Week 91

Mom!! It sounds like you guys had an eventful week! I'm glad to hear of the wins!! Bummed about Stevos loss. I'm so pumped to watch him play this next season! I can't believe either how quick it's coming up! Nutsssssss!! I can't believe even more that Stevo is almost 16!!! Is he getting a car? Haha he could drive me home from the airport!

This week was pretty good! We had a lot of fun exchanges and we were able to see a lot of amazing miracles. The first one was on Tuesday. We were on exchanges and we had a lesson planned with our investigator Marcos whos getting baptized on the 7th of May. We were planning to teach him the word of wisdom and I was a bit nervous to see his response to be honest. When we first met him I briefly brought it up that we don't drink coffee and for him to be baptized he'd have to quit. He basically told us that it would be nearly impossible for him to quit since he has been drinking coffee since he was a little boy. He's from Puerto Rico and it's just a common and cultural thing for them to drink coffee all the time. So I was a little nervous. He really wants to get baptized, but from his first response, I was afraid that this might be a hold back. Well we went in with faith and confidence, we brought our best member Brother Stanely who just happens to be his next door neighbor, and he without hesitation accepted it! I don't know what changed over the 2 week period of teaching him, but he was so willing to quit because he knew he would have to do it to be baptized! But wait, it gets even better 😃 At church this Sunday he bore a strong testimony in our gospel principles class about how much the church and the gospel has improved the quality of his life! He talked about how he used to be depressed and not motivated to do much, but now he's happier then he's ever been! He was telling everyone about his baptism on the 7th and the whole Ward is pumped to see him progress and be a part of the ward! His aunt who he lives with who's a less active member has already went out and bought him a new white shirt and tie and new slacks for his baptism day! We're hoping to get her to come back soon as well! Another cool miracle was we have this investigator named George Canales. He is the father of a lady in our ward. We have been teaching him for a couple months now but can't get into a routine because of how sick he is. His doctor is making him take this new medication that he has to up the dosage of everyday so he can get to a certain dosage by a certain time. So we go by once a week to see his recent convert grandkids and see him as well. He said he's ready to be baptized but just needs to wait till all this medicine stuff is figured out. His medicine makes him super super tired and out of it so it's hard for him to focus. Well anyways, he was able to come to church this Sunday as well and the ward welcomed him with open arms and he's gonna get baptized in about a month which is when his medical stuff will be taken care of! So that will be another great member to add to the ward. Things are just going amazing like usual!

I love you sooo much Mom!! Thank you for EVERYTHING!! I hope you have another fantastic week! You're the best!

Love Your Son Elder Ashworth!

Exchanges back up in St Cloud in "The Pirate Ship"!
Haha this pic was approved by all the 12 apostles in the background by the way!

Have to re-do the transfer board for the new mission president!
So we took off all the red and made it ALL BLUE AND WHITE #GoCougars!!!
 I'm excited to see what president says about it since he's a ute.

Exchanges with Elder Bigler! We had to drop president off at the airport and we got to go to
Long Horn Steak House with Elder Bean and Sister Bean who are going home in 2 weeks :(
Elder Bean is a very happy man if you can't tell!
Haha he was sick that day so that's why he looks so down in the dumps!

Exchanges with Elder Thompson in Lake Nona!
The members in this ward took us out to Long Horn Steak House as well!
so I got 2 nice steaks this week!

Week 90

Mom!!
So this week was AMAZINGGG!! We were able to go on 3 exchanges and I'm EXHAUSTED!!! Haha each night I'd tell the other Elder, "Hey, I'm wicked tired, can we just chit chat a bunch tomorrow?" And they'd say "Ya for sure!" But then they'd ask one question about missionary work and next thing I knew, we were both deep deep into Preach my Gospel and the scriptures and it was 1 in the morning as I we would be learning and discussing different ideas and ways of finding success and helping other missionaries do the same!😂 Haha so I know that Heavenly Father was helping me get as much deep sleep as possible to make sure I stayed awake for the lessons and drive home the next day! Those were all great exchanges tho! I got to go up to Eustis for the day and Elder Langston and I's recent convert Linda lives up in that Ward now so I got to go see her! She is such an amazing lady! She's preparing to go to get her endowments In a few months here which is gonna be SWEETTT!! I for sure wanna try and make it back for that! We were able to go do some service for our investigator Marcos who lives with a older less active women and it felt good to get out of the proselyting clothes and get into the work work clothes and mow the lawn and pull and dig out some weeds and all that! I have a MEGA farmers tan now😂 Good thing I've got an amazing girl from Salem where farmers tans are pretty common ;);) (Not that there's anything wrong with that) -Seinfeld quote for those well educated people ;) So little side note, Sister Berry (Mission Presidents wife) and I quote Seinfeld to each other ALLL DAY LONG!! Haha President just chuckles that we both know so many Seinfeld one liners 😂 But anyways, that service did a lot for him and he came to church again and is SOOO excited to get baptized! He has one word of wisdom concern that we're working on, but I have full faith that he'll get over it. Heavenly Father wants him to be able to get baptized, so it will happen. Marcos reminds me a lot of our other recent convert Tom! It was funny, cuz In Gospel principles yesterday Tom and Marcos got put together to teach the class about repentance. It was such a cool experience to see our Recent Convert from 3 months ago teach our soon to be recent convert and then watch them present this topic together in front of the whole class! It was funny cuz Tom has been listening to all the Doctrine and Covenants and he is realizing that God is just and that repentance is very important. So when he was teaching the class he said "Everyone has or will have the opportunity to repent. But if you don't take that chance, then you will not live in the celestial kingdom, you'll be damned, and it's pretty much adios to you" Hahah the whole class was cracking up and then our investigator Marcos who was helping him teach said with a strait face (this is true, we must repent) Another cool thing that happened was our recent convert Victor Jr got the Aaronic priesthood so he can go on the youth temple trip this next week. Chris Garcia our other RC also got his Aaronic priesthood and Tom (another > RC) who helped fellowship Chris was able to stand in the circle with us to ordain him to be a priest! So overall, it was a great week!

So the doctors visit was I got kneed super super bad in the thigh while playing basketball and my knee was messed up so I went and got it X-rayed. It's completely fine now, but that's what it was about.

I love you soooo much Mom☺️❤️ Thank you soooo much for all you do for me!☺️😚❤️ I hope you have a great week!

Love Elder Ashworth

Our investigator Henry who we're teaching everything and then when he goes back to Peru
at the end of the month he'll be baptized right away!
He's sooo solid! He is staying with a member of our ward.

Exchanges with Elder Jurges who I came out with! We didn't get any pics during the day
so we had to take a random one in the apartment before we ended the exchange haha

Eddy Dean who is a member up in Eustis! He's a funny dude!

Our RC Linda has Elder Langston and I as her wallpaper! Haha that always feels good as a missionary!

Got to go see Linda this week up in Eustis! She's doing GREAT and is excited
to go to the temple to receive her endowments!

Came into the bathroom up in Eustis and Elder Crismon wrote this on his mirror!
It says "Were you like Elder Ashworth today?"

Went out with Brother Reising this week! He's such a funny man!
He goes out with the missionaries ALLL the time!

Spotted a gator on exchanges!! I was with an Elder who is going home in a few weeks
and it was his first time seeing a Gator!

Helped Sebastian clean his room! Mopped it and vacuumed and dusted and EVERYTHING!!
Hopefully he can feel the spirit in his own room now!

One of their members had a "Trust me, I'm a Mormon" shirt on. Great missionary tool!

Week 89

Heyyyy mom!!☺️☺️❤️❤️☺️☺️

This week was great!! We saw a ton of miracles! On exchanges we had a lesson fall through so Elder Honda and I decided to go stop by a super super less active lady to see how she was doing. She's usually never open to us coming over but for some reason we felt like we should still stop by. Well her nephew who's 30 answered the door and we ended up teaching him and he came to church this week and LOVED it!! All the members were fellowshipping him and you could tell that he felt very very welcomed and loved! Another cool miracle was this member brough her non member friend from Peru to church and we ended up teaching him last night and he loved church as well and really wants to get baptized down in Peru! I could for sure see him being a stake president or something like that down there! He's such a solid guy! We got basically all the less active youth in the ward to church this week which was also a miracle! We've been working a lot with the youth and it's starting to pay off. The YM leader was super excited to see all of them there. Elder Chidester and i who I went to school with were able to go on exchanges this week which was super fun! We were able to teach this kid named G who's two best friends are members. They're seniors in high school and G really has a deep deep desire to learn and improve his relationship with Christ. We had a good lesson with him about how the Restoration can apply to him and he really was excited to read and pray about what we shared! Things just continue to fall into place for us here like usual. I'm so thankful for the chance I'll have to come home right when the boys are at that critical point In their lives. I feel like I left and will come home at the perfect time. I'm excited to keep those boys in line 😉

I love you so much Mom! This week is going to be crazy busy and I'm getting tired of all these meetings and the stress that goes into planning all of them! But it will be worth it! I love youuuu!!

Love Elder Ashworth!❤️☺️❤️

Went to eat at sister Stanleys on exchanges and she LOVES taking pics of the missionaries!

So after our exchanges up in Daytona we forgot to grab a basketball of one of the elders who
previously served there! He reminded us like 10 times to grab it cuz we forgot last time and then
we somehow forgot again!! So we ended up having the other elders just drive down a bit and give it to us.
So we just pulled off on the side of the freeway to wait so
I decided to mess with the long exposure features on my camera!

S came to church this week so we took him to get ice creme after a lesson we took him to with us!

Frozen Yogurt with the senior couple the Beans!! They're awesome!
Even tho Elder Bean looks ticked, he really is. Happy man

I took out this kids stitches. He walked in and said "Hey does anyone know how to take out stitches?"
And I for some reason said "Ya I can do it"... Idk why I did, maybe cuz I've
had Aunt Heidi and Dr. Murdock given me them enough times and seen the triplets
and Stevo get them enough that I felt like I could take them out haha! It went well and he's healing well!

With our recent convert T as he eats his fav meal! Cheesy toast with jelly
haha it's sooo gross but he likes it!

Teaching E our recent convert and his bros!

Week 88

Hey mom!!! So this is gonna be shorter but this week was AWESOME!! First off picking up and role-playing with the newbies is always hilarious! They're always so timid and nervous! It was a really strong group though from what I can tell so we're exited for them! Then D's baptism went great! She is SOOOO prepared and was super excited! I'll send you some pics! The family that she was staying with was so excited for her and to help her be baptized! Then conference was great like usual! So many great talks stuck out to me. I'm going to have to go back through them and pick a favorite after listening to them again! Overall things are going super super well! I'm excited for this transfer! I really hope I get to train my last two. I want a re-do from my last experience of training. 6 days just wasn't enough for me ;)

I'm super glad you got to go to lunch with Erin☺️☺️☺️ I'm bummed shewas sick though....😢

Seeing Mark felt normal! Felt just like I had just saw him and Ace and Cache like 2 days ago! Haha nothing crazy! It's nuts how tall they are now though!

Thanks again for everything mom! I love you ☺️😘❤️

Love Elder Ashworth!

CHIPOTLE on Cheryl and Doug!! haha thanks for the Birthday gift card!

The Spanish guy is named Santiago and he's got a cool story! So he cleans the office and right when i got here i met him one night while we were working super super late in the office. Well i ended up talking with him for like 20 min and nagged him basically the whole time to give me his info so i could send the missionaries over (Im a really good nagger, just ask Danny about that ;) ) haha so obviously he ended up giving it to me and nothing happened of it. Well i saw him two months ago and ended up asking him again for his info and committed him to let the missionaries come visit him up in Clermont. Well he did, and now he's been baptized and is sooo happy! I hadnt seen him at all during his teaching process but i had the missionaries keep me updated! Well when i saw him a couple nights ago he instantly said "Hey! Its because of your nagging that got me baptized" haha obviously i dont take credit for his baptism, but it was sooo cool to see the new light he had to his countenance!

Also, we take Shawn out on the daily cuz he's a great member present
 and he doesn't do anything at his house all day so he needs to get out.
 Erin, he said he'd take me and you and whoever he's dating out to dinner when we come back :)

Just messing around with my camera outside the temple!

Got to go to the temple again which was fun!

Fun baptism this week!!!

Fun seeing Mark Olson!!