Beautiful Bright Millennial Day.....

Hello Everybody! 

How are things?  I hope all is going well. 

Sorry - Long e-mail to Tay.  Not much time today!

We had a decent week.  Christa is still doing well.  She is afraid to pray about the Book of Mormon "because of what that would mean."  We should have asked her about what she meant by that.  That was a little bit of a missed opportunity.  We did ask her if she would be baptized when she knows this is true, but she kind of avoided answering that.  She is searching for truth, and I am fully confident that she will be baptized in due time.  I have wanted to expedite the process because I want to see her be baptized, but we want to make sure that she is ready.  Everybody else dropped off this week, due to either lost contact or unwillingness to progress (No real intent).  We also set a goal to meet with each active member once a month.  There are about 40 active member households, and that would translate to about 10 per week, which should do a lot to increase their trust in us, and increase their involvement in the work consequently.  It will be a good week.

Have a good one!

Your willing and Obedient Servant,
Elder Austin James Ashcraft 

Let the Holy Spirit Guide....

Hello All! 

How's Memorial Day!  I hope it's great for everybody.  It's a good day here.  Not a recognized holiday, but we are memorializing in our own way.  It has been hot and humid lately.  Really humid.  Sometimes I melt.  But we survive with lots of water, and trying as hard as we can to get into people's houses to teach them.  It's been a good week.  

Christa came to Stake conference!  She is doing well.  She doesn't really have a religious background, but she said she "feels like there is something drawing me, and compelling me to keep coming and talking with you."  I thought that was really cool.  She is looking for answers, and she also said that she is starting to fill the hole that is in her life.  She loves that faith gives people a sense of direction and she wants that.  It's only a matter of time.  

The stake conference was great!  It was a Canada-wide broadcast from Vancouver.  We heard from Elder Glenn L Pace of the Seventy, who spoke about finding a testimony of your own.  Next was Sister Jean A. Stevens from the Primary General Presidency, who talked about teaching and the capacities of children to learn and recognize the spirit.  Elder M. Russel Ballard talked about Church History in Canada, and the Concluding Speaker was President Uchtdorf, who spoke a lot about our duties to prepare, serve, and invite others.  It was a great meeting.  

We are trying to get the membership excited about Preach My Gospel.  It is amazing.  If you are not using it, I encourage you to.  It is more than just a guide to missionary work.  President Uchtdorf said that as well.  He encouraged us to use it in Family Home Evening, particularly Chapter 3.  He said it was 39 Pages that will help strengthen your testimony and raise your spirituality.  I loved that.  It's a great book.  Use it well.  

I hope that all goes well this week.  Good luck to all who are finishing up school!  Have a great one!  I love you!

Your Willing and Obedient Servant,
Elder Austin James Ashcraft 

Know this, that Every Soul is free....

Hello All! 

How's life?  I hope all is well.  Things up here have been very warm and muggy and humid.  There are days that I feel I am melting like a popsicle on the fourth of July.  But it's all good.  It makes people ask questions - What in the world would make those two walk around all day in shirts and ties in weather like this?  It opens up an opportunity to share our testimonies, and that's the best thing we can do anyway. 

Wayne came to church again.  We still haven't been able to actually teach him, but he loves church and I think he will continue to come.  There is potential there.

Christa came to church.  We found her as we were walking down near the church on Friday.  She doesn't really have a faith in God, but she is willing to try.  I spoke in Sacrament Meeting about "The Need for a Prophet," and I basically taught the Restoration Lesson.  So She and Wayne both got that and appeared to agree (nodding heads, etc.).  We will be trying to help them progress as well. 

Chris didn't come to church.  He is Pentecostal and went to his church with his wife.  He doesn't want to, though.  He thinks that their focus on the gift of tongues isn't right (He is correct in that one), and he is thinking about leaving his church.  He does a lot of research, and he wants evidence in the Bible that the restoration is to occur.  He has some other interpretations of some scriptures that get in the way of the restoration.  We are trying to help him see that he needs to focus on the big question - Whether the Book of Mormon is True.  He brings up lots of little things that are based on his interpretation of the scripture, but we are trying to help him. 

We are looking forward to a lot more people this next week, we have a few appointments set with some really good potentials, and in Zone Conference yesterday, we learned all about helping investigators progress toward baptism.  We are excited for that.  Have a great day!  I love you all! 

Your Willing And Obedient Servant,
Elder Austin James Ashcraft 

On A Golden Springtime.....

Hey Yous! 

Canada is great!  It is starting to warm up.  It's a great time to be alive and a greater time to serve the Lord.

We had an interesting week.  We had lunch with Scott and Dawn on Thursday and we prepared a good lesson for them.  We ate and then we said, "We have a brief lesson prepared.  Is that alright?"  Scott and Dawn Looked at each other and then said, "Actually, we are going to pass."  Dawn just wants to learn on her own.  So that's that.  Tim also told us he is not interested.  But Wayne came to Church!  He is a media Referral that we haven't been able to actually teach yet, but we dropped off the DVDs that he ordered from the website, and invited him to come, and there he was.  He really enjoyed it.  He is coming back next week, and we are going to try to get in with him to teach.  It's difficult with his work schedule, but the Lord will make it happen.  It's great.  The computers are kind of acting funny again, so I will close this before I lose it.  Have a great Day!  I love Yous!

Your Willing Servant,
Elder Austin James Ashcraft 

All Is Well! All Is Well!

Hello Everybody! 

How was Mother's day.  I hope it was a good one.  It was good to talk to yous.  I hope all has been well in the past 18 hours.  

We had a good week, despite having a lot of appointment not go through.  We invited a one of our investigators (Elvis) to be baptized, and he didn't quite accept, but we left him with a commitment to read and pray about the restoration in particular.  We were going to visit with him on Saturday, but the appointment didn't go through.  We had a great lesson planned for him about baptism and we were a bit disappointed when things didn't work out with that.  We were able to set up a lot of appointments for this next week, and we are excited for those.   There is really no one else we are working with right now.  It's been good, though. 

Discouragement is a tool of the adversary, and a proper perspective helps us to deal with that.  I can honestly say that the times that I have been happiest on my mission are those right after I am in the gutter, being yelled at, sworn at, ridiculed, and defied.  In Kitchener, we would go downtown for hours and would have person after person refute our claims, but the happiest times I have had are when I walk away and know that I Know the truth.  Joseph Smith said, (And I quoted this last night), "I knew it, I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it."  All the persecution under heaven cannot make it otherwise.  Persecution is good.  It means that you are doing what is right.  Satan would not try to stop you if you were working for him.  My testimony is the strongest when it stands up the shafts in the whirlwind, the hail and the mighty winds that beat upon us.  But because of the Rock - the Savior.  I know that I cannot fall.  The Spirit speaks to each of us, and it will tell us exactly what we need to hear.  God knows us so perfectly that he can send messages to us that strike the strings on our hearts and play the melodies of eternal truth and love.  And as we listen to and sing along with those celestial songs, we will become what he wants us to be.  I love the Gospel, and everything that goes with it.  (Sorry, mom, for quoting that again, but I really liked it the first time.....)  Anyway..... I hope all is well and that Yous all have a great week!

Your Willing Servant,
Elder Austin James Ashcraft 

Onward Christian Soldiers!

Hey Everybody! 

How's life?  I hope all is well.  It was a good week.  It basically entailed us starting over with an almost entirely new teaching pool.  Elvis is doing well.  He came to church yesterday.  He still doesn't quite understand the "only true church" idea.  Part of that might be due to a language barrier (He is from Albania).  We have another appointment with him on Tuesday.  Hopefully we can get him really progressing.  He is really the only one to report on right now.  There are a couple others that we have just started meeting with (Tim and Joanne) and we hope to help them get moving as well.  This is just a great time to be alive.  I love the gospel and all that it offers.  I love the fact that no matter where I am and no matter what anybody says, It is still true.  It reminds me of something I listened to on the "Savior of the World" CD a while ago.  The song is about the shepherds acting on what the Angel said.  The doubter says, "Eli, you are always either hot or cold, why can't you be in the middle?" To which Eli responds, "What good does that do?  If something is true, IT IS TRUE."  I love that.  Joseph Smith, after endur...

Sorry about that.  The Computers are having an issue right now.  I wrote an awesomely long e-mail. and it was lost and now I don't have time to reproduce it.  Have a great day!

Your Obedient Servant,
Elder Austin James Ashcraft 

There is Sunshine in My Soul...

Hello All!  

How is life?  I hope all is well!  It has been cold and rainy all week up here, but our spirits are still bright.  There is sunshine in My soul.  And that's what counts.

It was an interesting week.  It started out great, but the roller-coaster of missionary work came around again and the end of the week was a little disheartening.  We had on Friday almost all of our investigators committed to come to church, but when we called them on Saturday, they all flaked off.  It was a little bit frustrating.  We are trying to figure out what to do here.  We really want to get the ward involved, but everybody seems busy and we don't want to overstep our stewardship.  We tried to schedule appointments and we were getting responses that we usually get from investigators.  "We are really busy right now.  Try next month."  Even now as I type this I am being reminded by the Spirit that we can use the same techniques with members as we do with investigators.  So hopefully things will go better. 

We were speaking with Elder Messick (our district leader) last night and we decided that although the immediate fruit comes more when we take care of things on our own, we need to work inseparably with the membership in order to produce the best fruit.  I heard a talk from President Eyring called the "Law of Increasing Returns."  That's kind of the principle I am trying to follow right now.  The fruit may not be this week, but it will lay a foundation for the future harvest that will be much greater than the short term.  Not to say that we are not hoping, praying, and working for the immediate fruit.  We have faith that the Lord will bless us with that as well.   

We will be having a Saturday Morning Pancake breakfast/meeting with the Bishop and Ward Mission Leader in the coming weeks and that should be a catalyst.  Bishop Coulbeck is one who gets things done.  Brother Hofer is eager to help as well.  There are lots of good members also that will jump on board as we do our best and trust the Lord.  So that is our direction.  We have a vision to have the Ward so involved in missionary work that we will be able to talk to each member about how their friend So-and so is doing.  We have been teaching the Elder Robbins Referral Lesson and it has been interesting.  I have yet to see it work according to how Elder Robbins taught it, but I think that means that I just need to review my notes and practice.  

Almost all of our investigators have fallen off.  Dawn and Nancy are pretty much done for a while.  They are both kind of avoiding us.  We were able to find three new investigators, though.  One of them, Kevin, was a miracle find.  We were wondering what to do at 8:00 on Wednesday night.  It was cold, raining, and our plans fell through.  The Vernets (A family that just moved in) kept coming to my mind, so we decided to go visit them.  We walked to their apartment building, and the buzzer list was in alphabetical order, but the Vernets were not on the list.  We saw a tenant whose buzzer said "occupied" and alphabetically it would have been the Vernets, so we decided to give it a shot.  So we dialed the number.  

"Hello?"
"Hello!  Is this the Vernets?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
"It's the Missionaries."
"Who?"
"The missionaries."
"Oh."
"We were just wondering if you had a few minutes that we could come visit with you."
"I'll buzz you in."
"What's the apartment number, by the way?"
"506"
"Thanks.  We'll be right up."
So we went up to the fifth floor and as we get off the elevator, a man is standing in the doorway of apartment 506. It is not Brother Vernet. 
"What's up?  Why did you buzz me?"
"You are actually not who we were trying to reach."
"Who are you guys?"
"We are missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."
"I already believe in Jesus Christ.  But come on in.  What type of message?  Go Ahead - Spill your Guts."

So we went in and taught him the restoration.  He really liked the book of Mormon.  It was great!  Truly a miracle.  The Lord will direct his work.  Anyone who says otherwise has not tried to do it.  I love it.  So we are starting over this week.  It will be good, though.  I love this work and I love the Lord whose work this is.  I love you all as well!  Have a great day!

Your Obedient Servant,
Elder Austin James Ashcraft