New Year, New You!

Area: Montpelier/Cokeville
Companion: Sister Tomsik
 
Well, this week has been crazy and I have loved every minute of it and I can tell that this area is going to be amazing! I love everything about it! But, before I get into my week, I thought that I would start with something that I learned today! I was reading in Jesus the Christ and I read something that was amazing! And I really want to share that with all of you. If you have not read Jesus the Christ, I suggest you do. It is an amazing book. The first few chapters are really hard to get through but once you get passed them, it gets super good! :)
But, I was reading on page 232 and it was talking about salt. And I will write what it said. "To be of use salt, it must be salt indeed. And not the product of chemical alteration or of earthly admixture, whereby its saltiness or "Savor" would be lost; and, as worthless stuff, it would be thrown away" We are compared to salt in the bible. And if you think about it we need to be pure like salt so that we can be used and so that we can be in the presence of our Heavenly Father. And if we are unclean and are not pure, then we will be "thrown away" and can not return to our Heavenly Father. So, what are things in our lives that are keeping us from being pure as salt? What are things in our lives that we can change so that we can become more like our Savior. We want to be able to return to our Heavenly Father. I have thought of things in my life that I can work on and I have been this past week and I can tell a difference. And reading Jesus the Christ this morning made me feel good about who I was trying to become. :)
I was also reading Thomas S. Monsons talk from last April. I dont know if any of you remember but it was about obedience and how when he was a little boy, he and his friend wanted to have a bonfire one night, but there was a lot of weeds where they wanted to have it. So, they decided to get a match and light the weeds on fire. Well, they thought that it was pretty innocent. And that it wouldn't to a whole lot of damage. And the fire ended up getting out of hand and they had to have people come help them put out the fire. I think about that story and apply it to our lives. We may do something in our lives that may seem very harmful. And that if we do it just once, we will be okay. Well, something that seems so harmful can easily get out of hand. But thankfully we have the atonement. And we have the opportunity to return to the right path. And with the help of our family and friends and the ward members and even the bishop if needed, and especially our Savior Jesus Christ, we can make it to the right path. It may be difficult and we may not want to give up things in our life to be on that path. But it will be all worth it. And we will be eternally blessed for the work that we have done.
Yesterday during church there was an amazing lesson in Relief Society. I really enjoyed it. And it was about sharing our testimonies about the gospel. And there was a saying and it was "if you dont use it, you lose it" Do we want to lose our testimonies? I know I dont, and by sharing our testimonies, we not only build others, but we build our own. As President Hinkley said, "its like the muscles of my right arm, if I use it, it becomes strong, but if I put it in a sling, it becomes weak."  we need to constantly be sharing our testimonies so that we can make them stronger. I would like to extend a challenge to all of you. And I want to commit you to it. And I will be following up every week to make sure that you are doing it. But, I want to challenge you all to share your testimony with at least one person at least once a week. And here is another challenge, I would love to hear each one of your testimonies. So, I thought that it would be cool to get a letter or an email from you all of your testimonies and I will make a testimony book. I love reading and hearing peoples testimonies and they are such a strength to me when I read or hear someones testimony. :) Is that something that you all can do? :) I hope so! Also, write of ways that you can come closer to our Savior this way. You dont need to send that to me. But write it down and put it somewhere that you can see it so that you dont forget! :)
Well, I guess that I will tell you a little about my area and my companion! First off, I am pretty sure that I have the best companion in the whole mission! She is amazing and I have already learned so much from her! She has been out for about 16 months and this is her last transfer. So, in mission terms, I will be killing her because I am the missionary that is sending her home. I think that I have learned from her of how to be a better missionary more in the last five days that I have been here than in my whole mission. My view on missionary work has changed so much and I am so excited to be her companion and to continue to learn from her.
The area that I am in is amazing and I am so excited to be here. We cover a whole stake. That consists of 6 wards and a branch. And our area is huge. We go into Wyoming and cover a small town of 500 people. And it is called Cokeville and we also cover a place called Geneva, Pegram, Dingle, and also Montpelier. We have a house in both Montpelier and in Coke ville because they are so far apart and it saves us from driving a whole lot. We have not stayed in our house in Cokeville yet since I have been here. We live with members in both houses. And it is really nice. :) Lets see, we also have a car, or should I say a Jeep Compass! YAY! And guess what family! I have driven in snow and I did really good! YAY! Haha. We cover a lot of historic places. Like, the Organ Trail is in our area and there is a really cool story about the elementary school in Cokeville and I want to share that with you guys. There was a bombing that happened and this happened about 30 years ago. And there was a man who use to be a sheriff in the town and he wanted money and he knew that the church had money. So, he went into the school and he took it over and gathered all 60 of the kids in one room and he threatened to blow up the school if he didnt get the money that he wanted from the church. Well, he had to go to the bathroom so he left his wife with the trigger for the bomb. And while he was gone, something scared her and she hit the trigger and the bomb went off. And the way that the guy made the bomb, it was suppose to level the school. Like the whole school would have fallen down. But, the bomb went straight up and about 1/3 of it didnt go off. And none of the kids or employees were killed. The only people that died was the man and his wife because when the guy came out of the bathroom he shot his wife and himself. After the bombing happened, some kids said that they saw angels carrying the bomb up out of the school. And also, when they went in to the school to clean it up after the bombing, they were looking around and on the walls you could see outlines of angles like they were protecting the school and the kids. And also something about the school, a year before the bombing, the school was just done being built and they dedicated the school and in the prayer they said that all of the kids that would ever be in the school would not be harmed! How amazing! And such a huge testimony builder about the priesthood and how powerful it is! All because of the blessing the kids were saved! :)
Well, I have met and taught some awesome people this past week. And there is this lady that we taught on Thursday night and her name is Annette. And she is an investigator and she is super nice. And while we were teaching her we were talking about the Plan of Salvation. And she started talking about her friend that had just passed away and how she misses him so much! And Sister Tomsik had opened her scriptures to 2 Nephi 2 and she was going to share a scripture with her but she didnt share it with her. And as I was sitting there with my scriptures open. My pages somehow flipped over to 2 Nephi 9. and, there was no breeze in the house or anything. So, I read verse 21 and it was perfect. So I shared it with her and I know that my scriptures flipped to that page because she needed to hear that scripture. But, the spirit was really strong in that meeting and we will invite her to be baptized next week. We also met with a girl named Julia and she was actually baptized on Saturday! So I got to be part of her baptism and it was such a great baptism and the spirit was so strong there! But, when we taught her the lesson we talked about the restoration and we showed her the restoration video and she said that he understanding of Joseph Smith and what he did was so much more clear. So it was good to see her understand what he did. After the lesson we had to go to Grace because we had to go on exchanges because Sister Tomsik is a Sister Training Leader and the other Sister Training leader is in Grace and they needed to go to a meeting on Friday. So I got to spend Friday in Grace and it was such a great experience.
Friday in Grace we got a lot of work done. They are pretty much white washing so there is a lot of work that needs to be done. At the beginning of the day we had studies then we went out for a little bit and we met a few people and they are all super nice. And a guy that we met, his name is Milo was interested in taking the lessons. And since it was only him home we couldnt go inside. So we were talking to him on the door step and as we were about to leave I said... I know that it is really cold out side but do you mind if we read a scripture with you really fast? And he said sure. And so we shared 2 Nephi 31:17 and then we talked about it a little bit. It talks about baptism and then we invited him to be baptized and he said yes! Super exciting! I love being able to extend a baptismal invitation on the first meeting! YAY! We also went out to a place called Thatcher and it was way fun out there. There was this sister that just got home from her mission and she actually came home early because she was getting pretty sick. But she showed us around and that was pretty fun. We were able to share a lot of messages with some less active people.
Oh, on Thursday night when I was in Grace with the other sister it was really weird because the District Leader called and asked to talk to me. So, I started talking to him and he is introducing himself and he was just talking to me and there were people in the background that was laughing and I kept asking why they were laughing... Well, it turns out that I was not talking to my current District Leader. I was talking to an old District Leader and he just got home three months ago and he was back visiting. And guess what, he is married. he got married 2 1/2 months after he got home. It was so weird! And we actually saw him and his wife on Saturday at the baptism and we had dinner at a members home and they were staying at their house. It was super weird to see him with his wife. Especially when they were hugging and kissing. They are not suppose to do that! Haha jk! :)
Well family, I have run out of time. And I have so much more to talk about but I should get going. I hope that you enjoyed this email and I know that as we all strive to come closer to our Savior that we will all be so blessed! I am looking forward to reading all of your testimonies! I love you all so much! And I hope that you have a great week! :)
Love, Sister Ashley Halbison
I am attaching a picture and also the talk by President Thomas S. Monson.