Week 38

Tuesday: We had the usual district meeting in the morning. We have seen some struggles in our district with finding new people to teach, as well as focusing on our purpose. We talked a lot about faith and how by faith we can see miracles in our work. We talked a lot about the apostle Peter, he was Christ's chief apostle and was always being tested by the savior. But yet Peter had faith like no other. Faith sufficient to walk on water with Christ. But soon started to sink when he took his eye off the master and let fear overtake his faith. We can learn a lot from Peter and I have done so myself. One pivotal moment in his life is when the resurrected Lord appears to the apostles after they have seen their master be crucified, and went back to fishing. He is very bold with Peter and asks him, "Peter, do you love me?" His reply is, "yea lord, thou knowest I love thee."   "Feed my sheep." He goes on to repeat this three times and after denying his association with Christ three times, he isn't too excited about the number 3. This is the moment Peter strides into eternity. There is a piece from a talk by Jeffery R Holland called Feed My Sheep (MTC edition) that I love it describes us and how we need to be converted to the gospel forever, and it says, "I  have  asked  you  before  to leave  your nets. When  I said,  'Leave  your  nets,'  it  was  forever.  When  I asked  you  to  follow  me,  it  was  forever.  When  I asked  you  to  be  an  apostle,  it  was  forever.  When  I  asked  you  to  be  a Missionary,  it  was forever.  When  I  asked  you  to  see  this through  to  the  end,  it  was  because  it's  not  over  'til  it's over.  Now  forget  your  nets,  and  forget  the  fish,  and jettison  your  boat,  and  throw  those  oars away  for  the  second time,  and  feed  my  sheep.  We're  in  this  'til  the  end. Peter, you  can't  go  home.  You  can't  go  back  to  fish.  You  can't go back  to  Galilee.  You  can't  go  back  to  boats.  It's  over.  It is  a  new  life,  a  new  day,  a  new time." As a missionary we are feeding his sheep and saving his lambs and we do that by inviting others to come unto Christ. Now I invite all who read this to know the invitation is for you. We went out and got a present for our investigator Logan who is being baptized on the 27th. He loves any type of balloon or ball. We got him some balloons and light up balls.

Wednesday: We had an exchange with the Zone leaders. (Where I go with one Zone leader for 24 hours and my companion goes with the other Zone leader, the point for this is to learn and grow from someone other than our companion. Since I am a district leader I do it with them.) I was with Elder Gehrett, and I wanted to work on talking with everyone I see because it is hard to walk up to a stranger and talk with them.  We had a lot of good conversation with people, it ranged from getting out of the car and walking with someone to talk to them, to talking to people at red lights. It may seem pretty weird that we try to talk to everyone we see but we are sharing the gospel, the definition of the gospel is "good news" we are representatives of Jesus Christ and are sharing the message that he would share if he were here. We talked to a lady in her garage smoking. We could tell she was having a rough time and we figured out that her brother was in the hospital. She didn't want to hear our message but we asked if we could pray for her Brother with her and she allowed us to. After the prayer she was in tears and thanked us for doing that. We gave her our # and she said she would call us if she changed her mind. It's crazy how we can changed people's lives by simply opening our mouth and helping other people. At night we were playing volleyball with the YSA (young single adult) Ward but eventually it was time to head home. We are usually on bikes, so we were sharing a car for the night with my companion and the other Zone leader but they had the car at night. So we started walking home and someone pulled over and gave us a ride home. As we got in the car they called us and said they were all the way in West Jordan on their way back to Riverton. Well we told Elder Harvey (our Zone leader) that we were just going to get a ride home. Well the girl in the back said is he from Arizona? Well long story short, she went on a blind date with one of my Zone leaders a few years ago and she moved to Draper and was driving around with her friends. It was too funny.

Thursday: We filled out the baptismal program for one of our investigators named Logan who is getting baptized on May 27th. We had a lesson with him later that night and got him all prepared to be baptized on Saturday. We met with a less active family who fed us some good food, and then we talked a little bit about Church, Prayer, and Reading the scriptures. Three things we can do to strengthen our testimony in the savior and to have a better love for our Heavenly Father.

Friday: We had our Zone leaders come and interview Logan for his baptism. Logan is a 9 year old kid with high functioning autism.  Despite his circumstances he is a very smart kid. And he is ready to be baptized.

Saturday: We had to get to the church building early in the morning to set up all the tables and things for the baptism. It was a really smooth baptism and the program was good. It was a good atmosphere to feel the spirit and to see this young man make covenants, or promises with God and to receive a remission of his sins. We had a good time and had some food and played around with the kids after the baptism and let's just say they wore us out!

Sunday: We went to the Riverton North 4th Ward to see Logan get introduced to the ward. President Bishop (yes a weird last name for someone with a church calling) who is a member of our mission presidency came to our meeting to watch and observe how missionary work is going. Our MLS missionaries (senior missionary couples) gave great talks in sacrament meeting and talked a lot about missionary work and how it has been a good challenge for them acting like missionaries. Elder and Sister Reed both talked about how they have only been missionaries for a month but are so blessed for the opportunity. They both also kept talking about how I was teaching them all these missionary terms in our district meetings. It was a good meeting. Sadly Brandy our other investigator slept in and didn't make it to church this week, she is in the same ward.

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND!

Love you all,
Elder Aaron Ashby

Logan's baptism