Week 19

Monday: Elder Fitzgerald and I went to the church and shot around for a good hour then headed to the zone activity. The Zone activity was a snowball fight indoors. The snowballs were crumpled up paper wrapped in ceran wrap. They had tables, chairs, cardboard boxes set up for defenses. It was practically dodge ball, you couldn't go across the line and if you get hit you are out. It was a really fun activity, but after like the 4-5 game by arm was dead. We ended up playing like 10 games. I stopped trying after awhile but it always seemed like I was one of the last people on my team so I had to try. I regret trying because my arm is killing me. We contacted a church headquarter referral and she said she wants to meet with us and be baptized! She just said she would be so busy that Saturday's will probably be our best day to teach her. We got her parents numbers to set up appointments.

Tuesday: We had a Zone meeting in the morning and I learned a lot about unity. Unity in a Zone, district, and companionship and how vital it is to have it in order to be successful. I got in trouble for sending the pictures of my companion sleeping to people in the Zone.  Because I used the area email for missionary work, as well I sent it to sisters (which is against the rules) but the emails just had numbers so I didn't know who was who's email. At night we went out with a ward mission leader and we visited a part member family. His name was Eric Kennedy and he could talk for days! He was so knowledgeable about genealogy and family history work. We will try to have him help us with our genealogy to fellowship him.

Wednesday: We went to the stake center during our lunch time and put music on my new Bluetooth flash drive. We taught Sandy Delatore (less active) we did a family home evening with her and her daughter. We read 1 Nephi 8 which is Lehi's dream (very ironic) and how it can apply to her in her life. It was really good and she said she hasn't read scriptures in forever. We also read a few verses in 1 Nephi 11-12 which gives the interpretations of Lehi's dream.

Thursday: We shoveled a few driveways. And went to a church basketball game for the youth to see if there was any non members there. Sadly there wasn't. The Jones family who we play basketball with often lost 31-32 and they missed a game winner. At night we picked up the unbaptized, and part member family lists for the Crescent Ridge Stake.

Friday: We had a pretty successful night. We stopped by the Sundquist home, who has an unbaptized kid. The mom was fairly receptive and told us to come by next week! We went to their neighbors who just moved in, and it was a part member family. They said they weren't interested, but said we could "practice" teaching on them. We stopped by another part member home and the non member answered the door and was on crutches and said he was having knee surgery next week and we offered a blessing and he said to stop by on Monday.

Saturday: today wasn't the most exciting day. We visited a lot of members and gained a ton of referrals. Met with handful of bishops and ward mission leaders.

Sunday: Personal study was really good in the morning! As a mission we are reading the Book of Mormon. We started on January 1st and I'm already on Jacob 5, or page 125/531. Reading the Book of Mormon with the institute manual opens my eyes up to a lot of the verses in it. We went to the Crescent Ridge 2nd Ward to see if Madison Konnick and Sandy Delatore came. (Investigator, less active) sadly neither of them came. We gave talks in the buttercup Ward on missionary work. I accidentally took 20-30 minutes when it was supposed to be 15 minutes.  Elder Fitzgerald didn't have much time but yet he gave a good powerful talk. We basically chastised the Ward and told them if they want to see us more often because we go where the work is, that we need referrals and investigators.

Hope you all have had a grate week.

Love,
Elder Ashby