Mosiah 5:3 Spiritual Creation of My Future Family

Hello Everyone,

This week has went by SO quickly, but it was pretty great! On Monday we went to a Bike Shop, and I bought a fender and a rack for my bike to block the rain from getting all over me and to not have to always carry my bag. I have a shopping problem, but I love it! I don't even like bikes, but I loved every second we spent in the bike store haha! In the evening we went joint teaching. We stopped by an investigator, and realized that they were having a really difficult evening. Her daughter asked about her Dad, and our investigator decided to tell her who it was. She was really upset, and wanted to call him. She was able to talk to him, but that only made matters worse. I realized why the law of chastity is such an important commandment, because it eliminates all of the guess work and difficulties that we have to face in our lives. It is rather unfortunate that people have to go through such difficult times, but at least they are committed to living it now! We then were able to stop by other investigators and set up an appointment for Wednesday.

On Tuesday we had lunch with the the senior couple. They went over all of the people they have been meeting with in our area, and gave us their records. I love them! I can't believe that they are returning home today. Afterwards we had a Zone Service Project in Champlin, Minnesota. We cleaned up a park. We looked like the convicts who have required service, but we luckily did not have to wear the reflective vests. It was a good time though! Kind of a cool idea to have our entire Zone participate in a service project.

On Wednesday I had my blood tested in the morning. The nurse was... unique. She took me that I have really crappy veins, and then proceeded to just guess where my veins are and prick. She missed the first two times, then twisted the needle while it was in my arm until she hit a vein. Yikes! But they got the blood they needed, and all the tests went great. They didn't find anything wrong with me :) Afterwards we weekly planned for a short while, and went out joint teaching. We met with an investigator and shared the talk "Be Anxiously Engaged" from a while ago. It talks about honey bees and the service and devotion they have to their hive, and it relates the bees to us as members of the church. I remember studying this talk in Teachings of the Living Prophets at BYU, and it was one of my favourites. Later we taught other investigators. We covered the restoration, and committed one to a baptismal date. He said that he wants to tackle his coffee addiction first, and so we covered how he can overcome his addiction. We tried to set a date with him, but he was firm in waiting until he is sure he lives the Word of Wisdom. They are an amazing family, and he will be an amazing addition to the ward.

On Thursday we had a Zone Conference. This Zone Conference was a little bit different though. President and Sister Clements gave a joint training on families. They talked about their courtship, engagement, marriage, and family. We watched a video that highlighted their family, and learned a lot about the Clements! It was really cool. They talked about how we have the opportunity to witness many different types of families on our missions, and they gave us little notebooks titled "Mosiah 5:3 Spiritual Creation of My Future Family". They want us to take notes of things that we want to implement in our own families in the future, and things we want to be sure to avoid. Kind of a neat idea! We had a really great testimony meeting afterwards, but President Clements noted that the spirit was unusually strong and that he recognized that there were a lot of people struggling in our zone. I was sad to learn that many of the missionaries in our zone were having a really difficult time. I hope I am able to help to lift others up. In the evening we went joint teaching. We taught the restoration to an investigator family, and committed the 19 year old to be baptized. They were a lot more focused this time, and less resistant, but she still would not fully commit. She said she will let us know when she knows. We will just have to try again haha ;)

On Friday we had another Zone Service Project in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We were working in a community garden. We weeded, dug holes, mulched, planted things, dug trenches, etc... it was interesting for sure. I am not super big into gardening, because I am an expert at killing plants, but it is always good to serve! Afterwards we went on exchange with elders from another area. I stayed in here with an Elder from Montana. We had a few lessons planned in the evening, but one by one they all cancelled. We were biking over to one of our backup plans, when I felt prompted for whatever reason to go and tract a specific street instead of dropping by our planned neighborhood. We started knocking doors and the people on this particular street were oddly kind to us, but we didn't find anyone that was really interested. We knocked into two members that I didn't know lived on that street, and then all of the sudden we met a teenage girl that was interested in learning about our church. She was kind and listened to our message, and then she gave us a wrong number to get back to her for. I guess she wasn't that interested after all! We kept knocking doors until it was about time to head back. We decided to knock one last door, and a woman answered the door. She told us to wait for a moment and then she closed and locked the door. After a few minutes I was tempted to just leave, and then she opened the door again with a new outfit on... kind of odd. She told us her name, and that she is from Ghana. She met missionaries in Ghana before, and then moved to America and lost contact. She was excited to see missionaries again, and enjoyed learning about the restoration and receiving her own copy of the Book of Mormon. We have a return appointment for next Friday!

On Saturday we exchanged back, and my companion was EXHAUSTED! He has not biked very often on his mission, and his legs were finished after the exchange! We were able to go out with with a joint teach briefly in the evening to stop by a couple investigators, but we didn't have a whole lot of success. It was just an off day I guess.

On Sunday we had Church, ate lunch, and then went over to the a family’s home to Skype! We had a little bit of difficulty logging on at first, because I have no clue what my Skype information is anymore, but luckily they had their information written down somewhere. We were able to Skype with our families for a little while, and then we had planned to go to the Kingdom Hall at 4:00, but both of our Skype calls did not permit us to attend. (I was done first though haha!) We both got to see each others families briefly, and it was a lot of fun! Afterwards it didn't even feel like we had Skyped home, it was kind of weird. My mind kind of just forgot, and we got back to it. We had dinner with the family, and then visited with an investigator in the evening. We watched the John Tanner Story, and talked about faith and consecration. It was a really great visit we had :)
It has been an amazing week. I hope you all had a great week, and a very Happy Mothers Day :) Thank you all for your love and support! Have a great week.

Best Wishes,
Elder Kyle William Andrews