What a week! This week was something else... It was a crazy week because this change wasn't like other changes. 9 new areas, and areas were reorganized to make a new zone! Zona Sensuntepeque. And that made things nice and interesting in the office. We had to buy and store all of the new materials. To make things worse, the temple office messed up and sent 6 foot refrigerators instead of the little ones we usually get, so we had 18 of those in the house as well (in fact we still do, they haven't come to replace them yet...). We had the entire house literally FILLED with stuff. There was a walkway about 3 and a half feet wide from the door to the stairs, and that was it. The kitchen was full, the livingroom, laundry room, study rooms...Crazy. I wish I would have taken more pictures. And upstairs all of the rooms were filled with mattresses to house the new missionaries and then the ones who finished and went home. We were up late almost every night, and one night we didnt even leave the office until 10:34. We had been out delivering stuff to new areas and had a few things to finish up at the office afterward, but don't worry, President knew and we had permission. We were home just before 11. 

Anyway, in other news, we had changes here in the office, in my companionship! Elder Muñoz left. Elder Soza took his place. He is my new companion. He is from Provo, and he has 5 months in the mission. I remember how I felt when I came into the office, and how I felt when I only got 4 weeks of training instead of 6. Elder Soza got a call Saturdaynight, and was in the office Monday. He was "trained" (if you can even call it that) by Elder Muñoz Monday and Tuesday, and then Elder Muñoz left Wednesday morning after changes meeting. TWO DAYS. He was trained for two days! And so he is still struggling and learning and stressing. But he is doing great. We haven't even left to go into our area to teach since I last wrote. Changes week seems to have that effect. But things will start to even out and hopefully we will be putting the hammer down on finding and teaching this week. We need to baptize. It's been a while. We just need to hunker back down into the somewhat "normal" schedule of being office missionaries and get out to teach at night. We have two baptismal dates still, but I don't know if they have progressed or regressed in the last week, and Elder Soza has yet to meet them. What I have seen this week is how the Lord helps us with our daily lives. I had a few situations this week that I didn't know if they could even work out. But a few prayers, handwritten checks, high-speed trips to President's house to get signatures and high-speed trips to the bank and we made it before they closed. I was so grateful that it worked out that I didn't even care that they could only give me almost a thousand dollars in $5 bills. The Lord helps us and cares about our daily, seemingly mundane wants and needs. But we need to do our part. I am coming to learn that this position in the office is good preparation for life. One day I will have to balance a job, a home, and a family with faithfulness in the gospel. I am starting to see how tough that can be. But that doesn't mean that the demands or expectations placed upon us are any lower. Hard times are given to us for growth and experience, not so that we have excuses. I think I may be making excuses - to my zone leaders, to myself, and to the Lord - because I have responsibilities in the office. My purpose has not changed, it is still "invitar a las personas a venir a Cristo, al ayudarlas a que reciban el Evangelio Restaurado mediante la fe en Jesucristo y su Expiación, el arrepentimiento, el bautismo, la recepción del don del Espíritu Santo, y el perseverar hasta el fin." It is still to find, teach, and baptize. Busier, more difficult situations are only greater opportunities to decide and show what our priorities are, to be diligent in ALL things. I'm going to stop making excuses. President Glazier told me that I was called to this position to baptize. Previous office elders have looked with the perspective that our work "influences" all of the baptisms in the mission, and therefore we shouldn't feel bad that we don't have many of our own. That is true, but President didn't say I was called to influence baptisms. I just need to be more diligent. Mom, Dad, Zach, Alix - I invite you to do the same. Mom already finished the Book of Mormon. Where are we? We can be more diligent, and I KNOW that there are blessings that await our family for doing so. I love you dudes. Dad, I am sorry and sad to admit that I did not get a letter out to you for your birthday. I'm working on it. It will be late, but it will come. I got your letters. LOVED THEM. Alix, go here https://www.lds.org/youth/learn/mission-preparation?lang=eng. Study your brains out. Mom and Dad, go here https://www.lds.org/youth/learn/mission-preparation/parent?lang=eng. This new mission prep stuff is KILLER. And more importantly, I want to hear about how it goes. Will you do it? I have looked some of it over and I can see how helpful this will be, not only in helping Alix to prepare for a mission (if she chooses to go, for life if she chooses not to), but in strengthening our family. Dad, I am super proud of you for going on splits with the missionaries. You have no idea how grateful they must be for having a well-studied member like you in their lessons. Alix, I am proud of you for turning to the Book of Mormon to find answers to your personal needs. Start keeping your personal commitments you made at EFY now. Sometimes blessings are postponed, not lost. There are ALWAYS blessings for trying harder to live the gospel. Zach, I am proud of you for not giving up on your goals. You did something very missionary-like in your letter to me - you outlined your plans, and you also included a 'plan de respaldo'. Keep it up. Work hard. I love you. Mom, I am proud of you for finishing the Book of Mormon, and for being such a great Mom. I can feel it here, and I can see it in your weekly letters. Heavenly Father has a special place prepared for moms like you. I know how busy you are. But that doesn't stop you. Thank you for your example. I want to find parents and help them see how they can be parents to their children like you and Dad were to me. If I could truly accomplish that for one family, I would be humbled and grateful beyond measure. Those kinds of successes, blessings, families, are eternal. I am a proud son, and a proud brother. Love you guys. See you in two!

Elder Andreasen

P.S. This is just one room of the house with extra mattresses. Elder Albrechtsen thought he'd have a little fun amidst all of the work to put stuff into the house.

Buenos Días!!

This week was another hard one, but looking back on it, it was a pretty good one. On Saturday we had a ward activity. We watched a video (To This End Was I Born) about the Atonement and death of Jesus Christ, and then we started to play games. We set up a relay race; first, the teams had to walk a certain distance with an egg on a spoon in their mouth. Then, they had to spin around with their forehead on a pole to get super dizzy and run to the next point. Then, there were bowls filled with flour with 3 gummy worms at the bottom. Then had to get the worms without using their hands. Next, they had to get into bags and hop around a certain point and back (sack race). Then a 3 legged race. Then a water balloon toss. The first team to catch the balloon would win. What ended up happening was a little different than we had expected. The race started out great. Some people spun around with the pole and then fell right over. It was hilarious! The flour part too (see pictures). But after that, the order kind of fell apart and no one knew what they were doing. So once they started the balloon toss, things were wild. Elder Albrechtsen took a water balloon and chucked it at someone. And then there was war. We had made about 70 water balloons, and those went first. Then, people started grabbing the flour and eggs and throwing them at people!! It was so much fun but pretty crazy. Then we passed out a small refreshment and started to clean up.... It was a great activity, and we got the references of a few new families. Also, this week we presented the ward mission plan that the bishopric had asked us to make. They weren't too excited about it (we are going to start PUSHING this ward). They criticized a few things (including our activity saturday...) and basically now we have to prove to them that this is going to work. Long story short, we aren't expecting a ton of help. But the auxiliary presidencies are on top of it, and they are more or less excited. Now we just have to get to the rest of the members. With a bit of time and a lot of work on our part, we can show them that it can be done. This week we picked up a family of investigators that we had dropped. They have committed to come to church Sunday, and basically if they don't come we have to drop them again. We had several committed to come last week and they didn't. We even passed by their houses to get them. One family was asleep and didn't even come to the door after we knocked and woke them up, and another family got mixed up and was waiting for us Saturday in the morning. When we didn't show, they made plans for Sunday morning and weren't there when we did show up. A bunch of things have kept us from getting to our area to teach so it's been a slow week in terms of teaching. For example, we went to get Elder Albrechtsen his driver's license, which took from 10:30 in the morning to 4:30 in the afternoon and then we had to do some stuff in the office after. Anyway, I want to re-extend/remind you guys of the challenge to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. I haven't been able to read every day (some days I study other stuff), but I have come to see the power that comes from reading the Book of Mormon. Days that I read are better days. I can see and feel a difference. And I love it. So read the Book of Mormon! And help the missionary work in your wards! One of the things we are doing is challenging each organization to give 5 references a month between all of its members. BUT, a reference does not count unless the members personally introduce their friends to the missionaries and are present in one of the first lessons. Just as knocking doors is not the way things are done anymore, we are trying to eliminate references received from members with a name and phone number/address on a slip of paper. The real power in missionary work is in the hands of the members. Go to this page http://www.lds.org/training/wwlt/2013/hastening/special-broadcast?lang=eng#media= and watch the video called ''I'll go where you want me to go''. Learn from how these members shared the gospel with their friends and neighbors, and pray for opportunities and the courage to follow their example. Notice how none of them just started by talking about the gospel. They were good friends and examples. And they found opportunities to love others. That is missionary work. I love you guys. Read the Book of Mormon. And I'll see you in two!

Love, 

Elder Andreasen

Hey guys,

So this week marked 6 months... It is pretty hard for me to believe that things have moved along this quickly. It seems like the last thing I remembered was Zach and Berrett and Scotty and Mike going back to BYU for winter semester. That semester has come and gone, and the new year is about to start. That is pretty crazy. I'm sure a ton more will happen in the next little bit and it'll still be just as hard to believe how fast the time goes. This was a better week. I took the advice of one of the sisters from my MTC district and 'pulled my pants up to my armpits and got to work'. We have really been pushing lately in our area. And we are seeing the fruits of our labors beginning to blossom. This week we found an inactive family (just a father and daughter) who lives in our area. The daughter is not baptized, and the father stopped coming to church because his wife was diagnosed with HIV and the members of the ward basically shunned them. He told us that that was a hard time. He and his daughter had to get a series of tests (both of them tested negative), and on top of the stress of the diagnosis and the testing, the bishop told them that none of them could use the drinking fountains or the bathrooms (even just to wash their hands). As they fell (or were pushed) away from the church, his wife ended up leaving him for another man and took one of the daughters with her. We taught the plan of salvation and how our earthly experiences fit into the plan that our Heavenly Father has for us, and we committed his other daughter to be baptized next month. They are going to come to church for the first time in 8 years on Sunday. We also started teaching a man who we had found in the street a few weeks ago. I learned an important lesson about forgiveness from this situation. When we found him on the street, he started to 'bash' a little bit using his knowledge of the Bible. We decided to do the wrong thing (we were a bit frustrated after days without success, but that is still no excuse...) and respond with our knowledge of the scriptures. We got to the point where he saw that we were 'right' and just gave us his address as a sign of giving up. We tried to contact the reference a few times, but we couldn't seem to find the house. I wrote on our list of references to remove him from the still-active list, but in the moment I felt that we hadn't tried hard enough. I learned that that was a prompting from the Spirit when we went to try again. We found him in the street near his house. He showed us where the house is, and told us he had a few minutes to talk to us in the street. So we taught a very simple version of the Restoration, and he was quite receptive. He told us that he doesn't feel very good in his church, and asked us how he would be able to know that our message is true. Perfect question. We answered that and a few other questions and scheduled a return appointment. In the return appointment, we committed him to be baptized. Now we are focusing on finding more people to teach. We printed 300 invitations to an activity in the ward tomorrow at 6. Yesterday we passed out the last of them. Today we printed another 100 to pass out tonight. We are going to watch a movie about the life of Christ and play games. We are hoping and praying for a big turnout. We have invited pretty much all of the members, active, less-active, and inactive and we told them to invite all of their friends. So hopes are high. We finally have representatives from a few organizations in the ward attending our correlation meetings, and we are starting to make plans to work with the ward a little more closely. Anyway, that is the news here in Los Lencas. I don't have a thought put together for this week, so I am just going to invite you to watch Elder Hollands talk 'the first and great commandment'. We have a version that he gave years ago in the MTC, which is basically the same thing just WAY MORE INTENSE. Maybe I'll put it on a flash drive and send it home. It will change the way you think about a lot of things. He invites the missionaries in the MTC to really think about the question that Jesus asks Peter: 'Lovest thou me?' Do we really love Him? How do we show it? Do we feed his sheep? Or do we simply 'go back to fishing'? I love Him. And I love you guys. That is a big part of why I am here. I hope you all have a great week, and that you reflect on those questions.

Elder Andreasen

Whew. So today was supposed to be P-day. But Elder Albrechtsen and I spent the better part of the day (8am-4pm) at the airport trying to pick up a package for President Glazier. All I really want to say about that is that it was an incredible waste of time and that nobody there had any idea what was going on. But we got the package. But also, I now don't have too much time to write. This week was pretty tough. In fact, it was really tough. My faith has been tried, and I have found out by sad experience that it was lacking. Elder Muñoz and I came home from a day that was completely filled with fallen appointments and absolutely no success. Our investigators, who were few, stopped progressing, and some of them didn't seem to want to let us in. We even decided to drop some of them. Anyway, that night we got home and we were just frustrated. I don't think I have ever felt so discouraged in my life. Elder Albrechtsen chewed us out for having bad attitudes, and that escalated into an argument. We finally decided that we just needed to pray. By the end of that prayer, Elder Muñoz and I were crying. It was quite a humbling experience. Afterward, while we were in the middle of planning, Elder Muñoz asked to borrow my little pocket knife, took the picture of his girlfriend that he kept in his scriptures, and said something along the lines of, 'sorry honey, I'll have time to think about you later.', and he cut it to pieces. I smiled a bit when he did that. I feel like I haven't quite learned the lesson I am supposed to learn yet, but that definitely was a spiritually and emotionally intense night. This week while studying in the Book of Mormon, I read in Jacob 4:10, which says 'seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand.' I feel like in my prayers and in my desires lately I have been trying to counsel the Lord into doing the things I want Him to do. So now I am going to start 'taking counsel from his hand.' Elder Bruce R. McConkie counseled that our prayers may be made more meaningful and effective, and we might learn and grow more if we change our 'why' questions into 'what' questions. In fact, he said that 'why' questions are actually expressions of resentment and lack of faith. So instead of asking WHY I am not having the success that I desire here in the mission, I might ask WHAT I am supposed to learn from all of this. This week I have been made aware of my spiritual weakness and immaturity. But weaknesses are given so that we will be humble. And I haven't been humble yet. But it is a process. I want to share my testimony again with you guys. It has been a while. So get your Google Translate ready. Yo sé que nosotros somos hijos de un Padre Celestial, y que él siempre está pendiente de nosotros. Él sabe nuestras necesidades. Él quiere ayudarnos con nuestras debilidades e incapacidades. Porque Él sabía que esta vida nos sería difícil, nos preparó la manera para que regresáramos a su presencia para vivir en felicidad eterna con nuestras familias. Envió a su hijo, Jesucristo, para compensar con nuestras faltas. Jesucristo se sacrificó para que acudiéramos a Él para recibir su gracia en nuestras imperfecciones, y nos dio el ejemplo perfecto. Yo sé que Él quiere socorrernos y darnos el poder limpiador de su Expiación, pero solo podemos recibirlo a través de convenios sagrados, tales como el bautismo de agua y del Espíritu. La autoridad para efectuar estas ordenanzas salvadoras está en la tierra, y podemos recibirlas para poner nuestras vidas de acuerdo con el plan que Dios tiene preparado para nosotros, pero este poder solo se encuentra en la iglesia restaurada de Jesucristo. Y esto es La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días. Los amo muchísimo, y quiero que ustedes sepan que yo sé que Jesucristo vive. Espero que todos tengan una buena semana. See you in two.

Elder Andreasen

Family: Love you derms. I hope this week wasn't as crazy for you as it was for me. I hope you know that I am trying my best to do the Lord's work here. I don't always do as well as I could, but I am always trying. I am still struggling to feel like a missionary when I am pretty much an accountant most of the week. It's like trying to balance a part time job with being a full-time missionary. But I am growing and learning and being stretched by my experiences. I love you. And I'll see you derms in two.

NOW DRIVING IN EL SALVADOR

Buenos Días a todos!! This week was a pretty good week. I have to start out by telling a funny story. We visited an old member couple this week to see if they knew anyone we could teach. The husband is about 75 and the wife is 81. They were sealed last week in the temple here, and they were really excited about that. The funny part is that the husband asked his wife to say the prayer, and in her prayer, she said, 'Padre, no queremos morir todavía...'. Basically, 'we don't want to die yet'. She is a sweet little old lady, but that caught me a little off-guard. But I guess she is really enjoying life, and she doesn't want to see it go just yet. That made me smile. So this week something awesome happened. President Glazier had asked me to separate the taxi expenses of office elders from the rest. We found that within an 11 day period, we spent $423 dollars on taxis. Now, that was with changes week and us going to and from the hospital, but I said to President Glazier, 'President, with this amount of money we could easily make a monthly payment on a car.' He thought for about a minute, then looked at me and said, 'I want you and Elder Albrechtsen to go get drivers' licenses this week. Call the assistants and have them take you.' We were so stoked. First, we had to go get a blood test. They need to know your blood type, but you can't just tell them. So we had to go to a clinic to get a signed, stamped little paper. But the clinic was SKETCHY. The building was just like a housing complex. When we asked for a blood test, they directed us to a hallway that had a picture of a microscope. There was a doorway that had, 'laboratorio medico' written above it in Sharpie. A guy in there was sitting at a desk, and he invited us in. We sat down, wrote our names, and he pulled syringes out of a drawer. He grabbed a cotton ball, dipped it in what I hope was alcohol (it was in a glass, Nestle chocolate milk powder jar), wrung the cotton swab out so that all the liquid went back into the jar, and then sat us down one at a time to draw blood. He wiped the area first, but then he touched it with his finger to feel the vein, and just went for it. There were no gloves to be seen in the whole place. He put the needle in my arm and pulled back on the plunger of the syringe. Nothing. So he just shoved it a half inch deeper and tried again. Success. We paid 4 bucks a piece and we were out of there. We were just really surprised that he got our blood types right and that we didn't have any signs of infection the next day. Anyway, we found out that Elder Albrechtsen's residency documents are still in process of being renewed, so he can't get one just yet. Me on the other hand.....AHORA TENGO UNA LICENCIA DE CONDUCIR!! I have an El Salvador driver's license. I had to go get a million documents to get it, and I had to wait over 3 hours in the equivalent of a DMV to get it, but now, I am able to legally drive here. When I left with my license, the assitant, Elder Earl, asked me 'do you feel comfortable driving?' He didn't need to ask twice. So I drove to Wendy's to eat something real quick (we hadn't eaten and the process took all day) and then I drove back to the office. The car the assistants have is a turbocharged Toyota Hilux. Pretty sweet. Drives just like the Tundra, only WAY EASIER. And my California driving skills have somewhat prepared me to drive here. Basically anything goes. Signals mean nothing. You want to turn or merge, you stick your arm out the window to show that you are going and you go. I felt super weird driving. The feeling of having not been behind the wheel in a while plus the excitement made me feel like I was running from the cops. Anyway, my 'dad', Elder Martin, left this week. He is home now. How crazy is that? Just goes to show how fast time goes. I have learned why being an office elder is hard. We spend the majority of the day in the office, where there is absolutely no spirtual responsibility. The other missionaries have spiritual responsibilities all day, every day. We have to be able to balance both acts, with the hard part being transitioning from one to the other. But I'm learning and maybe one day Ill have it down. So the family we are teaching is doing AWESOME. We taught the Plan of Salvation to them and it just clicked. We taught the father, his 17ish year old daughter, and two sons (10 and 15 years old). The daughter was asking all sorts of great questions, and it just made sense to her. Pray for them. They still have not accepted a baptismal invitation and have not come to church. There was a huge stormSunday night. Elder Muñoz and I were out walking when it started. Within 3 or 4 minutes, we had seen 5 transformers blow. No power in the whole city. A tree fell in the neighborhood in which this family lives, and so their power has still not been restored. But we passed by a few days ago, and the dad was reading the Book of Mormon by candlelight!! So we stopped and had a lesson in the dark, with just one little candle. Elder Muñoz and I shared some of our favorite parts of the Book of Mormon, and we sang a few hymns. It was really special. Other than that family we have been struggling a bit. We only have one other investigator, and he hasn't been progressing lately. Both of them can only meet with us once a week because of work, so we have a lot of time with not a lot to do. But we have made plans with the ward to change a few things (the ward is not at all active in missionary work) so that we will have more support from members and leaders of the ward. I think that pretty much sums up the week. I have been working on that project I told you about last week. It is much harder than I thought it would be. But I was studying the other day and I found a few scriptures that say that we are purified by our faith, or more specifically, the Lord purifies us through our faith. How can we have faith, or act according to our faith this week? What do we each need to do to increase or faith, so that we can be purified and have the constant help and guidance of the Holy Ghost? Just a few things to think about this week. I love you guys. Have a good one. See you in two!

Elder Andreasen

P.S. - One of the missionaries who left Wednesday was Elder Dolbin. He had this picture with all of his others. He knows the girl on the right, her name is Kylie or something like that. But on the right....KENZIE! Apparently they were roommates, Kenzie and Kylie. How small is the world these days!? (See pictures)

Hey guys!

This was another crazy week. We had thought that our hospital woes would be over. Elder Cifuentes came home tuesday from the hospital, but yesterday, while we were in the office, he got way sick again, and he went back to the hospital. Thats 3 trips to the hospital in just less than two weeks, with each trip being several days long. He ended up having surgery again last night, and they put his drain back in (which they had taken out a few days earlier). I spent 2 days and slept 2 nights in the hospital in a row last week so that Elder Muñoz and Elder Albrechtsen could get some stuff done in the office. And it looks like we are going to have to keep rotating who stays with him and who gets to work until everything gets figured out. The doctor said that he is not going to be able to work normally for at least 2 weeks. So these next few weeks are going to be a mess as well. But, in the midst of all of this craziness, Elder Muñoz and I taught 2 lessons yesterday. Woohoo! One to a new family and one to a father of a family we had already been teaching. The rest of his family wasnt there, but he invited us in and wanted to chat a bit. He is a really great guy. He told us that he is a little bit hesitant (even afraid) to get baptized because he understands that baptism is a lifelong commitment, and he is afraid of failing along the way. He has a lot of trust in us, which is something that I think is pretty amazing about the mission. We have only visited this man 3 times, but he tells us about his worries as a husband and father, and about trying to do the right things for his family. It is odd that people just open up their lives to a couple of foreign young men. That was a nice way to get back into our work in the area. However, on top of the hospital stuff, I got a call from the financial secretary of the area, and he wanted to have an urgent meeting with me. He came into the office and explained to me that a few things have been done incorrectly in our financial office for some time, and a few things have not been done at all for a few months. These are things that I had never even heard of, so it looks like I am going to have to either call the financial secretary from the other mission to come explain some things or ask Elder Earl, one of the current assistants who was the financial secretary a while ago. Because of all of this, I have been on the phone or emailing administration every day to get some things sorted out. Anyway, between all of these stressful new things and the hospital trips and rotations, we have now worked 2 p-days in a row. I just barely sat down to write a few minutes ago, and I will most likely be back to work after I finish. Talk about LAME! But the weeks go by so fast here that before I know it, it'll be p-day again, and if we aren't working, I'll get to relax a bit (at least for a few hours...). We had an elder go home a few days ago. He was having some heart issues (even got to spend a few days with us while he had a monitor on - see picture), and after the results of that test came in, President decided to send him home. Kind of crazy how fast it all happened after the decision was made. I found something pretty cool this week. Elder Albrechtsen showed me a talk/letter type thing that talked about how we as missionaries can have the Spirit with us more strongly, guiding us in what we say and do in every moment of every day. It involves fasting and praying to know what things we do are impeding us from hearing and following the Spirit. Then, once you have a list of things you need to eliminate, you spend 40 days praying each day in the morning and in the night to ask for the help you need to stop doing those things and giving a report about how well you did during the day. You add things to the list as they come to your mind, and one by one you eliminate them, until at the end of 40 days, you have overcome each of them. Most of the time they are little things like getting angry at someone easily or thinking negatively about them. Within these 40 days, the goal is to remove each 'pavilion' that could be preventing you from receiving the personal revelation that you seek, and that you are entitled to. So this week I invite you to think and pray to find things that may be stumbling blocks for you. Little things. You don't have to do this 40 day thing, but I am going to. It will be interesting to see what little things we do that we don't even notice but that have an effect on us every day. But lets look for some pavilions to take down. I'm sure a lot of them won't even be that tough. But others will be. That's why we need to be willing to make sacrifices and depend on the Lord to help us with what we can't do alone. He gives us these weaknesses so that we will be humble and turn to Him for help. And when we do so, He makes those things strong unto us. I love you guys. Thanks for being so awesome. Thanks for your prayers and concerns. Mom, thanks for the package. You're the best mom. I'm sure everyone already know that though. Have a great week. Do something good.

Elder Andreasen

p.s. the pictures are of the Elder who went home, Elder Cifuentes, and some explanations I drew out for him while we were bored in the hospital.

Friday July 28th,


Whew. This week has just been absolute insanity. This week was changes week. Changes week is like armageddon for the office elders. It all started Monday morning. A truck came to our house to pick up a ton of stuff to take to some new areas that were opened this week, and to a few areas that now have trios. From there it was just all day, every day getting ready for changes. I had to get out money from the bank because at changes all of the missionaries want money for something or other. And I had to give a presentation to the new missionaries about how they are going to receive money and deal with financial issues for the next two years. I also had to make and sign contracts for new houses, get signatures from President Glazier, and ship them off to get signed by the homeowners. I had to make checks for the security deposits on those houses. I had to help the other Elders here with some of their responsibilities. But there was one thing that made this week more than difficult. Saturday night, before this all happened, Elder Cifuentes woke up in the middle of the night with abdominal pains and ended up going to the hospital. Turns out he had a kidney stone. A kidney stone the size of a jellybean. So they operated on him to remove that stone. So he was in the hospital all week, and one of us had to be with him the whole time. So we had to do all of the work with fewer missionaries. It was crazy. And we had changes in our areas (amongst the office elders). Elder Vaughan (my trainer as financial sec.) and Elder Rodriguez (Elder Albrechtsen's trainer as general sec.) both left, having only trained us 4 weeks instead of 6. So basically I am still learning how to do all of this stuff, just by myself. My new companion is Elder Muñoz. He is from Chile, and he is the migration/travel secretary. We had already lived in the same house for the last 4 weeks, so its not like he is a stranger to me or anything. He spent a lot of time in the hospital with Elder Cifuentes this week because he had less to do, at least until Wednesday night. Tuesday night the new missionaries all slept in our house. There were 19 elders...and it was crazy. They did not want to go to sleep. We, on the other hand, having worked like crazy in preparation for changes, did want to sleep. Then Wednesday night, the missionaries who are going home having finished their missions stayed the night in our house. They left a ton of stuff in our house because their bags weighed too much, and now we have a house with stuff all over that we have to clean. Being in the office during changes is also different because you know all of the changes beforehand. It really takes the stress out of being at changes meeting. I did get to slow down a little bit yesterday, because it was my turn to stay with Elder Cifuentes in the hospital. We studied a bit together, did some practices of teaching the resoration and extending the invitation to pray about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. That was a good opportunity, because we havent had time to study this whole week. We've been in the office from about 7:30-8 in the morning to 8ish at night. Elder Cifuentes came home from the hospital to the house last night with a drain still in (high drainage!!), but he woke up at 4 this morning hurting, and by about 6ish he needed help. So I called the doctor, who told me to go to a pharmacy to buy a certain type of pain killer. So Elder Muñoz and I suited up in normal clothes (not missionary clothes), loaded up in a taxi, and went to get that stuff. While we were out, he got worse, so we bought the stuff, went back, and took him straight to the hospital, all 4 of us still in normal clothes. I had called President and Hermana Glazier several times during all of this to keep them updated, and they arrived at the hospital about 45 minutes after we got there. We then arranged a way so that another missionary in the zone who is in a trio will be with him today and tommorow so that the rest of us can be in the office working. And yes, today is P-day, but we are working. How lame is that? We haven't had time to do anything else this week. Not even teach. We got in one lesson monday night. ONE LESSON IN THE WHOLE WEEK. It really is crazy. Elder Albrechtsen (the other new guy) and I have set goals to be better prepared for the next changes than our trainers were so that we can still have time to work in our areas. I have to say that I am more than a bit jealous that you guys are on a cruise, just having a great relaxing time. But reading your emails really helped me to slow down, so I guess I am enjoying a little bit of what you are experiencing. Mom, I definitely would have gotten in the water with you. You know I don't need a reason to do stuff like that. And if I were there I would have made Dad and Zach do it too. I even got Dad in the water in Antarctica! And if you are serious about going back in 2015, go ahead and book the trip. I would go in a second. But I guess we do have to figure out what I am going to be doing then... I still don't know if I am going to be coming home to go to school or not. I guess that will be a decision made between me and whoever the new mission president is at that point. Anyways, hopefully things will calm down around here in the office so that we can get back to teaching and working in our areas. Now I feel even more stressed about having time to work in the area because I am now senior companion. And District Leader. Stressful! We are supposed to have a district meeting tomorrow, but I don't even know if we'll be able to. We are so behind from Elder Cifuentes being in the hospital that we need to come in to the office tomorrow. So now P-day and weekends are being eaten up by this craziness. But that is just how it goes. Anyway, my thought for you this week is this: Why do we pray? I talked about this with Elder Cifuentes while I was there in the hospital with him. We invite people to pray all of the time as missionaries. Why? Most people have learned how to pray before we meet them. But people learn to do things differently, and that is just how it is for them. There is a lot of...confusion here about what prayer is. A lot of people think that to pray you have to speak really loudly (pretty much yelling) to pray. Others think you have to say certain things, that you have to speak eloquently, or that you have to talk about how bad everyone has it and that they need to try to fix the world. It really is hard to teach people who already have certain ideas that those things do not constitute a prayer. A prayer is a simple expression of gratitud and need. Why do we pray? Really think about it. YOU specifically, why do you pray? Sometimes we fall in the habit of praying because that is what we have learned to do, and we just do it out of habit. But if we think about why we do it we can see that there is much more for us to take advantage of than just a few minutes of silence in the day. We pray because we are imperfect people with needs. We have things we can't do for ourselves. We have struggles that no one else can help us with. We pray because there is someone to whom we can express ourselves openly and honestly without worry of judgment. I'll admit that sometimes I don't express myself as I should in prayer. Prayer should be simple. It should be meaningful. I have a lot of work to do in learning how to pray. And I have to learn how to really do it if I expect to be able to teach other people to do it too. I invite you to think about why you pray, and then work on making prayer an essential part of your life, not just a routine that is done a few times a day. I pray that we will have success as we do so. I love you guys. See you in two!

Elder Andreasen