Awesome Families in Helena 4th Ward!

Happy, Shocked, Anxious, Nervous, And Excited!!!

What a week! I don't know where to begin. I guess I will start with transfer, we got the transfer call yesterday evening and found out I am leaving Helena. :(  So I found out I won't be with Elder Gunnerson for his last transfer and he is getting a brand new missionary. As for me I am finally going to Wyoming! I am going to Riverton, Wyoming where I will be the new District Leader and am in charge of 12 missionaries. That should be interesting and I will see how Wyoming treats me, perfect timing too, I'm arriving just in time for the winter in Wyoming which I am not looking forward to. :(  So Elder Gunnerson actually served in Riverton for six months last year. So he is telling me all the people to see and all the places to visit, so I am excited. I'm not sure how I feel about being District Leader, I managed to stay away from leadership for quite awhile, should be fun.

So about the electronic devices, so I got an Ipad mini! So both Elder Gunnerson and I have one, so this means a lot of changes are happening. For one, we don't need our paper planners anymore or the area book either. We do all that on the Ipad. We've been working this past week transferring all the information from our area book onto our ipad. It is super neat and has a lot of cool things on there. We can get online as long as we have WiFi. Anyway, super cool. So we are one in 30 missions receiving Ipad minis. It's been really nice having them, but it renders our backpacks utterly useless since everything we need is on there. Soo nice!

So yes, the Shaws moved into town but are still in the same Ward and we helped them move in. I was super excited about that since they could now feed us, as before they were 15 miles out of town. Then I was disappointed in finding out I am leaving so I won't be able to now. I am going to miss Helena, it has been a very good 5 months here. I'm going to miss the members, recent converts, less actives, and the investigators here. I can't believe I am leaving. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention my new companion, I haven't met him yet but his name is Elder Linton and he's only been out two transfers, 3 months. So this should be fun.

So I have been packing this morning, definitely not fun... but almost done and ready, I leave Wednesday and I will arrive in Billings and stay overnight there and then leave for Riverton on Thursday. Going to be a long drive. Yippee...   Well, that is all I can think of now, have a great week as mine should be exciting.

Elder Ashcroft

New Electronic Device! :)

So this has been a very good week for Elder Gunnerson and I as we are picking up several new less actives and a new investigator and a part member family. :) So we found a new investigator Diane and we invited her to church and she hasn't gone to church in 30 years and she came to church yesterday! Super exciting and made us happy because it is so difficult to get less actives to church, it is way easier to get investigators to church than less actives. We also just contacted a new part member family last night and they invited us back in which we are super excited for that. Then being how awesome Brother Hanson is, first counselor to the Bishop, invited Ani, a Carroll College student who in return brought a friend along to dinner last night. That was super awesome and the friend agreed to take the missionary discussions which we will be doing at the Hanson's home. Love the members here, we literally get all our referrals from our members and all the investigators from the members. They also do a very good job fellowshipping and supporting the people who we see. Love the Helena 4th Ward so much!

Lois had her baptism on Saturday! It was great to see her get baptized by Bro. Hall who just got baptized on Sept. 28. Elder Gunnerson gave the talk on baptism and I did the opening prayer. It went super well, it is great to see the Hall family join the church. We also helped confirm her a member of the church on Sunday as well. It has been wonderful teaching them and we will be seeing them on Friday when Sis. Hall is making the double fried Kentucky Fried Chicken again! Yumm, can't wait!

I guess you are curious as to the title of my email huh? So we just found out our mission is getting ipad minis!!! Yup, that's right, we are the first of 3 missions to be the pilot program for the ipad mini. So not any missionary can get the ipad mini, but only those who are obedient and are ready to have them, so it is limited to the missionaries in our mission. So we weren't necessarily expecting to be able to get them yet, but then we got a call from Elder Smith, our AP, and told us we were selected to be able to have the privilege to have them. So we have a meeting tomorrow on Tuesday in which somebody from Salt Lake in charge of the ipad mini is talking to us and instructing its use and how to use them. Super excited for that. I don't know if they are giving them to one per companionship or if we each get one individually. Anyway, super pumped about that.

Well things are going super well and wish the best this week. Love ya all!

Elder Ashcroft

Contacting

October 14, 2013

Wow, I am really stumped as to write about for this week. Honestly, not much really happened except for trying to contact some people who we haven't been able to contact for awhile with no real success. We've just been doing a lot of contacting and meeting with several investigators or less actives that are not progressing.

The exciting thing that is happening this week is that Sis. Hall, the grandma, is getting baptized this Saturday and Bro. Hall is going to baptize her as he just received the aaronic priesthood which is super awesome!

So on Sunday we had a Stake Missionary Correlation. So the stake presidency, ward mission leaders, ward missionaries and missionaries all attended. It was a super awesome meeting in which we talked about what we can do better to help improve the missionary work here in Helena. Anyway that went very well.

Well, that is about all I can think of to write about, hope you all have a great week!

Elder Ashcroft

Alex's Baptism

Well, Alex's baptism was on Thursday and it went very well. We are super excited for him and glad of his decision. That is one of the highlights this week.

We also had Zone Conference on Wednesday. That went pretty well I guess, wasn't the best I've been to but it definitely was edifying. Don't quite remember what we talked about but I just remember it was good. That is also probably the last time I will see Elder Scott, which I think I forgot to tell you, he is still in Great Falls and not here in Helena. :( Anyway, it was a good meeting. I also really enjoyed General Conference which we watched at the Halls with the Steinagels as well. That was a blast. As you will see in one of the pictures I dozed off a little in the Sunday afternoon session, the only one I dozed off in.

So right now Elder Gunnerson is getting an extension with his mission to leave after Christmas Conference so he is extending about an extra week or two. I don't know if I told you this yet, but my mission got cut by two weeks so my departure date is July 5 instead of my original date of July 17th. So I'm debating whether to extend or not...I'll think and pray about it.

Other than that nothing much happened. Have a fantastic week!

Elder Ashcroft

A recliner just his size . . .

Listening intently to Conference . . .