What another amazing week we had. The week was a little rainier than is usual for the tri-cities in June, but I loved it. It's been staying pretty cool here. Our week started with an AWESOME lesson with Scott and Cathryn, we love teaching them so much. Cathryn has just been so solid lately and Scott has made such big strides. He told us about what he's been learning when they read the scriptures together and he makes really insightful comments in the lesson. It's just fantastic, our lessons with them always make us smile. We watched Finding Faith in Christ with them this week and talked a lot about what Jesus Christ means in our lives and Scott and Cathryn both talked about how much of a positive change they've seen in their lives as they build their faith in Christ. Another great lesson we had this week was with a less-active member that we recently found out lives in our ward. We decided that we wanted to study the Book of Mormon with her and her husband and so we started in the Introduction and just talked about how it came about and how important it is. It was a really good discussion to have with them and we can't wait to start reading together this week.
We had a lot of really fun dinner appointments this week, but I just want to talk about one because it was so fun. We were eating with some members in one of our wards and they have 4 kids, 3 daughters and 1 son. Their oldest daughter is 9 and then the youngest is almost 2. Almost the whole dinner was spent talking about how the kids want to all serve missions and how cool being a missionary must be and how they can't wait for the chance to do it and where they want to serve their missions. It was ADORABLE. These kids just have so much love for the gospel and they just want to talk to all their friends about it! We gave them a challenge as a family to think of someone they could give a Book of Mormon to and the kids were so excited. They told us they would come tell us the story at church after they give it away, we can't wait to hear all about it. We had another really fun moment with some members when we stopped by to follow up with a challenge we'd left with another family a few weeks back. It was around 8 when we stopped by and when they came to answer the door they invited us right in and told us they were hoping we would stop by that night because they had a bunch of leftover steak from dinner they wanted to share with us. So we pretty much got a second dinner, complete with corn on the cob and homemade rolls. It was delicious. This family has a son on his mission in New Mexico right now and they LOVE missionaries. It is just incredible to see so much love for missionary work and to feel how strong the spirit is in their home. We got to talk about setting up a time to come and share a video with them about missionary work and it was just great.
We had another really cool moment that made me very grateful for the chance I have to be a missionary. We were at a lesson with our Ward Mission Leader when he shared a story about his cousin who served her mission in Sweden and he talked a little bit about his conversion story and the missionaries who patiently taught him. As he spoke he got very emotional as he described his gratitude for missionaries and the sacrifices they make to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I was very touched by his testimony of missionary work and I am so thankful that the Lord has trusted me enough to come out here and teach His sons and daughters. We had a baptism on Saturday for a young man the elders have been teaching for 2 years and it was amazing to see how many people were there to support him at his baptism. It was a very special service. I am grateful for missionary work and I know the Lord's hand is ever present in it. I am grateful every day for the Lord's guidance in finding and teaching His children. I am grateful to be a missionary.
Sister Ellingson
PS- thanks to all those that have been sending letters, I appreciate them SO MUCH. I love them
PPS- This weekend made me thankful that the tri-cities is small because we ran into Sam and Chelsie! It was so fun to see them. The other picture is a really cool rainbow we saw after a big storm that rolled through.
LOVE YOU ALL!!!
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