Dear Family,

This 4th of July we were so blessed because we got to do a service project at one of the members of the ward, Sister Sanders, house.  Because of health problems Sister Sanders is unable to go to the 2nd story of her house very often and so she wanted our help cleaning it.  She takes in a lot of different tenants that stay up there, a lot of which don't have anywhere else to go or any money to pay her.  It was quite a mess up there and she was upset about how ungrateful her tenants had been and how they treated her home and her stuff.  It was something that anyone would have been upset about but she kept on telling herself that she just needed to be okay with that and let them in as they were.  We told her that even though her tenants didn't show gratitude that God was grateful that she was so willing to do that.  I was reading in Mosiah 2 today and I read "And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn ^awisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the ^bservice of your ^cfellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."  Sometimes we just need to remember that we should do good things even when it seems that we those we do them for aren't grateful for what we're doing because God is grateful.  I try to remember that as I'm doing missionary work and those that I teach don't seem to care the sacrifice that I'm making for their salvation.  But God cares.  It was also neat learning about her past and looking through her "treasures" and learning more about her.  Overall it was a fantastic 4th of July.

Yesterday I had a wonderful day.  Because Sister Laurent is the president's niece they invited our companionship over for dinner.  We had chicken-pot-pie and coconut cream cake and it was so good.  It also made it so that I was more comfortable around President Ashton being able to sit with his family in a very casual setting.  It's also nice to see how his family behaves and their personality.  They have such a wonderful family.

I've been really working on building courage this week.  Pray for me to have the courage to admit to things that I've done wrong, to have the courage to teach confidently, and mostly just have courage over all.  I think about all of the prophets and how much courage they have.  I think about my mission president and how much courage he has.  It truly takes a lot of courage to be a missionary.

Love,

Sister Ashley Naylor