Happy New Year

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Hello Everyone,

This week has been kind of crazy. Today is Saturday. We NEVER email on Saturdays, because Monday is our P-Day. On Monday, the governor of Minnesota shut down all schools, because the temperatures are supposed to be rather cold. The high I believe is -18 without wind chill, and the temperature is rumored to get down to about -50 degrees. Needless to say, we are going to be locked inside all day, THANK GOODNESS! But because of everything going on, today we are doing all of our shopping and emailing and fun stuff :)

To start the week we were able to stop by a potential investigator of ours. We were able to talk to her about the restoration, and the member we were with invited her to church. It was an awesome lesson, and I am excited to be able to visit with her again! Minnesota is largely Lutheran, but I am really good at finding all the Catholic people haha ;) I guess it is a special talent of mine.

On Tuesday we had dinner with a member family. The Sister is from England, and served us Yorkshire Pudding with dinner, VERY English :) It was fun to be able to visit with them and to hear her BEAUTIFUL British accent!

Tuesday evening we were able to visit with a member family. They talked about Studio C at BYU, so I introduced them to Divine Comedy on YouTube, and told them to watch the video "Provo, Utah Girls". The mom told me that she LOVED it!

New Years Eve we were with a member family. The brother is in the Stake Presidency, and I absolutely love their family. Later we spent some time with a family from the ward (he serves in the bishopric) and a few less-active families, it was great!

New Years Day was our P-Day! I finally bought a new pair of shoes, that matched a cordovan belt that I brought out with me on my mission. I was pretty stoked! Unfortunately I have shopping problems though... the Ecco Outlet had a sale... 1 pair of shoes turned into 2. But I love them both, and the second pair was FREE :) Well kind of. It was 1/2 off, so pretty close! My New Years resolution is going to possibly be working on spending money more wisely. I just haven't made up my mind if I can completely commit to that yet. Yikes! (Mom, I also FINALLY got my belts all fixed up, so now I have variety in my belts!)

The other day we went to Big Lake, Minnesota and were able to meet with a woman and her nonmember boyfriend. We taught them about the Plan of Salvation, and arranged to meet with them again today. His girlfriend will be in jail, but he will be home :) Minor details.

We also experienced a tragedy this week. The young man with the muscular disorder who we met with last week passed away. We went to visit with his grandmother to see how she was handling the loss of her grandson, and she was doing surprisingly well! The Plan of Salvation truly is an amazing thing to know that all is well when we experience the sorrows of the passing of a loved one. We know that they are in a better place, and that they are happy! They are now able to watch over us, and help us along the path to return to our Heavenly Father. Death is still extremely hard for us, because we will miss our loved ones, but we know that they are okay and that we will see them again.

We were able to finish off the day by visiting with a part member family. We talked about the For The Strength of Youth program, and they absolutely loved it! They talked about how they always wanted to raise their children with good values, and that this program is the perfect solution to it all. The mom also told us that she quit smoking! Hopefully we will be able to maintain this great progress, and continue to help their family in the future. Things are going well though :)

Yesterday I was on exchange in Buffalo, Minnesota with an Elder from Alabama. We were able to visit with a lot of really cool people, and we were able to give a blessing to a very sick 5 year-old. We finished off the day by visiting with their investigator who is progressing towards baptism. As we talked with him, he mentioned that his parents live in Elk River, Minnesota and that he would like for them to hear this message. Non-Member Referral, AWESOME! We are going to stop by his family later this week, and hopefully get them to begin investigating the church as well :)

During the night something occurred here called "Ice Rain". Not good. The rain froze on EVERYTHING, and the car was frozen shut. We had to break the ice around the door to get in, and scrape all the ice off and melt it with the heat of the car. Kind of crazy! Luckily only the car was frozen, and the roads were fine. Absolute insanity! It all worked out in the end though, and we found out that it only happened in Buffalo, so our car in Elk River is all good :)

Thank you all so much for your love and support! I am so grateful for all of your kind letters and emails of love and encouragement. I have the best friends and family in the world! Have a great week :)

Best Wishes,

Elder Kyle William Andrews