Who is Sister Ashcroft?

So I forgot to mention this in previous emails since I have been in T-Falls/Plains. A lot of people kept saying that my name sounds familiar, then I found out there was a sister missionary of Sister Ashcroft. I then found her name in the area book that she updated and found out she served in T-Falls/Plains in January and February of 2011. But, I have no idea who she is, so do you know who it is? I'm assuming she is related to me somehow.

The weather here has been bipolar all week. It will be snowing one moment then the sun will be out, then snow again, it will repeat this cycle 3-4 times a day and has been doing this all week. The snow will melt and be gone within an hour so it doesn't stay for very long. It has been in 20's to 60's this week, goes up and down. Elder Bishop and I are going hiking today at Baldy Mountain in Plains with the Youth since they have spring break this week. I can't wait, should be fun.

Elder Bishop and I had a great week this week. We received 3 new investigators this week! Probably the most new investigators I received in a week so far in my mission. Usually I get 0 new investigators. We are teaching a 9 year old and a 10 year old who are granddaughters of an active member. Then we are teaching an older lady who is retired and invited us back. We will see how these people will go. On Thursday we had two 16 year old Priests come on splits with us so they can know what it is like to be a missionary and I think this will be something that we will be doing on a regular basis. Elder Bishop and I split up with the young men and saw a less active and a member, then we met up together and saw another member. I think it was a great experience for them and I wish I did this before I came out. It was really neat.

On Saturday Elder Bishop and I helped out at a Senior Citizen Community Center, we helped with the breakfast there. They also did a craft fair so we helped them get things from their car and bring them in and help them set them up. It was a great missionary opportunity to be out in the community and be seen. A lot of people were coming up to Susan and Nanni who are awesome members who invited us to help at the center, who we were, what church we go to, and what we do. You could tell they really appreciated our help. So we helped in the morning then we left and we went to a member's house and helped her get rid of about 50 wasp nests that were all empty. There were 3 dead wasps in a nest that had frozen to death. Then after that we went to Joyce, our new investigator, to rake her front yard and she lives by the senior center and everybody who was driving from or to the Senior center saw us raking leaves. We then went back to the Senior Center to help them put things away and load their items back in their car. A lot of people were impressed by us. In fact one lady gave us $10 and we tried to tell her we were just volunteering and she told us to just give it to the church then, so we will find some use for it. Another lady got our mailing address and I guess she is going to mail us something. Anyway, it was a really good experience and the man in charge invited us back to help on every other Thursday evenings. Also we will help with their yard work. We also filled up some pot holes in the driveway in the parking lot in the morning and everybody appreciated that too. The people were very thankful for what we did. We are also going to help a lady do some yard work and she is little interested in what we believe.

This had been a very good week. We helped a less active build a gate on their porch which took awhile but was fun. One of the best weeks I have had! :) Hope your week goes well.

Elder Ashcroft

Clean Bathroom

Zone Conference

Boy, I'm super tired right now. So today I had to drive to Kalispell, a 2 hour drive, to get our windshield replaced for our truck, since the previous Elder cracked it. Then we did our shopping and I drove another 2 hours back, so we could do our email. So I am super tired from the drive. Anyway, I did some more cleaning this week... but I feel really accomplished. Just as the Garage we live in in T-Falls was nasty, our Camper in Plains is nasty also. So we have been spending an hour everyday in the morning cleaning the place up. Had dirty dishes, disgusting toilet/shower, and cleaned/organized/rearranged our study room. So, it is very much more clean and nicer. We live in a camper/trailor, whatever you want to call it. I call it a camper, and the members built an add on of a 8' by 8' room for our study room. We have a ton of food that we have been cooking and eating all week, bacon, sausage, hashbrown, and some member gave us $90 worth of Cod fish from Alaska which was delicious and we finished that yesterday. This week has been good. The members are very supportive and we received 24 referrals this week! We have been busy trying to contact people.

On Friday I gave discussions for our Zone Conference. They broke up into four groups of four people and I had to teach 4 times. I was supposed to give a 10 minute discussion, 10 minute role play as example, then have everyone else give a 10 minute role play. I ended up giving a 15-20 min discussion, oops, but it was really good. I talked about the Doctrines of Christ or the missionary purpose. "To invite others unto Christ by first faith in Jesus Christ through the atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. I used an analogy of a dirty dish. It takes faith to put the dirty dish in soap, and we must repent to get rid of the grime and dirt of the dish by washing it. Then after we repent we take the dish out but still have bubbles, so we get baptized, by dipping the dish in the water to get rid of the soap. Then we have the Holy Ghost as a towel to envelop the dish to dry it off.  Then another analogy  of a game. If we want to play through out a foot ball game we must condition ourselves by repenting, keep washing the dish every time we use it. We must go through the cycle of repentance and renewing our covenants from baptism by taking the sacrament. When we condition ourselves we can be ready for playing the whole game on the field. The Holy Ghost guides us, so it is the boundary on the field, we want to stay in and not go out of bound. But if we don't condition ourselves, we get tired and sit on the sideline, outside the line, and if we stay there it is harder for us to get back. I feel like I could explain it better if I actually said the analogy, oh well. So I had to teach that 4 times. I also taught out of 2 Nephi 31.

This has been a good week and I love Elder Bishop, he is a very hard worker and is amazing. Hope you have a great week.

Elder Ashcroft

Sunset in Montana

Training

What a great and crazy week! So on Tuesday was our District meeting and I gave a discussion on recognizing and relying on the spirit. I think it went pretty well, considering I didn't get the assignment  until about half hour before District meeting. I haven't been able to give a discussion the past 8-9 weeks just because I'm moving around so much. Wednesday was fun, I helped at the food bank in the morning from 10-12. Then after that I worked at the sheep farm from 1-3. I enjoy working at the sheep farm and sad I won't be helping there anymore which I will explain later. Then the Klingensmith took us out for dinner since it will be the last time having dinner with them since they are moving. Then on Thursday we went to Whitefish to help Sis. Robinson, the one who has a sheep farm, to help Sis. Robinson's friend shear some sheep. That was a really cool and fun experience. It was interesting to watch the sheep get sheared. There were about 12 sheep get sheared. I got a picture with Blossom before she got sheared. I will try and send some pictures as soon as I can. Before I talk about Friday, on Saturday I helped Elder Burrrows and Elder Scott move out of the Klingensmith and help them move into the Tolleys. They are living in a nice house and live in the mountains with a great view of Flathead Lake. Super Jealous! Okay, on Friday I received a call and I got transferred to Thompson Fall and Plains. I replaced Elder Bond, who's only been out 3 months who got sent to Wyoming. Now I will be training Elder Bishop who's been out 3 weeks. Elder Bishop is from Raleigh, North Carolina. He is really awesome and is great! We get along great and Thompson Fall is beautiful and I can see this beautiful greenish blue river from our house. Well, not really a house, we live in our Branch President's Garage. We have a small room, a bathroom, a tiny little kitchen which just has dishes, sink, a skillet, and microwave. Anyway, our room, kitchen, and bathroom hasn't been cleaned in like a year! It was Gross! So this morning Elder Bishop and I vacuumed and cleaned our room. We borrowed the dishwasher at the Campbell's so we can wash all the dirty dishes, cleaned the drawers which contained our silverware, because it was dirty and had dead bugs in there. We also cleaned our nasty bathroom sink, disgusting toilet, and  dirty shower. We really made sure it was clean. Next time we are here we are going to clean the bathroom floor and the walls. We switch to Plains and Thompson Falls every Monday night. They are about 30 miles apart and each are a branch. Thompson Falls had about 20 people there yesterday at church. So tonight we leave for Plains for all of this week. I love being out here. So I also started the process of being online. I have to do a blog the first 6 weeks before I get a facebook account. So I just started a blog. You can see it at elderdevinashcroft.blogspot.com.   I encourage you to view my blog :)  Can't believe Davey is leaving so soon and to Argentina! Is he going to the same mission as my cousin Lauren? Anyway, it has been a great week. Love ya!

Elder Ashcroft

Food Allergy and Asthma Attack!!! :0

Man I get moved around too much... I just got transferred all the way to Riverton, Wyoming Thursday. Crazy huh! Haha, JK, that never happened. I'm still here in Kalispell. This has been a very good week. So it has been basically just been me and Elder Burrows all week. Elder Scott went to Whitefish for a week with the other companionship. Elder Scott will be back today. So on Tuesday Elder Burrows and I went to Polson for District meeting and Polson is a very nice area and the Flathead Lake is amazing. District meeting was good. Man I love being with Elder Burrows, there is never a dull moment with him. On Wednesday we spent 3 hours helping a lady on her sheep farm. We had to move a bunch of hay around and feed the sheep and other things around the farm. That was pretty fun. We do this every Wednesday. Okay here is the funny story that happened Thursday night that goes to the title of my email. So we had dinner with a member and we went out to eat and I had some delicious steak. Dinner was great. So after dinner we had an appointment with an investigator and his less active wife. They just got their pizza and we were planning on teaching the Plan of Salvation but we wanted to wait till after they ate. Because we just ate we didn't have pizza. But after 10 minutes of talking with them Elder Burrows decided to have a slice of pizza. The pizza was covered in cheeze and had some peppers in it so Elder Burrows didn't think much of it. Then halfway through his pizza he had a puzzled look on his face and the investigator asked what was wrong. Elder Burrows asked what was on his pizza. The investigator said it had chicken in it. Here is the catch, Elder Burrows is allergic to chicken! So he started freaking out and said we had to leave so he could take some benedryl. I think it was a blessing that this happened though, cause they had a bizillions of cats in their trailer and smelled terribly like cats so I was wheezing in there and could barely breathe and my inhaler was in the car. So we pretty much said a hurried goodbye and said we be back later and rushed to the car. When we got in the car Elder Burrows was fumbling through his backpack for his benedryl and I was fumbling through mine to get my inhaler. We got home about 20 minutes later and called the investigator back saying we won't be back that night, but we rescheduled for next week. Elder Burrows was fine and didn't have any reaction really, but the benedryl knocked him out about an hour later. We just laughed about it later because we were such goofballs that were having issues that night haha. We are always having small funny moments.

So the other day we came home for lunch and Elder Burrows decided to make pancakes for us. The pancakes turned out to be fat and he was having trouble flipping the pancakes, so it didn't look very well.(Tasted fine) Then he had some batter left and made a small pancake, and he was discouraged and cooked it about 10 seconds on each side and it looked great and gave it to me. So we were eating the pancakes and I thought I tasted bananas in it along with the huckleberries. He said there were no bananas in it, but I swore to him I kept tasting the banana. Then I pointed out the yellow stuff in the pancake and he fooled me to believing that it was just the batter not getting mixed up. I eventually found out it was bananas in the pancakes. Anyway the big ugly pancakes tasted good. Then the small one I had I took a bit and I said to Elder Burrows, "I can see why this small pancake is sad with the big ugly pancakes." It wasn't cooked all the way and doughy on the inside, but looked great on the outside. We thought it was the funniest thing. But we learned a lesson from this, it doesn't matter what you look on the outside, but what it is on the inside. You could be amazing person on the inside and we shouldn't judge people based on how they look. The Gospel is for everyone.

So Elder Burrows and I had a great experience on Saturday. We got a call from a member lady in our ward who is a home teacher to an inactive lady, who is the grandma of Garret who was baptized two Saturdays ago. So we found out that her husband and son-in-law passed away about 2 weeks ago and now her sister is in the hospital and doesn't have long to live. So we went to the hospital and the inactive Sister was there with her non-member sister (who doesn't have long to live) and 2 non-members daughter.s I anointed the oil to the member's sister and Elder Burrows gave a great blessing. We could really feel the spirit. Then Elder Burrows gave the inactive sister an amazing blessing and we could all really feel the spirit. It was a great experience. Then on Sunday we found out that the inactive member's sister had died an hour after we left. So after church we visited the member and her family and Elder Burrows shared a powerful testimony of how he could relate to them with his family member. We could really feel the spirit and we will be in touch with them.

Boy this a long email haha. So, I will pack again this week, because the Klingensmith will be moving to Las Vegas in 2 weeks and their daughter is coming next week, so we will be moving Saturday to the Tolley's. Sister Tolley used to be a Professional Chef. I can't wait and they are a cool family. Anyway, that is my week. Love ya!

Elder Ashcroft