76

This week has been awesome! I LOVE Elder Finnerty. He is from Draper, Utah. He has been out for just under a year, same as a favorite previous companion E. Gurr. We are hard working and exactly obedient. We love the work and set goals and make plans for our area. In our zone they split an area and sent four new sisters to be trained by two experienced sister missionaries, Sis. Loli and Sis. Solomon. The work is hastening!

Elder Finnerty and I live with a member family in the Placerville ward, the Morris's. Br. and Sis. Morris have one 16yo son at home and one son on a mission in Brazil. They have older kids too. We live in their guest bedroom and have a bathroom and share their kitchen. We have access to their weight set downstairs and we get up early and run every morning too. I love it! It's kinda like living back at home with your mom and dad. The only thing that's hard about it is we have very little cell phone coverage there, so we have to make all our calls to the zone and APs through the Morris's landline. We love the Morris's.

On Saturday we went on a 24hr exchange with our APs Elder Haufano and Smith. I went with E. Haufano in the valley. They serve in the Carmichael Stake, and that night the stake had an activity. Well guess who is in the California Carmichael Stake?! More of my cousins! This time they're from my mom's side. The man to my right in the picture is my great uncle Brent Hale (my grandma's brother) and two of his sons. On my left are Halls and Harrisons. So cool! I love family.

On Sunday Elder Finnerty and I were blessed. We had 4 investigators come to the YSA ward and 2 to the Placerville ward. Lauren made a huge sacrifice to come. Many of her friends at work have noticed a change in Lauren and don't approve of her becoming a member of the church. They complain that she doesn't drink and hang out with them anymore. They told her that if she came to church yesterday they would not be friends with her. Lauren was SO close to not coming, but she knows that it's true. Church was an answer to her prayers. I am so glad that Lauren is becoming truly converted. She is amazing, and we appreciate her.

--

Elder Chris Andrew

California Sacramento Mission

8267 Deseret Ave

Fair Oaks, CA 95628

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75

Transfers are here and Elder Christensen is going home to Moroni, Utah. I'm staying in El Dorado and I'll be with Elder Finnerty! I don't know him very well, but he seems like a great missionary. This transfer is going to be great! We are still teaching Lauren in the YSA ward and we switched our family wards -- we were in Diamond Springs ward and now we'll be in Placerville ward.

The week has been good. We've done a lot of service, I think Elder Christensen has been preparing for work back on the ranch. His family has a turkey ranch and he'll be jumping right back into cowboy-ing when he gets home.

This is a picture with my distant cousins the Andrews. The guy on the left is Br. Taylor Andrew, descended from Reed Andrew.

--

Elder Chris Andrew

California Sacramento Mission

8267 Deseret Ave

Fair Oaks, CA 95628

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

74

This week has been great. We have been teaching Lauren, the investigator that attended church for six months in WY. She has chosen a baptism date for Feb. 17th! We are very happy for her and she is really excited. She's amazing.

One dinner we had this week was with the Miles family. They had a son and his family from a previous marriage eating with us, and his name is Taylor Andrew! I pulled out my pedigree chart from my scriptures and traced our common ancestor. His grandpa Reed Andrew is my great-grandpa Clyde Andrew's brother! So that makes us third cousins once removed or something. How cool is that!? So we were talking and we found out that Bro. Andrew's wife is a descendant of Randolph Hockaday Stewart! So we're all related. Bro. Taylor and his wife are both teachers, and they have three kids. I got a picture with them, but I forgot my camera today, so I'll send one next week. Anyways, super cool.

On Saturday I got to travel down to Stockton for the baptism of Madisen Lemon! In case you don't remember her story she is the daughter of a former less-active member, who just returned to the church a year ago. Sis. Lemon began taking her three kids to church -- Madisen, Jacob, and Taylor. At first Sis. Lemon's husband, Mike, was completely against it because of a bad experience with the church in the past; and when we would come over to teach the family he would go out in the garage and work on a car or something. He gave us a pretty hard time. He warmed up when Elder Gurr and I went over for dinner one night, but he still didn't want to come to church or stick around for a spiritual thought. When I left the area only Jacob had been baptized. Taylor was baptized in December. Finally something changed and Mike was baptized the day before Madisen! My companions Elder Gurr and my son Elder Brook where there with all the other missionaries that have taught the Lemon family before they were baptized. That whole family is amazing. I love them.

Well, it's getting pretty cold out here and I'm grateful for longjohns. Also, this month Elder Christensen and I have been trying to not eat any sugar and very little carbs. Do you know how hard it is for a missionary in the States to do that?! When we call our dinner appts. we tell them we don't want desert and usually they don't take it too hard. We feel better after dinner and then we visit an investigator or less-active member and guess what? they have cookies to feed us, or brownies, or pie, or cake and they send us home with extras. Ughhh! We've been dropping off goodies at other missionaries apartments or just throwing it away. I've tried to check off every day that I haven't eaten any sugar and I haven't even made a day. I think it's a lot harder with the holidays and everything. So, just a tip for when the missionaries knock on your door or you have them over for dinner, give them a healthy snack or something like a salad :)

I love you all! See ya.

--

Elder Chris Andrew

California Sacramento Mission

8267 Deseret Ave

Fair Oaks, CA 95628

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

73

This week was great! On Wednesday all the zone leaders in the mission gathered for zone leaders council with the APs and President and Sister Lewis. It's pretty cool to be a part of the goal setting for the mission and talk about issues and things we need to change. We're really trying to "slay the slang." Using inappropriate terms and language detracts from our image and effectiveness as missionaries. I thought I didn't have a problem with slang until this week. I've been working to cut out "dude," "man," "buddy," "bro," "awesome," "nuts," "pana (buddy in Spanish)," "darn," "guys," "freaking," and other casual terms. It's hard!

The next day we had zone training with our zone. Elder Christensen and I used to the material that we received from zone leaders council to teach our missionaries. We hope that it had a good influence and built our missionaries up.

After zone training I went on exchange with one of our Spanish missionaries. His name is Elder Fullwood from TX. He's great. I practiced my prayers and testimony in Spanish. I wish I had more time to learn! It's a challenge to find Latino people in this part of California, and this companionship comes up with creative ways to find them. Looking in the phonebook for spanish names, looking for hints like a mop outside the front door, Mexican music playing, brown children playing outside... They're pretty good.



And the highlight of this week was Ian's baptism! It was so great. His parents came and two recent convert friends from Oakland he had a lot of support from the YSA ward. Our ward mission leader Logan baptized him. On Sunday he asked me to confirm him. Ian is incredible. Both him and Kurt are working toward receiving the Aaronic Priesthood. I really want to see both of them on missions. They are amazing. I love you all! Love,

Elder Andrew

--

Elder Chris Andrew

California Sacramento Mission

8267 Deseret Ave

Fair Oaks, CA 95628

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

72

Happy New Year! Kurt was baptized this weekend. This is my companion and I and his mom with Kurt. The baptism was awesome... there was a lot of support for Kurt. This week before his baptism Kurt has had a lot of opposition, especially from a pastor friend that baptized Kurt into his church a while ago. He told Kurt anti-mormon information. We had a good lesson with Kurt before he had to see him again. I know when someone comes at me with a load of anti crap, even if it's all a ton of lies, I feel deflated and lousy. I'm sure it's even harder for someone who hasn't even been baptized yet! We helped Kurt focus on his testimony; what he knows by the Holy Ghost. In the end that's all that matters -- if you have helped your investigator understand the fundamentals, revelation through reading the Book of Mormon, praying, and coming to church, then they WILL receive an answer to their prayers, and that is the beginning of true conversion. You can't know the church is true just because you like the people in your ward or the doctrine logically makes sense. Those should help, but ultimately your testimony will be from the Holy Ghost.

Ian came to Kurt's baptism, and his baptism is scheduled for this Saturday.

My Christmas call home was great. It always seems to come at the perfect time -- just when I feel like it's been forever (about six months) since I've talked with my family, Christmas or Mother's Day rolls around. Everybody seems to be doing great; Joseph's voice is deeper and Olivia's growing up. I sure miss them!

In our YSA ward at church we had a miracle. A member brought someone he had just met that moved from Wyoming. Her name is Lauren. She has gone to church for six months in Wyoming and want to learn from the missionaries. We have an appt. with her tomorrow!

My companion is so funny. He talks in his sleep, and I can hold a conversation with him. At 10:52 last night he said out of the blue: "There doesn't seem to be very many people here. Where is everybody?"
"I don't know, where are they?"
"I have no idea."
"Where are we?"
"I have no idea."
"What are we doing?"
"I have no idea."

I was trying to get some better details of his dream, but I guess E. Christensen really doesn't know :)


--

Elder Chris Andrew

California Sacramento Mission

8267 Deseret Ave

Fair Oaks, CA 95628

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.