We're not in Kansas anymore...

Hola!!

So I've made it to the grand General Roca! It's defintely different than all the super tiny towns that i've been in! It honestly feels wierd to be in a city. I feel like....whats her name with the red shoes that leaves kansas and goes to the land of oz?? well i feel like her... And encima, we live right in the middle of the city center. Our address is Tucuman 1161 if you want to look it up. We're in an apartment on the 2nd floor, which is really the 3rd floor but in argentina the 1st floor is what we call the 2nd floor haha. Im in the area Universitario B, but Hermana Garcia and I will be doing... I cant think of how you say it in english.... intercambios with 8 different pairs of hermanas in 2 different zones (Roca and Villaregina) So I'll get to know a lot of areas here.

Our ward is the biggest I've been in! We have about 100 members that usually come although the last week there were only 90 and it still seems SOO big! I think I'll have a spasm when I get back to the wards in Utah. The members are awesome and we have a lot of investigatores and potential investigatores. However the investigatores that I have already come to love so much in only 2 visits is the family Jara. The daughter got baptised a few months by Elder merrell who served in Senillosa with me. And we're teaching the other 3 children and the mom. I have heard some incredible and sincere prayers in my mission but i think Marcus (17 years old) wins. "god, im marcus, one of your children.... i want to know..." And his brother Anibal (30 years old) as well. You honestly could feel the spirit so strong. Well marcus wants to get baptised now as well as the sister Gabby, but they need permission from their mom. So we're praying and fasting lots for them:)

So it wouldn't be a reunion with Hermana Garcia if something crazy didnt happen.... so my second day here we were in the middle of studying when we realized there was water... lots of water. Long story short... our apartmenet flooded from a clothes washer hahah. All of my bags were still on the floor cause i hadnt had time to unpack yet and everything got wet. Thankfully the books were saved. But it was about nearly 2 inches in our bedroom and kitchen. haha so we spent a good morning cleaning up all the water.

Another miracle, an investigator Ancelmo accepted a baptism date. And his wife is reading the book of mormon! Although she hasnt told us yet that she is... haha ancelmo secretly told us:)

Miracle number 10000- we bought grapes from a couple the other day and gave them our number with a pamphlet and they called us yesterday wanting to make lunch for us and hear more about the church!

I'm super happy to be with Hermana Garcia! Although ill be getting a bit more than chubby cause we always cook a lot of intersting food together haha.

Well love you all so much!!

Hermana Ashcroft

PS- I have the cutest nephew in the world!!

PSS- i found out what i figg is!! I actually learned what it was in spanish before i did in english haha. There was a fig tree on the side of the street and we may have climbed it a bit to eat some figgs... they're really good!! Even if they do look like worms inside.

Bienvenidos a....

March 24, 2014

Hola family and all!!

So transfers came and they were a bit crazy. I'll tell you this, I'm leaving Senillosa as well as one of the elders. The elder that's leaving is going to be a zone leader now in Neuquen, and I'm going to Roca as one of those hermana lider things. I'm super sad i'll be missing the next 2 baptisms that we have planned though.... monica is all ready to be baptised now and i had to say goodbye to her today... I bought some cute hats for baby soren (he's still a baby in my head) from her though! She knitted them and one if of mike from monsters Inc and the other is nemo! Monica has progressed incredibly though! She's very timid and insecure but to see her now is totally different than just 3 weeks ago! She's got so many talents and is so incredible, but she's never thought so of herself. The gosple has helped her realize more her worth though and i truly lover her so much!

So the part that is the most crazy of the transfers is who is my new companion.... remember good old plaza huincul and the names in the clouds?!?! YUP!! HERMANA GARCIA (from mexico) IS MY COMPANION AGAIN!! hahahha I'm super excited!! Also, i was kthining about it and it seems to me that the lord really wants me to learn spanish cause in my 11 months (today actually) I have only had latina compañeras. Which is awesome:) So I'll be trodding around General Roca now with hermana Garcia:)

Updates of what we did this week-

*built a house. Literally. hahha the ward did a service activity and we built a house for a family with special needs and fixed up all of their yard. You'd think it would be impossible to build a house in a day, but the way they do it here it you really can build a house in a day haha. so that was awesome! I'm now a profesional with working with wire and one member told me that i was all ready to go home and build my own house now haha

*Noche de hogar with all the jovenes and some new additions. They all bore their testimony at the end to say goodbye to me and elder merrell and it was incredible.

*We ate Asado. that was delicious!! Our last almuerzo and the members prepared an asado for us from a goat and cow that they had just killed... meat is always SUPER fresh here.

*our convert ezequiel gave his first talk in church and did awesome:)

*we found 4 more investigators:)

*we've taught one of our investigators to read and write now and she does it like a champ now with the book of mormon!

*Jose Dimitrovich carved me a gift out of wood and I cried with him and his family saying goodbye to them. We shared testimonies and I KNOW that he felt the spirit and i KNOW that he will get baptised one day.

*I also cried saying goodbye to our converts Juan and Luis. They are like 2 more adopted grandpas to me:)

*and so much more....

I really love the mission. and i really love you all:)

Hermana ashcroft

PS- write you from roca next week:) Funny thing is it's actually really close to my last area in Allen and it's in the same stake

 Some of the youth from the ward and the salame i found on the street last week!! hahah

Miracles!!

March 17, 2014

Sorry for the short time i have but i really just have one topic to say-

Miracles are real:)

I've seen so many this week hasta miracles chistosos and miracles powerful.

Little Senillosa is growing so much and we've got more incredible investigators! There's about 100 miracles i could share about that....

But you'll never guess the miracle that happened last night!!

we were walking home from a really good family home evening with the youth, and it was really dark and i saw something on the ground... so i picked it up and thought it was a ball of string... but it was heavy.... guess what it was!!! you wont guess....

3 KILOS of SALAME!!!!!! are really good argentine salame!! miracles are falling from the sky!! hahha i couldnt believe it!! There was nobody around and it was really dark and there were dogs coming, so we saved the salame and took it to our house:) Also, someone bought us a half dozen facturas and gave them to us this week and we didn't even know them! I love to see those kinds of selfless acts of service:)

Anywyas, apart for the funny miracles, i really do belive in miracles and i really do know that they happen every day! We see so many if we try to look for them. And it always seems like the more we look fro them the more they come.

well, love you all so much! You should look for the miracles aroudn you:)

Hermana Ashcroft

PS_ transfers are this week.. we'll se what happens,

PSS.- there may be another 2 baptisms this week between us and the elders in senillosa.

PSSS our new theme is "senillos milagrosa!"

PSSSS i really love you all

PSSSSS thanks for writing me all:) ill respond better the next week with more time

Are you there??

March 10, 2014

Soo, try not to forget me too easily family. I'm still here. Luckily mom wrote me a few lines this week, but I basically haven't heard from any of you. So I'm dropping the cane on you all. Did you feel it drop?

So things are going well here. It was a bit of a slow week cause all the members went to the temple so we didn't have very many lessons (can't remember if I told you that our lessons don't count unless we have a member present). And really i've seen the difference it makes when the members accompany the missionaries. we had stake conference this week and they all dopped the cane on missionary work saying that every member is a missionary and needs to do their part. Crazy stuff... in our stake here there are 56 missionaries!! Sure we have to travel an hour y bus to get to the stake center. But for one stake, we are 2 zones and 56 missionaries in total which is larger than some of the wards here.

Our recent convert Ezequiel got to go to the temple this week with the ward and he came back completely iluminated. He's pregressed so much and is working so hard to learn more and share the gosple with everyone. It's been incredible to see how the gosple really influences people when they allow it to enter in their lives.

In other news.... we had another attack of red ants this week.... Our door doen't seal all the way shut and they sneaked in and made an army covering our wall and table. We'd left a bag out that had some spilled oil in it and they were chewing through the bag to get to it. I didn't know that ant liked oil... We've also got some cricket friends in our bathroom that I greet every morning when I take a shower. We're pretty sure they're lucky crickets though. We also pulled a lot of weekds with week with the elders here. But like a lot. it made 5 huge piles of pulled weeds with 2 of the piles nearly the same height as me. Needless to say my legs are sore from fighting with some stubborn weeds and all the bugs that ate us. Also, it turned out to be a good plan to bring garden gloves mom:) The majority of the weeds had thorns.

So I wrote down some other stuff i wanted to say to you all, but i forgot my notebook that I wrote it all in... Senillosa was one fo the few areas with the most baptisms this last month which is awesome:)

Thanks grandma for the e-mail and the uote about SMILE. I really liked it:)

Hope all is well with you all. Be sure to write me or update me or something...

Love you!

Hermana ashcroft

PS- I really missed you all this week.

PSS- did you know that there's a national holliday that's day of the woman?? we got told feliz dia a lot of times just for me to finally learn the it was womens day... who knew...

PSSS- you really should write me.

PSSSS- I really do miss you all

Expecto Bautismos!!

March 3

So I think I may have already used this Subject line, but this week deserves it even more. Here in the good old tiny town of Senillosa where there recently hadn't been a baptism in months and months (I think about a year if the ward members remember correctly), not only have we recently had 2 new conversos, but there were 3 baptisms this last saturday, making 5 baptisms in less than 2 months! It's been miracle after miracle happening and this saturday was soo lindo! There were so many people at the baptisms and then sunday when they were all confirmed the chaple was filled with such a strong spirit.

I talked with a girl named Mercedes that is a member but that hasn't been to church in years, and it was her mom Silvia that got baptised this week, and she gave the strongest and sweetest testimony. She explained about how she got baptised at 12 years old and always went to church alone. Her mom recieved the missionaries and always loved the gosple, but wasn't willing to live some comandments in particular to be able to be baptised. And then when she started to live the gosple, she could never get baptised cause she could never asist the church meeting because of her severe anxiety of large groups of people. Well the last 2 months with the help of Priesthood blessings shes been able to overcome her anxiety and asist the church to be able to be baptised. Her daughter Mercedes, told me how she prayed and fasted so many times all those years that she went to church alone. Praying that her mom would be baptised. After about 6 years she stopped coming to church because she said she felt like her prayers werent being answerd and she didn't want to do it alone anymore. Now that Mercedes is about 27 years old her mom finally got baptised. Mercedes came to the baptism and cried because of how happy she was. She told me that she could feel all her prayers and fasting being answered in the moment that she saw her mom baptised and that she could feel that her prayers really were listened in all that time, but that she knew now that she had to wait for this time for her mom to be baptised in order to be able to help her to be able to return the church at this time in her life.

Well I probably butchered the story, cause i have a hard time writing in english and thinking in spanish, but it was such an incredible testimony that she shared. I really do know that although it may not seem that we are recieving our answers, we are being heard when we pray. The lords simply has prepared the moment preciso for when we are going to recieve each blessing and each answer. The lords time is perfect.

So i cut my hair this week... it was for a good purpose though... haha. There's a less active member that we've desperately been trying to get into her house to talk with her and she hasn't opened the door. We found her outside one day though and were able to talk with her and in order to have another oportunity to talk with her we had to ask if she could cut our hair (cause we'd heard that she hair, it was the best excuse we could think of haha). However, it was worth it cause after years of no contact with the members, she came to the baptism this week and we were able to get her to agree to a family home evening this week:) So I exchanged about 4 inches of hair for a fmily home evening haha.

Well, love you all so much!!

Hermana Ashcroft

PS- Hailey BYU smells anyways....
PSS- glad to hear I have a rockstar of a sister!
PSSS- sisters should update me on their lives. maybe...

Plan de Salvación

Feb 24

Hola familia and others

Felicitaciones a Aubrey Nilsson for the engagement! If you read this, you should send me pics....

So this week was full of miracles. Our investigator Juan Reynoso got baptised! It's been incredible to see how the gosple really changes lives. Everytime we meet somebody I love to realize how we really are all children of god and tht everyone has such grand potential, you just have to help some to be able to see it.

Muy memorable moment of the week-

Soo this week we taught a family about the plan of salvation. It was a grandmother who's daughter passed away a few months ago, leaving her to care for the 5 little kids of her daughter. Meanwhile she is also caring for her mother that is over 80 years old. So we taught the plan of salvation to her and one of the little boys with the little figures that jill walter gave me that im positive that amy harmer made, and all went really well. The next time we went to their house there were 3 of the little girls there and the lady wanted us to share the plan of salvation with them as well. So I took out the figures and we taught the plan of salvation to them as well. As we went through explaining about how we are all spirit children of our heavenly father and where our spirit goes after we die and how we have the oportunity to live again with all of our family and with a body, I couldn't help but try to hold back the tears as I saw the oldest little girl (about 9) moving the figures of a spirit and a body around and re-explaining it to her little sisters (about 5 and 7), telling them where mommy was now. They all started to smile and say that they wanted to be really good so that they could live with mommy again. At the end of the lesson, we taught them all how to pray and asked the 9 year old girl to offer the prayer.... i don't know if I have ever heard a prayer so good and so sincere from any member let alone investigator that just learned how to pray. She asked her father in heaven to care for and watch over each individual person in her family and to bless her mom and help them to not be sad and gave thanks for the girls that helped them to understand where their mom was. As she started to cry in her pray so did I.

I can't express how grateful I am to have the knowledge of the plan of salvation that we have. To know and understand what our purpose is and that we can have an eternal family. I truly have come to know on the mission that the plan of salvation is true. That it really is perfect and it really is a plan of happiness.

Love you all so much and pray for you always.

hermana ashcroft

PS- Thank you very much Jill Walter and Amy Harmer for the plan of salvation figures. I have used them more times than I can count and it really has helped so many people to better undertand. Thank you and Love you!

Photos- the baptism of Juan and another of juan and luis (Our other investigator that got baptised a few weeks ago)

 

Milagros!

Feb 17

Hello family (why does 'family' look so weird?) and friends if I still have any in the USofA.

So really it is just incredible the miracles that are happening here. Our church attendance is continuing to improve and were nearing 60 which is our next goal. We're trying to jump start Mutual Activities for the young men and young women and also a night for FHE for the young single adults and get another ward activity planned (we're thinking karaoke or talent show). It's been super awesome to see how 2 of the youth here are becoming so involved in the mission work! Christian and Agustina are nearly always accompaning us or the elders and Christian is especialy excited to strengthen the ward and is inviting all his friends and family that aren't members or that are less actives to visit with the missionaries and to come to church and the activities. He'll be baptising his 20 year old friend Ezequiel in the next 2 weeks that we've been teaching. To see how happy it's made him and all the success that he's having it's made me think about why all of us members don't do the same... This gosple brings us so much joy and it brings us so much more when we share it. I spoke in sacrament meeting this week about missionary work and herrmanamiento (cant remember how you say that in english) and it made me reflect a lot on the example that this joven christian is giving. We all know so many people that currently don't have the blessings of the gosple in their lives, and we've all been able to see the miracles that have come in our lives from the gosple, so we should be sharing it with everyone!

So that's my invitation to you all, invite somebody to see the miracles that you've seen from the gosple:)

So our nearly deaf investigator Juan is finally progressing a lot more. He'll be getting baptised this saturday if all continues to go well:) And Ezequiel is getting baptised the 1 of march. And Jòse is close to getting baptised, but he had a relapse with alchohol this week, so we're trying to help him out with that. Really it's been a miracle though to see how the lord prepares people.

So... i might need to buy some new shoes.... if i find some time to do it. My Clarks shoes are basically eating all the dirt now because the sole has un-soled it's self and looks like a large mouth now.

Big news- I finally washed my sheets after 7 weeks of not washing them, this morning! hahah they were super gross.... it's pure dirt here so everything gets super dirty super fast. We don't have a clothes cleaner though and it takes a long time to really wash your stuff well in a bucket. But i finially couldn't stand the smell anymore ahha

well love you all so much! Hope you all are cleaner than me:)

hermana ashcroft

 ps- Love yoU!
PSS- really love you
PSSS- sometimes i miss you too