Tuesday, May 20, 2014


 Sorry about yestardays letter being so short we had transfers and EVERYONE was at our library so alot of confusion. I will send out pictures next week I promise. I keep forgetting my camera cord! haha
  We had a great week this week! We got 2 new investigators Gloria and Gary. Gloria was outside planting flowers and we were going to visit a less active member in the ward. We stopped by to ask her if she needed any help and she said we could so we drove home and got our service clothes. I think we are just going to keep a pair in the car from now on ha! We went back and helped her plant these beautiful flowers. It was super fun to plant flowers! She and her husband both went through the Gilbert open house and loved it! They weren't planning on it but where driving by and decided to stop and tour it! So we talked about that for awhile. They invited us in and I shared Moroni's promise with them and they said we could come back anytime and visit and share a message! So thats super exciting for us! I love how the Lord puts us in places that we can help people and gives us things that are common with the people who are prepared to meet us! I know the Lord watches out for us missionaries!
  We have this lady in our ward that is from Argentina. I'm sure I've already told ya'll this but she owns a restauraunt called Tangoes where they sell empanadas and she is going to take us there every Wednesday for lunch now! She is such a sweet lady!!!! Love her so much!!
  Zone Conference was great!!! We focused mainly on our purpose and coming unto Christ ourselves. President Winder said "If we are going to invite others to come unto Christ we have to be with him". So in order for us to help people come unto Christ we ourselves have to be striving to come closer to Christ. Basically not being hyprocritical. Here are some of my notes:
      Faith; relying completely on God and trusting him completely      Why would he trust us if we don't trust him? That question really hit me and its soooo true!   Faith leads to action and changing to become like Christ
      Repentance; to change our hearts to become more like Christ  They gave us an example: we have this cleanest car challenge and we clean our cars on Monday and zone conference was on Thurs SO just like when we take the Sacrament on Sunday and like baptism we are cleansed from our sins. Throughout the week we fall short and we aren't perfect so we sin and we can use repentance. Just like water to wash the car again we can be forgiven and cleaned from our sins. Its somthing that we have to work at everyday!
   Baptism; We have taken his name on us and we serve him by serving others.
  Holy Ghost; He should always be our companion throughout the day for me my 3rd companion! haha
  Enduring to the End; "Salvation is not a cheap experience and it was Never Easy!" "Why would it be easy for us if it was NEVER EASY for Him?!" Elder Hollands quotes.
 We also talked alot about the Family A Proclamation to the world. If you haven't read it in a while, go back and read over it! It will give you sooo much guidance in your family life and the roles of husband and wife! I loved learning more about it although I am FAR from getting married! hahha
   So Elder Stark got transphered out of our district but one thing he would do was # hashtag EVERYTHING! hahah and so In rememberence of Elder Stark hahaha #ComeuntoChrist!   We learned sooo much from this conference! It was awesome! and I got to meet a lot more Elders and Sisters!  We did yardwork later that night for a less active member in our ward who is now a practicing Buddhist. Its quite interesting to listen to her and what she believes :)
    Saturday we go the transfer calls so we decided to have lunch as a district to listen to the voicemail together but the Assistants to the Presidents (APs) sent out a text saying that it would come later that day so we all decided to wait and not listen to it till 8:30 that night so we all could listen to it together! So we did and it came at 3:30! It was sooo hard not to listen to it! But it was such a relief when I head I was staying!
   So Sister Archuleta is Basque and Idaho is the only community of Basque people. We have one in our ward that we had dinner with and he was describing the attributes that they have and everything that he said perfectly described Sister Archuleta it was great! So Basques and short stalky built people and we took a picture of this 35 year old man's calves right next to 20 year old Sister Archuleta and they were almost the same size! Crazy huh?! 
    Our lessons with our 2 investigators Carrie and Dustin are going great! Carrie prayed at the end of the lesson! Ha! She even said a Mormon prayer! hahaha You wouldn't be able to tell that she isn't LDS! Their countenance has changed sooo much since we started teaching them! It amazing what the Light of Christ will do to a person and how you can see their understnading and faith grow just through their countenance. That is why it is sooo important members of the church to strive to have His love shine through us in everything we do and everywhere we go!
  We are also working with a family that the parents are inactive and the boys have not been baptized. They are the sweetest boys and always have so many great questions and they are really learning alot! They have a pet snake that me and Sister Archuleta LOVE! So we go over there to play with the snake every once in a while and we have become so close with this family and they love having us over so hopefully this week we will commit the boys to be baptized in June!
  So a lot of anticipation is in the air right now in the Cloverdale ward and all I can do is increase my Faith in God that these four investigators, no these 4 friends that I have made out here in Idaho will accept the invitation to get baptized and progress on their journey back to their Heavenly Father! I have really come to love them and pray every night that they will realize the truth of the Gospel and find out for themselves that what we teach and what the Holy Ghost testifies to their heart is true!
 I absolutely LOVE being on a mission! I wouldn't trade it for anything! I have learned sooo much and my faith has grown immensely! I have felt the love that Heavenly Father has for each of the people we go teach and talk with and it breaks my heart when they don't accept our help on this crazy journey called life. I know that Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us and I know that there is sooo much more that I need to learn about being a missionary and the Gospel and I know that Sister Archuleta is the only one that can help me with a couple of these and that is why we are still together! Thats what I love about companionships because we help each other grow in ways only we can help them with! It's SO true! I love you all and hope to hear from ya'll soon!! Stay strong and Carry on! and Always look to God for guidance! There are so many ways to do that through prayer and scrpiture study and listening to the prophets and reading their words!
<3 Sister Ashley Clawson  
 
#ComeuntoChrist!

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