learn more about the gospel every day. D&C 50:24
Love, Sister Ellis
P.S. How fun that Kit and Kevin have their own place now! I´m really excited for y´all.
P.P.S. Just following up: Who sent the email to my friend Matt Coffin? mtcoffin at gmail dot com Please inform him that I would love to write him, but I need his mailing address. Thank you for being such a loving family!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
May 20
I have no idea how much time I have left, so I´ll be quick. Life is good here in Cuiabá! I love serving a mission. It´s great hearing all the news of my friends serving missions as well.
Latest Miracle:
We were getting shut down by a cute little man, João. He didn´t want to get baptized anymore and then entered his neighbor, Altair. Altair accepted being baptized on the spot and is truly an elect! He is kinda slow, but very pure and has a great desire to know the truth and obey God´s commandments. He doesn´t know how to read, but Sister Sena and I will be going to serve in a community center to help out with a literacy class and Altair is going to participate to learn how to read and write! He is always early to our appointments--´an appointment with God is more important than anything else. Other appointments can wait.´ (Those were his words) :)
So, life is good. I want to wish Mom a happy Birthday tomorrow! Hope Kit had a good one on the 18th. I was thinking about you! Love y´all!
--Sister Ellis III
P.S. I wanted to ask if someone could forward this on to my friend, Matt Coffin. His email is mtcoffin at gmail dot com. Thank you for doing this! Matt!! Thanks for your email. I´m not allowed to email you personally so hopefully you get this. Email me your address and I´ll snail mail you and respond to your questions next Wednesday, k?
Latest Miracle:
We were getting shut down by a cute little man, João. He didn´t want to get baptized anymore and then entered his neighbor, Altair. Altair accepted being baptized on the spot and is truly an elect! He is kinda slow, but very pure and has a great desire to know the truth and obey God´s commandments. He doesn´t know how to read, but Sister Sena and I will be going to serve in a community center to help out with a literacy class and Altair is going to participate to learn how to read and write! He is always early to our appointments--´an appointment with God is more important than anything else. Other appointments can wait.´ (Those were his words) :)
So, life is good. I want to wish Mom a happy Birthday tomorrow! Hope Kit had a good one on the 18th. I was thinking about you! Love y´all!
--Sister Ellis III
P.S. I wanted to ask if someone could forward this on to my friend, Matt Coffin. His email is mtcoffin at gmail dot com. Thank you for doing this! Matt!! Thanks for your email. I´m not allowed to email you personally so hopefully you get this. Email me your address and I´ll snail mail you and respond to your questions next Wednesday, k?
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
May 13
What a blessing I´m learning patience on the mission! I just finished writing y´all and then, the internet stopped working and the computer shut down on me. Hahaha! What a blessing! :)
This´ll be quick.
Spencer--what a blessing you are helping your companions be prepared to serve as zone leaders! I know you are working hard and giving a great service to the Lord. I´m so grateful to have you for my brother.
Rob and Christa are doing in vitro?! Since when? I think the Great DalMuti needs to take a minute to remember to fill in the Hard Working Sister on his life. She is waiting...:)
We are being blessed with lots of miracles here on the mission. I´m very grateful for all the Lord is teaching me. One of the latest miracles was Cid. We were lost finding a member´s house and asked for directions. He asked if we were mormon and asked for a Book of Mormon. We tried various times to set up a teaching appointment, but it never worked out. He had already been taught and interviewed to be baptized in another city here. Yet, he told us that now was the time for him to be baptized. A couple days ago, he called and asked if he could be baptized soon! HAHAHA! It was the best phone call I´ve ever received. So, we marked his baptism for this Saturday and he accepted on the spot. What a blessing to be part of this great work! How grateful I am that we were lost that night and Cid helped us out. God truly works in mysterious ways. Like is says in the New Testament, some plant and others harvest.
I am praying for all y´all. Thank you for the cute pictures and updates through your blogs. I am working hard every day to be better than I was yesterday. Perfection is an ongoing process. The more I progress, the more I realize I have so much more to do! But, I know the Lord will help me in this process. What a blessing it is to have the gospel in our lives! What a miracle to have the Atonement. Repentance truly is a blessing.
Love, Sister Ellis III
This´ll be quick.
Spencer--what a blessing you are helping your companions be prepared to serve as zone leaders! I know you are working hard and giving a great service to the Lord. I´m so grateful to have you for my brother.
Rob and Christa are doing in vitro?! Since when? I think the Great DalMuti needs to take a minute to remember to fill in the Hard Working Sister on his life. She is waiting...:)
We are being blessed with lots of miracles here on the mission. I´m very grateful for all the Lord is teaching me. One of the latest miracles was Cid. We were lost finding a member´s house and asked for directions. He asked if we were mormon and asked for a Book of Mormon. We tried various times to set up a teaching appointment, but it never worked out. He had already been taught and interviewed to be baptized in another city here. Yet, he told us that now was the time for him to be baptized. A couple days ago, he called and asked if he could be baptized soon! HAHAHA! It was the best phone call I´ve ever received. So, we marked his baptism for this Saturday and he accepted on the spot. What a blessing to be part of this great work! How grateful I am that we were lost that night and Cid helped us out. God truly works in mysterious ways. Like is says in the New Testament, some plant and others harvest.
I am praying for all y´all. Thank you for the cute pictures and updates through your blogs. I am working hard every day to be better than I was yesterday. Perfection is an ongoing process. The more I progress, the more I realize I have so much more to do! But, I know the Lord will help me in this process. What a blessing it is to have the gospel in our lives! What a miracle to have the Atonement. Repentance truly is a blessing.
Love, Sister Ellis III
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Maio
Hello wonderful family!
Thank you so much for all the updates and pictures. Tearisa is absolutely adorable!!
It´s fun to see my cute little Mark as a lovng dad. Aww...I can´t believe my little
baby´s all grown up and a father now! :)
In other news, Stake Conference was wonderful. I received lots of instructions from the
Lord how to improve. I am striving to look for the good in my apartment companion. I´m
doing my darndest to try to love her and serve her and thank her for every little thing
of good she does. It seems to be helping our relationship already (aos poucos).
Also, Dad shared a saying that goes like this: It´s really easy to please God, but much
more difficult to satisfy Him. I thought this was very poignant. When we succeed in obeying
Him or do a good deed, He has that surety that we can do what is right and He´s only going
to want our best from then on! What a deal!
Everyone loved meeting Dad. EVeryone has been telling me time and time again how they know
he is a man of God. I just smile and say thank you. :) HAHAHA! One thing that Dad really
focuse on was Isaiah 55:8-9. God´s thoughts are not our thoughts, neither our ways, God´s
ways. His are much higher. This work and gospel are His. We need to do this work according
to His will if we are to have success.
I just wanted to thank Dad for what he said in the Priesthood session. This helped one of
the men in our ward, Pablo, feel the desire and need rekindled to serve a mission. He´s a
great guy and really has all the makings to be an amazing missionary. Yet, every time we
hinted at him serving a mission, he said that he didn´t have the desire to serve and
therefore it wouldn´t be right to go without the desire. Now, he knows more that ever, that
he needs to serve a mission! I´m so excited for him! He really is going to help so many
people and he himself will learn a lot. What a blessing the Spirit speaks through us,
right, Dad?
So, Mark--I´m totally game for that bike trip. Wanna hold off and do it july 2010?! ;)
Thank you so very much, Mom, for the suitcase loaded with goodies!! I was in heaven (and
all my companions too as I shared with them). :) They loved the chili and are wanting the
recipie. Could you send it please? Thanks for the recipie of the chicken. I´m excited to
make it the next time lunch falls through. I´m so excited for our phone call! I´m glad
you liked the bookmark. I saw such pretty flowers and always thought of you. Then I had the
great idea to start pressing them in my scriptures and make bookmarks. My companions thought
your bookmark was so cute, they started pressing flowers too and are making bookmarks for
their moms! :) Your mother´s day card will arrive a little late, ok?
Happy Mothers Day to all my wonderful sisters and sister-in-laws! I am so blessed to have
yáll in my family. I´m so grateful for the way you are raising my adorable neices and nephews.
Muito obrigada!
In other news, we are working with some families close to Irmã Marlene. We taught one of her
clients (she´s a hair dresser), JOanita. Her husband, Figueredo, is liking the messages a lot.
She´s so happy to see how the gospel is already blessing her life and she wants to keep
progressing to become a member of the Church! We taught her son and his family too, Roni.
They are so amazing. What a beautiful family. We taught them the first lesson and they loved
it. They offered to give us dinner, but we had to run home to make it on time. They saw us
running away and came after us in their car to give us a ride home. It was so sweet. What
a blessing it is to come to know such wonderful people! What a blessing to come to know so
many of my spiritual brothers and sisters. ´We are family!!´
In other news...my companion and I had a chocolate cake food fight today which was hilarious!
Kinda messy...but really funny. We got a video and lots of pictures. :) Don´t worry, we
cleaned it all up. Dad--did you know that the elders promised me chocolate cake if I
introduced them to you? Hahahaha! How funny is that?!
Life is wonderful here on the mission. I love you all more than words can express.
-Sister Ellis
Thank you so much for all the updates and pictures. Tearisa is absolutely adorable!!
It´s fun to see my cute little Mark as a lovng dad. Aww...I can´t believe my little
baby´s all grown up and a father now! :)
In other news, Stake Conference was wonderful. I received lots of instructions from the
Lord how to improve. I am striving to look for the good in my apartment companion. I´m
doing my darndest to try to love her and serve her and thank her for every little thing
of good she does. It seems to be helping our relationship already (aos poucos).
Also, Dad shared a saying that goes like this: It´s really easy to please God, but much
more difficult to satisfy Him. I thought this was very poignant. When we succeed in obeying
Him or do a good deed, He has that surety that we can do what is right and He´s only going
to want our best from then on! What a deal!
Everyone loved meeting Dad. EVeryone has been telling me time and time again how they know
he is a man of God. I just smile and say thank you. :) HAHAHA! One thing that Dad really
focuse on was Isaiah 55:8-9. God´s thoughts are not our thoughts, neither our ways, God´s
ways. His are much higher. This work and gospel are His. We need to do this work according
to His will if we are to have success.
I just wanted to thank Dad for what he said in the Priesthood session. This helped one of
the men in our ward, Pablo, feel the desire and need rekindled to serve a mission. He´s a
great guy and really has all the makings to be an amazing missionary. Yet, every time we
hinted at him serving a mission, he said that he didn´t have the desire to serve and
therefore it wouldn´t be right to go without the desire. Now, he knows more that ever, that
he needs to serve a mission! I´m so excited for him! He really is going to help so many
people and he himself will learn a lot. What a blessing the Spirit speaks through us,
right, Dad?
So, Mark--I´m totally game for that bike trip. Wanna hold off and do it july 2010?! ;)
Thank you so very much, Mom, for the suitcase loaded with goodies!! I was in heaven (and
all my companions too as I shared with them). :) They loved the chili and are wanting the
recipie. Could you send it please? Thanks for the recipie of the chicken. I´m excited to
make it the next time lunch falls through. I´m so excited for our phone call! I´m glad
you liked the bookmark. I saw such pretty flowers and always thought of you. Then I had the
great idea to start pressing them in my scriptures and make bookmarks. My companions thought
your bookmark was so cute, they started pressing flowers too and are making bookmarks for
their moms! :) Your mother´s day card will arrive a little late, ok?
Happy Mothers Day to all my wonderful sisters and sister-in-laws! I am so blessed to have
yáll in my family. I´m so grateful for the way you are raising my adorable neices and nephews.
Muito obrigada!
In other news, we are working with some families close to Irmã Marlene. We taught one of her
clients (she´s a hair dresser), JOanita. Her husband, Figueredo, is liking the messages a lot.
She´s so happy to see how the gospel is already blessing her life and she wants to keep
progressing to become a member of the Church! We taught her son and his family too, Roni.
They are so amazing. What a beautiful family. We taught them the first lesson and they loved
it. They offered to give us dinner, but we had to run home to make it on time. They saw us
running away and came after us in their car to give us a ride home. It was so sweet. What
a blessing it is to come to know such wonderful people! What a blessing to come to know so
many of my spiritual brothers and sisters. ´We are family!!´
In other news...my companion and I had a chocolate cake food fight today which was hilarious!
Kinda messy...but really funny. We got a video and lots of pictures. :) Don´t worry, we
cleaned it all up. Dad--did you know that the elders promised me chocolate cake if I
introduced them to you? Hahahaha! How funny is that?!
Life is wonderful here on the mission. I love you all more than words can express.
-Sister Ellis
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