HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! 20 Years

So...............

• Thank you so much for the birthday package :) I LOVED IT! Especially the silly straw and my Hammock. YESSSS! I want you to know that I had a real nostalgic moment when I opened up my hammock to show Elder Van Wagoner. Once a long time ago I randomly told Jordan Anderson to sign my hammock. He signed it "to peaceful sunny days" Jordan G Anderson. HAHAHAH YES!
• Good work on finishing the Book of Mormon! Woo! I love that book. Did I tell you about my expirience re-starting it? WOW I just can't get over Nephi's faith and the fact that he saw Christ's life and now I could hear more about it. That means a lot to me.

In the past months, the church has made a huge push on "Real Growth" basically to say that we need to help all others around us to receive all of the blessings that Heavenly Father has in store for them. To "establish the church" as the Twelve and the Seventies are called to do in D+C 107. We are included in that. If anyone is interested, in the new ensign there is a talk called "The rescue for real growth" WOW I now know my job as a member and what really helped was that we had Elder Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve come talk to our mission. What a meeting. He really brought the spirit in the room. The one thing I want you to know that really touched me is that at the end, because the spirit was so strong, he pronounced an Apostolic blessing uppon us. In that blessing, among other things, he blessed you, my family, friends, and loved ones. That was quite the expirience. YOU ARE BLESSED!

 

Talk about real growth, wow! I had a conversation last night with Elder Richards in the Norfolk 1st ward who was struggling a week ago and he has totally switched to the other side. He is doing so well and last night I shared a couple things with him that were really cool. Basically I just tried to tie in what President Perry had said about us as missionaries being the example of real growth. I love that. It's so true. I helped him realize that "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren" What a cool expirience to see him grow like that I feel like one of my own children is growing up haha. I am so grateful for the opportunities that I have to help others around us to expirience real growth. 

This week was amazing with all of the meetings we had and the spirit that accompanied Elder Nelson. My favorite part was I was going to ask him how we could change our teaching and finding to help the church with real growth and he skipped over me and took a question from someone else but his answer was so amazing. When that Elder in the back asked about his investigator holding back because of family, he answered in such an amazing way and gave the most amazing example of teaching for real growth. "What we need you to do is to be an extention of your Heavenly Father and his purpose" what better way to explain real growth. I gained such a strong conviction of following the spirit in trainings because I had just trained on Moses 1:39 and how our purpose should be fulfilling our Fathers purpose, and how that is what we can do to help our investigators catch the vision. I am so interested in finding and teaching with the end goal in mind, there has been a fire lit in my life of extending that hand to EVERYONE around me to help establish the church. That is our purpose as members, to be JUST AS INFLUENTIAL in our sphere of influence as the Prophet is in his. I am striving to establish the church always, with everyone, to bear my testimony in every setting and to be a representative of Jesus Christ by serving all others. What a fun calling!

Our investigator with a date is doing well, he reads every day and comes to church every week. He is already converted and is so excited to receive the gift of the holy ghost. It seems as though no one else is progressing though which is a little discouraging but we are striving once again to prepare ourselves perfectly to find those Elect that will receive us.

I love you all so much and I am sorry I don't have all the time in the world. I could spend 5 hours on here bearing my testimony of Christ but I know he lives, he died for us, the sacrament is our connection to the atonement, I know my Father Lives and loves me too, I love you, what more can I say it's my BIRTHDAY!

Have a good week ya'all

 

Love,
Elder Skyler Mark Andreasen
P.S. I choose Christ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!