Thursday, April 30, 2015

Training! Funeral! 2 baptisms! = TIRED!!!!!

 This week has been THE longest week of my life!!!!! Picked up Sister Dale who is from Mesa AZ too but went to Westwood.... (ha!) then went straight to Mauren's viewing  and had a very long day! Poor girl was so tired and we didn't even get home till 9:30! She fell asleep SO fast! hahaha!  So Sister Dale's first full day in the mission field was at Mauren's funeral where me and Sister Schulte Sang Vanid A Mi, which is Come Follow Me in Spanish, a song we sang to her right before she passed. It was a beautiful funeral! We did get some pictures with her casket but I can't figure how to send them home...blond problems! So this week it must either be cuz I'm super tired or I'm just REALLY blond but man have I been on one!
 
(Looks like she is not as blond as she thinks! LOL)
 


 
 We were able to see a lot of people this last week and share some amazing messages with them! We were driving to see and investigator who is atheist and right before we passed by Mary's house I had a strong feeling to go see her instead. So we did and we just started her reading the Book of Mormon and it really helped her! 2 verses in chapter 1 of 1st Nephi really stood out to her. Reading verses 12 and 20 and MAN was the spirit so strong, testifying these things to her! I have gained such a love for the Book of Mormon and the many different ways you can study it!
  So our big black investigator Drake received an offer to be a councilor on the military base in Okinawa, Japan and if he accepts it he will leave in June! He's sooo close to being baptized! He has committed to pray about it this week!
   Cynthia Narkin was baptized at 10:30 Saturday morning! So I have learned from my 14 months of being a missionary is that with convert baptisms there is ALWAYS going to be something that goes wrong.......here's my list for her baptism: this church house did not have her size of jumpsuit, the other sisters that go to this building didn't plug the drain all the way, the man doing the baptism was 30 mins late, and Sister Schulte, who was suppose to give the Holy Ghost talk, who is now in Star, Idaho lost her voice. BUT even though ALL that happened I remained calm, I know weird, Ma, right?!, And I called the elders to bring the right size. I had the man that was confirming her give the Holy Ghost talk, which was beautifully done and we just postponed till the other man got there! Then we had lunch (a bowl of ice cream) and booked it over to the mission office where Rick was getting baptized! Thankfully NOTHING went wrong for his! During the part when after the person gets baptized and is changing me and Sister Dale, for both of the baptisms, taught the restoration to the congregation, something President Winder has asked us to do. It went really well!
  Sorry this isn't super long or detailed but I'm falling asleep as I type.... the life of a missionary! It ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!! Well, I love you all and hope you enjoy these pictures! As my uncle David says pictures are worth a thousand words and I'm not about to type a thousand words! hahahaha!
--
<3 Sister Ashley Clawson
Pictures
 
Our awesome Assistants to the President! aka APS!

New companion! Sister Fiefia, Sister Rios, ME, Sister Dale!
 
Got my pre trunks........ I almost cried!

This is what pre trunks are and what they look like.
 
  The beautiful Cynthia! and her mom Danielle!

Beautiful huh?! This is what  you get when you put us back together again
 
 This is Rick and his friend Dennis and Vicki! Dennis is the tall one! haha

Not sure if you can read this but it says Sister Sassy. That's what Vicki calls me! hahaha
 
 This is the wall that we made- marked my height and labeled it Sister Sassy! So Vicki had height marks and names of all the missionaries that came through her house all the way back from 2000! Then a couple of months ago she painted over it so I convinced her to start it again! Her daughter Mckenzie was SOOOO happy!!!!
 
So FUUNNY story! Somehow I hurt my shoulder - not surprising at all so we went to Albertsons to get some corn syrup to make a homemade ice pack and a sister in our ward was there too and told us about the deal they were having that if you buy three things of oreos then you would get a free gallon of milk.. Sister Dale couldn't resist and now I can't resist cuz they are in our house taunting me!!!! Self control is so lost on me! Shoot, I had cake for breakfast the other day! That doesn't surprise me either!

THREE packs of Oreos!!!!!!

The trees here are so beautiful!
Sister Dale and I!

Friday, April 24, 2015

Hey!

So I have temple trip this week so I will be emailing on Thursday! Love you and talk to you then!
--
<3 Sister Ashley Clawson

Thursday, April 23, 2015

...From Lissa Hall

I received this text from a wonderful sister Wednesday evening!
 
 
We enjoyed an awesome meal with these sweet sisters! Thanks for sharing them with us (:
-Sister Lissa Hall

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

...From the Mission office

      21 April 2015

Dear Sister Clawson:

We are so pleased with your call to serve as a Trainer in our Idaho Boise Mission.  Your dedication, obedience, success, and work ethic have made you worthy of this critical and important responsibility in the mission.

This is the most important calling any missionary will ever have.  Your influence on your new missionary will have a great deal to do with the eventual success of her mission.

As a Trainer, you must be exemplary in every area of missionary service.  You must be absolute in your observance and compliance to mission rules.  You must make effective use of personal and companion study time, and establish the skills, attributes, work ethic, and other characteristics that help successful missionaries.  You must demonstrate absolute loyalty to the Lord and to your mission leaders.

You will make all of the difference in a new missionary's life.  I encourage you to display an extra measure of love, confidence, faith, and patience during this training and development time.

Please know of my great admiration for you.  I know I can trust and depend on you making the very best of this sacred responsibility.

Sincerely yours,

President John Q. Winder
IDAHO BOISE MISSION

Monday, April 20, 2015

God's Peace

This week was a very tender week for me and Sister Schulte! We saw miracle upon miracle and tender mercies spread through every day!
   Monday we went bowling again which turns out to be a big thing for our district! We had a blast! The last game I had 4 strikes in a row and one more by itself! 5 strikes!!!! That NEVER happens to me! It was really awesome! So I was instructed to teach Sister Schulte how to drive this week. May I say that I have never felt the Lords hand of protection more this week then I ever have! She just has her permit but by the end of the week she was doing 100 times better! She even drove on the freeway to the transfer meeting today! I'm really going to miss her! I have learned so much from her and she has made me such a better missionary!
   We went about the rest of the week like normal seeing people and really getting to know people and seeing the desire to change and seeing the changes in peoples life! which is my favorite thing about being a missionary!
  Then Friday morning hit.....We were already at district meeting when I got a text from Bruno saying to please come now! So we called him and He couldn't talk through his tear so we spend over to their house! Maureen was minuets away from returning to her Heavenly Father when we came in. We sang 2 songs in Spanish that we learned for her then I am a Child of God which is her favorite song and right at the end she left...It was a very interesting experience...Me and Sister Schulte grew so close during all of this and we were talking after we left that we felt the most indescribable feeling of peace and comfort fill our hearts and the room the moment she tock her last breath! I didn't know how I would handle this but I learned that when we are close to our Heavenly Father we can learn things and feel things in the moment that we need them the most! Let me tell you it was hard seeing her go but the fact that she is out of her pain is sooo joyous!!! Somehow, well not some how THROUGH God we received the strength to go on through the day and see more people that really needed a visit!
   We had Ricks baptismal interview on Saturday and he is all ready for this Saturday at 2! Wahoo!!! Then on Sunday Cynthia tells us right when we get to her house that her dad has told her that she has his full permission to be baptized and that she wants to do it on the 25th! This Saturday!!!! So we will be having her baptism at 10am and Ricks at 2 pm! what a rocken Saturday! AND to just Toot Heavenly Fathers horn for Him a bit more I will be training yet another new missionary and she will be able to experience 2 baptisms, and a funeral all in her first week in the mission field! Then its on to the most perfect situation to train in with 3 recent converts that need the new member discussions which is all the lessons all over again! SSSOOOO PERFECT!!!!!!!!!!
  Well al of my much loved Family and Friends I love you all so much and want  you to know that I know that The Plan of Salvation has been given to us by our Heavenly Father and wants us to feel the peace that comes but understanding the full meaning of it! I still haven't gotten to the full meaning which is okay, if the Apostles can say that they still don't understand everything then I sure can as well! but! I am doing my best and working and studying my hardest to understand all of the Gospel every day of my life!
--
<3 Sister Ashley Clawson
Pictures!
 Aren't these beautiful flowers?!! Just don't ask me what they are cuz I still don't know! hehe
 
 
 This, my friends, is Sister Rader who just left! She was a fantastic missionary and a great friend to everyone!!! 
 
  Our zone! funny pic!
 
Kinda serious?
 
 Bruno loves to make us eat food! He's a chef so he can't help it! It's so pretty!

  Okay, you are going to have to look close or blow the pic up a bit - there are 4 X's in a row and then an X by its self after! PROOF!!!!

 This, my friends' is Drake! The next time I send a pic of him hopefully it will be in white! He is soooo close!!!!

 This is Allora! She LOVES to come sit with us for the closing song in church! She is our biggest fan! and she's just so adorable!!!!
 

Monday, April 13, 2015

14 Months!!!!!! Carls' baptism!!!!!!

  This week was much like last week! But only better! hahaha To start off the week we went with the Tolmans and most of our district to the Boise Depot. It's retired so no trains stop there but we were able to tour around it and go up into the bell tower and get some great pictures of downtown Boise and a train came past so that made for a great picture too!!! I'll send more next week, got to grab a cool picture from Elder Graves! Then we went Bowling and here is where Elder Graves comes in again...So little Lindsey came bowling with us and her brother Callen for their first time and little miss has a huge crush on Elder Graves its soooo cute! She's only like 5! hahaha but we got a picture of them at the end of bowling and she grabes Elder Graves hand and he turns bright red!!!!! It was the cutest thing ever!!!! He's such a great guy and went right along with it! Me and Elder Blackburn both bowled 114! It was hilarious because we were both giving each other so much crap and then we get the same score! What are the odds! We found 2 new investigators that night as well! They are both super awesome! Kara just had a divorce and is really looking for something stable in her life right now and she straight up asked us what our beliefs were and accepted the lessons! So we are both super excited to see where that goes and how much we can help her come closer to her Savior! Her daughter Irelyn is super sweet, not sure if she's really interested becuse she does go with her dad to church and she likes it there. 
   We took our car in for an oil change and tire rotation and the auto place was in the mall so the guy that took our car said he would call us and showed us where the entrance to the mall was...we aren't alowed to just go to the mall so we took advantage of the time and found a nice sunny spot and read for a good 2 hours! It was soooo nice! Yes, I'm sure ya'll are wondering who is this person and what have they done with Ashley! hahaha but I LOVE reading the Book of Mormon now! All I want to do sometimes is just read and read and do nothing else! hehe! So I love finding connections here in Boise! A sister that was in the MTC with me that went to California has an aunt in my ward and she showed me a pick of her because I didn't recognize her name and then I showed her a picture of her niece and shared with her how much fun we had in the MTC together! hahah what a small world we have!!!!

Monday, April 6, 2015

Happy Easter!!!

This week was a tad weird. The beginning of the week was really slow and NO ONE let us in! Then we were super busy on Friday and Saturday with meeting people and teaching lessons! We found 4 new investigators this week! We are so excited to go back and get to know these children of God more and help them understand the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ!
  Conference on the other hand was a blast!!! We watched the First session on Saturday with Cynthia and she is still praying about a baptismal date, which we were hoping we could schedule this week but the Lord's timing is more important then ours! The Afternoon session we watched at the Sabbahs and Drake came along as well. I went to explain the set up of the church with the auxiliaries and apostles and 70's and all but he already had all that down! hahaha
Sunday Easter Morning we spent with our ward mission leader and had some delicious waffles!!!!! Then we went to our stake Presidents house and watched the last session there as a district! We made pizzas with their pizza oven! It was a blast! I loved that they talked a lot about families and staying close to our Savior Jesus Christ and relying on him!  I can't wait to see the priesthood session online this week! I left my notes at home so I'll have to share some next week! Life is great as a missionary during conference! This is my last conference tho as a missionary that was a bit depressing to realize...but that means that the next session I can actually attend the conference center! Anyone wanna come?!? :D! I love this work and I know in my heart more than anything now that the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is true!!!! I love you all so much!!!! Have a great week!!!!!
 
<3 Sister Ashley Clawson
 
 Drinks anyone? hehehe JK!
 
  Yup, they finally caught me!
 
 Super awesome old car that still runs!!!
 
 This is Sister Ayad she is a sweetheart that has ovarian cancer and it has spreed everywhere in her body so we go see her and her nonmember husband who is  a doll every day! She always asks for us to come over! Shes a trooper and an angel! I might want to be a CNA now haha idk
  We ran out of miles so we borrowed some bikes! super fun except for the fly away skirt i had on! :P!
 
 Maken pizza!
 
  President and Sister Scoggin! 
 
  It turned out sooo good!