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 :)

A few Pics

 

Because you deserve the gospel today!

Ashtin and her 2 best friends in Guatemala

Care Package!

Volcano Lake

Thanksgiving dinner (celebrated a week early)

Big Bump on my Head

We (the english speaking misisonaries in the area) have started an english class every Wednesday night, which is pretty fun! The crazy part about it though is that I have gotten to the point in spanish where I am not translating everything in my head, it just makes sense, so in that class sometimes I legitimately have to sit and think whether or not a person just talked to me in spanish or english. Its the weirdest thing! In this class though, a little boy and his dad showed up and I had talked to them one day in a shoe store while my comp was buying shoes. I gave the 10 year old a Book of Mormon because he said he likes to read. They found out about the class and came. Turns out he actually has been reading it! And I guess his older sister is a member. I love seeing the tender mercies of the Lord like that.

 

Last week, I received a priesthood blessing and seriously, it was the greatest thing. I know the Lord watches out for each and every one of us and listens to our prayers. I know the priesthood power is real, and that God can speak through men for us. I am so grateful for that!!

 

We had a funnyish encounter in finding a new investigator haha. We were walking to the bus stop and we were kciking this lime on the ground acting like 5 year olds haha and we accidently kicked it into this girl (she just laughed) and we started talking to her and it turns out her entire family used to come to our chruch but never got baptized. We are going to try to visit her this week!

 

Finally, I have learned how hard it is to love the people here. Not because I cant do it, but because when they are going through hard times or dont want to progress or wont use the Atonement in their lives, it hurts. I feel for them, and I just want them to do whats right. I have an even greater appreciation for Heavenly Father because I am sure He feels the exact same about every single one of us. He knows whats best but He cant and wont force us to do the right thing.

 

Philippians 4:1 and Colossians 2:5. I thought about you all when I read these scriptures. Love you all :)

So yesterday at church the bishop of the ward gave an AMAZING talk on faith. Like I felt the Spirit so much, and I am so grateful for the bishop of this ward. The ward is not a full ward. Like the bishop has no counselors, only him. There are presidents for relief society and young womens and primary, but thats pretty much it. We are trying to help out the leaders to reanimate this ward, but I know it cant be easy for this ward. But his talk was about how we can never have a testimony of anything unless we try it, unless we do it. like the word of wisdom or reading our scriptures. He said that we sometimes are given callings and we wonder if we can complete them, but the Lord gave it to us, so of course we can. No matter what happens in life, the Lord knows we can do it. 

We have been finding a lot of investigators who I think have a great potential to progress, which has been a huge blessing!! I am very excited to see how everything turns out with them all and to see how they progress :)

I was thinking Hermana Reyes was going to get changed in the middle of my trainig but shes not and I am SO HAPPY!!

Also, there is amember here who I just love. She comes from a very, very difficult situation but she always goes out with us to visit people and has the strongest testimony. She is the person who loves the gospel because she has hope for a better world after this one. She is amazing and I hope to have faith like hers someday. 

Love you all, hope you have great weeks :)

Sorry, I forgot to post Ashtins Blog last week.  Thought I had, getting old, memory is the second thing to go ... I don't recall what the first thing is.  Anyway, I'm posting todays and last weeks.
-Jeff

11/4/2013
Wow do I have SO much to say. First could you please send me some pictures of Carthage jail that I took from my computer? Thanks!! 

So the most important thing is that we totally had a miracle occur this week!!!! So we were fasting for the area that we could find people who were ready for the gospel because none of our investigators were progressing. So one night there was a ton of weird lightening. Like sky lightening every five seconds and it was crazy so I was thinking about how awesome God is how He can do whatever and I was silently praying and I asked how I could help Him and find His children and while Im in this thought we pass a door and I just get the thought...that house. Well its dark and we usually dont tract when its dark but we decided to anyways and we found a family and they invited us in. And we talk with them for a bit and they dont go to church but they have super strong faith which is hard to find here. Everyone is either evangelical or Catholic. Well after a while we aske if they have questions and the aunt Kenzie is like yeah..how did you find us? It turns out she had gone to a baptismal service of our district leaders the other day because her niece wanted to go in the chapel so they did and they both cried. And she has a friend in the church so she thought that the missionaries somehow found her and she had wanted to go to church but she couldnt the next sunday. So anyway we were both like...woah. No, we just knocked on your door. It was a total miracle form God! And yeah, I was so grateful that the Lord helped us out in that one. And the aunt and niece came to church :) My first investigators at church! It was so great!

On a non spiritual note. There are stores here that get clothes from the US and they sell them for dirt cheap, like almost brand new so I am going to look. Like a girl found new Sperrys for $4...I dont even want to talk about how upsetting that was to find out when I paid what I did haha. But I know now.

I am so grateful now for my family and friends, like seriously. They had a holiday hre and I saw everyone with their families and I am just so grateful that I have so many great supporters who I get to come home to eventually :)

I cracked my head on this table the other day and it was bleeding and I had to wear a bandaid to keep in from getting dirty..that was embarassing and now I am just hoping to not have a scar haha.

LOVE YOU ALL :)

Ash practicing for Miss Indiana/Miss Guatemala, LOL

 

Ash and her companion

10/28/2013
Hello Family!

haha okay that was a really awkward beginning. also i found out yesterday that another one of my awkward talents is that I am awkward when I am trying to talk on the phone in spanish. I mean we all know that phone convos can be awk in general but then when its in another language...haha. Well, that part of my personality hasnt changed.

Yesterday was a super great day. It couldve been bad if we wouldve let ourselves get down but we didnt! Not a single one of our investigators showed up to church and one has a baptism date that we now have to move. And the wards attendance is slowly lowering week by week because they are all going through hard tiems and there is very little fellowship within the ward. So we had all of our plans for yesterday but we changed them a little bit and visited a lady in the ward who is feeling down and it is so good. When I jsut listen and dont try to translate, i understand so much more! And her husband died like a long time ago but to hear her talk about him is so sweet and she really has an eternal perspective that is just awesome. And we gave her the task of becoming friends with some of the siters in teh ward to animate this ward. We can do it. We ended up having two lessons with a member and giing out 5 books of Mormon which we honestly didnt think would happen and it was great just how the Lord led the day.

We found a couple of girls the otehr day who are so ready for teh gospel. like after our initial visti we asked wehn we could return and she said every single day haha. but then seh introduced us to her boyfriend and has been acting a bit odd so we shall see. but the Lord will prevail, not some  boy of one month haha. Jk. that sounds super bad or sacrilege or soemthing but I just want whats best for her. 

Love you all, hope youre having a good week!