Week 70

Mom,

I'm super glad you guys had a great week and a fun time in Gunlock!  Erin said she loved it!

I'm glad that all the boys had fun hunting and driving the rhinos and things like that! I miss that stuff! I'm glad you guys were safe! Hope Stevo’s game goes well this week. So this week we again had a good amount of meetings and things we had to do. We did go on an exchange with Elder Crismon and Egan and that was a lot of fun and was a great learning exchange. I went with Elder Crismon and we just talked about missionary work and Preach My Gospel basically the whole exchange and it was awesome! Elder Crismon was
here in Hunter's Creek when I was here before so we became really good friends during that time. We were able to teach a lot which was great! One really cool experience I had this week though was we were over
teaching a recent convert and his little step brothers were there who were 6 & 8 so we invited them to sit in with us. At the end of the lesson I thought it would be a great opportunity to teach the little kids how to pray so they could pray on their own later on in their life. So I taught the 8yr old how to pray and he said an awesome, heartfelt, sincere prayer that nearly brought me to tears! I then asked the little boy how he felt after he prayed and all he said was, "Loved" We left the house and I couldn't help but just ponder how simple the gospel is. When we pray, when we read our scriptures, when we go to church, when we go to the temple, when we go home teaching, we should feel "Loved" Heavenly Father always has his loving hands extended, we just have to reach out ourselves most the time to feel it more. It was so awesome to see that even a 8 year old boy who doesn't even know the gospel could tell that the feelings he received while praying were feelings of love. Another great thing that happened was that we had a less active lady who we both didn't expect to see just show up to church! As she was partaking of the sacrament you could tell she was pondering her life and the things she wanted to change. You could tell it was a spiritual experience for her. I mean it was a spiritual experience just watching her. She's committed to get back on track to come each Sunday and read her scriptures everyday and we're so excited to start working with her!

I love you Mom!! Thank you for EVERYTHING!! You're the best!

Love Elder Ashworth

Week 69

Hey Mom!!! This week felt the exact same way for me as well. Short, but very long!

One amazing thing that did happen though was that this Husband and Wife randomly walked in to church and wanted to learn more! We had them sit through sacrament and then afterwards we answered all of their questions. It turns out she was doing a school project and had to visit a church that was not of her faith and so she decided to come to ours! She was actually on vacation here from Pennsylvania so we got all of her info and are going to send it to the missionaries up there. So that was pretty awesome. Another cool thing that happened was we had one of our investigators who has been in and out of town for about a month finally come to church with his grandson!! It was awesome! They loved church and are excited to keep coming! Our members here are just plain awesome and it's made all the difference!! Overall things are just going really well here which always makes missionary work more fun :):)

I miss you a lot too mom!! I hope you guys have a great week!! Be safe and have fun in Gunlock! Have a happy happy Thanksgiving!! I can't wait to talk to you guys on Christmas! :):)

Love Elder Ashworth

Week 68

Transfers are today and we have to go pick up the newbies so I don’t have as much time to email. Sorry. So this week was really good and busy!! Our investigators are all doing pretty well!! R, who randomly showed up to church last week, came again this week and she LOVED it again! She knows her scriptures well and seems to be very in tune with the spirit which makes our job a lot easier. We feel like we really found the right person to fellowship her and that has made a big difference as well. N came to church and to a musical fireside last night and loved it as well!! We're hoping to set her on date this next week which will be great! Overall everything has been going great! Our other investigator L is also doing really well! She's starting to quit smoking to be ready in December for baptism which we're really excited about as well! Elder Langston and I are really excited for this next transfer together and for the miracles we're going to see! I'm just so so so happy right now!! Things just always seem to fall into place. The areas I've served in just always seem to grow so quick and I know it's not by what I'm doing, but just Heavenly Father blessing me tremendously! I'm so happy to be serving right now. I wouldn't change this time for anything in the world!

I hope you have an amazing week!! I love you soooo much!! You're amazing mom❤️❤️❤️ I'm sooooo lucky to have you in my life especially as my mother😘😘😘

Love Your Son
Elder Ashworth

Week 67

Hey mom!! I miss you! Thanks for the pics of you and Erin and the boys! ❤️❤️😘😘 Haha that's
crazy that it snowed!! I miss snow right now!! It's soooo stinkin hotttt right now!! I'll get over it tho!

This week was great!! One great thing was one of our investigators named J quit smoking and you can already see the difference it's making in his life! He said it's been really hard but he said it's definitely been worth it. Now we just need him to get married which he's doing in a month! We've been praying that he would be able to find the means to buy her a ring and propose and when we went to our lesson on Tuesday he said he got this amazing side job in a couple weeks that will pay for the ring so we were all excited about that!

Our recent convert L who just got baptized two weeks ago is going into the family history specialist on Wednesday to find some names so we can take her to the temple to do baptisms which we're also ESTATIC about!!

Then our investigator L who's husband is a member basically taught us the Restoration this week and explained the importance of authority which was awesome! We've been working real hard on teaching as simply as possible so they can't not understand it if that makes sense. And for her, it seems to be paying off! She and her husband both love church every time they come so we see her progressing pretty quick.

We also had an investigator who kind of fell off the face of the earth show up to the stake party on Saturday and come on Sunday because she kept hearing her member friends voice tell her to come to
church! Haha choosing the right member friends is extremely important for investigators. They need to be socially converted as well as spiritually. Then we had a lady who met with missionaries like 17
years ago show up to church because she said the Holy Ghost had been telling her for a while every time she drove past the church that she needed to come... So she did and we're teaching her now and she LOVED the message of the Restoration! So ya, things are falling into place here which is awesome! Heavenly Father is blessing us a lot a lot right now and I feel beyond blessed to be in this area while all this success is going on.

How are things for you?? Any fun photoshoots lately?? Are we gonna go strait from the airport to your studio and the field and the Newman’s arch to take lots of pics? 😏😋😋😘😘 Haha I miss you mom!! I hope you have a great week!! 😘😘❤️❤️

Love Elder Ashworth!



Week 66

Mom!!

May I start by saying you looked amazingly young and pretty In the pictures you sent! Like how do you stay so fit and fad? 😉 I also loved dads and especially Stevos costume!! He was looking fresh... Kinda like me ;) Haha Soooo I hope you had a really good week and a great Halloween! We didn't do much Halloween night.... We had some awesome appointments and then just went to the office to prepare a training that we're giving to the mission in a week or so!! We did have a fun trick or treat in the church and all the missionaries in the Ward decorated a door and handed out candy which was a lot of fun!
On Tuesday we had to help some elders pack up their apartments because a branch was formed in one of the stakes and so one of the areas is being dissolved so we had to form 2 trios and drive them up to their new areas with all their stuff so we had a truck and trailer full of beds and all that kind of stuff! It was quite the adventure driving 4 hours there and back.... We then got to take more beds and desks to two other areas that are getting some new Elders that are coming back tomorrow so on Saturday we spent about another 4 hours driving around delivering stuff!! Just call us the FOM Moving Crew ;) Haha Elder Langston and I had some awesome discussions about life and missionary work and how to improve and help the mission improve so we saw all the driving as a little blessing even tho it took a while! Even tho we drove a lot we still planned our days just right so we could teach in the morning and the night! We saw a lot of investigators and less active and returning members and we saw a lot of success!! In some of the car rides we even called our investigators and prayed and read with them and had good gospel discussions with them over the phone! Just trying to use technology to the best of our abilities! The best part of the week by far tho was the confirmation of L!! It was sooooo awesome to stand in that circle and participate in her receiving the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost! The spirit was soooo strong in that circle. It was a busy, fun, eventful spiritually filled week to say the least!! I'm glad to hear your week went well!! Thank you for all the updates and pics!! I love getting those!! :):) I hope you guys have a great week again! I miss and love you :):)

Love Elder Ashworth