This week has been a super busy week, but a great one nonetheless. This week we had interviews with our mission president which were super cool! Mission presidents are great; they have been called of God to oversee and direct the work of Christ in their assigned area and they have some wise counsel.
These past few weeks, among other things, I have been studying the Doctrine and Covenants. While there are sections that may seem a bit dry or unrelated to you at that moment, it is amazing to see how many truths and precious things have been restored through prophets and modern day revelation. Along with the Book of Mormon, so many doctrines are made clear that are hard to interpret in the Bible alone. The scriptures state that the Lord delighteth in plainness and that the Gospel shall be made know unto man in his own tongue. The Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Mormon do just that, they lay out so many of our beliefs in simple and fairly easy to understand language, it's fantastic!
Also the ward here in TKO is amazing! They are so willing to help us with the work and fellowship investigators. One of the things that Gordon B. Hinckley emphasized was the importance of friends for new investigators. If the investigators have a friend they trust and can rely on, it makes their conversion go so much more smoothly.
Also, something fun I learned this week about Cantonese: if you say the word for “atonement” with the wrong tones, it ends up being the word for “hangover”. So for all of you English speakers out there, be grateful that the missionaries that come and talk to you can easily distinguish those two words.
This week we get to go to the temple which is super exciting so we are all looking forward to the blessings that the temple brings. Have a great week and don't forget that you are a child of God!
Sincerely,
Elder Ashton
Fun fact 1: Elder Ashton was emailing a day late because of their adjusted schedule this week. Mom didn’t know about this so she was happy to hear from him.
Fun fact 2: He had a nice Easter and a little kid from the ward gave them some Easter M&Ms!
Fun fact 3: They had a music fireside which went well-and a nice member took pictures that included Elder Ashton-no pictures from him this week. But he did think next week-because I guess they get to go visit another island.
You can email Elder Ashton at joel.ashton@myldsmail.net
At this time he was told to share the mission home address if you would like to send him regular mail:
Elder Joel Ashton
18 Dorset Crescent
Kowloon Tong
Kowloon City
Hong Kong