I'm trying to think what happened this week and my mind went blank! I suppose nothing major happened this week as far as missionary work goes. Oh yeah! We went to see Peggy in Darby and got in with her for the first time, due to bad timing previous attempts, and she has been reading in 1 Nephi! She said she knows it is true and we gave her some more reading assignments and have a return appointment with her tomorrow. So I am super excited about that. Other than that we didn't have much to do except trying to find new people to teach. We've been doing a lot of contacting and tracting but to no avail unfortunately, we hope to find new investigators this week.

So, transfer, we found out about it yesterday and Elder Black and I are staying! Yay! Also, Elder Ponath, who is also serving in Corvallis will be with us in a Trio! Elder Black has also been given a special assignment to create a handbook of rules for online proslyting and for ipad for the mission. So I will be able to help him create a handbook with Elder Black for the mission! Pretty cool huh? Also Elder Black will be doing a lot of traveling around training Zone Leaders, District Leaders, and Sister Training Leaders on how to check other missionaries iPads and how to best utilize online prosylting. Pretty Sweet! Also, Elder Eiselin (who is in page 25 of last month's ensign) is our third Zone Leader in the Zone and his companion is a District Leader. Also, we got a another set of Sisters in our Zone, going from 10 to 13 missionaries in the Zone! Should be a great transfer!

I forgot to mention a miracle that happened last week. So two days before general conference I was singing A Childs Prayer and then I felt like I really wanted to hear the Mormon Tabernacle choir sing this in General Conference so I prayed for that. Then it happened! Made me super happy! :) Heavenly Father truely answers prayer.

That is pretty much what happened this week. Transfer happens this Wednesday. Have a great week!

Elder Ashcroft

Zone Conference photo

Exchange in Hamilon

Well, I spent the whole week in Hamilton till Saturday after the Priesthood session. The exchange went well, the Elders are struggling to find people to teach. All their investigaters are not progressing and they don't really have any less active to work with. We've just been contacting all the former investigators that were in the Area book but no success. A lot of the addresses do not exist, they moved out, or are not interested. So they will have to start on a clean slate and start finding new people to teach. A whole lot of tracting will have to be done in Hamilton, and Hamilton is the biggest town in the Zone as well covering two wards. So we are hoping they will find success. I was able to help them find a potential investigator who invited us back, so they will have to follow up with that.

General Conference was amazing! I'm sure everyone else agrees with me. I realized I don't have that much to talk about this week. Transfer is next week, so I'm curious as to what is going to happen to this Zone and with Elder Black and I. Well, hope you have a great week!

Elder Ashcroft

Baptism!

It's been quite another week and this week shall be interesting as well. Just gotta love exchanges sometimes as a Zone Leader. Even in such a small zone there are quite a few problems Elder Black and I have to deal with. Anyway, in the beginning of this week Elder Black went to Lolo and was with one of the missionaries there while I had one of the missionaries from Lolo come down with me in Corvallis/Darby. It was a long three days but I feel that it was very beneficial and was needed. I was able to keep us busy and found several people that we have return appointments with which was good. Went to Darby and we met with Bro. Pine, a part member family, who I taught a year ago, who wants to be baptized soon. He has been coming to church the last 5 years and he finally feels ready to be baptized. Then exchanges ended and it was great to have Elder Black again.

With Elder Black again we saw Travis up in Job Corp and finished teaching the commandments and he has been living the Word of Wisdom! He has been great! He had the interview Friday night and was cleared to be baptized! So it was a little crazy setting up the baptism as we were not quite sure if it was going to happen. We got it all figured out. Shane, who is from Job Corp and was baptized the first Saturday in March was able to baptize Travis. Shane was the one who invited Travis to his baptism which started Travis wanting to learn more and have a desire to be baptized as well. Super sweet! Travis is already one of the best missionaries. Telling everybody about the church and answering their questions. He told us that someone said he was already a Baptist, and he said, "so, I was too, but now I am a Mormon." So solid! Anyway, Elder Black confirmed him on Sunday which was great. The sad thing is, Travis and Shane will be leaving in a few weeks to El Paso, Tx for a job. Shane also has a girlfriend that he will be asking her to marry him, she is in El Paso and is already a member and he already has plan to be married in the temple next year in March! Pretty cool huh?

So I will be going on exchanges with one of the missionaries in Hamilton starting tonight till next Monday as both missionaries are struggling and need help. So Elder Black is getting one of the companions to be with him in Corvallis. Should be interesting and fun. I will get to know Hamilton better and help out the area. Can't wait till General Conference this weekend! Hope you have a great week!

Elder Ashcroft

Naps Challenge!

Three pound burger, pound of shake, and a pound of fries all under 25 minutes! :o  

No one finished it unfortunately. :(

I didn't do the challenge, 

I just sat there joyfully eating my basket of sweet potato fries and took pictures. :)

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

Mission Leadership Council

Well, had my first official mission leadership council in Helena Tuesday. Been to one before back in July as a guest. Anyway, it was Fantastical! I was able to see a lot of my previous companions and those I served around. There have been several things that have been approved for our mission now which is exciting. One, everyone has texting now, before it was just the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders. So that is pretty exciting. Also, the whole mission now have the opportunity to go to the Billings Temple once a transfer as long as we get rides from members and we are back in our area by 6 p.m. which means my Zone wouldn't be able to do it as it is too far away and wouldn't be able to get back by 6 in time. But it is a lot nicer for other Zones as before only the two Billings Zones could go. So that is super Sweet!

As a Zone Leader it takes up a lot of our time, even such a small zone as Stevensville! A lot of administrative work and dealing with missionary problems. This week, Elder Burrows, our Assistant and who came out with me and my previous companion, came back with us after the MLC in Helena so he could do some exchanges and some business here in the Stevensville Zone/Stake. There have been several issues with some missionaries and with the Stake members. So that has been very interesting as we have some things we have to follow up that Elder Burrows would like us to do. So many things we have to take care of, feels like we neglect our area sometimes, fortunately we have another set of Awesome missionaries in Corvallis that are doing a lot of great things.

I Love being a missionary and grateful to be serving here in Corvallis and in the Montana Billings Mission! I see so many miracles and blessings everyday and wish I could just be a full time missionary forever! Anyway, hope you have a fantastical week!

Elder Ashcroft