Double Baptism

(Sister Ellsworth)

Hey yall!

This week was craaazy! First off we found out that two of our investigators are related. Apparently we were teaching a mom and her daughter and they didn't even know it! We only found out because the daughter, Nela, drove by as we were talking to her mom. Coincidence? I think not... haha. We also met an evangelical conspiracy theorist this week and if you think that stuff is weird in English, just try to listen in Portuguese!

I ate my first really gross and weird thing... We were at a little cafe for lunch with a member and she ordered me some fried fish... and brain... I didn't know what it was until I did some dissecting. It brought me back to my anatomy days.... Haha! We also met this guy because he hollered out "JESUS IS THE BEST!" in this really thick Portuguese accent, so of course we go talk to him! He had some interesting ideas and one of them is as follows... "The world is a monopoly, the only people who make money are the funeral homes." I think we've met every strange person in Barreiro this week!

BUTTTTT THERE'S MORE!

We had a double baptism! Our investigator Manuella was baptized and the Elder's investigator was baptized as well! Best and craziest day ever! We walked 15 or more miles to get everything situated, took wrong buses, forgot white clothes, made cookies, and arranged the baptisms. WHOO!

This week I was reading about trials of faith and I found a few scriptures I liked. 1 Peter 4.12, Alma 1.25 and 1 Peter 1.7

"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:" One of the most interesting analogies is the refiners fire analogy. the idea that our trials are meant to purify, teach, test, and help us learn  is much more appealing than the thought that sometimes bad things happen when we do things right. Sometimes things are hard.

Another thought. There was a missionary who died (finished his mission and went home to his family) whose last words for us were: "Do you believe in Christ?" of course all of us were like... duh... but then he asked a second question. "Do you believe Christ?" What a difference that makes.... Do you believe Christ? Do you believe that he is your Advocate, your Mediator, your Redeemer, your Brother, and your Savior? Do you believe that he suffered for YOU? Do you believe he felt your pain, grief, sorrow, and joy? I hope if the answer is no, then pray for opportunities to develop your testimony and then go out and do something because testimonies are gained through action.

Sandro, Sister Williams, and Manuella!! WOOOOT!!!

They have packaged cheeseburgers....?

Guess which one is wine and which is a juice box!! Vocabulary is a good skill to have when they're right next to each other...

​ Elder Haws,  Nadia, me, Sister Williams, Manuella, Elder Thomas, and Sandro!

Just going for a stroll in Portugal....

Change of altitude and too much dough and you get a cookie cake! haha

Love Yall,

Sister Ellsworth

Godly Sorrow, Following Your Conscience, and Having a Healthy Spirit

(Elder Cummings)

Dear Family and Friends,

As per a rule-clarification I now have an additional half hour to email every Monday.  My time management skills have not been helped by this and I am still stuck running out of time and writing this at the last minute.

This has been a wonderful week!  Elder Perkins and I were able to participate in mission leadership council and discuss with other zone leaders about the work and to find together the direction the Lord would have us guide this mission.  It was a unique experience. There are many great things happening in the California Fresno Mission!

This week I have seen many people we visit come to recognize their actions as sins.  Whether they be large or small, this theme of repentance motivated by what is termed "godly sorrow" for what they have done has been reoccurring.

I have been giving some thought as to why that "godly sorrow" is necessary in repentance.  Why is it a requirement for us to feel remorse and guilt in order to put our sins and misdeeds behind us?

I found that to answer that question, you first have to ask "Where does godly sorrow come from?"

"When we sin, we feel remorse or guilt, just as we feel physical pain when we are wounded.  This is the natural response of our conscience to sin, and it can lead us to repent." (Guide to the Scriptures "Conscience")

To more completely comprehend that statement we need to understand the church's definition of the conscience.  The conscience is a manifestation of the Light of Christ that helps us to discern from good and evil.  The Light of Christ is the influence of Jesus Christ that is "in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things" uplifting, ennobling, and enlightening (D&C 84:41).  So, the influence of Jesus Christ that is inherently in ALL people naturally brings us to feel remorse and guilt for mistakes we make.  The sorrow we feel is godly in part because it comes directly from the influence of a god.  It can lead us to repent!

"We are to learn to follow our conscience.  This is an important part of exercising our agency.  The more we follow our conscience the stronger it will become.  A sensitive conscience is a sign of a healthy spirit." (Guide to the Scriptures "Conscience").

Repentance is making an actual change.  It requires us to change our desires and our behavioral patterns.  Because of the guilt we feel when we sin we are blessed with an opportunity to follow our conscience and repent.  Our conscience therefore will become stronger, we will be spiritually healthier, and we will be more resistant to the persistent temptations of Satan.  I am so grateful that we are allowed to grow in this way!  I am grateful for Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for us.  All things are possible because of Him.  He lives!

-Elder Jared Cummings

The Fields Are White

(Anziano Wilkinson)

Today we woke up to quite an interesting experience. There was an earthquake at around 2 am a little over 100 kilometers south of Ancona, where I'm serving right now. No one in my city was hurt and the tremors were mild enough for us that we just went right back to sleep after they happened, but apparently that wasn't the case down south. Many people were hurt and an entire village was practically destroyed. I'm doing just fine myself though, so no worries! In fact, this morning my companion and I took a hike up in the mountains south of Ancona and had a fantastic time seeing the beautiful views and breathing the mountain air. I'll post some pictures below!

In the past two weeks we had the wonderful opportunity to meet and teach many amazing people. The first is a man named Effrim from Albania that has lived in Italy for many years. He has met with missionaries in the past and supposedly been taught by them, but it having been a long time before, we asked him if he'd be interested in hearing our message again. He accepted and listened very intently to our message about the restoration of the church of Jesus Christ and one could tell that he was deep in thought as we explained the doctrines behind this concept. He accepted the invitation to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it in order to receive a confirmation of the truth of our message. He also happily came to church the next day and had a great experience! He is expressing a real desire to learn about the blessings our Heavenly Father has in store for him. I don't know what made the difference this second time he was taught, but apparently the Lord has prepared him to take further steps along the path of discipleship in this later stage of his life and the difference is already noticeable in him!

The other is a very humble and sincere woman who has been searching for years for a stronger relationship with God. Her name is Rosy and she is from Peru; our week has been a very international one to say the least! As we shared with her the concepts of the restoration she asked us many intelligent questions and paid close attention to what we shared with her. A recent convert in the Ancona Branch named William had invited her to learn about the doctrines of our religion that have recently changed his life and she accepted the invite. She has studied with many other churches in the past and had not found success in her search to know God better. As we taught her the doctrine of personal revelation ("if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God") and asked her if she had ever received an answer to a questions she proposed to God in prayer. She told us that one of her prayers was answered during our lesson with her. The spirit was strong and her humility and sincerity allowed her to be taught during this lesson more by the Holy Ghost and less by the actual words that we used.

It's such a special experience to be a missionary for our Heavenly Father and to be in his service full-time for these two years. Above all I've been thinking about a verse in the scriptures that contains a promise concerning missionary work of the church of Jesus Christ in our times. The verse says, "Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men." I love this verse because of the surety of the statement. "A marvelous work is about to come forth." It doesn't say "might come forth" or "could come forth" it says "is". The Lord is pulling things together to fulfill his promises that he has been making since the beginning of time and today those promises are being fulfilled. We see so many people every day that have been and are being spiritually prepared to make greater promises with their Heavenly Father and the hand of the Lord is quite evident in all of their lives. It's humbling to be a part of the fulfillment of this promise because the gospel of Jesus Christ means so much to me personally. We have the chance to become perfect through a life of faithful trust in our Savior and He is anxious to bless us beyond our wildest dreams. We have a Father in Heaven who loves us and knows us each individually; He has a plan for us and is moving mountains to help us become the amazing people that we have the potential to become.

Have a fantastic week and remember to thank our Heavenly Father for His many blessings!

-Anziano Jake Wilkinson

There was a leaf hanging from a spiderweb and I couldn't resist taking this picture hahaha.

Miracles Come From Fasting!

(Sister Ellsworth)

Dear Peoples of my email list... I love yall!!

Two weeks ago was a week where all of our appointments fell through at we practiced contacting on the road, in stores, in apartments, and at parks for the whole week. Last week we decided to fast for our current investigators and to be able to reach our goals.

We saw progress! We taught quite a few lessons and I was able to make 5 contacts by myself in Portuguese! Woot! Unfortunately Paulo dropped us because his mom said he couldn't have the lessons anymore. We hope to be able to see him soon! We met a lot of new people this week as well but our investigator Manuella came to church and kept her commitments! She has my heart, lock and key! I love her to bits! She is very accepting and honest, educated woman. And she's patient with my Portuguese!

Crazy funny thing this week... We kept running into the old Russian man, like two or three times a day! He loves the Missionaries but doesn't speak a lick of Portuguese or English! That doesn't stop him though! He chatters on and on and introduces us to random people in Russian to people who don't speak Russian. He's a funny guy!

Something I studied this week was the Riccardi Letter. We practiced doing one thing we learned from the letter every day and saw results from it every day. One of the teachings that was the hardest thing for me and yet the most rewarding was confidence in the gift of tongues. To practice this, the four missionaries in our area went to a store and practiced contacting people! My companion stayed close to me but made me contact people by myself. It was kind of fun! A lot of the older people couldn't understand me very well but those who were younger did. Some of them even wanted to talk in English with me! We gave them references to our English classes and made appointments to meet with them later.

Another topic I've studied this week is the Atonement. It never ceases to amaze me that the Atonement is so simple and yet infinite at the same time. We teach that the Atonement is an opportunity to become better. Through my studies I've also learned that the Atonement is a unification with the will of our Heavenly Father, an at-one-ment with the Gospel of Christ. The hardest way to change is in big steps, but small corrections is so much easier. And the opportunity to change in small ways is covered in the Atonement!

I love my mission already and I love all of you as well. I know my Savior lives and I know that Heavenly Father is aware of us individually. He loves you!

Thank you for your support and love. It makes the days brighter and helps me remember why I'm crazy enough to be here and love it so much!

Love you,

Sister Ellsworth

The Gospel Blesses Families

(Elder Cummings)

The gospel blesses families!  It absolutely does!  This week we have been visiting families and helping them come closer to Christ.

Pete and his wife are saving their marriage!  We have been visiting them for just under two weeks and WOW his life has made a 180 turn.  He has sacrificed almost everything in his world outside of his family to come back to church and to bring them with him.  A sweet spirit has begun to rest in their home.  Pete has been the one of the greatest examples of forgiving and of sincere repentance I have ever met.  His oldest and his wife are progressing towards baptism, and soon will join him as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!

Vicky asked us to start teaching her daughter as well.  Her name is Janessa, and she accepted a date for baptism by our second visit with her.

Follow the guidance of the Spirit, we knocked on the door of a former, Loynelle.  Missionaries had suddenly lost contact with him about a month ago.  He was home this time!  He had been out of town for emergency medical procedures and finally had returned home.  The last lesson the missionaries taught him was the word of wisdom, and after a month of no missionary contact one of the first things he brought up with us was that he had been cutting back on his tea intake.  What more he still wants to be baptized!  He wants to bring his sons into the church with him!  Blessings are everywhere!

Foua is studying the Book of Mormon and all of her children have been looking forward to church week by week.  They love the Spirit they feel there!

Tawn is Ching's last son not baptized.  This week we taught him about the law of tithing and keeping the Sabbath day holy.  On both instances he cut in about halfway through the visit and started testifying of the blessings he has seen come from his mother's commitment to living those commandments.  He is excited for his upcoming baptism!

The Merced Zone as a whole is doing amazingly!  God is hastening His work!

-Elder Cummings

Week 2 in Barreiro

(Sister Ellsworth)

Dear family and friends,

I love Portugal. The people, the language, the weather, and the food are better than I ever expected. It's hard, but I expected that. First off, Barreiro is across the way from Lisbon. The weather has been Sunny and in the 90s since I got here, but there is always a breeze so it is lovely. This week has been a week of trying new Portuguese foods! One of my favorites bacalhou, which is this very salty fish that they put in lots of foods. Yummy! Also they have Pastel de Nata, which are eggy-pie things. Also very good. As far as food goes here, we often just get fruit and bread from the fruitarias that are on every corner. Food here is very cheap. Usually Sister Williams and I can buy a whole meal for less than 2 Euros, which is like 3ish dollars.

We have three investigators right now, Paulo, Cristiani, and Manuella. They are all marked for baptism right now and I absolutely love teaching them. Teaching is the one situation in which I am able to understand the Portuguese and reply with an understandable Portuguese! Woot! I am already beginning to catch more and more Portuguese every day, mainly because we have the same conversations with people on the streets.

Members here LOVE to feed the missionaries lunch! Culturally, lunch is the biggest meal of the day and is often a 3 course meal. Earlier this week we had two lunch appointments and I thought I was gonna die and the sisters would have to roll my bloated body out the door.

 Our area

 Our fancy food we made. Salad is made with a bit of vinegar and salt. It is an acquired taste... haha!

We walk past this area every day and get a whiff of maple syrup. it's super weird... turns out this plant smells like maple syrup!

Something I have learned this week is about patience. Patience with yourself, patience with others, and patience with Heavenly Father. I was reading in D and C 6, which is now one of my favorite chapters. My favorite two verses are verse 34 and verse 36 when is says "Fear not, little flock.... Doubt not, fear not." We have no need to fear or doubt, because when you're following the rules and doing what you're supposed to, your circumstances will work out according to the Heavenly Father's plan. You always have your agency to choose to be happy!

Love Yall!

Sister Ellsworth

Transfers and Blessings

(Elder Cummings)

Hello all!

This week has been a blessing.  We have had so many great things happen in our lives and in the lives of our investigators.

We received a phone call from the assistants the other day checking to see how someone in our area is doing, Vicky.  We didn't know her, so we went by her address and met her.  Back when the elder who called us was serving here she had a baptismal date and had already been through all the lessons.  He left and she got offended by one of the missionaries who came in.  She has been more than happy to start studying again and is again working towards baptism.

A less active family in the Hmong branch just had two of their young nephews move in with them.  Both of them want to learn about Jesus Christ!  They have not been raised with any religion and have a great desire to learn!  This is helping the whole family come back to church!  What a tender mercy!  Over the last two years the weekly attendance in the branch has gone from high eighties to mid forties.  So many have moved out, but more are coming in!  The work is great!

Transfers are this week!  We were informed last night of where we are all heading.  It is different being more on the administrative side of transfers.  Elder Perkins and I will be staying together, still covering Merced 1st Ward and Merced 5th Branch.  We are doing great work and cannot come down!

Have a lovely week!  God is with you always!

With love,

Elder Cummings

Life in Ancona

(Anziano Wilkinson)

We've been having a great time in Ancona recently! Today we went and visited yet another castle up in the mountains, not San Marino this time, but a small place called Gradara. This castle was much bigger than any I have seen in Italy and so much more full of life. It was like a little medieval town on the outside of the castle and the whole experience was a blast from the past. There was medieval music playing, people dressed up in old costumes, and decorations to make the ambiance look like we had basically walked into a magical city haha. It was definitely worth the trip!

Meanwhile, back in a Ancona we have been seeing great things happen. Miracle after miracle keeps coming to us just as we think it can't get any better. But instead of just talking about it, I'll share a few of them!

So on Sunday we ended up having our evening plans fall through at the last minute and so we decided we'd call some people up to see if we couldn't set up an appointment. We ended up calling one of the people we teach and asking if we could pass by him, he told us he had some time and that we could find him at a park where he was hanging out with some friends. So we showed up and to our surprise, what turned out to be "some friends" was more like thirty people, some playing soccer, others just sitting on benches chatting. We spent a while getting to know many of them and in no time we were all laughing and joking together. After a while we asked if we could share a spiritual thought and we ended up teaching the plan of salvation to a huge portion of these people. It was an amazing experience to be able to stand and testify to so many people of the plan of happiness our Father in Heaven has made for us. They invited us to come back this next Sunday as well because I guess they gather like this every Sunday evening. In one night the number of potential people we have to teach easily doubled. Teaching so many people at once made us feel a little bit like the original twelve apostles must have when they taught large crowds of people in the streets of the ancient Roman Empire. It was definitely an experience to be remembered.

Another miracle happened a little bit earlier in the week when my companion had to be present at a district leader meeting. The it works in our mission is that every district leader in the mission and our president in essence signs on to a virtual skype-based chat room and participates via internet. I was not a part of it so I did not have really anything extremely productive to do. Not long after we had gotten to the church in order to get wifi for this video conference, we heard the doorbell buzz. I answered the door to find a woman who had seemingly randomly showed up to ask if she could come in to warm herself (yes, it was cold that day, and rainy, I'm really not sure how that happened in the middle of summer, but hey, it happened). I talked with this lady while my companion participated in his video conference and got to know a little about who she was. It became very clear to me that she had experienced a lot of hardships in her life. We had the chance to talk about the healing power of our Savior Jesus Christ and about how she could access that power just as easily as anyone. One could tell that she found hope in the words I shared with her and she gladly accepted the invitation to learn more about what we believe and about how she could more effectively access the power of the Atonement. I don't know how the video conference my companion needed to attend happened to fall on the only cold day in August and how this lady, chilled by the cold, happened to be in the right place at the right time to find our church at one of the few times when people were there not on a Sunday, but to me it was no coincidence. This woman (whose name is Magdalena) needed to hear the message we shared with her. Our Father in Heaven set things in place so that she could find us when she needed it most.

The list of miracle we saw this week does not end with these two; there are many many more that we have been a part of! The work of the a lord is moving forward here in Ancona and all thanks to the faith of everyone involved. It has been humbling to have been a part of these amazing experiences and I hope to continue to see more as we keep working hard and seeking the guidance of the spirit in our daily lives. If anything can be learned from these experiences, it's that God has a plan for his children in a Ancona and loves them, just as He does for all of us.

Have a fantastic week and look for the miracles!

-Anziano Jake Wilkinson

The Man Behind the Curtain

(Elder Cummings)

I don't even know where to begin this week.  We have been busy with meetings, teaching appointments, and a temple trip this week.  In between it all we still found time to deep clean the car and the apartment.  There were two baptisms in the zone this week, one for Karen and the other for Alfonzo.  I find it so inspiring to see other missionaries working with zeal.

On Thursday we were able to go to the temple in Fresno and worship there.  It was a wonderful experience.  I love the house of the Lord!  I received direction and guidance for the work we do and for my personal life.  God will always speak to us if we are willing to listen!  Listening for the Lord's voice is an act of faith.

One woman we met this week, Barbara, had the faith to listen.  She had been introduced to the LDS church years ago by some friends in Las Vegas who met with missionaries, and eventually were baptized.  Barbara never studied the church and its teachings though.  She was born and raised Lutheran, and at the time she attended a baptist church, and didn't see the need to investigate.

Fast forward to last night, and she invited us into her home to share a message with her.  We chatted for a little bit, got to know her needs, concerns, and interests, and then started into the formal discussion.  We shared the message of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ with her.  Elder Perkins and I were teaching smoothly in tandem, and the Spirit of the Lord was present.  I had never taught the restoration the way we did---with such a strong emphasis on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ---which makes perfect sense.  I had never taught Barbara before.  As we unfolded the doctrines of prophetic dispensations, of priesthood keys and authority, and of the atonement of Christ she lit up noticeably.  After sharing with her the miraculous story of Joseph Smith's first vision she told us in hushed voice, "Now, I have seventy-two years in the back of my mind that don't want me to agree with what you two boys are telling me tonight.  This is asking for a big jump, and I am not too good at jumping anymore, but I want to know if this is true."  She wholeheartedly accepted the commitment to begin reading in the Book of Mormon and to study the pamphlet we also left with her.  Before we could bring up the topic, she volunteered the idea of being baptized once she learned for herself that the message we shared was true.  She closed the discussion with a prayer, and then coerced us into singing a slightly off-key rendition of one of the church's hymns.  The whole visit was a spiritual high.

The experience got me thinking about God's love for all of His children.  It may be redundant to say, but God has sent us into mortality to have experiences that optimize our opportunity for exaltation.  Here was Barbara, who was unashamedly searching for absolute truth, and her entire life had led up to that point last night when she first heard the message of the restoration in its fullness.  On a micro-scale everyone's lives are oriented in this way.  On a macro-scale all world history since the life of Christ has been in preparation for the restoration.  God is absolutely in the details!  He knows our needs better than we do, and he ministers to His numberless children and invites them to come unto His Son, Jesus Christ, and be saved.  We can live lives full of light because we know who is behind the curtain.  Our Heavenly Father loves us!  We don't need to know all things to know this! (1 Nephi 11:17).

Live the abundant life this week!  Keep the commandments!  Come unto Christ!

With love,

Elder A. Jared Cummings

First Week in Portugal!

(Sister Ellsworth)

Ola de Portugal!

Wow... it has been one crazy week! I don't even know where to begin. First, on Tuesday we went to the temple for the last time really early in the morning. I met a lady who had a daughter out on a mission and I gave her a good long hug. I also got the opportunity to sit in the temple by myself for twenty minutes which was so perfect. Afterwards we quickly finished packing, cleaned our room, and dashed off to the buses by 830 am. We were loaded onto a bus and dropped off at the airport. I was able to call my family and have Cafe Rio for the last time! Unfortunately our plane was delayed about 10 hours in Salt Lake due to some parts needing replaced. Our group of 10 missionaries met and talked to everyone on our flight! We also met a lot of missionaries coming home, going to MTC's, and headed out to the fields.

The flight to the Netherlands was great, I tried to sleep for most of it. We landed in the Netherlands in the afternoon and since our first flight was delayed for so long, we had to be rebooked. They split our group up onto two airplanes and I was in the group that would fly from the Netherlands to Porto, and then Porto to Lisbon. We had to run to catch our Porto flight, which was delayed after we got there, and then we had to run to our Lisbon flight, barely making it onto this tiny plane with pretty sketchy looking propellers but tudo bem! I talked to the gentleman next to me a tiny bit in Portuguese but then he told me that he spoke English. I left a Book of Mormon with him!

Once we landed in Lisbon, we were in the Airport for an extra few hours trying to find our bags, which had been lost. Only 3 of 7 had one or two bags show up. We met up with the second group and eventually decided to leave without our bags. Our Mission president picked us up and took us to the mission home and fed us lasagna and soup at 2 am. We showered after almost 36 hours of traveling and crashed hardcore. The next morning we met our companions! My new companion is Sister Williams! She speaks English and Portuguese and has been so patient with me and my jetlag and limited language.

The first week in Portugal was a lot of smiling and nodding but I did get to help teach a young man about the Plan of Salvation and taught a woman about how much Heavenly Father loves her. I am serving in Barreiro, which is right across the river from Lisbon. It's been so fun to get to know people and go to Church! The food is strange, but good. We made mini hotdogs and cinnamon biscuits which would have been cinnamon rolls except neither my companion or I knew how to say yeast in Portuguese.

Also apparently I speak Portuguese with an Australian accent! How neat haha. Also people here have a VERY hard time saying my last name. Like most can't even try! Half the sounds in my name don't exist in Portuguese so what comes out is something along the lines of el-sh-wohtch. Close enough I guess! I'll make a nickname for myself or something.

Loving every day more and more! Tudo Bem! I can't get pictures up right now but hopefully I'll send some later today!

Sister Ellsworth

San Marino

(Anziano Wilkinson)
I'm really short on time his week so I will just share some pictures of our adventure in San Marino this P-day. We got to explore some pretty sweet castles in the mountains.

Hope everything is great! Enjoy summer!

-Anziano Jake Wilkinson

Last day in the MTC!

(Sister Ellsworth)

Holy moly... This time tomorrow I'll be on a flight to Portugal! Whoop!

I'm so excited. This week went by so fast that I can barely remember what has happened! First we went to the in-field orientation which emphasized the importance of building relationships between Missionaries and members. I hadn't really realized how big of a difference it is when members are actively involved in missionary work! So my first challenge to all of you is to invite the missionaries over and introduce them to people! Anybody and everybody!

The second thing I've learned this week is the importance of family history work. I have a few stories of ancestors (Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!!)  and was able to explore my family tree and look up more stories and I felt like I already love those people so so much.

Thanks to everyone who wrote me or sent me a package! It seemed like our whole district received massive amounts of food. Saturday night we compiled everything, which was probably 50 pounds of junk food, and watched a marathon of Mormon Messages and played hangman in Portuguese. It was basically netflixing missionary style. :)

I was glad for the opportunity to go through the temple one last time before I headed out to Portugal. I'm so excited that the Lisbon temple is being built in my mission! I love the temple so much and I want the every person to know how

It was sad to say goodbye to the people in my district. We are closer than family! I'll also miss my teachers and my lovely companion. I'll probably miss American food but at the same time I'm excited to meet the people I've already fallen in love with.

I'd love to hear from you guys! For now my address for letters is

Apartado 40054

1500 Lisbon

Portugal

I'll update you with a new address as soon as possible! Love you all so much! Thank you for your love and support!

Muito amor,

Sister Ellsworth

Where are we?

(Elder Cummings)

This week has been a blur.  It has been seven days and seven nights, but it is one in my memory.  My new companion, Elder Perkins, and I have been incredibly busy together.

I am still serving in Merced.  That hasn't changed.  I still cover the Merced 5th Hmong Branch.  That hasn't changed either.  I still get up every morning and run, study the gospel individually and as a companionship, and I even still have time to study Hmong!

I am now also covering the Merced 1st Ward!  With the transfer Elder Perkins and I have had to smash our two areas into one.  It has been an almost chaotic experience.  Beginning at zone conference on Tuesday we have officially been companions.  After the meeting we spent some time cleaning out the Hmong apartment, and moved to the new place.  I have now gone from the smallest apartment in the mission to the second largest.  This hasn't really changed anything.  The big difference is that I can lose track of things now.  I will miss the small second story studio.  It has a piece of my heart.

As a result of this transfer I have continued to develop a talent of getting lost.  No one does it quite as well as me.  Fortunately, we never stay that way for too long.  The question "where are we?"  is heard often.

Wonderful week!  We have an enormous teaching pool, enough for four missionaries, and I feel it every night when my head hits the pillow.  I have never slept so soundly so consistently.

We are working hard and serving with no regrets!  I am so happy to be living the gospel and sharing it with those around us!  We have had some amazing lessons together.  Elder Perkins knows the doctrines of the gospel solidly.  I am looking forward to the rest of our time together!

I am short on time again today.  We took a trip out to Yosemite and went hiking.  It was beautiful.  God has given us such a beautiful planet!

Have a wonderful week!

Elder Cummings