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.