5th Email from NY

Hello Everyone!

I don't have much to say this week. It's been kind of a slow week. I guess one exciting thing happened. We had what they call, "Return and Report" for all the missionaries who came out with me. After a month of being in the mission, we all went back to the Mission office. I got to see Sister Cox! We had a long meeting and training, with lunch and more meetings. It was so good to see my MTC district. It was also fun to see how much each of them had changed in just being out in the mission field for a month, and hearing all of their different experiences and successes. It was especially fun seeing all of the Elders. They are no longer immature boys, but now immature "men" :c) jk. But they were all more confident, and responsible than before. It was GREAT!

Life here in Ogdensburg seems to be at kind of a stand still. We are working with 18 different investigators, but none of them want to move forward. We have a couple of "Eternal Investigators" One guy said I am the 20th Missionary who he was been taught by. I think he has been meeting with missionaries now for 4 years or so. It is CRAZY! We do have some good new investigators though, so we are praying they will keep commitments and be truly converted. We are hopefully planting many seeds. We'll just have to wait and see. I am definitely learning a lot out here and am definitely in the "refiners fire." The mission is a lot harder than I thought it would be, but I know I won't regret it! I'm just grateful the Lord trusts me to serve Him and to bring others unto Him. I know this church is true and just wish everyone could feel the way I feel about the Gospel. I love you all!

Love, Sister Simmons

Photos from New York

* Captions provided by the missionary herself :)

At the MTC

At the MTC


District at the MTC


Sunset and view from our backyard


My Companion: Sister Despain


Zone Conference, All the sisters:
Sister Johnson, Me, Sister Livermore, Sister Rasmussen, Sister Bullouch, Sister Despain, Sister Stewart


Beautiful view while tracting :) No horses in sight!

4th Email from New York

Hello Everyone!

So I heard about the heat in Utah! I laugh at you. It isn't hot at all here! Right now it is about 65 or 70 degrees out and I hear summer is almost over. Maybe 2 more weeks :c) The rain here is CRAZY though!!! I have never seen so much rain in my life. I actually had to pull over to the side of the road the other day because it was raining so hard you couldn't see anything. And lightning struck like 50 feet in front of us. It was INSANE!!! I couldn't believe my eyes!

This week we had the Exchange Sisters. I now have a new love for exchanges. I was way nervous for them at first because that would be getting me out of my comfort zone even more than I am right now, and I also had to drive and know the area. I was way nervous, but it turned out great. Sister Stewart and Sister Livermore came up to Ogdensburg and did exchanges with us. I had the chance to work with both of them for half a day each. It was fun getting to know more sisters and seeing how they do things differently and then learning from them.

We also had zone conference this week. This was fun too! We met with all the missionaries in our zone and had a bunch of training. It is always fun getting together with other missionaries. It was one day full of learning!

New York doesn't celebrate the 24th of July, but.... Mormons do! We are having a big pioneer day cookout for the branch. So yes, we will be celebrating along with all ya'll in Utah :c) Sadly as missionaries, we can only stay for an hour. But that's okay, we gotta' get to work!

Missionary work out here is rough. People don't keep their commitments. We have been trying to get investigators to church since I got here and we haven't had one investigator come yet. All of our investigators who seem pretty solid randomly drop us and tell us not to come back. It's really rough. But we are doing our best. Everyone has their agency.

Ratz! Time is running out. Sorry the e-mail is short. I Don't have anymore time to write sadly. Hope all is well with everyone!

Love you,
Sister Ashleigh Simmons

3rd Email from NY

Hello Everyone,

Mondays are just as exciting for me as they are for you because I get to read email, and write letters. That's so exciting to know that I am part of the "Missionary Minute" now. I always enjoyed listening to the updates of the other missionaries in the ward, and now I am one of them. Sounds like your week was pretty busy. We had a couple of celebrations too. On July 1st, that is Canada day (or something like that) so Canada was doing a big firework show and since we are right by Canada, we could see it. It was awesome. Then on the 3rd of July, we had a BBQ with a bunch of people and ward members in someones backyard. It was way fun! I was surprised though. They don't do fireworks here in the North Country. They don't even sell them in the stores. That was a little weird to me. It is a good thing though since we go to bed so early. We didn't have try to go to sleep with fireworks in the background.

So, the members here are awesome. There is one family, The Gaines Family, who are recent converts. They just moved to Ohio! It was a sad day. They were like our family. We would go over for dinner every Saturday. Then on Sunday, we would have dinner with them at the Johnson's, and then on Tuesdays, we would go over for dinner to the Williams, but they would also be there. We would also eat lunch at their house on Thursday's usually. So we saw them a lot. They are an amazing family and we miss them already.

The Williams family is also amazing! They are also recent converts and were Baptized on Valentines Day! They are in the Mormon Times today. You should look it up. It has a little bit of their conversion story in it. Look up Mormon Times+Due West+Dave and Heather Williams. Or something like that. They are so good to us also. Every Tuesday night we go over to their place for dinner. They are moving too though. But hopefully they will be able to stay in our branch because our branch is tiny. The Branch President is also thinking about moving. We can't have any more people move because our branch is already small. We need it to grow not shrink. We are hoping that once everyone moves, we will still be able to have a branch. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

First story. So one of the members has a pitbull for a pet dog. I bet you wouldn't believe me, but her pitbull fell asleep in my lap. Yup. It was a little weird. She said that means she trusts me. I was just afraid that if I moved my body wrong, I might get attacked. But I was okay thank goodness.Even though that is a nice dog, I officially hate dogs. They bark too much and I fear for my life sometimes :c) Yesterday when we were tracting we almost got eaten like 5 times. One of the times it was a screen door. I knocked on the door and two dogs came flying at the door and the door flew open. They came out of the house and were just growling at us. It scared me half to death. I literally saw my life flash before my eyes. At another house there were also two dogs. They were pitbulls. The slammed into the door and were barking and growling like crazy. The lady yelled, " I would back away from the door if I were you!" I am glad I am still alive :c) yup. I hate dogs. I haven't been eaten yet. But I hate barking, angry dogs now and they are everywhere! I have been eaten by something else though... Are you ready for this. MOSQUITOES! They are everywhere! I think I get like 5 more bites everyday. Especially when we have to walk through weeds and long grass to get to someones door. Thank goodness for anti-itch cream.

So last week, when I said it doesn't get too hot here, I spoke too soon! It got up to 101 with a high percentage of humidity. It was insane. I have never sweat so much in my entire life. I have lost 10 whole pounds from sweating so much and walking so much! it is insane. Luckily we don't have to wear nylons :c)

Well, Goodluck to Brianna and Shelby in their Try-outs for HAIRSPRAY!!!!! I have a feeling you will both make it, especially since I won't be able to see it :c) jk. I hope you both make it and someone will have to record it for me for later!

I have not gotten your letters yet. But I am glad to hear you got mine :c) It takes a little bit longer to get to me since it has to be forwarded from the Mission Office. Hopefully they will get here soon! I am anxious to read them. Pictures may be coming soon. We just have to go get them developed. You know, you could send me pictures too. I want to see all your great adventures.

Being on a mission, I think I have a little more of a taste of being like Christ. First, the rejection. Rejection is hard and painful sometimes. Second the sorrow you feel for people that you learn to love who drop themselves as investigators. People who are so close to baptism that just ask you not to come back again. It is hard getting to know people and love them, and then being asked to never come back again. We respect their wishes. Now I have a small taste of what Christ had to deal with being rejected, and people turning away from what they knew was right. (I don't even know if I am making sense right now). But I know that there is no better place for me to be right now and no better thing for me to be doing. I look at it like this, even though I miss you all LOADS, I am away from my family for 18 MONTHS so that I can help bring families together for ETERNITY. Being away from my family for 18 months is nothing compared to eternity!

Well, my time is up :c(

I love you all,
Sister Simmons

p.s. I wouldn't mind more letters :c) jk

Hello!

Dear Family and Friends-

How's it going in Utah? What's the weather like there? It hasn't been too bad up here at the top of the United States :o) The hottest it has gotten is 80 degrees and it hasn't felt too humid. Today is a little bit more humid, but it is still bearable. I got my first sunburn yesterday. I need to start wearing sunscreen now :o) I have a sweet farmers tan too! (or we can call it a modesty tan). Anyways, yesterday was the first day I didn't have to wear nylons. We have to wear nylons if the temperature is under 75 degrees. I think when the mission is over, nylons will be the one thing I will be happy to get rid of :o) not that I'm thinking about coming home, but I got the date I will be coming home. it is December 20, 2011. Right before Christmas! I will be the best Christmas present anyone ever got! jk. Just thought I'd let you know just in case you wanted to make a countdown or something. :o)

Okay, funny story. Yesterday we were tracting and ran into a lady and 2 men that were sitting out in the woods having a little BBQ. They had us sit down because they wanted to hear more about our church. We were excited to teach them. We noticed they were drinking beer and asked them if they were drunk. They said no, so we moved on. As we were talking to them trying to get to know them better, they would laugh like every 10 seconds at things we said. We didn't say anything funny. Well, we started to teach them a little bit, but would only get a sentence in before they would laugh more, or change the subject. Well, while my companion was talking, I started counting how many empty beer cans there were just around them. From where I was sitting, I counted 20 between the 3 of them. Is that a lot? I don't know much about beer. Well, anyways, we weren't getting very far with teaching them, so we said we would come back when they weren't drunk. Yup, we said that to them. The one guy agreed that would be better... I don't think we're going back there. We said if we do come back, that we would bring our friends, the Johnson's. (The senior couple in our area of the mission). so yeah. I don't know if that is funny to you, but it is funny to My companion and I. You may have just needed to be there for it to be funny.

Anyways, the area out here is really struggling. We get really good investigators, but no one is willing to keep commitments. There are a couple of investigators who KNOW all of this is true, and they know what they need to do, but they aren't willing to do it. Like coming to church is one of those commitments. Church is so hard for people sometimes because they have to drive so far to get there. I think the furthest someone has to drive in our branch is like an hour and a half. Talk about commitment there! But we are working with them.

So, I told you all that our branch is really small right? well, it is shrinking. We have two families moving soon. That's like 25% of our branch gone. We are working hard to build the branch up. If all of the inactives came to church, we could have a ward! So we are working with a lot of the less actives, and then trying to get more investigators.

Well, I am working on becoming a better missionary and learning a lot. I think I will be working on it my whole mission. There is always room for improvement right? and I have a lot of improvement to do!!! I think the one thing I have learned the most is that I can't do this on my own. I need the Lord. This is the Lord's work.

well, my hour is almost up and I have to write my letter to my Mission President still. But write me back!!!

Love you,

Sister Ashleigh Simmons

Mission Presidents Picture