Tuesday: We had the opportunity to go to Elder Steeds district meeting and evaluate it with him. It was a good meeting focused on accountability and doing your very best each and every day. It was a good revelatory experience for me to learn things that will help those missionaries under my stewardship. We started exchanges with Elder Maple and Elder Clawson in the afternoon. I was with Elder Clawson in their area, while Elder Owens was with Elder maple in our area. Back to biking whooo! We were on our way to dinner and we got a call from their senior missionary couple with a kid who wants to go to seminary and also be baptized! You don’t get that phone call every day haha. Hopefully the Elders can work with him in the future. At night we had a lesson with one of their investigators Alex. He had a lot of questions and we were able to have a good lesson on the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He had a lot of questions, but mainly about why there are so many churches. We explained that Jospeh Smith was in the same boat as he was and he knew through reading the Bible that if you lack wisdom ask God. Joseph Smith was visited by Heavenly Father (God) and Jesus Christ. He was told that every church had bits and pieces of truth but not all of it in its entirety. He then received instruction and eventually restored all of the gospel, or teaching of Jesus Christ with the proper priesthood authority. After the lesson Elder Clawson and I had a good chat about how he can further the missionary work in his area. With their area they need to work smarter, rather than harder. They only have three wards and in Utah that’s a small geographical area. We came up with some ideas on how to find people to teach and it was good for Elder Clawson, he has only been out for 3 months so it was a good teaching opportunity.
Wednesday: We ended exchanges in the morning with the Elders. We had to plan for our Zone leadership council for Thursday. At night we had a lesson with Gentry and it went pretty good. We knew he had some word of wisdom problems so we taught that and then he expressed a concern about the law of chastity. We ended up teaching that as well and he committed to live both of those commandments!
Thursday: We went to the mission office in the morning to pick up some statistics for the West Jordan zone and it just so happened to be our mission presidents wife’s birthday! We were able to say happy birthday to her in person and she had a cool cake that is the hill Cumorah where Jospeh smith retrieved the gold plates. (Now the Book of Mormon) We had our ZLC all focused on having positive daily contact with the missionaries in their stewardship and to help inspire them rather than nagging them about their results from their missionary work. The other topic we talked about was preparation, with the analogy of “wood.” Wood is what makes a fire and our mission has been talking about how we need to “be on fire” so being a missionary with an edge. Well you don’t just become like that overnight. It comes through scripture study, being diligent, and feeling the Holy Ghost guide you. We had another lesson with Alex and Saia. After dinner we taught the Lolohea’s. Sadly Damion was in bed before we got there but we taught the rest of the kids.
Friday: Well on exchanges with Elder Maple and Clawson, Elder Owens and maple figured out that at the stake center in the morning there is a group of 8-10 adults that play basketball in the morning. They play every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in the morning from 5:30am till about 7am so we planned on going and played some good games. Man was I gassed though haha! Good to play some basketball for morning exercise. The days they don’t play Elder Owens and I have been going and shooting around and doing some drills. He’s 6ft 7in and didn’t play basketball so I’m trying to coach him haha! It’s been fun though. We went to Elder Luke and Lybe’s weekly planning session to help them out and to see what they can do to improve. It felt weird helping them plan for the Mountain View Stake (the area I grew up in) but was kind of cool. Our night didn’t go as planned. We had a few lessons scheduled and they canceled last minute, but that’s missionary life!
Saturday: We had breakfast with our Stake President, President Watkins in the morning. His daughter just got home from her mission in Washington DC North, so it was kind of cool to see how different each mission is. We did what is known as a blitz in Sister Cox and Peterson’s area. A blitz is where a few companionships of missionaries work in one area usually because the area is struggling. Our objective in doing the blitz is to teach the companionship how to fish rather than having us fish for them. (Don’t find people for them, but teach them how to find people) Well it didn’t go as well as we hoped. We found them a bunch of referrals, and one of the Sister training leaders talked to someone in the street and found them a new investigator. So the Sister training leaders went on splits with the sisters and the Sister missionaries who’s area it was didn’t really talk at all and let everyone else do it for them so we missed the boat on that one.
Sunday: Elder Owens and I split up in the morning. I went to the garden cove ward council and he went to the elm creek ward council. After the ward councils we met back up and went to the plum creek sacrament meeting. Sadly 3 of our investigators in that ward didn’t show up. After that we went to the Garden cove ward to go to church with Gentry and as we texted him too see if he was coming he told us that his girlfriend moved back in and that he wouldn’t make it to church. Man was that a rough text to get on Sunday. Since he is living with his girlfriend he can’t be baptized on February 10th since he didn’t make it to church and he is breaking a commandment. We will be meeting with him on Monday and hopefully we can work things out and get him back on track to be baptized. It’s always interesting how Sunday’s can make or break your week. If people don’t come to church they can’t progress towards baptism. When we are baptized we make our first covenant with God (two way promise) and the blessings are conditional upon keeping the promises we have made. Eventually we make our next covenant in the temple with God when we are ready. We read in the Book of Mormon that baptism is the gate. Baptism is the gate to heaven but it doesn’t mean that’s all we need to do.
Love you all!
Elder Aaron Ashby
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