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

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

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