February 24, 2013

Dear Family and friends,

                Another memorable week has passed and it’s once again time to pen a word or two to those who mean the most to us.  We think of you often.  We miss you, however are so very thankful for the privilege to serve as full-time missionaries in the North Carolina Charlotte Mission of Miracles.  We rejoice with you with the announcement of 58 new missions opening.  We are told our mission will be affected, however we do not know any particulars at this point.  We are so pleased with the calling of President and Sister Reeder to preside over the Philippines Naga mission.  For those of you who may not know, the Reeders have been long time friends who live in Perry.  We have worked together extensively in various church assignments over the years and know both of them as faithful, obedient servants of the Lord.  They are young, willing and able to serve and many are and will yet be blessed for their service.

                We completed another series of Zone Conferences.  We dodged the rain and sleet quite well and were successful inspecting the vehicles and providing safety training to our missionaries.  President Craven called us into his office on Thursday and informed us that 13 new missionaries will be arriving this coming Monday.  Wow what a flurry of work this entails.  This is in addition to the 27 new missionaries coming the following week.  Sister Andrus has been working non-stop as all of us have under her direction.  We are so pleased to have the new office couple here to help.  We also welcomed Elder and Sister Checketts this week.  They are serving in the employment center whose offices are down stairs in our building.  The 13 new missionaries are what we call “visa waiters”—missionaries called to other missions but are awaiting their visas to enter the countries.  According to President Craven, the church is experiencing an ever increasing challenge to keep and send missionaries into the various countries of the world.  Our “visa waiters” are mostly called to Peru and Brazil.  We typically will have them anywhere from two weeks to 6 months.  A few actually are reassigned to just stay with us for whom we are always glad.  President Craven insists we treat them just like they have been assigned to us and provide the training and treatment just the same including the training booklets, which keeps Sister Andrus hopping to prepare this 70 plus page document.  We typically place these missionaries with current companionships creating threesomes.  You can only imagine what this does to all the functions we deal with in the office e.g. housing, furniture, financial arrangements, bicycle and other transportation needs to mention a few.  But as said before—that is what we do.  We are also in the process of changing all the missionary expense cards from the JP Morgan / Chase banking systems to Bank of America.  This has to be completed before March 1^st.  Needless to say our plate is full this coming week.

                Last Wednesday President Craven asked me to assist him during the evening which necessitated Sister Andrus handling the Book of Mormon class herself.  She did wonderful.  Many of the participants informed me how wonderful the class was.  I am ever so proud of her and her increased capacity to serve in ways she says she can’t.  She is learning she can not only accomplish the assignment but does it so well.  I think we call the process “making us equal” to the calling.  We attended two baptisms this week from our Reedy Creek ward.  These are two excellent candidates who will be powerful additions to the ward family.  I had the opportunity to conduct the baptismal interviews for one of them and was so impressed with the conversion process.  These are people who have been involved with gross disobedience in the past who have been touched by the Sprit of Christ and the Holy Ghost and have experience a might change of heart and have put off the natural man.  What a privilege to be involved with the process.  I interviewed another candidate yesterday who likewise has made the commitment to change her heart.  Not only her but her husband is also making the same changes and both will be baptized in the coming weeks.  This is a family who our sister missionaries tracked out.  I asked her why she let them in.  She said she usually doesn’t, however it just seemed like the right thing to do.  Our missionaries are trained to offer the Saviors peace and blessings approach as they meet people for the first time.  Within a five minute period of time the missionaries are kneeling with the entire occupants of the home and offering a prayer for the family.  They are calling down the powers of heaven to these people and it becomes obviously apparent whom the Lord has prepared.  Those who react favorably are challenged for baptism while still on their knees and it is amazing to realize how powerful the spirit reacts to these settings.  We are seeing an increase of teaching opportunities by about 50 percent.  This approach quickly identifies the need to be exactly obedient on the part of the missionaries.  Those who struggle with this are quickly identified and President Craven works with them to resolve issues keeping them from being all they can be.  What a exhausting effort he makes to help our missionaries be obedient.  He and his wonderful companion are so excellent with this.  The key indicators are moving upwards and we truly feel the Lord is blessing our mission.

                We rejoice with Dean and his family for the new addition to their family.  Congratulations to Camille and family.  We enjoy the reports from our “Far-eastern correspondents” Elder and Sister Beus and reports from Sharon in Salt Lake.  We continue to, and often express how wonderful it is to be in North Carolina as we look and hear of the mounting snowpack in Utah and Idaho.  Maybe someone ought to suggest a special prayer to stop the moisture from coming.  I bet our snowmobile friends are enjoying the snow. We are thankful that Richard survived the mud obstacle course he participated in yesterday.  Please be careful.  We express to Uncle Greg our congratulations on his receiving the Silver Beaver award.  He has been and is a wonderful scouter.  We love you all and continue to pray for you.  Thanks again for your faith and prayers in our behalf.

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

February 17, 2013

Dear Family and friends,

                We finally had some significant snow yesterday.  A couple of inches has stayed on the cars and lawns.  It should all be gone by noon today; however it was enjoyable to have a taste.  We still contend that this is the year to be out of Utah and Idaho.  We know the mention of snow carries with it faces with frowns on many of you.

                We had a good week in North Carolina.  All of our weeks are good in North Carolina, however we are seeing some sustaining progress in the key indicators area.  We are experiencing steady upward trends in our teaching pools, teaching with members and sacrament meeting attendance.  All of these are moving “Real Growth” forward which is good.  President Craven is a marvelous leader and works extremely hard to instruct and motivate and empower missionaries.  Two of our three Assistants go home in a couple of weeks—it will be so interesting to see how the revelatory processes will work in this area.  I have every confidence the Heavens have already supplied and called the replacements—it’s just wonderful to sit back and watch it happen.  I had the opportunity to interview, at the President’s request, a baptismal candidate.  What a special experience to see how the repentance process has helped this middle aged father accept the responsibility of membership in the kingdom.  His lovely wife and family have stood by him for years as he has little by little stripped himself of pride and “put off the natural man” and allowed the atonement to work for him.  His baptism is scheduled for Thursday evening.  Sister Andrus and I have been with the missionaries as they have taught discussions to another father whose wife joined a year ago.  He has accepted a baptismal date for March 2.  The missionaries are working with his son and daughter also—will be a little longer for them.

                Zone conferences are moving forward.  We had two this past week.  We inspected several cars and our bathroom skit is a “hit”.  Poor President Craven has to hide his head; however it is good to see him laugh a little.  We are also preparing the Sister missionaries to ride bikes.  When Elder Nelson was with us last week, his emotions were pretty tender regarding the funeral he attended in Arkansas of the sister missionary who was killed in Oklahoma.  He really instructed President Craven regarding the need to be safe.  He indicated the Sister missionary who was killed was doing everything right which was a source of great comfort to the family.  Had there been a missing safety element it would have been much more difficult to accept.  As a result our safety presentation is mostly being spent on bicycle safety.  Up until this coming transfer, none of our sister missionaries have been on bicycles.  Because of the large influx of sister missionaries into the missionary pool, they will be on bikes.  We were just informed our allotment of cars is increasing by 28 cars.  This will help; however will not cover all the needs.  We arranged for a lady who owns a bicycle outlet shop in the Charlotte area and who is a professional biker to come and demonstrate all the safety features and techniques to our sisters.  It was fun to watch them put their helmets on and ride the several models of bikes around the church parking lot on Thursday.  They are willing to accept the challenge and we are hoping the safety instructions are adequate.  The church has a wonderful DVD regarding safety that we are showing at Zone conferences that is so good.   Our sisters are so beautiful and we need them to be safe.  We have three more Zone conferences this coming week.  It is a huge effort, but that is what we do. 

                We welcomed Elder and Sister Cornelius, our new office couple, to our mission on Wednesday.  They are settling into their lovely apartment and becoming oriented to the office.  Elder and Sister Cornelius are from Malad, Idaho.  We know a lot of the same folks and will enjoy working with them. We will be taking Elder Cornelius with us on the Zone Conference’s this coming week.  These are wonderful people and are so willing to help.  It brings back memories not so long ago for Sister Andrus and I.  We spent most of the day Friday with them including a wonderful dinner with President and Sister Craven on Friday evening.  Sister Andrus and I are encouraged and are confident our office will remain intact with our service missionaries leaving in a month or so. We have plenty of time for adequate training which is a plus.  We will welcome Elder and Sister Checketts this coming week.  They will be our employment missionaries.  The employment office is in the same building as the mission offices so we interface with them most every day. They actually receive their marching orders from the Area office in Atlanta; however President Craven has some jurisdiction over them.  We will include them in our daily devotionals so we will get to know them over the coming weeks.

                We continue to pray for our family and friends.  We love you all and are ever grateful for your love and support.  Thank you for the many valentine wishes and your phone calls are always appreciated.  We love our mission assignment and thank each of you for helping us serve.  We trust Heavenly Father is blessing each of you as your daily strive to serve Him and keep the commandments.  Have a blessed day and week and we will check in next week.

Elder and Sister Andrus, Dad and mom, Grandpa and Grandma, Don and Ruth.

February 10, 2013

Dear Family and friends,

                Weeks are flying by—at least they seem to be for us.  We can’t seem to keep up with all that is coming at us.  We are truly enjoying being busy, however.  We are busily preparing for another round of zone conferences starting next week.  We are putting together a safety training skit on cleaning bathrooms—to the tune of 2001 Space Odyssey.  We are hoping lightening it up a bit will bring more compliance.  We have some pretty nasty bathrooms out there.  Now that more Sister missionaries are coming and taking over some of the apartments that have had Elders in them for a long time, some rather negative reports are coming our way.  Some of the Sisters are rebelling.  I can’t say I blame them in some cases, however in many they just need to buck it up a bit.  The apartments are so much better now than when I was a missionary. I know, I know walking up hill both ways syndrome.  I better go somewhere else.

                We had a wonderful experience on Saturday.  Elder Russell M. Nelson is presiding at a stake conference in Charlotte this weekend.  He wanted to meet with all the missionaries as part of his assignment.  President Craven invited all the missionaries in the field to come to Charlotte for a two hour plus meeting with Elder Nelson.  He insisted on shaking each missionaries hand—what a great thing for our missionaries.  He was especially gracious to the senior couples and to those missionaries from other countries.  We have three or four from Mexico—one from the Congo and one from one of the Caribbean islands and several from Canada.  We were instructed by Sister Craven, Elder Giddons from the Seventy and then the remainder of the time from Elder Nelson.  Most of the meeting was a question and answer type format.  President Craven had prepared the mission well with what was appropriate for questions as well as proper protocol.  Everything went well.  We enjoyed learning about the process of selecting a new member of the seventy as well as a new member of the twelve.  He shared with us in rather detail the process of announcing of the age requirement change in missionary service.  He asked those who were present to stand if they were here because of the announcement.  We had about 15 stand.  He indicated this was the ripple—the wave is coming he said.  He answered questions regarding how his study of medicine had strengthened his belief in God and the plan of happiness.  He shared stories of special conversion experiences with medical professionals around the world. He spent time detailing the repentance process using his knowledge of the root words in Greek, Latin and Hebrew describing what repentance is all about—how the very air we breath must change to become truly repentant.  Very insightful.  Needless to say it was a glorious experience for our mission.  We are so pleased.  He is presiding at the South Charlotte Stake conference.  This is the stake whose president is Ladd Hall. Many of our Perry friends remember President Hall.  I had a pleasant conversation with him on Saturday.  He is a wonderful and well respected church and business leader here in the Charlotte area.  President Cheney, a counselor in the mission presidency, was the former Stake President of the Charlotte South Stake and we have had the opportunity to be together in several settings and have enjoyed our President Hall stories.  Sister Andrus and I are on our way to the Sunday session as we speak so I better close up and get this sent. 

                We love you all so much.  We wish our sweet Rachel a happy 6^th birthday.  Have a great valentine’s day.  We have been enjoying a “Heart Attack” month opening a special heart package each day since February 1^st.  What a clever and special way to remember our family.  We thank Kappy and family for this.  We also are enjoying special valentine packages from several of you—all of which are decorating our home with lots of hearts.  We will have to face time and share our “heart wall” with you.

See you next week!!

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