Hey guys,    October 4th

What a week! It seems like I was here writing just two or three days ago. The weeks have started to really move. And this coming week is the week before changes, and then the week of changes. So there is no hope that things are going to slow down within the next little bit. But I have gotten used to the quick pace of things, and I kind of like it. Sleep is now only a hardly sufficient, but crucially necessary recharge for a few short hours. It seems like after our knees hit the floor for a few minutes we are up and running; trying to get in a few minutes of exercise (basically just pushups for me), a few minutes of breakfast, a quick shower, a quick study if we don't have to leave early, and then we are out the door. It seems like there is not enough time to do anything. Not enough time to get ready, not enough time to study (that part is actually true...there isn't enough time for that), not enough time in the office to get everything done, and not enough time in the area to do what we want/need to do. But everything always works out. How it all works out is one of the mysteries of the universe. This week we had interviews with President Glazier. Those minutes are precious. This time was absolutely amazing. After I had explained a little bit about how I am doing, and after expressing some frustrations, he just sat back and thought for a good 2 minutes. The whole time, I was just grateful that Preach My Gospel has taught me that silence does not scare me. He then addressed my concerns and just made me feel wonderful. He told me some things that made me see that he sees me a different way than I see myself, and that he is grateful for all that I do. He is truly a man that is called of God. So this week we didn't have a ton of time to visit people. But we still had success. We visited Nelson, but only for a few minutes. We basically just gave his grandma a blessing and invited him to conference. We couldn't find Irma and Manuel in their house (the weird lesson where they were both on completely different pages) this week, so we will see what this week brings. We did find a new family. When we first entered the house, there were kids running around, and it reminded me of our house when there are kids running all over the place. We met the parents, Jose Luis and Edith, and they are awesome. She is the warmest person, and she loves to just talk to us about whatever. We have a baptismal date with Jose Luis, she just isn't ready yet. But we read the Book of Mormon with her last night and she is starting to open up. We also met an older lady, maybe 60-65ish. She cracks me up. She is super direct. She even told us that she likes to be direct. She says that whenever people tell her that they are christians, she tells them that they aren't, because if they were, they wouldn't do the things they do (she specifically mentioned drinking, smoking, and having other women). She said that she attended our church once or twice a few years ago, and she was impressed by our "discipline". She was a chatter, but by the end of the lesson, she was listening more and talking less about random stuff. She accepted the date to be baptized on November 9th. So the work moves along. We are going to have to work and pray and be good like crazy to have these dates work out. But luckily we aren't in charge of this work. That is the job of someone perfect, someone more understanding, more powerful, more loving. He leads the work. We just have the blessing and opportunity to help out for a bit. I love you guys. Be good. Read the First Presidency message and think about who you can rescue. Have a great week. See you in two!!

Elder Andreasen

September 27, 2014

Good morning!

This week was pretty busy. They always are... We have been out of the house before 9 almost every day, whether it be for migration appointments (Elder Soza has to go to all of those, and I go with him) or for helping Elder Albrechtsen prepare and send materials to areas that don't have everything they need, or whatever else. So I haven't had much study time this week :(. And on top of all of that, Elder Soza woke up sick one day... Vino la gripe. Here in El Salvador, there are two kinds of sicknesses. Dengue and Gripe. If you are sick and it isn't dengue, its gripe. It is kind of funny because people have all sorts of beliefs about how and why people get sick, but it almost always boils down to one of those two unluss a doctor says otherwise. Anyway, Elder Soza was struck with gripe. He looked pretty miserable. Two days later, Elder Cifuentes woke up sick. The next day, I woke up sick. And I felt pretty miserable. That was 2 days ago, and the gripe hasn't let me go just yet. But it was a good week nonetheless. We met some new people. One of them is a man named Nelson. He grew up in the States, so he speaks English (almost better than Spanish). In fact, we gave him a Book of Mormon in Spanish, and he asked for one in English "in case he doesn't understand some parts". He has an interesting religious history, and a pretty interesting history in general. He was deported for criminal activity, but has since left all of that behind. Right now he is kept pretty busy between work and taking care of his 87 year old grandmother who is confined to her bed. No one else in his family will take care of her, so he has taken that responsibility upon himself. He is a good guy. Every time we leave I just think, "He is such a great guy!" We also met a couple that has been...interesting. The fist lesson was an unusual and unreal experience. They were on COMPLETELY different pages. She was receptive to everything and he was just being difficult. And they didn't even seem to notice that the other was feeling the exact opposite! It seriously felt like two completely different lessons going on at the same time. I wasn't exactly sure if I should extend the baptismal invitation, but I figured, what the heck, this can't get any weirder. He didn't even flinch. He just started talking about some random other stuff, and to be honest, I wasn't particularly listening to him anymore. As he kept blabbing I just directed the question at her and asked again. "Y usted hermana? Sera bautizada? And she accepted. I then asked if she would prepare to be baptized on the 2nd of November. Again, she accepted. After that, we had to pull the two separate parts back together so we could finish with just one closing prayer, and we left. We met some other people, but that is the news for the most part. I am pretty happy with the results of this week, as it has been a very busy one and we had very little time in the area. The mission is really pushing baptismal dates right now. Our district has 1 baptismal date, and it is the date that we put this week. So we will have to start really pushing and praying and working to get more baptismal dates in our areas. That is pretty much what's going on around here lately. Oh, and last night a missionary in the other mission was shot (in the leg). The area where it happened was the old area for the office elders before the division of the mission. Crazy. But I'm safe and I love you, and I'll see you in two.

Love,

Elder Andreasen