This week we had the privilege of going to the Temple to do baptisms with one of our recent converts. It was such a special experience. It's been a long time since I've been to the Temple to do baptisms and it was so cool to see Frank going for his first time. I really love the Temple and I'm so lucky to live just down the street from it. We've had lessons there and have been able to tour the grounds with others. There is such a special spirit at the temple that makes it so easy to teach and to learn. Truly it is the House of the Lord.
In other news, we have an investigator getting baptized this week! Sandra has been such a joy to teach. She is eager to learn more and takes time to ask questions and find out things for herself. She is such an example of faith and strength to me. I am glad for the chance to meet all these wonderful investigators that I've been able to teach on my mission. It takes courage to move forward and make all the changes in their lives that we ask them to make, but the blessings that come because of the changes are incredible.
Did a couple of other cool things this week. We met a squirrel whisperer who feeds the squirrels at the park and had a great gospel discussion with him. My companion had met him on exchanges previously and told him we had a giant bag of peanuts that somebody had given us, so we gave him our 5 lbs bag of peanuts and fed the squirrels with him. They'll come grab the peanut out of your hand, it's kinda cool.
This Saturday the Ironman came to Texas and it was in the Woodlands and we went to volunteer at it. It was fun volunteering because we could go everywhere as we were on the environmental team cleaning up trash, but it wasn't as easy to talk to people when we were preoccupied with trash and not in our regular missionary clothes. It was still really cool to see these amazing athletes. The Ironman is a triathalon where they swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 and then run 26.2. Its crazy. But as Sister King and I were walking along picking up trash we watched people run by and saw their families cheering them on. We had a missionary moment and found a tender gospel analogy in all of this as we thought about the journey that we're all on and the support we gain from family and friends as we run our own race through life.
Sunday we met an incredible new member of our ward who worked at the MTC and is interning for Exxon right now. She's rooming with 5 nonmembers and we have dinner with her this week. She's already had great conversations about the gospel with her one roommate who's moved in so far and we're excited to meet her. She said something I found to be pretty profound. She said members are doing missionary work and the missionaries are doing missionary work, but we're missing the hand off between members and missionaries. So that's something Sister King and I are going to work on in our area is helping that hand off between the wonderful things y'all are already doing and what we might be able to add to it.
I'll write more next week. We've got a lot of things already lined up. We're doing an ultimate frisbee night that members are inviting friends to (pumped for that) and zone conference is this week. I'm playing the piano for everything. I'm accompanying all the hymns we sing and 2 of the special musical numbers. I'm not that amazing of a piano player people! I can get by, but I'm no Rachmaninoff, it shouldn't be too bad though... I'm going to go practice now.
Love you!!
Sister Andreason
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