Year 2 - Letter 4 - Leaving New Orleans, LA

2 Ne 31:20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.

Well everyone, I am finally leaving New Orleans!  CRAZY!  It has been ten-ish months!

So, the last week had been pretty crazy with all of the stuff that has gone on.  What an incredible training we had from the leadership of the church!  The Lord is hastening his work, and what a privilege we all have to take part!  Lets get to work!

I absolutely loved the whole meeting, and for anyone that hasn't seen it, if I were with you I would sit you down and watch it with you!  We are led by inspired men!

It has been kind of sad saying bye to some of the people here.  I have come to love the people here in nola, and I know that I always will!  I am so excited to see where they will send me next though!  I am so ready to get to work!  

Well, otherwise the week was pretty slow.  We went and visited mostly less actives, and contacted.  Elder Jones is doing so well.  He is ready to take on New Orleans with his new companion.  He will be spectacular.  Well, that really is it.  I will let you all know where I end up!  I know that this is the Lords work!  I know I will go where they need a piano/ harmonica playing diabetic gringo!  I love you all!  Thank you so much for all you do to support me!

Love,
Elder Scott Turner Andrews

Hey everyone!  Some photos de futbolito and the fathers day activity.  We dressed up as stick figures using glow sticks.  It was so cool!  Love you all!

Elder Scott Turner Andrews 

Father's Day Activity

LDS Revolution

Olimpia

Saga

Team R#2

Zone #1

Zone #2

Star Dust

Year 2 - Letter 3 - New Orleans, LA

Alma 22:4 And Aaron said unto the king: Behold, the Spirit of the Lord has called him another way; he has gone to the land of Ishmael, to teach the people of Lamoni.

Hey everyone!

So, first things first, I am pretty sure that my time in New Orleans has come to an end.  We had interviews with President Wall Thursday, and they were fantastic.  President is so awesome!  I don't think that there is anything better than having fifteen minutes of his time.  He answers questions that I didn't even realize that I had.  It was so cool. He started the interview by asking me how long I had been in New Orleans.  I told him about ten months.  That is quite a while to be in one area.  He said it was time for me to see more of the mission.  Then, when he was talking to me and Elder Jones, he said that Elder Jones was going to get a car next transfer, then he pointed to me and said, "not you, you're gone!"  So, unless President makes some last minute decisions, I think I am going.  I feel fine with that.

Well, not the best week.  I came home from church on June 9th and felt really terrible.  Woke up Monday and still didn't feel really good.  Went to bed with a fever.  Woke up Tuesday morning, felt a little better and went to District meeting, but came home feeling terrible.  Fever came back and so we stayed in.  Wednesday the fever was still coming off and on.  Thursday, felt much better, thank goodness!  I talked with Sister Wall about it and she said that I just had a cold and it would take about a week and a half to get rid of it.  I am feeling much better now, just have a bit of a cough still.

Well, we visited Roberto, who is doing really well.  He has some coffee that he drinks in the morning, so we have taught him the Word of Wisdom and are helping him quit that, so he can meet his goal of getting the Melchizedek Priesthood and go to the temple.  I know that he can do it! 

One really cool thing that happened is yesterday we biked to Porfilio's (a less active member who wasn't home) home, and on the way, we took camp street, a way we usually don't take.  On camp, a minivan with a hispanic family stopped us and asked us if we spoke Spanish.  I told them we did.  They then asked us if we knew Elder Gillett.  I told them we did.  They then told us they were members from an area that Elder Gillett served in, Morgan City.  So we gave them his phone number and they were off!  That was crazy!  In a city with a population around 360,000, running into the two people who can help you at random is pretty crazy!  Well, I was glad we could help them. 

Well, that is really it for now!  I will keep y'all posted about transfers!  The actual transfer meeting will be 26th.  So, if you were planning to send something in the mail,  I would wait until after then.

Love you all!

Love,

Elder Scott Turner Andrews

Year 2 - Letter 2 - New Orleans, LA

3 Nephi 15:9 Behold, I am the law, and the light. Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live; for unto him that endureth to the end will I give eternal life.

Hey everyone!

Life is as good as ever here in the Big Easy!  It is so crazy that I have been here for nine-ish months!  We are all like 99% sure that I am gone next transfer!  We shall see. I am fine with whatever the Lord has in store for me.  If I stay, I stay, if I go, I go.

Well, this week was interesting.  We had Zone Training.  Really what they focused on was what we learned in Specialized Training.  They had the District leaders take a part of all of the points that were covered during Specialized Training.  It was interesting to see the different teaching styles.  Especially the difference from the coordinating sisters, Hermana Blauer (Hermana Andrews' MTC comp) y Hermana Walker (who was in my MTC district).  The sisters are quite different than the elders! They had a hand out and everything!  So, that meeting went really well.  I love what they are talking about when it comes to having a vision.  If we don't know what the ward's vision is, we can't help them.  If we don't know our vision, we won't be able to help ourselves and others.  Cool stuff.

Well, we did a lot of less active work this week.  It was good.  We are trying to really get the ward involved with rescuing these members.  We also had a member present with Manuel.  We brought the Young Men's President with us, and they really hit it off.  We are going to try to get Manuel's sons involved in the Young Men's Program. That would be so good for them!  There is an activity this wednesday that Hermano Ortiz (the YM president) invited them to. He also invited them over to his home too.  So awesome!

Valentine we have found isn't as interested in our message as much as white boys who speak Spanish.  We will stop by every now and again to see what is up, but that is pretty much it.  

Well, that is pretty much this week!  I absolutely love it here in NOLA.  It is not nearly as bad as people say it is.  You just sweat more.  Humidity is only really bad after it rains.  Yup.  That's NOLA.  Love you all!  Keep safe this summer!

Love,

Elder Scott Turner Andrews 

Year 2 - Letter 1 - New Orleans, LA

1 Ne 4:6 And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.

Hey everyone!

Pretty interesting week this week.  It was a good week.  Not a ton of lessons, but still really good.  We got a lot done.   One of the greatest things was we had our specialized training.  It started off with sister Wall sharing the disney short Johnny Appleseed.  It has a great song, and an awesome message that really applies to missionary work.  It was pretty cool.  Next, the Assistants talked about using the Book of Mormon effectively, and also about how we need to learn the "language" of the spirit, just like we are learning Spanish.  They applied Preach My Gospel chapter 7 to learning the language of the spirit, which was pretty cool.  Then President wall talked, and shared the buzzards talking in the Jungle Book, where they are talking and asking what they all want to do and can't make up their minds.  He taught us how we can never have a "buzzard" day.  It is all about vision.  We have a vision of all of our seats full at church.  We have a vision of a full session at the temple.  If we keep this vision in mind, we will start to put faces on the people in that vision, and we can figure out where we need to be, and how we can help them.  This has helped me a lot. 

Before specialized training, we had had a few "buzzard" days.  After specialized training however, nothing about the situation changed.  We still had fallen appointments and back ups.  What did change is what we did next.  We ended up contacting in an area north of Canal street, where we had seen some hispanics the other day.  It was awesome!  We saw this red jeep Cherokee drive up and it was stuffed with luggage and some mattresses on the top.  That is pretty much what it looks like when Hispanics move here.  So we went over and offered help, which the sole guy that was there accepted gratefully.  Turns out, he lived next door to where Daniel lived!  That was crazy!  I had seen this guy before, but he would always run inside to avoid us.  His name is Oscar, and he said we could come back.  He is really funny.  Drinks and smokes, but a good guy.  Can't wait to start to help him!

We also contacted another man named Otoniel.  He was pretty cool.  We don't know much about him, except that he goes to another evangelical church.  He seemed like he wanted to know more, so we will see how it goes.

Well, life is just grand!  We went out to New Orleans Burgers and Seafood.  I got a burger with mushrooms onions, and pepper jack cheese, and Elder Jones got a catfish po-boy.  Both were awesome!  We also got alligator poppers.  They were awesome too!  Alligator isn't too bad.  Well, that is pretty much it!  Love you all!  Thanks for everything!  

Love,

Elder Scott Turner Andrews