Elder Christensen: Letter 10/15/12

So we just got a new investigator. His name is Michael Jackson and he just moved to belleville but the girl he is dating livse in Newbaden, which is in our area so we are hoping to get him rolling in this area:)  He was super involved in our 1st discussion and he really enjoyed hearing my testimony and he said I feel comfort in the things you have told me and I feel like this whenever I come into the Mormon church which is why I'm coming back!  I explained how the spirit feels and how he could continue to feel this feeling and he is excited about coming back to church next Sunday to take the next lesson.  He was fellowshiped into the ward by his girlfriend and she is a less active member but they don't live together which is awesome !!! That's a 1st for me on the mission.  He had tons of questions on what we believed and we answered every one of them and I was shocked at how much I remember and how the spirit guided this discussion. It was so smooth and peaceful I'm hoping one day I can say I baptized Micheal Jackson on my mission lol!!  We didn't get the chance to meet with Rob this week because he was out of town, but he did call and asked me question that he had about things he had researched about our church that wasn't from a church website and I set all that straight then backed it up with scripture. He was shocked as to how fast we proved everything wrong!  Getting ready for the Chili cook off having some members bring friends that might be intrested in hearing more about our beliefs should be great:) hope to hear from all you soon!!
Love Elder Christensen

Elder Christensen: Letter 10/8/12

PRAY ALWAYS!

So my crazy story for the week....  Last P-Day we saw the arch and went to the ghetto called "paint Louis." It's 6 miles of solid graffiti and gang wars in paint. Anyways we were running late to get back and catch our metro, so we ran 3 miles of the wall and my backpack had unzipped itself from all the swaying of my books and stuff back and forth.  So my wallet and my camera fell out we hadn't noticed til we had got to the metro platform. So we grabbed the next bus to take us to the end of paint Louis, and the road didn't meet with the trail so it felt a lot like "Call of Duty" when they are running through the abandoned train yard and there is shrapnel everywhere.  We hopped over 15-foot chain fences, and one was 35-feet tall with barbwire so I lifted up the bottom part for my comp to slip under. I got some minor cuts from that, but my adrenaline was so high I didn't feel anything!  We also jumped through slow moving trains and trains that weren't moving at all.  I kinda left my comp in the dust! When we got to the trail I didn't want him to hear me pray. This was one of my most powerful prayers I've ever had!!  I was so scared but when I prayed I found great comfort in the Lord and he promised me I would have my wallet and camera back.  I ran up to this black man in his late 30's and asked him, "have you seen my camera or wallet?"  He was really scared. He thought I was going to jump him ha ha !!   I described the items he said no but if I see anything I'll wait at the other end for you. I said I would give him a reward if did find the things and sure enough he found both my items only told me he found the wallet, and he found it empty of cash, of course.... I knew this man had also found my camera but wouldn't give it to me so I said I'd give him $200 if he found the camera. He said I'll look for it tomorrow. I knew he had my camera. The next day he woke up called and said I found it where you wanna meet? I had informed the police on my situation and it was just like in the movies. Tony pulled up asked for the reward and I gave the cop hiding in the building behind us the signal. He came out and ripped this guy a new one!!! I've never heard any man yell as loud as he did!! I got everything back other than the money he stole out of the wallet, but it was well worth it to have seen him get chewed out like that for stealing and with-holding my stuff from me!!! I also have a even greater testimony of prayer now because of it:) Love you all hope to hear from you soon!!

Love Elder Christensen

Elder Christensen: Letter 10/1/12

This new area is amazing! The member are helping us with referrals to their friends and we are hoping to get to work with them and get some baptisms out of it! We have been tracting tons in the meantime walked 13 miles Friday after our service at the food pantry. We have a meal calender going around and you're right the members love to feed us!!  Right now we are teaching one person whom I tracted into. His name is Rob and he is a young college student going into a physics major. We had planned to meet this Sunday and we ran into him Saturday and he said I'm so excited to see you guys but you're 1 hour late. We then told him it wasn't Sunday ha ha and he said oh great so we can meet then I cant wait!! But then he got called into work and we missed him but he left us a note so he really cares to meet with us which is good! 

Testimony meeting was really great with both the wards we cover!  I bore my testimony about the role the temple and prayer and my story of when I had to make my choice with football or pharmacy tech and how I prayed to know what to do in the South Jordan temple parking lot in my truck. lol they loved it so much like all the sisters were balling...  Then the branch leader said can I share your story to the other wards I cover and I said sure.  So I hope that this experience I've had will impact someone's life as it has done so in mine!! Hope our teaching pool gets bigger as we follow up with the members this week love you all !!

Love Elder Christensen

Elder Christensen: Letter 9/23/12, NEW AREA-Shiloh

HEY, So new area is amazing I love it already the people here are very friendly they love talking about everyday things but not so much the gospel yet.. We met our ward mission leader brother Bennion. He is very cool !!!! Had stake conference this week so we haven't got to meet just our ward yet but we have about 35 members so its a lot smaller than Farmington but we are here to fix that !! MY new companions name is Elder Dazley he is my favorite one yet and I've only been with him for 5 days we love alot of the same things and teach the same way so things flow very nice:) I'm very excited to get the work rolling in this area its brand new so we gotta hit the ground running! There is a lot of retired military in this area as well so we get to hear tons of war stories and the Scott air force base is right by our area so we see tons of jets and cool aircraft. I'm feeling my 1st Baptism will be in this area:)

Love Elder Christensen

Elder Christensen: Letter 9/17/12 TRANSFER!

The end of my first area:

So I’m getting transferred this Wednesday, so if you’re going to send mail just send it to the mission office address 1850 Craigshire (for full address, click the write to Jeff link at the top of the blog).  I’m being transferred to Shilo, Illinois. This area has been closed for 6 months and now I’m opening it with Elder Dazley.  This area has a full court gym with a wood floor, so I’m very happy I will be getting my exercise back. :) However, I’m truly going to miss the people of Farmington!!  The ward here is amazing they reached out with us to help reactivate the less actives and now we’ve doubled the numbers of active members in Farmington!  The bishop is only 20 members away from his vision 200 I wish I could stay just one more transfer and see him hit his goal!  My ward mission leader has given me a new outlook on missionary work. Charlie Hargis is simply the best convert I’ve ever met!!  I wish ever member of the Church had the same fire about the gospel that he has then missionary work would be so much easier and we’d have a lot less less-active members.   It was very hard to say my goodbye at church this Sunday! It kind of felt a lot like saying goodbye to everyone in my home ward but I will go where they need me to go :) 

I have a mission tradition of my own. I will give one of my mission ties to any young man that is progressing to the office of a deacon.  So the newest Deacon in Farmington is Quinton. He comes from a poor part member family his dad isn’t a member and he told me” Elder Christensen you’re the best missionary Farmington has ever had I hope one day I’ll be as good of a missionary as you are!”  I had to fight back some hard tears when he told me this because I felt I hadn't done much for this area because I haven’t baptized anyone…  I’ve learned so much from this area, I can only image how much I will learn in the time of my whole mission!!  We also had President’s interviews last Tuesday and President Clark was very pleased with the work I have done in Farmington and he is putting me in other areas that have been struggling to see if I can get them up to missionary level.  He seemed very confident that I can turn this new area around and get things rolling out there!  Don’t know if that is a good thing our not but we will see how it works out…

Elder Christensen: Letter 9/10/12

Its feels like we just can’t get a break out here. Our golden contact has decided that she wants to live in Fredericktown so we can’t teach her because that’s in the sisters area… We had her come to church the past 2 weeks she loves is and explained to us how she is feeling the spirit when she is with us and when we are in sacrament meeting!  She also said that her personal prayers are so strong that she never wants them to end so she will be getting baptized in October by someone in the Fredericktown ward… 

This Saturday was Karen’s wedding it was soooo long it was very pretty though.  They had this mansion in the forest rented out it used to be a school so it’s ridiculously huge!  We had the honor of shuttling people back to their cars that were parked up at the church for the first 2 hours and last 2 hours at least I got to drive a Volvo haha!  Then we had 16-17 year old girls following us everywhere and hitting on us it was nasty I wanted to leave after the I-do’s… They were BIG country girls with terrible Cajun accents like the people from swamp people. Hahaha I needed a translator.   It was a great chance to provide hours of service and we met lots of people that had questions about the church. None of them were from Farmington so we gave them an Mormon.org card so they can find missionaries in their area if they want to.  Also for the wedding everyone knows that I love white dress shoes so I found spatted DR. Martins at the goodwill brand new!! 

This week we had a very great talk with our ward mission leader Charlie on how we can get the members of the ward to reach out to their friends who might be willing to listen to our message.   We have a vision 200 active members for the Farmington ward and this program will get those last 40-50 people.  While talking with Charlie I was able to help him with his Rat-Rods. I got to bolt on some 55 Chevy fenders to his low-rider trucks.  Charlie always says we have helped this area a lot already and we just need to relax and keep trying , but I’m struggling with the relaxing part.   I’m learning a lot on how to become patient in this area… 

Keeping my head up hoping for a better week this week and hope we can find another golden contact that is willing to hear us out!  Transfers this week we will see if I stay in Farminton or not..?

Love, Elder Christensen

Elder Christensen: Letter 9/4/12

Yesssss!!!!  We finally got some new people to teachJ  We had the sisters up for our district meeting and they were out of miles on their car so a member dropped them off in Farmington and they couldn’t get a ride back til 7 so they went tracting in our area for us.  We were helping the Eddy family move. They have so much stuff it took 4 storage units crazy!!!!  So they tracted around the church and the 1^st person they find is interested and wants to take the discussions from us.  Haven’t really met face to face yet but he sounds golden right now. He goes to the open bible church and he is trying to find God not a social bible church.  We had lots of chances to give service this past week which is just what I needed because I’ve been super stressed out for the past month.  Service is the healthiest way for me to relieve my stress out here. The punching bag at the apartment is great!  But not without gloves or tape ha ha. The other New Investigator was taking the discussions for the elders in Poparbluff and they said she is really interested so I called her and really connected with her. I invited her to church for fast Sunday.  She came!!  It was awesome. The ward was super friendly and the testimonies were the best I’ve heard in this area.  Her name is Teresa and she hasn’t for sure moved into Farmington yet but she really likes the area and the people so she probably is but not 100% sure yet…   I’m praying that she will be the one to break the streak of no baptisms in Farmington J

LOVE YOU ALL !

Love ,

Elder Christensen