Hello

Elder Andrasko and Bill

Hello friends and fam!

This week was another great week in the Kansas Wichita Mission.

This week I had the awesome opportunity to go on exchanges with the Zone Leaders down in Wichita. And I got to go out with my old companion Elder Eakle!! Man that brought back some memories of Ark City. Plus the Zone Leaders are now driving the car we had when we were in Ark. So we had some fun reminiscing. But that wasn't all that we did, we also worked super hard and had a ton of lessons! But my favorite lesson was when we went to see Bill!! Good ol' crazy Bill, he has moved out of Ark into Wichita and lives in the ZLs area so we stopped by to see him.

He's been a quite a crazy ride for the past little bit, his health isn't doing super hot. But other than that he is doing great, and still coming to church!

This week we started working with a family of 10. So the parents were both investigators at one point, then they met each other and started dating. So no they are not married, but they are working on it. They both have 4 kids, so 8 in total, and 7 of them are baptismal age. So now the real struggle is finding a way to get them all to church...which is in Newton 30 miles away. So something we'll be working on this week.

One strange miracle, we were just sitting in the car when the phone starts ringing, a phone number we don't have saved, and this guy who we don't know and have never met is on the other side. Well long story short we set up an appointment with him for tomorrow, so we'll see what happens there.

Sad day, our investigator dropped us. We really have no clue what happened, but he just texted us and said that he didn't really want us coming over anymore. But we'll go back sometime this week and try to figure stuff out. We saw him practicing football at the middle school across the street from our house, we talked for like 2 seconds, kinda awkward. But I guess we'll see what happens, fingers crossed.

We started teaching this real crazy guy, Larry. But he committed to church. Then the day before he said he'd probably go to another church and ours another day. That's a problem we have been having, we get people to go to church, just not ours. We'll keep working on that...

McPherson is definitely an awesome place, and missionary work is different than most other places I've served. But it really is amazing, and we see a ton of miracles. 

Hope y'all have a good week, love ya tons!

-Elder Andrasko 

Who Let the Dogs Out

Hey y'all,

This week was pretty great!

So we had to drive down to Wichita again this week, which really is
quite a long drive. But we had an awesome Zone Conference! It's always
cool to hear the leadership in the mission and to be able to learn
from them.

We had a pretty funny miracle this week. So to begin with we were at a
less active/part member family's house, and they have a really
hyperactive dog. It had gotten all riled up so he was running and
jumping around, then he jumped on a Elder Smack, and well he landed on
his groinal area. The lesson ended soon after that, and Elder Smack
expressed a need to use the restroom because of the earlier incident.
So we stopped by Wendy's and we saw a girl sitting at a table working
on something. We went to talk to her, and after talking we found out she
is a senior in high school, and has no family - the family she did have
(her grandfather) passed away about a year ago. We also found out that
she had met with missionaries a while ago, and - she seemed pretty
interested! Her name is Ciera, hopefully we can get things rolling
with her.

Our "golden" investigator is still struggling, still not sure what is going on with
him. We try to see him pretty often, but he just lacks that fire he
had before. So we are still trying to find a way to get that going
again.

So Elder Smack has this pretty nasty wart on his finger and the urgent
care in McPherson couldn't take care of it, so we have to go to Salina
some time to see a dermatologist who can get rid of it. So that will
be fun haha.

Another cool thing that happened was we were driving around, and we
went to what we thought was a less-actives place. Turns out he moved
and the guy living there now said we could come back. Then while walking
back to the car we met a pretty cool kid and gave him a Book of
Mormon! Also he does war reenactments with Wyatt!(who I baptized at the 
beginning of my mission)  So cool little connection there.

McPherson is definitely a lot different from anywhere else I've
served. But it is really cool. Not a lot of members, but the ones we
have are awesome. And we have some really cool recent converts, one of
which is super willing to come out with us and help out with the work.

So you may of heard of this "crazy" ice storm that is sweeping across
Kansas. Don't worry, we are still alive. In fact this storm was WAYYY
overhyped. At least for us here in Mac. Everyone told us it would be
worse than the ice storm of '05, and that this storm has the most
moisture of any storm since the late 1800's. Well, I guess it wasn't
cold enough to freeze, so we just got a lot of rain. It's been raining
for like 3 days now, so yeah I could see how it would be bad if it
actually was cold.

Anyway not too much else going on, but the work goes on!

love ya!

- Elder Andrasko

Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel

(They went to the hospital to give a blessing and had to wear masks)

Hey y'all!

There was a lot of stuff that went on this week, both good and bad.
But either way I love being a missionary!

Fun fact, today is my 10 month mark! Wow time really flies by,
especially on the mission.

So we hit a wall with this week with our golden investigator...it's kinda sad.
Especially because we don't really know what happened. Things were
going really well, then one day we got a text from him saying he
didn't really want to keep meeting every day, so we called to see what
was up. He made it seem like it was something that his ex was doing,
like trying to take the kids or something. So we studied really hard
for him to try and figure some way to help him out. But when we went
over there he didn't have the same fire he did as before. And it seems
like he is no longer keeping the word of wisdom, so keep him in your
prayers!

There is a really cool part member family we are teaching, their names
are Jim and Gale. Gale was baptized a few years ago, and Jim is a
really awesome guy. He went to church a few weeks ago and he loved it,
he wants to keep coming too! The biggest thing with him is that he
struggles with the word of wisdom, that's a pretty big thing out here.
So we go and try to see them every day and help them to both progress
in the gospel. Another hard thing is that they don't have a car, and
the church isn't exactly close enough to walk to, so we need to find
them a ride every week. Good thing we have awesome members!

Another family we are teaching started progressing really awesome this
week too! There's like seven of them, but again word of wisdom struggles,
they are pretty heavy smokers. But  we had a really awesome restoration
lesson this week, Elder Smack told them, "if Heavenly Father is going to
continue speaking with us, don't  you think he would send us more scriptures?"
She was all like "Wow,  why didn't you tell us the first time?". We've told them at
least four  times haha, but it takes some people longer to grasp a new concept.
Hopefully we can get them coming to church here soon, and get them to
feel the spirit there!

This week we had interviews with our Mission President! It's over an
hour drive to Wichita, but man it was such an awesome experience, I
love having to opportunity to see him so often and to be able to have
a real relationship and to learn so much! We get to go down to Wichita
again this week! It'll be the 3rd time we've made the drive this
transfer!

This next week will be so awesome! We made a ton of goals and are
going to work our tails off and see miracles!

- Elder Andrasko

It's a Small World

Hey y'all!

This week was awesome!! So McPherson is awesome! There is so much room
for missionary work here. So one of the first things my comp, Elder
Smack, told me was that there was 36 churches in McPherson and not a
single one of them is LDS. So the closest LDS church for us is in
Newton, which is 30 minutes away, which makes it a little harder to
get people to church, but we have awesome members who are willing to
give rides and stuff! But there are only 7 active members who live out
here.

So the beginning of he week was sad, having to say goodbye to Junction
and all of the awesome people that I met there. Wasn't hard saying
goodbye to the apartment though haha, or having a car part time. But I
really will miss Junction, I met a ton of amazing people there, plus I
was there for 4 and a half months.

So when I got here the first thing Elder Smack told me was that we had
a super awesome investigator who is gonna get baptized this month! So 
Wednesday night I had the chance to meet him. And wow, he is probably
 the most prepared person I have ever met my entire mission. Elder Smack 
told me about how hey had met him, hey we're coming home from church 
and saw him across the street from the house at the middle school football field, 
practicing some football, and he had the impression to go talk to him, and he shook it
off. But then the spirit rebuked him and they went and he's progressed
super rapidly ever since! He's been reading the Book of Mormon for
like 2 weeks straight! I seriously can't say enough how awesome he is.
Sunday was his first time at church and he loved it! Well I guess it
was my first time here too, and it was pretty awesome!

The members were really welcoming, and two people invited to have him
over for dinner this week! So now the ward is really involved in his
conversion too! He'll be getting baptized on the 15th!

Kinda crazy thing at church happened, I had two different people tell
me that they knew Andraskos in California! I've never had that happen
before! Small world I guess.

So a lot of the work here is with less-actives, part member families,
and recent converts. And there are some really awesome recent converts
here, and still some left to meet.

There are a few colleges here in McPherson, so there's a lot of young
people around. McPherson College is actually the only place in the US
where there is a automotive restoration degree, so that's cool.

Not a whole lot left to say, but I'm really looking forward to my
first full week in McPherson!

Love ya tons!

- Elder Andrasko