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Monday, December 4, 2017
Mem Martins!! Whoo!
This week was fantastic! Despite the really cold rain I am absolutely loving this new area. It's a very busy area with a ton of people! We have appointments and new lessons coming out our ears! I love my new companion too, Sister Haws. She's so cute and fun! We hit the ground running and had a blast getting lost and meeting a ton of new people together. She's been on her mission for about 8 months and it's been fun to teach her new teaching tricks and funny portuguese words. We went to Sintra for Pday and wandered around talking to people there. We bought some Christmas presents and met up with some other missionaries.
I think one of my favorite moments this week was when we passed by an old contact named Catia. She let us in and explained that she was learning about 4 or 5 different religions right now, searching for which one was true. She asked us how we know which church is true and we were like "WELL LET US TELL YA!" We began to teach her about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When we invited her to pray to recieve a confirmation she looked at us and said, "I never thought to ask God which church was right.... How do you do that?" and we got all excited and basically blurted out "PRAYYYYY!!!!" So then we committed her to pray and read and go to church and to be baptized and it was awesome.
Here are some pictures of our adventures in Sintra!
Have a great week!
Sister Ellsworth
Sunday, December 3, 2017
2 Emergency transfers and a baptism later... We survived.
So this week was an ADVENTURE!!! On Monday we received a call that Sister Herrera would join our companionship and we made it a whole week together and it was awesome! We arranged Antonio's baptism! While we were waiting for the baptism to start Sister dos Santos taught me and Sister Herrera how to tie ties. We tied them all by ourselves!! Heehee.
Look at Antonio... He's so happy!! Haha. I've never seen someone make such a huge change in such a short amount of time. After a lifetime of smoking and being involved with other less-good things. Antonio grabbed his last box of cigarettes and chucked them out the window, stopping stone cold. He grabbed the beer in his fridge and poured it down the toilet, laughing and smiling. When he was baptized he sat there a moment, smiled and said "It's good."
This week we are also having another transfer! Heavenly Father thought I should spend my last 20 days on my mission in another area so I'll be transferred to Mem Martins tomorrow.
I'm just so grateful to be here. I don't pay attention to the days... (honestly I'm hoping that if i stop looking then the time will start going backwards). I love being a missionary. I love being a representative of Christ. It's the best thing you could ever do. Every sacrifice is worth it. Every tear, sore muscle, sigh of disappointment, everything is worth coming to know my Savior.
And I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Sister Ellsworth
Monday, November 20, 2017
Sweet Hour of Prayer
This week was fun.
We were looking for one of our investigators in these shacks and we came across a woman who was clearing this lean-to that had fallen down. We offered to help, tied our hair back and started hauling broken wood and metal to the dumpster. The little neighborhood heard all the racket we were making and started smiling at the two girls in skirts ankle deep in mud and garbage that they started coming out and talking to us. With mud smeared faces and snagged skirt hems we started teaching this familiy of 20 or so people. IT WAS AWESOME!! We marked one for baptism and are coming back this week to teach more.
Then we went to pass by a reference that we had received, we knocked the door and the Guy named Antonio opened. Antonio looked like a drug dealer with a leather jacket, a rottweiler, and a scowl from a life of who knows what. We smiled and offered to teach him about how he can have a better future. He accepted and listened to use with the rottweiler at his feet. In the middle of the lesson he started to get a little worked up, yelling about how some guy was trying to kill him and that he had to hide. We tried to calm him down but there was something there besides his memories. Sister Dos Santos started to sing Sweet Hour of Prayer and I quickly joined in. after one or two lines Antonio stopped yelling and slowly sat down, looking at us, puzzled. We continued to sing until the end of the song (in Portuguese). The Holy Ghost came into the room so strongly and tears began to well up in Antonio´s eyes (and we don't even sing that well.) He just continued to listen.
We were able to finish the lesson and mark him for baptism. That lesson was a lesson that changed my whole mission. We saw how the Holy Ghost can calm an aflicted soul. His soul was hurt, had been betrayed many times, and was tarnished with sins and wrongdoings. But in that moment, he felt the love of God touch his heart. That touch changed him, humbled him, and know he knows that he's a son of God, an eternal being on a mortal journey, and that God has a plan for him. Hearing Antonio pray for the first time was the happiest moment in my life.
#beachbums
Until next week!
Sister Ellsworth
Monday, November 13, 2017
Transfers, Baptism, And Holy moly it's cold
This week was good! We got a call from Miguel and he passed his baptismal interview and was baptized Sunday after church! He's a great guy. The way we found him was a miracle! We were having a few weeks where a lot of our investigators weren't progressing and a lot of appointments were falling through. Our faithful District Leader promised us that we found find someone that was prepared for baptism. The next day we lost even more appointments but then we got a call from a random number saying he was at the airport on the way home from Angola and wanted to talk to us. He got to Costa da Caparica and sat down with his suitcases to talk to us. We marked him for baptism and he was baptized two weeks later! It was an awesome experience.
Miguel and a random member lol
Tanya!!! She's a recent convert and we're training her to be the next sister missionary! haha!
Rodrigo!! He's one of our super good friends. He's from Brasil!
As for my last transfer I'm going to stay here in Costa da Caparica! I'll be serving with Sister dos Santos. It's gonna be good!!
As I was listening to the testimonies during Sacrament meeting this week one of the members talked about how this week she felt frustrated about not receiving answers to her prayers and that she felt sick of always having faith. Then she shared an experience about how the Holy Ghost comforted her and reminded her that these experiences are what will help her grow. I smiled and remembered all the times I felt too tired. I think in my journal I wrote that I was exhausted more times than I can count but it's so worth it. I look back on the last 17 months and it's the best thing I've ever done. I learned so much, met so many awesome people, and really come to know who I am and who I can become. I love being a missionary!! Haha
Love,
Sister Ellsworth
Devotional, Talks, and other stuff
Alô ao todo mundo!!
Another week has come and gone. We had a blast with
miracles! First off on Monday I brought my poor companion to the Mission Home
and she died. Hehe. The next day I went with some other sisters to go get our
new companions. I'm serving with Sister dos Santos now and she's awesome. She's
from Porto so I'll finally be learning how to speak Portuguese!! Haha. She
loves to laugh and have fun and has a super strong testimony.
On Wednesday we went to a Devotional with Elder Owen and
Elder Durrant. It was awesome! We learned a lot and we were excited to try new
contacting and teaching techniques. During the week we starting contacting people
using the new phrase they suggested which is: "Would you be willing to
hear a brief message about ....." There was one day when we were walking
towards the chapel and I looked to the side and I saw a woman sitting in the
passenger seat of a parked car. She was older, about 50, and it looked like she
was sleeping. I had the thought to go talk to her but thought, no she's sleeping.
Then I was like.. What the heck am I doing?! Don't ignore spiritual
promptings!! So I stopped in my tracks and ran back to tap on the glass. I told
her that we were doing a project to help people have more hope. She gave a
smile smile and declined. I could tell that something was up so I asked her
what was going on and she gave me a surprised look. Then told us that she had
been diagnosed with lung cancer. I gave her card of Christ and she offered to
let us come by and talk to her for a bit. #MIRACLES
On Sunday my companion and I were emergency speakers lol. It
happens more often than you think... But we talked about prayer and scriptures.
I realized that I while I was speaking you could see exactly who was reading
and praying. You could see it in their faces... It made me think a little bit
about our personal preparation for the Second Coming. Recently and ever since
Adam the prophets and apostles have asked us over and over to have daily
scripture study and to always have a prayer in the heart.
Have a good week!
Sister Ellsworth
Monday, October 30, 2017
Puzzles, Sacred Cigarettes, CTMM
Hey!
This week was fun! Sister Selman and I went on another adventure. So here in Portugal they have Chinese stores that sell super cheap junk... Kinda like the dollar store and it's literally a missionary's favorite place. We went hunting to find something to help one of our investigators understand how the Restoration works and that being part of any church doesn't save you.So we found this little puzzle book with lots of little puzzle pieces. It worked out that we took one piece from each page to create a new puzzle that didn't make any sense at all. Kinda like this:
So on our way to our lesson we found two of our friends and one asked why I was carrying around a kid's puzzle book. I explained that the puzzle was broken and asked them to fix it. The Jose and Zé, two grown men started to try to put the puzzle together without 90 percent of the puzzle. It was so funny to watch them argue about where the pieces go. Then we explained how we created the new puzzle using parts of the old puzzle, in the same way how people created churches using parts of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then we gave them the rest of the puzzles and explained how God restored all the pieces of the Gospel.
We also met with one of our investigators that has problems to stop smoking and we came up with the classic idea to make some celestial cigarettes. We took an empty box of cigarettes and decorated it with pictures of Christ and inspirational quotes. We passed Rodrigo by and told him that we had a surprise for him and we wanted him to guess what it was. He laughed and said... "Hm... What is the most ridiculous thing I can think of..... Something you guys would never do... I know! Sacred cigarettes!" We looked at each other and started laughing and showed him the box. He looked at us and was like.. Seriously? and then busted up laughing!
Other than that it was a week of lots of work!
Love you guys,
Sister Ellsworth
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