6/26/17--What if you never went home?

So this week has been a little all over the place and has kept us on our toes. The new phones are still an adjustment. I do find myself missing my iPad and may be counting down the days until we can use both. I am grateful for the chance to be among the Lord's servants that He trusts enough to use the phones. Sometimes I question why He choose Samsungs and not iPhones, but I guess that isn't my choice.

As many of you know we went to the Brooklyn Bridge on Monday last week. What you don't know is that as soon as we were walking off the bridge it started to pour!!!! We meet up with a set of English elders on our way to the subway station. We were soaked from head to toe. It made such a good memory though and I really didn't care about being wet. We took a bunch of pictures. At one point there was a bunch of water falling off the side of one of the buildings and buckets of water were just falling from the roof. One of the elders was like I dare you to go stand under that waterfall. So Hermana Jofre and I jumped at the challenge and said hold our bags we are going in. So that really added to us being wet.

Wednesday we had a meeting for all the newbies and their trainers. My favorite part, like always, was when Sister Peterson, our mission nurse, got up and started talking about nutrition and the food pyramid and what we should be eating. Having sat through this meeting for the third time knew exactly what she was going to say. I started laughing before she got into the funny part. She quickly looked at me and told me to stop laughing. I looked everywhere but at her. I was trying so hard not to laugh. So what she said is, "we need to eat grains, chocolate, protein, chocolate, carbs, chocolate, meat, chocolate, fruits, chocolate, vegetables, chocolate, sweets and fatty foods and chocolate." So as you can see chocolate is very important in your diet. After the meeting we went to talk to her because I just love her. And why wouldn't want to talk to the chocolate queen? She was messing around with me and was like were you laughing I needed to say that with straight face and no thanks to you I almost didn't. I apologized and we just laughed it off. Then she looked at Hermana Jofre and told her that I always make her laugh. Good know someone thinks I am funny!!

Saturday night the elders had a baptism and had asked that I play the piano, which is no problem. However, while they were changing they wanted to just sing hymns until we got done. Uh fun fact about Sister Ashford--sight reading hymns is not a strength of her's. So just keep that in the back of your mind. One person asked to sing Battle Hymn Of The Republic. Uh I really don't know how to play that song. So after a tough introduction and a struggle through the first couple of measures one of the elder's looked back and gave the cut it off signal so I stopped playing and he just looked at me and laughed. As well Hermana Jofre was sitting next to me on the piano bench and she starting laughing. We just laughed as they sung. Afterwards he was like yeah it was better without the piano.

Then as for my spiritual thought for this week we had interviews and my mission President told me to start reflecting more on my mission. He asked me what my favorite section in Preach My Gospel is and said chapter 6 which is the Christlike attributes. He asked me which one and I said faith because that is what I have learned most on my mission. Looking back I see how much faith life and a mission takes. We wake each morning with the faith that God will guide us to those who are ready and have an open mind and heart to he gospel. I love what preach my gospel says about faith it says:

"When you have faith in Christ, you believe in Him as the Son of God, the Only Begotten of the Father in the Flesh. You accept Him as your Savior and Redeemer and follow His teachings. You believe that your sins can be forgiven through His Atonement. Faith in Him means that you trust Him and are confident that He loves you."

I know if we act in faith God will fill in our gaps and make us stronger than we knew we were. Have a great week!!! Love y'all!!!

Con Amor
Hermana Ashford

Pictures 1-5 Brooklyn Bridge
Pictures 6-7 #CityWide
Pictures 8-9 she threw us the key again
Picture 10 the reason for the title of my email
Picture 11 downtown picture
Picture 12 cool graffiti
Pictures 13- 15 that view though
Picture 16 and that is how many months I have served on my mission