Sorry...

Um, I ran out of time to do a big email last week, sorry about that, I sent Mom and Dad a handwritten letter instead, I just um, didn't TELL you in an email before I did that. I thought you would have gotten it already, sigh, you'll probably get it today. What happened was, the church computer is not working, so we have to do emails at a member's home, but we can only do that if the members are present. Anyway, we were doing emails and then our appointment to get our snow tires was coming up and we had all these plans to get back to a computer and finish emails but the rest of the day was insane and busy and the tires took two hours and the oxford carolers rehearsal was at 5 and we didn't know who to ask to go over to their house and it was afternoon so lots of families would have their crazy kids home from school and we got home in time for us to eat a quick, late lunch and write some letters. Our members were in Hawaii, but they are back today, so we are on their computers.

So that was sad. I thought about you lots and lots this week.

Oxford carolers! A way for us to get out into the community and be involved. Our branch mission leader and his wife are involved in it and so they told us about it. A group of people get together every Monday at 5 and practice Oxford Christmas carols, like, old English Christmas songs, like the Holly and the Ivy, but at turbo speed. Sister H brought up recently that we are the youngest people there. I laughed and realized she was right.

On Saturday we performed at the library to open up the Holiday Literary. I didn't even know what a literary was, but they do readings and stuff. The three songs the Carolers did were "Welcome to Our Savior," "O Little Town of Bethlehem" (the traditional English tune, not the one you're familiar with), and "Gloucestershire Wassail" or whatever it's called.

On Sunday we performed at the museum open house. Every Wednesday since I've been in Petersburg, we've gone to the museum on Wednesday mornings and done service there. We scan in film negatives and catalog them in this archiving software stuff. The museum curator is HILARIOUS and we sit there and LAUGH our heads off. She barely gets any work done. It was fun to come perform at her open house. I bet she had to "like, act professional, such a bummer" in front of all those people--that's something she would say, I swear.

The Oxford Carolers sang several different songs. Just very brisk, very lively music, we gotta spit out dem words. It's been very fun to be involved. The seventh-day adventist minister is in it. Half the people are Lutheran. The presbyterian minister's wife is in it. We practice in the presbyterian church. Most of them have been super super warm towards us, we never felt awkward practicing with them. President Beesley was all for the idea.

Sister H and I also performed at the museum open house, we took the 2:15 slot. It helps to get your own slot when you do service at the museum every wednesday. We sang "Silent Night," "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear," "Away in a Manger," and "What Child Is This." Doc Lopez, a man in our branch, accompanied us on the guitar. We love Doc. He works for the police department and so is very well-known in the community, and I think that added to the people at the museum staying and listening to us, because they knew Doc, whereas they didn't know us, or they might not trust us, and we're weird cuz we wear name tags. Doc is hilarious, he's Mexican and has a mustache that he twists out, and he came to the museum holding his guitar case with a black cowboy hat, decorated with the spine of a rattlesnake. Hahahaha. He also performed "I'll Be Home For Christmas" by himself, it was lovely.

We were gonna plan a fireside for the community, something Pres Beesley wanted us to do, but our branch mission leader thought it'd be better to work through a community talent show that is already mostly in place, it takes place at the Lutheran church and the Oxford Carolers perform in it. This is because they doubted there would be a big turn out if WE threw something---we're Mormon AND we're newcomers. Small towns are hard to dig your heels into. BUT, we found out the person who usually organizes it was outta town and so Sister Bringhurst, the branch mission leader's WIFE (she's a fire cracker), said, "Well, I will just organize it myself, except I'm going to Utah for a week and a half." So she got the ball rolling, had her husband, who used to be the CEO of the hospital til he retired and so HE has LOTS of credibility in the community, delegate it to someone else, and this woman took on the task gladly. President Bringhurst, who's the branch mission leader, scheduled a day at the Lutheran church and it is a go. They announced, in the next Oxford Carolers rehearsal, that the talent show would still be put on this year even though So-and-So was out of town, would everybody be in town to perform again?

Hahha. I am so excited. I'm so grateful to the Bringhursts for working so hard behind the scenes to get this thing to happen, just so that two sister missionaries can sing and play for the community. I love Christmas!

At the manor, the old people home, are apartments that senior citizens can rent independently. One of these lovely older ladies, who is presbyterian and not interested in joining but loooves our spiritual thoughts and visits, told us that we are becoming to be known as Helpers in the community, and less and less as people who go door to door and shove religion down people's throats. Which is cool, I guess. It has been hard sometimes, trying to find the line between a lot of community service and involvement and proselyting (going door to door, teaching, walking around and talking to people about the gospel, etc). Our numbers a couple of weeks ago were pretty low, meaning we had less lessons. We have been trying to find a balance, all the while not knowing if anything we're doing has any effect. So it was good to hear this sweet elderly lady say that.

Then we sang A Child's Prayer and made her cry, so I felt bad. Haha, actually, she thanked us a lot, she told us there were issues going on in her family that day and she said she didn't know how we knew she needed that, but needed it she did.

Anyway, so if we can help Petersburg view missionaries and thus, the church, as people who help and who are sincere and loving towards everybody regardless of religion or whatever, we want to keep doing that.

TEACHING.

We had a great lesson with an investigator on Saturday. He has one leg. I will call him One-Legged Dad. (He has one son.) We've never met with him except on his porch. He gets uncomfortable around people and so we found out who in the branch he knows and asked if we could come teach him with this certain person. A couple of months ago, he told us to pretty much stop teaching him becuase it wasn't worth our time, there were too many bad things in the world and he could not muster up any belief in Christ. So, we came to his house last Saturday morning and watched "Finding Faith in Christ" and talked about it after. The member we brought with us bore the most beautiful, strong testimony of how we gain faith. She told a story of witnesses. She said, "What if someone came to me and said, 'This big thing, the size of this apartment, fell outta the sky and landed on main street, sat there for a minute, and then took off toward the sky.' I'd say, 'You're crazy, what are you smoking?' Then, what if someone ELSE came and said the same story, 'Hey did you see that thing come outta the sky?' " She narrowed her eyes and said, "I would say, 'I heard that story somewhere else. This is getting weird.' But what if I go outside and dozens and dozens of people are talking about this thing that came out of the sky. I'd start thinking, 'Hey, this actually could have happened. You know, I wasn't there, I didn't see it, but I am starting to believe it's true.' And then you know what I would do? I would take it the Lord, and get on my knees, and pray, and ask Him if it was true." It was so powerful and One-Legged Dad thanked her sincerely and said that was the first time it had ever made sense to him. The Spirit was so strong. I love teaching the gospel. I didn't even do any of that teaching. I just love being there when it's happening.

We had a lesson the same day with Puerto Rican Mommy. It was very different from One-Legged Dad. Not because of her, but because of her SON. The 13-year-old, who feels the need to interrupt and disrupt us every five seconds. He plays video games on his computer and refuses to turn the sound off. The TV was on but it was muted, but still distracting. We had already bosses 13-year-old Puerto Rican Boy a lot and how many more times can we say "please turn this off, please turn this down, please just FIX ALL YOUR DISTRACTIONS." Every three seconds the boy would say, "Spaghetti." NON STOP. Even if we ignored him. Even if I threatened to beat him up (we have a pretty good relationship, but that doesn't mean he wants to help us have a spiritual lesson). Puerto Rican Dad came home toward the end of the lesson and he got his son to pray, though. The father is the one that sets the law, apparently.

But then on Sunday Puerto Rican mommy didn't come to church. She hadn't felt real great the night before so maybe she got sick. Or maybe since it keeps snowing EVERY NIGHT she got worried about the roads, she doesn't have 4-wheel drive or studded tires, so that's understandable. I just really really really wish that she would just get baptized, but I know things must happen in her time. I want so badly for her to know that this is all true. She's so close.

Sigh.

THIS WEEK: We fly to Juneau on Tuesday (if the plane can come in, or take off, or whatever. Pray it stops snowing!) Zone conference is Thursday. We fly from Juneau to Wrangell on Friday. We ferry back to Petersburg on Tuesday.

Wrangell is already gonna be doing a Christmas sing-along in the branch and so they invited us, when we come, to help with that. So, we won't be throwing together a whole Christmas program, but working with what's already in place, something we are quite grateful for. We are quite busy. UNFORTUNATELY, Wrangell's Christmas thing is not till the 22nd of December....

So they want us to come TWICE!

The missionaries were teaching 3 sisters, one is close to baptism. THIS Wrangell trip is to get to know the town and teach these women and do lots of missionary work there. We are trying to plan a trip for the 22nd to get to Wrangell and help with their Christmas program. Today we're going to visit Pac Wing (Pacific Wing) which is a charter company and see if there is a plane that can charter us the morning of the 22nd to Wrangell. BECAUSE, our OWN branch's Christmas dinner is the evening of the 21st!!! And Sister Hatfield and I are apparently directing that. AND, the 23rd is the Sunday before Christmas. And the husband-and-wife speakers planned to speak in OUR branch that day want us to sing! So we need to be in Petersburg the 21st, Wrangell the 22nd, and back to Petersburg the 23rd. Travel options: commercial jet, ferry, charter plane IF president beesley gives permission. I already asked President Marsh (the branch president) that if we have to commercial jet in on Sunday morning (the 23rd) could we start church at 11 instead of 10? He said yes (cuz the plane comes in every morning at the same time, and that's like 10:30 or something). I thought that was hilarious.

AND we are helping Tiny Lil Thing, the elderly less-active woman who lives in Long Term Care at the hospital, finish a quilt.

(By the way, transfers take place around new year's day. We don't know if we're staying longer than that.)

Tiny Lil Thing was an avid quilter in her day. She has these quilt blocks, muslin with butterflies appliqued on, some are dutch dolls, in a bag in her closet. She's been "working" on this quilt for about two or three years. She can't stitch anymore (she hand stitches, like, everything) cuz she gets too shaky. Apparently she used to be busy as a bumble bee and it about kills her that all she can do every day is lay in bed. So, we decided we'd finish her quilt for her (if anybody's memory serves them well, I HATE QUILTING). As we're laying out quilt blocks all over her bed one day, decided what color embroidery floss to buy, Tiny Lil Thing told us this quilt would be for US. We were so touched! We asked her if we could make two smaller quilts instead of one big one, so we wouldn't fight over it, and she said we could do whatever we want.

Wow!

So I've been learning the blanket stitch. Okay I love you all! I love being a missionary! I love petersburg, we are in our own lil world down here! One day I'll be transferred and I'll be like "HOLY COW HOW DO I DO THIS" because it is just so different down here.

The gospel is true! I know the Savior lives! Did you just love the first presidency devotional yesterday? They taught us how to receive good gifts, including gifts from God. They taught us how to give good gifts, as does our God. And they taught us the real gift, which is God.

Love you,

Sister Ashbrook and the Snow-Covered Boat in the Driveway

Snow.

Hey family!

We got permission to do emails at a member's house so we're hanging out next door at our branch pres's house. Yukon the dog just BARKED really loudly, once, at nothing, and scared me.

Daddy that is so cool that you had a baptism, Mommy talked about a baptism a bit, the same one I'm guessing?

And Mommy, you do not have to send me another package, I am very grateful for all that you do, love you lots. I miss you all in a quiet, peaceful way, but truly I don't want to come home and hate thinking that I only have about six months left.

Hey so yes, we will be staying in this apartment indefinitely; we love it here. Every dessert we get we stop at the door to the main house and give it to the branch president. One time we had a pan with leftover brownies smothered in cookie dough that had been in our fridge for two days and we kept forgetting to give it to him. Knock knock. "Do you want these?" He took them happily. We asked him if he needed help eating them, cuz there was a whole side of the pan with brownies still, we could take a couple off his hands. "No, that's okay," he said, and shut the door.

We had a lesson with El Colombiano; we'd recently gotten permission for the Spanish elders in Juneau to mail us some Gospel Principles books in Spanish and El Colombiano had brought his that we'd given him, so instead of going over El Plan de Salvacion we jokingly asked him if he was gonna teach us. He flipped to chapter one and started. We got all excitedly settled and listened as he taught us who our Heavenly Father is. He asked us, "Como llevar (llegar? i can't remember) conocer a Dios?" How can we come to know God? He said, "La pregunta es simple. El respuesto es.." Big pause. "Profunda." Um, sorry if that's bad spanish, I wasn't called on a Spanish speaking mission. Hahhaa. ANYWAY he said, The question is simple, the answer is profound. He's so funny. He wanted a piece of paper, i gave him a sticky note, he drew this little globe with lines coming off of it, um apparently that was Sister H's head, and he wrote HER answer. Underneath it he drew a FROWNY face with big poofy hair, that was me; he wrote MY answer. For him, he drew a man in a tux. We asked him if he was gonna draw his glasses on the man. He said, "NO! No glasses." His drawing of himself did not NEED glasses. At one point he sat down on the bench next to us and his coat got caught on the cover of the gospel principles book. I fixed it. His reaction was delayed---he looked down after a couple of seconds and said, "NO TOUCH. It's MINE." He fixed it just so and then went on with his lesson. He cracks us up.

We went n visited one of our old lady friends at the Manor the other day, she's "The Answer Is" Lady. We found out she has Alzheimer's and Sis H says that makes sense; her grandfather who has Alzheimer's reuses the same phrase over and over cuz that's all he can remember. Well, The Answer Is Lady ALWAYS says, "The answer is..." or, "In other words..." My first meeting with her, back when Sister Pete was here, I asked her if she had any family in Petersburg. She got real close to me and said, "The answer is....not a soul." I asked her if she'd ever been married. "The answer is, no."

So, we went and visited her and said we could come in and we sat down and she sat on the "davenport" (she always calls it that, I don't know what the difference between a davenport and a couch is, but I wanna learn) next to me and through the course of our visit she sunk lower and lower and gradually slid sideways till she was leaning against my arm. A couple of times she even laid her head on my shoulder. As she's leisurely pointing her foot out, the leg that's crossed over the other, and slowly rolling her ankle back and forth, la di da di da style. I kept lookin over at Sister H and giggling. We love her. She just has this quirky personality. She says a lot, "When you get up into your 70's or 90's--" (she's 96, herself) "--you find that you just don't care about social things."

I asked her if she believed in God and brought up religious stuff and within three minutes she'd stood up and was thanking us for our visit, hahahaaah, and out the door we were. Well, we'll keep visiting her.

We helped the Woman Who Lives Out the Road (she's less active) with her deer again. We dropped by and she was outside in the rain on the way to her shop (shed thing).

"Hey, guys, I'm skinning my deer right now."

Oh my heck Sister H never jumped outta the car so fast. We went and watched her skin her deer, we took pictures on HER camera and she hasn't emailed them to us yet but soon I will email them to all of you and you can see. She'd cut the heads off the deer---she had two, one that had been hanging for a week already and one that she'd just caught the day before, hung up from their back legs, the rope going between their fibia and tibula or whatever it's called and then tied around the rafter thingies. So she'd cut the heads off cuz she said it's easier to pull the hide off that way, even if it gets a few more hairs everywhere. We watched her skin the second one, she had a tiny knife, I think it's called a parring knife, she laughs and said some people tease her for her tiny knife but she says it works great. So she pulls the hide down and then slices up where the hide and the fat/membrane/meat stuff is and slices and then she can yank the hide down a lil more.

Oh my heck. And then she broke their forelegs. We were like OH MY GOSH with hands over our mouths and she laughed and said that's the sound our own bones would make.

We went back the next day and helped her cut up her meat, AKA, separate the fat the from the meat, and the meat from the bone. Deer meat is nasty, she said, it makes the meat taste real gamey. I used a filet knife mostly and cut up backstrap and stuff. Yeah. I know what I'm talking about.

We've loved getting to know her, she is not familiar with the church at all, wanted to know what patriarchal blessings and investigators are. She's pretty much like a nonmember. And she's awesome. We wanna write a song called the Alaskan Woman.

We went back a few days later and helped her grind up meat and cut some more and I made sausage (I added spices and stuff according to a recipe she got from someone and ground bacon and the venison together; the bacon is like the fat, but it's actually nummy-tasting fat).

So, we did a lot of service this week. We also helped out with Petersburg Indian Association non-smoking coalition free t-shirt giveaway thingy at the community center. We also helped old people play bingo. We also helped out at a Turkey Time Race that a member of our branch, who works for Petersburg Parks and Rec, organized. We also...hmm what did we do. Oh my heck, we also helped out at this primary activity; a woman donated a whole bunch of STUFF from her HOUSE and the primary kids, one from each family at a time, walked around the tables full of all this STUFF and "shopped" for their family and we WRAPPED all these gifts and we're storing all these gifts at the church, they'll be taken back out at our Christmas dinner and given to the appropriate family members. It was chaotic and crazy, you'd be wrapping present after present for ONE kid cuz of course their father needed a KABOODLE (um it's a "fishing box") that was blue and glittery AND he needed a picture frame and two candles and a light bulb in the shape of a dolphin....and then ANOTHER kid would come to you with two grocery bags full of MORE things to be wrapped and let me just tell you, my wrapping skills got very special.

So, we suffered on lessons this week. We got a few less than we should have. We have to try and find balance. We do a lot more service out in the bush than in more populated places but we STILL gotta try and find a balance. So, we had a lesson set up with Sweet 15 and her fam, and it was dinner, with a short lesson after of course. We like having members of the branch at every lesson. So, we were freakin out, how are we gonna get a member to come to this lesson? We can't invite an extra person to someone else's dinner. And since Puerto Rican Momma asked recently NOT to have members at her lessons, and since Miss Walkin Into Town tends to forget about lessons and La Mujer de Calisco hasn't been home lately, and how the Spunky Woman who's 72 and doesn't wanna change cancelled her lesson, and since our newest investigator moved to Dutch Harbor, and since Miss I Needa Change My Life got a new phone number apparently and we've been texting and texting but it was to her old number, since all these people would NOT have lessons with us OR have members at these lessons, we REALLY REALLY wanted THIS lesson with Sweet 15 to actually have a member but it wasn't a simple thing to invite someone else along. So I prayed specifically that they would think to invite someone---Sweet 15's mom is friends with a sister in the branch cuz they both work at the hospital so I prayed for Sweet 15's mom to invite her. This woman is actually the woman Sister Pete and I lived with for two weeks back in August or something. Her name is Sister Hertless.

When we drove up for the lesson that night, Sister Hertless's car was sitting in the driveway.

There were a lotta screams in our car and lots of high fiving and then we got out completely dignified and walked up the steps to knock on the door.

Well, I woke up Sunday morning and looked outside and everything was covered in snow. "WE'VE BEEN DUMPED ON!" I cried to Sister H.

"No we haven't," she chuckled. "Wait, are you lying? You're lying."

"I'm not lying. Come see!!"

The snow is beautiful, and I love Petersburg.

We're going to Juneau the first week in December for zone conference and then after that we're flying to Wrangell instead of back to Petersburg, the work is slow there and the missionaries are getting taken out and put elsewhere, but Pres Beesley wants us to teach a few lessons there and throw a musical Christmas fireside, hahaha, for the branch there, and then we'll ferry back on Tuesday, to Petersburg.

Oh my heck, our December is gonna be crazy busy full of music and singing.

LOVE YOU ALL

Sister Ashbrook and the frozen pot holes

No snow yet...

HI everybody. Thanks for the pictures, in the emails and letters both, Mommy and Lily and Aunt Fran!!! Pictures are so great. I really appreciate it. Love you all.

And happy birthday yesterday Sarah Bear!!! I am gonna write you today.

So apparently we are allowed an hour and a HALF on the computer on pdays, according to my district leader Elder Kvavle (um, pronounced "kwiv-lee") according to my zone leader Elder Martinez according to President Beesley. So, I don't have to like, RUSH and be CRAZY, but actually write yall a NICE EMAIL.

Except, I forgot to bring my glasses to the church so my eyes are killing me.

Cuz we do emails in the library at the church cuz the public library only allows you thirty minutes. I'm so used to doing them here, it would seem completely weird to go to the public library, and then I remember that for 7 and a half months in my last area we went to the college to THEIR library, very public, to do emails, cuz you're SUPPOSED to do them at a public place.

Things are pretty different in the bush. (Bush means outlying areas of Alaska...far away from civilization.)

Though Petersburg is pretty civilized. It's just, tiny, and only accesible by plane or boat. I love Petersburg.

So, this week has been fun. Sister Hatfield and I have been ridiculous as ever. Yesterday she told me that she appreciates that I joke around during lessons and push kids in the face, cuz it helps her realize she can just BE HERSELF.... Um, I don't know if I'm all that great of an example, clearly.

There is a less active woman who lives by herself out beyond Petersburg limits, she runs her own commercial fishing boat in the summer and is building her own two-story storage warehouse thing on her property, hunts deer, makes her own hot chocolate (the powder part), has a dog to keep her company, and is just plain rad. We love her. She had a deer that she caught and when the weather got real cold a coupla weeks ago, below freezing (STILL no snow yet, except for about half an hour of it a coupla nights ago that disappeared real fast) her deer froze so she couldn't skin it, cut it, grind it, and pack it, and she had plans to go deer hunting again and it was coming up and we told her PLEASE call us once the weather warms up and your deer thaws out and we'll come help you.

So she actually called, and we went out there Tuesday morning and she'd already cut up all the meat and she just wanted us to help her grind most of it and pack it. I packed up a coupla hunks of meat that she wanted for roast (so, NOT ground up in her meat grinder)--and the backstrap, and the um, whatsitcalled, neck roast, and the...yeah, things like that, it was awesome. You just smack it on some plastic wrap, wrap it up, wrap it up in butcher paper, and label it "ROAST 10-12" and call it good. We ground the rest of the meat and packed that up too. I'm tellin ya, I'm gonna turn into an Alaskan Man at the end of my mission.

Then that NIGHT, we went over to another EQUALLY awesome woman's house. She's the nonmember that we helped yank out the chicken wire fence out of her frozen backyard last week. She grows her own food, including chickens, and cans her own food, and makes her own SOAP. She hasn't bought soap in ten years, she said. So, we went over to help her make her next yearly supply of soap. Daddy, you'd be so proud. FIRST, we had to look at her notes and figure out a formula to concoct a new batch, I don't know WHY we needed to do this, maybe to improve it, maybe she wasn't completely satisfied before, but we had to take the oil and times it by the lye and the this and the that and formula percent stuff math stuff.

Pretty exciting.

I did the dishes while Sister Hatfield figured all that out.

AND THEN, we took the new numbers that we (AKA THEY) came up with and scooped out like 935 grams of palm oil and 734 grams of coconut oil (something like that, I obviously don't remmeber the exact numbers) and akui oil or whatever it's called from hawaii and olive oil and all that stuff, and water, and put it in a huge pot, and we put it on her real wood stove and started cooking that til it got to 140 degrees and then the woman, whom I will call Makes Her Own Soap Woman, took it outside to add the lye, cuz it's toxic and stuff.

Oh, and the scent. We had to smell all her essential oils and then decide on a combo and we decided on "orange sweet" and "plumeria" and "vanilla" and that was pretty exciting. Some of the oils while we were pouring them into another container spilled on some paper towels, Sister H and I kept them and my purse smelled amazing and um, still does. I put my paper towel in a ziploc bag and taped it into my Alaska Journal (the one I have other missionaries and members write in so I can remember who the heck all these people are).

WELL, I stirred the oil and lye stuff for a long time and waited for it to "trace" AKA....get thick until drips of it settled on top of the mixture before blending in, if that makes sense. Well, it took FOREVER, and Makes Her Own Soap Woman kept coming over to check on it, and finally it traced, but then within five seconds it curdled and the oil and water started separating and it turned into an orange colored MESS. No one had expected that so we looked in all her soap books and um, figured out that probably the reason why it curdled and went bad is cuz the stirring was too slow...or too inconsistent....so basically I messed up all the soap.

HAHHAa.

She apologized as a teacher and said it was good for HER to learn that soap needs brisk, constant stirring. She told us she'd try it again on her own the next day or something...

She called us the next day and told us she had done it again that NIGHT after we'd left, she's so crazy, and stirred it the RIGHT way, and yeah it traced in like, ten minutes, and she'd poured the soap into her molds. She used two wooden mold crate things that her husband built for her, two wooden frames, each about the size of a sheet of 8 1/2 by 11 paper, with crossing wooden pieces to make a set of rectangular molds, and the third mold was a PVC pipe lined with butcher paper. She said, "Come back in two days and you can help me take the soap out."

Haha, she's so great. We did, and Sister H cut up the pipe mold with a knife to make circular pieces of soap, and we smelled it, and the scent was there but we think more of the essential oils would be better, and in about six weeks when the soap is done "saponifying" she'll call us and give us some.

So THAT was fun.

She's a great woman, we have neat discussions about the gospel, she's not quite ready for it yet, but maybe someday soon.

And then on FRIDAY we showed up at the lil church cuz it was time to do our every-other-week-an-hour-of mormon.org and the TRASH CAN was tipped over and trash was EVERYWHERE... you see, there are trash-addicted bears in the world and apparently they're not hibernating yet and I said, "Oh it'll take ten minutes, we can clean it up after mormon.org." I was really excited, cuz this was the second time this had happened...

Um, it took an HOUR. Cuz there was CONFETTI everywhere, and everything was covered in frost and frozen to the ground. And our hands got SO NUMB. We were griping (jokingly) the WHOLE TIME...Sister H cracks me up. "Oh, this'll be great when we call in our service this week. Oh, you know, we just cleaned up TRASH that a BEAR spread ALL OVER THE PARKING LOT, no big deal, it's fine that all these paper plates have BITE MARKS and all the middles are MISSING out of them..." Oh, and the tray of vegetables that someone left in the fridge...all those veggies every where too. We left them for the deer.

OTHER THAN THAT, we had some good lessons with people, we reconnected with Miss Walking Into Town cuz Sister H suggested we stop by the Long Term Care in the hospital to see if the "pie social" was still going on and we entered the hospital and who did we see, sitting on a bench looking bored, but our investigator who fell off the face of the planet two months ago. It was awesome to see her again, we had a lesson set up for Saturday, but she, um, forgot. BUT WE'LL KEEP TRYING...

And we had a really nice lesson with some less actives yesterday, we found out a lil more about why they stopped going to church.

I know that the Lord puts people in our path, I know that timing is everything sometimes. I know that he prepares people and that the Spirit can soften people's hearts.

I know that we must have faith and when we do, we will want to change our lives, and when we put the Lord first, "everything will fall into place or else drop out of our lives." I know that I am where I am supposed to be and I love serving my Redeemer. I love the people of Petersburg. AND I LOVE ALL OF YOU!!!!

Thank you to all those who have taken the time to write me, I really do appreciate it.

Love you,

Sister Ashbrook

HI SUP GUYS (lots of pictures!!!)

Hi so I am gonna send more pictures.

I'm gonna write you a HANDWRITTEN LETTER TODAY instead of an email.

 

 

me and Sweet 15 (the investigator who can't get baptized till she is SEVENTEEN...it changed from 18 to 17 as of yesterday WOOOHOOO cuz she wants to go to BYU but she'll start college at 17 I believe and her parents know she'll have a better chance of getting in if she's a member)

 

 

 us and Sweet Lil Thing (the elderly woman who's a member of the branch that we go and visit at the hospital in Long Term Care like every day...it was her 86th birthday)

 

me and a lil hilarious 5-year-old girl in the branch, I'm wearing a coat made out of wolverine and beaver fur that the branch pres had made, he hunted the animals

 

me and sis hatfield getting ready for service

 

a velkommen sign on the door of the woman we were gonna do service for

 

 

These pictures below are us doing service at the woman's house, she is not a member but she is rad. We were helping her pull her fence outta the ground but it was frozen, so I said boil water and pour it, sis hatfield said no get a blow dryer, this is what the woman came up with. propane blow torch. She has chickens and ducks and geese.

me and yukon. Our members went outta town and we dog sat (pres beesley said it was okay) Yukon is now my new boyfriend

me on the side of the highway at like mile 8 or something

on pday we drove out to the leconte lookout (leconte glacier...you can't see it, but from the lookout you can see the bay plus the chunks of ice that float on the water)

how pretty the moon looked

 

me on the picnic table at the leconte lookout. sis hatfield LOOOVES this picture. my skirt needs to be pulled down in back, you can see the backs of my KNEEEES!

 

 

i swear i'm in a good mood

Hi I don't have much time. Sorry. This week has been a whole lot of service and stuff. Hahah.

 



branch pres grinding moose meat

me and new comp on a dock thing off Nordic Drive, a lil boy from a member's family took the pic, we were about to go eat dinner with them

 

 same dock, facing different direction so the sun's behind us

beautifiul petersburg

I was gonna send more but her camera died (my camera has dead batteries and the small memory card that came with it is full...i needa buy a new camera, or get a nikon memory card, i'd rather have a new camera, newer with a bigger screen on the back, still feel bad i broke the camera the budingers gave me...)

Mr.mormon.org card guy moved to ketchikan for work...

our members went outta town and we babysat their dog Yukon...he's a yellow lab and he's hilarious

we sang a lot

we had stake conference

we had an earthquake which we didn't feel (i rarely feel earthquakes) but there was a tsunami warning for neighboring islands...

we taught the feisty old lady who's been taught for 2 years, she is stubborn and doesn't wanna change

the puerto ricans did NOT come to stake conference, don't know how to motivate mommy puerto rico now

does anyone have any ideas for object lessons? i have used the pepper in water and dish soap one, I have used the bleach and food coloring one, i even know a scarf/yarn thing you use for prayer (can't tie a know without lifting your fingers off unless you fold your arms first...hard to explain)

happy birthday jess soon, right?

we taught la mujer de caliso, our brnach mission leader bought her el libro de mormon on cd

sorry that i have not capitalized anything, i don't feel like it, i swear i'm in a good mood but when I have no time to write an email i have no imagination or motivation to capitalize

must go love you bye church is true

love sister ashbrook

ps. mom i got a phone call from the missio nsecretary who said you called and said your surgery went well and it made me get teary-eyed and then SISTER HATFIELD got teary-eyed and it was lovely thank you so much. thank you for always being there, for the times you have loved me and not even said words, just rubbed my back and loved me. i love you so very much