Box 833, Grand Junction, Colo.
April 19, 1934

Dear Dotty;

Still in this old hole, and it is so warm that if we don't soon get out of it I'll tear things up in general. Four missionaries are too many to be sticking around with little to do. You see we are waiting to see about an old heap of a car to take us on the tour of the district. Both of the missionaries who are the oldest in the field are so d____d girl crazy that they can't seem to get down to work, and Elder Watson is still as dumb as ever. Of course the whole world is out of step and I am the only one who is in step. Elder Kuttler is a great big handsome kid about twenty years old with beautiful wavy hair, and of course, the girls have almost smothered him with attention. Makes me sick. I'm certainly I have Elder Sadler for a companion. He is one swell fellow.

I felt so blue the last two days that I could easily have run off and left it all. It seems that things are not breaking the way they should, and if I don't miss my guess I'll be so onery and mean by the time you see me that you will not want to have me hanging around. I'm not any further along than I was eight years ago, it seems. The only thing of note is that I've met the swellest girls in the world, and can't do for her the things I would like to. I can't seem to get any word from Idaho, and the chance for anything out here is getting slimmer and crazier.

Sometimes I wonder about all this missionary work. I wonder if it's not just a lot of visiting people who would be glad to see any old piece of cloth that could talk. We go in and tell them how blessed they are for what they have, they are dirty and poor, and they return by telling us what good boys we are and all that hooey, and then we leave them with a fond good bye and see another family. I'm sick of being called and thought of as just another one of those poor, homesick, sweet boys who have left their home for the wonderful experience of sponging off the saints. I want to get out and do something and not feel dependent upon someone else. I don't want you to feel that I, in any way, do not appreciated what you are doing for me; but I feel about as useless as the fifth leg on a cow. When one sees what some people do in the name of religion, no wonder that most people do not want anything to [do] with it. 

I suppose you think by now that the devil has surely got a hold on me. Perhaps he has, and again perhaps its just a little bit the truth. Somehow it is hard for me to tell people that by our church alone they will be saved. There are too many good people that are doing just as good as we are, and to hear some of our people speak you would thing [think] that they were pure white lilies done up in white

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tissue paper. In the bible it speaks of whited sepluchures (wonder if it is spelled right this time?).

Had a chance to go to Price today. The bands from here are going over there for a band contest. It is more than halfway from here to SLC.

Elder Watson just came in and I guess I had better go with him and see what we can do for ourselves. Kuttler and Balder have just gone over to a garage to look at a car. I am now at the Branch President's office using his typewriter. Guess I'll post this now, but before I do I want you to know how much I love you and that if you will bear with me I might in the dim future be able to come up to some of your expectations.

Good morning darling,

Ellsworth.

OX

Save stamp & send it back please. 

E.M.C.