March 3, 2013

Dear Family and friends

                Greetings from North Carolina.  We pray all is well with each of you and that this letter finds you healthy, wealthy and wise.  Sister Andrus and I are working on one out of three—we have the best shot at the healthy slot.  The other two seem rather distant and at least one of them the window is already closed—oh well—moderately healthy and adequately blessed and gaining wisdom through life’s experience and learning is good.   We truly feel the tender mercies from above and believe we are blessed beyond measure.  We continue to be so thankful for faithful children and grandchildren who are striving to be good people. This blessing is priceless.  We are grateful for our wonderful extended family and dear friends.  We feel of your prayers and support and continue to pledge to each of you our best efforts in serving as full-time missionaries.  We love serving in North Carolina as office specialists even though this is much different than what we thought we were signing up to do.  We see the value of what we do and know it is vital in the overall efforts to bring souls unto Christ.  The work we are doing has to be done by someone so why not us.  By this time next week we will have successfully welcomed 66 new missionaries and said a tearful good bye to 24.  It is becoming continually more difficult to let these valiant young people leave and go home.  What joy they have brought to so many.

 I believe I mentioned in last week’s letter the opportunity I had to interview a baptismal candidate—her name is Crystal.  During the week the sister missionaries called and indicated she had asked that I baptize and confirm her.  Needless to say I was delighted.  I had the privilege last evening to baptize Crystal and will confirm her in our meetings today.  I met her husband who I believe will be following her soon.  This brought back some great memories of when I was serving a mission as a young man.  What a great blessing.  President Craven asked me this week to take his assistants and visit some missionaries who were struggling.  We drove to their apartment not really knowing what we were going to find.  We met three humble young men who were really teachable and ready to re-commit their missionary lives.  We had the honor of giving priesthood blessings to them and challenging them to move forward.  We blessed their home to be protected from evil and felt the power of the priesthood as we do so.  It turned into such a choice experience for all of us.  Sister Andrus and I were able to sit in on some discussions this week that really lifts our missionary spirits.  It is so difficult for many of these good people to change their habits and forsake sin.  They so want to, however the flesh is weak.  We marvel at the power of the spirit as it works to help receptive people in this process.

Thank you again for all you do for us.  Have a wonderful week.

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