This week we had our entrevistas con presidente y hermana Vasquez (interviews with President and Sister Vasquez). That day we were invited to a Thanksgiving dinner with them, but we couldn’t make it because we had an activity in the church that we were in charge of.  It turned out really well.  We made it a treasure hunt of the gospel of Jesus Christ that would lead to places in the church where the things take place. It was pretty cute and our investigatores who came really liked that activity. The familia Trejo came and they are pretty interested and after the activity, all the kids are more interested as well. It makes us super happy.  

We are also teaching a joven ( young person) named Nelson. He is a friend of a member and started coming to church with her. From the first lesson with him he has wanted to get baptized. He has said that since coming to church and learning more about how to follow Christ, his relationship with his dad is better and that he wants to know if this is the true church. He is a really good kid and we have a lot of hope for him. 

There was supposed to be a big storm this week but we didn’t get a drop. Apparently we are in cold weather now because it feels like what summer is in Utah.  Thank heavens for our refrigerator. We can at least eat cold things.

Today we went to a salon to get Hermana Argumedo’s hair dyed. Now it is a little bit darker. What is really nice is that the owner is a member and it is free for the missionaries. 

We have been focusing a lot on the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ this week and in this month. It is the basis for the rest of what we teach. Presidente Vasquez wants us to make it more personal for the investigatores.  He wants it as if  they are experiencing what Joseph Smith experienced.  We have been working harder to do this for them. 

Keep praying and doing what is right. Bring people to church because the missionaries can’t do it all. Investigatores who are references become members. Do your  part to help the work of the lord. 

I love you all and I hope that all is well.  Happy Thanksgiving and I want pictures.

atte: Hermana Ashton

This week we had the birthdays of our ward mission leader and also de Elder Lugo, our district leader. So we had a nice helping of cake for both. I really am a lot more in love with 3 milk cake than before the mission. That is a type of cake I enjoyed. 

This week has been a miracle because we didn´t sweat as much as usual.  We have had breezes and clouds and there have been times when we are in a house at night and it is the perfect temperature. 

We had an activity here in the ward with our investigatores and we were told to prepare to teach a class because the people didn’t plan what they were supposed to prepare, so we, in the moment, made a family home evening based on gratitude. It went well in the end. I really like the story of the 10 lepers and the way we can show our gratitude con Heavenly Father is by sharing the gospel and keeping his commandments. 

We found a bakery that is in our area but really far away from anything, but now we have investigators in that part, so the bakery is dangerous.  They have these cones of whipped cream with powdered sugar and they are soooooo goood! 

I made French toast this week and it was pretty good. 

I need to learn how to make beans.  They make them so well here. 

I just realized that I’m hungry so that is why I am talking about food. 

I hope that everyone is soo happy this week and really grateful for their blessings. Show your gratitude by sharing the gospel. Ok? 

You will receive even more blessings.

I love you alllllll sooooooooooooooo much!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Be good!

Love, Hermana Ashton

Joy Ashton

Things I have forgotten to tell you:

- I am washing my clothes by hand. Everything. It has become a little better but in the beginning I did not know what I was doing. But now it is a lot easier and it cleans better than with a washing machine. So that is good. Washing is washing.

- I cut my hair. The ends were dead so now I have a short little ponytail but it is a lot better because it is not half as hot. I am sure it will grow back someday. Maybe not while I’m here but someday.

- Yesterday in Sacrament Meeting we sang only Christmas hymns so it is really starting. It is funny how in the USA  people get mad when we start seeing Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving, but here we saw Christmas stuff before Halloween. The sister de mi companñera (of my companion) has already put up her Christmas tree.

- This week was my half birthday. Feliz cumple (happy birthday) to me.

- HERMANA ARGUMEDO Y YO DO NOT HAVE CAMBIOS!!!! (Hermana Argumedo and I are not being transferred!). 

- I don´t know what else is new. I am pretty sure that I am used to living here though because I forget sometimes that the people are speaking Spanish and I forget how unacceptable it is to litter because everyone here does it. It is quite horrible how much they do not respect that this is the world of everyone. I am getting over that they burn their garbage. 

- We had a conference with President Vasquez this week and it was really nice.  We could feel the spirit

- We had the Hermanas here for this p-day. It was good to see them again!

I don´t have much else to say but I love you and I  hope that you are all happy and living the gospel and reading your scriptures!

Love,

Hermana Ashton

No pictures this time 

                                   

This week we had El Dia de Los Muertos and it was really cool to go into the cemetery because the cemeteries here are above ground.  They don’t dig very deep. They have the graves covered in cement and they paint them and it is actually really pretty.  I always wanted to go into the cemetery but we couldn’t until this day.  There were so many people there and we took fotos with them and we are going to bring them their fotos.  It was a way to get references and we got a ton. 

The cemetery was full of people. It was pretty interesting because they make it a market there too. There are venders all along the passages and they are all bustling about. A day that you would think should be more reverent but instead it is a day to sell. So it’s cool.  There are so many flowers and everyone goes and makes huge flower arrangements at the site of the grave. They bring chairs and chat and light candles and sing and it is all pretty different than what we have in the U.S.A. 

                                                                  

This week we also did a lot of service...

One guy was in front of his house making cement and filling in a dip in the calle (street), so we stopped to talk to him and then we decided to help him make the cement and fill in the hole too. 

Another time was a little more crazy. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

    

We were at the end of our day when we still had some time left before we could go home and make dinner and we were both hungry, so we decided to stop at a little store and ask for crackers. We got there and the little old woman who is always so cute and friendly gave us the crackers at a discount because we are her "Sisters in Christ" and we asked her how she was and she explained that she had opened up one of the rooms in her house that had been closed for a year and she had found it completely lived in and ruined by a rat. She found the rat a day later, dead, so she needed to clean the whole room out and clean EVERYTHING that was in the room which was filthy. We told her that we could help her and started taking things out and putting them to one side. I had never seen so much rat poo in all my life and I hope I never see it again. I was a little disgusted, but I kept going. She is such a cute little old woman. Tiny.  She needed help so we were there. 

At that point I did not have hunger and I just wanted to clean the place up and go. So we kept taking stuff out.  It was like a hoarders nest and we got to a chest of drawers. Hermana Argumedo took one drawer out and I pulled out another. I knew deep down inside of me what would happen, but I wasn’t prepared for it. It was the bottom drawer, so my face was a little bit close to the ground when I was taking it out, when a big furry rat jumped out of the drawer and ran across my feet! I screamed. It was so disgusting. It ran across my feet and left fresh poo too. I was so shocked and Hermana Argumedo ran back into the room and the little old woman was laughing because I am a "gringa americana." At that point I was even less hungry and just wanted to throw-up.  In the end we were all laughing but it was so gross. If a rat ever jumps out at your face you will have the same reaction. Haha so gross. But the next day we went back to help her more because there was a lot to do and she is old.  She made us lunch though which was nice of her. 

                                      

But, the lesson from this story is that we all need to take half of what we have in our possession and give it away. We do not want 600 table cloths that we never use anyway because a rat will find them and live in them and we will have to clean them all after. 

That night I was in the bathroom and I heard a plunk and I looked over and there was a scorpion. They don’t phase me anymore. I would rather have alacranes (scorpions), than rats. 

Today we had the p-day de hermanas and it was really fun to hang out with Hermana Jara again.  She is an awesome Hermana Lider.  I am so glad that she trained me and that I got to be her companion. 

Don’t forget to write in your journals. I have been really bad about that so these emails are my journal for now. It is sad, I know.  But you guys can write in your journals your inspirations and stories and then when we talk at Christmas you can remember what you have to tell me. Record your inspiration and you will recognize it more when it comes and you will see that the spirit is a bigger part of your life than you thought.  It is such a blessing to be a member of the church and to have the gift of the spirit to guide us and bless us. I can’t imagine my life without the gospel and without the knowledge that I have. 

Something else I learned this week is that we really don’t need a perfect knowledge- one of our investigators wants to know certainly, wants a vision if you will, that the church is true.  I realized that Heavenly Father really doesn’t care about our knowledge. He doesn’t care if we have a degree in neuro-science and he doesn’t think any less of someone who hasn’t been given an education, as long as we have faith and put our confidence in him.  The first principle of the gospel is faith, not knowledge. We are children to him and we know nothing in comparison to him. What we need is to trust that he does have all power, all knowledge, and all understanding. When we can do this, everything else makes sense. We will do what we need to do to follow him because we are small and in the dark, but when we take his hand, he will lead us and guide us and walk beside us. and he will teach us all that we must do, but we have to be willing to do it. This is faith.  God asks for our hearts not our heads.  When we have faith, we have the key to all the blessings that god has for us.  Faith comes first and after that, we will see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

I love you all and I hope that everything is going well at home. You are all in my prayers and I hope that all is well. I want more pictures too. 

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Ashton

This week flew by. I can´t believe it is p day already. 

This week was pretty good. The lord is testing us a little bit but it is okay because we´ll learn from it. We were able to find some really great people though who now have baptismal dates and we are going to work more with these new people because a lot of the people we were working with were really great but would not progress. It will be hard, but we need to focus on the people who are actually ready to change. We are also trying to work with the members more, but there aren´t very many who want to help. Please help when the missionaries ask. We came home very tired this week every day. It was good. 

On Monday night we were so tired that when 10:30 hit, we were out. Not only that, but Tuesday morning when I woke up I realized that the alarm didn´t go off. I shot out of bed and said "I´ll say the prayer," and that was when Hermana Argumedo shot up becasue it was her turn to pray. We knelt and said our morning prayer and after, we were worried about how long we had slept in. Hermana Argumedo got the cellular and began to laugh and said to me "Hermana! Es la una en la mañana!" I took the phone and looked at it and it said 1:11. We moved the curtain from the window and sure enough it was very dark. I for some reason had dreamed that it was day time and we were late. So when I woke up I thought it was just cloudy. We died laughing and went back to sleep laughing for the rest of the day about our little adventure. 

This week we had an activity in the estaca con todos los misioneros (stake with all missionaries), about the plan de salvacion which was really nice. We only had one investigator there but that was good enough. She really does want to get baptized and we are going to get her there. Her name is Guadalupe. The thing is, she has to have someone bring her to things. She will not leave the house if someone does not bring her. This will be tricky. For this we need more members to participate.

I had to speak in sacrament meeting yesterday and so that was scary. That was a surprise the night before. But I feel like it went well enough. They understood me so my accent isn´t too ugly. 

On Saturday we had the reunion de Hermanas which was really nice. Hermana Jara y Hermana Lopez had a nice presentation for us and it was all about our attitudes. We really need to have a good attitude out here because that is what the people see. They can sense it. They can smell bad attitude. Happily, Hermana Argumedo y yo tenemos un buen actitud allllll the time. We are very happy people. 

We had some really good chocobananos this week which are 2 for 25 cents. It is such a good deal. It is exactly what it sounds like. It is a frozen banana covered in frozen chocolate on a stick. It was really delicious.

I hope that everyone is very happy and is reading their scriptures and saying their prayers because these things help our relationship with our Heavenly Father.

Ooooh. We are teaching Yukiko who is from Japan and she has no background in Christianity. We are starting very slow with her. We have hope for her, but she doesn´t understand very much Spanish. We had to explain the work bendicion, which  means blessing. We are going very slow. 

There are a lot of great people here. 

I love you all,

Hermana Ashton