Sister Ellaina Vernon

                                 On the way home!                                     HOME!     REUNIONS!

July 29, 2019 This week was my last week on my mission. We had a great week. There is a woman named Carol that we have been trying to work with since I came to the area. The first time we met her she was kind of rude so we did not try to stop by again. Her friend invited her to a Relief Society Activity and she actually apologized to us. We went by this week and were able to set up an appointment and then have a lesson. When we walked up to the house there was a sales woman talking to Carol. We waited until she left. It turns out that the saleswoman is a member of the Church and she saw that Carol had the Come Follow Me Book. Carol said that she did not think it was a coincidence that she came right before we did. We had a great lesson with Carol she even took notes.  President Hammon had each of us that are going home write a miracle that we saw on our missions. This is what I wrote. "I hoped to see many miracles on my mission. I expected them to come in certain ways, b

July 21, 2019- COMPLETING MISSION-WHAT I HAVE LEARNED! Next week I will complete my 18 month mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As a full time representative of the Lord I have learned and gained a lot of new experiences. This post is a list of 18 things that I have learned during the past 18 months. 1. Jesus Christ is a real person with a real personality just like any of us. I knew and accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior before my mission. I have come to learn that yes he is perfect, but he is also understanding, compassionate, joyful, patient, and human. I understand, know and love Him better.  3 Nephi 27:27 "Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am." 3 Nephi 27:27 John 11:36 "Jesus wept" 2. Repentance. I have learned how to more fully access the healing power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him str

July 15, 2019- We did service at a thrift store this week. We organized the donations coming in. It was pretty fun. One of the bags I got had a bunch of fancy dresses. Like ones you would wear to prom or something.  A week or so ago we visited someone and they said they needed to work on weeding their yard. So we went and weeded it this week for them, which was fun. They were surprised that we actually came over and helped. It was fun to surprise them. We started teaching two kids that are already members. They are twins and are nine years old. We are teaching them to get practice teaching and to help them understand the gospel. They are pretty wound up. We ended up doing our object lesson with them while they jumped on the trampoline.  One funny thing that happened is that we always try to talk to everyone about the gospel. The problem with that is we do not always remember who we have talked to before and we also end up talking to members and trying to teach them we had t

Mom’s note- We just got Ellaina's release letter and she will be home the end of this month.  Her mission was just changed on her last month so now she is in the California, Riverside Mission.  She is actually living in the same place mission boundaries just changed. Here is her letter. July 8, 2019 EARTHQUAKES! On the fourth of July they did not have us proselytize at all. We did studies, cleaned our apartment, and had our mission President interviews. While we were studying Sister Welker was talking about signs of the second coming of Christ, that there will be earthquakes in diverse places and a bunch of other stuff. As she is talking about it we felt an earthquake. Everything just shook for a minute and then just stopped. I think it was a funny time for it to happen. We then felt another pretty big earthquake the day after and I have felt several small ones. It is good they are not big or close enough to us to be a problem. One lady even called us to make sure that w

June 24, 2019 Sister Stoddard left to Escondido and and Sister Welker came to Morgan Hill. Everything went well with transfers and I went with another Sister while I waited for Sister Welker to get here. We saw a man carrying boxes and offered to help him. His family then visited with us and gave us food. We had a meeting to meet the Riverside Mission President. It is interesting to see how he does things differently than President Thomas.  A few weeks ago we gave a woman a copy of The Book of Mormon. She did not want to set up a return appointment and would not give us her phone number. We came back this week and she was not home, but her husband was and he said that she has been reading it. He sees the Book mark moving through the book.  We were biking to an appointment and we stopped to talk to a man named Kevin. He was not interested, but thinks we are very well traveled and experts on good places to visit.  Love,Sister Vernon June 31, 2019 We were asked to teach

May 27, 2019 ELLAINA Last Monday we sent Sister Rigby home and said goodbye to the Calavera ward. I then packed and got ready to come to Morgan Hill. A member drove me up to the new area. I was expecting my companion to already be here, but no one could be her companion in the time that she waited in Temecula so she was still in her old area. The member that drove me stayed until she got here. We did not really know what to do the first day because the area book on our phones did not update to the new area until the second day. So we mostly cleaned the apartment and talked. We then got the area book and have been able to work and figure out were our area is. It is one really big hill that is hard to bike up, but is fun to bike down. So it is easier on the way home.  We are starting to figure out were everything is and who we are working with. It was pretty confusing at first. We went to mutual and meet the ward mission leader and some people in the ward. It is a pretty big ward peop

May 20, 2019 ELLAINA We got transfers news. We normally get a text with were we are going Saturday morning, but it got delayed until Saturday night, which seemed like forever. Sister Rigby is going home today and I am going to Temecula. It is another full time bike area and it will be my second time biking in the hottest part of the mission. My new companion Sister Stoddard is from Grand Junction Colorado, and will be my 3rd companion from Colorado. She will also be new to the area. So I am whitewashing out and whitewashing in. With the mission split that means that unless something crazy happens next transfer I will be in the Riverside mission for the last transfer of my mission.   We were able to visit Stanley who we have not seen since we stopped teaching him. We had good visits with both of then. Stanley has said he has been thinking about everything a lot and he was happy to see us. He still is not ready though, but he is getting there. Nia is another lady we stopped by. She

May 13, 2019 We had a lesson with Delia and her son Oliver. We were worried about what we were going to teach and how. We made an entire plan. Then I said that it did not feel right and Sister Rigby agreed, so we changed it and the lesson went great. Susan texted us late Saturday night saying she was planning on coming to Church. We found her a ride, but she did not show up. Apparently she was sleeping and woke up and thought that it was 9am Sunday morning and was going to come to Church. Only to find out when she walked her dog that it was dark outside and it was 9pm Saturday evening. Then she did not sleep all night and did not end up coming. I have not had that happen before with someone coming to Church. Love, Sister Vernon Bill and us, Sister Rigby's funeral because she is going home, me, Sister Rigby and me,

May 6, 2019 Dear Family, We went to the temple this week. It is probably the last time that I will get to go to the San Diego temple. It was cool because I know enough people that we run into people from old areas at the temple which is fun. We did a lot of service this week. We did some yard work and helped a lady move. We painted too. One of the Sister wrote her name in big letters in the wall while painting.   We have been trying to meet Susan all week. We have been texting her back and forth. We shared some uplifting thoughts and scriptures. She told us that we are helping her clear the cobwebs away to God. I was kind of confused but Sister Rigby thought it was super sweet. She was saying that we are helping her be closer to God, by helping her focus on what really matters. Love, Sister Vernon

APRIL 29, 2019 -PANCAKES We did a seminary breakfast for the youth to invite friends to. Sister Rigby and I cooked a lot of pancakes. There was quite a few kids that came and we know of some that are interested in coming to Church. It is kind of funny because about half the youth all invited the same person, but at least she came. We helped Eddie and Irma move. They acted like they would not need much help and when we got there they had a lot of heavy furniture that needed moving. So we called some Elders over and they helped us. I don't think they would have been able to move successfully without our help. We also helped a lady work on moving. She has so much stuff there is no way she is going to be out on time, but she is very thankful for our help. We started teaching a lady named Susan. We only talked to her on the phone and have not meet her in person yet. She seems ready to accept the gospel and we are excited to start teaching her. Love, Sister Vernon A pe