Last Transfer

Well, transfer call came Sunday and found out I am being transferred to Eureka, MT which is north of Kalispell and right next to Glacier National Park. I will just be a normal missionary this transfer and a senior companion to Elder Maughn, who I have not met before. I'm hoping this will be a good last transfer of my mission. Hard to believe I have less than 6 weeks left now!

So of course I am sad about leaving Corvallis and all the Pinesdale people I have been able to get close to. Also on Sunday we set a baptism date for Ellen who has been investigating the church for over 40 years! Bummed I will miss out on her baptism on June 14th.

We did quite a bit of service this week. Since it was memorial day weekend we were encouraged to see what we could do to help so we called around and got a hold of the guy in charge of the cemetery in which we helped do some garden work for him on Friday. Found out Steve had known some members in the church and he invited us to help out at his place with landscaping which we did on Monday. He is a really neat guy and we hope to start teaching him. On Wednesday Tarikh Peak was baptized and confirmed Sunday which was a neat experience. The other Elders have been working with him.

We had preparation day today as we worked yesterday, so today we got together as a Zone and went on a nice hike and it is a beautiful day today. Well, I am leaving tomorrow and still need to finish packing. Hopefully this is my last transfer till I go to Billings. Have a great week!

Elder Ashcroft

P.S Excited to hear I am an Uncle now! :)

Pinesdale Families

Hmm, there are a few exciting things that happened this week. We have been meeting with one of the many Jessop families and they met with President Sangster and President Sangster wrote a letter of recommendation for the Jessops to Salt Lake for them to be baptized. So they should be hearing back this week from Salt Lake finding out when they will have their interview and with which Apostle which is super exciting! We are super excited for them. Also, we've been working with another Jessop family and they will be having with an interview with President Sangster this week in which if it goes well President Sangster will write a letter for them to Salt Lake. Both the Jessop families have progressed so much this past 3 months! Another exciting thing is another Jessop family, who I helped teach in January of last year who were baptized are being sealed in the Temple at the Salt Lake Temple this Saturday! So happy and excited for all the Jessop families! Then just to talk about more Jessop family, we met with another Jessop family last night for dinner and Bro. Jessop is the Elders Quorum President so we had a good meeting with him last night. Believe me, it can be confusing sometimes with all the Jessop families! We also met with one of the Jessop's sisters, Sister Koerner who lives up in Pinesdale who is ready to join the church but we are waiting on the husband. We also met with the Powell family who are also up in Pinesdale and are waiting to hear from Salt Lake as well! I love teaching the Pinesdale people!

Hmm, oh yeah, we had Zone Leaders Training Wednesday, I feel that it went really well. The theme Elder Eiselin and I spoke on was Motivation. What stops us from being motivated and what motivates us and how to stay motivated once we are motivated. Elder Eiselin spoke of the six destructive D's. It is from the April 2009 conference talk by Elder Kevin W. Pearson "Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." For my discussion I used the example of Alma the Younger and how he was rejected in Ammonihah and was about to leave and explained how he was not transferred, despite how much he felt like he did! Instead he got a (new) companion Amulek, and kept on teaching the people which led to success. How as we missionaries feel like we've done everything we think we could do and have no success, and find out you are staying in your area! President Mecham has told us to expect to stay in an area from 6-9 months. (Which is funny as I can't manage to stay in an area for very long, no longer than 5 months haha) So I explained that we must remain diligent and press forward. I spoke about attitude and what kind of attitude we must have. Anyway, Zone Leaders Training went very well.

I feel blessed to know that the Stevensville Zone is very obedient and diligent missionaries in this Zone and have had no issues which has been great! It has been amazing the see the transformation of this mission from when I first arrived till now! How the example of leadership has changed and how much more respect there is for the leadership and callings in the church. Been a great experience!

Love you all and have a great week!

Elder Ashcroft

Mothers Day

It was definitely nice to see and talk to the family yesterday! Seems like everything will be mostly set up for when I get home which is nice so I won't have to worry about the unknown!

Not a whole lot of excitement this week as far as missionary work goes. Things seem to be slowing down and we are searching for more people to teach. We of course have two amazing families we are working with from the Pinesdale group. In fact, we had dinner with one of them on Saturday. The Jessops are an Amazing Family and can't wait till they get through the interview process so they can be baptized!

So, President Mecham came to Stevensville Wednesday to interview the Zone. I was able to interview the missionaries before they went in to interview with President Mecham which is interesting how these interviews go. It was my first time interviewing Sister Missionaries which was an interesting experience. The interviews went great and all the missionaries got interviewed except for Elder Eiselin and I as President Mecham was behind schedule, so he will be interviewing us over the phone or facetime sometime in the future before transfer end.

There was a baptism for a Brother who was excommunicated and has been working his way back into the church for a little over a year now. So it was nice to see his baptism and Elder Eiselin and I were able to be the two witnesses. It turned out really nice.

Hmmm, my mind is blank and can't think of anything else that happened this week. Well, I suppose that is all, have a great week!

Elder Ashcroft

P.S. Ahah! Remembered Something! So there is something else, we just received 6 missionaries in our mission. These six missionaries were reassigned to our mission, leaving the Ukraine Donetsk Mission due to civil unrest. They arrived last Friday. Thought you might be interested in hearing about that. :)  [Devin's brother, Brandon, served in the Ukraine Donetsk Mission.]

Zone Leaders Business

Well, my mind went blank right when I am about to write, let's see what happened this week? Had District meeting which was good as usual, talked about using the Book of Mormon in our teaching and all that good stuff. I believe Wednesday I ate something that did not agree with my stomach and was sick the rest of the evening which was a bummer but recovered the next day.

Thursday, Elder Eiselin and I went around the Zone checking all the missionaries living quarters making sure it was clean and that they had a CO and Smoke Detector. So we did a lot of traveling that day. We also did a few hours exchanges in Lolo while we were there. I was with Elder Skousen, who is a great nephew of Kleon Skousen. Pretty cool huh? Anyway, during that 2 hours exchange we were able to help them find 2 solid potential investigators which is a miracle for them as they have been striving to find people to teach. They are both exceptional missionaries and they will do great things in Lolo. In fact, we have a really great Zone with great missionaries. It is not very often when you get all the missionaries in a Zone who are all very obedient and hard working, which is a great blessing!

We have several people here in Corvallis on date that are not from Pinedale, but unfortunately I can't teach them. :(  Since Elder Eiselin (ZL) and Elder Alston (DL) have taught them and so if I teach them we would have to have the Zone Leaders in Missoula do the Baptismal Interview, so we are keeping me from teaching them so I can do the interview. We are going to have two baptisms the next two weeks, so we hope it will happen.

Lets see, I guess I will talk a little bit about my companion, Elder Eiselin. If you didn't notice all ready, he was in the March Ensign 2014 in "Inviting Success" with a short story of his conversion story in "Talk to the Tech" with his picture of him and his Fiancee! That's right, he is engaged! Well, he's been engaged just about his whole mission, they already got a sealer picked out in the Gilbert, AZ Temple for September. Elder Eiselin goes home 6 weeks after I do. In fact I was there when he first came out in the mission where he started in Missoula. We have good memories then. Anyway, thought you would like to know that.

We are currently planning for another Zone Leaders Training for May 14th. We believe it will be a good meeting.

Well, that is all I can think of right now. Have a great week!

Elder Ashcroft

P.S. I forgot to mention in my email, I am not looking forward to the blazing heat! It has been really nice weather here lately, in the 70's or late 60's. Wish it could be like that year round. Love ya!

Birthday Pics

The group picture from left to right, Elder Alston, Me, Elder Black, Elder Eiselin, & Elder Ponath. That is the massage chair Elder Black and Eiselin got for me, super nice of them!

Was able to make myself a birthday cake as well! :)

This was also what we did for my birthday at a members house while waiting for dinner.

 Also saw a yax that day!