Elders! We are green and very very clean!

Well it's official, I'm now a greenie. I missed last week's email but don't worry I got you all this time. The past two weeks have felt like two months, but also at the same time it feels like I got off the plane yesterday.

I woke up at 2:45 in the morning to get checked out at 3:30 then take a bus to the airport. The flight was amazing, it was my first time flying and we flew from Salt Lake City to Chicago. Then we took a second flew to Manchester, New Hampshire. It's so green here! There are trees literally everywhere. My first night was at the mission home in Manchester and then in the morning we went to the church in Manchester to meet our new companions. 

My trainer is Elder Dewey and he's awesome. He's on his last transfer so I'm only going to see him this one time. Until after the mission that is. We get along super well and our personalities mix well. We're assigned to be the Nashua 1st English Missionaries. Nashua is a city in New Hampshire. However, Elder Dewey and I are also the French missionaries for the entire Zone (Which has two districts). So whenever someone in the zone runs into a French speaker they contact us. So far we've only met one friend who speaks French and she's awesome. My French is progressing a lot. Elder Dewey calls it an English-R but that's what I have. It means that as I'm speaking I say my R's differently than I should. I'm supposed to be doing a more throaty R. But anyway, my French pronunciation is definitely improving.

The ward here is super nice. It's a little larger than my home ward but not by much. The ward is very welcoming and everyone is extremely friendly. It also helps that Elder Dewey has been in Nashua before so almost everyone in the ward knows him.

I'm living in a quad right now meaning that my apartment has 4 elders in it. It's a ton of fun because we all get along super well. It's also nice because when we council about problems we run into we have four heads working on the problem instead of two. The other companionship is Elder Olney and Elder Pugsley. They are Tech Specs (technology specialists) and it's really cool because they're the only two elders in the entire mission that have that job. They are the one's who create, maintain, and post stuff on the Facebook pages for the mission. There are also the two Spanish Zone leaders downstairs named Elder Martinez and Elder Moses.

Some key events from the past two weeks include:

-Saying by to the MTC District.

-Attending a devotional that Elder Uchtdorf spoke in.(Super awesome and spiritual)

-Flying for the first time. (Amazing)

-Meeting Elder Dewey and saying by to Elder Wright.

-Meeting the Quad.

-Learning how to tract (door to door knocking) and contact through Facebook. 

-Learning how to play Spades, and Kings in the corner. (Face card games)

-Learning to play Magic The Gathering. (Collectible card game)

-Building things to help service organizations.

-Playing Pickleball.

-Meeting the ward.

-6+ Dinner appointments. (we have another tonight)

-Volunteered at a food and warmth shelter for the homeless.

-Going on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. (I had Elder Moses as my companion for a day. He taught me how to street contact, where you walk up to people and talk to them, and also was nice enough to give me a Magic The Gathering card deck to keep. I'm very thankful to Elder Moses)

-Gave a lesson in French.

-Collided heads with a Friend during basketball. (My glasses cut a huge slice next to his eye and then punctured my eyebrow a bit. I have a slight blackeye and I'm 99% sure our Friend does as well. My glasses got twisted but I was able to fix them. Our Friend probably needed stitches but he's not able to so we did our best to fix him up with butterfly bandaids and stuff.)

-Volunteered at Nashua's multicultural festival.

-Started to practice Piano again. (Elder Dewey is a musician and between him and a family I'm about to mention I felt inspired to relearn that skill.)

-Attended the Lopez-Crausco (I think that's how it's spelled haha) family's family home evening, birthday celebration, and soccer match. (I really love the Lopez-Crausco family, there's at least 20-30 of them and they all live in Nashua and are very active in the Spanish ward. They're all super super nice and have very strong family bonds. All of them are musicians and they performed at the multicultural festival.)

But yeah that's my crazy and awesome first two weeks in the field. I love you all so much and thank you for your support. I'll talk to you all next week!

First day photo

 Dear Brother and Sister Andreason,

 

We are so grateful to have your son serving in this mission with us; he is making an amazing difference in Nashua NH, the surrounding areas, and in the mission. We took some photos of him on his first day here with President and Sister Hayden and his new companion, and we thought you would enjoy them.

 

If you have questions about the New Hampshire Manchester Mission, always feel free to contact us in the mission office through this email address, or through the phone number below, we would love to help in any way we can. Thank you for all you are doing to help Elder Andreason serve, and we pray for you, your son and his service.

 

Sister Bredthauer

Office Secretary, New Hampshire Manchester Mission

105 Wind Song Ave Manchester, NH 03104

603-471-3285

MTC, It's Finished. My Mission, It's Just Getting Started.

 Well that went by quick.

Last I knew I was saying bye to my family and setting my bags down in my room. I haven't been able to send out my emails the past two weeks but I'm gonna do better about it now, haha.

Within the blended memories of my time here I see how much I've grown. I'm now used (mostly) to eating whatever food is given to me, good or bad, and being thankful for it no matter the quality. I have a feeling that skill will be useful pretty soon. I've learned how to talk with people about their lives and how they're doing. I've learned to find their need and do my best to try and bring them peace through teaching them about the gospel. I've learned a lot about the scriptures and the amazing true stories within.

My French has improved exponentially, I can now go a full day speaking 90+% French, I get a headache when I do so but I can do it all the same. Thank you to Frere Gogarty, Frere Hapairai, and Soeur Corrigan, you've all changed my life (and my French) dramatically with your lessons.

My district and I have consistently been attending the temple and I can't even begin to explain how amazing that has been. I'm glad that the MTC gave me an opportunity to perform missionary work on both sides of the veil because I won't be able to in the coming months on my mission (my mission doesn't have a temple in its zone.) If I could give you all one piece of advice, don't take temples for granted. There are places in the world where people can only dream of one day being able to afford the price to go and perform their temple work. I would like to invite you all to go as much as you can since most of us live within 20 minutes of one.

I want to say thank you to my district. I'm going to miss you all so much and I know you're going to do amazing things on your missions. You all have become such good friends to me, so much so that you feel like family. As crazy as some of our shenanigans can get, I truly am honored to have had you all in my district.

Goodbye for now everyone! I'll talk with you again soon!

Sincerely, Elder Andreason.