Nov 14, 2011

Hi Hi,

   I have to tell you, I'm disappointed in Virginia's weather so far. I've been waiting for snow and I guess it's never gonna come. Ever since that one really cold day it's been just fine, maybe my ear muffs while I'm riding or something but I don't ever need a coat. I'm thinking that's probably going to change though. So to answer your question about the appartment, we have 4 Elders staying in it. Elder Harris, in some of those pictures, and Elder Beardall are the Richmond Zone Leaders. I feel really blessed to live with them they are great leaders and I'm learning every day how I can be the best missionary that I can. I have come to love constructive critisism and even if it's harsh I take it for everything it's worth. As I have prayed for help with being patient and long suffering, I have seen help with being patient and long suffering. I am seeing prayer work like it never has before and I think that's because I'm listening more, not because Heavenly Father is talking more. Deep, I know, haha just kidding I'm sure everyone but me knew this before now but I have loved the relationship with Heavenly Father that comes through humble prayer and sincerely treasuring the words of life throughout my day. (DC84:85) So in the appartment it's Elder Harris, Elder Beardall, Elder Tramell and I. Then we get Elders from all over the zone coming in to do exchanges with the zone leaders and we do zone p-days so it is so much fun being here. Not that it takes away from the work obviously but I feel so blessed to be able to meet all of these different Elders and learn from them. It's been an amazing expirience as far as my own personal growth. I have tried hard to forget myself and find myself in Christ. It is a continual process and will be for my whole life. I have developed this love for learning that I never new before. I love it!

 

  Enough about me I'm sorry. So Marie has been lying to us the whole time saying that she believes this message just to see if Pres. Hanes (branch pres.) would give her welfare money. He met with her and asked her a couple questions and said he felt very uneasy during the meeting. He told us to push the date back and figure out what was going on with her. He said to use the spirit in discerning her real intentions. We prayed really hard about what to teach her after that and we decided to go with what a testimony is and why we need one. We were going to talk about lasting conversion and what it means to endure to the end. Right off the bat, she told us that we were wrong about Jesus and Heavenly Father being seperate beings and basically retreated back into all of her old beliefs. It was heart braking. She lied to us the whole time. I have a hard time believing we didn't do some sort of good though, she still wants to come to church and we are going to keep reading with her, but she is having a hard time with a couple things. AAAAAHAGHHGHAH

 

Yesterday I saw a really cool sport, bike polo. They play every sunday and this weekend was the Championship in Richmond. There were teams from seattle and NY and it was awesome. We got some contacts that were VCU students and I gave the underdog team (winner of the losing bracket) some water and they said "the mormons gave us holy water, we're gonna kick some....... It was so funny. They were awesome guys. The team that won last year lost to the underdog in a 5 to 4 double overtime game. I was blessed to be able to see it. haha it was just in a park in downtown, nothing special, but I see this sport going bit. Look up some vids on youtube or something I guaruntee you'll see us.

 

Downtown is really hard. Not one investigator has a car and we are constantly calling members for help.   John is doing so good.  Joanne and Stone are doing well, this week was stake conference and We didn't see them there but She still reads and prays and they want to keep coming so YESSS!

 

Ok I gotta go golfing so wish me luck, I'm shootin for 99

Elder Andreasen