Attitude of Gratitude

last pday i forgot my nametag at home :[ during the day we were STARVING so we decided to eat at jimmy johns. i parked by this SUPER raised truck that had fatty tires. i noticed i parked kind of clsoe to the truck so I scooted through. Bad idea...I got nasty black grease all over my skirt just before going to eat. THEN as we walk outside after eating I notice I spilt some sauce on my shirt hahaha i was trying to look like a representative of christ but it wasnt workin for me that day. probably why my nametag got left at home haha God knew.

This week I came across a story about a mormon pioneer. His story of what he suffered through to get to salt lake touched my heart. And through all he went through he expressed his gratitude for his trials. for during that trial of  trecking to the salt lake valley in the blistering snow is where he said, "I came to know God". I felt impressed last week to start working on being more grateful in life. for as I look back through the 22 years of my life I realize that I have come to know my Father in Heaven more during my trials. How incredibly grateful I am, first and foremost, for my parents and ancestors, for because of their righteous actions and choices I am here today. Because of you and them I want to be a good person. Because of my Savior I want to be like him. 

As I was reading last weeks email from my brother Elder Jaeger I really like what he was talking about sitting in a battlefield. Haha I feel like I'm there too, and Im sure we can all relate to that one way or another. Life wasn't meant to be easy though, we weren't sent here to dance merrily through the flowers and live in innocence. We came here to be tried and tested. But why? The answer to this goes ALL the way back to our first ancestors/parents on earth "After (God) had created our first parents...it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter. Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other" (2 nephi 2:15-16). 

We could not act for ourselves unless we had two choices, the good and the bad. THATS why we needed to come to earth :] to try and test our agency. God hopes that all his children will return back home to him. That is why he sent his son Christ, so that through him we may be forgiven. But we must do our part to receive this grace and mercy. How grateful I am for my heavenly fathers love! Even with our imperfections He loves us! He does not expect us to become perfect here on earth, but he does expect us to try. How grateful I am for this moment in life to help others come unto Christ. 

I love you all so much :]

love-Hna Jaeger

10 more to go

Texas Houston District  ~  Signing my TX flag

Yep walked like this

We got transfer calls today and I found out I am staying in H 1 with Hna B :] I am so grateful to have another 6 weeks here and I'm positive the extra 4 weeks President will just keep me here in the area until I am called home. I'm starting to get emotional with knowing how fast the last transfer went and how I only have 1 1/2 left. How grateful I am for this time in my life to find out who I am through serving others 24/7. In church today we heard a really cool story as we were learning about the sabbath day that I would like to share with you.

 Afraid of B's sweet bird  ~  friend on ground trying to get in our place

My friend kept following me  ~  made left turn this sucker scared me

 L teaching me how to eat a mango & I'm messy  ~  Service for sweet friend & it was worth it!

"There was a fisherman who lived with his wife and 5 children. This father loved his family and wanted the best for them. He went out to work hoping to catch enough fish to give him income to take care of his family. As the fisherman pulled the net out of the water he found that his net was empty of fish, but found 7 clams. In each clam he found 7 beautiful pearls. The fisherman was happy and knew that with these 7 pearls he would be able to give much to his family. As the fisherman walked home he passed by a man sitting on the road, begging for food. The fisherman had compassion on the begger and decided he would give this poor man 6 pearls, for with the 7th pearls the man could support his family for awhile and then go back to work. As the fisherman traveled home the begger decided to follow this fisherman home. The fisherman walked into his home and closed the door. The begger peaked inside the window and say the fisherman put the one other pearl on his nightstand and turned in for the night. The begger quickly reached through the window, took the 7th pearl from off the fishermans desk and walked away."

Now, what did you get from this story? Maybe not much at first but that the begger is supper greedy. In this story the fisherman is like Jesus Christ, he has given us 6 days out of the week to do what we need and want. But are we sometimes like the begger, greedily taking the 7th day and doing what we want with it? The Lord has asked us to sanctify the 7th day of the week to him. and when you think about it, after ALL that Christ has done for us, all he asks of us is to spend this one day out of the week in reverence to him. Are we doing so?

So happy to have a couch

I am grateful for Sundays. though on the mission it is far from a day off rest for me haha I am grateful for the opportunity to go to church and partake of the sacrament. I love H 1 ward and am so grateful and blessed to be in this ward. The members are so willing to help our investigators. I know in the next 10 weeks I will be able to see the fruits of my labors. I know god is a god of miracles and as i trustin him and do his will I will be able to see and experinece these miracles! i just need to be patient. I love you all :] And pray for each of you everynight.  love- herman ashley jaeger

Members, Missionaries & friends came together for a service project for Hermana P

 Deer in headlights ~ District Hermanas & J from ward ~ Service for Hna P

 We love Hna P  ~  1 2 3 smile and he kissed me haha

Cutting the grass with a machete

Goodly Parents

Hola a mi bonita familia :]

This week was a pretty long week haha. The Lord has blessed us with finding and teaching a couple new people who are interested in learning about the gospel. This past week we had the chance to help out with seminary at 6am. It was so early. As we were waiting for the seminary class to start I saw a man outside moving his trash to the front yard. Without even thinking my feet moved towards him to go talk to him haha. He was a sweet older man who said we could come back and visit with his family. As seminary started there was only 2 students, and one of the students moms. The teacher wanted us to sing "To Bring The World His Truth" and thought itsd be more beautiful with the help of missionaries. As we started singing the first lines of the song I got emotional, "we have been born as nephi of old, to goodly parents who love the lord". As we kept singing I couldnt help but think of my family back home. My heart filled with gratitude for being raised in such an amazing home. After the song the teacher talked about how majority of missionaries leave on missions because they were raised in good homes with good paretns. She asked us missionaries if we would share our testimonies. As I started to speak my eyes filled with tears. I shared of how grateful I am for all the sacrifices my parents have and are making for helping support me on my mission. I quickly seem to forget that as much as i am sacrificing here, my family back at home is sacrificing just as much to help me be here. 

From this experience I have reflected on the things my parents have taught me back at home that I've used on my mission. Like being compationate and sacrificing your wants to help others. I remember EVERY birthday my mom would ALWAYS wake up early in the morning and put up birthday decorations and cake and everything all set up and nice for our birthdays :] even spending one birthday away from home mom still thought of sending birthday decorations and cake to make my feel special :] Today we found out a lady in the ward had her birthday. she invited us to go out to eat with her on her bday which was a pday. We could have easily said we will go another day because we dont have enough time on our pday, but we felt we should spend time with her on her special day, even if it took time out of our day of rest. The lady, Hermana P, bought us jack in the box cause she heard we like hamburgers haha, We saw that she bought herself birthday flowers and birthday cake. I felt for her that she was spending her birthday time all by herself. As we sat and ate together we joked around and talked and just had a good time. We gave Hermana P a birhtday card and stuffed teddy bear, nothing big. As she read the simple birthday card she started to cry. She looked at both of us and said, "Thank you hermanas, for coming to spend time with me on my birthday. All my family lives in mexico and I have no one to come and visit me. Thank you...Thank you." 

Another life lesson i learned from my parents is to take the time and talk to those in need. I can recall the many days and nights mom would just sit and listen to what was going on in my life. I cherish the moments I had with just me and dad sitting in his big diesol truck and talking about my future and giving me loving advice. On Sunday I saw one of my missioanry friends struggling to hold her emotions back while sitting in sacrament. I couldnt ignore that she was sad and stressed. So I tapped her in the shoulder and we walked out side to talk. As I sat listening to all the things causing my friend stress I felt the saviors love. I know he would do the same to anyone he sees who is going through a hard time, wether or not he knew the person. 

Also many times back at home I have learned the important lesson of having patience haha. Usually I learned this lesson with my sister Kelsey ;p Today as we were washing our clothes we found out we didnt have enough quarters to put our clothing in the dryer. And every month we are given a specific amount of miles to use that we cannot go over. So since we are SUPER in need of more miles for driving and without any quarters my comp and I used a clothes line mom sent to me many months ago and we hung up our wet clothes. After an hour of stressfuly figuring out how to put up the annoying clothes line we started to laugh and take pictures instead of bicker. I remember many times at home when Kels and I would have moments of stress and in the end we just started busting up laughing because of how silly the situation was. 

Though life is hard I've learned the best way to go through out life is with a smile on your face and a laugh in your heart. Sounds kind of silly haha but the best way I deal with stress of anything that hurts me is by laughing. I remember the word of dad, "laughing is the best kind of medicine!" and i could picture him saying that while doing a goofy dance haha. I cannot express my gratitude and appreciation for my family members. You are the ones who keep me going, besides my Heavenly Father and Savior of course. Usually ill catch myself looking at a picture of the family or looking at something that was sent to me from home. How grateful I am for this moment I have to help others, to bring them into the light! This gospel is what makes me who I am. Sad to think I have a little more then 5 months left to be a missionary. But with that thought in mind it pushes me even harder to make a difference in everyone who passes my way. I love you all :]

Hola ~ Happy Halloween!

Nothing SUPER excited has happened this week. I'de call this past week "the week before miracle week" haha. We only have about 5 investigators right now so we are in the process of finding new people to teach. 

This past week we have been spending a lot of time with the members. How grateful I am for the members in the church! without them missionary work could not go forward. this past week we helped bake halloweeen cookies with a member for the halloween party! she made the cookies by scratch!!! we made about 80 haha it was a lot of fun.  

Hermana R. made by scratch 80 halloween cookies!  :) 

At night on bikes here its been pretty sketchy. The other night we saw a guy walking by with a scary mask on hahaha. In our district we have 2 sister companionships. One of the sisters just left for Argentina today so now the three of us sisters will be combining our area together and working the car and bike area. And on halloween we have to be in the house at 7pm. 

This sunday the primary kids had a primary program!!! Theres only 10 kids in the primary but the program was so beautiful!! I got so emotional hearing the sweet songs in spanish!!

Sorry this email is SUPER short! I know the work will start picking up it'll just take some time and more faith :] i love you all so much! Have a great week and a happy halloween!

Miracles wrought by Faith ~ We had a Baptism!

Good morning :]

I cannot put into words my gratitude and appreciation for every single person who prayed and fasted for I... I am sincerely grateful for your help and your faith. This past week my faith was tested numerous times. But through it all my faith has grown.  And we had a BAPTISM!

Monday we talked to the Elders and planned on them going with us to the hospital so I... can have her baptismal interview. We waited outside the door anxiously. After 30 minutes Elder L came out of the room. She had passed! 

The beautiful pool where I... was Baptized!  She was so happy.

Wednesday we started the baptismal program. we went and visited I... at her home with a member, Hermana H. We got into the house to see Irma sitting on her bed in much pain. She asked if Hermana H... could help put chicken on the stove. Hermana went to town on cutting up the big chicken haha and she cooked it with tons of vegetables. Since the food was going to take a few hours to cook Hermana H... took her dinner out of the car and gave it to I.... I started crying at the kindness this member gave to I... She talked to I... about her baptism and what a beautiful day it will be! I... was more excited about the date, as long as she didn't have pain.

Thursday Hermana H and R told us they would be making the baptismal dress for I...! :)

Friday we stopped by I's house just my comp and I. I... told us shes been in a lot of pain and had an appointment with the doctors Saturday at 8 am. the day of her baptism. I didn't know what to do so I walked outside and started crying. I prayed to know what to do. I called the two relief society woman and told them we needed help. They stopped working on making the dress for I... and came to help us. Again they made her food, cleaned the house, we helped get I... ready, ect. After 2 hours of being there I... agreed to move her appointment to Monday!  :) 

All Friday night I could not sleep. I kept waking up with fear that I... couldn't get baptized or how she would get into the water, ect. I even started dreaming about the baptism!

Saturday morning we got a call from Hermana H... She told us I... is not well and we might not have the baptism. Right away I thought of calling the Elders. they were happy to go over to I's house and give her a blessing. All 6 of us missionaries and a few of the members showed up to the house of I... When the Elders started giving I... the blessing the spirit filled the whole house. it was an amazing experience. How grateful I am for priesthood holders. 

After the blessing I... felt better! The women helped I... get ready and after sitting at her house for 4 hours I... was ready! The baptism started over an hour late but miraculously it all worked out. Her baptism dress was beautiful and she was in awe that the woman made it for her. She was in pain getting into the cold water but she toughed it out. The three men helped her immerse fully under water and it only took one try! Branch president allowed her to be confirmed pool side because she is not able to go to church in her condition. I... was so happy.

So grateful of the Priesthood & the Elders

I was so touched by the Relief Society Sisters

I'm so grateful for this experience in my life. I've learned a lot but the thing that I've learned the most from this experience is trust in the Lord and never doubt his ways. God will put you through experiences that you don't understand why you have to deal with this situation or trial or difficulty. But I promise that as you are sitting in the celestial kingdom surrounded with your loved ones you will look back on your experience in life and appreciate and understand the trials you were put through. God knows us perfectly. He is our heavenly father and because he is our father he wants us to make it back home! He sent his son Jesus Christ here so through him we'd be able to repent and return home. I love my savior and am eternally grateful for his sacrifice for me. I know this is the true church on the earth today. I 

believe in miracles.

Our District celebrating after I's Baptism

My skirt got caught in the bike wheel :(.... "My Savior keeps me going"

Hello everyone!

First off to my brother Austin I've heard a little about your mission! I hear the flight there is like 18 hours away?! I know you will be wonderful though :] Hey and dont stress about the language, it will come faster once you are set apart as a missionary. You should still TRY and study some things but just remember to spend time with the family okay? Thats whats most important.

Mama Hope made these scarves for us :)

So there was a lot of confusion for me on transfer day haha. I am actually follow-up training which means I'm finishing training a missinary whos only been here for 6 weeks. I'm the senior companion but she knows more spanish then me haha! We are in her origional area called Brazo City biking area...yeah our area is pretty small. We  bike from one side of our area to the other in a hour. The area is nice, the people are so sweet and since we've been on bikes we've had a lot of opportunity to talk to people on the streets. The members here try and come out with us everyday!!! But they are all men so we cant drive with them haha so we ride our bikes and they follow us in their cars to people we want to visit.

My companion Hermana O is sweet and we work well together and we take good care of each other.

Our investigators who we are mainly focussing on his I who is a very sick woman. I'm not sure what she has but shes can barely move and before i came into the area she was in the hospital. We visit her everyday and teach her. She wants to be baptized but feels she needs to wait until after her 3 surgeries which she doesnt know when that will happen. Also we had the opportunity to talk to her husband P who is very funny and reads the Ensyclopedia for fun! We gave him a word of Wisdom pamphlet and the next day we visited he told us he didin't know Joseph smith was killed, he looked up Joseph smith in the Encyclopedia haha.

We are also teaching J A a 20 year old. Its hard to teach him because he works until about 7:30-8 at night and starts at 7am. He also has a testimony of the book of mormon and Joseph smith. We talked about having faith and trusting in God. 

Its nice the members come out with us especially at night because they're are A LOT of "barachos" or drunk guys in our area haha! the other night some came up to us and started talking. He wanted to learn more about our religion so we said he could call us when he had time. We were so thankful C T a member was there because the drunk guy was big and a little intimidating.

The other day as I was biking I was thinking to myself, "Hey I really like biking areas. There not too bad" then all of a sudden my skirt got caught in the back of my tire and stopped the wheels and I flew of my bike haha. thank goodness I put on my biking pants because my skirt was down to my knees when I feel over!!!! Cut and bruised my knee pretty bad and its hard to kneel and pray haha but I just think that whenever I'm tired or my back is hurting from my heavy back pack or when people honk and tell me to move I just think of my Savior. Aww I'm getting emotional writing this but its true. I know he knows EXACTLY what I am feeling; the physical pain, the heat, the yells from other people, awkward stairs from others and other things. My savior is what keeps me going. Funny enough, even when my body feels like its going to collapse I keep going. When someone turns us down, we keep going and praying that we are able to complete what the Father wants us to do in this little area of ours. 

My sweet companion fixing my bike for me.

I am also really blessed to have such a loving and supprotive family. Thank you for taking care of me, you have no idea and I cannot express in words how amazing you all are. Someday I wish I could just get a quick hug form y'all and then I'de be okay. But I know I'm here to help other families be together forever just like what I have.

Being the senior companion is really hard, I feel so much weight on my shoulders. I know for a fact I cannot do this work without the help and guidance of the Lord. I love the scripture in Alma 26:12 and I can relate to it because all the blessings and miracles I see as a missionary come from God. I am nothing without his help. 

Hermana O and I have had a lot of opportunities to talk to people in Spanish and even though we barely know how to speak the language somehow the people are always accepting of our message and open to us coming back and teaching them. I have full confidence in God that anything is possible. The language is still hard and I struggle everyday with understanding and speaking it, but its making me rely on the Lord every second of the day. I've never had to work this hard for so many consistant days but I am happy. I know my struggles and trials are for a moment and they are stretching me to become what the Lord wants me to be. I will not stop this work until I've done everything I can.

I love you all. You are always in my prayers. Thank you for taking such good care of me.

Love-Hermana Ashley Jaeger

First Day Biking!

This poor turtle was trying to cross the road.  I had to save him!

Well this week has been interesting and different!

Before I forget, PLEASE as a family read D&C 31:3-13 BEFORE Austin opens his mission call. I was trying to find a good scripture that can relate to him and that is a perfect one about receiving your mission call :]

This morning we got a text at 6:15am saying we needed to read the emergency hurrican evacutation list and head to the church. In my head I was like Uhhh why does this have to happen on P-Day!! We jumped out of bed and started doing everything listed on the list; pack all valuables in a trash bag and put on a high shelf in the closet, pack up change of clothes, bedding, scriptures, and a ton of mroe things like non parishable foods, gallon of water, ect. We took an hour to pack EVERYTHING away into plastic bags and then put onto of shelves, got our stuff in the car, got gas, and headed to the church without ANY makeup, hair quickly put into a pony tail, and clothes kind of wrinkled. As we pull into the church we see all the elders in our district there. Come to find out our whole mission had a emergency hurrican evacuation DRILL. We were kind of upset but we have such funny Elders in our district we couldnt stay upset. One Elder said when he heard about the evacuation he ran like a fat kid to the fridge and got the pan dulce (cake) Hahaha!

(Biking and Slupries!!)

This week was my first time to be on my bike! I love it thanks for picking out a good one :] But oh man the day we rode bikes was HOT and the roads we took had no sidewalks...thankfully we prayed for safety before and the whole during the whole ride that day. As we kept biking further into our a new part of our area that we hadnt visited yet we started to get discouraged because we weren't finding any spanish speakers. During our last hour of biking before dinner we conacted a lady who have us a referal!!! We hurried to the house and the lady opened the door and allowed us in!!! We were able to quickly teach her about the restoration but what caught her interest the most was temples! We gave her a picture of the Salt lake temple and explained about it and that we have one in houston! She was so excited and understood all teh doctrine we shared with her. I was blown away when I started simply exmplaining and teaching I.. while my comp looked for a scripture passage, the words were just flowing from my mouth with easy. I know the Lord was guiding my words because I couldnt have taught her without his help haha. She is catholic and likes wehre shes at but felt it was a sign from God for her to change her religion because we showed up at ehr door AND that we speak spanish because in that neighborhood theres only one other spanish speaking lady! Teaching that lady, I.. was honestly a miracle from God after such a long day of biking. How grateful I am for the many blessing and miracles the Lord has blessed our area with!

I didn't know my hour long prayer was going to put my comp to sleep... 

Okay so Sunday we FINALLY got our first investigator to church!  Her and her son were able to follow a member in the ward to church. And funny enough the sunday R and her son came to church the bishop asked if Hermana K and I could sing a special version of army of helaman of sacrament because he loved our voices. R loved the song and told us she wanted us to sing more at her house when we teach haha! R felt really comfortable and there were a lot of nice members that went up and said hi to her :]

Also this past week our district had a study on praying specifically in our prayers. Elder Birks asked me if I would share my thought on depending on the Lord through prayer. i decided to share read in Luke 22:39-44 about the Saviors prayer in the Garden. Rememeber this is all in spanish haha. As I read those few verses the spirit touched my heart and I couldnt hold back the teach which were filling my eyes. Just seeing how much pain The Savior suffered and after feeling so much pain he prayed more earnestly instead of just quiting. His endurance is amazing and he is the perfect example of depending on our Heavenly Father through prayer. 

A sweet sister from our ward brought these shirts back for us from Guatemala :)

Later that day as we were out we ran out of visiting all the people we had written down to visit and looking in our area book. i prayed to myself to know what we should do and I felt like we should tract on a specific street. we drove to the street and I said a prayer for the both of us. I prayed that we would receive referrals and have the opportunity to talk to people who were interested in learing about the gospel. Just as we got out of the car there was a man walking towards us with his dog. We stopped to talk to him and asked if he knew of any spanish speakers on the street. Right away he threw out 4 people for us that we could go visit!!!! I was so impressed and couldnt believe the Lord answered my prayer that quickly for us to have help and receive referrals haha! The man spoke both english and spanish but wasn't interested in "being taught at" but we were able to talk about our religion and we invited him to visit out church on sunday.

The rest of our investigators are doing well and are a great families.

Biking & burnt arms

I've notice a very interesting yet amazing phrase while reading about the life of Christ. I love reading the stories of all the miracels he preformed. I love that after he heals every single person he tells them, "Thy faith hath made thee whole". How powerful that phrase is!!! To know that we can be forgiven, healed, made clean, when we put our faith and trust in the Savior.

I love you so much and hope you are all doing well! Tell me ASAP where Ausitn is going please!!!

Love-Hermana Ashley Jaeger

"God seeks to have us become more consecrated by giving everything. then when we come home to Him, He will generously give us all that he hath" -Neal A Maxwell

"Consecration, likewise, is not shoudler-shrugging acceptance but instead shoudler-squaring to better bear the yoke"

Our refrigerator!