Star Wars and Stake Conference

Hey everyone!!

This week has been pretty great! Last Monday after emails we went to Stouts Grove, the place where they filmed the last Star Wars, and I had so much fun! I was just running around, climbing redwoods...I could've easily been mistaken for an abnormally large 10 year old. We went to this river in Stouts Grove called Smiths River, which is one of the cleanest rivers in America - you can drink from it because it's so clean. In fact we did just that. Well we wanted to get to this jetty-like piece of land in the middle of the river but there was no way to get to it without walking through the cold, knee-deep water. So I took my shoes off and walked across, I really didn't care. But Elders Morely and Call (who weighs 230 lbs) were still on the other side and didn't want to get wet. So I went back and carried them over on my back - like a mama koala. It probably wasn't that good of an idea because I didn't have shoes on and I was walking on sharp rocks. But i felt like I was in Ephraim's Rescue - I was a pioneer of old carrying people across frozen rivers! We always have fun on Mondays. Today I'm going to go crabbing down by the pier with one of my less active members.

So my investigator M****** has a date now! Feb 28th! I'm soo stoked! It couldn't come any slower though. On Friday I had a lesson about the restoration with a 16-year-old boy named C*****. but Elder Haynie and I were not on the same page the entire lesson. We invited him to be baptized and he said yes. We're not sure if he really understands the commitment so we're going to hold off on the celebration. Well, we decided on Saturday that we reeeally needed to role play the restoration for companion study (which turned out later to be an inspired study...)

We had stake conference this weekend and we had to drive all the way down to McKinnleyville, which is like 2 hours from Crescent City. All the missionaries sat in the little choir area behind the speaker and sang for conference. Conference was really great - there were some really awesome speakers. There was actually a general authority at conference - Elder Haium (that is not even close to how he prefers it to be spelled....) I think he is an area seventy. He came around and shook hands with the missionaries before conference started. He gave a really good talk and we were captivated the entire time.... then he said something that made me not so happy. He said, "Well the other day I had dinner with an Elder Haynie," (probably another area seventy) "and there is an Elder Ellis in the quorum of the seventy. And it just so happens that we have two missionaries here today by the names of Elder Haynie and Elder Ellis. So I would like to invite them to join me at the microphone!" Crap... so we went down and stood next to him, and we had no idea what was coming.  He started talking to us and asked us where we were from and how long we've been out. I said two months and everyone started laughing because I'm green and they knew something hilarious was about to happen. So he invited us to teach the restoration to the entire congregation! Crap.... I was sweating bullets the entire time. It was a less than desirable experience for me. We did a very good job, but I was nervous! So I hid behind that nervousness with humor. I just made them laugh a lot to hopefully distract them from how incredibly uncomfortable I was. It seemed to work... so that was my distasteful moment of the week.

I'm really enjoying my companion, Elder Haynie. We get along really well. And as always, I'm having fun up here in CC Cali.

Mom, the house is awesome! That was quite the celebratory moment for me when I got the email and all the pictures of the house.

Well that was the excitement of this week. Love you all! I'll keep you all in my prayers.

Love, Elder Ellis