shrimp delivered.

March 9, 2014

okey day. here we go!

as usual... this week was crazy. i think i thought that the work would slow down when i left bangkok to go to the boonies. (sister mullen and i lovingly refer to it as a 4-7 town. which basically means that it ONLY has 4 7-11 stores. which is CRAZY considering the thai people worship 7. not really. but they have almost as many sevens as they have wats.)

monday. didn't do much. we live in a hotel... so making oatmeal every morning with no microwave... is a little impossible. so we went to the store to find adequate morning food for the limited and meager circumstances we have in our room. namely an electric wok and a fridge. probably spent more msf than was necessary... but the popsicles i got will definitely come in handy on hot days when i feel like i'm going to die. which is quite frequently. i saw a picture from ben showing the snow up to his shoulders... and his ipad... and i though... what? that's not missionary work! at least not in thailand.... they give us bricks to use as phones. maybe it's because they know that when we get frustrated speaking in thai that we need to throw something... and they know the phones better be able to stand it. ;) 

sister mullen likes to plan in an hour of "lay on my bed and think about stuff" time on p-days. with the new mormon messages that we got last week... i can say that we successfully accomplished that. there really isn't that much to do here. sometime here in the future we are going to go to sukothai... but we thought about it at 8:30 last night... and decided against it. 

i'm always amazed at the miracles we get. we had 4 people committed to be baptized on the 16th this week. one of them...may or may not have dropped us. but that's beside the point. she DID want to be baptized... there's just some problem with her boyfriend. drat. we went contacting for a day and got 5 really solid numbers. i don't know what we did that day... but both sister mullen and i knew that it was different. we just felt so good about them all! they kind of proved all of our typical steriotypes wrong. like the people by the river that sell little fish in bags. (i have no idea why)... and the lady lounging on her cart that is attached to her scooter. we both knew that you NEVER get these people's numbers. they are always "not free"... but for whatever reason... this was the day that EVERYTHING was trying to teach us something. the day that i was NOT wanting to go contacting... that it was soooooooooooo hot... i think the lord wants us to go through those little decisions within ourselves.... overcoming my personal laziness and desires to do what i know he needs me to do. THEN the miracles happen. it's great. it's SO WONDERFUL! 

thursday. zone training. you know what that means? 3 hour bus ride to the Pitz. (ok. it's really called pitsanulok...) but it is the PITS. the HOTTEST place in thailand. on a bus. whose shocks... were SHOT. oh. but i loved it so much. :) and then an hour meeting with the THAI zone leaders... never had a zone meeting ALL in thai before. that was interesting. then another 3 hour bus ride home. all in all... a fantastic day! which ended with a scripture study class with a few members of the ward. 

this transfer is so different than the others... if we don't have a lesson... we have no less-active members. AT ALL. so what else can we do? we go inviting. 

i'll never think that 2 hours of contacting is hard EVER AGAIN. 

by the time we finished close to 5 hours in one day this week.... 2 hours was sounding like a party. 

one night this week we went "attack contacting" (can you imagine the elders giving it any other name?) which basically consisted of us going to the market, and all standing in the same area.... talking to everyone that passed. most people... probably talked to 4 missionaries by the time they actually GOT to the market. it was fun. you wanna be baptized? you're getting baptized? why not? are you sure? or something close to that effect. 

we had the district leader from chaing mai come down this last weekend to see our small little "group" and its progress. we were... a little stressed that we wouldn't get people to church. (like most missionaries EVERYWHERE.) so before the meeting started we're calling EVERYONE in our phones... telling them to get to church. 32 at church. that started in december. it was a miracle. we want to have 40 there by the end of the transfer. heavenly father can do it. now he's just waiting for his little helpers here in kamphaengphet to get out and hit the pavement to find some people! 

it was really neat though. it was 10:00 and none of our people had showed up. i thought balanced had drifted out the window... but! a miracle! (oh me of little faith... again!) 2 investigators walked in the door 5 minutes after the meeting started. 

and they liked it! 

one of them smokes. drinks coffee. and isn't married to his "wife". (yes. that is a thing in thailand.) but he wants to get baptized. he's quitting them all. and he's going to marry his wife when she gets back from bangkok. 

his name is also shrimp. (just a funny side note.)

we had shrimp delivered. yuk. yuk. yuk. (that's a giggle.)

life is crazy. it's busy. but i feel your prayers every single day. 

know how much they are appreciated!!!!

and i'll eat some mango sticky rice for you. ;) 

love you!

sister ellis

 

too funny i couldn't NOT take a picture. cute little chubby kid on the workout equiptment

me and sista mullen. she loves crunching leaves. 

the leaves here... are GINORMOUS! 

 

updates from kamphaengp​het.

March 2, 2014

i think i went from one end of the spectrum to the other. the "high life" in bangkok... with lots of traffic, lights and noise... to dead quiet country-life. it's great. i miss the city, but i love this place so much!

the cool thing, with this area being so new, is that it's all up to us. like EVERYTHING. there are 2 long-time members here. and noone really knows what is going on. except the missionaries. so, we give talks. we lead the music. we play the piano. (oh... THAT'S an experience. hearing thai people sing. pretty much 100% tone deaf.) but they try so hard! :) it makes me so grateful every day for the wonderful members that we have. they all have been baptized since (at the earliest) december. most within the last 2 months. they went from being buddhist to christian, and changed everything about their lives. it makes me wonder what i would be willing to give up for god. sometimes a mission just seems like the beginning. 

most young men in thailand are expected to be monks when they turn 21 to honor their family. we had an awesome experience with one of our recent converts that was asking what that meant now that he's a member of our church. the missionary said that it has been done before, but that you really aren't supposed to do it. the kid turned around and basically said that nope. he wouldn't do it. if god said you weren't supposed to, that's all there was to it. i'm constantly amazed at their faith. 

on a lighter note... it was basically their first fast sunday yesterday. i've never seen so many sad faces... ;) but it was the cutest thing ever! i just kept praying that they would see some blessings come from it other than grumbly tummies... 

we did have a recent convert get up and give a talk. i was so proud of her! her name is blue. (like the sky... as she informed us.) she's pretty much the first one that has given a real "talk"... not just standing up and bearing her testimony. oh. things are so great. so wonderful. 

even though we basically... are at square one. we don't have any investigators. we have one "dater"... and he lost his phone while coming to our appointment last week... who knows if we'll see him ever again! it only can go up from here. but everything else is so great... i can see how much heavenly father is helping us here. the investigators will come. the baptisms will come. everything will work out. 

i was trying to think about what i should write... 

i thought... what DID we do this week? we walked. outside. ALL day. since we don't have any real investigators... our focus has been on inviting people. we get a few numbers... some of which aren't real. (that's a bit of a bummer... we have come up with a solution though! ask them to repeat it twice. ha. ha. ha.) i don't think i've ever sweat so much in my entire life. it's gross. and yet i'm happy? seems a little odd. 

so. thailand. has three seasons. hot. hotter. hottest. it's true. but usually the hotter is mixed with rain. i'm not looking forward to hottest. which is what happens in april. (scared face) then - on to hotter! i'm interested in where i will be when the rains hit. 

not that i'm trying to predict where i'll be... but who is going to stay here and if we are both going to stay here... is up in the air. sister mullen wants to die here. me... i love these people, but i'm always game for a new adventure. whatever the lord decides to throw at me. i found a scripture in 2 corinthians. 8:12. 

it took a whole new meaning on for me this week. it doesn't matter if i can or can't speak thai. it's all about my willingness to do this work. whether i'm going to go out in the hot sun and bear the heat in order to invite people to be baptized and come unto christ... or if i'm going to complain the whole time. 

we were challenged in our district meeting to focus on diligence this week. i feel like my willingness has been tried. especially on days when i feel like my skin is melting off my bones... but we went out, we got some numbers... we conquered! :) 

it's the little things. the little steps. i started out contacting yesterday thinking... right foot. left foot. now the right one again. pretty soon we were down the street. then we were down another one. just focusing on that simple movement made everything else easier. 

oh. and baptism yesterday. 

happened a little later than normal. 

so. river baptism. 

in the dark. 

so awesome. 

 

alrighty! that's it for this week! love you and and keep fighting the good fight!!! :) 

sister ellis

 

i can't get away. even at lunch. ;)

our cute little "unit"

 

big city girl

February 23, 2014 

... is now in hick-ville thailand! 

but seriously. 

i went from the bustling streets of bangkok (a move from new york city) to kamphaengphet (to weiser, idaho)...

it was a little bit of a change. 

but SO great!

the back story. i was pretty sure i was moving last monday. i could feel it in my bones. it was either that or white-washing the area... which wasn't sounding so great. so i was praying that half of our companionship would stay. sister phelps must have been praying for herself... so here i am! monday night. we get the call! (i was excited by the way...) but we didn't get to find out until thursday where we'd go. i was praying for chaing mai.... not quite. but i'm in the north. actually... it's pretty close to smack dab in the middle of the country. and quiet. 

the cool thing? they opened this area last transfer. 4 stellar elders... 3 of which died this last transfer. (died = went home) and then they replaced two of them with sisters (ME! and my companion. sister mullen.) another cool factoid? her family is from here. her MOM is from this city. met her husband (sister mullens dad/return missionary from thailand that came back to visit and then met his wife) here. so we basically went to family dinner last night. 

it's different from bangkok. less english. ha. international ward? i think not! 

my "group" is made up of about 10 members. all recent converts in the last 2 months. except for about 2 of them that have been long-time members. how active in that time... i'm not so sure. but me and my companion are older than all but 3 of the members... such an interesting experience! 

and i'm loving it. 

we took a bus at 11:30 at night from bangkok. and got to kamphaengphet at 4:30 in the morning. gotta love elders and members that sacrifice their sleep that come to pick us up in their truck... or i'd probably still be dragging my suitcases to the hotel. (we live in a hotel by the way.) 

my bed... kinda feels like a plywood board... 

my shower... IS the bathroom. now THAT was weird. there's just a shower attached to the wall. the dilemma... do i go to the bathroom on the wet toilet or do i hold it? 

i gave a talk in sacrament. apparently i'll be doing that for the next 9 weeks...

oh. and i was on the radio. our RC's have a radio station apparently... 

"call in and talk to the tall farang!" i can't believe people actually took them up on that... 

we did actually advertise for teaching the gospel and english. 

but it was still weird. 

definitely not my comfort zone. but since when has a mission EVER been in my comfort zone? i've long since decided that i gave up my ability to be afraid when i decided to serve a mission. which has been one of the hardest things to learn... and one of the greatest blessings too. 

a random thought. on spiritual matters. i read 2 peter 1 today. for a whole hour. and tried to wrap my head around it. i still don't understand it... but i just loved how it seemed to build. because we have knowledge of god, we receive his promises. he promises us eternal life IF we are diligent to do the things that he commands us. he commands us to become like him. (the whole "add to faith, virtue" thing.) i need to study it more. but i'm constantly amazed at how much i learn from the scriptures. every single time i decide to do more than just let my eyes gaze over the words. when i actually try to understand... i realize how much i still don't understand. and how much more heavenly father is willing to give me. i ask... and he gives me the knowledge i need and what i desire. 

well... that's it for today! i love you all tons!  

sister ellis

 

 

brother north. the coolest member ever. he would sleep in til noon and we'd call him at 10 to have him help us with lessons all the time. i'll always remember him answering the phone "hellllllllloooo???"

you will see a trend with heights....

 

Talk about likening the scriptures unto yourself. 1ne. 19:23

this might be what my companion and i do when we have a rough week....

BOOK OF EMILIEYA

 

Chapter 1

1. I Emilieya (Nickname sister) Having been born of goodly parents, therefore i was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the lord in all my days yea, having a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceeding in my 9 month, 2 week mark in the state of Thailand as sernior companion with Jessikiah as my truested fruit of my loins(I am her second mother)

2. And it came to pass, In the 4th year of the reign of Obama I make a record of the course of my dealing in Thailand over the last week. As I was tarrying in the large freshly cutfield of grass  in the park of Pak kret Prophesieying unto the people that they must repent or the great spirit they possess will be destroyed. I recieved a call from an aquantance.

3.Wherefore it came to pass that my acquaintances, the elders, went forth and prayed unto the Lord yea, even to know which direction of the changwattana street to go on, they came across a man, whose stature was average among the rest, whose asian eyes were no smaller than the next, and they cried unto him saying: "Behold, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,"

4.And It came to pass that this man, thus overcame with the spirit did not understand the language thus spoken, He said unto the Elder, "Woah be unto you, you see that I am Asian amongst the THais but nevertheless I speak only the Language of my fathers, which is chinese and some english."

5.And after this manner, elder thus said unto the chinese gentile do not fear god is with my sister missionary i will callest upon them.

6And now, I Emilieya do not make a full account of the things which the elder spoken unto the chinese gentile for i hath written many things unto the multitudes of people in america concerning these things. And after many days of learning from the missionaries. Jay had come to know of these things for himself and he thus rejoiced and his whole heart was filled.

           JST: and it came to pass that they said unto him: behold, here are the waters of pakkret (for thus was the font called) and now, as ye are desirous to come unto the chaengwattana branch, and to be called a brother, and are willing to obey the word of wisdom, come to church every sunday, obey the law of chastity and pay your tithing...that ye may have eternal life? now we say unto you, if this be the desire of your heart, what have you against being baptized this sunday at 4:00? and hnow when jay heard these words, he clapped his hands for joy, and exclaimed "this is the desire of my heart!" 

mosiah 18:8-11

8 And the people did mock him because of the believings of him. Jay said unto a pharasee "Everyone believeth what they knoweth, i will praise my god forever, let us eat some lunch and be friends." but the trouble pharasee rejected him....

9. Meanwhile I emilieya suffereth from a pinched nerve, therefore, i make a record of my proceeding in my bed. The lord alloweth me to take the taxi and the song tows but I must not rde the bicycle until further tomorrow. But I will go and do the things which the lord hath commandeth me. For I know the Lord giveth no commandment unto the children of men save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.

10. There fore jay suffereth for his country hath no freedom in reliegion and was concered for his future, he debathath whether the promis with thy god is the right path. But I knoweth that the lord will not give a commandment that his children can not keep. therefore jay truteth the lord with all his hear and leaned no to his own understanding in all his ways he shall acknowledge him and he knoweth that the god will direct his path.

11. ANd it came to pass that for the space of 12 hours jay cried unto the GOd and looketh upon lds.org for answers to his soul. 

12. And it came to pass that I sister did cause a lot of heartache for i did care so much about jay. And after 1 dinner and 1 breakfast we did call upon the chinese gentile and did talk with him for the space of many minutes and he shareth his concerns for his country of the problem. We understood him not for we were put in the promise land since birth but we did exclaim unto him the dsires of our hearts.

13. And it came to pass after the space of many minutes jay explained to I , Emilieya and my companion Jessikiah that he will not partake of the blessings from God this week. For he hath saith unto us "Verily Verily, I will think upon the disires of my heart because I know these things are true, I don't want to change myself just yet."

    JST-and we spoke unto jay, and now remember, rememeber our brother, behold, you are free; ye are permitted to act for yourself; for behold, god has given you this knowledge and he has made you free. He has given unto you that you might know good from evil...

helaman 14:30-31

14. The lord hath called us to labor for his work. He saith unto us, "The field is white already to harvest go out iwth you sickle and gather mine elect."

15. Therefore with this counsel we found the Elect with thy god. But didn't baptize many nations (Even CHina)

16. Now when our hearts were depressed and we were about to turn back behold the lord comforted us and said, "Go amongst thy bretheren, the asians, and bear with patience thine affliction, and I will give you sucess."

17.And Now behold, we have come, and been forth umongst them and we have been patient in our suffering which consists of pinched limbs, sore necks, and hurt bums, yea, we have travelevd from house to house, park to park, grocery store to grocery store, relying upon the mercies of the world alone but up one the mercies of God.

18. And we have entered into their houses and taught them, and we have taught them in their streets, yea, and we have taught them upon their hills, and we have also entered into their temples and the mosques and taught them (Just kidding about that one.) and we have been rejected, and mocked, and called beautiful by crazies, been chased, and we have been laguhed at, and were told by the many multitudes "Behold, i am buddah" (true story people can't say i'm buddist in english so they say i'm budda) But through the power and wisdom of God we have been delievered again.

19.And it came to pass that preperation day came near and we rejoiced and prepared for TRANSFERS that cometh on Thursday. Jessikiah and I await patiently....

    JST and now, because i am a farang (a white person), and have spoken unto you the words which the lord hath commanded me, and because it was in poor thai, and you like worshipping little gold statues... you thought that you could just walk by me and not listen to my message! but ye SHALL hear my words (for i will follow you) for this intent have i come upon your bridges, and your sidewalks, and your malls... and your 7-11s... that ye might hear and know of Jesus Christ and of baptism. (helaman 14:11-12)

yea, i say unto you, that the more part of the missionaries are doing this, and they are striving with unwearied diligence that they may bring the remainder of their asian brethren to the knowledge of the truth; therefore there are many who do add to their numbers weekly. yea, they did wax strong in their knowledge of their God, in their faith, and in their ability to speak thai. (helaman 15:6)

JST: JesSikiah Translations

Excerpts from the missionary Jessikiah's translations of the Book of Emilieya. Short excerpts are provided after verses. Longer excerpts are not provided because there are better things to do with a missionaries time. 

Cross References (1 Nephi 1, 1Ne. 3:7, D&C 29:7, D&C 4, Alma 26:27-29, Proverbs 3:5)

thoughts on a rough week.

February 16, 2014

this week was a different kind of week for me.

remember training? that lonely desert land.... that tests and tries every bit of your sanity and makes you seriously reflect on the reasons why you decided to come on a mission in the first place...? i am glad that season on my life is over. but what i learned this week is that trials... they never end. 

two weeks ago we got an awesome referral from the elders in our district. lucky us... being the only missionaries in the international ward... we get ALL of the referrals for the international people around us. (they have the other international sisters downtown... we get everything that is too far away from them.) so. ching chong. chen zhen. or... as we like to call him, jay... came to church. and stayed for a baptism. and you could SEE the light in his face. you could see the spirit working in him. over the next week, we had many awesome lessons. he is super intelligent. (maybe too much for his own good...) but had the best questions. we taught him everything. a couple of times he came to our lessons... "i was reading on the website... and it says you can't drink beer." and by the end of the lesson, he told us that he wouldn't drink beer anymore. or coffee. or tea. the next lesson we had a chinese member help us. he went off for about 15 minutes in chinese (no... the gift of tongues didn't exactly work...) but she turned to us and started talking about tithing. 

what? we haven't taught him that yet! 

"but he said he read it on the website..." 

oh boy. 

"but he's willing to pay it." 

what????

long story short. people's agency. i can't stand it sometimes. it is the best gift that we've been given. and probably the single-most aggravating thing in missionary work. when you KNOW that they KNOW it is true. you can see it change them. and then they still choose... other stuff. 

that's the rough-ness of this week. 

we started this week fairly sure that we would have a baptism yesterday, and by thursday night, that pretty much disappeared. it was actually REALLY depressing. i don't think i could have taken a break-up any worse.... it just hurt my heart. now i actually understand what all of those missionaries talked about. bringing someone sooooo close! and watching them choose not to follow. 

we're not giving up. (just in case you were wondering.) 

but this week as a whole was just hard. 

blazing heat.

super humid. i don't know what happened... but it's back to the you-step-outside-and-you-sweat feeling again. i liked the brief "winter" here...

sister phelp's pinched nerve. no biking. no fast walking... 

getting approximately 2 numbers while contacting... ALL week.

and then... no one deciding that they had time to meet with us. 

like a knife to the heart!

so. i bet you are thinking... 

1. jess is just being whiney

2. her life really does kinda stink right now.

in my opinion. it is neither. 

i learned a lot from this week. 

a lot about the kind of missionary that i want to be. there are times when i think it would be soooo great just to sleep in every morning. or to not go outside and deal with the heat. and then... i'm stuck inside all day and that's ALL i WANT to do. heavenly father has a funny way of showing me what i really want out of life. it's just funny when i have to see the OPPOSITE to really understand it. 

i was reading about job this morning. 

he had it pretty rough. 

and... i realized my life: sore neck, pinched nerves, inability to bike, being stood-up, people not answering their phones... it's not really that bad. 

i was talking to the district leader the other night. and he said something i want to remember forever. "if you aren't facing opposition, you aren't doing something right." 

alright then heavenly father. i get it. opposition. is good. now what?

i'm not giving up. 

press forward. 

endure.

firm and steadfast. 

those are the words that keep coming to my mind. 

satan is going to keep trying to stop the work. to keep us from doing good. his opposition won't go away. so the only thing that we can do is work HARDER and be just as annoying to him as he is to us. 

all right. nuf said.

time to go annoy satan. 

love you all! 

sister ellis

 

me and my คู่! (it's amazing how long it takes me to spell the word "companion" in thai...) 

the cutest recent converts ever! 

 

i'm sensing a trend with height here......

at a japanese grill with the district.

this does actually say pepsi. it's not squiggles i swear.

little spirit house. they build them when they build a building... so that the spirit of the "place" has somewhere to live. 

 

building a stake in 2 weeks.

February 9, 2014

that's what we do here.

apparently we've baptized too many people in the last few months. or that was the excuse that we heard when we assembled together for a super-secret meeting with the mission and district president. to discuss how we were going to reactivate 9 Melchizedek priesthood holders and get them to pay tithing. because that is all that is currently standing in the way of our little district here finally becoming a stake! it's pretty thrilling actually...  

the problem with less actives is their agency. actually... that's the problem with people in general. we can teach them and you KNOW they feel the spirit. but sometimes they just don't do what you want them to. and sometimes they decide not to do what they KNOW is right. like meeting with us and answering our phone calls. we don't give up though. why? cuz we're the annoying missionaries... ;)

i was told that i had license to be annoying... 

my companion and i were giving a lesson this week (since sometimes it is easier to re-use and recycle lessons instead of expending massive amounts of brainpower to come up with new ideas every day...) on 1 nephi 17:13. i hadn't quite thought about it in the way she presented it. we all have our wildernesses. but the lord promises to lead us through them all. he will be our light. 

then... inspiration hit. (i LOVE those moments!) and i thought about matthew 5:14-16 (no.... i'm not the brilliant missionary that knows those references off the top of her head... i had to look it up.) which is also in 3 nephi 12:14-16 (nifty though that it is the same verse numbers.) not only is christ OUR light... but he has called US to be a light. i wonder where our light comes from........ anyone? bueller? 

we had a man come to church last week... and we met with him twice this week. he's on fire. and he also manages to have the LONGEST lessons EVER. we really try to get them to be short... but for one reason or another... it just never happens that way. but miracles still abound. he is from china. and as far as i knew, the family that lives in our ward only spoke cantonese (the husband served his mission in canada and met his wife in hong kong.) miracles... those darn things! turns out she speaks fluent mandarin too. so they helped us teach TWO chinese investigators this week. we're hoping that he'll be all ready to be baptized this weekend.... so. funny story. (you ready for this?) 

i was talking to the district leader on saturday night. he asks if i have anyone that he can pray for. i start listing off the people that told us they were coming to church. "pray for toothless... ching chong... and the girl on the bridge..." his response: "sister! you realize that i do have to pray for these people!" hmmmm... maybe i should work on remembering their real names....

sacrament meeting is always good. i know that when i get transferred (a VERY likely probability on the 20th of this month) i am going to miss the english. but i also know that it will be VERY good for my language. i personally think that heavenly father knew that i would need a little english to keep me sane..... but charisa got her holy ghost! and i've never seen anyone so happy! :) ok. i might have almost been as happy for her... 

so what started as a rough week... actually ended so great! we managed to make it out for about 3 hours on tuesday, but went home because i felt like i had been hit by a truck... and slept. poor sister phelps brought home a stack of ensigns... i think they saved her from going totally insane. but i woke up the next day feeling like a new person. and an energized missionary. miracles.... a guy we met in the beginning of january and told us to call him after the 28th came to church (aka toothless) and said he liked it so much he'll come next week! gotta love changing people's lives... 

well... i think that's all the jabbering i can do for today! (don't want to bore anyone...) 

but i love hearing how the lord works not just in thailand, but around the whole world! it's so wonderful. and the best part - IT'S TRUE! 

love you all!!!

sister ellis

 

 

where we ate dinner. ha. 

a dr suess tree. no leaves. 

 

pre-massacre



post-massacre

a little reminder.... it's written in english. arabic. AND thai. 

 

i blinked...

February 2, 2014

ANOTHER week has come and gone. this one... actually seems to have evaporated into thin air. i don't know where it went.

actually i do.

now i just have to decide if i want to build up... or say the big news first. i'll let you decide!

monday. we went to ayuttaya! take two for the ancient capital of thailand... old ruins, giant buddha statues... no sunburn this time (thank goodness!). i did eat very strange fish balls on a stick, which kind of resembled the taste of frozen fish sticks. but then they cover them with this delicious sauce... and i was in heaven. the cool thing about thailand is that you NEVER need to cook. you can find every meal on the street. and you could eat a whole day for under $5. and that's even being generous. if you REALLY wanted to go crazy... you could snack and still probably be under that limit. 

they have tons of meat-on-a-stick. i don't really know what half of it is... i usually try and stick with the more distinguishable meats... like chicken. the strange round balls of... mystery meat? i don't usually go for those. we had them at a members house one time... and i decided i was happier before. ;)

tuesday. was a fairly typical tuesday. we go to district meeting. where we talked about expectations and faith. elder yuen drew a picture about the tide. showing us two different levels. and then he drew waves at the two different levels. "you see this lower level? this might have been you before the mission, or even in the mtc. you had good days and bad days. but even on your best days before, you still never were as high as you are even now on a bad day." it really helped me to realize something. there are days (and probably weeks) when i feel like... poo. but i look back at where i've come from, and i see how much higher and better i am now. (which reminds me of another story i heard in church yesterday about minecraft. who would have thunk i would hear about that here???) minecraft story: they talked about a video that shows someone working through a maze. it takes about 10 minutes. then they finally reach the end. and they are able to look down from a hill at everything they have just come through. and the maze looks... easy. it didn't seem that way at the time. but they understand what they had to come through, and though at the time it didn't seem easy, they look back now and see how far they have come. my lesson from tuesday? we're always growing. we're always stretching. and one day... we'll be at the top of the hill... and look back at everything that we've done. and we'll realize how much we actually WERE doing and how far we HAVE come! 

wednesday... ohhhh wednesday!

we had a great couple of lessons. with a fantastic sri lankan family that got baptized a year ago and is planning on going to the temple! we love them sooooo much. they are sooooo wonderful!!! i just can't even say enough wonderful things about them!!!!! and then we had dinner at a member house. she's thai. but her and her husband have a thai restaurant in the states. they brought their daughter back to learn english. she fed us kfc. did i mention they have soooo many of them here??? 

we had an appointment at the church. so we had to bike 30+ minutes back to the church at mach 10 in order to get there. we had some really GREAT investigators. and guess what. they aren't in our area - AGAIN! it was like ALL of last month came right back again and slapped us in the face. we went home. sooo ticked. (not very missionary-like...) as we were going home... i had thoughts like "why should i even try anymore... if nothing is going to work my way???" and other depressing variations. i won't share any more. but as we got close to home, i felt like we should try to contact. just for the last hour that we had left. not like ANY of our baptisms have EVER come from contacting. i just felt like my faith was very small. i asked sister phelps if we could do that. and i also felt like we should start with a prayer. ok. we told him we'd had a hard day and needed some help. and we asked for a miracle. and more faith. 

i've never had as much fun contacting! i don't know what happened... but everything was different. probably just me. but it seemed like everything. and then the miracle. right before we planned on turning back (you see where this is going??) we talked to some people. i was talking to a guy wearing a headband. very nice. marginally interested. sister phelps was talking to a woman. turns out they were together. and we BOTH had wonderful conversations. and they were BOTH interested in learning. guess who came to church with us yesterday? :D

suffice it to say. i came home feeling very blessed and humbled. 

thursday. we had struggled having a whole lot of success this week with getting all of the lessons we needed... thursday didn't help. but we spent a few wonderful hours talking to a new sister that moved into the english branch and helping her get her house organized. she reminds me of my mom... she said that she graduated in nursing... but got into staging houses because she just has "the eye". and she gave us homemade banana bread. and she has a craft area in her bedroom...

friday. everything pit. (how do you say that in english??? cancelled? fell-through? something like that...) we had zone training. 164 baptisms in January. a miracle. in our zone alone last month we had 30 something baptisms.... compared to 5 a year ago. the work is truly hastening. 

we were also told to have 3 days of food storage. our solution: mcdonald's delivers.

saturday. our two miracle people from wednesday showed up! (i was losing faith in ALL investigators...) we had a great lesson with them. our member did most of the talking. that's only a problem when they have preach my gospel memorized... my favorite line was when he asked, "have you ever seen the rain? that's when heaven cries because there is so much evil in the world..." i don't know about that... 

sunday. wow. definitely the most stressful day of the week for a missionary. especially a missionary WITH A BAPTISM!!! :) 

 

charisa called us on monday and asked if she could get her interview this week. sure. just twist my arm. ;) she passed. and elder yuen just said she was soooo ready! she'd been out of bangkok for about a month (since before transfers) and NO ONE believed that she actually existed! i'll show you all...

so she got baptized yesterday. 

it was so wonderful. 

a few highlights. "i'd like to bear my testimony... i want to be baptized RIGHT NOW." - little kyle purdue (age 3?) 

charisa: "where's my holy ghost?" maybe we forgot to mention you have to come next week to get that. it's a trick we missionaries play to make sure that you keep coming to church... ;)

they made us go back home last night. no going anywhere else. the rest of the world could go crazy... but we were going to be inside. trying to sleep and feel better... since sickness decided to claim both me and my companion this weekend.

the work still goes on! 

i love you all!

and keep looking for those little miracles in your life - i promise they are there! 

love 

sister ellis

 

ayuattaya!

everything comes in these baggies. it is an art form to get the bag full of air like this.

how my comp prays.

masks given to us by a less-active member fearing for our health.

typical transportation in Thailand.

 

I really don't know what to write today.

January 26, 2014

I was talking to my companion... we do that a lot... and we were both amazed at how fast this last transfer has gone by. It's scary. If it keeps going like this... I'm going to be on a plane home and have no idea how I got there!

It's so good too. The time seems to evaporate, but I write it all down, so hopefully I get to remember it when I get home too. Because right now, it's all blurring by. It's crazy compared to the 9 week eternity that training seemed to be. Training. Wow. It's an experience that I don't wish on anyone. I learned so much... and it was probably the hardest 9 weeks of my life. I would take biochemistry AND pathophysiology anyday. 

But it gets better. SO MUCH BETTER!

It's amazing how you don't think it's ever going to end... and then... you look around. And everything got better. You understand what's going on (at least to the point that you can understand a little bit...), you learn to love the people, you make friends, you don't feel alone. When did it all happen? I couldn't tell you. But it is so wonderful. I look back, and I have so many experiences like this in my life. None this powerful, but I look at all the times when I have felt confused, lost, friendless... and it just makes me more aware of my Heavenly Father's power and ability to help me through ANYTHING. I'm never alone. I'm never helpless. He's got it all under control. 

One of my favorite things I heard from my sister training leader (Sister Mack) was, "Not everything is going to suck all at once." It's true. Even in the hardest times... you can find a little ray of sunshine. Whether it was being able to ride my bike, or being able to have a decent conversation with a Thai person... there are always perks. Focus on them... rather than all of the hard things. Because the hard things aren't here to stay. They will pass, and you'll be stronger.

I loved a scripture I found this last week. 2 Corinthians 12:9. 

God says, "My strength is made perfect in weakness." It's true. He shows his power and his strength in weak and imperfect people like me. It's a pretty great and kinda crazy experience. I see all these miracles happen. Everyday. And I wonder how it keeps happening and how I can manage to stay worthy of them all... all I know is that he is my very loving Father in Heaven. And I think he might like to spoil his kids. Just a little bit. He has perfect strength. Perfect power. He doesn't REALLY need me... and yet he decides to use me and to show me how perfect he is THROUGH me and my somewhat shabby efforts. I'm working on it. And the best part is that he understands. 

a cool story i thought i'd share. (so i got bored of typing correctly... no more capitalization for jess today!) 

a man walked into a stone quarry and saw that there were three men cutting stone. 

he walked up to the first man and asked him what he was doing. 

"i am cutting stone," he said.

he walked over to the second man and asked him the same question.

"i am earning 3 gold pieces," came the reply. 

then, walking over to the last man, he repeated the question a third time.

"i am building a house of god."

we heard this story yesterday in church. and i thought about my responses to EVERYTHING i do in life. am i merely cutting stone? or am i focusing on the grander, wider scheme of things? am i just trying to get a baptism... or am i trying to build eternal families by helping to get a temple here in thailand???

just a thought. ;)

sorry i have no crazy stories today... we started teaching an athiest. she believes in god now. and she's going to get baptized. (whenever she goes back to china and gets her visa.) the life of an international missionary... 

the mobs keep people from coming to church.

i still haven't seen anything. just a bunch of em chillin at our intersection. but we are faaaaaaaaar away from any real trouble. no worries. :) and we have years worth of brown rice in the apartment. if i didn't love rice before... i had no choice.

oh. and if you want to try some REAL GOOD thai food: 

som tham? som dam? shom tham? i'm not really sure how it's spelled in english...

it's a thai salad. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. my favorite!

and suki. sugi. bah. SO RIDICULOUSLY GOOD! 

you got this. we all do! 

the one movie quote i do remember - "never give up, never surrender!" 

love you all. 

keep up the good work!

sister ellis

 

 

Bangkok pollution... and yet so pretty

this is a horrible picture of me. but funny.

the cute little packages they put our ice cream in...



kokret pottery. and delicious cocoa. the best combination!

 

just keep swimming, swimming, swimming..​.

January 19, 2014

I had an interesting realization on tuesday. 5 months. over.

and what do i have to show for it?

i did a lot of thinking about that... 

because have a lot.

i have dresses with oil and grease on them from my bike.

bruises from falling.

a bruised ego from getting rejected while contacting.

mob scares. 

investigators 4 hours late to an appointment... because of the riots.

(don't worry mom! i am most safe.)

sickness. 

and health.

switch offs.

confusion.

excitement.

miracles.

more miracles.

even MORE miracles.

me wondering if God really ever stops giving miracles... or if i'm just getting smarter and noticing them more.

i'll tell you one. just to prove it. ;)

we went on switch offs this last week. i went to an area called ดอน เมือง... ha. (it's pronouced don mxng... or mung.) and we were kind of stressed. because we needed to find people to get baptized. all of our potentional baptisms basically evaporated or disappeared this last week... so our hopes were very low when we started the week. it was rough. but miracles happen. i just kept praying that even though my contacting wasn't very successful... that sister phelps and sister mack were killing it in pakkret. and they did. prayers were answered. and sister phelps said that every person that they talked to... was soooo good! it's amazing. they all wanted to come to church. ahhhhhh! (that was me running around and doing fist pumps in my mind...)

so we went into sunday pretty pumped.

then nobody answered their phone. 

nobody showed.

ahhhhhhh! (that might have been a real scream that time...)

coming out of our first meeting with bitter thoughts... and maybe slightly hopeless... we went to church. we did what we could. knowing that at least ONE investigator would make it to church... the one that comes every week even though he can't get baptized because he doesn't have a visa. or not. apparently the riots downtown were too much to get through today. 

what is going on???

i didn't understand. we tried sooo hard! we were sooooo ready!

and then.

god gives us a miracle.

we spent a few hours cleaning out our phone this week when ALL of our appointments decided to bail. we called EVERYONE. we asked them if they wanted to learn and invited them ALL to come to church. so. we're at church. we see a guy that i've never met before. are you new? i've never seen you here before... (his response) well, you INVITED me. 

oh. 

i did?

i'm more convinced than ever about the lord knowing what he is doing.

even in giving someone as impatient, proud, and forgetful as myself. 

it's pretty cool.

(understatement of the eternities? i think yes.)

i heard a quote this week:

fall down once. get back up. fall down twice. get back up. fall down three times... tie your shoelaces.

(hopefully we're not on 3 yet...)

i heard a lot about elder uchtdorf's talk "you can do it" a lot in church yesterday. i think it is time for me to study it. but YOU can. something they said in sacrament reminded me of our choir director in the mtc who was talking about an "unnamed movie" in which an orange, striped fish goes looking for his son with a gimpy fin and has a scatterbrained companion... 

JUST KEEP SWIMMING.

well... we all know missionaries and water...

but you know what i mean. 

;)

have an awesome week! 

the work is WORKING! (because it's not MY work.)

love you!!!

life has its ups and downs. even on a mission.

January 12, 2014

 i was definitely on a high last week... but that just means that a little downslide is inevitable right? but it's ok.
so. we started last week with 3 people with baptismal dates. and with 3 more that we wanted to give dates to. it was so great! at the end of the week... (yesterday) we had one. why? i will tell you.
we found out that 3 of them did not live in our area. so we had to give them away. i mean... these people were ready to walk into the water right then and there. one of them finished 1 nephi while he was waiting for us to get to the church! i've never seen a golden person until this week. i was amazed. not only that these people were SO ready... but that it just reaffirmed to me the lord's ability to make miracles happen.
well. it was a little rough. we gave them all away within 24 hours. and then dropped 2 more because we haven't gotten in contact with them for weeks... so, our one SOLID investigator... is near the border of malaysia... a little stressed about getting our 3 baptisms this month? a little probably doesn't begin to describe these emotions... and yet, i know the lord is able to work miracles. we got home the first night after finding out we'd need to give investigators away... a little grumpy. i admit i was thinking a lot more about myself. i was happy he was still getting baptized. that is my purpose here. but i probably wanted the picture with him a little more than i should have. it taught me a lot when we had to call the other missionaries. but then... turns out they had someone to give us that was in OUR area. and i couldn't help but think that God is SOOO GOOD. he blesses us, even when our hearts aren't exactly where they need to be. it was a humbling experience. then we gave away two more investigators the next day. by that point... we were just shocked. for a minute i wondered if we were doing something wrong. or that we needed to do something more. then sister phelps got sick. it was such a rough week. but, God really does have a plan. we felt like we should be able to get double balanced key indicators last week while planning... so we had all of our lessons taught by thursday... right when sister phelps started getting sick. we already had new investigators. we... were really blessed. and even though we didn't get double balanced... do you think that we were guided by that decision? because he KNEW what was going to happen? i think so. i KNOW so.
i had a lot of time to think this week. cooped up in the apartment... all 5 square feet of it... with a sleeping companion.... lends a lot of time to thinking. it is hard not to over-think. but i realized that Heavenly Father is so aware of me. that he knows our plans. he knows our goals. he knows what we need to hear. so while i was reading in romans  (i know... i know... who actually reads those books except for in sunday school???) i found some gold. in romans 8. i think i've reread it about 20 times. it just fed my soul. like the time you are craving something special... and you come home and find out that mom made just that.
i am a child of god.
i have hope in things that i have not yet seen (like 3 baptisms this month)
all things work together for our good
if god is with us... who can be against us?
"for I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

who knows how the rest of this week is going to go? 

Heavenly Father does. :)

and that's all i need.

in other news... witnessed an accident. walked through the mob... watched a parade (or the mob walking down the street outside of our internet cafe...) another day in the life of sister ellis!

 

 

 

i love you all more!

and god loves you MOST.

xoxo

sister ellis

 

 

fhe at a member's house

thai taxi's

the good and bad that i eat.

1- when you order something random... you never know what you'll get in your soup

2- tried and true suki! ohhhhh soooo good!

 

 

 

miracles.

Janurary 5, 2014

there is something weird that happens to the time. i thought that tuesday was the longest day in the history of... ever. and then it's monday again. i don't know what happened.

so after we left the stinky, school-sluffing-pre-teen-infested internet cafe... we went and ate... meat. more meat than should be possible for two girls. for an hour and a half. thai people love their food. (this wasn't thai food... it was a korean restaurant. and they just kept bringing out more and more meat...) for all those carnivores out there... be jealous. 

so i have something to say this week. about miracles. 

we have been blessed. many many times. and i think i need to say a little bit in gratitude to the heavenly father that makes them possible. 

we went contacting last week. here in the thailand bangkok mission, we are required to contact for two hours every day. especially focusing on inviting people to be baptized. with the goal of having 200+ baptisms this month, they are really focusing on trying to find those elect that are ready to be baptized. and we are seeing miracles happen. so sister phelps and i had been struggling getting out contacting in. it was hot. we were tired. and we just weren't loving contacting. but we decided we needed to be better. we decided to go to the park and talk to people there... we assumed that people at parks don't have to be anywhere fast... maybe they'd be more willing to talk to us? so we went. got a couple on numbers. nothing really promising. we were getting ready to leave, and we saw a guy standing on a bridge. let's go talk to him. we walked up. two tall white girls. asking this guy if he knows what baptism is. he says he's buddist. isn't everyone? but we end up getting his number and arranging to meet with him later that week. we thought, after we left, that the elders didn't have a baptism for the month... so we decided to let them teach this guy. a few days later, he shows up at the church, thinking that he was going to learn english...... oops. i don't think we told him that. well. he's at the church now! the elders teach him. and... he's great. so great. asking us questions about receiving forgiveness for his sins and how to pray. no one showed up for english on tuesday night (because it was the new year... and new years here is SO big. bigger than christmas.) no one showed up. but tom did. so we had a little english lesson. and a little church thrown in. he is still learning. he is going to be baptized. he doesn't know that yet... but we do.

getting balanced key indicators is big here. if we don't get balanced... we don't really see baptisms. so we really focus on getting balanced every week. i know that heavenly father is aware of our goals. we need two investigators at church. and most of the time... the people we call... don't come. grrrrr. (ooops. not very missionary like...) but for some reason, we have had miracles every week. 2 random football (soccer) players we met at the bus station, someone that we called on a whim, 2 investigators that we had dropped, 2 people we met in a different area on an international visit that decided that they needed to follow jesus after the new year. every week. it's crazy. and a miracle. 

i know that heavenly father is the reason why. and i know now, more than ever, that i didn't know how much heavenly father always wanted to bless me. how much he wanted to send miracles into my life... i just wasn't asking for them. 

i'm asking now.

and i testify that he gives them freely. 

so. we are definitely blessed here in pakkret. we want a temple here! and it's going to happen. i feel so blessed to be able to be a part of his work her in southeast asia. it's different. and hard. it's weird that most people haven't heard about jesus christ. and you can see the difference that comes into their lives when they accept the gospel. we had a man that we started teaching a few days ago come to church yesterday. he came up to us afterwards and thanked us for the experience. he said that he felt like his life was an empty glass before... and that we had filled it. woah. something that every missionary wants to hear. i guarantee it! :) i was floating for the rest of the day. we also had another investigator that bore his testimony about him knowing that the church is true. now we just need him to get a visa... 

in other news. we teach english. funny things always happen when you try to speak a language that is not your first language... (i should know!) 

yeah... you know those things... it's called... a sky-crapper? right?? (us. laughing hysterically.)

the members take good care of us. i think they know that we americans like our mexican food...

taco night at sister chao's.

santa paying for our food at que pasa. (aka the owver, a less active named alex.) 

miracles abound. 

the work is working. (still)

i love thailand.

i love you all!

and god loves you most. 

have the best week ever!!!

sister ellis

Korean meat buffet

 

me. and cats. not my most pageant-worthy picture ever... sorry

my talk for church (I don't know how I get talked into talking to Sundays in 2 months!)

 

I love Thailand.