May 5, 2018

I am in the process of preparing myself to move to Utah temporarily to help take care of Tanya.  It was hard to get news from her that she has Leukemia again.  We have just been back into the temple for two weeks and have been looking forward to serving there for months while it was be repaired after Harvey.  Now we will probably be released as we travel to Utah for an undetermined stay.  

We are so worried about Tanya and realize it will much tougher for her this time and it is hard to see her suffering so.  Little Nathan is five years older and understands more that his Mom is very ill and we do not know how it will affect him.  At least this time there is family around that we can stay with in off weeks so we will not need to rent an apartment.  This is going to help a bunch on the budget.  

I have been pondering on why bad things happen to good people and know that it is just an occurrence of mortality and can not be explained.  But, it is still hard when it hits so close to home.  I was thinking how this last few years since our retirement we have been unable to finish callings that we have had in the church especially the ones we really enjoy.   We  had to come home early from our mission, we have to leave our temple calling early and there have been others.  I have decided the Lord uses us as trouble shooters and has us prepare the way  for others to take our place.  In Chile we had SRS groups active in all of our Stakes that we were assigned to and were released a year early.  We have given the temple calling a  good effort and now will be gone.  So i feel better about leaving with that thought in my mind.  

My family is very important to us and that i believe is our first responsibility  in this life.  Our Heavenly Father does all that he does for our benefit so I would expect that he is our example on how we deal with the family that he has blessed us with.  We really are blessed with the most wonderful children and Grandchildren and would really be miserable in that life without them.  So we are ready to take off and help our beautiful daughter and her family in this hard time.

My Thoughts on My Birthday

March 25, 2018

#70

As I contemplated this milestone in my life many thoughts went through my mind.  First I thought of all that I am grateful for and how much I love my family.  I felt that many it is time that I leave a message to my family, one that can be read maybe more than once and maybe a memory for them.  This is what I wrote in my journal on this day my 70^th birthday.

Today is my birthday #70.  I have had reason to reflect on my life to this point and feel very mortal on this day.

I took a ride on my bike this morning and marvel at the beauty of the wild flowers which are blooming all along the path.  As I contemplate the cycle of life and how everything we experience can bring us closer to our Savior or farther away depending on our perspective.  I have been thinking this morning of what is my legacy.  How do I want my family to remember me when I am called home?    (This is in no way a premonition of me demise, it is only thoughts that I have had.) 

I thought as I rode that there are several attributes that I would like to be remember for.  They are:

#1- My heritage:  I want them to know that I am and will always be a country boy.  I would like them to always remember me as a cowboy.  A person who tries to be honest, who loves the beauties of this earth the Lord has prepared for live our lives.

#2- As a man who loves this Great Land:  I love this nation that was set up by revelation to Godly men, and who God himself had a hand in its creation.  I am heartbroken how our liberal and immoral society is turning it into a country where the rule of law, the constitution, and God is being systematically eliminated from our government and public places.  Men of God are slowly being replaced by progressive individuals that proclaim that the government is the solution to all of our social issues and a socialistic society would no longer alow men to publically praise and worship God.  I am afraid for my Grandchildren and great grandchildren who will not have a president who is as honorable as those that I have known in my life.  My heart hurts to see our media disrespect our leaders.  It is sad that my choices for leaders are between those who are evil or less evil instead of great and greater.

#3- A man who prays:  I love the Lord and pray to Him day and night to protect my family and forgive me of my sins.  I wish to be a good example to my family.  I would like them to remember me as one who is not too proud to kneel and bow myself down before my God and pray for guidance and off my humble gratitude.

#4- A man who loves his beautiful bride:  I want my family to know how great my love is for my sweetheart, my gracious, companion and helpmeet.  I am who I am largely because of her selfless support though out these many years.  I am eternally grateful that she is my companion for eternity and we can bless our family eternally

#5- A man who adores his family:  Above all things I love and cherish my family, and I am grateful that through the authority of the Holy Priesthood after the order of the Son of God I am sealed to them for all eternity.  I wish sometimes that I had the means to bless their lives financially and take upon myself some of their burdens.  But alas, I understand that would be a sin, because it would rob them of important experiences that and struggles that will ultimately test them and mold them into Gods and Goddesses to rule in righteousness in their own Kingdoms.

There is probably much more that I will be remembered by, but I hope that these qualities will be among those memories of me.

Randy Merthan Ellis

Firstborn of Merthan Glenn Ellis and Vonnie Mae Elison.

Some of the life of Merthan Glenn Ellis
Early days:
Merthan was born to Glenn and Nettie Ellis on the 13th of September 1925.  He was born in their home in Riverside Idaho.  The home that they were living in at the time was the home of Grandma Sophronia Wolfley Ellis.  He was the second child born in the family, first was his sister Ruth Mariam, then Dad, Marilynn, and last was Gerry who is about 16 years his junior.

Dad work hard with Grandpa Ellis on the farm driving the team of horses doing various farming tasks with the team and different implements.  He said that after Grandpa got the first tractor in the county he would plow the field and Dad would follow along behind with the team of horses and the harrow.  He mentioned that Great Grandpa Leo Turpin bought a young team from Horace Elison and sent it to Grandpa Ellis to train.  Dad said the team would continually act up tipping over the harrow and Dad would have to have Grandpa come and help him turn it over.  Grandpa was afraid to have dad ride the harrow for fear the horses would bolt and tip it over on top of dad who was very young at the time.

He would tease Ruth until she was so mad at him she would lock him in his room in the attic.  He would have Marilynn leaver her window open so he could climb down from the attic and get outside.  Ruth would see him outside and could never figure out how he got out.  It sounded like the his little sister was his confidant in all of his antics.   I remember him being a tease to Ruth even when they were grown.  A side note that I remember: During potato harvest all the family would work in the harvest.  Aunt Ruth drove truck one year when mom was pregnant.  At the end of harvest we would all get paid for our work.  Dad wrote out Aunt Ruth's check then signed it "TRY AND GET IT".  She took to the bank to cash it and was madder then a hornet when the teller would not cash it with that signature.  I remember her coming out the farm and I think she was angry enough to shoot dad if she had a gun.  But Dad along with everyone else was waiting for her to come back and had a proper check already made out for her.  That was how Dad has always shown his love through his antics.

As a child he would take care of the farm and the animals.  While going to school he would go home for lunch to feed and water the cows and horses.  Because of that he did not participate in any extracurricular activities in school.  Dad was athletic however, and had learned to box while in grade school. He had a teacher who took a liking for him and taught him to box.  (that brings up a story I will include a little later)  Something that I should include here is that Grandpa Glenn had an immunity to electric shock.  Electricity never bothered him.  One day Merthan was out irrigating and was standing barefoot in the ditch.  Grandpa and Grandma were leaving to go on a trip for a few days, so he went out to say goodbye to Merthan.  He grabbed ahold of the electric fence and kissed Dad on the cheek.  Dad said he could feel a bolt of electricity from everyone of Grandpa Glenn's whiskers.     So he got his teasing honestly from his own dad.

During beet harvest he would drive the beet wagon to the dump. His team was named Chubb and Bally.  They were a strong team and would not have much trouble pulling the wagon up on the dump.  But others teams were not quite able to do it  so he said he would make extra money pulling other teams up on the dump.  That story he has told me often and has changed from time to time with the telling of it.  But this is the latest version.

I am sitting in my daughter (Chalice's) living room waiting for our Granddaughter come home from a party.  It is 10:00 PM at least a hour past my bed time and I haven't done this since my children were teenagers.  Very weird, but I will not be able to sleep until she comes home.  So I am taking minute to write down some thoughts I have been having lately.

This September I for the third fall went to work in the harvest in Idaho.  While there I lived with my Dad and his dog.  I found that I was drawn more and more to Dad and concerned about his welfare.  He has had some financial issues and I felt the only way I could help him would be to take him home with me to Texas and take care of him for a couple of months or as long as he would stay.  I would not force him but only suggest it to him.  A week before I left to come home he said he would like to go home with  me.  So we have him here in Texas with us and we are really enjoying him and so are my grandchildren.

After we got home Mandy's son Ray invited him to a lunch to honor Veterans.  He took him to the front of the class and introduced him as a WWII vet.  There were ooooos and aaaas and an applause to honor his service.  I have been listening to all his stories that he tells of his early life and have heard some that I did not remember hearing before.  So I am going to attempt to capture some of them in writing to share with our family.  I am not sure the best way to do it but I do not want to use facebook, or any social media to I am going to do it hear.

Over the next few weeks I am going to attempt to make regular postings of some of his life as best as I can piece it together.

I have not taken time to post on this site for far to long.  I decided to try and keep it up.  Chris and I are now thinking that in 4 more months we should have been coming home from our mission.  However, as it has gone we came home early only to be envolved with the mission of life as retired grandparents.  We have had a full summer and fall since we returned.  I have been envolved in some  self therapy to strengthen my knee to help it heal.  So far I work out in the pool at a local gym every day.  This has been a real help but has not solved the problems.  My goal is to have something done this year to have a more permanent solution for the pain. 

After an interesting summer with two of Spencer's and Shelly's oldest daughters.  We had a good summer with Sidney and Samantha. They were able to connect with their cousins here in Texas and they had a great time visiting them and playing with them.  Sidney turned 12 while they were here so we had a party with the cousins and family here.  She was able to go to girls camp with Jesica and do baptisms for some of our ancestors in the temple.  I took them home in September to Utah and then spent two months with my parents in Idaho.  I was able to work in the Corn harvest and the beet harvest driving truck.  It back a lot of old memories from my youth and growing up on a farm. 

 We have now been home about four weeks from our wonderful adventure in Santiago Chile serving in the Chile Santiago East Mission.  It has been a difficult transition for us and I have struggled with the reason of our release.  We were sent home after the mission Doctors reviewed MRI scans of my knee injury that I sustained in the mission.  They felt that it was sufficiently damaged as to need surgery.  Surgery in Chile would have been very difficult in our circumstances in Santiago.  So we left with the understanding that the damage was grave and I needed surgery.  However, as we visited the Doctors here in Houston we found out that the pain I was having in the knee was not due to injury but my Rheumatoid Arthritis. This increased my frustration with the release, but as we have been home for almost a month, I realize that there are immediate needs for us at home.  I know that the Lord knows us and where we are most needed and will do what He needs to do to put us where we are needed.   We left the Self-reliance center in the hands of the Los Condes Stake.  The center was functioning and giving service to several individuals and groups on a daily basis. 

 We have heard from our friends in Santiago that the Center is open and still functioning very well without us.  This news makes us very happy and a bit more satisfied that all we accomplished in setting up the center, has not gone in vain.  We knew that the members in the Stake were capable and that there were those who could be called that would function even better then us.  We are grateful for those who have accepted the call to serve in the center. 
We left there unsettled but now are much more settled and our testimonies have been strengthened as to the ways of the Lord.  I know now that the Lord is in charge and that we fulfilled our mission in Chile. 

 There are three men who helped to make our stay  so delightful that is would like to remember in this blog.  In our apartment building we had a door man who was in charge of taking care of maintenance issues in the building and who  stood as security for our  building 24 hours a day every day of the week.  Alejandro was the head doorman and was always so helpful.

He would greet us every morning wish us a Buenos dias and ask if everything was ok.  While is was in a wheel chair he would assist us in getting to our apartment and to the where ever we needed help.  That however only lasted a couple of days.  As we would come in with groceries he would open doors for us and was  so delightful.

Guillermo who was the afternoon doorman was always happy and talkative.  He would bring us up to date on all of the news for the day.  If there was anything from the US that was in the international news he would make sure we got the information.  He was especially worried about the state of our federal government officials and would ask us why they were doing what they did. 

The day we moved into the apartment I was telling him who we were and what we were in Chile for.  I and Alexis, who was the Maintenance Technician from the real-estate department, offered him a Book of Mormon.  He accepted it and was reading it.  On many occasions he would ask questions and we would have a discussion about the things he was reading.  He especially enjoyed reading the sermon of King Benjamin. 

Jose worked every night and when we came in late he would great us and offer any assistance.  We found out after we had been in the apartment for about a month that he was an less active member.  He asked if we could get him a copy of the Book of Mormon as well, which we did and had many great gospel discussions with him.  He would always great us as "Mis hermanos en la fe".  Before we left he informed me that after knowing us and having our discussions on the Book of Mormon he decided to go back to church and take his family with him.  He thanked us for encouraging him to return and said that they were accepted into the ward even though they had not attended for almost 15 years.  I was grateful to have known these men and felt their goodness.

Left to Right: Sister Sally Goulding, Sister Chris Ellis, Elder Holtkamp, Elder Johnson, Sister Johnson, Sister Olson, Elder Olson, Sister Holtkamp and Elder Rob Goulding (standing) Elder Ellis is taking the picture.

 
This picture is of our really good friends and fellow Senior missionaries who worked in different capacities in the Church office building.  They comprised our district and we had so much fun and many inspiring times together.  Of this group only the Gouldings and the Olsons remain in the mission. 

As were are now just member missionaries we have fond memories of our time in Santiago.  We were able to serve many young people with their Education Loans from the PEF and many more of the Lord's sons and daughters directly and indirectly through the programs of the self reliance. I believe I am finally at piece with the return home and the termination of our mission.  We have found that there are family members who need our assistance at critical times in their lives and many other opportunities to serve here at home. 

Two of our Granddaughters arrived unexpectedly from Utah to spend the summer with us.  It is a rare treat for us in that we have not had a lot of opportunity to know them.

Sidney and Samantha are our oldest son's two oldest children and we are enjoying them.  I think they get a little bored with us and are really happy to visit their cousins who live in Texas.  They are beautiful and helpful most of the time.  We are having a challenge just figuring out activities to keep them busy during the summer while they are here. 

We also had a great surprise from our youngest Son Jacob.  He is currently serving in the Army and came home on a weekend leave to visit his dear wife and surprise us with lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, India's.  It was a treat to have lunch and then return to their apartment and visit for a while. 

We met them first at the  airport and then to subway for a short visit before we headed to Round Rock to take the girls to visit Chalice and her family for the weekend.

We are so grateful to all of our friends in the mission and here at home who have supported us while we were away. 
We a grateful to the Lord for allowing us the opportunity to served in Chile.

This is the end of the final week of our Chilean Mission.  We received the decision on last Tuesday (April 21st) that the missionary department sent word that I needed to return home to Texas and have my knee operation to repair the damage.  It appears at this point that i am looking at another knee replacement.  I am not looking forward to that but i do need to get it done so i can go on to serve in another assignment.  It was probably the hardest thing we had to do when we left Santiago and the people we had grown to love so much.  We learned so much from them that it is hard to think about just one experience that is the most outstanding.  

I have asked myself over and over what purpose did we serve in our short time in Santiago.  I know that we were able to touch many people and help many.  We were able to see many young people qualify and apply to the Perpetual Education Fund for student loans.  We were able through the workshops to qualify for the loans to help them see the great role that the Savior plays in their lives each and every day as they traverse the pathways of this life.  I have seen weak testimonies strengthen and become solid, making the individuals who bore them strong servants with desires to study and become self reliant.  We have seen stronger testimonies become even stronger and the commitment to the Lord even greater then before.  We are so grateful that we were able to go and serve.  We pray that the Center will continue to be a place of assistance to those who seek to become self-reliant and strong in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Our mission family of the Senior missionaries are missed so much and we think of them every day.  I miss the trips to the faria to purchase the fresh produce that we loved so much.  We miss so much, and are so grateful to those wonderful loving friends that we left behind.  I pray we can stay close for we would really hate to lose contact with them.  

We were scheduled to leave Santiago on Friday the 24th of April but the day before we had a volcano erupt blowing huge volumes of smoke and ash into the atmosphere.  The airport suspended all flights into and out of Santiago.  We were then rescheduled to fly out on Sunday the 26th at 8:30 PM. However, because of all the cancelled flights and the fact that the flight crews who flew in on Sunday morning were the only crew available to fly out as well but needed to have a certain number of hours rest before they could make the return flight.  Our flight was delayed until 2:45 AM on Monday morning.  Thus we had to reschedule the connecting flight from Atlanta to Houston.  But, after 36 hours of airports, waiting, and flying all night we arrived in Houston at 4:30 Monday night.  It made for a tiring day.  

On our trip home i was worried about the logistics of traveling with a lame leg.  I never realized how fast and easy it all is for those who travel be wheel chair.  There is someone there to take you everywhere.  They help with the luggage, take to the front of the line, put you on the plane first and take care of you all the way to the baggage claim.  I told Chris if we travel international again it is her turn to have the injury so we can get the royal treatment.  Seriously, i am so grateful for all of the help that we had coming home.  We really were treated well by all of the people from the airport personnel and the staff of Delta Airlines.  

It is good to be home in Houston, sleeping in our own bed and staring at our own walls, but i need to find something to do quickly before i go crazy.  So we are hoping for the surgery to come and get over soon.  So we can start doing other things.

I am looking forward to seeing our friends in Houston so any who read this and want to contact us, we have new phone numbers.  Chris 281-733-7944 and Randy 281-733-6013.  Feel free to give us a call.