I'M OVER IT AND BACK TO MISSIONARY WORK :)

Good morning to all!

 

Hey so as far as classes and school goes, I'm pretty much forgetting about it other than setting up the generals I need to take. If I need to declare a major, I can do that. I will look at a list of majors this week. I will also look at a list of the general classes and pick the ones I want to take. That will pretty much be the extent of my decision making before I go home. I'm going to stop stressing about careers and degrees and just focus :) I know, this is what you told me in the beginning, just come home, take some time to get back to normal, take generals. That is the best advise yet. I'M OVER IT AND BACK TO MISSIONARY WORK :)

 

WHEW what a week. We were working our tails off to make sure our investigators came to church and they did. We are expiriencing great blessings. I don't know how else to desribe it. Yesterday at church we had Sister Didi and her sons Tyrez and Jaydon, the R Family, the F family, brother C, and Kimberly in sacrament meeting. Each of these 9 investigators are progressing.

 

Kimberly still has her heart set on the 2nd of March so we are going with it! We had lunch and a lesson with them yesterday and tried our best to have an open council with the family. To be honest, she would probably do anything we say at this point. We realize that if we said "get baptized this week" she'd do it or if we said "wait to get baptized" she'd do it. We decided to just state the curcumstances and leave it in the air.

 

We said, "Kimberly, you have great faith and you have made some amazing changes through your repentance. You have expressed to us you'd like to be baptized and we think that's fantastic! You can either do it now, before your court date, or you can wait and see what the court says about going back with your family, or whatever you want! So, there it is, what would you like to do?"

 

She said, "I know these things are true and I want to be baptized this week" It seems simple but it was amazing how that allowed her to take ownership of the decision.

 

Sister Didi now has a baptismal date of March 23. In the lesson on Saturday night we were planning to invite her to be baptized but halfway through the lesson she just went OFF about how amazing her expirience has been and all of the things she has learned by reading and in the middle of her rant she says "and I just feel my angel right beside me telling me that I just need to set a date and get on with it." Elder Coon and I jumped right on it and said "have you thought about any certain day?" She said "either Easter or the week after or the week before."

 

Well, we had been praying about what would be best for her and had thought that March 23 was the day. We proposed the 23rd and she was on board! She has some super faith and has been so prepared. She is a blessing to work with. I am IN AWE!!!

 

We had a SOLID lesson on happiness with Brother C and he had some good comments during the lesson that allowed us to see that he was engaged. He is opening up more and more. We have no doubt that he is feeling it and though he's moving slowly, he will receive the blessings of baptism some day. His wife is helping him along as well. We comitted them to read together.

 

We also used the same lesson plan on happiness with Sister F. Usually we don't do that but we felt that it fit her needs well so we adapted it and used it. It went well. We also had the Buis' over there with us and we hope that will help them feel more comfortable coming to church with a friend.

 

Elder Coon and I have been trying to apply a principal that I feel has changed the way I will do any work. I think I already talked about the parable of the talents in a previous emal, but the lesson in that parable has helped us as missionaries. When the Lord gives you something, even ONE thing, TAKE CARE OF IT. The man in the parable with five talents didn't leave his five talents at home in search of five other talents, in stead "he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents". What we see here is a parable explaining the need to invest in the talents that the Lord has already given us. We have forgotten about knocking doors. We have forgotten about street contacting. We haven't really been finding at all. We spend ALL of our time and effort and planning (sometimes 5 and 6 hour weekly planning sessions) on those investigators that we DO have. We invite EVERYONE personally to church. We talk to each investigator daily. We pray and ponder and pray again about lessons that are tuned to their needs and aim them to the greatest happiness. As we have spent all of our time on the investigators that we already have, we have felt the Lord say "well done, thou good and faithful servant[s], thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler (teacher) over many things" and the new investigators we find just pop out of the woodwork. We are extremely thankful to Heavenly Father for allowing us these "talents". We have seen this principal at work! Try it out! Take the challenge of the Savior to do all you can in your sphere of influence and I promise you he will bless you in the things you think you can't do. JUST DO WHAT YOU CAN AND HE WILL DO THE REST.

 

I LOVE THIS!!!!

 

(now, I say we have forgotten about finding to make a point, we still knock doors and we still take the time to listen to the spirit saying "talk to that random person" or "knock on that door" but those things come way down the priority list after every last investigator is accounted for that day) 

 

Tell Kyler hi! That is so cool. What is going on with Kyli Roberts? I MISS that girl. I wrote her once like forever ago but I don't know if they ever got it. Tell her whole family hello.

 

OUR MISSION IS SPLITTING and I don't know which mission I'll be in yet. July 1st it splits and we get two new mission Presidents. CRAZY. We will be getting about a thousand new missionaries in the next little while. (not really just like 100)

Ok gotta go :) 

Elder Skyler Mark Andreasen

p.s. I choose Christ

Hey what's a jig in my rear?

Holy cats I have a lot to tell you about this week. I am always amazed at the blessings that come when we are diligent. We have been working our tails off and the Lord is continuing to show us his power.

   

On Thursday I was on split with Brother Wagner and his son Tristan. Elder Coon was with our Elders Quorum President. We were visiting some less active members and tracting on the side. We came to one adress and realized we only had a building number, #106. We didn't know what apartment to knock. Eleven year old Tristan spoke out what I was thinking "we have to knock at least one, let's do that one!" and pointed to the door closest to us with army stickers and American flags. "OK" we said and we jumped out.

The girl who opened the door was very nice to us, and introduced herself as Brittany. We waived further into the house at a couple of young boys who we learned were named Jadon and Tyrez. Their mom wasn't home so we gave her our number and asked when we could come back. "any day between 9 and 11 am" she said, and we left. I was pretty excited because she seemed interested and told us her mother would be also. She also knew where we could find the family we were originally looking for. Apt. B :)

The cool thing about missionary work is that the story I told you could easily have ended there. We might have gone back to no answer, an angry mother, non-interested family, or many other possibilities that we see every day. We went by first thing on Saturday and knocked on the door to no answer. We left a card with our number and a funny little note about the stickers on their door and walked away with plans to try again tomorrow.

Later that day while we were visiting with the R family we got a call from a random number and it was the mother, who's name is Dorothy. She sounded nice and expressed that she was interested in us coming over.... today. We were super excited! We went with one of our youth, Mark, and had a beautiful lesson on the Restoration. She was so prepared....like uber prepared. She grew up in the Virgin Islands, and when she was 16 she got pregnant and was super guilty and everyone in her family was giving her a hard time and she was way depressed but she saw a commercial from the church and she felt solace for the first time and called the number to get a Book of Mormon. She already knew it was true and had read up on Joseph Smith and knows he is a prophet. When we shared the first vision the first thing she said was "I know that he saw God and Jesus" It was a moment for sure.

She came to Church yesterday and loved it. She fit right in. I am TELLING you, people are being PREPARED out there. WHAT IF WE HADN'T KNOCKED ON THAT DOOR?

I am thankful to our Heavenly Father that he allows us, as his children, to be instruments in bringing his other children unto him. Especially the ones he has hand picked and prepared for the harvest. The fields are WHITE, WHITE, WHITE.

The second miracle is going to be explained quicker than the first miracle :)

Kimberly, the one I told you about the lesson we had on the Doctrine of Christ. (I LOVE THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST) Her one concern about being baptized has to do with her birth parents. They have to know about all of this and they might not even let her get baptized. Even if they did, she might go back with them and we would never see her in church again. She has 2 years until she can go to church on her own and we would hate to just rush her to baptism if she will just fall away. Yet we also want to give her the Holy Ghost if that's what she desires, because that will help her more than anything during this process.

Yesterday in P.E.C. Brother W told us that Kimberly really took the Doctrine of Christ to heart. She has one hour of visitation per week with her birth parents, and this week she strode right in and said "I'm going to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, what do you think?"

Her father was uncaring and said "you can do whatever" but her Mom said "wait wait wait, how can you just be baptised into a church you know nothing about"

Kimberly said "mom, being baptized isn't about knowing everything or being ready. It's about being worthy and willing" I could have just cried when I heard that, but Kimberly went a step further and pulled out her journal. She turned to a page where she had re-drawn a picture of a man in a hole, with Jesus Christ standing there handing him a ladder with five rungs, "mom, this is the Doctrine of Christ. If you look here you can see that baptism isn't the end goal, it's only the beginning" Her mom was quiet after that.

Have I ever told you that I lOVE THIS?!?!

I am humbled and grateful, in awe and adoration for the matchless gift of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is only one way into the Kingdom of God, and that is through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. There is only one way to apply the Atonement in our lives, and that is through Baptism by immersion. We can't just be baptized though, we have to repent of our sins. We can't just say sorry though, it has to be with real intent through Jesus Christ. Thus, we see the Doctrine of Christ, Have faith in Him; a sincere trust and belief enough to drive you to change for the better and ask him to forgive you for the wrongs you have done. Then, as the scriptures tell us, the firstfruits of repentance is baptism, not only by water but by fire also, the gift of the Holy Ghost. THEN we are clean enough to enter the kingdom of the Father. Then and only then have we applied the atonement to ourselves. Then, saith the Father, he who endures to the end will surely have eternal life.

A knowledge of the Docrine of Christ changes attitudes and behavior. It changes everything.

I love you all!!!!! Have a good week and dont' forget to pray!

Love,

Elder Andreasen

P.S. I choose Christ.

I LOVE THIS!!

Apparently there is a 6 month wait to go to the MTC right now? That is crazy. Tanner, don't be surprised if when you get your call you have to wait a while before going out. We might see each other after all :)

Dad, thanks for your thoughts on my expirience that sunday. I appreciate that. I really do, I had never thought of it that way. The insight that I gained that day was pretty profound to me and I shared it when I gave a talk at Sister C's baptism. It was about the savior washing the apostles' feet and how Christ said "if I wash you not, you have no part with me" I can't remember the chapter right now.

Mom- that is so cool about your class! I loved that lesson idea! We might use that. I love how simply you taught about apostasy and restoration I can really appreciate that. In my first 4 months as a missionary the only thing that Elder Tramell told me to work on was "teach more simply" I have tried my best to keep that going. I truly feel that if the savior were teaching your class that day he would have done that same lesson. That was so cool to hear. The spirit was teaching you when you came up with that. That lesson might not seem like a huge deal to you but they now understand something FUNDIMENTAL and it will help them as they grow up, and YOU were the instrument in God's hands to teach it to them. YOU ARE A ROCKSTAR TEACHER!!!!!!!!!! you fulfilled your comission in D&C 50:14.

We are back in touch with Dustin. He is on track for Feb 23 :) YES We were so stressed and worried not hearing from him for a while. I can't imagine being back in Newport News or Richmond again. I am thankful for people who keep appointments and who love to have us over.

So I told you about Kimberly that we had a lesson with last week, she is so cool. We had another lesson this week and we taught the Doctrine of Christ. Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the end. We used a whiteboard and an illustration derived from a letter that Claire sent me with the monkey bars on it. We just did it as a ladder. So you are in a hole and you need a way back out (Adam and Eve fell and we need a way out) so Jesus Christ throws you a 5 rung ladder (the Doctrine of Christ) on which you start climbing because of your faith in him. You realize you have some heavy baggage so you drop the bad things you are holding on to as you climb (repentance) you can't get rid of all the baggage yourself and you need to make covenants with God to give you the strength to climb and to really get clean so you are Baptized, then He Gives you the Holy Ghost and you try your best to receive it, then you endure to the end. Ding ding ding! You are at the top! Then you probably fall off a billion times and have to excercise your faith and repent and renew your covenants over and over again until one day he lets you in! We asked her to teach it back to us and she did, beautifully.

We turned to her and said "do you believe this is true?" she said yes. We asked her why and she said, "It just feels right, it's so simple." We said " where do you think you are right now in this process?" She smiled and put her hand up as if she were pinching something tiny "like this far above repentance" We laughed and at this point we all looked at the board and realized what that meant, so we looked back to her and said "what is the next step for you personally?"..."BAPTISM!!!!"...We agreed :)

I love it when you can just ask people questions and they teach themselves. We easily could have said "Kimberly, you are a great girl, you now have heard the Doctrine of Christ and we would like to invite you to take the next step and be baptized" and it probably would have worked but we just asked questions to help her process what we were teaching and she GOT IT.

I love this.

I love youth because they are so teachable. We have only baptized one person over 16 years old in this area and that was Sister C who is in her 60's and amazing anyway. "Ya don't find one of those every dynasty"... we have some amazing youth in this ward who are so ready to fellowship and invite people to church. I feel as though we are helping the church make real growth, because these youth will grow up to be leaders in the church and future husbands and wives and fathers and mothers. The best is when you find a FATHER, MOTHER, and CHILDREN. I think about that phrase often and I always look for opportunities to talk to whole families on the street or at the door. Those are hard to find these days.

LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elder Skyler Mark Andreasen

p.s. I choose Christ

Pick Your Battles

Hello Family,

Today was awesome, I studied Acts chapter 19 and I think this is an example of the phrase "picking your battles". The Man who stood up the second time and calmed the group of Ephesians down after they had been chanting for 2 hours said, in effect, "Ok, we get it. You worship Dianna and Zeus. There is nothing we can do about that and we aren't going to argue over what you believe. If you have a real concern to bring before the people we have a court and the court days are open so come see us, if not, stop doing these rash things and be quiet." 

I learn a lot from that chapter. Pick your battles, don't fight over the stuff that doesn't matter. If it's a real concern, bring it up and address it, if it's not a real concern just go with the flow and you might find out that you were the one that needed to change. In this story the Ephesian Demetrius was angry because Paul was converting his customers and taking away the need for his silversmith business. "If everyone worships Christ, no one needs the Idols I make" he said, all the while stirring up others to anger as well. If he would have "picked his battles" he would realize nothing Paul was doing was wrong, and in fact, what Paul was doing was much right and Demetrius would have had the opportunity to believe in the gospel and be converted as well. 

I have companions who do things differently than I do. Sometimes I get mad or I develop "pet peeves" at the little things that they do. When I have been able to relax on the things that don't matter, or the things that bug me but aren't necessarily wrong, (maybe I think my companion is taking away from my silversmith business) I have been able to realize that I am usually the one in need of the change, and it's usually a big doctrinal difference that needs changed. Most of the time I realize that I was worshipping myself or my talents and my companion was just trying to do the right thing. I was really thankful for that study today. 

Our investigators are doing well. Sister C got baptized yesterday!!! SURPRISE!!!! ON Tuesday she said she was ready and didn't want to wait so we did it yesterday. Elder Hart baptized her and confirmed her. The Roach's are doing well and we have had some solid lessons over there. We got two new investigators this week, one is the adopted daughter of the Webb family in the ward and she's super cool, the other was a girl named Cynthia who is the best friend of our recent convert Sara and is super solid. We invited her to read and pray and we meet with her tomorrow.

Not much time today, Gotta go :) Love you all

Love,

Elder Skyler Mark Andreasen

P.S.I choose Christ!!!!!