Then Is My Soul Filled With Joy! ~ 2 Baptisms! ~ Last letter as a Missionary!

My companion Hermana B and I

Wow, my last letter to send home as a missionary. I cannot put into the words all the good and sad emotions I have felt the past few days. I think at church on Sunday it really hit me that I am going home (especially after having to say a closing prayer or bear my testimony in each class or meeting haha). I love the Hispanic people, every time I see one I just want to talk to them and just help them feel of the love their Savior has for them :] they are a beautiful people and I have been so blessed to work with them throughout my mission. 

good bye cake  ~  hispanic tradition to "mordida" or bite the cake 

(so they can push your face into it)haha

How grateful I am to have followed the prompting of extending my mission. The few weeks before the extention and during the last 4 weeks that I extended my mission were probably some of the most hardest weeks I had to face during my whole mission, actually during my whole life to be honest. But I have grown from those experiences, and I am who I am today because of what I have gone through and grown through :] A few weeks ago I had a normal interview with President Ashton of the mission. As I expressed to him my concerns about my area and going home he simply said, "Stop stressing. Just put your trust in the Lord". That has been something I have been learning even BEFORE my mission! To trust in the Lord, replace my fear with faith. 

Our investigator C has been progressing so well! The other day we stopped by to say hello and found her mom and grandmother came to visit from Mexico. We shared a quick message about families and left. I put my trust in the Lord that things will be fine :] and she will be baptized when she is ready. She called us later that week andshe said she was ready to be baptized:] We also have another investigator J who has been progressing so well in the gospel! The only things holding him back was that he just wanted to know more before baptism. J didnt even have his baptismal interview until sunday morning before church started, he passed:]

C and J Baptism  :]

Hermana B  and I were able to be apart of the baptisms for BOTH C and J!!!!!!!! My heart was filled with so much joy!!! How grateful I am to have been able to see the fruits of our labors, especially right before I head home :]

"I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy. And behold, when I see many of my brethren truly penitent,and coming to the Lord their God, then is my soul filled with joy;then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, eventhat he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember hismerciful arm which  he extended towards me."(alma 29:9-10)

I testify to these words, all the good that has occured on my mission has not been because of me, but of the Lord. How grateful I am to have been an intrusment in the Lords hands for the past 19 months, the mission I've experienced has not only changed the lives of others but has changed mine as well. No joy has been greater for me then that of seeing others change for the better and follow Jesus christ.  I am forever grateful for my savior jesus christ, and will serve him for the rest of my life and onward. How blessed I am for my family in California :] for my parents who have supported me here on my mission through all I have gone through. How happy I am to also have another part of my newly found family here in Texas :] I know one day I will return to see all those who I have met on my mission, if not then I know in Heaven I will be able to see them with open arms and smiling faces :]

Forgot umbrellas...SOAKED  ~  Sister pic :]

Zone pic  ~  J took me here!  :]

I know without a doubt I have a Heavenly Father, he loves me. How grateful I am for ALL the good and bad I went through during my mission. It has changed me for the better. How excited I am to be reunited with my sweet family :] returning with honor not as a returned missionary, but as a released missionary :]

I love you all! See you all very soon :] Adios!

love- Hermana Ashley Susan Jaeger

Hermana P teaching me to cook  ~  Rainy days in TX

Payback for scaring her  ~  Last time I will see this

Houston Texas

LET IT GO

Well this past week has gone by  so very slow haha. As hard as I try I have been so distracted about coming home haha, I am really excited to see you all :] I received a package from mom this past week that had a cd in it. The words to one of the songs really stuck out to me, "Let it go". I read a talk this past week that also used this phrase of "letting it go" or "leaving things alone".One of the apostles of the church shared a story about a man who eventually learned to "let things go"

I believe the story happened in the early 1900's There was a newly couple who were expecting their first child. The night the wife went into labor she started having problems. Her husband tried to contact the local city doctor to have him rush over to help with the birth of the child. The doctor finally arrived at the home, he had just come rushing from helping a sickly person at another home a few blocks away. The doctor seeing that the pregnancy was risking the lives of both the baby and the mother he did the best he could and the beautiful baby was born. A few days later the new mother passed away from an illness the doctor was treating with the person he had previously visited right before he rushed over to help with the pregnancy. The new father was filled with devistation and depression. This father stuggled for many years to get over what had happened. He had many hard feelings against the doctor. A few years after the accident the father was pulled in my the stake president. The stake president knew of his situation and simply told him, "Let it alone. There is nothing you can do to bring her back". The father came to his senses and looked at the situation in the perspective of the doctor, he learned how to forgive him and "let it go". 

so fun when youre crossing the road and a train comes and gets in the way

I've realized in my life that I struggle with EVER letting anything good go! As I come to the close of my mission I yearn to hold on and wanting to stay longer! Just because I am filled with such a beautiful joy as I am in the service of texans here in the hispanic culture. But I know that I have served the Lord with all I have and now is my time to come home. I am filled with so much excitment to finally be able to see you guys again :] its been a long time and I know seeing you all again will be that much sweeter because of how long we have been apart. I lvoe you! see you next week (haha literally I'll totally be able to see you next week :D!!!!!)

YEEEES ill be there soon! - Houston City DownTown

Texas Roads - dog jumped in our car hahaha

fiestas partias :] the kids did a dance for texas  -  Gave some little kids CTR rings to remind them to choose the right!!! 

part of austins bday gift I made to mail to Chile :]  -  Hna P

Surprise! I'm EXTENDING MY MISSION!!

This week I received my "trunky papers". Here is a little of what the letter said from president, "I am sure it is with mixed emotions that you are realizing that your release date is just a few months away...I am writing to extend a challenge to you. With all of the experiences, speaking skills, knowledge and faith you have acquired since your mission began, there has never been a time in your mission when you were more qualified and able. You are at the height of your missionary service. Never have you been more capable to have a powerful impact on this sacred work of the Lord...I challenge you to utilize these remaining sacred weeks in the mission field to increase your pace, and acheive a great work in the name of the Lord...These last precious days will never come again...I pray the Lord's greatest blessings to be upon you as you sprint to the end".

I have spent the last few weeks praying to know whether I should extend my mission or not. After countless prayers and trying to find an answer I have come to the conclusion that the Lord trusts me enough to make my own decision. I talked to my mission president about it and he said that I am only obligated to serve until August 26, and the Lord is so incredibly happy with me for serving that long. He said to go to the Lord and ask him if he would be fine with me extending if that is what I would want to do, then finished "us as a mission would love if you extended". As I pondered the next few days about this I realized something. At the beginning of this transfer I asked the Lord why I was in the area. I just wanted to know who needed my help. Since that prayer there have been countless moments and struggles from members and nonmemebrs that have shown me why I am here. I have very specific investigators who are in my area who I know I was sent here to help them be baptized. I feel I must give them all that I have (including all the time I can have to serve here) to help them be baptized and then work towards going to the temple. 

After also talking with the family :] I have come to a conclusion that I want to extend my mission and stay the extra 4 weeks until september 26th. The only reason I am making this decision is because of the people here. Form my investigators, memebers, and less actives. I feel I can really help them even more if I stay until september and not leave in august. I know right now it feels like the 4 weeks will be so long, but thinking in an eternal perspective its only a little moment. And to think how many people I can help bring unto christ in those last 4 weeks. I know this gospel is true. I want to help as many people as I can be apart of this great joy in the gospel! 

I love you. How grateful I am for your support and love. I am so lucky to have such an incredible family. I know he will watch over you until I come home :]  love- hna ashley jaeger

B-day THANK YOU!-

Happy Birthday to my sis from Chile

First off I want to give a BIIIIIIIIIG THANK YOU for the birthday package and everything that you put inside! Tuesday morning I got a call from the mission office saying that my mom called in and said I needed to go get my birthday package HAHA so somehow we were able to go to the office (30 min away from home) and pick it up :] My comp said I have the best mom ever haha, and its true :] My comp Hna W put up all the birthday decorations, made the cake from Kels, breakfast, she was just so sweet. And telling everyone it was my birthday haha. On sunday two members brought me some birhtday cake even though I had it 2 days ago :] Even mission President called and wished me a happy birthday. I REALLY missed you all though but even though I was away from home, with all the many birthday decoartions and balloons hanging around I felt at home :]

Went to the Zoo for my birthday

Tradition to eat part of the
cake before its cut!

On my birthday I had time to think about where I was at a year ago. Crazy to think a year ago on my birthday I got set apart as a missionary. I was excited but had no idea what I was getting into. I learned and grew A LOT in my 21st year of life. Weird to think when I am 22 1/2 ill be home. My mission has defiently taught me how to stand on my own two feet. I want to make a difference in the world. I want to keep changing peoples lives even after my mission. 

This thursday i will hit my year mark...I dont know what to think. Sometimes it honestly feels like its been YEARS since ive seen you all haha. Lucky me on my year mark my comp and I get to go to the temple because we have youth recent converts who are going so we get to go with them :D I'm so excited!!! The area is doing good, we are in the process of findning news. For some reason we have a good amount of same aged as us men who we are teaching haha, one of them opened the door with no shirt on the other day HAHAHA so freakin awkward. Thats what I get for having a cute companion. 

I love you all and hope everything is going well :]

Bus rides & sharing the gospel in JAIL

Buenas dias a mi familia :]

Had such a good week! Valentine's day was fun, my companion and I ended the day with watching this SUPER old mormon video "together forever" HAHA with cookies, pizza, candy, ect. Thank you to my amazing mother for being so kind and sending us stuff for Valentines :] Oh also the whole valentines day when we were in the car we wore some heart glasses that mom sent us haha.

Downtown Houston TX

A lot of things happened this week. This past week was my first time riding on the bus in Houston! It was pretty fun. We first get on the bus and the driver starts driving away before I even start to sit haha so I almost fell over. As we were sitting on the bus Hna W realized one of the passangers was a lady we have been trying to get ahold of for 3 weeks! We went and talked to her and set up an appointment :] I was SUPER nervous to talk to people on the bus. I didnt know how to walk up to them, what to say, I've never done it before. After a few minutes I got enough guts to get up from my seat and go sit behind a guy who I thought I should talk to . Right as I sat down next to him I realized he was sleeping...I started laughing because NOW everyone saw me sit down by this guy who is asleep. My companion eyeballed me to go talk to the guy behind me but I was nervous. Then I thought, "Well, maybe I can just ask him a direction question." I I turned around to him and asked, "Are we going to Downtown?" As the 26 year old started to reply I noticed something hiding on the back of his neck. I quickly realized it was a SNAKE haha so I replied, "WOW is that real?" He, E, laughed and pulled the snake from behind his neck. My companion and I were so amazed. He said the snake was a baby python...haha we were tempted to hold it but decided itd be best just to tke a pic of it. We then started talking about life and he started to explain that his mother passed away after Christmas and his dad died 2 years ago. I asked if he went to a church and he explained how after his mother died he stopped going to church. That that experience weakened his faith in God. It was a perfect opportunity to talk about the Plan of Salvation and how he will be able to see his parents again after this life. We were able to get his information so the missionaries can stop by and visit. We were able to talk to about 6 more different people on the bus, it was a really cool experience. All the people were pretty different. After talking to one guy who asked what I represented he remarked, "No I dont want missionaries to come visit me. I just started talking to you cause you have a pretty face" HAHA I just said, "Well thanks...if you want to learn more heres our website". I am excited to ride the bus more and find those who are prepared :]

Houston Bus Rides with friends 

Last night I realized how worn out missionary work makes you. After I fell asleep I woke back up at 11pm. I dont even know why but for some reason I thought it was time to get up HAHA so I pulled myself out of bed and started praying. As I was praying I thought, "Why isn't she praying too?" I was so confused and so I thought, "Well maybe I have more time to sleep" and crawled back into bed haha. I think it would be so funny in heaven to read through your prayers because I'm pretty sure in all my morning prayers I'm talking about what happened in my dreams. 

This week we also found out one of the less actives in our ward got put into jail. We decided we should go visit him and give him some hope that things will turn out okay. We got to the Jail in downtown and had to wait an hour for it to open. So we called people to try and set up appointments. Finally we were able to go in. As we walked through the doors there was a pretty good size line to see those who were in the jail. Lots of people could tell this was our first time visiting. We really did stand out from the crowd. Finally after a lot of confusion and an hour later we were just waiting for our friend to come up to the glass window. As we were waiting I was looking at ALL the other people who were talking to the inmates. Basically, I saw mothers with their children on one side of the glass trying to speak through a little speaker to their husbands on the other side of the glass-dressed in orange. It broke my heart to see families so close but so far apart. The spirit was totally not there, mothers were screaming to their kids to be quiet and yelling and cussing through the speaker to talk to their loved ones who were locked up. 

Instantly a feeling of gratitude came over me of how blessed and lucky I am to have been born to loving parents who raised me in the gospel of Jesus Christ. With this knowledge I learn of the things I need to do to make me happy, and free. As we follow Jesus Christ we really are freed and do not become inprisoned by things of the world. Finally we were able to talk to our friend. I've never met him or seen him before but somehow his face seemed familiar to me. Since we were not allowed to take ANYTHING with us to talk to the inmates we just taught through testimony to him. We told him how much God loved him and that through is son Christ we can be clean of all sins. We told him how much his family loved him and prayed for him always. He explaiend to us that many years ago he was SUCH a faithfl member in the church, he had even gone through the temple. Something happened in his life where he started to turn to alcohol to solve his probelms and became an addict to alcohol. As he talked to us he had shame in his countanence. You can tell he was upset for what he had done and wanted to change. Before leaving we asked if we could say a prayer with him, he said he would offer the prayer. With people screaming all around I could barely hear his soft words, but what I did hear touched my heart. In a place of no hope I felt peace, I felt the spirit. As E prayed his eyes filled with many tears of sorrow for what he had done and for gratitude for his family and the missioanries. Leaving the jail I came out with having an even greater desire to share the gospel with everyone. I want EVERYONE to have what I have, I feel for those who suffer.

Pizza with the Hermanas

I look at my life know and am grateful for this opportunity I have to see how our actions today really do take a big role on what happens tomorrow. This past week we also had a zone conference with our mission president. He talked about setting life long goals, we had a few minutes to write out what we wanted in our futures and how we would acheive them. One thing I mentioned was how I want to be a good wife and mother and that the mission was helping me prepare to do that. Reading my patriarchal blessing reminds me of the potential I have and how I want to always be a strong member of the church so I can fulfill what God has in store for me. Thank you for supporting me and giving me this opportinuty to serve a mission, to help others, to save souls. As I am about to hit my 22 years since I was born I still to this day am so grateful for the loving family I have. I cannot put into words my love and gratitude I have for you all :] I pray for you all individually and lvoe you with all my heart. How joyful the day will be to hug you all again :

Christmas!!

SYPING the fam & sister on her Mission in WA Vancouver!

"One hundred years from now it wont matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had in the bank nor how my clothes looked like BUT the world may be a little better because I was important in the life of a child" -Forest Witcraft

Good morning!  Thank you so soooo much for making Christmas so special!!! I made sure not to open anything until Christmas morning! But I did open the Christmas pjs and loved them :] It was kind of hectic with Skype haha but im glad everything worked out :] Aus Im sorry I didn't get to see you but know how much I love you and again I always appreciate you coming here and surprising me, im glad I got to see ya :]

Thank you for all my gifts!

The rest of Christmas day we thankfully got to see a few people. Hermana M a member in the branch taught us how to make tamales!!! Daaha they are pretty dang hard! Sad day though is we didn't get to eat them :[ The rest of the night we had no one to see so we went and caroled at members

houses and gave them candy :] the last house we went to the lady gave us a plate and guess what it was...tamales!!! Haha I was so happy! We have so much fooood I am getting sick of candy haha and Its not even gone!

Making tamales!!!!!

This week we got to do some service. We helped rack leaves for some members and had our little invtestigator k help us. Shes so cute and was so funny! At the end we had her hide under all the leaves and scare people haha it was so funny! She came to church again on sunday :] She sat two rows in front of me then during the middle hymn she moved and came and sat by me and said, "Hey! I missed you!!" Haha I love her and sitting with her, people see us together and keep telling me I am going to be a good mom :] She comes to church and brings some used scriptures and uses a happy birthday bag to hold her scriptures in.  so For Christmas we gave her a book of Mormon of her own and wrote in it :] also gave her some coloring crayons to mark her scriptures and a scripture bag (cause mom sent me an extra, thanks mom!) she loved it and now always asks us when we can read so she can mark her book of Mormon haha! we want her to be baptized but needs approval. Pray that her fam will have an open heart and allow k to be baptized!

Oh the day after Christmas we went caroling at the older peoples home....haha all the missionaries were sick and no one wanted to sing expect my comp. but it turned out well and the older people were really happy we came by :] one lady came up to me and kept giving me so many sweet complements!

Thank you again for the Christmas presents! you all did soo much and I loved every little thing :] Pray for me that I will have the strength to keep working hard! im really sick again :[ Thank you for all you do! I love you!

Going on 5th transfer in same area on a Bike

Found out today I'll be having another 6 weeks here in B Bike area. Obviously whatever God wants me to learn here I haven't learned yet haha.  if its his will that I should stay another transfer here in B that I would do everything I can to start being more dedicated to baptize our investigators. I know this is why I'm here another transfer. We have investigators who need both Hermana C and I. I know that my trials and tribulations "worketh patience" (Romans 5:3) and that I need to "continue in patience until [I] am perfected" (D&C 67:13).

I love being in this area for so long. Because I've been here since July a lot of people have remembered my name, even though its a hard one for Hispanics to say :] P the 78 year old member called us the other day and said, "Its gonna be cold outside today!! Are you going to stay inside? You probably should." Haha then we'd say, "We have to go work P! We are going outside." Then the otherday he said, 'Hermanita Jaeger did you know your name is in the bible?!!" I laughed so hard and told him I had no idea!! He said, "Yeah its in Genesis 31:47!!" In the Spanish scriptures it uses the word Jegar hahaha but in the English bible it like jegarhsaholhfeu or something like that. I thought it was so cute for some reason he went and was reading and looked up or found my name :] Like I've mentioned before I feel really loved in this area, and wanted. I know this is where I'm suppost to be.

This email is going to be pretty short because I don't have a ton to write about haha. BUT after church a member in the branch took us to go and decorate I's house for Christmas! When we got there she was on oxygen for her asthma :[ like the one the boys use to use? It was sad. I gave her a hug and started helping to decorate. Then as we were decorating her house she asked if I would help fold the laundry on her bed. I sat down by her and helped fold her laundry while everyone else decorated the house. She was so happy to see all the lights and Navitity Set! It brought a big smile onto her face :] we sang Silent night which helped bring in the spirit as well :]

During studies this week I realized something. Everyone will go through trials in life. Trials don't come because we are bad people. Job from the bible had trials, and he was a great man! Jesus Christ was perfect and he had the greatest trials of all. I know that trials come into our lives because they give us an opportunity to rely and strengthen our faith in God. Like my mom said, "God gives his toughest battles to his shoudlers". I also love what it says in my blessing that "the lord challenges those and allows adversity to  come into the lives of the great ones". How grateful I am to be here on a mission. I love this time of year!!! The spirit of Christ is just so strong during this time of year. Hope you all have agreat week :] I love you!