Families Are Together Forever 5-8-17

So this was another awesome week. It was the last one of the transfer too, so you know what that means: TRANSFER CALLS!! Yep, I will be receiving a new companion. His name is Elder Frederick. I don't know too much about him yet, but I will after Wednesday. I am staying here in Chattanooga. It looks like I may finish my mission here too.

First off, the parents that were baptized at the beginning of April, now had another daughter, who is 9, enter the waters of baptism this last Saturday. It is so cool to be a part of this family coming together who will one day be sealed in the temple to live with each other forever. The parents have really changed over a month’s time as well. This week both of them said the best prayers I have ever heard from them. The dad baptized his daughter which was a really cool experience. We also talked with this family and another recent convert family about going to the temple. We set all of them on date for Jun 3 to go and do Baptisms for the dead. So in the meantime, they are learning how to do family history and are getting names of their family members to take with them. I can't wait for a year’s time when I get to hear that they all are going to be sealed as a family. Another cool thing we heard at the baptism was that Zach, their 5 yr. old boy, was walking around the house with a white shirt and tie on, carrying a Book of Mormon in his hand. He said that he was an Elder. That was awesome to see that even at his age he wanted to be a missionary like us.

Another experience I wanted to share comes from our District Meeting this week. One of the trainings given was on how the Holy Ghost can help us missionaries in our work. Well we were told 3 things and were challenged to figure out 4 and 5. Well in my study for this, number 4 really stuck out to me that I had not thought of before. One of the fruits of the Spirit talked about in Gal 5:22 is temperance. I looked down at the footnotes and temperance can also mean self-control. Wow! So the Spirit can help me to have self-control? Yes it can! And as I continued my search, I came across 2 Pet 1:5-8 which says to add to temperance, patience and godliness. So patience is also a fruit of the Spirit and something He can help us with as well as godliness. So if the Holy Ghost can help us to have self-control, then we will have patience which is also a form of godliness. So I thought I would share with you my discovery today.

Finally we had a pretty powerful moment Sunday. It was Stake Conference and Elder Bluth of the Seventy was there. He spoke to us about some pretty awesome things, but the coolest part was President and Sister Griffin gave there last testimonies at a Chattanooga Stake Conference. They sat down and Elder Bluth called them and all of us missionaries up. It's funny because the exact same thing happened to me when I was in Chatt a few months ago haha. Anyway, he called us up and then the missionaries and the choir behind us all sang “Called to Serve.” It was super powerful. There were people crying all over. Sister Griffin was a wreck and President was in tears as well. Can't believe they are almost done as Mission President. It will be so sad to see them go.

Well that was my week. I hope you all have an awesome week. Go out and share the gospel with someone every day. Be active in the work of salvation. One thing that I heard this week that really stuck with me was, "I don't want to be at the Judgement and have someone come to me and ask me why I didn't share the gospel with them." -President Evans. The more we have people engaged in the work, the easier it will be to find the elect of God and bring them back into His fold. I love you all and hope you can have a great week. If you have any missionary moments this week, I would love to hear about them. Until next week.

Elder Ellison