Week 17

I love you guys so much! So there are these thrift shops here and they are so addicting! They have the sweetest things! I find myself trying to find things for all the fam, and not for me... haha you guys should get an pretty interesting package for Christmas ;) Dont open it up till we face-time though!

So this week was really good! We are teaching a lot and have quite a few dates set for December. Our two young investigators K and R are progressing really well and our other two J and C are doing good as well. The Lord is blessing us sooooo much lately. Every night i find myself on my knees just thanking Heavenly Father for all my blessings. I say over and over again how grateful i am to be a missionary. I couldnt do it without him or without you guys. You support me so well and I thank you so much for that! Getting a package almost every week is so amazing!! Haha I love it!

I try to not spend a lot of money on my debit card but the thing is that our house is out of our area so to go back home and eat would take a lot of time away from teaching and we just dont have the miles to do it. We keep PB&J at the church but for some reason i get headaches when I eat too much peanut butter. We also barley have enough money for food on our mission cards so sometimes I have to use my debit card. How much money is even in my account? I don't want to be out of money like 6 months out haha!

So some miracles this week was that our investigator J told his Fiance that they couldn’t sleep together anymore and that was awesome!! He just told her strait up; he's really prepared. Another thing was that we are consistently getting more and more investigators show up to church! I know its because we are applying what it says to do in Preach My Gospel and have faith that Heavenly Father will make sure everything works out the way it needs too. It’s hard seeing Missionaries who have been out for a long time try to do it by themselves. I’m like "USE PREACH MY GOSPEL" HAHA its kinda frustrating.

Things are goin so well. I love every day out here. It’s sad I’m almost 4 months out. I only have 5 more times to do 4 months and then I wont be a missionary anymore. Helping people apply the gospel in their lives everyday is so rewarding. I have never been happier and more ready to just work!! I pray every night and ask Heavenly Father to help me be able to do all that I can, I never want to lay in bed and think of somewhere I could have worked harder. I find the harder and smarter I work, the more I learn. Missionary work is just like life, stay to the basics! Its not as hard as we think it is sometimes. Why do yo think the Spurs win so much? Because they are fundamental. I have to think that if Heavenly Father had to pick a favorite team, it would have to be BYU first obviously, and then the Spurs. haha i still hate them though. GO LAKERS!!!

Thanks for all the support and love! I feel your prayers each day!! Hope your guys week goes amazing! Have fun in Gunlock!

Love, Elder Ashworth

Week 16

I heard Steven made the LP Varsity Basketball Team!! Thats so awesome!! Man am I proud of him:) Thanks for the greenie package ;) haha I loved it! The new bed stuff is keeping me nice and toasty which is good! Its been warming up a bit, but its suppose to get really cold tomorrow! The Elders Quorum President is coming to Utah this next week and his sister lives right down by the Stroms kind of! I gave him your guys numbers and told him to call you! His name is Darren Lofthouse, He's a really nice guy! His wife is spanish and kind of reminds me of you (Because she’s really tan) :) Let me know if you guys meet! 

So this week was really good. We had a couple investigators show up to church again which was awesome! The work is moving forward quick here. We have a good amount of baptismal dates set for December so it should be a great upcoming month! This past week we taught our investigator J the law of chastity. He told us in the past that his fiancee' would sleep over at times so we were a bit nervous that this would hold him back a little. When we explained the law of chastity and the blessings that come from it you could tell he was thinking hard about it. We told him strait up "Look, in order to progress towards baptism you cant be sexually active with your fiance and she cant sleep over anymore, so J, will you commit to live the law of chastity" without any hesitation he said yes and that he would let his fiance know of the changes that were going to need to happen! It was so cool! I know the spirit testified to him that what we were telling him would bless him. So my new comp has been out 9 months, he said he hasn’t seen a ton of success though and wants that to change. I feel like we were put together for that exact reason, so we could see success together. We also have two young kids named K and R who are progressing really well too! The ward is doing well at fellowshipping them which is awesome! 

This work is so amazing. I’m constantly asking myself if I’m doing everything I can to be the best missionary possible. I feel like I’m working pretty hard because I can barley stay awake during nightly planning. Days are flying by, it’s nuts. I feel like I don’t have enought time to get done all the work that needs to be done, but I’m trying my very hardest to do all I can. I love you so much! Thank you for all the support and prayers, I can definitely feel them! Be good and keep me posted on anything new that happens. 

Love your son Elder Ashworth

 

 

 

Week 15

So I did get a new comp this week, his name is Elder Norton. He is a really nice kid. It was really hard for me to adjust the first few days but i'm good now. We have been teaching a lot and finding a lot of new people, its been really cool! Last night we decided to stop by on a kinda flakie investigator, he was outside drinking so we asked if we could sit down for a minute and share a quick message with him. (They're never that quick, we just have to say that so they'll agree;) haha but so we sat down and right after the opening prayer his friend walked in! We instantly asked him to join in with us and we shared with them the plan of salvation. The spirit was so strong. They were both so into the lesson and what we had to say I knew that it was the spirit speaking to their hearts. We ended up getting a decent amount of investigators and a lot of less actives to church yesterday. Well we didn’t, God did, but we did verbally invite them :) We were giving one of them named J a church tour after who has a baptismal date for December 13th and one of the members came up to him and said "Hey you're J right?" he said “Ya!" The member said well "welcome! I hear you're getting baptized soon!" Juan then said "Ya I'm getting baptized December 13th!" It was soooo cool hearing him talk about his own baptism. He is really prepared.

We also were sitting in sacrament meeting and next thing we know we get a text from the sister missionaries about a guy who was sitting right behind us who was a former investigator who had moved into our area. We talked to him after and he said he had to go but really wanted to meet with us and gave us a envelope to give to the bishop. We said we would and scheduled a day to meet with him this week. Well turns out that he's been taught almost everything and that that envelope was TITHING!!! He isn't even baptized yet but he's already paying tithing! Man, God is so real!:) haha we were so excited! I wish i could tell you all the stories but that would take a while. We are seeing so many miracles in this area right now. I dont know why Heavenly Father is blessing us this much right now but I'm going to make sure I'm doing everything I can to continue to be worthy of these types of blessings.

I did get all those things your packages!! Thank you so much for the duvet, I sleep like a baby:) My comp is kind of jelly cuz of how comfy i look at night:) haha thank you soooo much for all the support and prayers, I can definitely feel them! Love you tons!

Love Elder Ashworth

Week 14

 Hey!!! Ya the Jones are such great people! They were the first people to ever feed me! I remember going to their house my first day here and just feeling super overwhelmed. They helped me feel right at home which was very helpful.

So ya Elder Hemsley is getting transferred :( We are doing so well together right now. I want him to stay one more. It's ok though, we are both moving on to bigger and better things. I’m excited to find out who my next companion is next transfer! Our teaching pool is pretty big right now so we can just hit the ground running.

So ya its freezing cold here in the mornings! Since our house was built by the Lamanites when they first got here we have absolutely no insulation. Every morning we wake up our house is like 59 degrees!! I just kneel on my bed to say my morning prayers cuz im to cold to get on the wood floor. I would really appreciate some sweaters. Mainly black gray and blue would match best.

So this past week we got a lot of work done. It’s crazy to see how much Heavenly Father has His hand in the work. These are not our investigators, they are his. We are just acting as a mouth peace for him. Its so humbling to see these people progress even though we aren't the best teachers. I know its because God is softening their hearts for us. We were able to set some more baptismal dates which is awesome. The next two transfers should be really good. It’s crazy to think two transfers are already done. I dont feel like I have enough time to accomplish all the things I want to accomplish.

This past week I have been studying a lot about fear. Fear is what holds us all back. It is the opposite of faith. It is the main tool that satan uses to stop the work of salvation. I hate how he uses it, especially on our investigators. If we could all just move forward with complete faith and trust in the Lord the work would progress a lot quicker, especially member work. This ward is awesome but not great at giving referrals. We are trying to work with as many members as possible to get them to invite their friends to meet with us. Its ok though, they are all such great people.

So I kinda need a GPS for the car for this next transfer. Trying to get to zone conferences and stuff is crazy! There are so many toll roads here that we don't take so I get super messed up direction wise. Another thing I was thinking would be cool would be a new tie every transfer from you guys. It doesn't have to be nice, just one that i can write "transfer 1" or "transfer 5" on so i can remember when i got that tie.

The work is moving forward here! I love being out sooooo much! Thank you all for all the support! Tell the Wakefield's, I loved the package, funny memories :) HAHA.  Tell Grandma and Grandpa, Kristen, and the Fackrell's all thank you for the packages too! They make my week! Love you all so much!

Love Elder Ashworth

Halloween