November 25th--Thankful for Prayers

Dear Friends and Family,

Wow that's crazy to see all the pictures of my friends at Harrison's homecoming! They all look way older! That's awesome that they're all grown up though and moving on with life. 

Maeser Alums attending Harrison's Homecoming:
Nate Marshall, Bruce White, Neal Edgel, CJ Pilling, Hayden Haddock, & Conner Bice

Welcome Home, Elder!

All the power is back up in San Carlos now, but Escalante still has no power and won't till December something is what they're saying. So I'm happy I'm not in that zone anymore. The weather has been pretty fair this week. We had a huge rain storm, but it came at night and it was totally fine. We actually did move houses this week. They put 2 Sisters in branch 1 again, so now there are no Elders there. Since our house was bigger, they made us move to the Sister's house. Their house floods anytime it rains and they were too scared to be bold with the owner and tell her that they were going to move if it wasn't fixed asap, so I did.  I had the roof and a new gutter put on in 2 days, so now it's a way cool house and has an air conditioning. Although, the power is too expensive for it, so we can't use it because we can't afford it. Our missionary support isn't enough. It'd be way nice to use, but... yeah, no money! This week we've had a lot of success! We had a great baptism on Saturday followed by a night full of teaching appointments and it was a great Saturday! I also did some exchanges this week with the District Leader in Calatrava, Elder Saure, and it was great. 

Last Monday all the missionaries from the Escalante Zone came here to San Carlos to email their families and things since we have power here. So we all got together and played basketball. It was super fun! My 3 is a bit off, but it's been fun to play again finally. We haven't been able to play that much the past couple weeks with just our schedule, we've been super busy. Other than that, we then had to pack all our things to move to that new house. Elder Shaffer also got a phone call saying that he would transfer the next day to Escalante zone, which is terrible because they have no power like I said.  There's still some cool people in the zone though, so that's way nice. It's a great zone, just rough areas. The Mabini missionaries aren't having that much success. They've only baptized the investigators that have been investigators since I was there and it's still just a rough place. 

Tuesday we had a lot of transfers and things happening because of the missionaries from Tacloban coming into our mission, so District meeting was moved to Wednesday. On Tuesday we moved in the morning and got our new house ready, then we had to get all of Elder Shaffer's stuff good to go. We taught the Artaba family really quick and they are way cool! The only problem is they commit to church and they read the Book of Mormon and then somehow the mom always gets sick. If the mom doesn't go to church, then nobody goes so it's hard. The daughter is one of our investigators that we actively teach. She's way cool, but the only thing is that she works on Sundays. She also says that since we all worship the same God that it's all good. We teach the restoration and the apostasy and it's just the same still is what she says. So it's hard to get her to understand, but I guess we'll just keep working on it. We then sent Elder Shaffer on his way to Escalante and then we went and tried to teach some more lesson and got super punted. Nobody received us and nobody wanted to listen... go figure. 

Wednesday we had our district meeting with our new district! There's 2 new missionaries from Tacloban in our district (2 sisters). Since Elder Barangay and I are the only one's we are also the district leader, so we're in charge of teaching district meeting too! After district meeting we went to Calatrava and had an exchange. Elder Saure and I came back and worked in our area and we were actually just trying to find a new house for a little bit because our house was flooding and they weren't going to fix it. Elder Anderson told me that I needed to find a new one asap. Anyway, all is well with the house now. Elder Saure and I taught Edward and he was really different. Edward was just doubting everything that we had taught him and he's really just over thinking everything! So we had to really just focus him on prayer and the Book of Mormon. It was a super intense lesson. The spirit was crazy strong and I was just freaking out because I didn't want to lose him. Anyway, we're all good though and he stayed and went to church this week. 

Thursday we exchanged back and then Elder Barangay and I worked so much. We went to Punao and got all the things ready with the Leduna family for the baptism! Jamila wasn't even there though that was the bummer. We waited for her too, we waited for 1 hour and she still never came. Nobody knew where she was so then we just taught Sister Leticia, the mom. She's way awesome. A little slower and shy I think because I'm an American... not really sure why...but still a way awesome investigator. By the time we got back to San Carlos it was dark. We went to Kainggat which is the most sketchy area, but totally fine for men. There's tons of gays and people that just do weird things there at night, but it's fine. We taught some less actives and made sure that they will be coming to church on Sunday and made sure that they're still doing the things that they need to be doing. 

Friday, woke up, did my studies, did all the weekly planning, ate lunch, then I didn't feel too well, so I laid down. After I got up about 30 minutes later, I had a huge fever and was so angry!!!!!!!!! We still went to work though. I didn't care. We went to Stampar, the worst place to go if I was getting sick. Anyway, we did go there and I think I made it worse. After working for 3 hours, I had to go home and lie down. I was just way too hot and I needed some medicine, so I stayed home all day Friday with a fever and I couldn't leave. 

Saturday woke up and everything was okay! I was fine and felt great! We got everything ready for the baptism: went to the church, filled the font, did all that stuff and had a successful day! I'll send pics hopefully but the speed right now is soooo slow, they might not be able to send today so you'll have to wait till next week. 

Sister Leduna's Baptism

Sunday church was great. Elma, one of our long time investigators finally came to church! Her date is Christmas day! Edward was at church and Sister Leduna was at church too. We had an interview in Vallehermoso and on the bus ride there my fever came back... so yeah. Afterwards we came home and I laid down... we weren't able to work. I'm good though now, so MOM don't worry!!!!!!!!!!! :) I'm okay now! haha. I have plenty of medicine and I'm totally fine. Don't text President this time! :) haha.

Sorry my email isn't that fantastic this week, it's been rough and we're still trying to get organized and things with all the new areas and what not in the zone and changes. We getting 2 more elders too and they'll be put on the island so that'll be taken from us and we're going to have to move back to our old house that we were in since 4 of us will live there again. So not sure what this next week holds. 

I love you so much and I miss you all! I still have to email President and there are tons of people waiting for the computers right now. This is the only one up and running as of right now. I miss you so much and looking forward to December 25! haha. Baptism and Skype. Take care! thanks for all the emails! I love you!

Love,

Elder Ellis