Zone Conference

Not going to lie, this has been one emotional week with so many things happening. I suppose I will start off with Zone Conference. Zone Conference was amazing as always and they are always so different. Never know what to expect for Zone Conferences. We had it in Missoula with Kalispell, Missoula, and Stevensville Zone. So this Zone Conference was focused on Book of Mormon and the importance of it, the role of it, and how we should use it in every lesson we teach. It was very inspiring and I realized how much more I should be using the Book of Mormon in the lessons. I'm repenting haha. One of the things we did was we broke out into groups and each group was lead by a Zone Leader or Sister Training Leader and we read in a group in different parts of the Book of Mormon for an hour, both in the morning and in the afternoon. By doing so, all the missionaries have read the whole Book of Mormon cover to cover in two hours! Pretty sweet huh? Then we had departing missionaries give their departing testimony and Elder Olsen gave one, which is weird to think about as he has been an Assistant for this mission for 13 months now! It will be different when he leaves.

After Zone Conference we had all the missionaries and Ward Mission Leader in Stevensville Zone have dinner at President Sangster's house. We had pizza for dinner and after that we had a meeting which went very well and went over what we hoped to achieve in the Stake for missionary effort. We are definitely headed the right direction.

We are still working with several families from Pinesdale which they are doing very well, just doing the waiting game with interviews. Elder Black and I also found a new less active and he said we are the first people to see him from the church in 10 years! Mostly because he lives in the middle of the mountains. So we have a return appointment with him and we will see how that goes. We also are working with Travis from Darby and he has a date for baptism this Saturday, we are hoping this will happen as long as he is doing well with the Word of Wisdom he should be good to go!

So, one of the reasons this past week and previous week have been pretty crazy emotionally is that I found out that I have medical problems and would have to get surgery. It went from, I could get surgery here in the mission and recover to having to go home to do surgery, recover, and come back out. Then it went from that to going home and having surgery and not being able to come back out on my mission to finding out that as long as I keep the medical issue under control I can finish my mission and have surgery when I get home. So many things running through my mind as to what will be happening and wanting to finish my mission as I have 3 months left. What a roller coaster! Fortunately I got this all figured out and I can focus on my mission and finish strong. I never realized how much I love being a missionary till I thought of the possibility that I could possibly be going home and not come back out on a mission. Knowing that I don't have much time left and what a blessing it is to be a missionary I renewed my effort to be a more effective missionary and to better fulfill my role as a Zone Leader and to preach the gospel.  I am so thankful for Elder Black and Elder Burrows as they have been with me during these moments and to help me remain focused on missionary work. I'm also thankful for President and Sister Mecham, medical coordinator, and Mom and Dad during this as well!

Hope all is well and you have a great week!

Elder Ashcroft