April 30th

FAMILY! How are all of you doing?! How happy I am to be emailing you today and what a wonderful first 5 days I've had at the MTC. Things here happen so quickly, after Mom and Stef dropped me off I was taken to my room, given some materials, got my name tag and went right to my classroom where I met my district and my companions. You heard right, I have 2 companions! Sister Bonner is from Bountiful, UT and is going to Toronto, Canda! She'll be leaving on the same flight at Elder Rodee (we see each other every once in a while, it's great). Sister LaRue was born in Hawaii, but has lived in Missouri with her family most of her life. We get along so well and I love them both so much! We have a ton of fun together. We have 4 elders in our district, all going to the Houston South Mission, we like talking about Texas together. Elder MacCarthy, Elder Fellows, Elder Sami, and Elder Suggs are so awesome. We have 3 districts in our zone/branch and we love everyone a lot. We're sad because our other English district is leaving this week for the field, but we're excited to not be the newbies anymore. Life here in the MTC is so fantastic. There is such a strong spirit here that just makes you happy. We're learning so much at once, but it isn't as overwhelming as I thought it would be. The Lord truly is blessing us. One of our teachers is from Tri-cities and so he's told me so fun things about the mission. We've already taught 2 lessons together and we feel like we're starting to figure some things out. Sundays are wonderful here. We have sacrament meeting with our branch, relief society with all the sisters in the MTC and a fireside in the evening. This week we had the director of missionary services, Robert Swenson, come and speak yesterday and he gave such an awesome talk about how missionary work can be happy, fun, rewarding, and productive at the same time. It was awesome. He talked about how important this calling is and that it's a calling extended to us that we accepted. We're meant to be here, we've all been called for a reason. It was pretty powerful stuff. One of my favorite things about Sunday was that I got to go to choir practice. We're singing Jesus, Once of Humble Birth. I guess I had never really taken the time to look through and really read the lyrics, but we did during practice and it has such a powerful message! The whole song is a built upon the verse before, starting with the humble origins of Jesus' birth and building up to His great glory and reign. I recommend everyone take the time to really take a look at the song and feel the power of it. Our director reminded us of how important Jesus Christ is. He is our Savior, He is our Redeemer. He is our message. Everything else comes down to the simple message that God loves us so much that He sent His son as a sacrifce for the sins and imperfections of the world. I know that He died for me and He now lives for me. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God given to guide us and direct us in these latter-days. I know that Joseph Smith was called of God to bring about the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I love this gospel, I love my Savior, I love you all. Sister Ellingson