What Just Happened???

So I'm still a little dizzy from hearing the news. We got transfer

notices today. I will be leaving my dearly beloved companion, Elder

Vieira... He's the best and I've loved getting to work and learn with

him. He's truly an example of Christ always and he's taught me so

much. I've loved getting to see his parents be baptized these past two

months as they found true testimonies of the Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-Day Saints and made the decision to be baptized. It was truly

special. I'll also miss this area a ton. It's been great here!

I am getting shipped back to the capital. Actually, I've been

specifically been transferred to the Mission Office to be the new

Records Secretary. I'll have to deal with all the baptism records as

well as any reference to be passed to or from the missionaries in the

Brazil São Paulo North mission. Here we go! Off to new and COMPLETELY

different adventures! President Farnes called me this morning asking

for my help in this and saying that he trusted in me and that I was

needed there, which was all super touching and nerve wracking. But

it's all good. I'm going to go eat at Applebee's right now to settle

down. That's right. Brazil has Applebee's and it's SUPER expensive.

That's about all I have. From now on I'll be writing everyone on

Saturday, as that'll be my new Preparation Day from now on. SO WEIRD.

Love y'all! Keep yourselves safe and well! Have fun!

Sincerely,

Elder Ashford

Another Zone Activity

First I want to give a shout out to my awesome companion, who

completed 21 years of age yesterday! One of the recent-converts in the

ward gave us lunch today and they made this HUGE, awesome cake! It was

delicious, and I was really happy for my companion. We had a good

week. Rough, because not a lot of people want to hear from us, but it

was good. We work hard everyday, putting in our best every moment. We

did a split in our area with the President's Assistants, and I was

with an Elder Costa, which was cool. We literally got rejected by

everyone. We got made fun of. We got doors slammed in our face. I

think the assistants found out that our area's a little hard. It was

fun however! We laughed a lot.

I'm writing this a little later in the day, because we pulled off

another fantastic zone activity! This time, we were trying to work on

everyone's Christ-like attributes, so we did like a obstacle course!

They had to practice love and charity as they were taped to their

companions and had to work with them every step of the way. They had

to excersize patience as they had to repeat the whole process every

time that something went wrong. There were knowledge portions as they

had to take tests based on the scriptures. They had to show faith and

hope by making it through all the tests without error. They learned

well! It was fun in the end. Several people wanted to give up, but

they decided to keep moving forward and were rewarded in the end! I

felt like I was Phil from Survivor. They messed something up and I

would just be like "No". It was fun to say yes though! It was great!

They had to do a blindfolded maze, build a tower of cups, shoot a

basket together and other stuff!

Have a great week! Keep going strong! I love you all!

Elder Ashford

Going the Distance

I'm sure trying to keep enduring. It's hard not always seeing the

results we want to, but we have to remember that the Lord's will

should be above ours. I feel like I'm always planting, but hardly even

collecting. It gets frustrating at times because I want to badly to see more results. It's

hard to do everything within your reach, and just not have anyone

respond. We worked our tails off Sunday to get people to church. We

called, we passed by in houses, we arranged members to take them, but

everything fell through. People didn't want to, members forgot, and

some others' parents told us we were wasting our time with the person

and told us not to come back. It was sad. The only person who came was

a little, old lady who always comes, and just can't be baptized

because her husband still doesn't accept it. I want so badly to see

people doing the right thing, but I can't feel the difference I make

sometimes. But I know that God does. He's proud of me and trusts me

and wants me to keep going, so I am. It's super hard sometimes, but I

try to just keep moving. Sometimes I lose hope and get fed up with

only worrying about everyone else's lives, but I try my best to keep

reaching out to others. My companion helps me a ton as well, and I

know that God works through him to help me. I have so much to be

grateful for! Many times we have to just keep pushing forward. I'm

truly trying to go the distance, which is often hard. We want to give

up or take a rest. However, we need to keep moving forward. We watched

a video the other day with President Farnes. During our Leadership

Council, we watched clips of Conference talks by President Eyring and

Elder Holland. Missionary work isn't easy because salvation isn't

easy. Christ's life wasn't easy and what we feel here doesn't even

come close to that. We also can't stop. Even the three days that

Christ was dead, He wasn't resting, but teaching in the Spirit World.

We need to constantly push forward. There is always something more to

do. If anyone wants to watch the video, please look up "The Atonement

and Missionary Work". I think that's the title. I hope that everyone

is doing well. I have absolute certaintly of Christ's divine mission,

as well as my own. This is Christ's only true church. Everyone needs

to learn and know this for themselves. Our eternities rest on this,

not just our lives here. We are merely passing through, and it goes

fast, so we need to make good use of all our time. Yes, it's hard.

Yes, we'll make mistakes. But we are here to learn. I testify that

Christ lives and loves us. He rules and reigns and shows us His will

through Prophets, ancient and modern, and by His Holy Spirit. I know

this to be true. Christ lives and loves us!

Elder Ashford

"The good works that really matter require the help of heaven. And the

help of heaven requires working past the point of fatigue so far that

only the meek and lowly will keep going long enough. The Lord doesn't

put us through this test just to give us a grade; he does it because

the process will change us."

     -Elder Henry B. Eyring

Progress in Progresso

We've had a crazzzyyyy awesome week! It was hard sometimes this week

to get lots of work done, as we had lots of meetings. Monday was

P-Day, Tuesday we traveled to the capital witht he other mission

leaders to have a meeting with Elder Aidukaitis, a member of the 70

who spoke in last General Conference! He was super cool and gave us

some amazing planning advice that worked miracles here in our area!

There is seriously importance in planning. We need to have plans for

everything we do! Even our Heavenly Father makes plans! Just look to

His great PLAN of Salvation! Anyways, it was great. Then on Wednesday,

we had another meeting with him, but this time here in Sorocaba with

the missionaries of our zone and two others. Yet again, another super

awesome, spiritual meeting full of learning! Too great! We had a good

rest of the week, including another baptism this week! This is the

first time that I've had a baptism two weeks back-to-back! It was

super cool, and we have lots of people who are getting ready for these

next two weeks as well! Luiz, who was baptized last week, had the

experience of seeing his son get baptized the week after! It was too

cool to see the two there, so excited! Felipe, Luiz's son, is super

excited for everything, which is really cool to see because normally

he's pretty quiet!

There are seriously so many blessings being given to this area. We

worked super hard last transfer, so it was a little sad when we didn't

have the success we searched for. But this time around, the blessings

are pouring out. A 20 year old recent convert didn't want to serve a

mission really, but she's changed her mind since she's we've been here

and is now doing a mission prep class at institute! The inactive who

returned to activity in the church worked with us one day of last

week, and it was cool to see his progress as he bore his testimony to

our investigators and helped them come to church this week. He talked

with Bishop about his desire to be a missionary! We had an inactive

come to church for the first time in a long time, and he brought his

wife and two year old son to church. They're going to get married this

week so that his wife can get baptized in a couple of weeks! We are

also working with several other people who want to be baptized when

they get prepared! Woo hoo! It's super cool!

I'm doing great. That was pretty much my week in a nutshell. I'm

working hard and trying to improve myself every day, building my

patience and trust in the Lord! I see the blessings that come! I hope

that everyone has a great week! Work hard! And have fun!

Sincerely,

Elder Ashford

That's the Way the Money Goes

Please don't think that the title has absolutely anything to do with

my weekly letter home, because it doesn't. I was trying to think of a

good title for this week and that song happened to hop into my head,

so I went with it. Also, I hope that everyone noticed my terrific

talent for amazing alliterations that I displayed in the last

sentence. Alright, I'll get serious.

This week was kind of FANTASTIC. And this next week should be pretty

great as well! We found out last week about transfers, just a few

hours after I got off the computers. Guess what?? We stayed! We got so

excited to know that we'll be working together for at least one more

transfer here in Vila Progresso! So great. It's good for us. The last

transfer we passed super well together, but it was difficult as almost

everyone we met didn't have interest, or rejected our message, or just

couldn't bring themselves to progress in the Gospel. We've been super

obedient and working super hard, so it was hard to not see fruits come

from that. We read lots of scriptures, and today I read about Aaron in

the Book of Mormon, the brother of Ammon. Aaron went and preached the

Gospel diligently to many, many people, with very little success. He

was even imprisoned, tormented, stripped, starved, and left there for

a lot of time. Finally though, God used others to help him get out,

and Aaron started preaching without delay! And this time, after all

the trials, he had tons of success! That's part of what we're

experiencing. 

 

 

The young man with the long hair is Edimilson, He was

baptized two years ago, but stopped going to church after his best

friend died. We met him three weeks ago, and every since then he's

been going to church and changing! He is super laid back, but loves

and trusts in God. He's coming to have a much deeper, personal

relationship with God and learnign to do His will, regardless of what

it is. He's learned about and gained a real testimony that this is the

true church. He never wanted to get married, until he found out about

eternal marriage in temples and that God wanted him to get married and

raise a righteous family. He's decided to serve God as a full time

missionary and is now preparing to serve! It's so cool. He's awesome!

We also had another huge blessing... WE HAD A BAPTISM LAST SATURDAY!

We've been working with Luiz since day one here. We talked with him in

the street, right after he'd been praying to God to show him a pathway

in life! His prayer was answered, and he jumped right in! We taught

him everything, and he really wanted to be baptized. He gave up a

little though because of the Book of Mormon. He didn't like to use

anything beyond the Bible, and didn't believe that the Book of Mormon

was the word of God. We even had to stop visiting him for a week

because he didn't want it anymore. We kept praying for him however,

and about a week ago, while he was working, he had this little voice

enter his head saying, "You asked for a path to follow, and I gave you

one. What have you done with it?" That was an answer to his prayers.

He understood that he really was given the true path of God, the path

that uses both the Bible and the Book of Mormon and the words of the

living prophets. He was baptized! It was so cool to see. Also, we have

tons of other people with whom we are working who are absolutely

excellent. People that love the Church of Jesus Christ, who feel the

Spirit in our lessons, in the Book of Mormon, and at the Church, and

who know that all this really is God's truth for all the Earth! And I

testify of the same thing! This is the path laid for us by Jesus

Christ himself! Christ lives and leads His church by means of a living

prophet, just like He always has! God is unchanging and loves us!

Living by the path of God, in the church that He himself organized on

the Earth, we will have the fullness of happiness and peace and the

hope of returning to one day live in the presence of God with out

families for forever! I love God's plan for us and will always follow

it, regardless of anything!

I love you all and hope that everyone can understand the conviction I

have about Jesus Christ and the true, perfect organization (or church)

that He put here on the Earth. Tomorrow and the next day, I will have

to opportunity to hear from a General Authority of God's church, a

member of the Quorum of the Seventy. Elder Aidukaitis, who spoke in

the last General Conference, will talk with us about how we can

improve ourselves to better help the people that we serve every day as

missionaries! It'll be super cool! I miss everyone and love you all!

Keep strong, have faith, and have fun!

Elder Ashford

"Those who know the truth are not so great as they who love it; and

they who love the truth are not so great as they who live it."

     -Chinese Proverb

Over The Hill

I think that describes me pretty well. For those of you that still

don't know, (Don't know how that happened, because I'm sure that my

mom told EVERYONE) I hit my one year mark this last week!!!! It's

ridiculous to think that I've already been a missionary in the service

of Christ for ONE ENTIRE YEAR OF MY LIFE, but it's true. What can ya

do. Actually, technically, I'd already hit my halfway mark, because

when we went to visit São Paulo for a day last week, my companion and

I stopped in the mission office, and I saw my wonderful friend Elder

Carney!!! Which was super great. He's the financial secretary, so he

has all this cool access that I don't have. He showed me my missionary

file, and it said that I'll be finishing my mission on July 28th, two

weeks before my two year mark. You may mark that day in your calendar,

Mother.

I didn't have time to write everyone last week, because we had a super

awesome Zone Activity that Elder Vieira and I planned out for the

other missionaries in our zone. Therefore, we did not have much time

on the computers last week. Being the first time to do a Zone

Activity, we wanted it to be super awesome. Just don't let your socks

get knocked off with the brilliance of our idea. We all got together

in the chapel in our area, all 14 missionaries, and had a potluck!

Everyone brought some food. I made an awesone meat cake, which is

basically a loaf of ground beef with cheese and bacon and sausage

inside! It turned out great. Then, we started our treasure hunt. They

got split into two teams, with one member of the group blindfolded.

Elder Vieira and I were investigators, and the teams had to take turns

doing certain tasks. One person had to make a street contact with me,

and then run to find the other clue. Two other people then had to

practice what they had learned in their Zone Training, applying the

techniques they had learned, inviting me to be baptized. The person

blindfolded then had to do some paperwork, which turned out hilarious.

The blindfolded person then had to navigated a maze to get the next

clue, taking directions from their team mates (and from the other

team!). They then had to apply other teaching skills on us, and in the

end, my companion and I were dressed in white in the baptism font! We

gave them pictures and a letter praising them for their good work and

encouraging them to always work hard to help others in this great work

we're doing! Finally, we took them to our service project, where we

all sang a couple hymns and listened to the conversion story of a

member of our ward here who was baptized blind and without her legs.

Her legs had to be amputated years before, but she really wanted to

hear the message of the Restoration and be a part of the Church of

Jesus Christ! She gave up smoking and now is an active member of our

ward. Blind and without legs, she still goes to church every single

week.

Needless to say, we felt awesome about the activity, and all the

missionaries returned super excited to help everyone in their areas.

Later that week, I had my one year anniversary! That morning, we had

interviews with our mission president, President Farnes. He's super

awesome! We kept ourselves occupied doing teaching practices and

sharing our conversion stories with each other, which really helped us

get to know each other better. Later that day, we stopped at the pizza

parlor here owned by a member, and we ate free pizza! Super fun! I'm

doing great and working hard. These weeks have been rough on us, as we

haven't gotten the results we were wanting, but we are determined to

work better and harder! There are tons of people we are preparing to

be baptized in Christ's church. It's so cool to see so many people

leaving behind their own lives and choosing to follow God in the way

the He wants us to! I'm so proud and thankful and humbled and

priviledged to be a part of this work here. I love you all and hope

that y'all are well! Keep working hard and have fun!

Sincerely,

Elder Ashford

"Perseverance is a positive, active characteristic. It is not idly,

passively waiting and hoping for something good to happen. It gives us

hope by helping us realize that the righteous suffer no failure except

in giving up and no longer trying. We must never give up, regardless

of temptations, frustrations, disappointments, or discouragements."

     -Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin

Trials are How We Learn

This week was fantastic! I know that sounds weird after the title I

put on, but it's true! We did not get the results this week that we

were hoping for. We couldn't find many people to talk to, our baptism

fell through, some of our investigators with the most potential turned

us away, and we had to just keep on moving. It was definitely hard,

but worth it. We learned a lot together this week. I went to my first

Leadership Counsel on my mission this week, now that I'm a Zone

Leader, and it was just super cool! The advice and training that our

Mission President gave to us was extremely useful and will be super

effective! I'm excited to be able to pass on all this learning to the

rest of our zone tomorrow in our Zone Training. It'll be awesome! It

was also super great to see lots of my best friends and old companions

there! It was funny. Sister Farnes, our Mission President's wife, did

a super funny demonstration with my friend Elder Berrios there. She

explained about planning! Elder Berrios had a bunch of seemingly

random cooking ingredients and had to use them all to make a cake

without a recipe! We have no idea how it turned out, but we'd rather

not try it, just in case it went bad. Then, we ate cupcakes that she

had made following the recipe. Super smart! We need to follow the

instructions every day while we plan as missionaries, because if we

don't do things in the right order, everything can turn out bad!

Planning is important!!

Also this week, my companion was having real trouble with forgiving

himself of his weaknesses and moving on. He'd been having a hard time

with that and asked for a blessing of comfort. I gave him one, and it

was super cool. I could feel the Spirit just giving me the words that

he needed to hear. I truly felt that it wasn't me that was speaking,

but the Lord. I was truly an instrument in the Lord's hands, because

in the blessing I said a few things that no one else knew about, just

my companion and the Lord. It was super cool to see the power of the

Priesthood take effect in Elder Vieira's life as he left his worries

and troubles behind and starting working better to help others. I love

being a missionary! This week was really one of growth and we are

excited to have a much better week now! We're working hard and well

together and I've been truly blessed here in Vila Progresso. The

church is true! God restored His holy priesthood on Earth to further

benefit the salvation of all mankind! This power and authority resides

in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints because it is the

church that our loving Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ came

down in these latter days to bring again in its fullness to the earth!

I'm know that Christ lives and leads this church! We can all push

through and learn from our mistakes and trials, and need to, because

we will never understand the lasting effects of this while we're here

in this life! I love you all! Keep seeking and finding! Stay strong!!

Have an awesome week!

Elder Ashford

"No missionary can determine the lasting effects of his or her labors."

    -Elder Richard G. Scott

Progress

So Villa Progress (Vila Progresso) is making progress and we were

really close to having a baptism this week, but he needs a little more

time. Pray that this week will work out! We are working with tons of

people with good desires to follow God correctly and we are finding

more and more every day! I love being here and am doing great! I don't

have too much else to say for this week, but I'm loving being here and

working with my companion, Elder Vieira. He's from way north in Brazil

where it's super hot, so he also enjoys the heat, which stinks because

it's been cold here the last few days! He is very loving and likes to

help others in whatever way we can. He has a strong testimony of the

Church, and is a great help to me in learning how to be a better

person and missionary! I'll explain more about his background and

story later, but he's seriously awesome and it's a pleasure to be able

to serve with him! I hope everyone is doing well at home! This week

should be exciting! We're gonna do awesome work! I love you all! Have

fun!

Elder Ashford

Adventures in Vila Progresso

This week was yet another great one. We had our fair share of hard

investigators and difficulties, but it all turned out well. Some of

the people we taught this week turned out to be pastors who openly

refused to just pray and ask God if the message we brought was true.

Super sad... We also made a nice long journey this week to pick up

materials. Our zone was down to nothing in terms of Books of Mormon

and pamphlets and everything, and President Farnes brought some for

us, but we had to go adventuring in Sorocaba to pick them up. We had

to figure out the bus system here and get to a different church

chapel, and then carry the super heavy boxes back home with us.

Unfortunately, we got off the bus wayyyy to late and had to carry the

boxes in our arms for quite a lot of time to get back home. Oh well.

Things go that way sometimes. :P

We were pretty sad last Sunday, as it ended up that none of our

investigators could come to church with us and visit and experience

the Church of Jesus Christ. They all had work or medical problems or

stuff like that, which was sad they didn't get to come. We'll work on

getting people there this next Sunday though, so all's well. We have

quite a few people who are preparing themselves to be baptized in a

few weeks, which is awesome! We're working really hard and doing our

best and relying on God! My companion is seriously awesome, and is

helping me out tons! So grateful for him and so much support from back

at home! Sorry my letter is short this week, but I'll try to write

more next week! Love y'all!!