A Rant and a Ripstick

Elders Sutterfield, Tepox, Chan, Moua, Guthrie and me.

Elder Moua and me taking some tool selfies.

So I've had an exhausting week. Every night my pillow beckons to me with immense persuasion. Elder Chan and I have been working really hard these past couple of weeks! Our ward-mission leader, Brother Pike, actually got up and bore his testimony yesterday about how we are the hardest working missionaries he's ever had - which leads me to believe he's had some pretty bad missionaries if I was able to beat them :-) I have such a great ward! I really love the people here, and they really love us, so it's a good two-way street. We got transfer doctrine and Elder Chan and I are staying together another transfer so I'm happy about that. BUT, what I'm not at all happy about is they closed one of my areas! They closed the Cordelia 2.5 area! I'm so upset! Many tears...

Well, we possibly have several baptism coming up soon. By soon I mean within the next couple of months, probably after I leave. But, hey as long as they get baptized at some point, right? One of our investigators with a baptismal date, Rhett, will get off probation in April and will be able to be baptized then. So that's a pretty sure thing, as long as we can get him to start coming to church again. My ward is a little cautious with baptisms now since many missionaries would dunk someone who wasn't ready, (and on occasion unaccountable, that's happened more than once here) and numerous recent converts have dropped off after only a few weeks of being a member. So we are being very careful of who we think is ready to join the church. We have found multiple people who have a lot of potential to be baptized in the upcoming months. We are going to start teaching three grandsons of one of our members who haven't been baptized and frankly, we feel inclined to fix that. It's really complicated why they haven't been dunked yet, which entail reasons of divorce and whatnot, but they are totally ready.

It's been a very good week for developing skills for me! Elder Chan and I have been running laps around Fuller Park every morning for the last two weeks and now I can run 2.5 miles before wanting to die! Remarkable improvement! Also I have learned to play a new song on the piano which I shall video and send home. I believe Stephen will particularly find joy from this song. Not to mention, I've learned how to ride a Ripstick, which is a skateboard with two wheels. It may be a totally useless talent to have, but I have it now!

I really don't like sending negative things home in my emails, but that being said, I'm very frustrated with some of the leadership in my mission right now (not President and Sister Alba though). It's frustrating because they seem to be more concerned about getting 20 contacts everyday so we can "win the game" and look good. And unfortunately, I don't see them leading by example on many things. I have learned a really important lesson as a result: there are two types of people in this world - the ones who get ahead by working hard and earning responsibilities, and those who just slack off and kiss up to authority and are good at looking like they are effective but really aren't. I really don't want to be the latter. I don't want to be that guy who glides through life and gets everything without earning it. I mean I already didn't want to do that, but now that I've seen it in action, I really don't want to be that guy! Kids, the moral of this diatribe is: work and work hard. And when you can't work any harder, still work harder. Because if you get somewhere you didn't earn, you won't be the right person for the job. That's your daily life lesson brought to you by Elder Ellis.

Well sorry for the rant but wanted to get that off my chest. Glad everything is going well at home! Pats and claps all around! Love you all!

Love, Elder Hayden Ellis