Week 21

Tuesday: We had our last district meeting in the morning! Possibly my last in Sandy District 3. We tried to contact some people in the Crescent Ridge 4th Ward most the day and didn't find much success, but the people weren't totally negative about us. I went out with my favorite ward mission leader Brother Barfuss in the Sandy East stake in the Wildflower Ward. We tried to visit Bill Brown, a guy in a part member family who had surgery on his knee. Was probably too late, so we went by to visit his home teachers and visiting teachers to figure out how we can best help them. I finally finished writing in my journal, I haven't missed a day since I've been on my mission. It will be pretty cool to look back and to see what I did each day when I'm older.

Wednesday: Today was the day missionaries life's were changed! We went to the mission office for the worldwide missionary broadcast. It was a really good broadcast, Dallin H Oaks, David A Bednar, and Neal A Maxwell (members of the quorum of the 12 apostles) were present during the meeting. They wanted missionaries to be more efficient in the work. They changed the missionaries schedule. We now have more flexibility in our schedule. From the hours between 6:30-10 we need to exercise, (30min) get ready, eat, personal study (60 min) and plan for the day (30 min) then from 10-6 we  need to do companionship study (30) lunch (30) and then dinner (60) so we basically get to choose when we want to do all these things so it's easier for missionaries to go home because they don't have a given schedule they need to follow when they go back to school/ work etc. On preparation day, (Monday) we have been given two more hours to have free time. We can email and do stuff from 8am-6pm. Then we have to go back to work the rest the night.

Thursday: We went to go visit Bill Brown in the morning and see how the surgery went. He was doing pretty good for just having a knee replacement. After that we had a lesson with Bruce Erickson, well Bruce taught us. He is very knowledgeable about the Bible and tried to tell us everything as he usually does. We are not going to be trying to teach him anymore. Maybe in a few months and see if he will start keeping commitments. Our senior missionaries in the area took us out to for dinner at a Mexican restaurant called La Hacienda and it was pretty good. At night we stopped in at a churchball game to see a former investigator.

Friday: Not much happened in the morning, but in the afternoon Elder Rodriguez wanted to meet with us. We talked about how our day was doing, then he wanted us to read a few scriptures together. The moral of the scriptures was that there is a time and place for everything.  Elder Fitzgerald at the mission broadcast was very energetic and always talking to people while it was going on. The Zone leaders wanted to let him know it wasn't okay with his behavior at the broadcast. Which should be a wake up call for him. He can be a little childish at times. So he was pretty mad at them after that when we went to go work. We tried to contact someone and they didn't answer, but their neighbor was outside so we went and talked to him. He has a son out on a mission now and we ended up talking about a lot of things. We ended up talking about the authority we have as missionaries. And how much closer we are to God by being a full time servant. He told us anything is possible, we may not wake up to a burning bush everyday but the Lord can do anything. He told us to suck it up and quit making excuses like "oh it's a mission in Utah it's hard." We carry the most valuable thing in this world with our message. People will pass dollars looking for pennies he said. We have the truth about the restored gospel and we know that God loves us so he gave us more revelation in the Book of Mormon and he gave us a prophet again on the earth. People will be placed in front of us who are ready to hear our message and we just have to do our best and the Lord will do the rest. It was perfectly what we needed that day. We stopped by a house where the home owner has 6 people living there. We contacted 4 of them. We found a less active who was willing to be taught again to help him out in his life. And the other three are non members and seemed like they would possibly listen to the discussions.  One of them has a problem with Jospeh Smith being a prophet. The other two didn't have any walls up or anything like that. They are married and they said they would discuss it if they were ready for it.

Saturday: We had some good and some bad in finding. We contacted a few unbaptized kids. One of them answered the door and the mom was totally up to letting him take the lessons if he wanted. She looked to him and he looked us in the eyes and said "no" a 9 year old was straight up with us haha! We contacted another one and she said she wanted to be baptized but she had to ask her mom! We went to the YSA (young single adult) elders convert baptism. The place was packed for her! There wasn't even enough room for the people to see the physical baptism! At night we figured out we are getting transferred. Sad to be done with him.

Sunday: We didn't do much but go and visit families because we won't have time on Monday to visit people because we are going to temple square! These are the families. After the district picture. Barfuss family, Jason Devlin(our recent convert), stockings, jones, ludlows, Dixons, Perry's and then the exo suits that the Perrys made!

Love you all,
Elder Ashby