Week 3

Hello everybody!!

Week three is here, and all the days and weeks are starting to blend together. Time is finally starting to speed up, and I am excited to get to Thailand, as much fun as it is here in the MTC.

Last weeks devo was on spiritual gifts, or mostly anyway. Elder Koelliker jumped around alot in his talk. But he discussed how to be effective missionaries, and how to use the talents we have to bring people to Christ. He discussed at length spiritual gifts and encouraged us to find ours and to read D&C 88 in the next week. I took that advice and made it part of my personal study this week and it was sooo worth it. It's a great section. So awesome. One of my favorite verses is 73 which says simply "Behold I will hasten my work in its time." This week it really hit me that that is what I'm apart of and how quickly the work really is moving, and how word is being spread across the whole world. Every day, I meet someone here that is going to a different place, from Vietnam, to Japan, to Ghana, Missouri, Argentina, you name it. It's really cool.

Wednesday is the day where numbers at the MTC all shoot up because all the newbies get here. Meal lines are soooo long in general, but Wednesday is the worst. Nothing too crazy or anything from Wednesday to Saturday, that's just the grind of class, study, class and repeat. oh yeah we eat and sleep sometimes too, but mostly study.

Giving lessons 100% in Thai is the coolest thing ever!! I've learned more than ever before to listen to the Holy Ghost since my vocab is so limited compared to those we teach. It's absolutely incredible.

More about that in a bit though.

Sundays are really nice, mostly because our lessons are in English haha, and we don't have to think about what the speakers are saying, we can just listen and enjoy. Thai will come though, through process of time. Elders quorum was really good, we talked about agency and obedience, and how powerful we can be if we obey. Elder McDonald and I taught our disctrict meeting, and we discussed charity, or the pure love of Christ. The spirit was soooo strong. Literally if we wanted I'm pretty sure I could've reached out and touched Him. It was sooo amazing. The other meetings were good too, but not as good as those.

Monday was great. We taught two lessons in the evening, and taught one of our investigators about the importance of prayer, and how we can receive revelations from the Holy Ghost. It's really nice when you have investigators who are really interested in what you are teaching. The spirit bore witness of the truth there. We also taught in the TRC last night, and the lady that we taught gave us some really good feedback. She told us we worked really well together, and used the scriptures very effectively, so fist pump right there!! It was awesome.

So some of the guys in our room were called as zone leaders this last week since the older elders and sisters in our branch leave this week for southeastern Asia. And so they got all the elders in our zone to sing happy birthday for me in the dorm last night. It was pretty cool. Thank you everyone who sent birthday wishes!

Yesterday, my good friend, Elder Leavitt shipped out for LA. It's weird to think about how many people I'll see come and go over the course of the next 6 weeks were here.

Tender mercy Sunday night, (the last night before Elder Leavitt left) was running in to him on the sidewalk and being able to say goodbye. We've been trying to meet up all week and nothing fell through, but that was super awesome we saw each other then.

Thought of the week: I don't quite remember the scripture, and I couldn't find it either, but somewhere there's one that says if you're not humble, the Lord will compel you to become such, like it or not. I've definitely felt that. The work here is not about me in the slightest. This work can be done without me. The Lord doesn't necessarily need ME, but I need HIM. As dumb or weird as some of the rules here are, they need to be followed. Obedience really does bring miracles.

Have an amazing week!!

Elder Ellsworth

Elder Ethan Ellsworth
SEP06 THAI-BAN
2005 N 900 E Unit 117
Provo UT 84602

Photos:

1. What a good planning session looks like

2. White board after a thai lesson

3. Elders Ellsworth and Leavitt the night before Elder Leavitt left for Los Angeles

4. & 5. Examples of murals that are up all over the "new" MTC