Week 94

Well transfers are always a bit hectic and this one was no different. It was sad to part ways with Elder Rodriguez but I guess I learned what I needed to learn from him! We got Elder Bretschneider here in the morning and we got to work getting bikes and cars etc. It was pretty easy this time, we picked up a car from Draper along with 2 bikes and then dropped those off and grabbed two more bikes from South Jordan. At night we had some more softball with the Tongan YSA ward. Elder Bretschneider and I had some more good plays and it was a great way to get him integrated into the ward. We talked a little bit with the YSA Sisters. They had their investigator Heath who is being baptized show up. We talked to him for a little bit and he is excited to be baptized.

Wednesday: We had a district meeting in the morning and we decided to go to Elder Richards meeting since he was a zone leader for the past 6 months and getting back into the feel for planning and conducting the district meeting. He focused the meeting mainly on ministering which is something we feel like our missionaries are lacking. He is a great follower and asked us what we want focused. At night we had a stake leadership meeting that we were invited to. It was all about the changes in the church dealing with ministering. We were just visiting people to visit people in the past not really caring too much for the individual, but now there is big emphasis on ministering and focusing on helping people. It was the perfect meeting to receive revelation for our zone expectations meeting on Thursday.

Thursday: We had our expectations meeting in the morning and it was really simple this time. All we want our missionaries to be doing is ministering just as Jesus Christ did. Really that is how we should be doing our missionary work since we are literal representatives of Jesus Christ sharing the same message he would share if he was here. We were excited to see that our missionaries were on board with the expectations and they knew that we were inspired in the process. At night we had dinner with the incoming missionaries from the Orem mission. There were eight Elders that would be coming to our mission with the mission boundaries realignment. After dinner we had a meeting with them and their mission president and ours to talk about this change and transition. It was cool to see how each mission president has their own style but the objective is still the same, to bring others unto Christ.

Friday: We had our MLC (Mission leadership council) meeting in the morning and man was it good! Sister Lansing gave a training by using a diagram. On one side she had us think of five characteristics that our zone has. Afterwards she covered all the zones answers and then said what characteristics does a missionary need in order to baptize. After she erased the ones that we already had we were left with two things that our zones need to do in order to be better missionaries. One was patience, and the other was ministering. I found it very cool to see how revelation works. President Lansing talked about Church+Prayer+Scriptures =baptism. He talked a lot about the basics and how the basics are what we are lacking. At night we were having a very difficult time finding an apartment building. We could find building I, after thirty minutes of us trying to find it we found a guy named Jesse that was in between H and J where building I should have been! Haha but it was cool to see how the Lord put us in people's paths or in other words he puts them in our path. (FWI there is no building I in the whole apartment complex so I'm filing a complaint haha!) We were able to have a lesson with a man named Tristian. Tristan is super solid! He investigated the church two times but wasn't baptized and said he would want to look into being baptized. He just got out of a rough situation but is ready to make changes. He is willing to work towards being baptized on July 14th.

Saturday: We met with Elder Alarcon in the morning to talk about what we heard in MLC and wanted him to focus on some things right away. We did that with our other district leaders on Friday after the meeting. We went to Heath's baptisms in the afternoon. It was kind of weird but I got put in charge of holding someone's phone who was skyping in Sister Nelson for the baptism. She just went home from her mission like a week ago. The baptism was great and it was a spiritual experience. At night we taught Luis and read out of the Book of Mormon with him. He is ready to be baptized when he finds a new living situation. 

Sunday: We went to Butterfield canyon ward counsel in the morning. Elder Bretschneider stayed with Luis at church while I was with Melqui for church. Melqui is good to be baptized this Saturday and it was great to sit with him at church and see how knowledgeable he is about the gospel. We left church and went to go see a baptismal service for someone Elder Johnson and Taylor taught. They are who were in the Orem mission coming to ours. It was I interesting to see that their info was sent off to our mission so they were technically no longer in the Orem mission. After the baptism we went to a fireside that was happening at the institute building but I guess it was only like 20-30 minutes long because we got there and sang the closing hymn. After that we got a call from our assistants telling us that we are going to be the ones responsible for helping the new missionaries get integrated into our mission. As well we were supposed to meet up with the new district leader for their district and went over how our mission does things differently than what they are used to. All I can say is it was the craziest week of my mission! We didn't think we would be getting the Elders in our mission till July first but I guess that didn't happen haha! It's been a blessing to serve with everyone here in RNNATION and I can't wait for what the Lord has in store for us! 

Love,
Elder Aaron Ashby

Week 93

Steven Aaron Ashby	Jun 18 (7 days ago)

Tuesday: We had our final district meeting of the transfer and we went to our district again. It was another good meeting by Elder Dunn. After district meeting we went over to Jon's place to go over the baptismal interview questions to prepare him to be baptized this Saturday. Jon is an interesting guy, he was atheist about 4 weeks ago and had a miracle happened in his life and he is new to the idea of God and religion. He knows that God is real and that we were guided to him to point him in the right direction but doesn't know all the small things about the church but he knows the basics which is required for baptism. At night we went to Mike's baptism who was being taught by Elder Maple and Peterson. 

Wednesday: We got a text first thing in the mroning from a random number saying, "Are you missionary? How can I do to get baptized?" What!!!! haha! As we talked to him it was a man named Teo who is from Africa and wanted to get baptized.  We had a mini MLC (mission leadership council) meeting in the morning with just the ZL's, STL's and AP's. We didn't have a good month of June in our mission and they wanted to help prepare us so that we wouldn't have a bad July. As we counseled about things we were able to figure out what we need to focus on with our missionaries  so they can push through. We went to Jacks baptism who was being taught by Sister Nelson and Neuhaus. We had to leave a little early to have a Facebook lesson with Teo, then we realized that he was fellowshiped into the other YSA ward so we ended up passing him off to Elder Mullenaux and Passeraub. At night we had a lesson with Melqui (Short for Melchizedek) and he is supper prepared and we figured out the details with him and he will be baptized on June 30th. After our lesson with him we went to ward basketball and played some games with Melqui. 

Thursday: It was Elder Dow's birthday so we went out and bought him and his companion lunch and took it to them and ate with them. At night we taught a girl named Jehoshabeath but she goes by Joe. Joe is an FLDS member which is what most people thing about when they hear Mormons. They still practice polygamy where as we do not. Polygamy was a revelation given to Joseph Smith even though he didn't want to do it. The third prophet of the church Wilfred Woodruff  received revelation that polygamy should be ended due to the changes in the law about polygamy. This is where the church branched out and the differences between the FLDS and the LDS church. We were able to talk to Joe about the importance of personal revelation to know things for our self. She has been having mixed feelings about the FLDS chruch her whole life and now she is investigating the LDS church. 

Friday: We had Jon's baptismal interview with our district leader Elder Dunn. Jon passed and had the green light to be baptized on Saturday. After that we all had to go help a senior missionary couple move into an apartment complex. We had a night full of contacting people and got some new people to go by and visit. 

Saturday: We went to Kim's baptism who was being taught by Elder Maple and Peterson as well in the morning and helped them get all the small details figured out. After that we started preparing for Jon's baptismal service. It was a great baptismal service for Jon and every part of the program was good. We had great talks and closing remarks from the Stake President. At night we went to Temple Square with Jon and his friend Riley (who baptized Jon) and his wife to temple square to show Jon some cool things downtown. 

Sunday: We went to the Rose Canyon ward council in the morning to talk about how we can best help Jon as the newest member of the ward and things that will help him to be more integrated into the ward. After that we went to the Rose Canyon sacrament meeting to be apart of Jon's confirmation. We also went to sacrament meeting with our investigator Luis who is being prepared to be baptized. At night we taught Luis and figured out the details and he is ready to be baptized other than a few things so we set a new day for him to be baptized on July 7th. We also met with Parley who was someone who was going to be baptized a few weeks ago and then flaked out at the last minute and we figured out what his real concerns are and will be helping him to overcome the small things so he can receive the big blessings the Lord has in store for him. 

Transfer news: I will be staying in Riverton as a Zone leader. However I will no longer be with Elder Rodriguez. He will be headed off to South Jordan to be a Zone leader over there. My new companion will be Elder Bretschneider who was actually in my district back in Draper. I was his first District Leader when he came into the mission and now we are companions! It will be a great transfer with him but it is sad not to stay with Elder Rodriguez, but the Lord has a plan for everything. In two weeks our zone will be getting 5 more companionships from the Orem mission which will be super crazy since we have 20 missionaries and now will be at 30 when they come in! There should be a lot going on this next transfer and I am excited to see what it holds!  

Love,

Elder Aaron Ashby

Week 92

Tuesday: We had a great district meeting by Elder Dunn in the morning and it was focused on finding joy in the work and helping people make and keep commitments. There were some good trainings and it felt good to be in our district for district meeting. After that we had to pick up all the scriptures from our mission book of Mormon read. We  needed to get them to the mission office before dinner. We'll we literally are the farthest away from the mission office as we can get so it took like 45 minutes with traffic to get there. We didn't have a dinner appointment but we saw Elder Gehrett and Horne who were on an exchange and Elder Gehrett said that Elder Henley and Richard's were eating with his parents who now live in Sandy Utah. So since we were up in Sandy we drove over to their house and said hi to one of my previous companions parents haha! Funny how both our parents now live in the mission. At night we went to go to the stake softball games. While Elder Rodriguez did a baptismal interview with a girl named Kim who is being taught by the other YSA elders. It worked out that we were both at the stake softball games. Elder Rodriguez and myself played on the Tongan team and we had some really good catches and I gunned a dude out from deep left field all the way home. It was a great opportunity for us to gain member trust in that ward.

Wednesday: We had interviews with our mission president in the morning and it was one of the best interviews I had since I had a few questions. I got a lot of good counsel on knowing when to delegate as a leader and when to not. He advised me to do the things I know I am responsible for and delegate the rest. He is big on developing the junior companion and because of that Elder Rodriguez has been doing a lot in our companionship. I felt like I was giving him too much to do but in reality it is what President Lansing wants. Our investigator Jon texted us and told us that he wants to be baptized on June 16th rather than the 9th since he wants his friend to baptize him. We are super excited for next week and seeing Jon be baptized. He went from being atheist to knowing that God is real and knowing that the gospel is what he needs in his life. At night we had some ward visits in the rose canyon ward and I got to know some of the people in the ward which is good.

Thursday: We had a zone leadership counsel in the morning which was all focused on ministering to the 1. It can be for the missionaries we serve with and our investigators. Jesus christ may have taught multiple people at once, but he ministered one by one. We started an exchange with Elder Mullenaux and Passeraub in the afternoon. We had ward visits with the mountain view ward and it wasn't the best since we started 30 minutes late, so they were only out for half an hour. (however one of the people that were there for ward visits texted us today saying her friend wants to be taught by us and we have a lesson set up for Wednesday! No effort wasted)

Friday: Elder Mullenaux and myself went fishing for our morning exercise but didn't catch anything unfortunately. We ended exchanges in the morning. Not too much happened at night. It was a little slow but we're able to talk to some people.

Saturday: We went and put together Jon's baptismal program and helped Elder Mullenaux and Passeraub prepare for Kim's baptism. Her baptismal service was great and there were some good talks given and it was a spiritual experience. At night we went to go visit a sober living home to see if there were any YSA age people we could start teaching. We figured out that they don't have their AA meetings on Saturdays, they only have them on Wednesday and Thursday. We did in the process of walking around the house find two people that were interested. 

Sunday: We started our day off by going to the Tongan YSA ward counsel. We got some good leads on people and one of them is kind of an interesting situation. So there is a foster dad who is 20 and the kid is 14. Thomas has been coming to church and activities with him for a few weeks now. He wants us to teach him but he isn't sure about the logistics behind the foster care type thing, but if we get the green light we should be able to teach him and help him get baptized. We had sacrament meeting in Rose Canyon and sat by Jon. It was a little nerve wrecking because there was a man with special needs that ended sitting by him and got mad that Jon wasn't wearing "church cloths" (Jon is real adamant about not wearing church clothes)  He also got mad at Jon for not taking the sacrament and Jon told him that it doesn't truly have an effect until he is baptized. Jon was trying so hard to be nice but the situation was nerve wreaking because we didn't know how he would react to him. While we were talking the Bishop grabbed us and was like "Elders you need to come talk to this guy he inst LDS and he wants to be." We met Melqui which is short for Melchizedek. (From the Bible) Melqui is from Utah but was selling solar in Kentucky and was meeting with missionaries out there and was going to get baptized but then he had to come back out here so we basically just have to set up a baptismal interview and service hahaha! That doesn't happen every day! At night we had a mission fireside with Brother and Sister Crittenden. Brother Crittenden is the guy who manages the missionary department and foresees all the missions and MTCs in the world. It was a quick fireside but it was about empathy and how empathy is what is going to help people to make these big decisions in their lives to be baptized. 

Love,
Elder Aaron Ashby

Week 91

Tuesday: We had our Pday and we went to the Jordan River Temple which was really cool since it was just opened back up.

Wednesday: We had district meeting in the morning and we went to Elder Mullenaux's district meeting. He wants all of his missionaries to participate so he has been having each of the missionaries in his district  train each week. We loved the meeting and all the training's that were given! Each training was important and it all lead to Elder Mullenaux's training about our "why" and he invited us to write down our "why" each day in a journal and see why we are serving that day. It helped me out because sometimes in the day to day stuff we forget the main reason behind what we do. We were calling our investigator all day to uplift him because he is on the fence between being baptized or not. At night we went on some ward visits and I went out with the High councilor who covers Butterfield Canyon. We made some good contacts with people in the ward and he even told us a pond to go fishing at in the mornings. That's where I caught that catfish from last weeks photos. 

Thursday: We taught Sabrina in the morning and she is still interested in meeting with us and working towards baptism but says she wants to just focus on learning more before she works towards a date. We had a good lesson with Jon. We watched a Mormon message called "The hope of Gods light" https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-07-006-the-hope-of-gods-light?lang=eng We talked about how sometimes we don't get answers immediately but over time we will see how gradually the Lord is in our lives.  At night we went on an exchange with the Assistants Elder Gehrett and Henley. It was supper funny since I was companions with Elder Gehrett and Elder Rodriguez was companions with Elder Henley. I was with Elder Gehrett in our area and we got some good leads on people. We had a long talk about the roles as a senior companion in leadership. We both had different concerns with our companions. I felt like I was delegating too much work to Elder Rodriguez and Elder Gehrett didn't feel like we was delegating enough to Elder Henley so we had a long good conversation about it and tried to figure out a good mix of both. He advised me to ask President Lansing in interviews. 

Friday: We ended exchanges in the morning. We had a crazy day and it basically all dealt with Parley our investigator. He was supposed to be baptized on Saturday but everything that could have went wrong went wrong. We spent all night trying to get him his baptismal interview. We had another great lesson with Jon, he says he feels like something is nudging him to be baptized so he decided he wants to do it.

Saturday: We set everything up for Parleys baptism and he called us last minute and called it off because he wasn't fully committed to live the commandments. It was a little frustrating but we know that the Lord has his timing with everyone and we need to do things according to God's will not ours. At night we had dinner with an investigator Luis. He is also preparing to be baptized on June 16th and is looking pretty good to be baptized on that day other than some small things. We read the Book of Mormon with him and talked about how the scriptures apply to us in our lives. 

Sunday: We went to Rose Canyon YSA ward counsel in the morning to talk about Jon and how he is preparing to be baptized. After that we did some splits. I went to Mountain View ward and Elder Rodriguez went to Rose Canyon and then I went to the Sojo 11th ward (Tongan YSA) and he went to Butterfield Canyon ward. We were able to hit up all our sacrament meetings in one day which is really good. We found a girl named Miranda who moved in from California who grew up with Mormon friends and they always asked her why she wasn't a member and she didn't know why. She talked about wanting to make some changes in her life and the gospel is the perfect fit for that. We are excited to work more with her and help her to make those changes that will bring her the most happiness.  

Love,
Elder Aaron Ashby