Monday: We were planning on going to Penny Ann's cafe
again but there were other missionaries there so we went to go talk to some
cool members, the Jensen's, and they let us make some waffles! We had a district
activity and we went to Boondocks and did some Mini golf! We're not supposed to "keep score" as
missionaries but we ended up doing it and I ended with -3 and winning 😏
Tuesday: We had a multi district meeting (Zone meeting)
in the morning. It was a really good meeting we had some good trainings on our
purpose as missionaries & how to teach the doctrine of Christ. The Zone
leaders gave a great training on why we do what we do. They had me share the
parable of the lion and the gazelle and how we should be motivated by an inward
source rather than motivated by fear from an outward source. We should serve
the Lord because we love him, and to into do so by inviting others to come unto
Christ and be partakers of His restored gospel. We had a crazy cool miracle
happen in our work. It started out with Elder Collier and I doing
companionship study. We were reading in the white handbook (missionary rule
book) and a part stood out to me as we were reading it. "You represent the
Lord in this area and are responsible
for obtaining His direction in carrying your assignment and blessing the people
there." So we were about to head back out and work and I felt that it
wasn't right to visit the first person in our plans, so we decided to visit the
next person on our plans. We realize the next person is a former investigator,
but there was no address. With one of our tools area book maps, we had a general
idea of where the house was but still no address. We decided to go there in
faith that we would find someone there for us. We go down the street it's on
and there are only two houses. We talked to a man at the end of the street and
he wasn't interested what so ever. So we ended up asking if he knew anyone that
would benefit from our message. He told us about his neighbors, the other people on the
street. We drove by and there was a 10 year old kid outside and my companion
asked, "should we talk to him. Without hesitation I said yes. We
asked the kid if his parents were home and he went to go get his grandma. We
talk to the grandma for about 45 minutes. During the conversation a lot was
talked about. She is a less active member of the church, and claims she doesn't
believe it anymore. She did bring up that she wants her grandson to be baptized
since he is the only one of the family who isn't. I believe she has been
offended by someone in the past and that is what is holding her back, she
definitely has a testimony of the gospel, she even said she still watches
conference. We left her with a plan of salvation pamphlet and invite
her to read and pray about it and if it is something she wants for her and her
family. We have a follow up appointment on Thursday.
Wednesday: We started an exchange (with a different
companion for 24 hours) with the Elders in our district. I was with Elder
Dutton, and Elder Collier was with Elder Sandino. I feel bad that we didn't
have much time to do missionary work since we had a lot of other ministering
& meetings to do. We met with two of our ward mission leaders and discussed
some of the work going on in their areas and got some names of people to go
visit. At night we had our last youth summer game night. We had the whole 6th
ward youth there (over 30 kids) we ended up playing three games of chair soccer and
yes they did gang up and try to get the missionaries out first. I usually did
okay but made it to the final 3 the last game and lost! Was being picked on,
the two people left were girls who play on the soccer team and I couldn't do
anything more than defense haha.
Thursday: I had a district leader training for most of
the morning and afternoon. It was a really good meeting though and I learned a
lot. President Bishop one of the mission presidents councilors
gave a training on how we as missionaries can better work with the key holders
in our stakes and wards we cover. We realize that President Lansing's visions
for us missionaries shouldn't only be for us, we need to share what our key
holder has envisioned for us with the key holders of the stake and wards. I
received so much revelation for me and my area on how we can together
accomplish the Lords work. At night I did a baptismal interview for Elder
Sandino & Dutton's investigator Kasion who is being baptized on Saturday.
Friday: Well we had Elder Gehrett with us for the morning
and afternoon. His companion Elder Anderson was selected by our mission
president to do some missionary work testing down in Provo. It was crazy to see
what happened because of it though. So this testing thing will take a few weeks
and they need to be in Provo all morning and afternoon so since Elder Anderson
is one of our Zone leaders, he needed to be released because of the importance
of his calling. So there were 4 missionaries in this testing and two were Zone
leaders and two were District leaders.
Well they got emergency transferred! Two Zone leaders were released and put together. Elder
Mullenaux became one of our new Zone leaders. A Zone leader from West Jordan
came to Riverton. Elder Fitzgerald (my second companion) became a Zone leader
in West Jordan. Probably one of the most crazy things I've seen happen
missionary wise. We had our lunch correlation meeting with our senior
missionary couple the Grahams. We met and ate at waffle love. In our meeting we heard some news about someone the
Elders were working with in the past. This is going to be hard to explain but
bare with me. So there is someone who is investigating the church and has been
going to this ward for a few years now and she doesn't live in the stake
boundaries, but is good friends with a relief society president. She doesn't
have a phone # and her friend won't tell anyone where she lives so the only way
to contact Judy is by her friend. Well it sounds like the relief society
President told Judy not to get baptized a few months ago because she was going
to be out of town for the month of July. August comes around and the relief
society President said she will be in contact with us as needed. We heard from
the Grahams that Judy is being baptized on August 26, but yet we aren't aware
of this. She doesn't want her to meet with missionaries, she just wants her to
get baptized. Well anyone who is wanting to join The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints needs to; meet with missionaries and be taught some lessons
regarding our beliefs, be interviewed by a designated person holding the
Melchizedek priesthood (district leader or Zone leader), (if there are any
serious past transgressions someone more mature and experienced will interview them) (mission president or one of his councilors) ) The
problem here is that Judy needs to meet with us in order to be baptized
regardless of what the relief society President says. Anyone over the age of 8
is considered a convert baptism. Baptism in the church of Jesus Christ is done
at the age of 8, because we know that is when we are accountable for the sins
and mistakes we make. We talked to the bishop of the ward and he will talk to
the relief society President to straighten everything out. We hope that we can
teach Judy and see her make her first covenant of baptism with her Heavenly
Father.
Saturday: We had a cool experience seeing how we can be
an answer to someone's prayers. The Bishop of the ward asked if we would go by
and visit this single lady in the ward and see how she was doing. We knock on
the door and she says, "how did you know I needed you here?" Her
granddaughter who was baptized three years ago has been stressing over the fact
that she doesn't want to go to church and her grandma is forcing her to go. We
had a good conversation and we shared our testimonies of church. We feel bad
because we think that both of them are doing something right, and both are
doing something wrong. The grandma is good at trying to make her recently baptized
granddaughter keep her covenants, but is punishing her and is making life hard
on her if she doesn't go. The granddaughter is going to church, but it is by
negative reinforcement from her grandma, she is punished if she doesn't go to
church. She is worried about having her phone taken away from church if she
doesn't go. She is caught up in the worldly things and isn't remembering the
covenants she made. We invited her to pray to know what is right and what she
needs to do.
Sunday: to wrap this extremely long weekly email up we
had our investigator Lisa Carrol at church with her Husband and his daughter
which was great! We think she is getting close to making the decision to be
baptized. They had to head to a siblings birthday party so they couldn't stay
for the three hours but they at least made the effort to come to sacrament
meeting.
Hope you all have a great week!
Love you all,
Elder Aaron Ashby
Pictures from Boondocks
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