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