November 18, 2012

Dear Family and Friends

                My how the weeks fly by.  We trust all is well with you and yours and pray the Thanksgiving holiday is great for you.

 The Senior Couples are gathering at the Mission Home for Thanksgiving dinner with President and Sister Craven.  We look forward being together with these good people.  They are very much like family and we consider them our family as we serve together.  The couples are Elder and Sister Tarbot from West Valley City and Elder and Sister Bushman from American Fork.  The Tarbots serve in Albemarle, North Carolina  and the Bushmann’s serve in Rock Hill, South Carolina on the Catawba Indian reservation.  Elder and Sister Moulton who are church service missionaries from Charlotte and Elder and Sister Whiteley who are also church service missionaries are from Concord.  The Moulton’s children are going elsewhere as are the Whiteley’s so they are joining us.  We have two other Sr. Couples in our mission.  The Bayles who serve in Murphy, North Carolina and the Silkers who serve in Franklin, North Carolina.  Murphy and Franklin are over 200 miles from Charlotte and both couples have chosen not to make the drive.   I don’t blame them. 

This past week was filled mostly with supporting the training meetings being conducted by the missionary department in our mission.  Sister Andrus and I spent most of the day and night on Monday getting the books along with charts and graphs and agendas put together.  It was a good thing we have good computers and printers.  Tuesday and Wednesday we just supplied additional information and support as it was needed.  Thursday we gathered in a Stake Center with 70 missionaries to be taught by these wonderful men.  Sister Andrus and I were not able to sit in on most of the training as we were busy with getting the dinner prepared and ready and then serving and cleaning up.  I was able to sit in on one session.  Very powerful teaching and training efforts regarding how to present and teach the Doctrine of Christ and repentance to investigators was given.  The major focus of missionary efforts today center on real growth initiatives for the Church.  So much of our previous efforts have left tremendous trails of less active people who obviously felt and recognized the truth but lacked the sustaining power of the Holy Ghost to help them keep their covenants.  Not only investigators but we are losing about 50% of the returning missionaries to inactivity.  The term “Real Growth” seems to be the coin phrase used a lot in the mission efforts.  As I have mentioned previously, the major thrust of the youth training from the church is addressing these needs.  The new Duty to God and Young Women’s values programs along with the Sunday school materials reflect this effort.

Thanks so much for the Birthday packages and wishes received by many of you.  You are all so great to support us.  We continue to love being here.  We feel the pressure of office work and desire to be involved more in the proselyting efforts, however with the increase in missionaries coming and going, it looks more like that is what are mission is about.  We are happy we can serve and feel we are contributing to the overall efforts of bringing people to Christ.  Being in the back ground is good and Sister Andrus and I can do this well.  We are enjoying being together all the time.  Everything we do is together which is at time frustrating, however it is wonderful also.  We are learning a lot about what it means to be one.  It is definitely a process and not an event.  I suppose to the level we learn how to do this we can continue to be one.  If we can’t figure it out then we will spend the rest of eternity being single.  Wow what a process. 

Thanks again—have a wonder Thanksgiving with your families and know of our love and prayers for you.

Elder and Sister Andrus, Dad and Mom and Don and Ruth.