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Monday, September 1, 2014

The Lord tests our patience before the miracles.

Hello Everyone,

This week has been relatively slow, but things are still progressing :) Last Monday we had our P-Day and went joint teaching in the evening. We had a great lesson with an investigator and her family. We talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and repentance. I used my repentance pencil activity that my Mom sent me, and her 4 year old daughter absolutely loved it! She was my little helper. After our lesson with them, we stopped by a less-active member. Our joint teacher is her new home teacher, so it was more of a getting to know you type lesson. Nice lady, but she has zero intentions of coming back to Church.

On Tuesday we had our last District Meeting of the transfer. We took pictures and had a grand time! We made some transfer predictions that actually worked out pretty close to what actually happened. After District Meeting we had accountability with the district leaders and then went out finding. My companion and I had a little disagreement about finding, and so I decided to try a little bit of an experiment. He said that we were wasting out time trying to contact people outside and stopping by potential and former investigators, and suggested that we use that time to tract instead. He was telling me that tracting is the only way we will find new people to teach, and so we tracted. We tracted basically the remainder of the day. Finally I was fed up, and so we stopped by an apartment complex and met a nice woman. We taught her the Restoration, and she told us that a while back she used to meet with missionaries. We discovered that she used to meet with the senior missionaries! She was really kind and very accepting of our teachings. Hopefully things will continue to go well with her :)

On Wednesday we did some mormon.org time and visited with an investigator. We talked to her about living the gospel and family home evening. She committed to hold weekly family home evening with her daughter, and to come to Church on Sunday. She has had a crazy work schedule lately, but it is starting to be a lot more manageable now! Afterwards we went out tracting again... for the rest of the day. We met a young boy and we taught him the Restoration, but he didn't appear to be super interested. I just really do not like tracting. I feel like it is something that missionaries do to waste time when they have nothing better to do. The success rate is very small.

On Thursday we did a lot of tracting. No success. In the evening we went out with a ward member and helped out with a move. The sister lived in an "active adult residence" and so she didn't have very much stuff to move in her home. It was a pretty easy move, and it all came together really nicely :)

On Friday we had our Weekly Planning session. I seriously love planning and organization :) It is the best! After weekly planning we went through our Area Book and did some Area Book Work. We went through all of the potentials in the back of our book and called everyone. Missionaries do not go through potentials very often, and so a lot of numbers are no longer active. We sorted through and organized them all, which is always fun :) You talk to some very interesting people when you go through old potentials and former investigators haha! You also get to listen to some very unique voice mail messages! In the evening we went out joint teaching. We had a really great lesson with our investigator. We finished teaching the Plan of Salvation, and he has been keeping most of his commitments. He said that he got called into work last Sunday so he couldn't go to Church, and he couldn't come this week, but he has been reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it :) Hopefully next week he will be able to get work off so he can come to Church! We stopped by a mormon.org referral we received in Downtown Minneapolis, and went to Izzy's for ice cream. I absolutely love Downtown Minneapolis :) I could seriously see myself living there some day. Probably in the Mill District. The condos in the Mill District are a little bit more expensive, but it is well worth the cost! You get a super pretty view, and you are in the center of everything. Who knows though. I could never live here because of the winters, so it would have to be more like a summer or fall oasis. We will have to see!

On Saturday we went out and... tracted. Nothing really happened on Saturday either. No one was really home either. In the evening we went to some member’s wedding reception. I have been here for a while and know a lot of their non-member friends and neighbors, so it was a really great missionary opportunity! I also just really like weddings and receptions :) Heaven help my future wife though. I have a lot of opinions. Usually the husband does not have a ton of say in what happens at their wedding, but I certainly will! Saturday night was rough though. We went to bed, and I just layed there. I have been taking melatonin for most of my mission, but it just wasn't cutting it Saturday night. I sat in my bet until I finally fell asleep around 4:30 AM, Sunday morning. While I layed there I tried to fall asleep, and then I just kept thinking about a million different things. Goals, dreams, friends, family, my future, upcoming transfers, my companions, the works. It was kind of stressful!

On Sunday morning we had Ward Council, so I had to wake up at 5:30 AM to get ready. I was SUPER exhausted, but just kept going. I used to go without sleep all the time in high school, but now my body is used to getting lots of sleep so it is a lot harder for me to get through these things! I remember feeling a little bit hopeless in the morning though. I kept thinking about how I have been here for 7 months now, and that maybe I have just lost my spark. Maybe I am done serving here in this area. We prepared for Church, and didn't have many people who were planning on attending Church with us. We sat in Sacrament meeting, and all of the sudden it felt like people were pouring through the doors! One investigator and most of another investigator’s family came to Sacrament Meeting! We had four non-members attend, and I was planning on maybe having one or two. It was amazing! I'm pretty sure God knew that I was having a super tough time, and so he tried my patience a little bit, but then came through in the end. It was awesome! Kind of rude... but awesome :) After Church we had correlation and our weekly meeting with Bishop. In the afternoon we went joint teaching and met with an investigator family. They are still having a super tough time. The court system took her son away from her and he will be living with his Dad in Buffalo, MN and attending a new school. We talked about faith, and I told them to watch a mormon.org video, "Mountains To Climb." Hopefully it will help! In the evening we met with another investigator and watched "The Testaments" with him. We had a mini-testimony meeting and talked about how important it is to share our testimonies with others so that we can have a greater influence on them. We talked to him about sharing the gospel with people in his "active adult complex". He agreed, so we will have to see how everything goes!
Things really are going well though, it was just kind of a tough week. Next week will be much better though! Thank you all for all of your love and support. I hope you have a great Labour Day :) Talk to you soon.

Best Wishes,
Elder Kyle William Andrews

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