Joy's letter # 2   Sent June 14, 2016

This week was good! We are still learning and trying really hard. My companions are great and we have decided to start singing hymns before we go to bed. Last night we sang How Great thou Art but the spanish version. One of the girls next door who is actually going home at the end of the week because of medical reasons said that it was really comforting and she heard it in English even though we were singing in Spanish. I thought that was amazing.

We actually taught a real investigator. The teachers tell us that the people we teach are real even though the teachers themselves are the investigators, but one of my teachers said that her friend, Diego, would come and we assumed that he would just be a member who we could practice on, but the real story is that he had the lessons a few years ago, but his parents wouldn't let him get baptized so he fell away and now is trying to get back. It was so cool to teach him even though we could hardly understand what he was saying and we probably made very little sense.

We also taught a teacher who works here and we messed up pretty bad. We were at the door practicing our introduction and we were having a hard time understanding him so when he asked us a question about who we were and something about being witnesses we enthusiastically said Si. We went in and talked with him about his beliefs and he said that he believed in God and in Jesus Christ and in something else that we didn't understand and he asked us if we believed those things as well. We confidently  said Si until in my head it clicked that he had said that he believed in praying to the Virgin Mary. I immediately said no and whispered to my companions that he had said the Virgin Mary and we all went from firm yeses to frantic no's. To top the lesson off, we couldn't get him to say the closing prayer so hermana Houston offered it and in the prayer she was about to say that we were thankful for our visit with... and she had completely blanked on his name so we all sat in silence for a good three seconds and hermana Speth and I were practically whisper screaming "Pablo" at her. She had to end the prayer right after that because all of us were laughing so hard at how awful the lesson had been and the sequence of events. After the lesson, we realized that he had asked us if we were Jehovah's Witnesses. I think we are ready for the field...

Elder Bednar gave an awesome devotional last week. He stood as a witness of Christ. It was so powerful.

On Sunday night we watched an old devotional of Jeff Holland at the MTC called, "No Regrets." He made the point that we are out on a mission for the Lord so we need to follow the Lord's rules and if we were on another mission for someone else we could follow the other rules but he would just ask us to take off our nametags beforehand. That was so powerful to me. I get to serve the Lord for 18 months and I get to remember everything that happens for the rest of my life. I am so happy that I get to be here and I get to do His work.

Pres. Morris and Hermana Morris gave a couple of devotionals too and they shared about families and prayer and how the gospel truly blesses lives.

We had a health presentation and I will absolutely not eat food from vendors on the streets. I am not interested in getting sick. There were some pretty nasty pictures.

This morning we woke up at 5:30 because I thought someone was slamming doors hard enough to shake my bed. That was not a correct assumption. :) but Hermana Houston jumped off the top bunk because of the shakes. It was pretty cool. I like it down here. The weather has been awesome too. There was some AWESOME thunder and lightning this week.

Oh! one of the rules here is that we, the Hermanas, can't play sports outside if it is raining. A couple days ago it was not even a sprinkle. it was just like the air was thicker, but the Hermanas were not allowed out. That bugged me. But I will be obedient with exactness because I need to learn the language so badly. It is hard. I am so bad at memorizing phrases. So I need the blessings.

We went to the temple this morning and it was lovely as usual. I love the temple and I love the Gospel! Yo sé que familias pueden ser eternal. Yo sé que el Libro de Mormón es verdadero. Yo sé que Jesucristo es el Hijo de Dios y yo sé que él es mi Salvador!

The gospel is true and we are all children of God. That is the truth. God loves us and we can get back to him someday.

I love you all. I pray for you.
Dios nos ama.

Hermana Ashton

ps. let's not judge this typing job or my Spanish. These keyboards are ridiculous. Also don't judge my spelling. Thanks
love h.a.
(Mom edited so it looks a bit better, but it wasn't too bad).  Robin Ashton