Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Week 17

Tuesday: We had a good district meeting in the morning. After that I had a package and a letter from two good family friends back in Wisconsin. The Luther's and the Miloszewicz. I got a new University of Utah hoodie as well as some other items. We ate lunch with the YSA Elders (young single adult) they had a few pizzas left over from one of their activities so we at at a church building. We were trying to find some new people to teach and we knocked on this door and a man came outside and talked to us for like 20 minutes. He moved here from Arizona a few months ago with his family(All non members I'm assuming) He knows all the LDS people in his circle, and seemed fairly receptive. We however failed, he kind of ended the conversation before we could ask him if he was interested in learning more, or had a Book of Mormon, or even get his number. So we will have to go back and visit him soon.

Wednesday: We had to clean our car out in the morning because we didn't get around to it on Monday. Brent Bateman (my second cousin) took my companion and I out to lunch. We ate at Freddy's. After that we went to the stake center to see what was on a flash drive my brother sent me for Christmas. There was a lot of good missionary approved music. We put most of it on my companions flash drive because it's a Bluetooth one and can be played with his new Bose speaker. We printed out some good English to Farsi phrases to teach the Marzbans.  We ate dinner at their house then taught them English. We were there for four hours! My companion was so interested in learning Farsi he never wanted to leave.

Thursday: not much happened today, at night we went to go visit a member who had just lost his wife six weeks ago and tried to comfort him. He was telling us how his wife was the best example for him because even though she wasn't doing the best health wise, she would still care about other people and try to help them out. So I read the talk the Character of Christ by David A Bednar (a member of the quorum of the 12 apostles) and it really helped him out and showed how his wife had the character of Christ in her. He really appreciated the help and support that night.

Friday: another day without much going on. We ate dinner with a family, and our ward mission leader leader for that ward was there and was going to eat with us. And this ward mission leader never goes on splits with us and never really even talks to us. He opened up to us and was talking about how he needs to be a better  Ward mission leader and how he will start giving us referrals to go visit. At night we were putting up our new flyers in the church buildings and we found two basketballs in the gym and after a long day, we just had to shoot some hoops for a few minutes.

Saturday New Years Eve already?! Since we couldn't proselyte on a holiday we went and got some new basketball shoes at Scheels. Then went to go play basketball with the Jones family in the 6th Ward.  Their four oldest sons are all pretty good at basketball and always make it a fun challenge. After that we stopped by an investigators home and gave them a late Christmas present and he invited us in and started talking to us. He said he wants to learn more about our church and that even though he lived in Utah most of his life he doesn't know anything about the church. Which is a miracle here in Utah. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said that he would definitely read it with an open mind and heart and pray to know if it's true. He said we could come by and teach him some lessons. We will be teaching him and his family on the 6th. We ended up staying at the Perrys home (Crescent Ridge 5th ward/ neighbor) we played a lot of games with their family, including my new favorite game Settlers of Catan! Don't know why but that game is very fun for me. They launched off some big fireworks for us before we had to leave. Didn't really feel like New Year's Eve since I was sleeping by 10 but oh well it was a good day!

Sunday: Another crazy Sunday here in Sandy, we were bouncing from church to church. We talked to a bishop in the Albion Ward and we got like 4 good referrals from him so that's always a bonus. In priesthood meeting we wrote down three things we will be more grateful for this year, and I had three in mind. 1. Be thankful for all the sacrifices it took my family and myself to get to the point where I am now. 2. Be grateful for the opportunity to serve the Lord full time. 3. Be grateful for the opportunity to have people listen to us and hear about our message about the restored gospel. We ended up talking with a family that the mom does crochet. She said she would make us any hat we want, so my companion is going to have a Kilo Ren mask/hat made, and I'm having a swoop(Utahs mascot) hat. Really looking forward to seeing how they turn out.

It's a new year and a new opportunity to become a better person. Try to stay true to your new year resolutions! I believe in all of you.  Also I encourage everyone to invite someone to learn more about the LDS church. And if you aren't a member I encourage you to to take the missionary discussions. Wherever you are I will make sure that you can have that opportunity. I also encourage all to read the Book of Mormon again or maybe for the first time. To read and ponder the words. And to pray and ask God if these things are true, if the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, if Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, and if Jospeh Smith restored the gospel of Jesus Christ again to the earth and was given the priesthood keys to act in Gods name. I promise that your life will be blessed by doing this, I may not know in what way, but I promise you in the name of Jesus Christ if you will do theses things you will be more happy, you will understand your purpose in life, and you will know in your heart that these things are true. I leave you with my testimony, I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I have read it and prayed about it, and gained my own understanding that it is true and I invite all to do the same. I love you all and will be praying for you and your new homework assignment. And I will be following up to see if you have attempted to do these things.

Love,
Elder Ashby

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