OK folks, sorry I was so far behind.  Here are the last 4 blogs.

2/17/14

Hello All, 

Well this week was also another hard week haha. We honestly were like well...I dont want to give our dats to our zone leaders haha because theyll lbe like did you even work this week?! haha and were like WE TRIED! But seriously we were so blessed by Heavenly Father!!!! Like before Sunday we only had 6 lessons with members ( the standard of excellence is 20) and then we had 14 by the end of Sunday and we found 12 news this week which is exactly the standard and we had 17 other lessons (without members) and we had 18 and a half hours of looking (the standard is 18) and we were just like wow....there is a scripture I read this morning. I think it is Jacob 5:69 or something close to that and it says that the Lord works with His servants in His vineyard and it IS SO TRUE!!! He blessed us beyond what we thought and we still dont know how but we arent questioning it. I love this work so much, its not even funny. I will be hitting my 6 month mark this week and I am realizing how much time I dont have left to serve and it kind of makes me sad. But it just motivates me to work that much harder. 

We are still living with 4 sisters in one tiny little room so thats been interesting to adjust to haha but its all good now. Our dueno offered them other rooms to live in but they say we cant live together...so instead of having our own separate rooms, we just have been living together for more than a week haha because they cant find another house. So we personally think they should just take the offer but they arent budging haha so yuppp. 

I love you all and hope that you had good Valentines day. Dont worry, a member gave us a dinner and some lady told me that she wanted me to be her daughter in law (I felt very uncomfortable) haha so yeah. and as Kelly said were not single, were just missionaries :p haha. love you all, have great weeks!!

2/10/14

Okay so something crazy happened this week. We were sitting with a family and my comp was about to give a pamphlet about the plan of salvation to a nonmember friend of theirs and when I looked at the folleto, I was like Hermana thats in english! dont give it to him! and she didnt hear me and asked me what i said so I looked at it again and I was like oh my gosh...thats in spanish. Like I understood it without thinking and my brain just thought that it was in english haha. So I think my spanish is really coming along!! Its a miracle.

This week was a pretty hard week. We felt like we were making a lot of good plans and then they would just fall. Like seriously one day we had plans to visit 12 people and not a SINGLE PERSON was home. Not one. or they were about to leave or something. not the investigators, not the members, not the less actives, not the people we had made set plans with. And then the other hermanas that are in our ward had to move out of their house and they didnt have another house to live in so they moved in with us for right now and theres a rule that missionaries cant share the same bed so right now we have four beds in our tiny room haha and its insanity right now and so we had to cancel a bunch of plans to help them move.

Its also jsut been a week of huge changes. We were in the best zone in the mission. It was the biggest and seriously, it was the best. But they decided to split it so now we only have 12 people in the zone when before we had 26 i think. and we have new zone leaders and a new district leader and yeah its been crazy but i think this week should be normalish haha. except the hermanas have to move out again.

We also had a baptism yesterday!!! Ronny is so awesome and will be such a strong member. We talked to a lady who lives in another ward and she isnt married and shes like ....so wehn can i meet him? hahaha so we are taking her to our next appointment with him and were basically matchmakers haha. yup thats right.  love you all! have great weeks!!


2/3/14

So we got the announcement about changes last night and GUESS WHAT?! I AM STAYING HERE IN THIS AREA WITH MY COMPANION!!! WOOOOHHHH!!!! That means that I will be in the same area for at least 6 months haha. That also means that I will be in Zacapa for the hottest part of the year. My zone leader said he passed out five times during this season. So this should be interesting. At least I will get some good work on my tan :p and maybe my hair will be blonder!

This week we had a super awesome experience that is super special to me and so I hope that you guys can all appreciate it too! So we have an investigator who serioulsy is golden. He is getting baptized this Saturday. He ran into us on the street and asked us about church (i mightve told you about him), he lives like 20 minutes away but alsways makes time to come and meet us, he speaks FLUENT ENGLISH so when I dont know a certain word I just say it in english (its truly great), and he always reads, he loves wearing a white shirt and tie to church, he basically teaches us. Anyway. He didnt have any money to come and visit with us this week. So my companion told him that he should pray and that we would pray too that he could find a way to come and meet with us. So we did and then called him back laster and he said that some ladies had called to look at product and that if he sold at the least 20 that he would come. So we were like okay we know that you will be there we will meet you at 4 because we dont have a cellphone or anything. So we get there at 4 and lo and behold, there he is. Hes  like you will never geuess what happened. Three ladies came in and looked for like an hour so I thought I was going to make a ton of money...they only bought 20 worth of stuff!!!! So he got to come. He said he didnt even know how they got his number! Irt was a straight miracle from God and me and my companion could not stop smiling. It was an amazing moment and I know that God answers each and every one of our prayers, we just have to have the faith :)

Love you all, have great weeks!!


1/27/14

So to start out with super exciting news. I GOT TO SHAKE HANDS WITH ELDER COOK!!!!!!!! AHHHH! I was also sitting in the front row of seats right in front of the podium. AHHH! It was so incredible! I cant even describe the spirit that I felt when he was speaking to us! Like seriously. He explained to us about the process of how the choose where we will serve and it is so incredible. At the end he was talking about how for some ofus maybe there are things going on at home and maybe we think that we would be of better use there but he was like "you are where you ought to be". He pronounced a blessing on the people of central america to open their hearts and to bless us to feel that we are where we ought to be and to bless everyone that we love. There was so much power in that and I know that it was true. I love that we have real men on this earth right now who can tell us the will of the Lord. After that we had a really good lesson about the Restoration with an investigator and when we testified about prophets and aposotles it rang so much truer. I felt so much more confident in the lesson because I realized I dont know everything but thats okay because I was called by the Lord and if He has the confidence in me then I can do what He wants me to do.

We also have found a "golden" investiagtor and by that I actually mean he found us haha. Serioulsy. He approached me in the market one time because he used to go to a church but then had to move and then later he was driving by us and asked us what time church started and we had a lesson with him and he is so prepared its not even funny. He has a fecha for baptism the 9th of february. He is so awesome and we learn a lot from him.

We have been leaving with this kid who is 16 and his mom to teach him what the mission is like and it is so cool to see his excitement. It reminds me how I felt before and how I feel now. I love that the work just keeps on going.

Current Address:
Hermana Ashtin Wilcoxen
Mision Guatemala Este
Apartado Postal 951-A
Guatemala, Guatemala C.A.

Well so first things first. Yesterday I woke up sick, but I was like okay, just suck it up we have work to do today (because we had made super good plans to meet our goals this week). Well it just got worse from there, so unfortunately I had to stay home all of yesterday. So thanks to me our dats for the week were pretty much shot but what can you do? I dont know what I am going to do when I get home though because I slept for like an hour and was like I NEED TO DO SOMETHING! I dont know if I will be able to sit still when I get back haha. But no worries, the bishop gave me a blessing during church (it was pretty noticeable that I wasnt feeling well) and well...the priesthood power is real and today I feel fine. A little weak, but its Pday so I have some time to get back to normal. PLUS tomorrow I will be in the capital having a conference with the whole mission and then Wednesday Elder Quentin L Cook is coming!!!! WOOHHHHH!!! I am so pumped!!

 

So I would just like you to all know how flipping awkward street contacting is haha. I seriously have lost all shame. Like the other day we were ordering food from this woman and her son was there and was wearing a Michigan sweatshirt and I talked to him for a little bit about Michigan because he had been there and then was like so I know this is weird but can I take a picture with you? Because one of my best friends lives there haha. Yeah...I dont know if I will have embarassment of anything when I get back...which could be bad or good, still havent decided.

So tomorrow I complete 5 months in the mission. WHAT?! Where has the time gone?? I still feel like I just got here. 

The miracle of the week is that we found THIRTY TWO news. And yesterday in church we had 4 guy investigators at church. Our ward has seriously all women in it, so we have been praying to find priesthood holders. But yeah, that was a miracle for us this week, and we couldnt even work one of those days. I dont know how it happens, but God works in mysterious ways.

Love you all, have great weeks!

So first things first. I HAD MY FIRST BAPTISM THIS WEEK!!! ahhh! It was so awesome! So to prepare her we had to visit her every single day during the week. Thursday to Sunday. More than a week straight haha, but thats okay because she still likes us fortunately. After her interview for the baptism, she wanted to leave with us to visit people. Thats the third time. She totally wants to go on a mission. I cant wait to see that haha. But the baptism was so awesome. A bunch of people showed up, and afterwards she was crying and she just hugged us and said gracias. Ahhh! It was so incredible. Moments like those make everything worth it. Every hard day doesnt matter.

This week started out slowish. My comp and I were both super stressed out because we felt like we were trying but werent meeting a lot of our goals. We would set plans that just wouldnt work out, but we just kept working hard and we ended up seeing how much the Lord helped us out. At the end of the week, our dats (numbers for everything) ended up being way better than we thought they would be and we had had some really good lessons with a couple of new investigators. Two of which have baptismal dates for February :) Gosh I hope I dont have changes from this area!! But really it just helped me grow in my testimony of that even during the super hard times He is always there helping us and guiding us and we look back and cant remember why it was hard for all of the blessings that there were. 

We found out yesterday that we are getting a new bishop...our bishop is moving. This is pretty shocking because there are about 6 men in our ward who have the priesthood and no one knows who is going to be the new bishop, but we will see. The bishops wife is super happy because she doesnt like how hot it is here haha. 

I hope that everything is going well at home :) Love you alL! Have great weeks!

A few pics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1/8/2014

Hello All

So the reason I am writing today is because we went to a CASTLE on Monday and it was like 3 hours away. Then we get into town and the buses are on strike so we had to walk forever to get home, so we didnt have time and then yesterday it wasnt working. So yes. That is why.

This week was super great! The Lord seriously is helping us so much. For example. A husband of one of our members we have become friends with recently. Well he has told us that he is okay with his wife going to church but he doesnt like when she is gone so much because they have a business and he wants her to help with that and what not. Well he told us also that the next dream is to get a car so that the business will take place. Apparently he made a deal with God that if he could get a car he will start going to church. Well lo and behold guess what happened? He got a car. When he walked into church Hermana Munoz and I were just like....WHAT?! and couldnt stop smiling. Nothing could make that day bad. Plus we had 5 other investigators in church. 

Something that I have really grown in is my testimony of the sacrament. It is so important in our lives. Its the chance that we literally have to be forgiven of our sins every week. To feel the cleansing power of the Atonement once again. Its a joy I cant describe and I hope that when you guys have partaken of it, that you can understand its importance too!

This week has gone between hot and cold. Like dying and sweating to today where I legitimately might want to use a jacket haha. The weather here...just as crazy as back home! 

Indiras baptism is this Saturday :):):) I am so excited for her!!! We have been visiting her every day...haha...good thing her family likes us because we are visting her today and every day until Sunday too. But theyre great. I have really grown to love some of the people here like family. I havent seen the relief society president in like a week and I saw her and was like HERMANA RINA I MISS YOU!!! haha. luckily she is moving to Chicago so maybe I can see her again. 

Elder Cook is coming to the mission on the 21st...thats right. A General Authority. I am so pumped. More details when it actually happens. Love you all an have great weeks!!

12/30/13

So INDIRA (the investigator that we found the one night just knocking on doors) IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON THE 11th OF JANUARY! We have planned to invite her to accept a fecha like 6 times but every time something happened and we couldnt. I got nervous when I realized that we finally had our chance and was just ging to let my comp do it, but she refused to talk haha. So I got to invite her to accept the date and she said yes! I cant describe the happiness that I felt in that moment. Seriously, it was so amazing. Later my comp was like yeah, I figured you should be the one to do it because youve known her for longer and you found her. I am so grateful that she made me do it.

This change is going so amazingly! I love Hermana Munoz and we work really well together. We both have the desire to work really hard. We are trying to work hard enough that we come home exhausted. The last three days have been like that. I am so tired haha, but it is totally worth it! I can see the Lord blessing us in the work as we make goals and plans to work harder than we have been. 

We found two ladies on Friday and yesterday we went back to visit them and the lady we gave a Book of Mormon had read it and they  asked about coming to church all on their own and they asked about baptism too. We asked them at the end of the lesson if they would like to be baptized if they come to the knowledge that these things are true and they both said yes :) The Spirit guides our work so much and I love it! 

It was so great to be able to talk to you guys this week :) It was sad to hang up the skype call but honestly, that acall just strengthened my resolve to be better here. I love you all so much, but I know that the sacrifice is worth it! I want to just put my all in here so that I can come home in 14 months and just enjoy the rest of my life with my amazing family and friends :) LOVE YOU ALL!

Please send Ashtin Letters!!!!!

If you want to send anything else she would like pictures and of course food. But mostly she is starving for LETTERS. Thank you.

Current Address:
Hermana Ashtin Wilcoxen
Mision Guatemala Este
Apartado Postal 951-A
Guatemala, Guatemala C.A.

 

12/23/2013

So this week the ward had a reenactment of the birth of Christ and the girl who was going to play Mary left the city that day....so guess who got to play Mary? Me. Only because I am blonde. We dont even know if she was blonde for goodness sake haha. It was slightly embarassing, I wont lie, but it was fun. I also found out that day that the next day I had a talk in sacrament...haha. So I woke up early on Sunday morning and wrote that. I talked about how much of a miracle Christ is in our lives. Without Him, there is no point. Life would be pointless. I love thinking about Him through Marys eyes. He had a family. Im sure that it broke His heart to see His mother in pain, watching her son, who had done nothing wrong, suffer and be persecuted. I am infinitely grateful for Him and all taht He was wililng to do.

 

We had a cool experience this week. My comp decided that to gain the confidence of the leaders we should go to their houses early in the morning and give them service. So we planned for the RS President and bishop. But the morning we were going to the bishops house, I just couldnt stop thinking about the RS President so we decided to swithc the days. Turns out the day we went to her house, her and her mom said taht lately they havent had the animation to do anything lately and it was good to have someone make them do something. And the bishop told us taht the day we went, he almost called us to help his family out that day, but he was too embarassed to. Its amazing how the Lord guides every aspect of this work.

 

We had a zone activity for Christmas and we watched the movie planes. IT WAS SO CUTE! haha. and also the last movie I will watch for a year. But the conference was good. We visited an asylum for elderly people and sang to them and the message President Watts gave was an answer to my prayers. For Christmas we have plans with several members and an investigator who we randomly found who felt bad for us so she invited us over for lunch haha. 

 

I hope you all have great Christmases :)

 

 

12/16/2013

Dear Family,

So this week we had changes and I have a new comp! Hermana Munoz from Honduras. She is so awesome!! I am learning a ton from her but she is also really fun. I am really looking forward to this change! Hermana Reyes leaving was hard, but luckily I got a super awesome comp. The first couple of days were very different for me because only I know the area, so I had to plan everything by myself for a while which was hard, but we got through it haha.

 

This week I found out that I have a long lost daughter I dont remember having. We were at a members house and we were talking outside and this little blonde blue eyed little girl comes around the corner crying for her mom and I asked who she belonged to and the member was like I dont know. So we tlaked to the girl and she stopped crying and just sat with us...I was there for about a half hour and no one showed up for her...so I dont know really what happened with that. We decided the only logical explanation is that she is my daughter haha.

 

Yesterday we had like a church miracle! It was the primary presentation, which is always super cute! But we had almost 50 more people there than usually are there. A bunch of less active members came. One lady who hasnt come for two months came with a non member friend who is interested in the church! We had two of our investigators there. It was just a super awesome day! All of the recent converts were there. Such a good day!

 

The Lord answers our prayers! I have said this about a million times I think, but thats because its true. This week I had no idea what to do, so I just prayed that the Lord would help me through it and we were able to work every day and visit members and contact, and it was great! 

 

For Christmas here they set off fireworks like all the time. Like at 6 this morning...like why are you even up at that time? But yeah. Tomorrow we are having a missionary Christmas activity and we get to watch a movie, possibly Tangled although I doubt it because Hermana Watts says that we cant watch a movie with a kiss because we will get baggy haha.

 

Anyways, love you all! Have great weeks! I will talk to you in like a week! Yay!

 

Please send Ashtin Letters!!!!!

If you want to send anything else she would like pictures and of course food.  But mostly she is starving for LETTERS. Thank you.

 

Current Address:
Hermana Ashtin Wilcoxen
Mision Guatemala Este
Apartado Postal 951-A
Guatemala, Guatemala C.A.

 

Dear Family,

I am so jealous of your snow...our cold weather is completely gone and I am back to sweating as a habit again haha.

So the mission has standards of excellence and this week we met a lot of them which was so exciting! They are really focused in on getting 18 hours of looking every week, which doesnt sound like a lot but its three hours a day, and we have other lessons and also random reunions and so much stuff to do but we got our 18 hours. Plus an extra half hour and it was so great! President Watts was  like if I told you that if you got your 18 hours, I would give you $1,000,000 I gaurantee all of you would have 18 plus. Now I am saying that this is revelation from God to save His children in this mission...will you get your 18 hours_ and I was like...okay...yeah. I feel so bad for not getting them before. So we were really happy to meet our goal this week! (I cant figure out the question mark so _ is a question mark)

We have cambios this week so I am getting a new comp Wednesday :o I will let you know next week who it is!

So we have to use the buses here a lot and we have taken to talking to all the bus drivers. As a side note, contacting on the bus is my favorite because they cant run away haha. But anyway, so we have made a couple of friends with the bus drivers here and its so nice because theres this relatively large hill in front of our house and twice now one of our frineds has seen us and driven us to the top free of charge. And we were late to an appointment one day and the driver went out of his route and didnt pick up any more passengers to get us there on time! We paid him more of course, but it was so nice!

 We have a couple of new investigators who are so awesome! They accepted the baptismal invitation and I was so happy! The granddaughter works on Sundays so we are trying to work through that right now, but we will see what happens :)

As a part of the Relief Society, we are performing a pioneer dance and me and another hermana had to teach them all the pioneer dances haha. It is a lot of fun!

Final thing, President Watts told us we need to be more bold so I have been trying to do that, and it brings the Spirit so strongly! Not only that but everytime I declare what I know to be true and dont fear that they are going to be offended or what not, my testimony grows infinitely stronger and it is amazing! I encourage everyone to not be afraid to share what you know! Love you all! Have great weeks!

P.S. If anyone was wataching the Christmas devotionall...the little boy who winked at the girl during the song hahahaha. I was dying.

 

 

 

Current Address:
hermana ashtin wilcoxen
mision guatemala este
apartado postal 951-A
Guatemala, Guatemala C.A.

Ashtin got some Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving

Hello dearest family!

So "winter" has offically hit Zacapa. And by winter I mean its like the very very very beginnnig of fall for for us. It is SO nice except for the cold showers now are not very nice haha. They are just cold. I kid you not though, its like it has snowed here because the people are legitimately wearing winter coats in the night and I have seen a couple of winter hats...thought of Kelly haha. All these hipsters...haha.

The ward has started a consejo de barrio which I think is ward council in english haha. But I am SO excited for it because the attendance at church has been slowly decreasing and we need to do something. I really think that this is going to help them a ton as they start working together as leaders and start focusing on how to help the other members.

 So I kid you not...I think I am just meant to be a marriage counselor haha. We had another couple this week who during our first visit just openend up and told us all of their marriage problems and everything, everything that is going on. And then two days ago some guy was like what church are you guys from? like in the middle of the street and jsut started talking about how his wife is mad at him and what not...Good thing I took that marriage prep class ;)

We had a very interesting lesson this week haha. So a ton of people here are evangelical and there is a less active member who we are visting because we are kind of teaching her non member husband. Well they are both evangleicals and during our lesson where we are explaining the importance of both the Bible and the Book of Mormon they start like randomly shouting like halleluigha and praise the Lord and what not. At one point she starts like banging on her Bible and is like forgive me but this is what I believe and at one point was like on her knees and then they both started singing....I was just like oh goodness. It was all I could do to not laugh haha. We just ended it by bearing our testimony of what we know to be true and that they dont have to agree but we cant deny what we know haha.

I hope Thanksgiving was good for you guys! I hope that we can all be thankful for Gods hand in our lives. I am realizing even more now how much God has guided my life. From where I lived, to my friends, to what room I chose to live in at BYU, to my classes. Everything. It is so crazy to think about but He really directs our lives, especially when we are trying our hardest to do His will. LOVE YOU ALL :)