I Believe in Miracles!

The Zone!

Crazy Clouds

First of all happy Father's Day. We had a good week and saw some miracles.

So this week was transfers, there were only 3 changes in our entire
zone. So it won't be too hard to get to know the new faces.

One miracle that happened was we went to meet a former investigator,
Hank, and he let us in and remembered just about everything that the
missionaries had taught him previously, including the word of wisdom.
He had just poured some tea before we got there and when talking to us
he just said, "I know I shouldn't be drinking his" and so after our
lesson he was invited to pour it out and he did! He invited him to a
baptismal date and time church and he agreed to both. We followed up
with him throughout the week and Saturday he said he would be there.

Unfortunately Sunday when going to make sure he was awake and still
committed to coming, he wasn't home. So we left to head towards church
and we see him out walking his dog! But he told us he wouldn't come
this week. So that's something to work on this coming week, to
progress him and build a burning desire!

On Sunday we had a really cool lesson with a man named Jonathan. When
Jonathan was 18 he lived in a bad part of town and the house he was
living in got "shot up" and he was hit between the shoulder blades and
caused him to be paralyzed. And so he has been confined to a
wheelchair for the last 20 years. But he is very self sufficient, he
has a full-time job, he drives, and lives a normal life. But he has
been struggling financially the past little bit, anyways we were able
to have an awesome lesson with him, and invited him to baptism, it was
a soft invite, he didn't accept it but he didn't say no. He just said
he needs to learn more. He's an awesome guy and the gospel would
benefit him tremendously, I'm confident as he continues to read, pray,
and starts coming to church he will accept the gospel into his life.

John  is still an interesting case, he is really awesome at
praying daily, he reads most days but isn't 100% at it, and he has
been to church a few times. But he still hasn't received his answer
about the church or the Book of Mormon. I guess I just need to focus
my studies more on how to help him, and to focus our lessons more on
the Doctrine of Christ.

We had a strange lesson with Eddie this week, we were talking about
prayer and at the end of the lesson we invited him to pray. He said
that he didn't want to, so I said I would pray. And right before I
prayed he said that he didn't feel like asking for anything so he got
up and went inside. It was pretty strange.

Things are good, Kansas is super hot. The humidity is really awful,
it's impossible to cool down, the shade is just as hot as in the sun.

I love Kansas and my mission so much, I've learned a ton and am
learning more every day.

Have a great week!

- Elder Andrasko

Book of Mormon Stories

This week was a bike week...it was rather awful.

So we went over on miles so we were parked for a week. My bike is
pretty bad so it made it even worse.

So we biked all over town, because none of investigators live next to
each other.

We started teaching this super awesome guy named Jonathan, he is in a
wheelchair. So we had a pretty good lesson with him about the
restoration. He works a lot, which is good, so it's hard to catch up
with him. He wasn't able to come to church this week, but hopefully in
the future.

One cool thing that happened was we went to try a former investigator,
but she didn't live there anymore. But we met a cool girl named
Emarie, (spelling?). But she was super nice and willing to listen, then
her mom came home. And she was super nice! In fact she even gave us
ice pops!! It was great.

One funny thing that happened this week is all of the pizza we ate!!
Three dinners in a row we had pizza, needless to say it wasn't a good
combination with biking.

We had a pretty good week with John, we got him more committed to
reading the Book of Mormon more, and he did it! He read 8 chapters in
a day! John is so awesome, I have no doubt that he will, get baptized
soon.

Eddie has been doing OK, he is still struggling with the word of
wisdom. But we have been helping him to pray often, he hasn't been
reading as often.

Sorry for the short email, but not a whole lot to write about this
week. But love y'all and have a great week!

- Elder Andrasko

Stayin' Alive

Hey one and all!

So this last week was pretty sweet!!

So Tuesday we went on exchanges, and once again I went to Hiawatha!
Well we actually went past Hiawatha  to Sabetha, and we had a few
people to try but other than that we just went on foot tracking the
whole day! Now I haven't walked all day for a very long time, not
since December and by the end of it my feet were sore as can be. But
we met 2 people who said we could come back! Yay 😁😁 then at the end
of the day Elder Anderson took me to see a few sights in town, one of
them was a weeping angel...if you've seen Dr. Who you would know that
these things are no good, but it wasn't like the actual one from the
show but it is an angel that is in fact weeping. And it came out
before the show did so it still counts. But we had fun and stayed up
wayyy to late. And while I was gone the elders had a great lesson with
our investigator.

Wednesday there wasn't really anything to talk about, we saw our investigator.
He's still struggling with a few things, but he is slowly progressing.
The neat thing is he is really getting into the Book of Mormon, now we
just need to have him pray more and start coming to church.

So this week we have been getting referrals like crazy, mostly people
who speak English from the Spanish missionaries. One we received was
all the way out in the middle of nowhere, but he was a cool guy, and
as it turns out he is already a member. But he has a non-member
girlfriend whose name is Egypt, so that's pretty neat. The only
downside is that they are planning  on moving to Lawrence, so we'll
have to get their new address and have missionaries there go see them.

So that was on Thursday -  we also saw another contact Thursday -  and had a
super good lesson on the plan of salvation. She has been reading the
children's Book of Mormon to her kids and everyone has been loving it.
So they had a few questions for us from their reading. She is
super awesome and is looking for a church for her kids, she's super
accepting of everything, we just need to commit her to living the
commandments.

Friday we had a lot of appointments fall through, but we met a nice
lady. We were supposed to have an investigator come to soccer but she
never showed so that was lame.

Saturday was awesome! So we started a 24 hour mission wide fast to
help us change. And we definitely saw some miracles from that. So
first off we met some really sick people. We had an awesome spiritual
lesson with John W  this week, we weren't able to see him for a
few days due to him being sick or gone, but when we saw him he related
to us a dream he had. In his dream he saw a pillar of light near his
feet on the bed, and in this light was God and Jesus and they told
him, "As long as you believe in me I'll take care of you". John isn't
quite sure how to interpret the dream, but hopefully today at church
he received some revelation and an answer to if he should get
baptized. We also found out that John had never prayed about the Book
of Mormon, we had invited him to do that a lot, but he never got
around to it. So we were able to read Moroni 10 with him and pray with
him if the Book of Mormon is true. The spirit was so strong, it was
awesome. John said he was 110% committed to coming to church.

Then John came to church!! He's still waiting for his answer, I think
we need to follow up with him. But it was an awesome awesome day. Then
for dinner the members had a super nice camera and we took some nice
pictures.

So anyways we as a mission have all committed to being 100% obedient
this entire month. Our mission president said it'll be a super hard
month, but if we are committed to it we will all baptize and reach our
triple digit vision as a mission!! Which is 100 baptisms in a month.

Anyways this week was great, lots of fun and good progression in our
investigators.

Love y'all and have a good week!

- Elder Andrasko

Say a Little Prayer

Hey everyone, happy Memorial Day!!

So this week has been great! We started off  Tuesday with an awesome
Zone Conference! During interviews President asked me to study the
Doctrine of Christ, and that was something that was touched on a lot
during Zone Conference. So that was cool. I got so much awesome
revelation at Zone Conference and l really enjoyed myself.

Also Elder Smack was there, and we had a great time just chilling and
talking about the good times in McPherson.

We've been working a lot this week with John, and occasionally his
wife Laura. John has been going through a lot this week. His sister
has been in an out of the hospital with cancer and John is not doing
well with it. We gave him Alma 40 to read, which talks about life
after death and the resurrection. We haven't followed up on the
reading, but hopefully he read it and found some comfort in it. John
is also struggling to find his answer about the church, we think part
of it may have to do with living the word of wisdom. Hopefully as he
tries to live this commandment he will have the spirit to let him know
what is right, and to find some comfort. We also watched the
restoration movie with him, so that was cool.

We tried a lot of potentials this week just a ton of people we hadn't
tried or had never seen. We met a few people but it wasn't the most
successful.

We did an awesome hike as a zone, and near the end we had a big
thunderstorm. We barely finished he hike when the heavens opened and
the rain just started coming down. It was a pretty great storm.

When church came around this week we were hoping for three or four
people to come, but each one had a reason, or excuse why they
couldn't. John unfortunately got sick, so he had a pretty good excuse.

Today we had a super awesome Memorial Day! We went to a member's house
for lunch and we did a lot. We played spike ball, bocci ball,
basketball, and had some fun with water balloons. It was us and the
zone leaders, cause they are also in our ward.

Not a whole lot to talk about this week, but I had an awesome week of
studies and learned a ton. I love my mission so much and am grateful
for my chance to serve!

Have a killer week!

- Elder Andrasko

What a Wonderful World

Well this week was another great one! We had interviews with our
mission president, exchanges, and a great week at church.

Tuesday we did exchanges and I got the opportunity to go to Hiawatha
on exchanges! It was an hour and a half drive up, and on the way was
the only 711 in Kansas! So I got my first slurpee since I was last in
Utah! Then we went to Falls City, Nebraska! So I left Kansas for the
first time in 14 months, it looked the same as Kansas but a lot more
Nebraska license plates. There was an odd experience during dinner, a
kid came in with blood all over his face. He crashed on his bike and
got pretty messed up. But all in all it was a good exchange and we
found a new investigator!

We worked a lot with John  and his family, in fact almost
everyone said they would pray about getting baptized. And we're
committed to coming to church. We showed them a lot of conference
talks and they thought it was awesome. We talked a lot about the Plan
of Salvation and the Doctrine of Christ. They are starting to
understand the Plan and have lots of great questions for us.

There is a woman  we have been working with, we have a
standing appointment every Tuesday and Thursday at 5. They love us
coming over, but it's hard to be able to teach a solid lesson because
of how hectic everything is. But they were committed to church this
week!

We taught Eddie  the Word of Wisdom this week, he understood why we
have it, but not sure if he is willing to live it yet. He wasn't able
to come to church this week, he said he had a lot of things to do
around the house. He's kind of a hoarder so there's just a lot of junk
around his yard and house. But we'll continue to meet with him and
help him live the WoW.

This week was interviews! It was so awesome, I was the first one from
the district to be interviewed and I was in there for like 45 minutes.
No I didn't do anything wrong, but he gave me a lot of advice on
construction stuff!! He talked to me about it for like 30 minutes. It
was awesome, but a lot of information to take in all at once. So I'll
have to talk to him about it some more later.

So church came around this week and he were hoping for like 7 people
to come. But unfortunately John said his family wasn't feeling to well so 
John came by himself. One investigator didn't come, but one came with her 
3 young kids.

I taught Sunday school, so that was fun. I was still a little sick so
I tried to have it be as much of a discussion as possible.

But all in all it was a good week, fun and productive.

Love ya!

- Elder Andrasko

Called to Serve (reprise)

Hello everyone, and happy Mother's Day! This week was, mostly, great!
We had awesome lessons with our investigators, we did some really fun
service, we had someone come to church, we got to talk with our
families, and I got sick. So like I said, mostly awesome week!

So Tuesday after district meeting we went to visit a few of our
investigators and one of them wasn't sure about modern day prophets.
And so we showed a talk I had downloaded, "safety for the soul" by
Elder Holland. And after Elder Holland testified boldly of the Book of
Mormon, we followed his lead and testified. I can't remember that last
time I was so bold in a lesson.

Well the next lesson someone similar happened while we were teaching
our investigator  about the Plan of Salvation, it was a
really awesome lesson and we helped him understand it better. And he
committed to pray, read, and come to church. Unfortunately his
grandson had a graduation this week so he won't be able to come until
next week. We saw him and his wife again during the week. And
before the wife had voiced concern about the role of women in the church,
so we had a cool lesson about that and we listened to the talk
"Certain Women" by Sister Linda K. Burton. Afterwards she said she
has no question that women play a big part of the church.

We had a cool service opportunity this week with NAMI (national
alliance on mental illness) Kansas. They were doing a 5K walk/run, so
no we did not do the 5K, but we helped with the take down; chairs,
tables, etc. We also took pictures with a bunch of people and had them
hold up pictures of Jesus.

We were able to work a lot with our investigator Eddie. His blind cat
got hit by a car this week, so it was an opportunity for us to teach
the Plan of Salvation. He was able to make it to church son that was
cool. Later we had the chance to Skype our families, yay! I later was
sent to the doctor by the mission medical coordinator because I though
I had pink eye, but it turns out my eyeball just got scratched. But
then it turns out I had a fever, it got pretty bad and I had a
miserable night last night.

But all-in-all it was a great week! Saw some great progression in our
investigators and had fun working and doing service! Looking forward
to another great week!

- Elder Andrasko

Home on the Range

Hello one and all!!

Well here I am back in Topeka, and man did I miss it. I am serving in the Colly Creek Ward and it is so cool, we have probably the coolest ward mission leader ever and the members are the bomb.

So the beginning of the week was filled with fun times and goodbyes. On our way to say bye to a member we saw wild buffalo! So of course we had to stop and take lots of pictures. There was a lot of goodbyes to say, and it was sad. But I'm sure Elder Jordan will take good care of McPherson!

So transfers come along, and I got to see a lot of familiar faces, like Elder Colemere and Elder Stirling!! It's always fun to catch up with people that you served with. Then I found Elder Thompson and off we went to Topeka!

Well things started getting pretty messy right away, not in the companionship we're pretty good there, but the car started overheating! So we had to pull over, and I watched as all of the coolant disappeared from the car. So we bought some more and drove to Topeka very very slowly. A trip that usually takes 2 hours took nearly 7! So we had to put our car in the shop, turns out it had a leaky water pump, and it took a few days for them to replace. So it was bikes for us.

So there are a few really cool people that we are working with, we currently have three people working towards a baptismal date. But I haven't had the opportunity to meet one of them.

One is an 8-year old from a part member family, he turns 9 on the 26th of this month. So if he comes to church 3 times he can get baptized on the 27th.

Another is a 19 year old who the missionaries have been working with for awhile. I have yet to meet the other person who is currently working towards a baptismal date.

So a cool thing that happened while we were trying to get people to church. We went to go see Isaiah, the 19 year old, to see if he wanted to come to church. He said he'd probably come, but he didn't want a ride so he was going to walk. So we suggested that we walk with him, it's about 2 miles, so we started walking. But it was hot and a long walk and it was looking like we were going to be late, but then a miracle! The 8 year old was riding his bike and he went and asked if he wanted to come to church. Then we got a ride from his less active mom, so us, a less-active member, and two investigators who want to get baptized were all in the car on our way to church! it was so awesome!!

Not too much more to talk about, but it was a great week! I am really looking forward to my time here in Topeka and all the stuff I have to learn.

Love y'all tons and have a suuuper week!

-Elder Andrasko