Elder Christensen: Letter 11/25/13 "Behold the Cold :P"

Well family, yet another week has gone by and this was a cold one. We had 18-22 degree whether, which I'm cool with as long as it snows!!! We still got nothing. It's snowed one time and it melted already:/ We had tons of appointments this week and most of them didn't fall through. Heck yes! We also had a miracle this Sunday with 12 year-old Ashley. She is a girl that lives with a recent convert family (the Winters) and she has a twin sister who was baptised a year or 2 ago. And just now after meeting us and seeing how fun and not scary we are, she told them on Sunday, "I want to be baptised." Now we're working on that, shooting for the 7th of December with Shawn's date too. So that was awesome!! Also on Sunday, Asta came to church even by herself. I was like, no way, but she was super interested after the FHE (Family Home Evening) we had with her. We watched the Living scripture Nephi and the Tree of Life. ha ha! I miss those movies I'll get them on DVD one day when I find those dang salesmen!!

We also met with Betsy this week on Tuesday and invited her to be baptised she said yes. We don't have a date yet cuz she hasn't come to Church yet, but she has been out of town the past 2 weekends so that doesn't help... We will be having a dinner and a lesson with her at the Messervy's this week on Tuesday. Hope she can feel the Spirit that's in the member's homes. She will be bringing all 3 of her kids as well and they are ages 9, 12, and 16, so hopefully we will start teaching them soon too. That will be great! I've always wanted to teach a family! Martin and Alecia are the biggest family I've taught so far, but their girl was only 2, so that's border line ha ha! I love them!!

We had our exchanges in Jacksonville this week and got to do some service there. Raking leaves is always fun. You get to see the immediate success of your labors lol. We also met Mary and reset a date for her. She dropped them last week and we helped respark why she was getting baptised and investigating the church and set goals with her. It went very well and she came to church this week. We taught Rachael the Plan of Salvation and I could really see her questions being answered. By far our best lesson with her she still hasn't come to church tho...

Also had Zone Conference this week. That was a lot of work! Getting everything set up and getting our trainings ready for that. I'm so exhausted... My training was super fun tho. I made an object lesson using a Basketball as a friend that needs the gospel. I took a missionary to the other end of the court said, ok you're a member this is your friend that needs the gospel. That hoop clear over there is baptism. Think you can make it? He missed of course, then I said, ok half court you decide to have the missionaries meet him at dinner. He got closer, then I said he takes the 1st lesson and comes to church, 3-pointer, and he almost made it. Then I said, ok now they teach the Plan of Salvation, free-throw still missed. Then I said, ok now they are taught the gospel of Jesus Christ, almost a layup still missed! ha ha! Then the commandments, layup he made it, and I taught from that. Sometimes we can make the half-court shots and 3 pointers, but if we invite them to church and get the lessons going its much easier to make the shot!  So the whole point of my training was to walk with your members and their friends until they can make that layup and see their friend get baptised. Pretty cool huh?