Week 26

Tuesday: Elder Alfonso asked me to conduct district meeting again, but because he doesn't think he could handle it because it was his last district meeting as a missionary. At the end of the district meeting I got a little mad. I never expressed it or showed it but on the inside I was a little mad. Everyone was saying things along the lines of, "Elder Ashby you're gonna be the next AP or Zone leader next transfer!" (AP- assistant to the mission president) This has been going on for a few weeks now, it may seem like a good thing to be complemented and to have others think I am capable of leadership positions but it's like don't you have better things to do than to gossip about my abilities. I'm just a missionary doing what I'm supposed to do.

Wednesday: We got a call from the Zone leaders and we ended up talking about what was discussed in MLC (mission leadership council) and President Lansing said that we don't really get any new missionaries until August so he isn't going to transfer people as much until that point. Which is scary because I know for a fact I will have a new companion next transfer (March 14) so hopefully I am with someone I like because I will probably be with them for awhile. We brought the sisters In our district churros because Sister Fossum has never had a churro before!

Thursday: We had interviews with the mission president in the morning.  Mine was as usual 5 minutes when they are scheduled for 15. It's weird because every leadership person I've ever been with has told me that President Lansing likes me but we never really talk about anything in the interviews so I'm a bit curious. We had RTC with the 12th Ward mission leader again. We went and taught two less active families. One happened to be a teacher at Westvale Elementary (my elementary school in West Jordan) Ms Davenport. I don't really remember her but I guess she must have been a teacher I didn't have. She teaches 4th grade and I asked her if Ms Daniels still taught there and she does! (My 4th grade teacher) and I told her to tell her I said hi. We will eat with their family next week so we will see if she told her! Elder Alfonso had to interview the Zone leaders investigators Kyle for his baptism.  We figured out Kyles mom isn't a member and is in our area so we will go to the baptism to contact her there.

Friday: The sisters in our district were having some problems throughout the day. Sister Fossums recent convert from last transfer stopped going to church and talking tot them all the sudden and it really affected her and made her pretty sad. We stopped by to drop off some paperwork for them and they were on a call so we had to wait.  When the call was over Sister Kirkpatrick came out and talked to us and told us it was Sister Fossums old companion who taught this girl who stopped going to church. They wanted to go visit the recent convert and see what was up with that. A lot of Sister drama basically. But gotta help where help is needed.

Saturday: Well, In the morning we went to the stake youth baptisms.  One of the high councilors daughter was being baptized and they invited their neighbor Peter Guo, who happens to be George Guo's dad (our former investigator who had to stop meeting with us because his parents wouldn't allow him to anymore) we tried to talk to Peter after the baptism but every time we were about to talk to him a member would have the need to talk to us. We probably had 4 people talk to us in our attempt to make it over to him. Sadly he left before we could talk to him. Later in the day, Elder Alfonso being District leader wanted to meet as a district to go over some stuff and to see how everyone in the district was doing. It was mainly for the Sisters who have been going through a rough time. I personally don't think it was very necessary to meet. At the end of the meeting and figuring out how everyone was doing Elder Alfonso wanted to hear everyone's conversion story. So everyone gave their story and it was pretty cool to hear everyone's conversion story, but it took 2 hours so not sure if that was the best use of our time on a Saturday. After the meeting we had to fill up the baptismal font for the Kyle's  baptism. The YSA (young single adults) building didn't have a baptismal font so they had to use someone else's. Since he is in our stake boundaries but in the YSA Ward we did it at our building. We didn't have dinner and neither did the Zone leaders so they brought us Pizza Hut before the baptism. The baptismal service was pretty good, a lot of people showed up which is amazing because there was like 20 people from the YSA Ward there on a Saturday night! Sadly Kyle's mom who would be in our area didn't go because she was sick.  After we cleaned everything up the sisters called and asked for a blessing. We drove over to the institute building at Salt Lake community College where they were at. Sister Kirkpatrick asked for a blessing but didn't really say why. It was interesting because we assumed it was for Sister Fossum who has had a rough week emotionally.

Sunday: Nothing too exciting.

Hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Ashby