Elder Christensen: Letter 8/26/13 Good and bad

This week had a lot of ups and downs. We had a super great lesson with Daniel Lee and taught the plan of Salvation and he loved it. I taught it like this. We come to earth to get an education and there are 3 different degrees that we can get here, and he loved that it made perfect sense to him.  I used baptism, repentance, gift of the Holy Ghost, enduring to the end, as the core classes to get the degree. I've never even thought of it like that before.  The spirit definatly knew what to do. I'm glad I was able to help in that lesson.  Then later this week he wasn't able to come to church and I think someone gave him anti-Mormon stuff and he is super busy with school and everything so he texted us saying he won't be able to meet anymore so thats a big bummer! The bishop is going to try and set another appointment with him so we can keep him rolling. He's come too far to stop !!!  So I hope this all works out!

 

We are going to meet with a part member family this week and see if we can get her excited about going to the temple, so we can get her baptised. Ha Ha! When I read the Book of Mormon with them I would've guessed she was a member already, but she's not so we are going to find out what her concern is and hopefully get through it! School is just now getting started so we should start finding more people this week. I hope so, cuz our teaching pool is getting super small! Ha! Ha! We did find one family last week. We helped them move and they said we could come by and teach them this Wednesday, so I'm stoked for that. It's time to get this area moving !!! 

 

I love you all and hope you're doing well :)

Love Elder Christensen

Elder Christesen: Letter 8/19/13 Champaign!

So the ride to my new area was 3 hours, but we call it the Champaign Train, cuz everyone in that zone rides this huge old yellow school bus. It's great! I slept most of the way but we had some bonding moments on the bus, too. lol Sang "Nearer My God to Thee." That was fun and we almost crashed, so that was fun too ... WE are crashing, we we are crashing! ha! ha! (Fired up-movie quote) :)

Well family, I'm in love! Ha! Ha! I love bike areas they are the best. You get to workout all day and preach the gospel all day.:) We played basketball early this p-day and in just 4 days of biking, I can grab the rim again. Heck yes! I'll be dunking soon ! We also have some sweet investigators that have come from members. Daniel Lee is a business student from Shanghai, China and speaks ok English, but doesn't undersatnd many of the things we've taught him. So we are taking baby steps, but it looks great. We have to hurry tho cuz he goes to China again in October, so we need to get him rolling !

We also found 2 new investigators this week. I'm kinda having some tough times. There have been 2 lessons this week where I said nothing at all, but that's cuz I don't know any Spanish and they speak Zero English! Ha! Ha! Elder Dominguez is awesome. He does all the work for those investigators.  The ward is great here. They feed us everyday of the week and they are working on some of their friends to get even just dinner lessons with us. It's awesome !! We had our fisrt ever combined District meeting and that was cool. Never had one of those, but it was fun. I'm way excited. My district has tons of good elders and we have 2 sisters that are way cool! They're very athletic as well so p-days just got real! :) 

 

I love you all very much hope you had a good week !

Love Elder Christensen

Elder Christensen: Letter 8/12/13 Back to ILL

Well we got transfer calls, and I'll be going back to Illinois in Champaign. I will still be a District Leader, but this area has been a dry one for a while now, so we will have to change that for sure !! My address is 110 Kenwood Dr Apt 397 Champaign, IL 61821, so if you want to write letters you got it :) Elder Presher in my current District just came from this area and has told me many great things about this area including I'll be without my truck and any car. LOL It's a bike area and that's just what I wanted !!! 6 pack here I come! ha! ha! jk Hopefully I can lose the last 10 pounds I want off though !! My companion is Elder Dominguez. He came out with my group, so babysitting won't be an issue anymore. :) We are right next to a college so we should have some contacting going on in this area which will be awesome.  I'm very excited to start this new area !!! I will miss the people of Moberly for sure. The members here have been Amazing and have made this area the best it can be!  I'm missing the baptisms though. Both the Salas girls. Karina and Jessica, and Nathan Sudholt will be baptized on the 31st. The dates are super solid. All the paperwork is done. Just got to put them under! ha! ha! I'm glad I got to teach these people and give all 3 of them blessings. That's really what sparked their conversion! It will be great to hear how they're doing!! I love you all and hope to hear from you in my new area. :)

Love Elder Christensen

Elder Christensen: Letter 8/5/13 Big Beef :)

Well family, this week was a slower one. Had tons of rain which made the truck very useful on those muddy hills! :) We found 3 new investigators this week; 2 are pretty solid. One I don't know too much about, but one comes from a family in the ward, the Waltmans, and he seems ready to take the lessons.  The Salas family we've been teaching have a solid baptism date for the 31st of August, which is the same date we have for Nathan Sudholt. :)  So that's great! I'm hoping to have Elder Presher do the baptism. He's been out for 10 months and hasn't had one yet, but transfers are just around the corner so who knows what will happen. We get calls this Saturday, so we shall see what happens?

 

This week we had President interviews as well. They went great! President Morgan is awesome. Can't wait to get to know him more. I had to give a 15 minute training on personal revelation for the APs (assistants to the president) and the ZLs (zone leaders) and all the missionaries waiting to be interviewed. It was probably the best training I've ever given, and the role play and everything was just perfect. I loved it, and so did everyone else! :) Then during my interview, President just kept thanking me over and over again for helping him with all these struggling Elders. He said, they've got 2 months to truly change and shape up or they are gone!  That's what I like to hear. If you don't want to be here, then just stay home. Ha! Ha! Then we went to Fuddruckers and I ate a double 2/3 lb patty southern burger that was the tallest steak burger I've ever eaten. lol That's all I ate the whole day. Hope everyone is enjoying summer and making the best of it :)  I love you all and hope to hear from you soon !!! 

Love Elder Christensen