Week 9

Monday: we had a Zone activity and played Monster 4 square where tables are set up on their sides and divided the whole gym into 4 squares and you your companion get a square and the same concept of 4 square, but you get 2 bounces in your square, and three hits as a companionship. Really fun and highly recommend. Had a Zone meeting at night so we couldn't be out and about while trick or treaters are out.

Kinda lame Halloween but got some candy so can't complain.

Tuesday: Had another Zone meeting and talked about how we are changing our goal of 555 baptisms a year to 1-1-1 which is one baptism per companionship, per transfer. It seems so much more attainable with this thought process and if everyone completes this goal, we will have around 750. Had a good time with our ward mission leader and we got two lessons with less actives by going out and visiting with him.

Wednesday: we had a lesson planned with a young man who is preparing to serve a mission, but when we got to the house it was his older brother who just got back from his mission in New England! There must have been a miscommunication when planning the lesson but was good to hear about his mission stories. We had a lesson with a man named Bruce Erickson, he is a really good Christian guy who knows the Bible like the back of his hand and has a hard time understanding why he needs to do anything other than what the Bible says, but we answered a lot of his questions about the Mormon church. He said we could come by again and talk with hi,, so there is potential with him. One of our ward mission leaders just got out of a bad cold that lasted for 2 weeks so I went over to his house for splits and we talked about names of people we could do service for, and we got about 10 names of people to go help.

Thursday: Day started out slow and we weren't having any progress, but we were over in the condos in one of our areas and there was a truck backed close to the door and the door was open and I knocked and asked if they needed any help or service, and they had just given up on trying to get this huge desk down the stairs and into the truck, so we helped them get it down and into the truck and man was that desk solid, and heavy! The next house we went to was this elderly lady who just got out of foot surgery 20 minutes before we arrived and asked if we could give her a priesthood blessing and we did and it was really good!  I went by with the ward mission leader for the condos and we visited with Paul and Tony the men who needed help with the desk, and we got to know them a little bit. Paul is a return missionary and asked to get his records taken off the church (for a reason we do not know of) he helps people who are alcoholics and Tony, (the man living with him) is an alcoholic trying to stop. Paul is divorced and doesn't sound like it ended well. They said we could come by and talk to them on Monday.

Friday: We had our meeting with our MLS  missionaries (elderly couple missionaries) and as we were discussing our investigators for that stake we got a call from Christine Belnap, (the aunt of our investigators Evelynn Belnap) and said that Evelynn was talking to her mom on the cell phone and ultimately convinced her that she doesn't need to be Mormon so Evelynn said she didn't want to be baptized which was heartbreaking to hear after we had taught her for over a month.  And she had a baptismal date for November 26th. We had a lesson with a recent convert to our church, a guy named Tom Schweiger, we talked about his conversion story and it was really cool, his wrestling coach baptized him. At the end of the night I let my companion Elder Costa drive in the church parking lot because he is going to start taking drivers ed here so he can be able to drive throughout the rest of his mission. Was a funny experience teaching him how to drive and he did alright.

Saturday: Was a pretty brutal day, we spent our whole day going and visiting people and nobody wanted to hear from us, we got the door slammed in our face. We didn't have much success, but I know that we are doing the Lords work and if we work hard and be exactly obedient we will have success.

Sunday: We went to the Indian Ridge Ward Council in one of our stakes and we got 18 names of people we could go visit who need service or be willing to take lessons with us! We went to the Crescent Ridge 7th ward for sacrament and since it was fast and testimony meeting I went up and bore my testimony on missionary work and how it isn't easy, but it is so rewarding when we go through all these hard days, to find that one person who is in need of our help, or wants to learn more about our church. It's like football, you practice all week, so you can have that one game for the week. We go through all the trials and get rewarded with someone. We got the best phone call ever! We got a call from our Stake High council who said they have someone who has been going to church and has a desire to be baptized before thanksgiving and wants to take lessons with us and be baptized! It was simply a miracle, all our hard work is paying off and it's the best feeling in the world to help people and have them be able to be baptized and washed away of their sins if they continually repent. A crazy week of ups and downs, but it is all worth it.

Love,

Elder Ashby

Here is a picture of the Sandy Zone that I am in...


And yes....I need a haircut....