Changes

With Elder Stirling in Junction City

     

They caught a bat...in the church!

So last minute the mission president changed who I am training, so I am now training Elder Stirling! He's from a really really small town in Nevada called Alamo. He's sort of a lanky guy, but he is super awesome. Training is stressful, but not as stressful as whitewashing. I have no clue what I am supposed to do, and the last Elders didn't leave us much to work with. So it's kind of like opening a new area.

Everyone in my district is either training or in training, so we're pretty green here in JC. A crazy thing here is that there is a a huge army base so everyone here has military ties. We can go on the military base, but we can't proselyte on base, or the MPs will get us! It's sort of a hassle to get on base, you have to go and get a pass every week to get on base, and almost every dinner is on base. We didn't have a car this week, so we had to ask for a lot of member rides, which was good so we could get to know them!

It's been difficult for us to learn the area, meet the members, and find investigators, but somehow we did alright this week. We have somuch potential to baptize out here,now just have to have tremendous faith and lots of trust in the Lord.

One thing about JC is that out of all of Kansas, it probably has the most hills. So riding around on bikes is a little difficult, I mean it's not as bad as Utah, but seriously look up the Flint Hills, they are awesome!

I am hoping that I will finally get to stay somewhere for more than a transfer, hopefully 2, and that I will be able to do all of Elder Stirling's training. We are getting along awesomely, and I feel like he is training me way more than I am training him. Everywhere we go on our bikes we run into people and we are getting the courage to talk to everyone! That has always been a huge struggle for me on my mission, but so far we have seen fruit from that and I can testify that "greenie fire" is real!

Hopefully we will find lots of people this week, and have lots of people committed to coming to church! If we can do that, then baptism will be in the future for September. If there is one thing j want to teach Elder Stirling, is how to baptize, and the amazing feeling that comes from baptism. If he can learn that then his mission will be a success!

Kansas is awesome, and beautiful, and full of so many awesome people.

Love ya tons!

- Elder Andrasko

Singin' in the Rain

Kansas is awesome.

It was a pretty ok week, but some really awesome stuff happened too.

We started out a bit slow this week, Elder LaMont felt sick so it took
us a little bit longer to get out of the house this week, but when we
got out we just started going super hard. We talked to every single
person we saw and gave out so many copies of the Book of Mormon. It
felt so good going out and making things happen.

We met some really awesome people too, we went to contact a former
investigator, Clarence, and he let us right in and we were able to do
a restoration lesson and the spirit was so strong. We totally dropped
the ball on not inviting them for baptism, but we committed them to
read, and we set up a return appointment.

This week Crystal was packing up and moving to Dallas. She had asked
us to come and help her, and we totally forgot to ask people to come
and help us. We made the mistake of getting a ride there so we ended
up staying for 4 hours helping them move, but we got a new
investigator in the process. It was Crystal's cousin, Rick; he grew up
Jehovah's Witness but left because he was super pressured by his mom.
He was in a terrible accident in the past that put him in a 3 month
coma, so he had some problems, but he is a cool guy. Hopefully he will
agree to have the Elders come and teach him more.

Sunday after church we were going to an apartment complex to go and
contact people when the phone rang and it was the mission president.
He asked for Elder LaMont and they talked for a little bit, then he
handed the phone to me.

I was told that I would be leaving Wichita and going to Junction City
and training, so I'm whitewashing. I'm excited and nervous, I don't
know that I'm ready to train, but I'm definitely going to try my best.
I've learned so much this short time I've been out and I have no doubt
that I'm going to learn so much more these next few transfers.

Love you,

Elder Andrasko

I'll Follow the Sun

Hey this week was great!

So we've been doing really good the past few weeks, finding, teaching,
and progressing.

This Tuesday we had zone conference, so we spent about 8-9 hours
listening to mission leadership tell us what we need to be doing
better. There was a few rule changes and few new teaching aspects, but
that's to be expected with a new mission president. President Bell was
a super out of the box, there's more than just the white handbook kind
of guy. But president McCuistion is a white handbook or nothing type
of guy, it's not a bad thing, but it really is really different. The
training was awesome and what I really needed at the time.

So unfortunately our recent converts, Crystal and Elijah, are moving
at the end of the week. So we don't get a lot of time to spend with
them before they go. We were hoping to be able to teach her daughter
too, but I guess that can be saved for the missionaries is Dallas. She
is really excited to move and we got her excited about being a lot
closer to a temple.

We've met a few really cool people this week, Joe and Elizabeth. Both
of them actually have cousins that are members, so they know a little
bit about the church and have a desire to learn more. Joe is in a
really tough situation because he just had a brother die, and another
brother steal everything from him, and he lost his house and is broke.
And Elizabeth is an African woman from Ghana and is really humble, the
unfortunate thing is she might live out of our area.

Transfers are coming up in the next week and I'm really ok with
whatever happens, I mean I'd prefer to stay in an area for longer than
just one transfer, but we'll see what the Lord has in mind.

This week Javi has a high potential to be baptized, we just have to be
really bold with him and make him realize that it's something he
needs. He has a desire, just not a burning one. So keep him in your
prayers and hopefully it will happen!

Not a whole lot of other stuff is going on, but things here are going well!

Love y'all!

- Elder Andrasko

Another Day in Paradise!

This week has been my best week since I came to Wichita for two
reasons, Crystal got baptized and Elijah got baptized!

That was the main highlight of the week, but there was other good
stuff along the way. We received this referral not too long ago,
someone named Brad had requested a bible and a short lesson. We go
over Wednesday at 10:00. We gave him the bible he requested , then
proceeded to teach out of the Book of Mormon. He asked us what he
needed to get one, we told him al, he needed to do is stick out his
hand. After a few more minutes he asked us if our churches do baptism.
We did not hesitate to put him on date at that time.

Another investigator is still a little weird about baptism, he tells us that he has
dreams about being baptized but his dream doesn't show which church.
He's waiting for like a sign, or for God to tell him or something. So
we are struggling to help him understand the why behind baptism.

So we got this referral a little while back and we were never able to
get into contact with her, so we tried again. When we got to the house
the garage door was open and there were several dogs in the house,
which there wasn't before. So we knew she was home this time, we ring
the doorbell and we hear the garage door close. Strange. So we ring
again, this time the garage opens and we hear her sprinting for the
car, the car then the car speeds away. So that was a bummer.

Saturday was awesome! We first when a baptism to someone else in the
zone. Afterwards we went to McDonalds to celebrate, there was a man
there who offered to pay for ALL a of us. He was a Catholic, but said
he respected what we did. So that was awesome. After our baptism we
went to Chipotle, then I found out that if you've never been it's
free! So free breakfast and lunch! Then for dinner our bishop took us
to a BBQ joint. So lots of awesome food.

Not much else went on this week, but baptisms are awesome so it was a good week.

- Elder Andrasko

I Like to Ride My Bicycle

This week was great!

I mean it definitely could have been better, but it was still good. We
had two baptismal interviews, which they both passed, but neither one
of them wanted to be baptized this weekend...

But this weekend we could have a potential three baptisms!! But that
is depending on whether Crystal passes her interview. If she does she
would be baptized with two of her children! We have tried to tell them
they don't need to wait to be baptized all together, but it's all or
nothing with them. So fingers crossed for this weekend!

Hopefully this was the last week of biking, but we might be parked for
a week or more, so probably be biking ALOT more in the coming weeks. I
hear August is the hottest month of the year, and it's been over 90
degrees every day, sometimes 100, with a high humidity. So needless to
say we are hot and sweaty at every appointment.

This month was pretty rough for the zone, we didn't have any baptisms
in the entire zone...it was pretty rough. Hopefully we can start
August off hot and make it much better than July.

This week was FULL of service, we had three straight days of service,
moving people, painting, yard work, more yard work. But one day was
cancelled because of a huge rain storm. At first it was nothing but blue
skies, then we look outside and the trees are sideways from the strong
wind, then it was a downpour. For the next few hours it was one of the
biggest rainstorms I have ever seen.

There isn't much to email about today, but we are about to have our
interview with Crystal, so wish her luck!

Sorry for the crappy email mom! I'll put more effort into it next
week, especially after we baptize!

- Elder Andrasko

Hello

 

Elder Andrasko and Elder Colemere got to go to a baptism of someone they taught in Ark City! They had someone lined up to take them, but that fell through. Luckily, Charlie's brother-in-law, Shane, has a sister who lives in the area and she was able to drive them to the baptism.  Thanks Kari!!

 

This week was pretty sweet!

After a pretty not so awesome week we knew that we would have to work twice as hard to make sure this week was twice as better.

On Tuesday after district meeting we were doing an exchange and I was going with the district leader to his area, but his companion asked for the keys so he could unlock the bike from the bike rack on the car, and soon after they had left. We got into the car then realized, "we didn't have the keys!" So we start calling Elder LaMont trying desperately to get the keys back, but they weren't answering the phone...so we called Sister Pinkerton, the member who we live with, to tell the Elders when they get there that they have our keys. Almost two hours had passed before they finally made it back with our keys and we could get to work. After all that missed time, we elected not to ride our bikes around.

The next morning we went to the gym, I hadn't been since I was in Ark so needless to say I was pretty sore after, and we had a service project to do. The zone leaders were at the project so Elder Colemere and I did a lot of messing around, but the job got done! Afterwards we exchanged back, after a district lunch at McDonald's, and went to work. We had a lesson scheduled with an investigators mom, who we had heard was 100% against her son being baptized, and how she hates our church, and blah blah blah. But when we met her it was a very pleasant surprise, half of her family is actually members, and some of her best friends, so she is very open to it. And now she and her two kids are working towards baptism! She's been to church a bunch of times but she currently works on Sunday's, so she's asking her boss for Sunday's off so she can come to church!

We've been working with this one investigator ever since I came here and this week at church he told us that he had a dream that he was baptized, and now he is determined he wants to be baptized. Which is completely different from when I first started teaching him, before he
told us that church was nice, but he wouldn't go to the point of being baptized.

So now we have four people progressing towards baptism! Two of which can be baptized this weekend, so we have to go as hard as we can to make it happen so we can baptize this month!

Thursday we had interviews with our new mission president, it was pretty good. But he asked Elder LaMont and I to prepare a role play for the next zone conference. Which kinda sucks, I can teach investigators well enough, but when I have to teach missionaries or lessons in church it just doesn't work out haha.

Well I don't have a lot of time to write today cause we have had to help the sisters move for the past 3 hours :P and we have dinner at 5:30, and we're on bikes. So not the most fun p day.

But love ya tons!

- Elder Andrasko

More Than a Feeling

Elder Andrasko is in there somewhere!

This week has been really great! I've just been working super hard to
get to know my area!

Probably the biggest miracle we had this week was meeting Andrew.

Andrew is a former investigator that we decided to visit.  The first time
we went see him he was busy and told us to come back in a few hours.
When we showed up Elder LaMont started to talk to him and I went
around to talk to his son. When I finished talking with The son,
I went around to see how it was going with Andrew, both him and Elder
LaMont were having a Super spiritual experience and Elder LaMont said
it was the strongest he has felt the Spirit on his mission. We were
then invited into the house and finished our lesson. We found out that
Andrew has 7 children!! But he is living with his fiancé, and they are
not getting married till next year. Hopefully we can move their
wedding date up. We have seen him a few times and he is working
towards a baptism date!

We tried a ton of former investigators this week, and we found some
fruit with that, we met Anton. He's kind of different, but he said that he
believes the church is true, but he believes 11 other churches are
true too. He was talking about when Jesus fed the 5000 there were12
baskets left, he said that signified the 12 apostles and the 12
biggest churches and each of those 12 churches are true. So we need to
help him understand the restoration more haha.

This week we also met Gary and Larry, they are brothers who are
currently living with their mom who has cancer and only one year left
to live, so they are really open to growing their relationship with
Christ and are steadily progressing towards baptism. We found Larry
when we decided to just pull up to this apartment complex, and it
turns out that he lives right below a solid member. A few days later
we brought the member to go have a lesson with him, but he wasn't home
and we met his brother Gary.

Sorry for the short email, but I don't have much to write about this week haha.

I am loving my mission so much and am looking forward to baptizing in
the month of July! We have so much potential here and the members in
this ward are really cool and willing to come out.

Love y'all so much!

- Elder Andrasko