Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Elder Silva and Elder Jensen are awesome teachers helping me prepare for my mission!

November 29, 2016

We love receiving texts from people on Andrew's mission.  This one was from Kaiten who was so happy to share her appreciation for both Elder Silva and Andrew.  She said:

"Your missionary is in great hands!  He is having a great time in the Santa Clarita Young Single Adult ward and he misses you a lot!  They are both really great!!  They are  helping me prepare for my mission, they are such great teachers!

So nice to hear from those that Andrew is serving, and feeling of their love for the missionaries and their efforts.

Kaiten in the Young Single Adult ward.
   

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Thanksgiving is a great opportunity to be in the Lord's service and focus more on others than myself

November 28, 2016

Hello everyone!!

Another week has flown by here in sunny California! It's weird that it's the Holiday season because it doesn't even look or feel cold like I'm used to. It was a warm, sunny Thanksgiving and I sure missed you all, but it was another great opportunity to be in the Lords service and focus more on others than myself.

I think I'll start off this week with a funny story.

So this week we had a baptism and we had to fill the font. We show up at 4 and turned on the water, changed into suits and set up all the chairs and what not. So by this point the water was almost to the top and we needed to shut it off in a few minutes or it would overflow. Well we did the stupidest thing possible...we ran outside to throw our change of clothes in the car, and when we got back to the church doors they were locked, my keys and phone were in the building and the water was still running! We were 100% sure our mission president was going to release us because we flooded the building. After the panic subsided we realized that Elder Silva still had his car keys so we ran to the building coordinators house and it was pitch black. We knocked anyways and he was miraculously home. We told him what was happening and he spazzed out and ran to his car. Well, to make a long story short...we stopped the water just in time...the baptism was great...and we're not released :)

We took our spikeball net to our favorite members house on Thanksgiving and had a crazy game going with Brother Bryant and his daughters. He was so addicted to it and by the time we were finished he was so winded hahaha! He bought it for his kids for Christmas!

We also had a great lesson with Nelly. I think she really believes what we are teaching her is true but she's just struggling with the negativity her family is giving her. We teach her all these things and they sound and feel right but then her family just tells her all these bad things and puts her on this spiritual roller coaster. We talked about the Commandments and how they are there to protect us. I've really seen that to be true on my mission. We are so blessed to have the Commandments to protect us.

We spoke in church this week and talked about gratitude for the gospel. We're so blessed to have the gospel in our lives. We have the Book of Mormon, knowledge of the Plan of Salvation, a living Prophet, the Priesthood, etc. We have so many blessings to be thankful for. Lets all show our gratitude by living the Gospel we've been given.

Also check out the Christmas initiative at www.mormon.org

Sorry for the short email this week!!

Love you all so much! Hope you have a great snowy week in Utah!

Elder Jensen





At the Young Single Adult ward in action!

November 27, 2016

We got a text today from Meg with a photo of Andrew and Elder Silva at the Young Single Adult ward.  Someone that was a friend of a friend happened to be there and snapped this photo.  So fun to see them in action!

Thanksgiving dinner with the Bryant's

November 24th, 2016

We got a short video and a great photo of Andrew and Elder Silva having Thanksgiving dinner at a members home today!  They are eating with the Bryant family.  So grateful that these members will share their Holiday with these missionaries to soften these times of being without their own family members.  We are so blessed!