July
14, 2013
Dear Family and Friends,
We send
greetings once again from water soaked North Carolina. It does know how to rain in these parts. It would be nice to share some of it to those
places that need it.
We have
finished a busy two weeks in our mission.
I suppose it isn’t any busier than most two weeks—it just seemed every
minute was filled with more than could be accomplished. Last week was transfer week which is always
busy. We successfully received 27 new
missionaries and placed them with wonderful trainers. We also sent 7 great
missionaries home. We created 10 new
areas with this transfer which necessitated finding and contracting 10 new living
places along with furnishing them. We
then spent two days hosting two leaders from the missionary department, Bro.
Wade and Bro. Amistad. They brought with
them IPADs for 14 missionaries. Our
mission is piloting a process to see what problems are encountered having each
individual missionary unpack and configure his own machine. I guess in other piloting areas this process
was contracted out at a large expense and the brethren are anxious to have this
happen for less dollars. Brother Amistad
is the head of technology for the missionary department. It was great to have him with us. Needless to say he really knows technology
and was so good to share. We started
with one district and will be adding the rest of the mission over the next
month or so having all missionaries trained with their own IPAD by the last of
August. They encountered some unexpected
challenges but were able to handle them, however were not as timely as they
hoped. The goal was to have the
missionaries with IPADS out working for half of the day on Thursday so they
could be part of the training of leadership on Friday. The missionaries didn’t get out the door
until 4:00 in the afternoon so there was not a lot of time to report. Training still went well on Friday—just a
little different than they hoped. Our
office staff was kept busy getting this and copying that and fetching this and
making this chart etc. It really kept us
busy. It took most of Saturday just to
catch up on the rest of the things that need to happen. As I have said before that is what we
do. We are so blessed and know the hand
of the Lord is upon this work. I was
good to have Brother Amistad give me some pointers setting up the video
conferencing. He helped me considerably.
We
start Zone Conferences this next week.
In the past we have combined some of the Zones, however with the
increase in numbers of missionaries, President Craven desires us to have a
conference for each individual Zone—thus 7 conferences instead of 5. It will spread out the car inspections a
little better, however being out of the office 7 days out of the next 14 will
be a challenge. Sister Andrus doesn’t
have to attend Zone Conferences so she and Sister Cornelius will hold down the
fort. We won’t have to travel to
Asheville so that will help.
Our
Book of Mormon class is progressing—we’re covering what is becoming one of my
favorite parts of the Book—the Doctrine of Christ as recorded in 2 Nephi
31-33. President Craven is so focused on
this process for teaching the gospel. If
we develop faith, which happens when we read the Book of Mormon and other Holy
Words and keep commitments, we have a desire to repent which leads us to
baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Having the spirit with us continually
develops more faith in us thus increasing our desire to repent more. All the sudden church attendance becomes so
very important as we need to renew our baptismal covenants so we can have “His
spirit to be more abundantly with us”. By so doing we can endure to the
end. President Craven believes the word
“endure” should be interpreted to say “growing” to the end. You can see how this cycle, if truly
understood and followed will allow us to return to our Heavenly parents to
dwell with them forever. I was impressed
as I read a paragraph from a talk of Elder Bruce R. McConkie, The Probationary Test of Mortality. Which reads: “I’d like to append to them the fact—and this
is a true gospel verity—that everyone in the Church who is on the straight and
narrow path, who is striving and struggling and desiring to do what is right,
though is far from perfect in this life; if he passes out of this life while
he’s on the straight and narrow, he’s going to go on to eternal reward in his
Father’s kingdom.” He goes on in the
same talk to say “If you’re on the path and pressing forward, and you die,
you’ll never get off the path. There is
no such thing as falling off the straight and narrow path in the life to
come.” I don’t know about you but his
really gives me hope. It motivates me to
keep plugging along even though I fowl up continually. If I keep plugging along improving myself and
my behavior ever so slowly I’m going to make it. It was reiterated in the missionary training
on Friday from Brother Wade—He asked the missionaries what is the cleansing
agent that brings a remission of sins?
Is it the cleansing of the baptismal water? He went on to teach the missionaries that the
Holy Ghost is the cleansing (sanctifying) agent in the repentance process. This cleansing is made possible by the blood of
Christ which was shed for sin. But the
agent through which this cleansing occurs is the Holy Ghost. Can we now see how important the confirmation
ordinance becomes? What powerful
training.
Our
dear family, we so missed being with you at the Rushton Family Reunion. We were happy that so many of you were
there. Thank you for making the
effort. I can just see those beautiful
grand children playing with their cousins and having such a great time. We believe this to be a very valuable
experience that teaches far beyond the actual time spent. Somehow the time spent carries forward
cementing patriarchal bonds which are eternal by nature. It is associated with the beckoning call
which gathers Israel in the last days.
Have a
great week!!
Elder and Sister Andrus, Grandpa and Grandma, Dad and Mom,
Don and Ruth.
