Happy

This week was amazing, one of the most amazing of amazing weeks ever!

So this week was Elder Mitchell's last week here, which is really sad, so we planned on going harder than ever before. Which we did, we went out everyday doing more than what is expected and expecting miracles. Elder Mitchell went on a lot of exchanges this week, so he was only able to work in our area for about half the week.

We did a lot this week to prepare for the Pierce family's baptism. We asked them who they wanted to baptism them. The 8 year old  asked me to baptize him,  the 11 year old  asked Elder Mitchell to baptize him, and the mom asked Elder Porter to baptize her. So we would all be dressed in white for it! The last thing left to do was the interviews! We went over the BIQs, (baptismal interview questions),
several times to make sure they would all be able to pass. They were solid!

Friday Prez came down to interview the mom for her baptism, which she passed!! And the Zone Leaders interviewed the kids, and they passed too! So the baptism was good to go. After the interview Prez stayed and went out to work with Elder Mitchell. They were able to find a new
investigator and put her on date!

Saturday was the baptism! So the first half of the day was spent running around and rounding up investigators to attend the baptism. After a good chunk of time doing that we went to the church to get everything ready.

The church was packed with members from the ward and investigators from nearly every companionship in Topeka. Before the baptism there was a talk about baptism and the Holy Ghost given by one of the most solid recent converts ever. He got baptized last month and is already
preparing for a mission. It was a really awesome talk. After, we made our way over to the font, then they were baptized!!

Sunday in church the same people who baptized them confirmed them. It was my first time confirming, so I was a little nervous. But it went great!

I found out today that I will be transferred, so it will be hard to say goodbye to that family. But I'm excited for my adventures in Wichita! My new zone leader will be Elder Colemere so I'm excited to serve around him again.

- Elder Andrasko

The Best of Times

This past week was crazy! We had so many meetings and so little time to work. But despite all that we still had an amazing week!

For P-Day we had a crazy water balloon fight with the whole zone! The water balloons had color in them and so they would temporarily dye our clothes. We ran out of balloons in like 5 minutes. It was a ton of fun.

Tuesday we had zone conference, which was like a 9 hour meeting where we learn how to be good missionaries, all 4 APs and the mission president gave trainings. It was super awesome and I learned so much!


Wednesday we had our weekly zone pow wow and district meeting. We had trainings from our zone leaders and our district leader, we did role plays to practice what we learned in zone conference, being COEO, which means being able to capitalize on every opportunity. We did several different role plays where there was a million different
things going on and we had to do whatever we could to capitalize on it. Afterwards we were able to go out and work.

This week we've really been focusing on A_____ and her family, it's been amazing to see their progression and A_____ has been able to live the word of wisdom for almost two weeks. So if all goes well she and two of her sons will be baptized at the end of the week. What is awesome is that our whole trio is going to be able to baptism someone
in the family, so we will all be dressed in white! The only thing that could hold her back is her interview. She has to be interviewed by our mission president Friday.

One of our other investigators, L_____, basically dropped off the face of the planet. We stopped by his house every single day. Near the end of the week we found out that he had moved a few houses down. When we stopped by we found out he had a cyst that he got taken out of his back. But he promised us that he hasn't smoked or drank all week.
Unfortunately he wasn't able to make it to church. So hopefully we can find him a ride to church this Sunday and he can progress to be baptized on the 9th.

S____y we had to pass off to the sisters, but we were able to help her find a new place to live, and she should be moving in any day now!! We also found out  her aunt has been a member for the past 25 years and was telling her how much the church could bless her life. So the sister have a golden investigator.

This next week should be huge for our district, at least 7 baptisms! Since it's Elder Mitchell's last week he wants to go really hard, quadruple standard! So needless to say this next week is going to be the best week of my entire mission.

Love you all hope you have a good week!

- Elder Andrasko

Feed My Sheep

My first full week in Topeka was awesome! We have been able to find and teach so many great people.

This past week we started teaching two families.

One day we were riding our bikes towards an appointment and there is this lady on her porch enjoying a nice cigarette, when she calls out and says, "Y'all got any literature I can read?" So of course we stopped and started to talk about the Book of Mormon, then her husband steps out and starts listening and asks "Can I get me one of those too?".  They have 4 kids and love learning about Jesus. Unfortunately we went to talk to them one day and the husband told us he was interested in what we believed so he googled us. He ended up finding a lot of anti Mormon stuff, we sorted it all out, but they don't seem nearly as interested as they were before. So we'll see what happens.

The Pierce family is really super awesome! One day we went out to see a potential investigator, but he wasn't home, we ended up talking to his mom a little bit and she told us of one of her friends who needed
help moving. We of course said that we would help, hopped on our bikes and rode a few blocks and helped her out! The mother is a single mom with 4 kids, and they are on date for the 25th!! She even gave us her
cigarettes! And yesterday at church she bonded with a lot of the ladies in Relief Society, she walked out telling everyone she'll see them next week! So if all goes right they will be Elder Mitchell's last baptism, and my first family!

So we were driving down the street when we were stopped by this guy who looked a little crazy. He proceeded to ask of we were Mormons. When we answered in the affirmative he told us about how we was meeting with missionaries before and how much they were helping him out. We stopped by the next day, committed him to live the word of wisdom and proceeded to put him on date for July 2nd! He is a cool guy who used to be a minister, he told us how much he likes our church and seemed genuinely interested.

We went to see the lady who we put on date last week who we gave a blessing to, we hadn't been able to get in contact with her for awhile. But we saw her yesterday and she said she was looking for a place to rent, and it turned out we knew of a place. We were able to talk to one of her friends, who turned out was meeting with the missionaries before he moved. He told her how much we could help her out. And they both accepted to be baptized on the 2nd! I am going to
have a busy birthday!!

Anyway those were the highlights of my week.

Love, Elder Andrasko

Poker Face

 Posterity coat and tie

No bed!!

So new address is 5209 SW 12 Terrace APT 4 Topeka, KS 66604.

It's a decently nice place, not as nice as my last house. But that was one of the best houses in the whole mission.

Topeka is going pretty good, I have had to ride a bike once so far. We borrowed it from the Spanish Elders. There's a lot going on up here right now. Our whole district has a lot of potential to baptize this month, but in our companionship we had a problem yesterday getting people to church. We had 7 people that we could have had at church, but we only had one. So this week we are going to  really focus on spirituality progressing our investigators so they will be ready for church.

We had this crazy guy who was supposed to be baptized next week. This guy has a really bad mouth and he likes to tell a story of when he was in a coma for several months. During his entire time in a coma he played poker with Jesus, but he lost all 864 hands, because Jesus always had a royal flush. Anyway this guy hasn't been seen buy us or his brother for a few days, and it's kinda sketchy cause his brother looked at us straight in the eyes and told us he wanted to kill his brother. So...that's kind of a scary thought. Hopefully we'll see him soon.

We helped this family move, and they invited us to come over and teach them today. And the 9 year old kid said he wanted to be Mormon! So that's neat. A crazy thing also happened this week, we went to go talk to this guy, Nick, and apparently he got baptized when he was 16! Apparently his GF is also a baptized member, he has 4 kids and 3 are at baptism age! He said it was something he wanted for them, so that could be a miracle.

We had another cool miracle this week, we felt like we should go see this couple and so we started over there. We tried them but they weren't home, but there was some potential investigators who lived across the street, so we went to try them. When we knocked, this lady came from around the house and said she heard us knocking. So we started talking to her, she had a lot of golden questions, all were plan of salvation questions. Then she invited us into her backyard, she had a gun sitting on the table and was asking us why bad things happen to good people. I guess she was contemplating suicide and stuff. We then were able to give her a blessing and left her with a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet on the plan of salvation, and she accepted to be baptized on the 25th. We went back Sunday to talk to her, and she said she was about to read it with her Catholic mother, so we'll see what happens.

Not much else to write about. But things are good here and I am getting along well with my new companions! Three months into the mission and I've already been in two trios. It'll be weird to be back in a normal companionship next month.

Love ya tons!

- Elder Andrasko