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

Remini and Pinkeye

(Anziano Wilkinson)
This week has been a very eventful one. Amid the normal business of teaching lessons and getting things done, Anziano Hansen contracted pinkeye! He is basically all better now, but that put an unexpected twist in our plans. As soon as he wasn't contagious and was feeling better we were back out and working again! I've been spared from it, it seems, but I'm still nervous that I might get it too...

On Tuesday we got to do an exchange with the zone leaders in Rimini, which is one of the most beautiful cities in all of Italy and is known for it's beaches and summer beach parties. I got to spend the whole day getting around in an air conditioned car (a rare luxury as a missionary in this mission!). We got some great work done and I was glad to get to know them better. We spent the next day (today, P-day), with the Anziani from Forlì peddling along the shoreline in a four-person bike. We rented it for two hours and got a pretty solid work out by the end, but it was super fun and absolutely worth it! I'll attach some pictures at the bottom.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about Christlike attributes and the importance of developing them in our lives. Preach My Gospel outlines several of the most important ones like Faith, Hope, Charity, Virtue, Knowledge, Patience, Humility, Diligence, and Obedience. The book explains what each of them are and what blessings come from developing those attributes. It has been said that the character of Christ is what enabled Him to perform the atonement for us. If He was not perfect in character, He would have been just like any of us, but since He was perfect, He was so much more. In this life, we are to strive to be like Him, because God has asked us to "Be... perfect, even as [our] Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). And the promise to this is "happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come" (The Living Christ). As we develop Christlike attributes we progress on the road toward perfection; it's a goal we won't reach in this life, but it is a goal that our Father in Heaven has promised is possible for all of us. Think about the example of Christ this week and contemplate on how you can commit yourself more fully follow Him. There is no greater reward than happiness and no better way to find it than through the example of Christ.

Hope summer is treating you well! Till next week!

-Anziano Jake Wilkinson

Happy Pioneer Weekend

(Sister Ellsworth)

I honestly can't remember much of what happened this week. It seems like it lasted like 2 days!!

I do have a few stories though... So in Portuguese there are two words I get mixed up all the time. The first is "melhor" and the second is "mulher". This becomes a bit of a problem when teaching a male investigator about becoming better through the Atonement. So melhor means better and mulher means woman. I was trying to ask our investigator if get would like to become better, but instead I switched the words on accident and asked him if he would like to become a woman.

WHOOPS!! We had a good laugh about it and now it's the joke of the district :) I'll never switch them again!!

Thanks to those who sent me packages and letters! I had my first Dr. Pepper in four weeks and it was probably the best thing ever, second to the dog I saw last week. We also got our travel plans and I got my visa so I'm for sure heading out to Portugal at 9 am on August 2nd! I'm nervous and so excited! We only have one layover in Amsterdam (how cool is that?).

There is a question I have been pondering this week that was asked by a Sister in my district during Sunday School. She asked, "How would your life change if every choice you made was motivated by love?" Would your life change? Would the lives of those around you be better? How could you change your motivations to be stemmed from love?

Sorry for the short email, but hopefully you all know I still love you. Thank you for your thoughts and support.

Tudo Bem!

Studious Week

Goofy district

Much Love,

Sister Ellsworth

Ten Minutes

(Elder Cummings)
This will have to be extremely short.  I have ten minutes.

This week has been incredible!  I was blessed to see four of the people I have taught and loved enter the waters of baptism!  Brent, Bruce, Heidi, and Meng.  All four of them have been cleansed from sin, all made possible through our Savior, Jesus Christ.  That blessing will continue to reside with them as they continue to endure faithfully in service to the Lord.  A remission of sins is a blessing we receive as a result of a covenant.  We don't keep it when we are not doing our part.

My companionship with Elder Bagley ends tomorrow the same way it did the first time: an emergency transfer to be a zone leader.  I am going to dearly miss Elder Bagley. This is the second time I have been his companion, and the second time our companionship has ended with me being emergency transferred into a zone leader companionship. He just makes the best out of me! I really do love him.

The Lord has a plan for all of us!  I know it!  Christ is absolutely on our side!  He loves us!

With love,

Elder Cummings

Saw a dog and an apostle. NBD.

Hey Yall!!!

This week has been improving with each day! We got to host new missionaries on Wendesday, which means you get out of class for four hours!! It was so much fun and I met new missionaries coming and going to and from all parts of the world. We skipped exercise time because I had hauled eight fifty pound bags up multiple flights of stairs. We might have crashed afterwards.... But Tudo Bem!! After we recovered, we had a normal week.

On Sunday though.... Oh good goodness! First off, I saw a DOG, yes a DOG. We walk up to the temple every Sunday and there was this melt-your-heart, squish-him-to-death puppy walking with his owner around the temple. I got to pet the little boogar and I thought the day could never get better!! I sure miss my doggies! 

Meet the most adorable dog ever... Winston!

Contrary to my expectations, the day did get better. My district and I decided to go to the Choir but apparently so did 1500 other missionaries. Now normally the choir is about 400 missionaries but when I first came it jumped up to 900 because there were a lot of people who came in the same day I did. There are close to 2400 missionaries here now! It was amazing to sing with that many missionaries!! After Choir we had devotional where there's usually a member of the mission presidency who comes and talks to us. Well they started the devotional but there was no one there to speak... we were all convinced it was the prophet because he usually walks in late like that but then they announced that we would be watching The Character of Christ by David A Bednar for the devotional. I was a little surprised because we watch it every sunday night after the normal devotional but tudo bem! Love the talk! Well after it's over and basically my whole district was asleep, people stood up. I stood up and turned to leave and then the Sister next to me gasped and started smacking me.

It was at that moment that I realized that David A Bednar, one of the twelve apostles of Christ, had just walked in and was less than 100 feet away from me. The room was suddenly electrified and everyone was so excited. He then calmly walks up to the microphone and says, " So I heard you guys watch The Character of Christ every Sunday. I came to see if you have any questions."

It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life!!! 

Basically the talk, Character of Christ, is about developing charity and humilty in order to become more Christlike. Here are some of the things I learned:

1. You can develop charity by relying and acknowledging your complete reliance on christ for the desire to become like Him.

2. To develop Christlike love, pray to be a tool for the Savior, for discernment, and for sincerity. 

3. Teach charity though one on one lessons, be an example, learn from your mistakes, and be humble and submissive to the promptings of the Spirit

4. You can become charitable though being good, doing your best, don't beat yourself up, try again, learn from your mistakes, and (most importantly) trust in your faith.

Only the God of Heaven, my loving Heavenly Father could have answered those questions of my heart through the Holy Ghost.

#whenmomssendfood

#popcornparty

#ateeverything

​ Pictures hanging up in our classroom.... We get bored...

​"Look at all the Mormons..." -- Elder Stegman

Tudo Bem!

Much love,

Sister Ellsworth

God's purpose and plan for us

Over the last few weeks I have started making an emphasis on becoming a more effective teacher of the gospel.  Preach My Gospel has some fantastic insights, and I have been able to get good direction on how to go about this.  There is one insight from what I have learned recently that I would like to share with you all.

This morning I was giving some deep thought to the doctrines taught in the section of the Plan of Salvation lesson entitled "Pre-Earth Life: God's Purpose and Plan for Us."  In this section I found a truth in a line that I have read dozens of times before: "God's whole purpose---His work and His glory---is to enable each of us to enjoy all His blessings."  I have always thought of God's purpose as ensuring that we would receive all His blessings.  It is not quite that.  His purpose is to make receiving the blessings possible, and they to allow us to exercise our ability to chose, called moral agency, to live in a way that we can receive those eternal and sacred blessings.  God's purpose, as stated in Moses 1:39, is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."  He has brought them to pass!  They can be ours, if we will accept them by how we lead our lives!

Reading on, we find the truths that, "He has provided a perfect plan to accomplish His purpose...Through His Atonement, Jesus Christ fulfilled His Father's purpose and made it possible for each of us to enjoy immortality and eternal life."  Again, the theme making blessings possible comes up.  We find another gem in here as well, the plan that allowed for the purpose of God to be accomplished is the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ's sacrifice is God's plan for our salvation.  The blessings we received pre-mortally, are receiving mortally, and will receive post-mortally are dependent on the degree to which we accept that glorious Plan into our lives.  The more we are filled with that eternal light the stronger our determination to act in accordance with God's commandments will be.

"Agency, or the ability to choose, is one of God's greatest gifts to His children.  Our eternal progression depends on how we use this gift." (Preach My Gospel, Pre-Earth Life: God's Purpose and Plan for Us).

I have been so blessed to see the blessings of this plan in the lives of many during my service as a missionary for our Savior Jesus Christ---now half over.  Elder Balgley and I have seen a wonderful change occurring in Mai Neng, Tawn, Meng, Danny, Jordan, Mai See, Foua, Leng, Kia, and Michael this last week.  They are all sincere in their search for truth.  They are all children of God, and they seek Him.  I feel so blessed to be witnessing the miracle of conversion in their lives!

It has been a week of blessings!  God's hand is working in the world!  Of this I bear witness.

With love,

Elder Jared Cummings