Hello family! I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day, I know mine was pretty great. We had a barbecue with our whole zone and played soccer and did all kinds of other activities. It was so much fun. The barbecue may not have been as delicious as the barbecue I heard went down at the house, but I still had a lot of fun. It was no all-night smoked brisket and ribs, but the burgers were very tasty. I'm not jealous of your barbecue at all...
A few people have been asking about what my schedule is like and such so I'll just run through a brief overview. We get up usually between 6 and 6:30 and go work out for around 45 minutes or so. Since the weathers been so nice we've just been going running a lot outside. I'm loving it. Then we come back and get ready and have study time for pretty much the whole morning. It is so awesome to have so much time set aside to really get into the scriptures and Preach My Gospel and all the cool things we get to study. Then we go out and visit people, teach lessons, go tracting, etc. until dinner time. Then we eat and do the same thing until it's time to come home and plan and get ready for bed. Some days we have meetings with our district and another day we spend more time planning, but that's basically it. It is really great.
Well things in West Richland have been so great. We've been focusing a lot this week on just talking to as many people as we can and trying to find those people that are searching for something. We had a really cool experience while we were out tracting the other day. We knocked on a door and were talking to a lady that is a member of the big baptist church in town where she is very happy. We asked her if she knew of anyone that could benefit from the message we share about Jesus Christ and she mentioned a family that lived down another street that seemed like they could use a visit. We decided to go down the street she mentioned even though it wasn't on our original plan and we decided we would knock all the doors on the way to the house since it was a short street. We ended up running into a member who hasn't been able to come to church in a while because of his job, but his job just changed and now he should be able to come to church and his wife has been looking for a church to go to! It was so crazy. There wasn't anyone else home on the entire street (we don't even know if the house the other lady told us about has anyone living in it), but we know that the Lord guided us to that street and that family.
Another really special experience for us was when we went to go visit a member who wasn't active for a long time, but is now doing super awesome. We went over to go visit him and just see how he's been doing and Sister Crandall asked him about what it was that got him coming back to church again. He talked about how he was baptized a long time ago and just a short while after he got baptized he joined the military and went and served in Vietnam. He talked about how after the war it was really hard for him to go to church because he would just think of all the bad things that had happened and what he'd done wrong and he just couldn't bring himself to go anymore. He eventually just stopped going all together and went on living life. He then got really quiet and really emotional as he talked about how there were 2 sister missionaries who came to his door around 3 years ago. He invited them in and they talked to him about the Atonement and Jesus Christ understands what we have all gone through. It was amazing to see how much hope he got in that one visit from the sister missionaries and it testified to me that I am doing exactly what I need to be doing right now. It was a really cool experience. I am so grateful for the Atonement in my life, for the knowledge I have of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for me and I am so happy that I get to share that message for the next 18 months.
I love you all so much, thanks to all those who have sent letters and love so far. It truly is amazing how awesome letters are. Everyone stay safe, especially you, Kirsten Siebach, since apparently I can't leave without you going and breaking your ankle in a kickball game. That was a terrible idea. Keep being amazing!
Sister Ellingson
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