Elder Christensen: Letter 1/27/14 "Stay'n Pray'n"

Well family, I'm staying one more transfer here in Crystal City. Maybe we will break my record of 2 transfers ha ha!! This week we had Kathy Cooper's Baptismal Interview. She passed:) We also contacted the Less Active and his son and taught the Restoration. We also extended a Baptismal invitation and he said yes so thats good news. Maybe we will have 2 baptisms in February and 1 in March. Not too bad for a dead area 6 weeks ago! We also had 3 Less actives come to church this week so that was a cool way to end this transfer. The sisters in our ward had 2 other investigators there as well so that was a very full Sunday! Then we had a priesthood meeting after all that and the focus was on Senior Couples serving missions. So that was cool to hear their testimonies and feel how much they really want to serve the Lord! It would be hard to leave your house and your grandkids. I give them tons of props! They also don't have to follow the white handbook so I think I'd enjoy their mission a lot!!!! You just get to be yourself and share the gospel. What more could you want?

 

Anywho after that meeting we gave a blessing to Sherry Daniel. She is a less active who just found she has cancer. So that's not good, but we had brother Homan come and give her that blessing and he was definitely the man for the job. I felt like he and her have been best friends for 20- 30 years and it was a really good blessing. You could just see her worries go away. :) She will be in my prayers along with our investigators and those who are having trials back home. Love you all!

Love Elder Christensen 

Elder Christensen: Letter 1/13/14 "Good stuff"

Well family, this week was pretty fun other than freezing to death in the beginning! I'm glad I had all my winter gear! We did visit one of our investigators; Dustin. He and Amanda had a few arguments over the holidays, and he got pretty wasted and yelled some pretty mean things, so he got arrested and released this week. We saw him and he was a mess!  He even remembered the last words I said to him before the holidays. I said "Have Fun, but not too much fun, stay away from the drinks." He said jokingly, "that won't be fun then," and we left. He said my words rang through his head in jail over and over again, and he wishes he would've listened.  He is at the lowest I've ever seen him though. But it's bringing on tons of good changes. He dumped every bottle of alcohol he had in front of us and said, "I'm never touching this stuff again." So hopefully he sticks to it! I'm sure Amanda will come back once he gets his life back on track, but if he wont let the gospel in, he's got a long way to go...

We had a killer lesson with Austin this week! We watched 2 short clips and the Spirit was super strong during the basketball one and since we just played basketball last week, I think it softened his heart. After the video I said, "Austin I know that you've felt the Spirit with us and God will answer your prayers." There was a long pause and no one talked for like forever it felt like, and then he said, "I don't know why, but baptism just keeps popping back into my head almost like the Spirit is shoving me into it." His dad said, "Austin that's the Holy Ghost telling you it's right." And with his dad being an excommunicated member, he began to cry because he felt the Spirit again and said, "son I know you're ready. I wish I was too."  Then Austin set his baptism date for his mother's birthday, on March 14th. I don't know if I'll be here then with my transfer history! I could be gone in 2 weeks! Ha! Ha! So we will see... If I'm here or not, I know we made a difference in his life and being able to invite the spirit into their home has made a world of difference ! All in all its been a good week. I love ya family !     

Love Elder Christensen 

Elder Christensen: Letter 01/7/14 "ICE Crystal City"

Well family, this week was the coldest week ever! Ha! Ha! Zero degrees was our high for 3 days and it snowed 12 inches. They shut down the whole city of St. Louis for 2 days.  We also had a wind chill of -35, so I'm glad I was well prepared for this. We went tracting for like 20 minutes, and the police told us to go home, that it was not safe for anyone to be outside. So 2 days of chilling in the apartment, got tons of studies in, but when I finally got Spiritually yoked. Ha! Ha! It was fun time lol.  Then we helped tons of people get their cars out of the snow, which was fun. I found the best way to do it is to shovel til you get to the road and have them spin their tires and just push the car over till the tires hit the road, then rock it hard ha ha good stuff!

We did get to teach an awesome lesson to Austin, and invited him to pray for a baptismal date and we watched "things that matter most," from  Elder Utchdorf  and that was just what his father needed to hear as well. It's way cool to see the Spirit working on both of them. Then afterwards we played some basketball to build our trust with Austin and he is a little ball for 14 years old. Burned my companion a few times lol! But all around that was a blast! We played some 21 and a few games of horse. We also had another lesson with Katrina Holmes. She used to live in Florissant ha ha! So I know her Aunt and they're so much alike it's crazy! They both can talk forever! Ha! Ha! That was the longest lesson of my life! 2 and a half hours! I was trying to get out for 2 hours of that. Ha! Ha! I heard the same story easy 3 times lol. But missions will teach you patience that's for sure!

Well, I'm officially starting on my (6 months to sexy) ha ha! I did my body cleanse and lost all my holiday weight. I lost 10 pounds and now its time to rebuild and cut up! Ha! Ha! I am going for a mean 150 lbs. I hope it all works out. Can't see my friends looking chub chub ha ha! I love you all and hope you are all safe in your travels!!

Love Elder Christensen