Stayin' Alive

Well this week is transfer week, and I will be staying in McPherson for another 6 weeks! But I will be getting a new companion, 3 companions in 3 transfers in 1 area.

This week was pretty good, we once again went to eat with the awesome Mexican family in Newton, we watched The Testaments with Jim and Gayle, and we met cool people.

So on Monday we got a call from a member in the ward who said someone who used to live in the ward needed help moving things. So the three of us went and helped move things out of storage into a moving truck, there wasn't a lot of stuff just a lot of spiders. But afterwards the Brother who called us took us out to dinner, we went to Applebee's! I got a burger. 

Tuesday we had District Meeting, the last one of the transfer! Also the last one we would have in Hutch, or so I thought, guess us and the Newton missionaries (who is in the same ward as us) are going to be in different districts for another transfer. But we had some trainings, did some role plays, and went to McDonalds! The rest of the day didn't go as well. We had our day pretty well planned out, but every single person we went to see cancelled! But we did meet this guy named Craig, he has talked to missionaries before and has a lot of the same beliefs that we do. But he also doesn't? He said he is in between believing creationism or evolution, but just doesn't know which he believes more. We had a pretty good lesson with him, and he said we could come back some time.

So Wednesday is our weekly planning day, which takes a little bit of time. So before we started that we went to try a potential that we met last week, but she wasn't home. So we came back, did weekly planning and eat lunch. Then we had an apartment inspection, that took a lot longer than I would've hoped. But the good news is we have a clean apartment. We didn't get a whole lot of time to do work before dinner, but we did help someone move a mattress! We then had dinner with our awesome Mexican family, then we went to our missionary correlation meeting, and since we were already in Newton we could physically go! Which is a first for me in this ward. We had around an hour to work when we got back from Newton. But we found two new investigators in that hour! One is an older woman named Juanita, the other is a guy named Brett. 

Thursday was a biking day! Since we had drove a TON of miles we decided we should probably save some for the rest of the month. But it was a good day to bike, even though my bike is not very good. We committed some people to come to church! We went and tried this former, Bill, who I've met a few times. He's progressed a little in the past so we stopped by. He told us his frustrations with the other churches he's been too, and so we showed him a video from our fancy "church tour" app, and he said he would come this Sunday! A little bit later we saw someone we knew down the road and we stopped to talk to him. Well he wasn't in much of a talking mood, he was drinking, but his neighbor talked to us. Her name is Wanda, and she is dating Craig (who was mentioned earlier). She's been going through a rough patch in her life, so we talked about Christ and his atonement, and she said she needed to be going back to church and would come to ours. Nice!

Friday was another biking day! We've been having really good weather, so biking has been really nice. So we went all the way to the north side of town, to try some less actives, and try to contact people around there. We met a kid who was real polite and accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon. So once we got to the north end of town, the people that we tried weren't home/didn't answer. So we rode all the way to the south end of town! We met a lot of interesting people, but they all have an awesome faith in Christ! We had set a time to have dinner and watch a church film with Jim and Gayle for Friday, but when we got there they had company. Well it was the lady who lived in the house before them and is keeping all of her stuff there. Jim and Gayle hardly have any room for their stuff, she was supposed to come and take her stuff this month, but she hasn't yet and this visit wasn't it either. So we moved dinner back a few hours to when she wouldn't be around. But when we went back we watched The Testaments. That was such an awesome movie, even though it was a little cheesy.

Saturday we had another rough start to the day, we couldn't catch anyone home! We went to see Bill, and he told us he wasn't going to come church with us! So after we tried everyone we had made plans for, we decided to go to Hillsboro a few hours earlier than planned. We were able to see the Willis family, our super awesome less active family. We had our lesson with hem at the park, her oldest son was visiting and she promised she would take the grandkids to the park. On our way back from Hillsboro we stopped in to see Mitch! Now this guy is crazy, and E. Tolley is the fourth missionary who has seen him with me (E. Smack and twice on exchanges). He said he'd come to church if we watched a movie with him, I agreed but told him we got to pick the movie! We didn't come to church though, so no movie! Then we saw Brandon, who I met in exchanges a few weeks ago. He told us he is getting ready to go down to a Disney Oklahoma to do some rock crawling! So we connected a little bit talking about Disney!

Sunday was a hoot! I love Sunday, especially going to sacrament meeting. Our ride for church picked us up at 7:45, which is pretty early. And I was exhausted the entire day! After church the sisters had a baptism! We had a part in the program, it's always super fun to see baptisms. 

Anyways this week was super awesome, transfers are coming up which means another opportunity to learn and grow. And learn how to get along with another companion.

Looking forward to a killer week!

- Elder Andrasko

The Circle of Life

Hello one and all! Here's the latest on my life!

This week definitely had its ups and downs, just like the rest of life. But it was great!

Three reasons why this week was great

1. We went bowling as a zone!
2. We had dinner with awesome Mexicans and played Mexican Bingo!
3. People came to church!

So just some cool things that happened.

Monday, just like I said above ⬆️, we went bowling! Afterwards we all went to the church and started a 4v4 basketball tournament. The way we played was when a team scored 3 baskets the loser would rotate out and the winner stayed in the court. There was only three teams so it was pretty exhausting, especially if you won multiple games in a row and hardly got a break. Monday night we did the real hard/exhausting work though, we did missionary work! Missionary work is great, but I've never been so tired all the time in my entire life. Anyways we didn't have many plans when it got to the end of the night, so we were kinda just walking, but we decided to try a door...Then just like that we find an awesome person who likes the message and is willing to get baptized. The bad news is that we haven't really been able to see her since. Her name is Zoie (Zoey spelled differently) she is 16 and a junior in HS, we had a return appointment so we could talk to her mom, Theresa, some more but it turned out not to be a good time for us to come by.

So this week like half of Kansas was on fire, luckily it didn't affect our area. But just to the west of us in Hutchinson the fires were out of control! As soon as I got out of the car, on the way back from Wichita on Monday, I could tell something was on fire. The winds were constantly blowing, with gusts up to like 50 MPH! So that didn't help the fires either. A few people lost their homes, and a lot of farmland was lost as well. So that's not good.

Tuesday was a pretty lame day, we had almost zero lessons. We weren't able to get into any houses to teach lessons until the end of the night. Even Gayle and Jim who we see every day we weren't to see, so it was kinda a rough day. But on the bright side we got bomb taco truck food from Tanner and Morgan! Also they decided to start attending institute! So that's cool. We also had our district meeting on Tuesday, which is in Hutch so the main road to get there was closed, because of fires, and the road the church is on was also blocked off. So it was a little more difficult to get there.

Funny story that happened on Wednesday. So we were signed up to eat with a less active family, and we had confirmed it the night before, but when we show up  the husband, was asleep and he hadn't told his wife that we were coming over! He worked from 11 PM - 11 AM and had gotten to bed just a few hours before we got there. So they just gave us a pizza instead. But I do feel bad for waking him up, that's why they are less active, because his work schedule is crazy.

So Thursday was my 1 year mark, crazy how quickly time goes. Seems like just yesterday I got to the MTC. I remember that I forgot my bag with all my scriptures and stuff in it at home! Fun times. So there was a Mexican family that had signed up to feed us Thursday, but all the other missionaries on Friday. So we weren't quite sure, if they meant to sign up for us on Friday too. So we tried getting into contact with them, but we had no working phone number for them. So through the sisters we were able to confirm that it was indeed Friday and that we were invited, even though we don't speak Spanish. Which was good that it got rescheduled, because gen we could make it to Family Home Evening! It was our best turn out yet, which still wasn't too great! But I had this great lesson all planned out on my iPad. But guess who forgot his stuff over at Jim and Gayle's house? Of course I would, I am pretty absent minded sometimes. So we had to kinda make something up, so we talked about using social media for missionary work! Which was also kinda my plan. But it worked out pretty alright, afterwards we tried to play a game of Mafia! But it didn't work out with so few people, still fun though.

On Friday we met this crazy lady who had no teeth! We had a pretty good lesson with her. We decided to walk to our next few appointments to try and meet more people, and because my bike is terrible. It was a good time, but it started getting chilly this week. Wednesday was 70 degrees, which maybe we got warmed by all the fires. But the temp started dropping. But walking still was fun! We got to meet some people, some nice, some not so nice. Later we went to talk to the parents of a kid we've talked to a few times, the dad wasn't too nice to us and told us not to come back. Darn. But that night was probably the highlight of the week! Dinner with a Mexican Family! They made awesome tacos! It was fun because they hardly spoke English and we know almost zero Spanish! And after the dinner they got out Mexican bingo, lotería, which was a good time. I won once! Then at the insistence of Brother Medina we took lots of pictures.

Saturday we met a few cool less actives. One of them loves hunting, you could say he is obsessed. And after talking for a bit he brought us some deer summer sausage with cheese and jalapeños! And it is pretty good. Another less active we met asked where we were from, and after he heard I was from Sandy he said his dad lives in White City, and that he went to high school at old Jordan High! So I was able to meet a fellow beetdigger! Awesome, you never know what you'll come across here in Kansas.

Sunday was awesome!! So we made it to church late, because our ride is a college student, but when we walked in we saw Challenge and his wife Mika (the less-actives who gave us pizza)! Then when we sat down we saw Jim and Gayle! Yay! Jim loved church, and hopefully he will continue to come and work towards baptism!

This week was awesome and fun! I love missionary work so much, and I especially love Kansas and the people of Kansas. Tornado season is here, so maybe I'll get the chance to see my first tornado!

Have a killer week!

- Elder Andrasko

Livin' on a Prayer

 

This week was awesome! We saw what I thought was a really awesome miracle when we were trying to contact some former investigators. We go to the door and she informs us that her and her husband talked and that they decided they weren't interested. I told them that we weren't trying to take away from their Catholic roots, but just to help build on that faith. She told us that she has been reading the Book of Mormon every day since it was given to her and told us a time we could come back. So today we are going back to see them and hopefully build heir faith!

We also committed one of our investigators to attend the addiction recovery program. So hopefully his week he will be able to make it to that!

This week we did exchanges, again, but this time we were able to stay in McPherson. I went with Elder Colton, while Elder Tolley went with Elder Harper. So while the other Elders went to all of our set appointments we went to just try a bunch of potentials and less-actives. Our dinner was in Galva, which is like 5 minutes east of Mac, so about an hour before dinner we went out there to try and meet some people. We ended up meeting a guy named Brandon, he has a bunch of family that are members, and cousins that are on missions. So he was interested in learning more, but he is really busy so it might be hard to try and catch him home. We later had dinner with a less-active, it was really awesome ribs.

So we started a taco Tuesday tradition with our good college buddies Tanner and Morgan, so we had some pretty bomb taco truck tacos! But they told us this week they'll have to change the day, because they will be going to institute! This week during Family Home Evening we helped Tanner do some family history, so that on Saturday he had names so he could go to the temple for the first time!!! Tanner is so awesome!

So this week Gayle and Jim were moving, to the house next door, so on Saturday we went over and helped them move! We tried to get a few members to help us, but we were only able to get one to help. But the good thing is that there wasn't a whole lot of things to move, just mostly couches, dressers, a fridge, and a washer and drier. It took us a little bit, but she made some lasagna for us for dinner!

This week we also had Zone training! I love all the trainings we get as missionaries, it was awesome to hear from the leaders in our zone, we also talked a lot about helping members to use social media to share the gospel with friends. That is a huge emphasis for us now. So I invite y'all to share something on social media pertaining to the gospel, or share your testimony with a friend who you feel needs a message of Jesus Christ at this point in their lives!

I love you all so much! Have a killer week!

- Elder Andrasko

Shine On!

Tanner and Morgan

On Exchanges

Hello once again!

This week sure was busy! Had lots of time that we weren't able to go out and work!

Monday was P-Day, and we spent most of the day cleaning! We had car inspections he next day so we tried to make it look nice and clean for it! 

So Tuesday we had to leave pretty early to be in Wichita on time and to get a car wash, well the car wash was pretty terrible, but we were on time! Good thing we spent time cleaning the car because someone from Salt Lake who is over the cars was at our Conference!

Zone Conference was really awesome and we were able to get some sweet revelation and learn new things to help hasten the work. I think it's so awesome that we have interviews and Zone Conference every month, it really gives us an opportunity to build a great relationship with President McCuistion. And he really is such an awesome and inspired man.

Afterwards we had a few appointments and went to dinner with the Travellers! Now the Travellers are a less active couple who are probably some of the greatest people ever. Whenever we go over we get fed better than almost anywhere else I've been on my mission. This week was ribs, and boy where they good.

Wednesday we had a district meeting and exchanges. So the way exchanges work now is that both companionships work in the same area, so we spent he entire day in Hutchinson, Kansas. And the weather was nice enough that we could ride bikes, in fact the weather was so nice that it got in the upper 80s and may have hit 90!! Now that is crazy. But it was a good day and had a fun time.

Thursday we exchanged back and got home around 1:30 so we finally had some time to work in our area. Unfortunately most of he people we tried weren't home, but we got to see this kid we've been working with named Bo! But unfortunately Bo told us his mom got mad when she saw the Book of Mormon and she took it. So this week we are going to try and talk to her and see if we can continue teaching Bo. Afterwards we went back to the apartment and made Rice Krispie Treats for Family Home Evening. Now they weren't the best, but it was edible and that's all that matters. We had only a few people show up, but this week we should have a lot more than we've had in the past. 

Friday we went and saw Jim and Gayle, well Gayle cause Jim has been sleeping all week. But Gayle has been struggling lately, and we were able to have a good lesson with her and help her the best we can. We had dinner with the bishops family that evening, they live about 30 minutes away from us, on the way back we were able to see a few people in those towns we hardly get out to.

Saturday we started with service at the Traveller's house, we had to make the horse pen bigger, Brother Traveller (Chris) smashed his finger pretty good and it looked pretty bad, I only smashed it a little and it doesn't look to bad. But it was fun and we talked about the Utah State Aggies! Afterwards he took us out to Subway for lunch. We later had a lesson with the mother of our family of 10, and we talked for quite some time. But it was fun and we got to know her, and her religious background a little bit better. That night we had dinner with one of my favorite less active families ever, the Willis family! They are so fun and they love the missionaries. Sister Willis wants so badly to come to church, but her work schedule has kept her from coming for a long time. We went to a Chinese buffet, only a little sketchy, but it was really good!

On Sunday Elder a Tolley had to give a talk, I tried using that to get less actives to come to church, unfortunately it didn't work...but it was an awesome talk! After church we were able to go to one of the colleges in town to watch some of our investigators wrestle!! It was an all girls tournament and it was pretty cool, unfortunately everyone we went to see lost, but it was still cool. That night we had dinner with even more less actives! But these less actives are really active freemasons, so that was interesting to talk about. I now know a little bit more about it. That evening we had a pretty awesome lesson with a guy named Sam, it was only the second time I had met him, but we were able to address some of his questions about the Book of Mormon. He just looks at it like a book with good morales, but not scripture. So hopefully after our wayyy too long lesson with him he'll start reading it.

Anyway this week was super awesome and I love being a missionary so much!

Have an amazing week!

- Elder Andrasko