Sweet is the Work

Hey Y'all this week was pretty great!

So this week was transfer week, and we all thought for sure either me
or Elder Stirling would be gonzo, because usually trainers and
trainees don't stay together longer than 12 weeks. But to my shock and
joy we are both staying here in JC for 6 more weeks.


Monday we went up to Manhattan for a Zone P-Day, since it would be the
last Monday of the transfer, it was pretty fun - we don't hardly go up
to Manhattan as much as I would like, but miles and time keep us from
going here more often. Then, like usual, we had family home evening at
the church. It's always super fun, and it draws the less actives and
investigators to the church for a spiritual thought and fun games.

Last week was a pretty miserable week for finding new investigators so
we knew we had to do something this week about finding new people,
especially ones that can progress towards baptism. So a lot of our
time and effort was spent on finding. And we did find some pretty
awesome people.

So background info. Junction has been unseasonably warm, like 70-80
degree warm, and Friday we had a cold front move in, the
temperature dropped like 40 degrees overnight. Then we had a big wind
storm move in with it, so around 40 mph winds. So super cold, and we
were walking this week. So we were walking around an apartment complex
looking for people to talk to and we stopped to a guy who was smoking
on his front step. We started talking to him and he invited us in to
warm up and get a drink. Well he offered us coffee, we said no, he
offered us tea, we said no. So that gave us a very good opportunity to
talk about the word of wisdom. So we started talking about prophets
and the restoration with him and his wife, Carrie and Frazier. They
said they didn't find a church home when they moved to Junction and
that her pastor back home had gotten too famous to even make time for
her one year old's funeral. So looking for a new church. And when we
were done she said. "This sounds like a church we need to go to". So
we invited them to baptism, Frazier accepted on the condition that the
water would be warm. So that was Saturday, and now we have a few more
solid people to work with and help them get closer to Christ.

Sunday was a very very busy day. We had a special Zone Conference in
Topeka and President asked us to be there at 10 for their stake
conference. So we stayed in Junction just to take the sacrament then
made the long trip to Topeka. It's about an hour to Topeka from
Junction so we were a little late. There was a member of the 70 there,
Elder Wilford W. Andersen. Right after their Stake Conference we had a
lunch then started our meeting. Well it was awesome and it ended with
a 2 hour Q&A session, which was super cool. Afterwards we had one more
meeting with President and Elder Andersen. So after all our meetings
were over it was 8 and we still had an hour drive left. So we had a
total of 0 lessons, but we learned a ton!

We are doing exchanges twice this week, so we'll have a pretty full
week. Super excited!

Hope y'all have a good thanksgiving!

Love ya!

- Elder Andrasko

Now Let Us Rejoice!

Well to start off this week marked my 8 month mark! And this coming
week is transfers and I am happy to say both Elder Stirling and I are
staying in JC for another 6 weeks!

Anyways this week was super awesome! This week we got to see our
investigator Michael Moriarty who we haven't seen in weeks...he had a
lot of word of wisdom and law of chastity issues, but when we saw him
he said he hasn't had a drink in months! He said he could probably
make it to church, but he bailed so that was a bummer.

We found Tanya's trial of faith, she is just so busy! So she kinda
dropped us...because she said she doesn't feel like she has enough
time that she can devote to it. She is a single mom who is military
and is also doing school, so yeah kinda busy. But we're gonna help her
see that this is something that is important and can help her out with
all of that other stuff she is dealing with.

We've been spending a lot of our time lately trying to find those
people who will progress, either from our investigator pool or just
going out and finding. We've also been going through all hose who
aren't really progressing and letting them know what our purpose is as
missionaries and letting them know we are here to help them, but if
they aren't keeping commitments then we won't be able to help.

Not a whole lot this week to talk about, sorry about the short letter.

We are in Manhattan today for a Zone p-day, made doughnuts and playing sports!

- Elder Andrasko

Drive My Car

Hey!

This week was awesome, had some great miracles and a lot of progression in the area!

The biggest miracle was definitely meeting Tayna and Brianna! Our night wasn't going the way we wanted and Elder Stirling and I decided we needed to make an end of the night MBC to see a miracle and find someone who is elect and prepared. Then we continued on talking to every single person, then we went by a garage with a few people talking, so we stopped. Elder Stirling called out and asked how they were doing, but nobody heard us. So we tried once more and then Tayna came out and asked, "are y'all Mormons?" After we answered in the affirmative she was so happy and told us her ex husband was a Mormon. She said she saw us around and always wanted to stop and talk to us. We continued to teach her about the restoration and when we gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon she was so excited! She told us every time she went to a hotel she looked for a copy of the Book of Mormon, but all they ever had was Bibles and she didn't need any more of those. She is now preparing to be baptized on the 20th and she came to both church and a baptism that was last night! And tonight she is going to come to family home evening at the church.

They are so awesome and are so excited with every new thing they are learning. We haven't seen them too much, because we just met them Friday, but they really enjoyed church and the baptism.

Church on Sunday was a regional conference, it was a lot different, I've never had one before. Elder Rasband spoke to us (us as in North America Central, including Canada) it was really cool. Last week was stake conference, so it'll be nice to get back to a normal Sunday next week.

We also had Zone Conference this week, which was strange because we had interviews last week. But President McCuistion told us that once a transfer we will have both Interviews and Zone Conference, so a lot more meetings in the mission. It used to be that we would have these meetings once every three months. But I think it will be good for the mission/missionaries and teach us a lot more on how to be a new missionary. He also announced that we have a new mission vision, it is now the third mission vision I have had. Things have changed a lot under our new mission president, which is to be expected, but I think the changes are good changes.

We just finished up our biking week, and I am so looking forward to having a car. My legs are pretty dead, I know I have said it before but, I will never again say Kansas is flat.

Things here are going so good, transfers are next week and I'm a little nervous. I doubt I will be here next transfer, but I guess I'll find out next week!

Love y'all!

- Elder Andrasko

Scripture Power

Happy Halloween!

This week was pretty cool, we started off the week by having interviews with the mission president on Tuesday. It was the second time I was able to have an interview with President McCuistion, and it was an awesome revelatory experience and was able to receive help and insight on how to best help progress people in my area. We also had a training meeting during the interviews, and it was all about how to best help people gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon. It was super awesome!

Wednesday we went over a members house in the morning and did a lot of service, we were originally going to mow the lawn and do other things like that, but we had a huge storm that night and the grass was way to wet to mow. So we helped move things, and trimmed hedges, flowers, trees, and anything else that needed to be done. Afterwards she gave us a lunch, and this member is like a professional cook or something, every time we go over there we can expect a 5 star meal. The sisters called her the other day to see if we could come over for lunch, and she told us that she wasn't home but we could go over and raid the cupboards! She seriously is so awesome, she even leaves a cooler on her front porch so that we can go and get a drink whenever we are thirsty. The rest of the day was filled with a lot of appointments that fell through. We didn't get to see a single person that we had planned for, but we still saw lots of miracles. It was also the Ward Halloween party so we played some games and of course got lots of candy haha.

Thursday we had originally planned to go see a part member family, and they had invited us to have lunch there. But we learned that we had district meeting in Manhattan, so unfortunately we weren't able to make it. But we'll make it over there sometime, and definitely get him committed for baptism! We had also received a referral for someone who lived on the Army base, so we went to contact him. He is currently living with one of his friends, and his friend's mom who is meeting with the missionaries in Virginia gave us the referral for him. He is going through a lot of stuff right now and doesn't have the best relationship with God, but he accepted a Book of Mormon and said he would read. Hopefully when we see him again we can help him with whatever trial he is currently facing.

 Friday we went over to the Senior Missionaries place to have a district lunch and talk about the peeps we are currently working with and maybe see if there are things that we can do to help them. The zone leaders came down that day to exchange back with the other elders and decided they wanted to stay until at least the branch party/chili cook off. So they decided to do splits with us. So we went and double covered our area and saw basically every single person that we are working with and had an awesome time progressing a ton of people. Then was the branch party, it was at this time that my voice started getting a little hoarse, but I didn't think much about it. We went through the rest of the night as usual. 

Then Saturday when I woke up I could barely make a noise. My voice was completely gone, well darn. We still went about our day as usual, and we started getting soccer going here every Saturday with whoever wants to come. So a member brought about 15-20 non members, a lot of Hispanics, and we had a big soccer tournament. It was pretty dope, we'll be doing that every week. Then we started off on the rest of our day, needless to say I didn't talk much, and left the bulk of the work up to Elder Stirling.

Sunday was stake conference, which was really good. It was help in Salina, which is like an hour away from Junction, but for the first time ever in the Salina Kansas Stake they broadcast stake conference, so we didn't have to drive. Yay! Next week is another stake conference, but a regional one, so it is being broadcast from Salt Lake, I think? But anyway it will be pretty sweet.

This week has been pretty good, lots of finding this week. Lots of sifting through our investigators and seeing which ones are truly elect. We did see a lot of trials come up, and a few people tell us we weren't going to make it to heaven because of our belief in the Book of Mormon. But we still push on. The two people who we think can really be baptized this month is Kristen, don't know her last name, and Michael. Michael could be baptized at almost any moment, so hopefully we can help to see his need for it.

Love ya tons!

Elder Andrasko

We Can Work it Out

Hey y'all!

Well October is almost over, and the weather is weird. Some days it won't get over 60 and other days it'll be in the 80s, so I have usually been taking a jacket along with me every day. This week was a bike week, but I was able to do a little bit of repairs on my bike so it wasn't nearly as bad as it was last time. Still lots of hills to deal with though, I will never again say Kansas is flat.

Elder Stirling just recently got his driving privileges, so I finally don't have to drive everywhere. Now I can finally have a chance to relax! This week we have interview with the mission president, so that's pretty exciting!

So there is a recent convert, who technically is in the branch but comes to the ward every Sunday because of his work schedule, well former work schedule. He recently got laid off, which sucks, but he's been out with missionaries like every day since. Saturday we were out with him for about 5 hours. We saw lots of cool miracles! Being out with members is really awesome, and it's pretty fun being with this guy.

Tuesday we were supposed to go out on exchanges, but that got nixed, which is a really good thing cause we had the most bomb dinner ever! A super awesome member of the ward got tons of sushi! And I mean a ton, we still had a lot of left over afterwards, which I ate all of the next day for lunch. It was also Zone Training, which took a lot of time, plus the hour to drive to Manhattan and back.

Wednesday we unfortunately got dropped by an investigator, we showed up to his house and his mom answered the door and told us to never come back to her house. So we tried calling and setting something up at the church haha. But he didn't answer, sad day. We met a really cool guy named Sidney though, he seemed really interest in the message and even told us to come back the next day. The biggest thing we have to address with him is that he doesn't like going to church, something about congregating with a large number of people turns him off. So we're gonna build a burning desire in him so that he has no choice but to come!

We met another really cool person whose name is Mrs. Peggy. We started talking to her about the Book of Mormon she told us she already got a copy and is reading everyday with her husband, and they have a weekly fast and they pray about it during that fast. So we invited her to church, unfortunately she can't make it this week, but she told us to write our names down in the book so she would know who invited her. She is someone the sisters were teaching, but they said we could teach her if we wanted!

One big focus of this week was finding, so we talked to everyone we saw and really tried to find 3 new investigators a day! And we were close almost every day, and as we've been doing this we've seen lots of miracles and met a lot of really great people!

But that's my week in a nutshell! Lots of fun stuff going on here, and this week is going to be even better!

Love y'all!

- Elder Andrasko