We are a team!!

I need to apologize again because I am sending another short email. I have been spending a lot of time emailing President Van Cott. He is so awesome! He is really helping me. I can do this!

On Saturday we went on exchanges. Sister Peterson and Sister Rivera are my STL's. I know for a fact that being an STL last transfer was completely inspired. I already kind of knew Sister Rivera because she was Sis Mags companion before me and I met her a few times, but going to MLC I got to see how the STL's are trained. I got to know these two sisters so I knew I could trust them. I personally prayed to know how I could help the Sisters I was over. I know how exchanges work from the other end so I knew exchanges was going to be a GOOD THING and that it was really going to help me.

Side note, I met Sister Peterson before the mission! Her cousin lived down the hall at Snow from me and she came and visited so I met her! Cool right? Both of these sisters are awesome. We are doing exchanges again so I will have to get a picture to you all.

Anyway, I went with Sister Peterson and Sister Rivera came here with Sister Hamblin. They saw two people that we are working with. Sister Rivera said that they were both upset when they saw her because they thought I left. People here love me! Yay! I'm doing something right!

I have learned a lot about agency this transfer. It's our choice to feel sad or happy. I just decided to lean on the Lord when I start to feel down. I am choosing to be happy.  

I have also realized that I am not alone. I have a great team. I have a ton of missionaries here that I can talk to and rely on. And I have a rockin team back home! Thank you all so much for all of your support and love! You are helping these people here too because you are helping me!

President Richie's letters are awesome. I read one a day. I am trying really hard to be a ZION missionary. And I am really proud of you guys. Reading your scriptures is SO IMPORTANT. Keep doing it everyday! It just makes you feel so much better :)

I love all of you! So much!

Love, 

Ashlee

Sister Stalder is in my zone now and we wore the same skirt to zone meeting. I just really love her :)

This week for service we built this little girl's doll house. Don't worry this picture was just taken at a really awkward angle and I'm like bending over so I look super fat. It's fine.

Here's a picture of a really REALLY nice park in Fontana. Palm trees and Cali flag included ;)

This is my desk this transfer. Don't worry dad, I always remember every morning to tell them Hot Rod sent me

Well. This. Is. Weird....

Alright before I begin I just want all of you to know that I have no idea where I am going with this and this is probably going to be a really short email because I don't have very much time left. 

Also. Yesterday was just weird. I absolutely LOVED seeing all of you, but it was weird. I feel really bad because I had a whole bunch of stuff that I wanted to talk to you about, but I just ended up crying and yeah. 

Above anything else I want you all to know that I am okay. Actually. I am more than okay. I'M SO GREAT! Being a missionary in Fontana is such an awesome adventure! I am really growing to love the members here. There are some really REALLY awesome people that I am working with. 

Juan is still awesome. Actually did I write this in my last email? Probably not. But guess what?! I invited Juan to be baptized! And he accepted! YAY! It was the greatest feeling EVER! He is going to be baptized on May 30th. But he doesn't live in this area...

Another problem with this area is that the members are great and they want to share the gospel, but all the people they want to share it with don't live here... All of the converts in this ward since December don't even live in the ward boundaries. 

Right now we are working with one of the neighbors of this AWESOME family, the McEwans. Wow they are just so great. We met her when we were walking to go see the McEwans and talked to her for a long time about the importance of family and motherhood. For mother's day we made caramel corn (mom it's so good you have to make it. 2 bags of sea salt popcorn. Heat up 1 cup karo syrup, 1 stick of butter, and 1 cup of brown sugar on the stove then mix it with the pop corn. YUM). We have been working really closely with the RS President who is also awesome. She gave us a whole list of people to try. Anyway. We added their neighbor to the mother's day list and she LOVED seeing us! She was going on and on about how nice we are and how glad she was that we were friends. I just have this feeling that I need to teach her the gospel. It's probably because I am a missionary.

Well there is still so much to say. But time is up. I took pictures of my journal entries the past week so I will send them to you so you have a better idea of what's going on.
I love all of you so much! Never forget that we have trials for a reason and Heavenly Father never gives us more than we can handle!

Love, 

Sister Shlee

This is the very top of our area. It was really cloudy this day, but it still looked pretty cool!

It took a couple of trys to get a selfie....

Here I am with Sister Stoddard's tortoise 

Here I am with Sister Stoddard and her tortoise

Here are Sister Stoddard's really cool pinball machines. I like Sister Stoddard!

May the Fourth Be With You

So much has happened! I'm so glad that I get 

to call home on Sunday and tell you about it 

because I only have 15 minutes and I don't 

think I will be able to get it all in! 

Okay so Tuesday was my last day in Banning. 

Something that was really cool was the last 

people I visited were the Belcher's. It was 

really weird because they were also the first 

people that we visited when I got to Banning.

The Dream Team.

I miss her. So. Much.

Of course I got a little teary eyed when I said 

goodbye to Sister Magleby at the transfer 

meeting. She is staying in Banning this 

transfer with Sister Bullen. After this transfer 

she will have been in Banning for 6 months! 

Do you remember my MTC companion Sister 

Stalder? Well I was her STL last transfer. Oh 

yeah I forgot to mention that I am not a STL 

this transfer. Anyway. Sister Stalder is also in 

Fontana. She is in my zone. I drove Sister 

Stalder and her companion Sister Landgren to their apartment. Poor Sister Stalder just can't get rid of me!

So we don't actually live in our area. We live 

in Rialto which is about 10 miles away from 

our area. We live with two hermanas- 

Jimenez and Wright. Hermana Jimenez is 

training Hermana Wright. Hermana Wright 

is going home the same time I am! They are both so cute! I love being their roomie :)

Okay I am pretty much out of time, but before I go I want to tell you about two miracles that happened this week. First, we got a new investigator the second day I got here. His name is Juan. The former Stake President (President Sears) is in our ward and he called us right after I got here and told us that his friend Juan wants to take the lessons. Juan is 32 years old AND HE IS AWESOME! He seriously has the most real intent and sincere desire out of anyone I have ever seen! We meet with him every other day. Last night he told me that he knew I was sent to Fontana to teach him. In his closing prayer he said that he was so grateful Sister Hamblin and I took time to meet with him and that it meant everything to him. WHY IS HEAVENLY FATHER JUST BLESSING ME SO MUCH I DON'T EVEN GET IT! I'm just this teen-aged girl trying to figure out who I am and what Heavenly Father wants me to do! And he's just like well Sister Olsen here is Juan! And Juan is golden!  I seriously just feel so humbled. Heavenly Father could totally come down and teach Juan. He doesn't even need me. But for some reason he is trusting me. Please just pray that I don't mess up.  I'm really worried that I will screw up the lessons. And really just all the lessons with everyone. I study and pray really hard everyday. Even though I'm killer nervous, I still have faith that Heavenly Father is going to help me and tell me what I need to say and do. All is well :)

Second miracle. We had met all of the 

neighbors of the kid in our ward that was 

getting baptized and invited all of them and 

had his mom invite all of them to hisbaptism. 

So basically all morning I was just praying 

that one of them would show up so we 

wouldn't have to awkwardly leave if they 

weren't there. And like 5 of their neighbors 

came. We got to sit with them and it was 

really cool.

We spend a lot of time walking.  I actually really like walking. We have had some awesome conversations with people on the street. And we have TWO TARGETS now! YAY!!!!! What a blessing!

Well it's time to sign off. I don't want you to 

worry about me. The first couple of days here 

were hard, but I have had a positive attitude. I have just tried really hard to love everyone and be really happy and talkative to everyone around me. My new companion Sister Hamblin is helping me a lot. I know I have TONS to learn from her. Even though I'm crazy stressed and did my fair share of crying last week when I left Banning, somehow I'm still happy. Heavenly Father is seriously blessing me so much with this incredible peaceful feeling. I know that I am here for a reason. This is where He needs me. You can bet your bottom dollar that I am going to do EVERYTHING in my power to get this ward PUMPED and get this area moving! I am SO EXCITED!

I love all of you! I'm SO EXCITED TO TALK 

TO YOU ON SUNDAY! I don't really know 

how that's happening...so stay by your 

phones :)

TALK TO YOU SOON!

Love, Ashlee

This is the dinosaur from Peewee's big adventure. He couldn't quite grasp the Book of Mormon...

Saying goodbye to Monique and her family.

Saying goodbye to Sister Lee. I just love this woman with all my heart!!

Here is our wall of quotes. You probably won't get any of them because they are mostly inside jokes...

And here are the Miller's.  I just love this family so much. You really do grow to love people when you serve with them.

This is my new companion Sister Hamblin. We have like 5 7-11's in our area so that's a blessing. I'm probably going to get slurpees like every other day.

And the moment you have all been waiting for! North Fontana.

Also. There is an entrance to I-15 in our area. So I'm pretty sure if I took this road I could get to gma's in like 10 hours.

Bye Bye Banning! Greenie-Be-Gone

The time has come. I am being transferred.

I CAN'T TELL YOU HOW WEIRD THIS IS. I HAVE BEEN A MISSIONARY LONG ENOUGH TO BE IN A DIFFERENT AREA WHATTTTT.

Sister Magleby and I proselyting in the rain. The work never stops!

 Also I am officially done with training. Now I'm just a regular old joe; not a greenie. This is weird. Time is going by really fast. I am now going to be serving in Fontana in the Summitt Ward with Sister Hamblin. No idea who that is, but I guess I will be finding out on Wednesday!

Seriously so many miracles have happened this past week that I don't even know where to begin!

I guess I will start with District meeting. We have district meeting every Tuesday morning. Elder Glenn was my first district leader. He taught me a lot of stuff that was just really great. Every Tuesday I was seriously so uplifted and everything he said really helped me. This past week we talked about Great Faith and Mighty Prayer. That's actually something that our mission president has been talking about a lot and something that I have really been trying to work on. Something I have really been thinking about is how in the scriptures it says that spirit is matter. We can literally have more of faith or less of it. We acquire more faith by our prayers- the language we use and by truly PLEADING on our knees with our Heavenly Father. We talked about that and how we can really be guided by the spirit and have more success as missionaries if we really GET DOWN on our KNEES and PLEAD with God. Anyway this district meeting was like this huge pump up thing and we all walked away like YES!! LETS CONQUER THE WORLD!!!...

...then the rest of the day was really hard...

Banning right now is in the building stages. It's been pretty hard on a lot of us because only one companionship in our area has had a baptism since we have been here. Missionary work is just really hard. BUT because of that, instead of getting discouraged I try REALLY HARD to just have faith that everything is according to God's plan and I just pray my little heart out.

And the rest of the week was just full of 

miracles.

First I will tell you about exchanges. Like always, I pray and pray and pray when we go on exchanges that I can be led where we need to be and how I can help the people in my area and the sister I am with. It was Thursday night at like 8 pm and something just didn't feel right. So Sister Jones and I (the sister I was doing exchanges with) pulled over in the McDonald's parking lot and I prayed and prayed. Nothing came to me. But I did notice that there were like a million people in McDonalds so I just thought somebody in there probably needs the gospel and we went in. 

Right when we walked in this 15-year-old boy walked up to us and was like "Hi Sisters!" And I had no idea who he was so I asked him what ward he was in. Turns out he was from Arizona. He said that there were a million people at McDonald's because of this choir trip he was on. He introduced us to his friends and we were able to give some of them Because He Lives cards and talk to them about the Resurrection. So that was pretty cool.

In the mornings, Sister Magleby and I usually run. But on Friday we were both just feeling super tired and out of it so we decided to walk. We came across this man  who was just outside walking. He said he was trying to clear his head before he woke up his girls. He told us about all of these trials he is going through right now and praying and praying and praying that God would send him someone or something that would help him.

And here come us...the missionaries.

So we were able to talk to him and all three of us really felt like our conversation was meant to be. Now he is an investigator. Good thing we just decided to walk that morning.

Another thing I was really praying for was a confirmation that I was helping someone in someway. I guess that was kind of a selfish thing to pray for... but I got a ton of answers to my prayers. We had an awesome lesson with one of our investigators on Tuesday.  He told us how much we meant to him. He said it meant a lot that we were taking time out of our lives to help people like him. And he said that he was really glad we were friends. So that was tender.

Then last night we had dinner with the Belcher family. Sister Belcher is from Brazil and she served her mission there too. Her husband just got baptized last year and he is now the High Priest Group leader in the Banning ward. She was telling us all about her mission and all of these wonderful people she met. Sister Mags and I had been talking a lot about how missionaries are pretty disposable so we told Sister Belcher about that. She got really emotional and said something like "Never say that! WE LOVE YOU. You are helping more people that you realize. YOU are CHANGING LIVES."

So I was all touched because Heavenly Father answered my prayers and made me feel a whole lot better, but then I realized something. I am not changing lives at all. The Holy Ghost is. I GET the privilege of being an instrument of the Lord for just 18 short months. I can't tell you how amazing and humbling that feels. It's not about me at all. I GET to see lives changed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Also. Our investigator we have been trying and trying to get to church since I got here FINALLY came to church on Sunday! My last Sunday in Banning Ward. What a miracle/blessing. I want to thank all of you for your prayers concerning her. It has seriously helped so much. Heavenly Father has great plans for that family so keep praying!

Alright I'm about out of time. I wish I could just video tape my life and let you watch it. Heavenly Father is blessing me so much and I get to see all of these miracles and there isn't even time to tell you half of them. But. I did something really scary... I prayed for trials. Yup. I did it. I need a trial because I need a reason to get on my knees more and I need experiences that will change me and help prepare me to be a flipping awesome mom. So I did it. Please keep  me in your prayers because I know that something really hard is about to happen. But it's going to be the best blessing ever!

I really love all of you so much!

Love, Ashlee

P.S. I saw a billboard for the Charlie Daniels band. They are coming to Cabazon next month. Baby Charlie Daniels is a lot cuter than the fiddler Charlie Daniels.

Here is a couple of pictures from exchanges. I took better ones at the temple, but then they all got deleted last week sooo.. And yes. That is my lovely MTC comp Sister Stalder and her companion Sister Jones.

Throw back to my very first member dinner with the Holland's :) I love these people

Remember that picture I sent of the best meal I had ever had? Well this is round two. The Lagazo's son had a birthday party and there was even MORE delicious Filipino food! YAY!

The Holland's have a band and they played at the party. It was really great!

These are the Morenos. I just said good bye to them. They have taken such good care of Sister Magleby and I, and I really can't tell you how much I love them. Also we just took these so that's why I'm in PDAY clothes. We played games for pday today at their house

We have the same water bottle. We discovered it looks funny when you put it up to your face.

Rain or Shine! We are working hard!!

Heres a picture of me blowing bubbles during lunch. That was a good time.

Three whole months????

Well I guess I technically hit 3 months tomorrow, but still! That's 1/6 of my whole mission! It feels like time is flying! Well not all the time... but looking back as a whole is weird.

Let's talk about funny things; things I never thought I would do on my mission first. Remember the pictures of the camel and donkey? Well apparently Arnold Schwarzenegger's ex-wife lives in that neighborhood. I couldn't remember if I told you that already, but I thought you would enjoy that.

Also. Last week we went to Wienerschitzel to get a corn dog and the lady that took my order was like in awe of us. She wanted to know if we were nuns so I told her we were missionaries for the church and gave my schpeal and she was like oooo-ing and aw-ing. Then when she gave me my order she handed me my tray, then proceeded to bow and say "my lady". It was really quite hilarious.

Abe Lincoln's head was pretty awesome. There's something I never thought I would see on my mission.

Here's something that I also thought would never happen on my mission- all of the pictures on my camera got erased. Good thing I have been sending you most of them, but I had some REALLY cool pictures of Idlywild this week. Also I got to go to Redlands on exchanges and had Chick-fil-a and slurpees for the first time since I was home and they all got erased. Luckily Sis Mags took some pics at Idlywild. But all the pictures she had of me are really gross soo....I apologize for that. I don't really look like a representative of Jesus Christ in some of those pics. At least we still have Abe's head. That's what is really important.

But I really hope you are all saving my pictures because this could probably happen again in the future. Luckily we are getting IPads in a few months.

The work in Banning is really moving forward. We have a ton of AMAZING potential investigators. This week Sis. Mags and I are planning on inviting a lot of people to take the lessons, so I am pretty excited about that. We plan on having a lot of new investigators by the time the transfer ends- WHICH IS NEXT WEEK.

Oh and yes; we should address this. I only have one more week of training! This is my last greenie week! After the end of this transfer I will cease to be a padewon and become a full on Jedi Knight!

Anyway like I said, the members here in Banning are really helping us. And we are really connecting with people. I love it; it's awesome.

This week the Valencia family really outdid themselves. The Valencia's are a rockin' family in our ward. They went out of their way to pick up a less active girl for activity days and church this week without us even asking. What awesome member missionaries. I hope you are helping out the missionaries back home.

We had a really good lesson on Friday night with one of our investigators. She texted us right before church started and said she was putting on shoes and brushing teeth, but then didn't come. I've just decided I need to respect her agency and love her to death. Don't give up, but don't get discouraged.

Another neat lady we are working with came to church, too! We didn't expect her to come at all! She is this really sweet lady. I need to take a picture with her; she is just darling.

Well, that's about it for this week! When we were sitting in church I was quite discouraged because our investigator wasn't there, but I read the lyrics to "How Firm A Foundation" and it gave me a lot of comfort:

"Fear not, I am with thee; oh be not dismayed. For I am thy God and will still give thee aid. I'll strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to stand. Upheld by my righteous, Omnipotent hand."

The church is true, I love you all and I am happy!

Love,

Ashlee

We went to this referral up on the bench and it was this giant house. Too bad the house was completely empty.... so we took a selfie.

No one's home! Or lives here!

This is Idlywild. It's the furthest place in our area so we had never gone before, but it's gorgeous! We went up there to deliver some birthday cards.

There was a lot of cool, random stuff up there in Idlywild. The whole time we were singing Jessica's theme because it looked like Man From Snowy River country! SO cool! Here's an Idlywild selfie.

Here's a picture of a giant statue of Abe Lincolns head we found while we were in Idlywild. Did I mention "random stuff?"

One more Idylwild selfie.

Okay. This is the last one. Promise.

This is Freattie. We love Freattie! He's actually a super funny really cool dude. We named that huge plant Paul.

This is Sister Schroth. I think I've sent a picture of her before. I absolutley love this woman! She is the president of the Quilters Guild. It's pretty awesome. All the cool ladies in Banning and Beaumont go. We go and help with it sometimes.

These are some of my favorite Young Women! L-R. Michelle Moreno, Madison  Westbrook, and Emily Moreno.  I absolutely adore them! Some of the greatest member missionaries I know!