Tuesday: We had district meeting with our district this week and evaluated Elder Costa’s district meeting. It was kind of funny to evaluate my trainers meeting haha. He focused a lot on finding and how we need the faith to find new people to teach. After we evaluated we started an exchange with Elder Partridge and Westover. I was with Elder Westover in our area and Elder Owens went to their area. It was a pretty good exchange and we got some things set up for our area and I showed Elder Westover how to work effectively with members. At night we went out with some ward mission leaders and had some good visits.
Wednesday: We had interviews with our mission president, President Lansing. It was interesting this go around because Elder Owens and I met with him all together and talked about every companionship in the zone and then had our singular meetings. Interviews went really well though. I got some good advice on how to be a good ZL2 and how even though I’m in leadership I need to be following Elder Owens lead. After interviews we met up with the Sister Training leaders to talk about the sisters in the zone and what their main concern is. In the afternoon we met up with the Spanish Elders and went over who was Spanish speaking and who was English speaking in the trailer parks in our areas. This will help both companionships to be as time efficient as possible. At night we had a lessons with Gentry, who is one of our investigators. We taught the restoration and it went pretty well. His girlfriend is still living with him so he can’t work towards baptism just yet, but they are planning on getting married so that should open the door.
Thursday: We had MLC (Mission leader council) which is all the Zone leaders and Sister training leaders in the mission and the assistants. We received great trainings from our mission president. He focused on accountability and it blew my mind how the Lord is a numbers person. He organized the earth in 7 days, Jospeh Smith was told to return to hill Cumorah every year on that exact date, etc. Sister Lansing gave a training on exactly what our zones concern is. Passing the torch. Or in other words the senior companions aren’t training and helping develop their junior companions. We see that senior companions are doing most of the work and brining their companion along but not really involving them. Sister Lansing talked about Alma and Amulek, two great missionaries in the Book of Mormon. Alma was doing okay by himself as a missionary, but when Amulek joined him he was more successful. Hence why we read in the scriptures that “by the mouth of two witnesses.” We talked a lot about March madness which is something our mission did last year. It is a teaching competition and we role play to pretend investigators and they judge us off some criteria. The purpose of this isn’t to see who is the best teaching missionary companionship, but to become master teachers. There was a big concern with our mission president and missionaries use of Facebook. Facebook is a tool for us to get in contact with people we are teaching in our areas and not for communication with friends and family back home. We came up with some rules to help us still remember our missionary purpose, and that is to, Invite others to come unto Christ, by helping them receive the restored gospel. Through faith and Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. At night we had a lesson with the Moctezuma family. Only Vanessa and the mom were there. We taught the plan of salvation or in other words, Gods plan for us. With the scriptures we can learn this plan.
Friday: Let’s just say that today was a crazy day! We planned for our Zone leadership council that would be happening later in the day. Elder Costa had a lesson at 3 so we moved it earlier in the day, to realize that he had a last transfer missionary meeting. So we ended up canceling the meeting for the day. Well we forgot to tell the Sister Training Leaders so they called and asked where we were. We met up with them to talk and plan for Multi district meeting this upcoming Tuesday though. After dinner we started and exchange with Elder Budge and Gilchrist. I went to their area with Elder Gilchrist who was a former companion of mine. We had a slow night, not too many people were home but we had one last person at night and man was it an interesting one. So it was a part member family and the husband let us in and had a few questions. Little did I know he was an anti Mormon person who tried to bash on our faith. It blew my mind that someone would have the audacity to start telling us that what we are doing is the work of the devil and that we teach false doctrine, and the list goes on and on. He literally talked for about a good 45 minutes and didn’t allow us to talk and I wanted to be respectful since I was in his house, but eventually I said hey Brother Smith, you’re wasting your time and your wasting the Lords time. I know what I believe because I have asked god in prayer and have received my answer. Nothing you say can or will chance the feelings of joy that I felt as a read and prayed about the Book of Mormon. And got up and left. It was an interesting way to end the night but I felt good that he couldn’t shake my testimony of this gospel because I know it’s true.
Saturday: We ended exchanges in the morning and got ready to go to a baptism that was happening in our Zone. We went for support and to see how Elder Partridge and Westover handled the baptismal service. We had to leave early since Elder Owens was going to the Oquirrh Mountain temple in South Jordan with one of his recent converts who was baptized a year ago and was receiving his endowment. Elder Owens was also his escort for the endowment session. For the time being I was with Elder Butikofer and Passeraub. We were supposed to have two lessons in our area but neither one of them happened sadly. After those we went to their area to teach a returning member to the church a lesson about temples. It was a good lesson but felt weird teaching in a trio again. They got a new python and were trying to feed it when we were there but for some reason it wasn’t hungry so we didn’t get to see it eat the mouse. After that lesson we went to go have a quick lesson with Alex who is one of our investigators. We had to be real firm with him this time. If he doesn’t come to church we need to spend our time else where. After that we went and picked up Elder Owens. At night we taught Juan who is a recent convert about temples as well. He is excited to go to Jordan River temple open house and then next December get his endowments out.
Sunday: We went to the plum creek ward council in the morning since a member from the missionary department was supposed to be there but he didn’t show up for some odd reason. After that we went to the Plum creek sacrament meeting. Sadly The Moctezumas and Alex didn’t show up. After that we were going to split and one go to the Garden Cove ward and the other to the Elm creek ward. Well our Gentry couldn’t make it to the Garden Cove Ward, and Marie Beech couldn’t make it to the elm creek ward. It tough on Sundays when all your investigators can’t make it to church. At night not a whole lot went on since the Super Bowl was on, but we did talk with the Lapale family. I think they were about the only family to not watch it
Today: We promised our Zone if we had 4 people projected to be baptized in February by February 4th we would buy the whole zone 4 for 4 meals from Wendy’s and we accomplished our goals so we went out and bought the Zone some Wendy’s for Zone activity!
Hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Aaron Ashby
Pictures: Hike up Butterfield Canyon and the 4 for 4 reward. Also WJ Zone.
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