Week 101

Week 101

It's crazy to think time is coming to a close. It's been exciting this week. I went on two exchanges. We had few baptisms planned for the end of this transfer, but due to scheduling errors they had to change. That is alright though. A good lesson in humility!

Love you all! See you soon!
-Elder Andrus

Week 100

Week 100!

Well everyone, this week has been really exciting. First things first, we moved into another apartment with some other Elders. Elder Allen and Elder Bigler. We had to move because there is a new senior couple that is moving into our old apartment. It's been exciting here in the "lounge" as we call it. Lol

More importantly we were able to do lots of finding this week, so that was good. It's also rained on us 4/7 days. Normally it's not too bad because its just riding between teaching appointments, but this week was more of getting drenched for 2-3 hours at a time.

Well, don't worry about me. I'm still working hard and having fun. Love you all!
-Elder Andrus

Week 99

Week 99

I had a rad week this week! I wasn't feeling so good on Friday, but I'm feeling better now.

Things are pretty crazy around here. It's pretty cool we have been able to set a lot of baptism date this week, so that is awesome! We are teaching a man named Arjune. He married into a member family that is less active. We have been working hard on getting him baptized. We feel strongly prompted that he is going to be the key to getting the family back to church. He is a great man! I love teaching him. He is a doctor for babies. IDK what they are called...probably a Babiologyst.

Have a great week!
-Elder Andrus

Week 98

Week 98

I have to be really short today. I'm sorry about that. I'm excited aobut everything that is going on this summer! Tis going to be crazy!!! Have a great week!

-Elder Andrus

Week 97

Week 97

Hey everyone! This week was awesome! It was great to talk to you all and to see your smiling faces! 

So the happenings of this week are as follows. I went on an exchange with Elder Bigler. He lives right next door and is really a good missionary. Any way, he had to go to the hospital because he had some sort of growth on his knee that he was a little concerned about. So the doctor said that he was going to do a small biopsy and to see what it is. We both assumed like a punch biopsy. Anyway like hours later Elder Bigler is about to go into an operation. The doctor is having his assistants running all over the place looking for tools and stuff that he doesn't have and needs. Some of my favorite one liners of the day.

"Ya, we normally don't do stuff like this down here that is whyI'm getting what i need. Its a lot cheaper this way." -Doc

"I need a needle." Said Doc

"What size?" Said the assistant 

"The biggest one."

"Opps, there goes another artery. That one is going to ozze for a while" -Doc

"I need a new blade." Doc. "Doc, I've got gloves on." Assistant "Elder Andrus, will you get me a new blade, open it and hand it to me?" -Doc

So ya I assisted in a surgery so that was awesome! HAHA What the heck. Elder Bigler ended up getting a golf ball sized tumor taken out of his knee. That was a bit more than a biopsy if you ask me. HAHA  It turned out ok. But President wasn't that happy with the Doctor. It was good. 

Also some news on Trinidad. They got 26 OMP's! So that is awesome. Our hopes and prayers have been answered. God works in mysterious ways and I think it was what the members needed! Love you all!

Love,

Elder Andrus

Week 96

Week 96

Hello everyone! This week has been awesome! Not much happened that was extra ordinary.

Elder Nuttall and I went on an exchange so that was awesome. We were companions last year at this same time. So it was good to catch up with him and have some fun contacting and teaching. Just like old times! Haha

Also on Sunday we had an addition to our companionship. Elder Straddeck is now a part of our comp. So that is fun. We are also working his area, so we are super busy! Wish us luck!

Love you all!
-Elder Andrus

Week 95

Week 95

Hey everyone! This week was awesome! We have been working super hard and really giving it our all. That’s why I haven’t had so much time to write.

I’d like to share a spiritual experience with everyone. So it started last Sunday. We brought up in Elder’s quorum that a family we are teaching was in need of some help. Their yard was really low, so whenever it rained it would flood really bad. So the Elder’s quorum decided that they were going to reach out to this family (Wills family) and really minister like the Savior would. They leveled out the yard and it really touched Sister Wills and all of the kids as well. They really felt loved and supported by the branch. Sister Wills and her 5 kids got baptized this Saturday. It was so awesome to see the love that Sis Wills has for her children and the love that God poured out on us all.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Andrus

Week 94

Week 94

The baptism in Trinidad was moved to this week. Liseth is really awesome. Her and her family wrote me a nice letter and gave it to me before I left. It was awesome. I think that I will probably leave from here. That is ok though. This has been my favorite area and it’s been such a great privilege to come back to be here! I love it here and its awesome to see all of the people that I taught and they are all baptized now.

We are working with a really cool family that is going to get baptized this week on Saturday! The Wills family. So its Sister Wills (Mom) and all of her kids! Rachael, Ruben, Terrance, Tyra, Trisha. So that is going to be awesome. Also another lady is going to be baptized as well. Her name is Cyntica. She is super awesome as well! It’s been really exciting. Should be awesome! Wish us luck we are going to need it! 

Week 93

Week 93

I think that is something that everyone needs to learn. Because when the floods come its too late to build a dam. I really think that that is something that you and dad taught us kids well. We just never listened to you.

This week was really awesome. I have to be really short this week. But I would like to share a very special experience. We had a baptism this week of a man named Eon. He is really awesome. He was really struggling with his family how was putting up a lot of opposition but he made the decision and has fully committed to the gospel. This is what he wrote this.

“Almighty God I pray as I was baptized today help me keep away from sin of the world guide me fill me with understanding.

As I become a new person, give me the word I do not have. Give me wisdom I lack.

Let my glory restore on me once again and your blessing come into my life again.

Let all who help me be lifted up in your name.

I am not being baptized for riches but for the second chance you have given me through your Son Jesus Christ and the atonement.

As I try to bear your name help me resist temptation.”

I love you all so much! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Andrus

Week 92

Week 92

Yes I’m in Guyana now! I got in on Wednesday night. The flight was really good. Up and down with no fireballs. I’m sad to leave Trinidad just because I know that I’m not going to be able to go back. Does that make sense? because my permit runs out in May. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone. It was sad the last Sunday in an area is when you say all of your goodbyes. 

I really love Elder Norton. We are getting along great and we have so many people to teach it’s kinda crazy! HAHA we are teaching a few families so that is really awesome! One baptism in Trinidad is supposed to be next Saturday so that is really cool. I’m happy for Liseth she is really awesome! Also, We have a baptism here in our area this Saturday too. His name is Eon. He is really awesome and is going to be a great member! Keep him in your prayers for me. 

So we are living in the same place that I was living before. Its nice. We are close to lots of nice things. So that is good!

Week 91

Week 91

Well everyone, this week has been crazy! The biggest thing for me is that I’m going back down to Guyana! Yay! Not AP anymore, so that is awesome. And I’m going back to Georgetown area! I’m so excited, that is the area that I left to come up to Trinidad so that is really cool!

Conference was great! I love to hear God’s words! I especially love Elder Taylor’s talk on Saturday morning. It was awesome! “Read the Book of Mormon to know God.” All the changes seem really awesome too! Can’t wait to get working!

Love you all!

-Elder Andrus

P.S. My Companion is Elder Norton. He is from Arizona. It’s going to be great!

Week 90

Week 90

(not a letter this week…this is from ours)

Our week was great! We had tons of fun doing a lot of teaching visits. President Egbert wanted us to do all of our teaching visits this week (we had planned to do them all next week) but that is ok! We drove all over this tiny island and got a few minutes of sleep too! It was a lot of fun. I’m really excited to come home too. Not like trunky just ready for America and to be with family! HAHA I love you so much!

Love,

Elder Andrus

Week 89

Week 89

Hey everyone!

 

This week was super awesome! We had a lot more time to teach and we were able to have a super spiritual experience this week with our investigator Lisette. She is soo cool. We have been teaching her for like the last 2 months or so. She is from Venezuela and is really prepared for the gospel. In fact she is living with 3 returned missionaries. They are all so cool! Lisette loves her family and is really attached to them. She also believes in God very Strongly! A few lessons ago we were teaching her about the great Apostasy and she asked us; "Who can help me? Who as the power of God?" we testified to her that God loves her and is always going to provide a way for us. She then told us that "When we need him most, God will always appear.” Naturally the next lesson we shared with her the 1st vision. She loved it. Then the book of Mormon. She loved it. Then more about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. She loved it. It was awesome. Then last night we invited her to be baptized. Angles were with us and she accepted the invitation to be baptized on April 14th. Tears filled her eyes and she knew that that was right. We all felt the spirit and it was so great. I hope that I can be here in Port of Spain to see her get baptized. Either way however I’ll be happy. I love you all! Have a great week!

 

I love the gospel. I’m glad that God has made a plan for us and that we are able to be here as his children and that he loves us so much. I know that God lives. I know that he loves us. I have felt it. I have seen his love in my life. I have been blessed with so much and I can’t deny that there is a literally, living , loving, heavenly father. 

Love,

Elder Andrus

Week 88

Week 88

Hi family! This week was awesome. We had lots of fun and some more time to teach. But, first things first, Happy Birthday Amber!

Well a little bit more on MLC last week. It was all about Joseph Smith and the blessings that came from his first vision and how the world has changed. It was really awesome.

Tuesday: We had a meeting with President and he took off to Suriname then Guyana so we won’t see him for a while.

Wednesday: Was crazy…we didn’t lose a single second. We left our house at 8am and didn’t get back till like 10pm it was nuts.

Saturday: those other day were just office stuff. We taught Liseth about the first vision. It was so awesome. She said “When we need him most, God always appears.” She is great.

Then on Sunday we gave her the Book of Mormon. She loves it! I do too. I know it’s true and has the power to heal the wounded soul.

I love you all!

-Elder Andrus

Week 87

Week 87

This week was crazy! We hosted MLC. (Missionary Leadership Council) It was a ton of fun. So all of the Zone Leaders, Sister Training Leaders, and Teaching Assistants, and President and Sister Egbert flew into Trinidad for this meeting. The meeting goes like this. 

Tuesday: All morning pick everyone up from the airport and have zone and Sister training leader reports.

Wednesday: all day business and a really cool devotional on Joseph Smith and the scriptures that Moroni quotes to Joseph. I recommend that everyone reads those scriptures. For Business we counciled on polices, key indicators, and lots of over things to help the mission be the best that they can be. It is really cool.

Thursday: We drove everyone back to the airport! 

Ill have to write more next week. Sorry out of time! Love you all!

Love,

Elder Andrus

Week 86

Week 86 

Well this week was busy for sure! We had lots of fun though. You know how transfers are.

We did our New Missionary orientation on Tuesday, it turned out well. It was fun because we only one sister come in. That made it a lot more personal and we could answer her questions better. On Wednesday and Thursday we just did tons of running around. Picking up and driving around a bunch or broken cars and doing lots of fun stuff. We also got to teach a really great lesson to Liseth again on thrusday.

On Saturday Elder White slept all day because he is sick. But that is ok. I got a lot done in the office and we even found a cot there so he was comfy.

Sunday we had stake Conference. Elder Alonso of the 70 came and presided. It was really cool. Elder Alonso is a funny man.

We taught Liseth again and she is really awesome!

Love you all and have a great week and keep me in your prayers!

Elder Andrus

Week 85

Week 85 

We are teaching a less active that is returning to activity and she was teaching us how the Sacred Grove is much like a temple. Then in my studies I was reading 2 nephi 12: 2 and it takes about how the lord's house is going to be in the tops of the mountains then I read a quote from Elder McConkie about how the temples can be on mountain, hills, and planes. Elder McConkie also talked about what happens in Temples. He said the Temple is a place that the Lord comes in Spirit and literally to teach his people. So in that seance the Sacred Grove is a temple! It was so awesome.

Elder Kearon of the Presidency of the 70 came and talked with us! It was so awesome. Elder Zivic of the area 70 came as well. Really cool! It also stresses out President Egbert which stresses us out a bit too haha! Elder Kearon and Elder White and I role played together and he said that we "look like the Gospel" we thought that was pretty cool! hopefully I can keep on looking like the Gospel.

I’ll do my best to keep on my smile! HAHA its not hard when you have such a great message to share with everyone.

Love,

Elder Andrus

Week 84

Week 84

No letter again this week. Here is some of what he sent us:

"I'm sorry I haven't written a weekly in a while. It's just a mess being at the office all the time and just to write about it isn't that exciting to me I guess. But I do promise that next week I will write a weekly!"

"Something fun that we did do this week is clean out an apartment that we were done with. It was a mess. Like in the terms of trying to figure out what was ours and the Landlord and stuff. I thought to my self "Mom would have this thing figured out in no time." "

Week 85

Well, it is funny on my last weekly email in wrote "Till next week" so over a month later I guess I'll write. Haha! 

So I'm just going to recap some stuff thats been going on. So the government of Trinidad isn't letting any more missionaries in Trinidad. So that includes senior couples and future Mission Presidents. This is the Trinidad, Port of Spain mission and the headquarter is in Trinidad, Port of Spain. Crazy right? Well, the last office couple finished their mission and now it's up to us to run the place. It's a mess. 

From Jan 16-20, 23-24, we were stuck in the office waiting for a visa that was to be delivered there. The visa did make it, and the missionary that needed it was able to travel. So that is good. On Jan 19th we had to go to the airport in the middle of the night to go pick up Pres Gondolas (Caribbean Area President) LOL that was horrifying.

Jan 23rd Elder Riggs (previous companion) came up to Trinidad to get a police report. We are working with immigration to get permanent extensions. 

Jan 31st Zone Conference it was pretty good. Then we were at the office till 1:30am because President left the next day and needed a bunch of stuff. 

Feb 3rd we got a surprise call and we needed to clean out an apartment that the lease was up. So we had an angry land lord to deal with. 

Feb 5 we went to Tobago! So beautiful! Like it's unreal. 

We are teaching with a family (the Reyes family) and they are awesome. They are from Venezuela. The husband and wife are both RM's. Her cousin is really interested in the gospel. She talks so much about happiness and peace and joy. She is really cool. 

That's about it!

It's great to be a missionary, I love it so much. Keep praying for me! I love you all!

-Elder Andrus