Sunday, November 30, 2014

Week 17--November 24, 2014

Week 17--November 24, 2014

sounds like everyone is doing well ! :) glad to hear it!!!
and sounds like lydia is going to be a professional singer! congrats ! :P
and congrats to BJ on the reflections contest and what is IGC gymnastics?
and wow dad that sounds like a super successful conference! so glad it went well! and interesting point with the scripture..i think that is something i struggle with. i need more love for the people and need to think less about the numbers (which is hard when the mission is CONSTANTLY asking about the numbers and such). sometimes when i get frustrated i just go into contacting mode and contact everyone so that i feel like at least we will have done a lot of contacts, but they arent very meaningful at that point because they are just numbers in my mind. but im working on it and praying for love..also its hard to stay focused on our purpose and why people actually need our message in particular when everyone is already so religious. the biggest challenge is to help people actually understand why our church is different and that we arent just there to talk for hours about God. but its all good :) i think its a good learning experience for me haha
and congrats to hilary miller, is emily engaged yet? and to Cindy too!! thats exciting!
and we have a member that promised to make us pumpkin pie for thanksgiving so we are excited for that! this week is going to be kind of crazy since hna osterloh is leaving, we have to do lots of divisions for her to go to the temple and such and do visa stuff all day tomorrow. this last week was better, we had another investigator at church so that was awesome! hopefully something more will happen with her!! we also helped a new inactive family come to church sunday which was exciting! all is well and i will send pics this week :) love and miss you all!
sunsets are the best here, also sunrises..the view from our apt again..


last pday at the park for a bbq with our zone. our fanny packs :P


Sunday, November 23, 2014

Week 16-November 17, 2014

Week 16-November 17, 2014

haha it was fun to read everyones emails :)
also THANK YOU for the package!!!! super fun to get!!!! also tell benjamin i did his puzzles and loved them! i took pictures but cant send them :/

my week was good, although a little frustrating too. tuesday we found 5 new investigators (three of which was a family who seemed super awesome) but then the rest of the week wasnt as great... on sunday after calling and visitng tons of poeple and doing everything we could think of to get people to church, everyone canceled on us. it was tough and we were both on the verge of a breakdown basically the entire time during church but we had a recently reactivated man there who bore his testimony in sundayschool about how he could feel the Spirit every time we passed by and so that helped me feel better because preach my gospel says a successful misionary is one who through whom others can feel the Spirit, so as long as someone can feel the Spirit through us, we cant be complete failures..lol its just hard because the elders are finding all knds of people and it makes us feel like we are doing something wrong. but we decided we just need to keep being obedient and patient and have faith and keep working hard :) so all is well
anyway funny fact of the week, ¨"whats up" is literally a verb here! lol i cant even take people seriously when they say it. they use it as a spanish verb to describe using social media (any kind) basically. lol so they will say things like "esta wassupando?" or "ustedes tienen wassup?" lol super funny..
oh also we found boysenberry trees in our sector the other day! super yummy ! haha
anyway yes i finished the book of mormon in time :) and i was thinking the other day about my experience with missionary for a day and was thinking how it wasnt that fun and i was terrified of tracting and how actually being a missionary is completely different. i have absolutely no fear of knocking doors and its totally different when you are teaching and contacting people you are actually going to see again and when its your life. missionary for a day and accompaning the missionaries is nothing like the real thing,...
but love and miss you all! have a great week!

Monday, November 10, 2014

Week 15--November 10, 2014

Week 15--November 10, 2014

sounds like everyone is doing well!! congrats mandy on her medals at state!!! and good job at all the soccer games everyone :)
and dad, i get 1 hr and 15 min to email on pday and ya taylor and taylor and emily and some other people write every week too. its great to feel loved :) haha we will see how long it lasts..
and mom, yes im super tan  i get burnt every day i have tan lines everywear and i wear 60 spf sunscreen on my face and still every day at least one person tells me i look burnt ..this week i also got asked if im chilean and someone joked that i almost look Haitian (there are lots of them here haha).
no i havent gotten the papers you sent yet, maybe this wed  we only get mail every other wed
ya christie is doing well :) working and doing BYUI online
This week the biggest news was that we had a conference on sat with Elder Nelson!! super cool. He shook hands with every one of the 500 missionaries there and his talk and his wifes talk and the other couples that were there were amazing!! i felt the Spirit super strong as soon as he walked in the room and he talked about our role in gathering the house of Israel in the last days and such with a ton of interesting facts and knowledge about the topic....super interesting..
haha funny story. while contacting thursday we knocked on a door and a woman answered and we introduced ourselves as always and talked about our beliefs and such and asked her if she had shared with missionaries before (tons of people have) and she immediately said that No and that she didnt like our church.(usually people just say they are already Catholic and therefore already have faith in Chirst and all religions are really the same) We asked why and was there something in particular that she didnt like? She responded ¨"ustedes son extranjeros, no puedo entenderles¨" lol of all the things to turn down salvation for lol just because the missionaries have accents...lol we died of laughter afterwards. my plan is to go back next month when i have a latina companion and see what she says :P we meet the funniest people contacting sometimes..its the best lol

anyway, it wasnt the most successful week ever but next week will be better and i refuse to wear the 100 dollar ecco shoes i bought anymore (i spent an entire day in them walking around and got so many blisters and my feet were so sore...it was the worst) haha ...oh well. it was a good week though :)
love and miss you all! was going to send pictures but we are on a diff comp this week and so i cant figure out how to work it...next week i will

love love love,
ashley

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Week 14-November 3, 2014

Week 14-November 3, 2014

hey everyone!
loved hearing about everyones week :)
sounds like everybody is killing it in all their activities..
how did state go for gymnastics?!
here goes for moms questions..
for breakfast this week we have made eggs with spinach and onion every morning, or yogurt.
for Pday we go to the mall to use internet and get groceries and meet up with other sisters sometimes, or we have zone activities, or today we are at estacion central  (a lot like down town LA or something) to buy souveniers for Hna osterloh and a fanny pack for me :P theyre all the style here and a lot better than a big backpack ;)
yes there are tons of little kids,. we blessed two babies this sunday. but i dont think they have as many kids as american morman families because they think our families (6 kids and 8 kids) are huge..most have like 2_4
i like both, i have more time to read and respond to real letters but i can only get them every two weeks and sometimes i cant always go send letters back on Pday, so emails are the best for hearing from everyone every week. but letters are fun too :) 
haah ill have to send another spanish one for you to work on ;)
as for dad´s questions, 
the cold water is extra motivation to run every morning, so we usually are at least a little warm when we get in :P
and ya i think the divorce process can be long and complicated, so they are both still in that process..
i literally busted up and told my companion about your laser pointer idea..lol im sure you at least scared all the neighbors by convincing them that you are crazy ;) lol just kidding, its actually a fantastic idea haha if we have a tree house in the front now we might as well use it right? 
haha taylor emails me every week like he promised :P maybe i get to hear more from him than you guys! haha does he call you guys every sunday or anything? is he still using my phone?

My week:
this week was good. even better with new investigators! we found 9!! but we fasted yesterday to find a family to baptize before Hna Osterloh leaves..we will see what happens.
monday we found the daughters of one of our investigators and they both grew up in new jersey for a few years so they speak english and so we tried to speak in english with them but as soon as we started teaching and testifying, we had to give up lol its so hard to teach in english what i only learned to teach in spanish! and i havent talked about the gospel in english in a while! haha Hna osterloh is worried about her homecoming talk because she has forgotten all the gospel terms in english :P
We learned how to make Chilean bread on wednesday with one of our menos activos and it was super fun. its basically the same as regular bread but in a different shape.. but made me think about how you only get to have experiences like that on a mission. tourists dont get to speak spanish and have someone teach them how to make bread and listen to spanish music. i was grateful to get to be here on a mission :) 
Halloween was fun also! they just barely started celebrating it here, so its not very big yet but the glowsticks mom sent in my first package were perfect to give out and contact with!
saturday one of our menos activos families who we had been trying to track down and visit with the mom´s visiting teacher (we have visited them before and their kids just got baptized in the last year) texted us and said they didnt want us to come or call anymore. that we were bugging them. it was just the mom, im pretty sure the kids still like us, but it was out of nowhere and it kind of ruined out morning. rejection from contacts is one thing but rejection from someone you know well and such is a lot harder..the rest of the morning we had investigators who told us they didnt really want more and such and so it was a hard morning. but we are good now:)  we also realized why missionaries study for so many hours every morning.. we talk to so many people every day with questions and doubts and who tell us we have been tricked by the bishop or such into believing that we need strong testimonies to not be shaken by it all. but my testimony has definitely only grown. 
also we had an investigator in church yesterday who smokes and he smelled super strongly of smoke in the chapel and it made me think of the quote by a general authority or someone who said that the best smell at church is cigarette smoke because it means someone is trying to change/repent ..haha  unfortunately he still has a lot of doubts and questions to overcome so i dont know if he will be baptized anytime soon but he listening, so we will see what happens.
anyway, it was a good week. love and miss you all!!!

"Halloween with the glow bracelets you sent-we gave them out while contacting"