7.13.14 Stay Focused and Good Things Will Happen!

Dear Family and Friends,

How is everyone doing this week? I hope y'all are doing great and that y'all are safe and stuff. I see that your vacations are going well! ;) I'm glad that y'all are just relaxing and stuff. I just keep telling myself I can rest when I'm dead. This week has just been tons of work. I'm super tired. I'm glad there's such thing as a P-day... but still, we can't sleep on p day, but at least we get to sit and "relax" which is just getting all the other stuff done. Cleaning and preparing for the week. Last week we played basketball. It's the first time I've played since La Carlota Zone, which was about 2 months ago. But it wasn't as fun as it was in La Carlota Zone, not many people play basketball in this zone. The areas are also too far away that they don't want to play that often. All is well though. Then we had a dinner appointment at a family that their son is an RM. Their family is pretty cool. He came home from his mission, his girlfriend waited for him, they got married in the temple and now they're continue their life as poor college, working students, but their super happy. That's the blessings of serving a mission I guess and just being active in the church doing everything that you're supposed to do. 

Tuesday we worked in Tampalon. It's an hour drive away and we take a jeepney to get there. It's far, but the area is going alright. I was reading in the Liahona this week about the work in South America and how they went from having only a few baptisms in the beginning, but now look at South America and the place is insanely growing still at super fast rates. So that was just inspiration to me about this area that we've opened up. It'll be hard for a few years, but once it gets going well and working well and they can support themselves, there will be more baptisms to come! We teach about 10 lessons every time that we go to this area. All investigators. It's rough just because there's no church yet. They just meet at the house of one of the members there. Many people see that as the issue, but it doesn't matter where you hold church. The actually building is just the blessing of progress, but you've got to start somewhere. They've all seen the actual church here in Kabankalan though, so they know what the potential is. They think we're just super rich... which, the church sort of is, but they just think all Mormons are rich. They're shy to come to church because they're poor or what not. It's always interesting to explain that most of the members are poor too, but the commandments that we live come from God and he blesses us enough to always be able to live, eat, and have extra sometimes as well. I was reading about that with the Law of Consecration. Not only our needs, but even our wants can be taken care of. It just shows that God doesn't only give you small blessings, but if you really open, he'll give you an abundance of blessings. Room enough that we can't receive it. (3 Ne 24:10). Even though it's about tithing, we can apply it to everything else as well.

Nanay Flor. We're going to baptize her on August 2nd (my b-day)

Wednesday we had our zone training meeting since it's the start of the new month... well sort of. Last Wednesday was transfer day, so our meeting got moved to this week. It was good. It's sort of a lot of the same stuff, just reminding us to continue in the things we do. I mean, there are newer missionaries and others who having heard some of the things that are taught, so it's good. After that we ate some lunch and went to work. Lo and behold, it rained! Hooray. Our day was still successful. We don't teach a lot of investigators here in the proper area. All of investigators are in Tampalon, which is super rough for working here in the proper area. So we're going to try and find some here in the proper area. It's just so big, we don't know where to focus at first... so it's something we're still trying to figure out. Here in the proper we've been trying to focus on less actives and recent converts and in Tampalon getting baptisms. There's just so many less actives right now and we're trying to split the ward, so the less actives are really needed if we're going to have success in splitting and then having good attendance. There's tons of problems with less actives and most of it is just pure laziness. It's like a slap in the face... haha. Love it.

This is how we eat in the Philippines ;) Put all the food in the middle and GOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Budol Fight!

Thursday we worked in a different area called Ilog. It's a huge place! It's actually the former capital city, way back when, before Bacolod. But, there's no church there or anything. It's now just a municipality. It's not too expensive to get to the church here in Kabankalan for them though, so it's reasonable. We have a new family that we're teaching and the dad is a faith healer, which is complete witchcraft. We don't teach the dad, only the daughter and the mom. They seem super interested, but it's just like oh your message is about God so we'll listen sort of deal. I'm just going to start inviting everyone I see to be baptized so that this never happens again. I'm sick of it. We're here to baptize people, not just help them know Jesus more... which is actually true, but there's a bigger purpose. So we're trying!

They mock me....even in the Philippines!

Friday we went back to Tampalon and we were met with more success there! We found some other families. The hours are really messed up there because if we don't leave by 4, we'll never get home because of the jeep and tricycle schedule. So we just do our best with the time that we're given there. The members there always come with us to our teaching appointments. They are all super excited to have the work in their progress. They're still way young in the gospel, but It'll progress eventually. I won't see it, but years to come, I can see this place being awesome!

Saturday morning we had a great activity to help the ward missionaries and the full time missionaries to get together, bond and have a training. We trained on helping them with teaching investigators, not just bearing their testimony, but actually helping in the teaching as well. So we did some practice teaching too, I have it on video. Super funny. You won't be able to understand when I play it for you, but it's just funny the things they say. I can only imagine what I said when I was a new missionary. We just worked the rest of the day! ;) Successful! No baptism this week, but hopefully soon...

Sunday was a mess. They've started a new sacrament in Lupni. It's an area that's also ours. So that's 3 sacraments that we now do. And...2  of us. They did the Lupni and here in Kabankalan at the same time... And the one in Tampalon Elder Mercials and a ward missionary went to do, so I had a ward missionary as my companion. So we couldn't be at 2 places at once. I don't know what they think sometimes. They do it without thinking about the missionaries. We'd like to be at both and invite our investigators... but they just want to bring up the attendance so budget will increase and they can split the ward, not thinking about investigators or things like that in mind. I don't know. We'll go to that one next week I guess. 

So... that's a wrap up of my week! ;) We're super super super busy. I don't have time to think, which is perfect right now actually. I can't get trunky. Which I'm just counting this as a tender mercy from the Lord. Pushing forward everyday. I hope that all y'all are doing great! Keep enjoying your summer. Hope you're not burned out by the time that I get home in September so that we can still have some fun! haha. I know the work is true and the book is blue! May you ever keep going and pushing forward in reading the Book of Mormon and praying. Blessings are awaiting you!

Love,
Elder D. Blakeman Ellis

7.6.14 Transferred....back to the same area!

Sa Akong Barkada,

WHAT'S UP EVERYONE! I hope that y'all are doing good. I know some of you heard that I got transferred last week, which is true. I got transferred to the other side of the city, then found out that our areas are actually just being combined! So now we've got a huge area. Elder Merciales is my new companion. His old companion was Elder 'Iloa and my companion transferred, so now we just got put together and all is well I suppose. I'm also the new district leader. The zone leaders got moved to a different area, they just opened up a new area in the mountains about 40km's south of here in Candoni, the first missionaries there and they did the first sacrament ever yesterday up there and there was 19 in attendance! They had 8 investigators. President Lopez was in attendance as well. The 19 includes some kids too of the investigators they had, but still, that's a pretty cool start I think. I want to do exchanges up there some day, it'll be way cool. Which I'll actually get the opportunity to since I'm the district leader. Then I have 2 sisters in my district, one from Arizona, she's been out about 10 months I think and her companion who is from Marikina, which is up in Manila, she'll go home with my batch. So she's almost done. 80 days! ;) haha. 12 Weeks, that's super crazy. I've got 12 more chances to get a baptism. That's it. I've got to work harder and get these people baptized. I have a personal goal to baptize 10 more people before I go home. Then the other Elders are from an area that's up north, Himamaylan. There's Elders there. So that makes 8 in my district. So it's better than the other districts that I use to have of 4 Elders and things that made district meeting no fun at all! But we're going to be good.

This week we've finally had a miracle performed!!!! After all the hard work that we've put in to try and get Jemma baptized and her mom saying no, then we just got bold with her last week like I told y'all and just said, Sister, you've got to decide, not your mom. You're a big girl, you can do it if you want to. So she prayed about it, got an answer and then on Tuesday morning she texted us and said she wants to be baptized on Saturday! ;) BOOM! So luckily there was already a baptism planned for the sisters so we just told our ward mission leader to add a name to the list. The cool thing is that President was invited by the sisters because they were baptizing a former pastor, President likes being invited and talking to them and stuff, so he was just there already, so it was just a bonus I guess. 

Jemma Denopol, 21 years old, oldest of 7 kids. She lives here, but when she returns to her home, she'll be able to bring the gospel to them ;)))))

We went to the Lumacad Family on Tuesday morning because we were transferring and then when we said goodbye Sister Lumacad was in tears... like just bawling that we were both leaving at the same time. Usually it's just one at a time, but she was shocked that both of us were going. I didn't tell her when I got back to Kabankalan that I was still here, but I waited to visit them. Then when she saw me she was super shocked and was super happy. haha. We had a fireside on Saturday before the baptism and she was our speaker since she's a recent convert... but she told the whole story. Then I was just laughing. She said, "Then Elder Ellis transferred, but then he came back, so it's all okay now" The whole room was just laughing. It's nice to know that I'm a bit loved here. I think this is the only place that has ever really like me back. San Carlos people liked me too. I really like Kabankalan though, it's nice!

So, I'll tell you about the new part of my area. It's super far!!!! Love it! We do a special sacrament in a place called Tampalon. It's about an hour away from Kabankalan and we have to go every Sunday after church here, we usually split with members so that I can work and here and Elder can work there since he knows the people better, that's what we did yesterday. There's about 20 members up in the mountain, but we have a TON of investigators that we're teaching too. We work there like maybe 2 or 3 days a week and we're really trying to build it up and apply for a group. After that, we can build it up and then apply for a branch. Once it becomes a branch, they can build a meeting house. But it won't happen in my time here. I've just got to prepare the area for all this to happen. The first elders that went up there to start the sacrament, was Elder Edem (my old comp) and Elder Allam (I was his zone leader in San Carlos). So they had some good missionaries. The lack right now is Men. The only way it's going to grow is if we focus on men so that the future can have a good foundation. The last 2 elders baptized a few children, which is good for the kingdom of God after this life, but for the future of the area, just a little lacking on the actual focus. It's hard to get man baptized because they're usually busy, not interested, or in tune with the spirit, but I know that God can help us fulfill what we're needed to do in this area. I'm super happy to be here. When I was on the other side, I was like ah, Tampalon sucks, I never wanted to do exchanges with them to go up there, but now that it's my area, I like it and I want to go there. haha. 

The flood! There was no other way to get to our investigators house to teach her, but take off the shoes and suck it up ;)

Family Home Evening @ Cornelio Family again ;)

The Mom and Dad of all missionaries in Kabankalan Ward, but we never get to go visit because they're not in our area, but on transfer days we can go and say goodbye, so we went and they fed us breakfast and we said goodbye... little did any of us know that I was going to come back.

This week we've found some cool new families, I like it. I really want to just baptize a whole family, mom, dad, and kids. I've done mom and dad and the kids underage, but I would love to baptize just a whole good big family. We've found one right now, unfortunately, they're not married, so that's just a whole mess. I hate how when you find people willing to listen and accept the message, there's always a problem. Either not married or had a previous husband so they CAN'T get married, just tons of problems with marriage here. The area recently just changed the rule so that papers need to be done with the city hall if they're not married something that costs money, and most people aren't willing to spend money just to get papers signed when they can just live like they are and it's okay and they're poor anyway they say. I don't know, it's hard, but still fun.

I watched a video at our ward fireside called, "Called to Serve". I guess it was made in the 90's. I've never seen it before, but I really loved it. It had pictures of the MTC and stuff and interviews of other missionaries and missionary mom's and dad's. It was a good video and really got me thinking. I really love being here. It's going to be SUPER hard to leave. I know sometimes I talk like I don't like it, or I'm excited to come home, but the people I've met, been able to help, bring into the church and into the kingdom of God, I'm really going to miss it. I'm going to miss the people so much. I've gotten so close with some of the members here just knowing (or hoping) that this is my last area. I've been just making memories and getting close with them. I love this area. It's super nice. I was super bummed when I was getting transferred, but super happy when they told me I was coming back, only angry that I had to go 2 hours away for them to tell me to turn around and go back and move to the house over. All is well though. I wouldn't give up this opportunity for all the world! ;) I love being a missionary. I'll miss it for sure. I know the church is true now. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I know the Priesthood power is real. I know that we have prophets and apostles that guide the WORLD! I know that this is God's work. Nobody can stop it from progressing! I know that God answers prayers and fasting. Just the baptism we had on Saturday was a miracle. I love it!

I love you and miss you guys so much. Y'all are always in my heart!

Did you read your Book of Mormon today? I did.

Love,
Elder Ellis

6.30.14 It's Raining, It's Pouring!

Dear Friends and Family,

District Meeting

Good-bye Sister Buban

"Another Sunny Day has come and gone away"... But I'm not coming home yet. I don't know if y'all know that song. Just by my favorite Country Artist. haha. I love you guys. How's everybody doing right now? I hope all y'all are doing better than I am. It's been another rough week, not too bad though, just TONS of rain. It's rained every single day without a doubt and it completely destroys our work. When we teach the rain hits the tin roofs and they can't hear us, we can't hear them, and then we're all confused by the end of lessons. Our umbrellas aren't the large so the complete lower half of our body gets soaked. Yesterday it rained from 3pm-9pm straight hard rain like a typhoon, but no wind. We were up in the mountains and walking home was like walking in a river. We finally found a tricycle and then even then the tricycle was getting buried in the water that was on the road and we were just super wet. Luckily we were on our way home though, so it wasn't too bad. I'm not going to complain or anything about it. Just a good experience I guess. I'll count it as a blessing. I like having fun and fun moments. Things that would never happen back home, I just laugh and enjoy the moments! ;) Yellow power ranger go!

Alright, well, I'll get the sad stories over for the week. I know I'm only supposed to write uplifting things and such, but I've been writing about this one family for weeks now and I thought I'd give you an update rather than not telling you. The Trumpita Family dropped us this week. After last week they accepted a date for baptism for Aug. 2, and they were super stoked about it and everything. The Dad wanted to quite smoking and mom wanted to go to church with the family and everything. On Wednesday when we went back to visit nobody was home, but the dad and he said, "Brothers, we're not going to go to your church or read your bible because it's forbidden." I mean, if I was to translate it, that's it. We didn't know why or what he really meant. There's a member that lives next door, the one who gave us the referral for them, she said that she would talk to them and let us know how it went. I'm super bummed about it because they were doing so well and reading and stuff, I just don't know what happened. Our guess is that a less active or something talked to them about the church or something. We don't know.

Next sad story; No matter how many times we discuss Authority or the apostasy to the Artisano family, it just doesn't seem to stick. I mean, we're talking about the mom here, she's the super like active listener in the whole group. So this week we just got up the courage and committed them to be baptized. The neighbor that always comes in our lesson, Bro. Jonel, said yes without any hesitation. The mom was like, I've already been baptized into my church. The funny thing is and I can't figure it out is why she doesn't go to her church. She's been to our church 3 times now, so it's just super funny. We invited her and she was super hesitant and said, well no. Then we said, Sister you remember the authority thing? She said yes... then we said, well, the authority was brought back during the restoration. I guess she can't wrap her head around the concept of the Priesthood, which nobody can really her. However, by the end we were like, well sister if you find out that it's church through your prayers, will you be baptized. Then she said yes. We always ask how her prayers are and things and no matter how many times we commit her to pray about our message she just won't do it. From my perspective, she's afraid to find out that her church is wrong because that means that she has to join our church. She just thanks God for the word or God and that God is loving and good. She's a born again Christian. Very nice women and I love her to death. I just don't know what more I can do or even my companion that will help her understand. We've gone slowly, very slowly over it, read from the bible and the Book of Mormon about how they help each other, she said the Book of Mormon is true because it's about God. But hasn't prayed about it or anything, just because it's about God it's good. So frustrating sometimes. Anyway, they all came to church last week and we invited them again for this week, and they didn't come! We don't know why and we thing maybe we scared them when we invited them to be baptized, but at least we know now if that was going to be the result in the end then at least we can focus our work somewhere else for a little bit instead of focusing on people that have no desire to progress. I don't know, just a bit rough really right now in finding and teach. And the rain is not helping one bit.

Gemma and Gennevibe are doing well. They always come to church and read the Book of Mormon and keep all commitments that we extend to them. The talked to their mom finally last week and the mom said no. So Gemma is 21 years old so it doesn't matter what mom says about her. Right now it's about her own choice and if she wants to risk it or not. I told her to personally go for it. It's for a good cause and she can be the bridge to the rest of the family for the gospel. Y'all know I was always a risk taker. haha. However, for her younger sister who is only 11, we said, just live the lifestyle of a member of the church. Even though she can't be baptized, she can still live the principles of the gospel. So there's the status of them.

Since members aren't super good at giving us referrals in our area we decided to try doing a lot of finding this week on our own by just walking up and down the streets (very few actual streets) but we would just talk to everyone that we saw that was sitting on the side of the road just hanging out. I just wonder why when we aren't looking to talk to every sitting on the road, there are tons of people on the road doing nothing. The day that we wanted to talk to everyone that was sitting on the side of the road, nothing. Nobody was outside. There was a funeral that everybody was attending of one of the neighbors. WAAY KLARO! Oh well, that's life. I just accept it and move on.

I've been doing some really good personal study this week. I'm in the Isaiah chapters in the Book of Mormon right now. I never realized how much he testified of the Book of Mormon and the restoration. I guess just a lack of understand for other religions, but it's pretty clear in the Book of Mormon Isaiah chapters. It also says in the footnotes that there are tons of differences in the Book of Mormon "Isaiah" and the Bible "Isaiah". Too bad the whole world doesn't believe the Book of Mormon because it's a lot simpler to understand if you ask me than reading it from the bible. Oh well. I realized the humor in the Book of Mormon when they're talking 2 Nephi Ch. 29 about saying the Bible comes from the Jews. It's just funny how they're talking about how much the Gentiles hate the Jews yet they believe the words that they wrote and not from their own people, the Gentiles. Just a kicker that I find funny in the Book of Mormon. I know that the Lord has a sense of humor and that's why people who say that you need to be 100% serious all the time in the mission are a joke because you can see in the prophets and apostles that they joke as well. Obviously it's appropriate joking and jokes, not bad things, but you get what I mean. 

FHE with the Lumacad Family

Well, that's my weekly report. I hope that all is going well with y'all there! We're going to work hard this week on finding new investigators because our others are obviously not working out right now so we need some new ones! I love you guys and hope that y'all are having a good week! Have fun at girls camp! Go kill it! I miss camping so much!!!!!! I sometimes feel like I'm camping here though... but still, I have a roof. I want a tent sometimes ;) In the mountains, next to a river. Love it! Have a great week! It's transfer week, so who knows what could happen! I don't think I'll transfer though, I just got here! Love you guys!

Halong!

Elder Ellis

6.16.14 The Lord's Work Sure Works Up an Appetite!

Dear Friends and Family,

Hello again from the Philippines! I hope everyone had a great week and that good things are happening back home and you are seeing miracles in your lives and seeing the hand of the Lord in your lives as much as I see Him in mine these past few weeks. The work has been really rough with school starting and things. So we've been trying to find some really long time less actives that we have a list of and that's what we do for 3 hours a day till the kids get out of school so that we can teach the other families. 

I hope you liked the pictures from Zone Conference Mommy ;) I tried to get into some. I don't know if I looked good or not and here's why. In Bacolod there's a burger joint called, "Big Beefy Burger". At this place they have a 5 minute challenge: 1 pound patty, with all the works, a plate of fries, and a lemonade, you need to finish with nothing left in your mouth in under 5 minutes. If you finish, it's free. If not... 250 pesos. Your Son, is a champion! ;) Finished with 10 seconds left to spare. I have the whole thing on video so I'll show you when we meet again. Honestly the biggest thing I've ever eaten and soooo fast. Afterwards I didn't feel to bad actually, just felt really really full of food. The burger was gigantic. So, yeah, I might have looked a little big in the pictures, but didn't stop me from putting down 5 glasses of ice cream! The burger was served right off the grill so it was super hot, burned the whole inside of my mouth. I had no taste for 3 days. All is well now and back to normal!

 This week we also had our investigators Sister die, so she's all in distress and worried and things, which we're trying to teach the Plan of Salvation, that's the next lesson, but she's been busy with her family. However, her Aunt was at church on Sunday. This is the second time that she's been at church. We haven't been able to give them dates yet or anything just with the timing of the death of their relative. It's hard to explain. The Aunt has 3 kids that live with her, none of which are her "actual" kids, they're all relatives, but I guess because of home life and what not, we don't know details, they live with the Aunt. But we teach them all and the neighbors and each lesson there's about 10 people, it's super good and they read the Book of Mormon and they all know how to pray now and it's super good and we love going to their house.

The Trumpita Family is doing really well. When we visited however they didn't read the assignment that we gave them in the Book of Mormon so we read it with them. We also committed them to come to church this Sunday and they even said sure they'd come. We explained that Church has classes and stuff too and the mom was like, "ah amo na gali, nami gali ang pagsimba". It means like, "Ah... church is actually nice huh?" Um... Yes Sister. Church is great ;)

Our week was a lot better in the fact that our number are triple what they were last week. Last week was not good at all. And we were even in Bacolod for a day. So this week was a lot better. We've found some new investigators and also went to a new part of our area that's SUPER far, but a member took us in their jeep, so we got a free ride. The family that we went and visited has just been recently coming back to church for the past 3 weeks, they have a son who's not yet a member just because they went less active for so long. I guess the Dad just felt something and said that he's needed at the church. Nobody visited him or anything and in fact, we had no clue there were members in his area. So now we know and we've got something good to work with.

Our progressing Investigators Jemma and Jennevibe her sister are doing really good. They're super progressive, only problem is the mother consenting. They haven't had a chance to talk to their mom yet, so we're just waiting on that to continue baptism :)!!!!!!!!! Boom roasted.

I love you guys! My personal study was really good this week and I've been reading the Joseph Smith History and in the Pearl of Great Price. I learned tons! About Adam and Eve mostly. Some things that make a lot more sense now when you add the temple and then the Pearl of Great Price, but Mormon Doctrine, it all makes sense now ;)! Love it!

Hope y'all have a great week! Everything is going great here so far. Don't worry!

Elder Pulsipher and I at Mag-Aso Waterfalls, Kabanakalan City

Love,

Elder Ellis

6.9.14 Rainy Season + Zone Conference = Busy Week

Dear Readers,

Well, I don't know what to say about this week. It's rainy season right now, so we've seen non stop rain for the past 7 days straight from 1pm to 4pm, then it'll pick back up at about 6pm to 7pm, it really hurts our work and it really hurts people going to church. You already know that though. Also school started here in the Philippines this week, which means people are "busy". Even the parents because they have to "take the kids to school" which they don't. And... that takes 30 minutes if they did. Excuses excuses... gotta love them! I think as far as key indicators go, this week would be an all time mission low for me. We only taught 12 lessons to investigators this week and 16 lessons to less actives and recent converts. That's how much we got punted and rained out. It was a rough week I'll be honest. But, I guess that's whats supposed to happen after to have one of the best weeks on your mission last week. I honestly don't know what to say right now. I'm speechless because of such a terrible week, haha. 

Yesterday we had 3 investigators at church. Two of them are family members of a recent convert. We've given them a date for the 21st of this month and they are progressing towards that date. However, they haven't had a chance to talk to momma yet, and they're really nervous to tell mom. The older sister is named Gemma (21) and her younger sister Jenevibe(11). They're really smart though, keep all commitments, read the Book of Mormon, and we've already had their prayers answered, they already have received witness from the spirit that it's true, our only problem now is having their mom not get mad. Gemma doesn't technically need parent permission since she's over 18, but it's still a culture custom here to get permission from your parents. The third investigator at church was that referral family that I told you about last week. We committed the whole family to come to church and only the oldest daughter came. We know the dad has no work on Sunday and the mom doesn't either so we don't know why they didn't come. The only thing we can think is money to pay the tricycle. We were going to visit them yesterday, but then we were blessed with rain and they live in the mountains and we weren't able to get there. At least the daughter knows what it's like now though so she can tell her parents that it was good. She also had some friends at the church that she didn't know and it turns out their far distant cousins are members, so that was a cool connection we found out yesterday. 

We taught the Lumacad Family (our Recent Converts) about the temple and preparing them to go to the temple in a year. They were super excited and I'm super happy for them. They've recently come in contact with some apostatized members, so we had to teach them about agency as well and that it's their choice to not come to church and be offended. They were confused as to why people say some things they do, but we just said, someday someone will say something to you that you won't like... but it's your job to know that it's their sin not yours and you need to just continue on the path that you know that's right! They're super super strong. Sister Lumacad is just super insanely strong with reading and understanding. She was talking about the 7 dispensations yesterday in our lesson, something that's not taught in missionary lessons, but she had some questions about it, so I helped her out with what it means and the prophets and what they did. So it was really good, I'm glad to have helped with their conversion, they're really great! ;)

Sorry that I don't have much to say this week, like I said, nothing to really write home about. We've got less actives all grouping together against us and forming like groups and making sure that we don't teach them or try to bring members to their houses to help. They say that we're annoying and that we are always at their houses just bothering them. I'm fine with it though, just kinda a bum deal because some of their kids were our investigators and now we can't teach them, especially now that school started there's no way they'll let us teach them because they have to "focus" on school... meanwhile they just play for hours after school anyway. Oh well.

I've learned a new term this weed!!!! It's called "busy". Or in Ilanggo, "Sako". I've known the word forever since the times of the MTC, but I found out what it actually means this week. As long as you are doing something until noon (12pm) That means you were busy all day!!!! I've asked tons of people this week why they didn't read or go to church and their answer was, "Sako gid ako der"==="I'm really busy Elder". Then I have them break down the times, what time did you wake up? Shower? Why were you busy? They were doing laundry they say. Okay till what time? Till 12. After 12 what did you do? Took a nap! What time did you wake up? 4pm. WHAT?! After you woke up what did you do? Prepared to the evening. What did you do to prepare for the evening? Swept the floor and did the dishes. GREAT! So you had about 3 hours that you could've read the Book of Mormon and then they laugh at me! hahaha! That's what busy means everybody! Cool huh? If that's the case then every day of my life I'm the busiest person on the planet here... really, we would be compared to here. haha. 

I love you guys! Got to go to Bacolod now for Zone Conference! Have a great week!

Elder Pulsipher & Ellis

Happy Companions!  Loves when he gets Ice Cream!

Did you read and pray today?

6.2.14 Happiest Week so Far!

Dear Friends and Family,

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY MONDAY MORNING! Everything is going great this week! One of the happiest weeks I think I've had maybe my whole mission. Even though not super fun things took place, it's rained every day, it's been the hottest temperatures I think in the past 6 months this past week, we've got punted, almost half of our investigators hide from us now, but for some reason, all of that doesn't matter once 2 people stepped into the waters of baptism on Saturday morning. The Lumacad Family are now baptized and confirmed members of the True Church on the Earth ;) Elder Espiritu and I both decided that we would both baptize, so I baptized Brother Lumacad and he baptized Sister Lumacad. We had quite a bit of members at the service and then they both gave their testimonies afterwards and it was soooo great! I was just super happy. On Sunday Sister Lumacad actually bore her testimony in testimony meeting and was crying and everything. She's super strong. I think probably the strongest convert that I've baptized. She’s already in Jacob in the Book of Mormon and trying to answer all her questions from the Isaiah Chapters was just the funniest thing to do. All the symbolism and things I don’t understand she was like, what’s this Elder, and I have no clue half the time. I mean, I have an idea, but I don’t want to teach deep/false doctrine to a new member!

Lumacad Baptisms

This week was super rough for work though, however, we were blessed soooo much! We’ve been really praying lately to focus on families and to be able to find solid families to teach and we ask Father in Heaven to lead us to them and for them to find us. Of course we can’t find everybody! So we asked for them to find us. If you remember the family that we found last week that came to church, the Artisano Family, while we were teaching them this week there were 5 kids that joined in the lesson. They are the next door neighbors. We asked them if it’s ok if we come over to their house and they said sure, mom and dad even said you could come over too. So we’re going to go there on Wednesday night! ;) Then on our way home, a member told us that she has a family referral that she wants us to visit with her on Sunday. So yesterday we went with her and she took us to this family and it’s a family of 5! The 2 sisters we’re there, but the others were. They were super nice and we got a return appointment and it was just a wonderful experience. A good solid referral. Doesn’t happen often, so I’m really counting this as a blessing right now!

Hiking the Mountain to find Investigators

As I mentioned above, it’s been super hot, rainy, and to even up with that, we leave our shoes outside our door just because of the rain and the mud that’s on the shoes and stuff so our house doesn’t get super dirty. To make the week better, in the middle of the night someone came by and just stole all the shoes that we outside our apartment complex. This is the first time someone stole my shoes outside my door. I always leave my shoes outside in all my areas and nobody ever steals them. Who wants dirty shoes that are too big to fit a Filipino foot, but I guess this guy wanted them. He got 2 pairs of my shoes, plus flip flops, my companions shoes, the elders that live next to us had their shoes stolen, so it was just a wonderful experience having no shoes for a bit. All I had are my running shoes, so we went to the store and got some new shoes, so right now I’m rockin some ugly foam shoes that look like shoes, but they were cheap and I’ve only got a few months left so I don’t care. I was just bummed, but school starts here today so maybe some kid needed some shoes for school, so I love him because he’s a child of God and I hope that he uses the shoes for school and that he gets some good grades! But yeah I was a little bummed out. Spending some money that I didn’t want to spend, but it’s all good I suppose.

My companion and I are doing great. We’ve been working good together. All of a sudden nobody works with us anymore. The bishop was pushing all the RM’s to work with us the past few weeks because of a report due, but the report is now done, now nobody works with us, so it’s a bum deal. Our WML got his teeth pulled this week so he didn’t work with us either. So we didn’t have a ton of member present lessons this week so we were really hurting for them so we were just grabbing member neighbors and things to bring with us to lessons and what not. All of sudden a lot of investigators are hiding from us now, I don’t know the reason why they’re hiding. If I didn’t want the missionaries to come over, I’d just tell them so that they weren’t wasting their time, but I guess that’s just the difference in culture. Here they just hide and they know that we see them, but rather than confronting, they tell their children, oh just tell them that I’m not here and then the kids learn to be a liar when they grow up. This week I saw one of our investigators, literally saw her behind this wall and then this kid told me she wasn’t here. So I said, “You mean that person right there (and I pointed) behind the wall isn’t who we’re looking for?” And she was like, no she’s not here. So I made sure that our investigators knew that we saw them and that lying isn’t good to teach or to do. Oh well I guess. Elder Espiritu and I were talking about it and how we’re just going to find new investigators and interested ones. If they hid, we won’t go back and we’ll find others that are interested and focus on them. That way time isn’t wasted at all and we’re doing the best we can and helping the people that need help.

We’re looking at a prospective of 5 baptisms this month of June. I can’t believe it’s already June! Time flies I guess ;) 2 of them are super solid, part members. The other 3 are cousins of a member and one of them, his mom is a member, but she doesn’t let him go to church. I don’t really know why, but she will answer for her sins in the next life I suppose. Haha. It’s just a super bum deal, the mom is not even interested in coming back to church nor listening to us. Just “too busy” with life is what she said. Which doing laundry and sleeping on Sunday doesn’t sound “too busy” to me, but that’s just the thing to do here! Got to love it and bare it with love.

Cornello Family FHE

Today we’re going to go to a hike. I think there’s a waterfall that we can take some pictures at so I will have some good pictures for next week I guess. I hope that all is well you all and you’re all doing great. You are all greatly missed, I wish I could tell you how much, but there’s a work to be done here and I’m the one that was called my God to do the work in this area at this time. So I will go and do. I finished the Book of Mormon again this past week, it’s true now as it was true before. Have you found out for yourself that it’s true? If not, I would encourage you do pray about it. I love you! Have a great week!

Travel Plans arrived!

Love,

Elder Ellis ;)

5.26.14 Cool Things Happen on Missions

Dear Readers,,,, :)

How's everyone doing so far??? I hope that all is well with y'all back home and you're all just really kicking it. School is over and now you get to all have fun and start your summer vacations! That's so exciting! I hope that you all have a great summer and work hard and save all your money Sam and Ash; that way you have money during the school year because you're going to want to do things and soon... you'll find yourself with no money. Haha! But seriously, y'all have a great summer. I'm just gonna keep kickin it on this island for the next 3+ Months ;) haha. Do y'all have anything fun planned so far though, or just going to work all summer? I've got no clue what's going on? Y'all should let me know and make sure that you take lots of pictures and send them to me! ;) 

This past week was really really good. We've taught a lot of people, had some great memories and spiritual lessons with our investigators and the Lumacad Couple had their baptismal interview yesterday and they passed with flying colors so we will totally be baptizing them this upcoming Saturday!!! ;) Who's excited??? I'm super excited! I've been waiting a long time to baptize a couple again. The last time I did that was in San Carlos, so I'm glad that I get to do that again! ;) They're a super cool couple, I wish and hope you meet them someday. They really want to go to the temple! Which is cool. They're super determined to go to the temple. So we're going to help them get to the temple. They have 3 kids, I'll send you some pictures. Their sons are super super super spastic. I could only imagine what I was as a kid because of what I am now. haha. But I don't know, you've never said that I was a problem to raise or anything. So I don' t know. These kids just do not sit still or anything while we're teaching or anything. Even at church they're a hassle, but they're just kids, so what are we going to do. This past week we showed them how to have a family home evening. I'll send you some pictures because it was super super super fun! Brother and Sister were laughing so hard during the games and the kids in the next lesson were like, let's just skip the lesson and go to the games, but it was FHE. haha. It was just super fun bonding moment for us and them. I was super happy. 

So here's a cool story: 2 or 3 weeks ago we had a company from BYU come here and do weights and heights for kids between ages 6mo-5yrs old. This was for nutrition purposes and if they qualified for some free help from this humanitarian group. Anyway, 2 weeks ago while there were tons of people at the church, Elder Espiritu talked with a women and then just got her address and asked if we could come and visit her. So we went once like a week ago and she was asleep and so we were just going to come back later. Then, we didn't forget, but didn't really focus on her or anything. But on Thursday we go back about 4pm and she was there. She has 2 kids. We asked if we could share a message with her about Jesus Christ and she said, "Of Course!" So we shared with her and her 2 kids that were there. Then, there was a niece that lives with her that was in the back and we invited her to sit in the lesson as well. While we were teaching all of them, the dad comes home from work for a second, and so we got to teach the WHOLE Family. I don't know if I've ever told you, but that's super hard to do. Catch the mom, dad, and all the kids at ONE time. Super rough to do and sometimes, impossible with the hours given and the schedules. But somehow we were blessed to teach them all. We only shared about the basics of our message and why the gospel is important to us and how it can help our families. They seemed super interested. So we asked if we could have a return appointment and we would come back on Saturday night. Saturday night comes and we go back and everyone is there, but the dad, but there was a new addition. Another niece! So we picked up a new investigator niece of hers. The second lesson was about prophets, Jesus Christ building his church, and the Apostasy. We stopped there because we felt that attention was perfect and we thought we'd leave them with a cliffhanger to the return lesson on how the church was restored. We then just invited them to come to church "if they had time". We just left it at that. We didn't teach about Joesph Smith or the true church being restored yet or anything like that, so we thought they'd just be like yeah, church, okay, whatever. Anyway... BIG faith builder... with 10 minutes left to go at Sacrament Meeting, these 4 people show up outside and Elder and I are like, who's that? Then we looked closer and it's this family! hahaha! Without the dad though, he was working, but all the others came! We were super surprised, like overly surprised. That's never happened to me before! The same week we find someone they go to church. I guess the spirit was really that strong. She has some connections with the church too, her Sister is a former investigator of the Sister Missionaries. Her and her husband are Born Again Christian, but I guess not that active since they came to church right away. So this week, we're really looking forward to teaching them and seeing what happens. This would be a miracle and such a wonderful family to have. The mom is super smart. Like way smart! Not just the faith type person, but she believes in works, something that most people here don't believe in here. So it was just a great faith builder. 

All our other investigators that usually come to church weren't there. All the Kids that we teach all had something going on, work, no money to pay for the tricycle, things like that. We still had 7 investigators at church though. Our Gospel Principles Class is always full of people. The Sisters have some really good investigators too in our Ward. The class is way full and sometimes it gets out of hand with debating doctrine and things, good thing our teacher is good at calming it down and half the time their questions are super pointless, so we just answer them really easily and move on with the rest of the class. 

This week I've moved onto my 14th planner and there's 16 planners in all! It's crazy! I just know that we will be blessed in the coming weeks with our work and with baptisms and things. It's getting me super super excited and I'm a very happy missionary right now. Everything is going great. All is well! ;) I've been setting some goals and things this week about my future and what I want to do, career, school, and other things like that. I wrote them all down last night. I've just been thinking about them, so I decided to write them down last night so that I don't forget. 

Making Chicken Adobo---favorite Filipino dish

I know this Church is true. It's nice to hear from you back home about how things are going! It's always nice to hear from back home ;) I've been getting emails from Joe and Ryan and they're doing good it sounds like so I'm super glad that all is well with them! If you could send me Jared Ross' email and Windley's email, I would love to talk to them and see how they're doing. I love you guys back home! Keep being good and reading your scriptures and praying ;) Halong!

Love,

Elder Ellis

My District