Wednesday, September 28, 2011

I LOVE MY MISSION!

This week has been good. My new comp and I work well together. We saw Sharon and she straight up told us she’s leaving... moving away to Rivera, another part of Uruguay. It’s not even in this mission. It’s by Brazil. I was not expecting to hear that from her. She has been having problems and can’t pay for things here because it’s really expensive. Ugh. It’s a rough life. I got so sad and just started crying. The gospel is not easy to live.... but no one said it would be. I told her I was going to miss her immensely. I told her she was someone so special to me and I felt like we were friends from before, like other side of the veil kind of friends. We shared a scripture about Christ with her and then she started crying. Like life is hard kind of crying... and I went over to her and hugged her. I don’t know how to explain it, but my whole mission flashed before my eyes. It was overwhelming the amount of love that passed through my body for her. Even though we have to say goodbye, this is what I’m here for… to meet these people, help them change their lives and then do it again.

This transfer seriously has been the turning point in my mish. It’s weird. I’m being pushed so much harder. I’m so much more focused on the work and it’s all I have to think about. Everyday I’m exhausted from bearing my testimony so much, from walking all over the city, from giving every fiber of my being to make sure my time here is well spent. I have never been so tired in my life… but it feels good! We have met a lot of cool people this week. We have set a few baptismal dates, but I don’t know if they’ll make it. People are stubborn and don’t want to change. We had a lot of our people come to church yesterday and it felt good. Damian actually gave a talk yesterday and his parents came to watch him. They are members from somewhere else. They came up to us afterwards and said thank you for all you have done for our son and his wife. It was so awesome! We haven’t done it without the help of the members. I never realized how key the members were in the work until I got here, obviously. We can’t do anything without their help. If you know someone who is struggling, less active, not a member, whatever... DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Reach out to them, call them, invite them, visit them, talk to them. Whatever it takes. This is our responsibility, our covenant we made when we were baptized. I can’t wait to serve when I get back home, seriously. Dad, congrats on your baptism this week. I’m so proud!

I do sincerely appreciate everything from every single one of you. I cherish the words you write each week and hearing from you keeps me going. I love you all.

Things are well, the church is true, be good. Stand for truth and right. I LOVE YOU!!!!! Love, Ash

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