Elder Zachary Andrews: New Companion! Some Fruit

THE VISION OF THE SOUTH

"Make no small plans: This is the vision I have for the South. I believe that one day the South will baptize more people into the church than all other English speaking missions in the world together....We will see the time when we will baptize hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands...In your day you will see a million members of the church in the South. There will be temples plural in the Southern States. What a great call you have to serve with these marvelous people." President Spencer W. Kimball

Monday, April 28, 2014

New Companion! Some Fruit

This week I got a new companion! His name is Elder O'Donnell. He is a really cool guy. He is from Logan, UT. He has been out on his mission for 22 months. He is really smart. I am super excited to see what he can teach me!!

Anyway this week was weird just because of transfer week and those weeks are always hard. Something else about this transfer that is new is that we have to do English and Spanish which is interesting. It is really hard. It feels weird to pray in Spanish but to do a lesson in English was really hard. But that is how the mission is, the second you start to feel comfortable, you have to do something new that is extremely difficult and out of your comfort zone. I am super excited about it.

This week I had a very rare opportunity to see some of the fruits of my labors. When I say rare I mean really, really rare, like that was my second time in almost ten months. We have been working with this less active family for about 4 months now. This family consists of Grandma, her daughter that has down syndrome, and her grandson. Her grandson is about 16 and has been getting into some serious trouble with the law. Now we have been working with him but mostly Grandma, giving her hope that things will get better and that the Savior is looking out for Grandson. We went there close to once a week. She wasn't ever seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. She just wasn't getting it at all. Then we start seeing that she is getting happier each time we visit, slowly and slowly. Till we went ther on easter and she bore her testimony to us and talked about how whe knew that God was looking out for her grandson. It was a little, right? But it was such an amazing testimony of how people can change through this gospel and they can have hope in a better life for themselves and the people that they love. And all of this is possible through Our Savior. Awesome!

Anyway love y'all hope you have a wonderful day and week!!

Elder Andrews

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Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission

The first branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized in New Orleans with 334 members in 1841. The prophet Joseph Smith sent the first missionary to New Orleans in March of that year. After reaching 169 members in 1849, the New Orleans branch disbanded because of the threat of serious disease in the area. The Southern States Mission, which included Louisiana opened in 1878, but the first missionaries were not sent to the state until nearly 20 years later. Missionary work spread throughout the state during the early twentieth century and by 1930, there were 1500 members. The first ward was established in Shreveport in 1953 and the first stake in New Orleans in 1955.In 1975, the Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission was created and by 1980, there were over 12,500 members in the state of Louisiana. By 1989, Louisiana had 22,000 members in seven stakes. In 1998, the First Presidency announced the building of a temple in Baton Rouge. That temple was dedicated on 16 July, 2000.The Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission extends from Natchitoches South to the East and West borders through the state including the Gulf of New Orleans. The mission also includes the South West corner of Mississippi including Natchez, Liberty, and Macomb.