Elder Kyle Andrus

Hello everybody!!!! How is everything back on the home front?!? My new area is Harborne! Right in the middle of birmingham! It is pretty stellar. My trainer is Elder Battles from Arkansas! This guy is a legend. He is training me up real good! He has some crazy stories. He went on a date with the Jessa Duggar. From 19 kids and counting. I cant even believe. I was freaking out when he told me that. Pretty nuts. But he is super cool and we get along so well. (pics to follow.) But we are loving it here in Harborne.

My apartment is in a place called Kings Norton. It is at the very bottom of our area. We spend the rest of the day biking to, street contacting, teaching, biking backfrom a place called selly oak. right next to the Uni of Birmingham. Almost all of the people there are chinese. No joke. I have used so much of my chinese that i studied in school. The Lord truly was preparing me to come here because i have been able to communicate with the chinese kids and the chinese students. It was a little rusty at first. But It ended up coming back in full force. I am more fluent than when i finished my last tri of chinese. But there is a ton of ethnicity here at the university. So many different cultures. So many different languages. So many different foods. It is just so exciting to get out here in the real world and see whats going down.

First day out here we taught a kid named Li-Kun. He is 21 Years old and chinese. He is one of the kindest people you will ever meet. And on my very first lesson i popped the baptisimal question and he accepted. For next week. Everybody told me i would not get very many baptisms, but on my first day we got a commit for him to be baptized. He is so kind. He makes us potstickers every time we meet. He is going to teach us after the baptism how to make them. Which i am thrilled about. He is such a cool guy. And he seems really into the gospel. He drank tea and coffee but he said he will give them up. Easily. So i am so thrilled about that.

Another investigator we have on a date is Fionna. like from shrek. But she is super solid. She is 25ish african english woman. Elder Battles was teaching her before i got here just like li kun but she is so solid. She has been struggling in her life and she needed some guidance. Battles and his comp before me was contacting and ran into her and she said it was an answer to her prayers. she has a little girl named tay about 1 yo. She is so solid. We have been teaching her about the commandments and broke out the awkward one with her in my first lesson with her. Chastity. Dang straight. But she was super cool with it. She said that was exactly needed to hear at that time. During weekly planning we wondered if teaching her chastity would be a good thing or not. We both felt is was. So we taught her about it and she said it was exactly what she needed to hear. She is awesome. AAANd she has a date for my birthday. boom.

And the final investigator i want to tell you about is Christian. He is a romainian about 30ish. We were street contacting (henceforth for forever will be called GQing so dont for get that) and we found this guy. We stopped and asked him about what is going on and he said he was christian so we got chatting and he wanted to meet with us. We taught him, gave him a romainian book of mormon and he went to town. He came to church yesterday and that was great. He said he had a peaceful feeling which is amazing. I explained to him that was the holy ghost and he was so down for it.

The mission is hard, No doubt. Waking up at 6:30, biking alot, always being tired. But it is so rewarding watching people come unto christ and to start to believe about the message. Not going to lie. The first couple days i was like, what have i gotten myself into. But after meeting the people i have no doubt this is what i need to do. The mission is turning me into a man before my eyes. I already have double the work ethic i had before, double the willpower, and double the paitience. (and double the chest hair ;) ) but it is an amazing experience.

Well that is all for this week. I love all of you.

Elder Andrus

#chinainengland