Sister Ellaina Vernon

Well Sister Fish left for Murrieta this week and Sister Kovach came here to Escondido. Sister Kovach is from Brighton Colorado so pretty close to home. She also was in the cultural celebration for the temple. It rained again this week, but we faired better in it. We still got soaked. The entire time Sister Kovach was so excited to be in the rain and she kept taking pictures. We someone who only speaks German which was a new one. Normally people only speak Spanish if they don't speak English. We also meet a super cute 17 year old girl named Cierra. She was so excited about the Book of Mormon that she said she was going to share it with her friend. When we called her she had shared it with her friend. Our ward had their ward Christmas Party. The theme was a night in Bethlehem. We ended up helping prepare the food which was shiskabobs. We cut up all the vegetables and skewered them. Then everyone dressed up and ate Bethlehem food for the party. A lady we had dinn...

 SETTING UP FOR BETHLEHEM WALK  CAUGHT IN THE RAIN  SERVICE BIKING LOTS! We had a day where it rained a lot. We had several appointments and so we ended up biking a lot. We also did service and pulled out an overgrown tomato plant in the rain. We went through three different outfits that all got soaked. We went to a service and it was about ten miles away. . We biked past the San Diego Safari Park to get there. At the service we set up tents for their annual event. They have Missionaries help every year. It was fun, but we were tired when we finished. We also did a service setting up for the Bethlehem Walk. Several of the Churches in Escondido work together to do it. They try to make it just like Bethlehem when Mary and Joseph went there, with a Tax Collector, Inn, and shops. We were building Bethlehem. We got transfer calls and Sister Fish will be going to Las Brisas which is the ward I was in before coming to Bear Valley. Sister Kovach will be my ...

November 19, 2018 ELLAINA’S LETTER-ROCKS AND CARS Dear Family, Sister Fish and I were walking down the street and Sister Fish looks across the street and exclaims that this old man walking with a cane is falling down. He had a dramatic fall and we ran a cross the street to help him. We helped him up and walked him most of the way to his home and invited him to our ward Christmas Party. It was cool because if our plans would have work we would not have been walking down that street, but because of a lot of little things that changed in our schedule we were walking by right when that man needed help. We had exchanges this week and Hermana Pierce came with me in Bear Valley. She has never had a day being full time bike before in her mission, but she did really good biking. As we were biking down the street she yelled "Sister Vernon" and apparently she got hit by a car as it was pulling out. Thankfully she was fine and we just kept going with the rest of our day. I was real...

We had Zone Conference this week and they announced some big changes. We will no longer eat with members during the week and only eat with them on Saturday and Sunday. We will eat dinner in our apartment from 4 pm-5, work on finding from 5-7 pm, and teach members 7-9 pm.  We did a lot of biking and finding this week. We have found out about a lot of people who moved or are not interested. Their was one guy we meet who when we said we taught about Jesus told us he could probably teach us something about Jesus. We listened to him share his incite on Christ and his feelings towards Christ. We had been standing listening to a while and were tempted to leave without really sharing anything with him. But we taught him about the Book of Mormon and how Christ visited the Americas. He said he will read it.  Danny who we have been teaching came to the first two hours of Church and we had a missionary who is leaving who bore an awesome testimony that was great for ...

November 5, 2018 There was a Tamale Festival so we got Tamales,  we had dinner with a family and their house had a really good view, we went to the temple!!!! The temple was this week. Sister Fish is 5' 11" ELLAINA’S LETTER We got to go to the temple this week. The member that drove us had not gone in a while and I think she had a good experience going with us. The temple is awesome and it is great to feel the Spirit. We went as a district to the transit station in Escondido to hand out water and talk to people. I was a little skeptical about it before, but it went really good. We ended up handing out a lot of Book of Mormons and having really good conversations with some people. One lady had an experience before and said that we were sent from God to talk to her. We helped a family move that breeds dogs and had like 8 dogs. It was a hard move because they used big boxes for everything and they were really heavy. We helped at a museum about the train...

Last Monday I was busy packing and saying goodbye to people. I had a good experience in the Las Brisas ward and I know that I did what the Lord needed me to do there. I went to Escondidio on Tuesday and met up with Sister Fish. We live in a Studio Apartment that is connected to a members house, the William's. They are a young family with four little kids. Their house is at the top of a really big hill that we have to bike everyday. We taught a few people including two little girls who were recently baptized. The one little girl had really funny facial expressions letting us know she was confused. We did a lot of service this week. We organized a shed for a lady. It was a mess, but her stuff should not fall on her anymore. We then pulled weeds for her. We also did service moving mulch for a community thing. It was cool because their was also a Key Club helping and I got to talk to them. My arms were a little sore from moving all the mulch. We went to our ward trunk or t...

The big news for this week is that we have transfers. I will be going to Bear Valley in Escondido and I will be with my MTC companion Sister Fish. It is another biking area. We had two of the people we are teaching come to watch a Baptism. Daniel came to one for someone in the YSA ward and Gloria went to one for a family friend. We had Stake Conference this week. We went to the adult session with Daniel and Gillian. One of the speakers talked about how in boxing a lot of novices want to go for the big powerful punch to bring down there opponent. But that the experiences boxer knows that it is the little successive jabs that most effectively bring down your opponent. He compared this to spiritual promptings and answers to prayers. That we sometimes want a big sign, but there are little signs from God that are answers to our prayers. It helped Daniel realize that he is not going to have a huge spiritual experience, but his answers are in the peace and comfort h...