Shines the Gospel Light of Truth and Love....

Hello All!

Greetings from Sudbury!  It has been an interesting week.  Transfer calls came on Monday, and Elder Opfar and I are both staying here in Sudbury.  We had a Blitz (finding day) on Monday and Tuesday, which didn't go too well (I think we only got two contacts), but the work is going forward boldly.

We had an incredible Mission Conference on Thursday.  Elder Packer from the Quorum of the Seventy spoke to us.  He covered a lot of territory.  His wife also spoke to us.  She went through the attributes in Doctrine and Covenants Section 4 and described how each of them, as we learn and develop them on
our missions, will be necessary and will help us throughout our lives.  One of the things that stuck out to me about Elder Packer's talk was that he described the need to learn the Language of the Spirit.  He described it as a language that cannot be taught, yet it is so vitally important to each of us that we learn how the spirit speaks to us individually.  We all MUST learn it, and we all MUST find out for ourselves.  It is something that I have been trying to work on.

On Saturday, we met with Siscoe, a big black guy from Angola who speaks Portuguese.  It was a miracle how we met with him.  We had taught him the first few weeks of the transfer, but he went down to Toronto for a few weeks and he kind of fell off the radar.  He told us that he was waiting for us to come visit him, and that he told himself that if we didn't come visit him, he would come visit us.  He walked to the church (He thought we lived there) and went inside.  There was a wedding reception (more a luncheon/open house) going on, and Siscoe went inside and asked if we were home.  The guy who had
just gotten married had served his mission in Brazil, and he was able to talk to him for a while in Portuguese about the gospel.  We got a call from this guy at the church saying that Siscoe was there and we went up and taught him.  It was great.  It could not have worked out better.  We invited him to come to church, which he did.  We told him that we would stop by and walk with him to church.  We were a few minutes late, and his wife told us that he was so excited, he could not wait any longer, so he started walking without us.  We caught up to him and he had a great experience at church. We taught him again on Monday, and as we sat down with him, the first question he asked us was "so how long until I can get baptized?"  It was a miracle.  We are Meeting with him again a couple times later this week, and he is planning on being baptized on the 31st.

Jean Guy is not doing too well.  He is still smoking.  We have to work on that.

Time to be random....Mom, I mailed a package home.  There is a letter coming as well that will explain a little bit....Dad, it sounds like the Safe Spots are doing well.  The campout also sounds like fun.  And the sprinkler system will be good for granddad's lawn as well.....Utah is cooling down – Mom would hate the weather up here.  The bosses party sounds fun.  And just so you know, the preachers from the other faiths are one of our favorite people to contact.  It either goes two ways - we place the Book of Mormon and commit them to read it, or we get completely shut down.  It’s good to talk to those with scriptural knowledge, though.  Good luck with school and everything else..... Bryson - it was good to hear from you....If only my other brothers would do the same....just kidding...but seriously folks.....I love you and miss you all!

Your Obedient Servant,
Elder Austin James Ashcraft