Another Week in Paradise!

This week was just another week in paradise.

We've definitely had our ups and downs but overall we had a good week.

We had specialized training this week, which is where the president and his assistants would come and give us a training and help us to be better missionaries. It was super awesome because it was Manhattan and Salina zones, so I was able to see a lot of missionaries I've served around before. Afterwards we all went out to get food, it's always fun to see the people I served around. The mission is like a huge family so every mission get together is like a family reunion.

So last week we met this really awesome lost sheep member, Angie, who was baptized when she was a teenager in Las Vegas but stopped coming when she moved to Kansas. Anyway we were able to get in this week and start teaching her husband! They are so nice and they have two young kids.

We also met a few other part member families this week who have a ton of potential. There is Brother Delgado, who is basically a member already, he comes to church every single week and obeys all of the commandments. He just says he doesn't want to be baptized because his family was devout catholic and he thinks being baptized would betray his family.

Then we met the Waremans, the father is a member and his wife and three children are unbaptized. The mom is super into girl scouts with her daughter, then one son plays soccer, and the other plays football. The father is out of town until the 15th, and they have a crazy busy schedule so they are very hard to stop in and see.

We met a couple other cool people this week, this lady named Hannah told us she was looking for a more family oriented church and we stated telling her about our church. But she told us she didn't want to be a Mormon, I thought there was no way we were going to help her progress, but that's when Elder a Stirling's greenie fire kicks in and somehow she agrees to take and read a Book of Mormon. Which she has been reading. We also met Heather this week, we just walked up to her as she was sitting on her porch. She is a really nice lady who is also really super busy, but she is super open to us coming by and sharing a message.

Well today was pretty lame, we had to drive up to Manhattan for a zone p-day. We were the first ones to arrive so we were just sitting out and waiting, then when a few other showed up we were messing around with a volleyball, I was pretty weighed down with a bunch of stuff in my pocket so I took it all out and put it on the car. Then when it was time to go I hopped in the car and drove away, forgetting that I put my stuff there. Luckily we got the phone back, unluckily I lost my wallet. So that's lame, but other than that I had a good week! [NOTE: He got his wallet back! Someone found it and turned it in to the police department.]

Love y'all!

- Elder Andrasko

Under Pressure!

This week was stressful!

So to start off the week we went on exchanges, so I stayed in the area
and Elder Stirling went to the DLs area. It was a really awesome
exchange and we saw a ton of awesome miracles. During Zone Pow Wow the
ZLs started a little contest to help motivate us, "The Hunger Games".
So how it is played is that every two hours each companionship needed
to invite to baptism at least once, and if you didn't invite during
those two hours you were out! So by the time we got back from the
meeting, cause we live super far, we had 30 minutes to find someone to
invite. Then we met Pat! We seemed really nice and open to the
message, he even has a ton of friends who are members, we invited him
to a date and he accepted! Then we set up a lesson in the church for
Saturday! We were doing really good in the games, we invited during
the 2-4 block and the 4-6 block and the 6-8 block, but we didn't get
the very last hour so we were eliminated. Oh well.

There is this really cool guy we met not too long ago, his name is
Greg, we've been stopping by every so often to see him and follow up
on reading and what not. And we stopped by again this week and we met
Jerry, his father? In law? Something. And he was really awesome! He
told us of all these people who he knew that was members and was
interested in what we believe. We haven't been able to see him since
we met him cause he went out of town, but this week we'll follow up
with him and see if he is still interested!

Saturday we had two lessons in the church set up, one at 11 and
another at 2. But we had service  in the morning, which we had to
leave early to go to the church. Unfortunately our 11 appointment
didn't show and he wasn't home and so that didn't happen, then our 2
o'clock appointment also didn't show, they said they were busy. But
they told us they would come to church!

So Sunday we call to make sure our peeps are still coming, and a
family said all of their kids should be there, and there is 5 of them.
So we were waiting anxiously for them to show, which they never did.
We were sad about this. But some good stuff did happen this week too!

After all of the disappointments during the weekend we went out Sunday
night determined that we were going to find someone. So we headed out
after dinner and talked with EVERYONE until we finally found someone
who would talk to us. We met this cool guy named Norman who is one
year away from retiring from the military. He was born in the
Philippines and moved when his dad joined the armed services, that's
when his family became Christian. We got a return appointment for
tonight! So hopefully all goes well.

This week has had its share of ups and downs. Hopefully we will have
the best week ever and find someone to progress towards baptism!

I love y'all!

- Elder Andrasko

Good Day Sunshine

Things here are going, we have been really struggling this week to help people progress. We have so many awesome people that we are seeing, but almost none of them are progressing. So during is next week we are going to do everything that we can to progress people towards church, because if people start coming to church, then people are going to start getting baptized.

President McCuistion really likes math, and he made the observation that on average every 27 investigators equals one baptism. So he is pushing us finding 3 new investigators a day, 21 a week. And if we do this week in and week out our total baptism count as a mission will increase exponentially. He has also changed the way we set goals, last month our baptism goal as a mission was 70, this month it is 186. It's a pretty high number, but I'm pretty sure it's attainable, every companionship would need to baptize two.

We met a family this week, don't ask their last name cause everyone has a different one. But the previous missionaries had already set up daily contact, so we can see them nearly every night. It's always been a doorstep lesson with two or three people, but there are a few who are genuinely interested. One is a kid, he is 15 and on the JV football team, then there is his brother, he is a bit younger 12 or so, but he also seems pretty interested. Then their dad is a pretty big dude, but very soft spoken and kind. They are pretty cool, we just have to start progressing them and g them coming to church!

One really crazy thing about serving here is all of the military, most of the ward is military and there is a big deployment coming up. So in the next few months nearly all the men will be going to either Korea, Afghanistan, or Iraq. So Junction City is going to become a ghost town. Part of that is the auxiliary leaders are always changing as well. Just this past Sunday we got a new counselor in the bishopric because the other one is going to Korea.

We just finished our two weeks with the car, so this next week we will be on bikes, oh joy. And the weather forecast shows storms coming this next week. So at least it will be nice and cool for us to be on bikes! One of the biggest downsides to bikes is that our area is so large, with so many little towns that are 20+ miles away. It's hard enough getting to them with the car. But there were some part member families we were wanting to visit this next week.

This week we also had Zone Training, it was a really awesome opportunity to learn and see what we could be doing better. Most of the trainings that we had dealt with first contacts, and making people new investigators. I think that as we go out this week and apply what we learned we are going to see tons of success.

The transfer is already halfway over, crazy how fast time moves while I'm out here. Six months has just flown by. Everyday is filled with miracles and I am so lucky to be in the best mission in the World! 

Love Y'all

- Elder Andrasko

Shake it up

(Elder Andrasko experienced an earthquake this week) JC is such an awesome place!

Whitewashing is pretty hard, the last missionaries didn't leave us a lot to work with, but we have been finding a lot of new people every single day! The biggest problem is finding those people who want to progress. We had church tours set up with a few different people, but none of them showed up, which was a huge bummer, and all week we invited people to the baptism on Saturday, but again nobody showed up.

This week we are going to sift through all of our investigators this week and separate the wheat from the tares, and really work with those who are wanting to progress.

One funny thing that happened is we went to visit a former investigator, he was a really nice guy, but he is so stuck in his ways and not willing to change at all. And at the end he was just trying to recruit us to the army, he spent 10 years as a recruiter.

We also found a family this week that is willing to meet with us every day! I'm not sure their last name, because everyone in the family has a different one, but I'm super excited to start working with them. Hopefully we can spark a desire and help them work towards baptism!

There isn't a lot of people that we are working with right now, we are doing a lot of finding and street contacting, which I haven't done most of my mission, so it's a little foreign to me. Hopefully we really get to know the members and start working with them to find people.

It's always weird to get on the army base, we have to get a pass every seven days, then drive to the gate and show them our pass, and every so often they have a random vehicle inspection. So it takes a little bit of effort, but most members in the ward either live in base or in a small town 30 miles away.

Elder Stirling is doing great! It's like I barely have to teach him anything, he always has a positive attitude and is willing to try
anything. Sometimes though I tell him, "alright this is your door" but I then forget and end up talking anyway, I feel bad about that haha. But when I do give him the chance to talk he does super well. Hopefully I can be with him for all 12 weeks of his training, that would be the longest I've been with a companion haha.

Not much else to talk about, hopefully this next week will be full of miracles!

Love Y'all!

- Elder Andrasko

Sorry no pictures this week!

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