Week 67

Wednesday: We had district meeting in the morning and it was all focused on reconnecting people with the Savior. We all accepted to come to earth and to have Jesus Christ be our Savior, so we all have a personal relationship with him and we are just reconnecting them. I got a little emotional talking about Jesus Christ because of what he has done for me. His enabling power with the atonement has allowed me to change and become a better person and to work on the things I was struggling with. I love my Savior, Jesus Christ, and like the movie Elf when he sees Santa he says, “I know him!”, I too can say I know my Savior and my Redeemer, it is only through him that all things are possible. After district meeting we started exchanges with our zone leaders. This time I was with Elder Mullenaux and Elder Healy was with Elder Henley. We tried to get my old bike fixed but since it is like an 80s Schwinn he didn’t have a certain tool to fix it. He did the best he could but it still isn’t very good to ride so I still use Elder Bretschneider's bike. We went to like a neighborhood party and it was kind of funny since the area I am in now was Elder Mullenaux’s first area and he went to the same party last year! So for his two years on the mission he went to the same tradition which is rare. At night we went to a members home who became good friends with new move ins and might possible be able to teach them.

Thursday: We had to give Sister Anderson a blessing in the afternoon. She was sick and wanted to feel better. We stopped by a relief society presidents house since she ordered us a balaclava (winter mask in the picture) and lets just say it is doing wonders! Our dinner appointment gave us a Christmas card and they were so generous to give us some $. At night we taught a recently returned mission president and wife and invited them to continue to do missionary work here. They recently moved in and are excited to know people. We went out with one of our ward missionaries and taught two active families, one gave us a bag of Ghirardelli chocolates. 

Friday: We did our usual lunch Correlation with the Graham’s and they got us our favorite meal..... Chipotle ️ After we ate Elder Healy and I made some goodie bags to hand out to people as we do our work and we made over 50! At night we went by and taught a recent convert to the church and was trying to see if her husband was interesting in learning more but she said he was good with what religion he was. We stopped by some people the bishop in the 11th ward wanted us to see. On the way down the hill Elder Healy pretty much died and was resurrected! He crashed turning and we were going like 30 MPH and lets just say its a miracle he only walked away with some minor scrapes and bruises. Brother Duke, one of our ward mission leaders, came to the rescue and took us home in his truck after the accident. 

Saturday: We had a neighborhood Christmas party in the Hidden Valley 4th ward and I didn’t realize that I pretty much knew everyone in the ward boundaries! I literally felt like I knew everyone, and I mean everyone! I guess that’s what happens when your in an area for 6 months! Everyone was coming up and talking to us and it felt like we were at home. The 17th ward Christmas party was otherwise.... nobody came up and talked to us and we knew only a few families. We felt like the black sheep after going from the 4th ward to the 17th but oh well! We got somebody in the 2nd ward to fix and tune up Elder Healy’s bike after his crash. At night we talked with the Roberts family in the 6th ward and got some good old basketball games set up for New Year’s Day which will be a Monday so we will be able to play all day! 

Sunday: We went to the 10th ward and Hidden Valley 4th ward sacrament meetings and some had some really good talks on the Book of Mormon and one return missionary spoke. Well we had an interesting experience helping out in the nursery in the 2nd ward. (Kids who are really little) I had no idea how selfish some kids are with toys haha! I had to break up a couple of slap fights with these little kids over some toy cars haha! One kid was chasing after another and the one tripped and hit his head on the wall and got a little gouge in his head! Nursery is a dangerous place I tell ya! At night we had a mission Fireside with Elder Zwick a former 70 who spoke in this last General Conference and gave a great talk on “Looking beyond what you see.” basically looking at everyone through Christ’s eyes and how much of a difference there is. He spoke a lot about missionary work and the Book of Mormon. He talked about how the saviors mission wasn’t done when he was on the cross in Calvary and our missions don’t end when we get released. 

I will be able to email on Christmas since it falls on a Monday. I will have from 8am-6pm so if you have some time this Christmas I’d like to be able to talk to more of you on a personal level. 

Hope you all have a great week and Merry Christmas to everyone!

Love,

Elder Aaron Ashby

Balaclava

Santa

Nursery 

Week 66

Tuesday: We had a multi district meeting in the morning and it was about three main things; unity, aligning your will with Gods, and FIRE! It was a really good meeting and we all learned about things we can do to become better missionaries and it was all things our mission president is worried about. At night we went out with a ward missionary and we tried a few drop by visits and nothing was coming from it so we decided to pray and as we were trying to figure out where to go the bishop of the ward called us. Before we could tell bishop anything we were driving over there and were like “hey we’re at your door” we came in and talked about a priest he is worried about that we have been teaching. We figured out a game plan of how we can help him prepare for a mission. It’s cool to see how the Lord works through us if we rely on Him. 

Wednesday: We had a home inspection in the morning and since we have only been in our apartment for two weeks there wasn’t really anything wrong so thats a bonus. After our home inspection we started our exchanges with the elders in our district. I was with Elder Bretschneider in our area biking and Elder Healy was with Elder Curtis in their area with a car. I felt it was good to give Elder Healy a break from biking since it isn’t the easiest for him and Elder Curtis has been biking most his mission.  We did as much biking to high elevated places in our area since Elder Bretschneider and I are the more fit ones out of the group. We stopped by a Turkish family that sounds interested and we shared the Light The World church video with them at the doorstep. After that we were supposed to go out and do visits with a ward missionary and he had to cancel and we had an hour left so we decided to bike to the top of our area and we talked to them on their intercom thing and they told us to stop by tomorrow night!

Thursday: We ended our exchanges in the morning and then went out and tried to share the light the world video with some of our neighbors and man do we have some angry people where we live. We heard things like, “NEVER COME BACK HERE!” Like chill out I’m giving up two years of my life and serving other people haha chill out. At night we taught an active family and it was a really good and they are exited to do some missionary in their neighborhood. 

Friday: In the morning we went by and visited with one of our bishops and had a really good conversation about missionary work. We got some good referrals and one is looking pretty promising. After that we gave the sister missionaries some more LightTheWorld pass along cards. We helped the Elders make some cool looking posters for them to put up in their church buildings. At night we were stopping by to use the bathroom at a church building and they were setting up a Christmas party so we helped them out and got some free pizza and drinks in return. 

Saturday: We had a ward Christmas party in the morning and it was pretty good, there were crepes that were really good and some fun adult games while the kids were in the other room playing kid games. After the party we start biking and I kid you not Elder Healy's chain broke AGAIN! The zone leaders came over and drove us over to a bike shop to buy a new chain. We got his new chain on and we were back out to working. Well our dinner had to cancel on us last minute but they said, “well to make it up to you we will have to have a couple of our neighbors over who may be interested in the church.” One of the families she was talking about is the Turkish family so we are excited for that. To top it off there was a ward Christmas party dinner! So we didn’t have to fend for ourselves! We had some good conversations with one of our ward mission leaders Brother Duke. 

Sunday: We went to the Stake PEC (priesthood executive committee, all the high councilors and stake presidency) we talked about the missionary work going on in the stake. We went to the 5th ward council after that and got some good leads on people who are interested in the church.  We went to the 5th ward and 2nd ward and both wards had returning missionaries giving their homecoming talks and they both had great experiences on their missions. We taught the Parker family again and it went really well. Charlie the 8 year old preparing to be baptized but has bad anxiety actually answered all the questions we asked him and he ended up memorizing all the 10 commandments! At night we taught the Hoffman’s (newly called ward missionaries) then they gave us a ride back home. 

Monday: We endured well even when our bodies wanted to do some activities since it usually is our day to go shopping and do some activities but since we went to the temple on Tuesday we had a normal work day. We started our day off by cleaning the “shoe box” once again.... they said the blinds were dirty. After that we went and looked at “Uber Tom’s” (a man who drives us around) woodcarving collection I was amazed at the things he carved. We had a lesson set up with the Truet family who has two kids who recently were taught by the missionaries and got baptized. After our lesson we went to one of our ward mission leaders houses to get Elder Healy's bike fixed, his breaks were too tight and were creating a drag when riding. We got it all fixed up and then rode our bikes home and there was so much fog that we couldn’t see one hundred feet in front of us and it was so fun and exciting haha! Good way to end a longer week! 

Hope you all had a great week!

Love,

Elder Aaron Ashby

Picture descriptions.  Last Monday’s bowling activity, Multi district meeting, “the Tree of Life” in draper park which is in our area, the poster I made for the elders, a thing to knock a door we found, todays temple trip

Week 65

Tuesday: We had a district meeting in the morning all focused on figuring out what is our investigators next step. Everyone has something that is holding them back from progressing. If we can find their next step we can better help them come unto Christ. After  our district meeting one of our ward mission leaders gave us Christmas invitations to hand out and then he took us and the Elders in our district to lunch at waffle love. At night we spent all our time handing out invitations and sharing Christmas messages with others.

 

Wednesday: We had a special opportunity to hear from a general authority (a 70) Elder Wokulo and his wife. Man it was one of the best mission tours I’ve been to. Sister Lansing gave a training based of Jacob 5 in the Book of Mormon where it talks about grafting the olive tree. Sister Wokulo gave a training on Nephi building a boat even though it was a hard task. We all are building our boats or our own testimonies. What are you doing today that will make your boat float? Elder Wokulo talked about a lot of things but some things that stood out to me was when he talked about the atonement and how there are 39 chapters in the Book of Mormon that are about the atonement which is by far the best scriptural account to learn about it. Another thing I liked was that he told us that the doctrine of Christ needs to be in our DNA because it should be the root of all we do. After the mission tour we had to go back to our old apartment and deep clean it because it wasn’t good enough when we left it. Well Elder Sherman also had to go back and clean it so we got to see him again! 

Thursday: We had a Zone leadership council in the morning to talk about what we learned with Elder Wokulo and how using the things we learn help the missionaries we have stewardship over reach their full potential. After our meeting while we were biking down one of the big hills in our area I couldn’t see where Elder Healy was. I look back and he is riding his bike slowly. He apparently crashed  and flew over his handle bars and landed in the grass next to him luckily! I missed him crash! He was okay and we had a good laugh over it. We handed out more invitations to the Christmas party in the 6th ward that night. 

Friday: We were going into one of our church buildings to get our posters we made onto a flash drive to take it to the Graham’s place to print them in color. Well I guess perfect timing to help out the bishop in the 6th ward with removing the first two rows of benches in the chapel for the party since there was going to be live music after the dance. Let’s just say, chapel benches are not light, who knew! For some reason when we printed off our posters the coloring was weird on it and we tried everything to get it to look normal and we couldn’t so we made new ones that had a different background. At night we went to the 6th Ward Christmas party and since it was an adult only dinner we felt like the new kids at school. Nobody really sat by us for maybe like 10 minutes which was a little odd but hey their loss! Had some good food and then listed to some good live Christmas music. 

Saturday: We started our day off by going to the 5th ward Christmas party. They got Kneeder's catered which has some good French toast. It was a really good party and there were a few families that moved in recently and they got the chance to meet their neighbors and create some friendships. One of the families are interested in learning more about the gospel but want to read some of the Book of Mormon before we come by and teach them. They seem like they will be wanting us to teach them in the future. Music to missionaries ears. After the party we had to drive up to Sandy to get our washer and dryer for our new apartment. Brother Stark came in clutch with his trailer and we were able to go get it. We put up the remainder of our posters in the evening as well as visited a bishop in one of our wards. There is someone we might be teaching in his ward but he is trying to work through the logistics about getting an appointment set up for us.

Sunday: We had mission preparation in the morning and then went to the 10th ward. We taught the Parker family again in attempt to help their son Charlie get ready to be baptized. We taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and he has some sort of disability that makes it harder for him to learn and he tends to run off during our lessons but he sat in for most of it and even answered a question which is great improvements! At night we watched the First presidency Christmas devotional which was great. They talked a lot about giving and with the holidays it is perfect. The Lord has given us each a portion and it matters of how we use what he has given us. 

 

Hope you all have a wonderful week.

 

Love,

Elder Aaron Ashby