Thursday, October 13, 2016

October 10, 2016

***unedited this week. So no mind the mistakes. Enjoy!!!

Hello wonderful friends and family! The week has been a good one and my new companion (ElderHofeling), and I have been having a great time together! The work is going ok, but the weather is really really cold, and moist!! :(... I freeze.

Montag- we didn't really do anything interesting. Just shopping, cleaning, emails, and such.

Dienstag- we had District meeting in Freiburg. District meeting was really good considering it was my first time being a district leader. After district meeting, we handed out flyers for a celebration from the church in Freiburg as a district for an hour. After that we took a train home, and found some more.

Mittwoch- we had studies, and then we did some dooring in Switzerland. We came back in the evening to finish some of elder Hofelings in field training on the computer, and had dinner after that.

Donnerstag- we did studies and then went finding which went well. We came back a little early so that we could have dinner, then have a lesson with sister Rehm, but the lesson fell through. We ended up just having a member lesson with the joint teaches family anyways.

Freitag- we had studies, we found, we worked on Elder Hofelings in field training, and we had weekly planning.

Samstag- we went to Murg, contacted a referral, and went from door to door.

Sonntag- we had church. The mom and the kids of the Rehm family all came. :) after church we went over to sister Rehm's house with a member to bless her house. Ever since she has had a baptismal date, she has been being experiencing a lot of scary things from evil spirits. The good thing is, she takes this as a sign that the church is true, and is still determined on being baptized! :) after the blessing, we stayed and ate dinner with their family, then taught them one of the lessons.

The spiritual thought of this week is on fasting. I have thought a lot about fasting lately, because as a mission we have been reading in the New Testament, and I read the part where Jesus fasted for forty days. I never really thought to much about it before, but this time reading through it, it made a lot more sense.
When Jesus fasted in the wilderness he was preparing for his ministry. But why fasting? I read something in the institute manual about fasting that I really like and gives a good answer as to why he fasted.

“Fasting, coupled with mighty prayer, is powerful. It can fill our minds with the revelations of the Spirit. It can strengthen us against times of temptation. Fasting and prayer can help develop within us courage and confidence. They can strengthen our character and build self-restraint and discipline. Often when we fast, our righteous
prayers and petitions have greater power. Testimonies grow. We mature spiritually and emotionally and sanctify our souls. Each time we fast, we gain a little more control over our worldly appetites and passions” (“The Law of the Fast,” Ensign, May 2001, 73).

I challenge everyone the next time fast Sunday rolls around, to really pray, and fast to find out what your personal strengths, talents, and gifts are, and then, and pray every day to be able to use those talents, and abilities to help other people.

I know that fasting, and prayer are two of the best ways that we can draw upon the powers of heaven, and that God gives us everything that we have, because he really does love us, and he loves us because we are his children. He wants to help us.

I hope that everyone has beautiful week, and a great time doing all the things you guys do! :) if you ever need anything, hit me up.

~Elder Ashcroft~

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

October 3, 2016

 
Hello friends and family! :) It has been a great week here and it's finally starting to get cold. Really cold! :( But I'm just a wimp for the cold I guess…haha!

Monday we went shopping and packed a little for Elder McDaniel. In the evening we had a member appointment in Rheinfelden with the family Kamm as a farewell for Elder McDaniel.

Tuesday we had our last district meeting with Elder Jensen, McDaniel, and Sister Petitt. District meetings take a huge chunk out of our day. It takes two hours to get to Freiburg then we meet for an hour and a half, eat lunch and take the same two hour train ride
back. I guess a positive side is that the train ride is absolutely beautiful because we go through the Black Forest the entire time. :D When we got back we had an appointment with the family Rehm, an investigator family. The wife is from Peru and cooked us some really really good dishes from her home country. After the meal we shared a scripture and then went home for the day.

Mittwoch we had transfer day! We took a train early in the morning to Zürich where I spend a total of 10 hours before my trainee arrived. It was such a good time!! I got to see all of my good friends in Switzerland and got to catch up a little. After the first group left
I went around Zürich with the zone leaders. We had a service project, ate lunch then went finding for a little bit. It was a really good time. :) My Trainee came into Zürich at about five o'clock so we helped everyone get their luggage off the train. We all waited for our trains going back home after that. We got home at about 6:00pm. I helped my companion unpack a little, we had dinner then went to bed.

Thursday we had studies then went to the church for some in field training for Elder Hofeling on the computer. Then we went dooring in Switzerland for his first time dooring.

Freitag we had studies and a service project helping sister Jung carry some furniture. After she feed us some really good food and we went home. Then we had an appointment with Frau Singh fall out. We had an early dinner because we had an appointment that night with Sister Rehm. The lesson with Sister Rehm went really well. We shared the Restoration with her, which Elder Hofeling, my companion, did very well for his first time, not to mention it was in a foreign language! Elder Hofeling is a great guy and he really has the gift of tongues because he can understand seemingly a lot. Sister Rehm is progressing a lot and is committed to her baptism happening. :)

Samstag we had weekly planning, had to fix the light on my bike, because the Germans are super strict about you having a light, then we had to go shopping because Monday is a holiday. After that he found a bit.

Sonntag we went to Basel with an investigator and some members to watch the preisthood session. Then came back and ate lunch at the members house with the investigator family and all watched conference after that.
Cool beans.

September 26, 2016

Hello everybody, I have been very bad at getting my weekly mails out
but I will start doing it again I promise! There have been some very
big changes this past week! First of all we set the date for Schwester
Rehm's baptism for the 29th of October and planned everything out on
a calendar. Her daughters will also get baptized so we will also
start teaching them the lessons. Joshua has also been expressing his
desire to be Baptized into this church and we set a date with him for
the 12th of November.

I can really say that this area has improved so much from before. I've
definitely had the most success being here than anywhere else on my
mission.

The second big thing that has happened this week was transfer calls.
I will be training next transfer, which really excites me. I am
also supper nervous because I've never trained! To make things
crazier I will be the new district leader and the district is the
youngest district I've ever seen! Hahaha….Three people are going to be
trained in our district and I'm the oldest, on the mission,
missionary in the district.

There have been a lot of other things that also happened but these
are the two big ones. I will just sum up by sending some pictures,
but I promise I will send my weekly next week…haha! ;)