Elder Blake Ellis' Mission Life: Week 5: Zone Conference

Dear Family and Blog Mates,

MERRY CHRISTMAS! I hope that everyone is having a great Christmas. This time of year is for remembering the things that matter most to us in our life. Since I've been on my mission, it's been pretty easy actually. I'm been very blessed to have the family that I have and my amazing friends and for all their support. I couldn't ask for better friends and a better family. Y'all are amazing and great. Thanks for preparing me in the way that I needed to be to be here in my life right now. I miss you guys so much, especially during this Christmas season. I think about the times that we've had at the Cabin every single year, snowmobiling, especially with Dad. Those are my favorite rides, just hitting up the whole mountain.

For now though I'm on an island, which is weird. Do you remember that time we were in Hawaii for Christmas? Yeah, it's like that. It's hot, not cold. Raining, rather than snowing, and the Christmas music is all American stuff, there is some Tagolog Christmas music, but other than that it's all Mariah Carey and David Archeleta. This week people have been really busy with working and things to try and earn money for Christmas dinner and things like that. We've decided to try and visit as many people as we can on Christmas and just give a spiritual thought. It's my Christmas Eve right now and it's sort of nice that it's on my P-Day. We've been singing Christmas songs and working today. Cleaned the house that we live in, it was sort of dirty, but it's clean now. Thanks so much for package #1!!! I loved it! The Christmas Tree is all set up, the stockings are hung and there's one present under the tree. Package #2! Thanks for it. I'm not sure what it contains yet, but I'm excited to open it! By the sound of me shaking it, there are M&Ms, but I knew you'd send those because you know I love them. So we'll see tomorrow I guess. Today we have so many dinner appointments for Christmas and I'm really excited, but I've been doing really good with my weight. I hope Christmas doesn't screw it all up.

Monday was Zone Conference. It was super fun because we got to go to Bacolod. I was like, YES, AIR CON! However, I froze to death Monday night. It was soooo cold that I couldn't sleep from 4-6am. I was just too cold. Since we're in the Philippines and we just sleep with sheets because it's too hot to sleep with anything more, so I was really cold. You asked about me talking at ZC. I just had to share my thoughts about it afterward. It was super fun and I learned a lot. I also learned I need to study the Christlike Attributes more in the Preach My Gospel, because I"m really bad at those. Patience being one of them, but y'all know I'm pretty bad at that.

Cadiz Zone Conference

My A.D.D hasn't been bad at all here. Even though I'm still new, it hasn't been bad. Speaking of time I can't believe I've been gone for 3 months, then at the same times, I'm like, gosh only 3 months, it's weird. Time is playing with my head. On Monday night after ZC training that we had, we got the mail. YES! MAIL! I got package #1, 2 Dear Elders from Courtney, 1 from Hayden, 1 from Mom, and 1 from Dad. And a letter from Elder Bice. Let's just say that was a great day. Thanks for all the encouragement that you give me. It's amazing to hear from you. The Dear Elder's take about 10 days to get here, but by the time I get them, I have no idea how long that takes. I have to wait till the Elder (Elder Couple) Missionaries bring the mail to us, so it just depends on what they do because it could be a week or could be a month. I'm pretty close to Bacolod actually, which is where they live, so if I get transferred somewhere else, who knows how long it'll take. It's okay though! It's just really nice to get mail from people. Also Mom, President Lopez says you and Elder Garner's Mom are his #1 Facebook fans. So congrats!

Mail

What did she say?

Something really good that happened this week is that the Demandar Family got sealed in the temple! How amazing. It was so nice to see them after they got back from that. I asked Sister Demandar how it was and she said that it was the best experience ever. They went to Cebu. It was a ward temple trip. So it was really cool to hear about that. The temple is so important and so hard for a lot of members here to go, but I know that it's possible for them to go. I can't wait to get sealed in the temple. How great a blessing that is from God to be with the ones that you love for ALL time and ETERNITY! That's just so awesome. What a wonderful gift that we have. The temple is a fantastic place. I wish that we could go, but I understand that we have work to do here and so it's not possible. It'd still be really nice though.

Last P-day Monday, I'm sitting in Mang Inasal eating Lunch and Bed of Roses comes on. Love that song! Dad will get a kick out of that huh? Which is weird because that song isn't like super famous in America from Bon Jovi, but I've heard it twice here.
This week I was also riding a Tricycle and two Agi's (Gay's) were talking about me. One said I was Guapo (good looking) The other said that he needed to respect me, so I was laughing pretty hard at that.

We got three new investigators this week. Pretty cool! We also got 3 people that haven't been to church in a long time to come back for Christmas. Just sharing simple scriptures about how church will help and things is really great! 2 Ne 27 vs 30 I think, I'm not sure, it's marked in my scriptures because I use it a lot, and tabbed; but it talks about being a God of Miracles and that God doesn't change. If God did miracles back then, he can do them now. Which is True! So we've been having a lot of less actives come back to church because of just simple scriptures. It's been super fun!

I hope that you've gotten all the letters that I've sent home. Only a few, but that's what I can do. I've sent pictures to you. I hope that you get them. Also I see that you've seen some on facebook, so that's good!

How's everyone doing back home? How's y'alls Christmas? Going to the Cabin? Nobody has said anything about it, but I hope that you're going to have fun. We're going to bowling for P-Day. I wanna save some stuff for skype tomorrow so I'm not going to write everything. I love you! Can't wait to see y'all tomorrow. It's going to be fun. I'm so excited. Make sure the whole family is there. haha. Love you again. Be safe and good. The Church is true!