November 24, 2014

This week started out RIGHT. Wanna know why? Because we had district
meeting OUTSIDE. Actually, okay, back up. That morning was frigid (I'm
talking 42 degrees with humidity, people) and even in studies, Sister
Corbridge and I were in leggings and socks and blankets. So we got a
phone call from our district leader for something and we said 'oh hey
where is district meeting today?' (because remember our building is
shut down for the next year, mold problems, so we usually have it in
members' homes) and he says 'oh yeah, we're having it outside'. Excuse
me?!? I admit, we were a teensy bit peeved about it. Like, I don't
think yall can understand how cold it was, okay? So we dressed in our
warmest things and we arrived to the church parking lot (we were
having it in a pavilion right outside of our church) and we were the
first to arrive. You better believe we stayed in that car. The other
sisters arrived and we decided to hunt down a place inside the church
(we have keys to it) to have a more practical meeting place. Well
everything is tarped over and the walls are stripped... It didn't seem
so practical after all. So the elders arrive (by the way, this is
typical- the elders are always way behind the sisters. Just sayin.)
and we're like, yo, something has to be done about this. But they
insisted to still have it outside and they went in the building to get
chairs and things. Next thing we know (we were sitting in the other
sisters' car, watching) they're bringing out couches! Hey, alright!
And they had also brought extra suit coats and jackets (nobody has
warm clothes here, just a lot of light things) and blankets(!!). So we
had a sister's couch and an elder's couch with a couple more chairs
for the elders. Once we accepted the fact that it felt like -5 with
windchill, it was actually really fun. Except for when I got up to
give my training, it was rough because with all those bodies on one
couch under a blanket, we were doing alright.
A bit over halfway through district meeting, we (I mean the elders)
moved the couches and things to the parking lot in the sun, where we
all took a picture. That's to follow. Actually, background on the
district picture- the elder who was taking the "picture" was actually
taking a video and he airdropped it to everyone and we screenshotted a
picture from the video. Smart.
Also, a bee got in my scarf at one point so there was a lot of
squealing from the sisters' couch.

The next day, guess what. We got a new car. Background story:
Ever since I got here, the car has made this alert noise when it's
turned on and another one for a different thing about a minute later.
It drove me absolutely insane, especially with how much we turn on and
off the car. So I called our vehicle person and he says to take it to
the dealership to have them turned off. Fine. So we drive the 10 miles
to the dealership and we tell this woman what's wrong and we go out to
our car for her to look at it. Well she goes 'oh, your airbag light is
on'. We come back inside and she does a little researching and long
story short, she tells us our car has a recall on its airbags and
we're not allowed to drive it anymore. She goes, 'You have someone
watching out for you'. Little does she know!
So she tells us that they can't fix the car (they don't have the part
or something) until mid-December. Therefore, she will give us a rental
car, Ford's treat. Guess what this rental car is. A 2015 Lincoln
that's black with multi-color sparkles. Yeah. So they drive us (in the
Lincoln- it's completely button controlled btw) over to the enterprise
place to get everything settled for us to take the car. I bet you can
guess a big 'but' coming. Yeah, well again long story short, we come
to find out that it is Church policy that missionaries cannot take
rental cars. The mission had an extra car sitting around (while our
district leader is on bikes, lol) so two senior elders drove it down
for us. They sympathized with us about the loss of the Lincoln.
The same day we had to go get our phone fixed (our phone had broken so
we were wanting to get our contacts transferred to a new phone) and
they couldn't do it at the store, so we spent two hours manually
transferring them ourselves. Happy day.

So remember how part of our area is an island? Well it takes a good
chunk of our miles to go there, so when we do, we make a day of it. We
were trying to visit some potential investigators and this one in
particular wasn't home, so we decided to knock two more houses around
it. The first was full of very loud dogs and they didn't answer. So we
went to the next. The person who answered was an 18 year old boy named
Marwan with no shirt on (I just... why would you answer the door with
no shirt? I mean let's be real) and he goes to get a shirt on then
comes back and we teach him the restoration. We asked him what would
this mean to him if it were true, and he says 'we have to tell
everyone! This is amazing!' Now THAT is the kind of reaction I want to
the restoration! He's prime.

Also, we met a man, a young black minister, in the parking lot of our
ward mission leader's office. We pulled up next to him and I was like
"shoot. That's definitely a prompting." So we talked to him and guess
what his name it. Quantravius. Kwan-tray-vee-us. He's Jamaican. We're
going to his house tonight to talk about the restoration.

I figure I'll end this letter on a miracle. So we were at an FHE and
this member gives us a referral of an older woman named Judith. So we
go visit her and she opens the door saying 'Sorry girls, I've got the
flu'. But we told her who we knew and she got all excited and let us
in. So we talk religion for a bit- she's been almost every religion,
including Jewish, and her father-in-law baptized her. Anyway so we
teach her the restoration and asked her if she would be baptized...
She thought about it for a second and said "Yeah! I'll do that." And
we asked if she wanted to set a day for her to be baptized and she
thinking about it for another second and says "Yeah! Come on over to
the kitchen and we'll look at my calendar." We decided on December 27
at 10:00. Hopefully she'll go through! She said she will have to pray
about this being the one true church, but she seems very committed to
her date. :)

Oh I said I would end this on a miracle but I was wrong. The next day,
we got a call from Judith saying she had gone to the urgent care and
she had told the doctor about us coming over and he told her to call
us and warn us that it's not the flu and the incubation period is 7-14
days. Soooo, yeah, prayers would be appreciated!

I love being a missionary!
Love,
Ashley

At district meeting

                                                Elder Swift trying to start a fire 

The mission is doing a
'Thankful to be a Mormon' thing and Sister Corbridge took this when I
just could not stand the sun in my eyes any more.