TWELVE

Bonjour!

I honestly cannot put into words how happy I am right now! I just read an email from my Mom that she sent to my brother (the other Elder Ellis) and me! When I think about it, I am so incredibly lucky to be serving at the same time as my brother! I've learned so much from him over the years. Especially as he has helped me prepare to serve my own mission through his advice and stories! I just feel so lucky!

This week has been so great! I have had some really great faith-building experiences.

Let's kick this off with Tuesday—or not... This is sad because I honestly, like seriously, can only remember one thing from Tuesday. I was trying so hard (and Elder Baker can attest to this, you can ask him in a year when he gets back) to remember what happened. That night I didn't have hardly any time to write in my journal and the entry just said: "Great day! No time! -Elder Ellis" so... But the one thing I do remember is going to McGill campus teaching a lesson on Alma 5 to one of our investigators named Karen. She has been investigating for about a year now but her mom is keeping her from being baptized. It makes me so sad because we have found so many people and have brought them right up to the point of baptism and then their parents step in! But anyways, the lesson went really well! It was fun to get to know her a little more. She asked me to edit the intro of her paper because English is her second language and she just wanted to make sure that it all worked grammatically. So yup, that's all I can remember from Tuesday!

Wednesday is a different story altogether! Elder Baker and I went to the Mount Royal building for district study. Elder Heder and his companion led the discussion on how we can get members more involved in the work. We really need their help right now! The members are beyond essential or vital; they are crucial to the work! After district study we went to the mall across the street and grabbed lunch at the food court. It was so funny to see all of the looks we were getting! We made some good contacts and passed out a bunch of the mormon.org cards. That afternoon we went knocking at some of the "great and spacious buildings" (the 40-story apartment buildings). We taught a few lessons at the door and then the funniest thing happened. We heard a radio around the corner and some jangling keys and Elder Baker just froze. He looked at me and whispered, “Run!" We got to the stairs and started running down four or five floors then got out and hopped into the elevator. We waited for a minute and then went up about ten floors and kept knocking! It's just so hard to get into those huge buildings so we try our best to not get kicked out! The law in Canada is that if someone lets us in we can knock all we want. The police won't ever ask you to leave but the building manager can so you just try to avoid him at all costs and you can knock for days! It was pretty fun, though. We ended up knocking almost all night.

Thursday was one of my favourite days on my mission so far! I went on splits with Elder Smith. Remember him? He was my first companion with Elder Baker in our trio. Elder Smith is such a great missionary! We set some pretty lofty goals for the day during our studies and practiced different methods of contacting. Right when were about to leave to the Université de Montréal we got a text from President Cannon that said: "Elder Ellis. Please call me. Pres." Needless to say, I called him to see what had happened and he told me that there was a huge crisis. He was at the print shop and the Christmas card had come out black (okay, so not that big of a crisis but still.) He told me that he was coming to pick us up to fix the card. So we rode to the Cannons and tried to find out what had happened. The colour on the screen was totally fine but it had seriously come out jet-black! I made some adjustments and made a few different versions but it took almost four hours to get it right because we weren't even sure what we were dealing with. The card came out fine but the one that worked isn't quite how I wanted it. It came out looking super fake but it should pass. I think you'll still like it! So after we got that sorted out we still wanted to hit our high goals! We got right to work and taught a lesson to an investigator with a member in a metro station on the Book of Mormon. Then we had a DA (dinner appointment) with Phil and his mom again—they took us to the best Chinese restaurant ever! It was seriously the best Chinese ever! We had a great time with them—we always do! After dinner we were walking back to the metro and we both stopped and felt like we needed to get on the bus. We didn't know exactly where it was going but we felt like we should so... on the bus we went! We ended up teaching four people who, from what I've heard now from Elder Smith, are solid investigators now! We got off the bus and started walking back the way we came and found another bus going back downtown so we took it and ended up finding another investigator! The best part—we hit our goals right on and we couldn't help but thank the Lord for helping us! We really can be led by the Spirit in our lives. Never forget that!

(Ah! I don't have much time to finish this. Sorry for paraphrasing!)

Friday was weekly planning. Ended splits. Helped at the office quite a bit. Did some knocking. Got a bunch of materials to study in French. Had soup and baguettes with the YSA and went to Institute. We found two great people that night.

Saturday we had a lot of lessons planned but they all canceled but one. We met with a less active and she took us to China town and got bubble tea. (It's like tea, don't worry we got it sans tea, and juice and tapioca pudding balls.) It was really good! Went to a baptism with her in Spanish. Couldn't understand what they were saying really but I could still feel the Spirit! We taught Emma the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They took us to Julep and got some poutine and orange julep (Emma sent a picture home to Dad of my first julep!) JC came with us knocking.

Sunday was great! Great meetings and some less actives came back to church with us. Set goals with the YSA for 2013. We want to double the size of the branch and make it a ward over three years. Had a potluck and a devotional on the life of Joseph Smith. Knocked and tried to visit Steve in the hospital.

Thanks for the recipes, Mom! Thanks for the letters, Dad! I can't believe that you got to race the Ferrari! So cool! Also I see that baby boy Matt has taken a liking to my blue blazer! It looks good on you! Love you all!

Also, for Christmas an electronic French dictionary would be cool! And some MoTab Christmas music! (Possibly on the new blue iPod nano!)

Elder Ellis