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

Elder Christensen: Letter 8/27/12

So this week in Farmington we had a really good heart to heart with our investigator Ron.  He really opened up to us about some of his struggles and with his living situation he probably won’t be getting baptized soon or in our areaL  We had zone leader exchanges this week and that was ok… We went tracting for 5 hours before our dinner appointment had no success there!  I can’t believe how many people just don’t care about God or religion its crazy!!  My comp found 1 new potential investigator in his 5 hours of tracting we had an appointment set up for that following Saturday and she bailed…  Got some cool numbers for you though!!!!  Since I’ve been in Farmington I’ve walked 195,479 steps, this month alone we’ve walked 66,407 steps, so we are tracting about 8.76 miles a day every day!!  My highest day so far is 21,564 steps which was 16.21 miles.   We have a car area but I feel like we never use the car. Ha Ha Oh well. I like walking anyway.  I’m getting the feeling that this area has been tracted out and I’m running out of ideas on how to find new people to teach..?  It’s so crazy everyone here is kind of in their own world we ask people who have lived here for 20 years if any of their neighbors would be interested in hearing our message, and they say I don’t know any of my neighbors ….. Very different from Utah!  

On the positive side of things our ward attendance is still climbing the bishop’s goal is 200 people for one Sunday.  The bishop really loves me I can’t figure out why yet??   I don’t feel like I’ve really done anything in the Farmington area yet….  My own personal testimony and scripture knowledge have grown tons though!!  I got my very 1^st Missouri Rain last night. It was so cool the streets were flooding over the curb and lightning striking every 5 seconds. It was like a dream come true!  Keeping my head up !! :)

Elder Christensen: Letter 8/20/12

So this week in Farmington out investigator Ron I told you about wants to be baptized! AHHHH I’m so excited we have a couple of things that we are working with him on but he told us for years he has been scared of being baptized and when we read 2nephi chapter 31 he said the spirit was so strong and telling him he needs to be baptized as soon as possible. He loves reading the Ensign so he reads those every day and he said he has been reading those for a couple years and he really enjoyed the stories in them. He said the spirit has never been as strong with him as he has been studying now! It’s so amazing to see the small and simple changes in someone’s life as they are progressing to make the decision to be baptized. I’ve come to realize that missionaries can only do the best they can do but the true conversion comes from the spirit! We have also been tracting tons this last week now that my foot is good to go, haven’t had any luck there L We have walked about 35 miles this week though so I’m burning off all my family meals. The people of Farmington are pretty mean they don’t wave back for a friendly hello they slam doors in your face some crazy people out in the boons even come out with guns ha ha. That’s missionary work for you though if it was easy then everyone would do it… We also have been visiting tons of less actives and have even got some of them to renew their temple recommend. I believe we have truly earned the trust of the ward back from those dumb missionaries making poor choices. The ward is feeding use very well now they want us to come over all the time to teach their kids. I’m hoping that with that trust they will invite us to teach some of their friends that aren’t members of the church! Member referrals are such a big part in baptisms out here. Also I one of our part member families her oldest son just turned 12 and has accepted the role of a deacon they don’t have a lot of money so I bought him a tie, and he loves that thing she keeps telling me that he wont take it off ha ha. So on the down side of the week on the way back home from our appointment with the Urling family for dinner we got pulled over for speeding my comp got a ticket so I might be driving from now on. The funny part is we were going so fast that we sped past 2 cops in about 4 miles they clocked us at 74 so must have been on the uphill part of the roadJ I’m so glad I wasn’t driving!! My goal is to have no tickets on my mission! So my comp was really down that night and I wanted to help in any way that I could. So I saw that our watermelon was going bad and I knew we had a baseball bat in the weight room so I let him smash the watermelon he felt much better after that! We also had the chance to watch President Monson’s Birthday celebration on BYUTV that was so cool I learned a lot about our prophet and his life he is such a good man! They also had plenty of great musical talent there people from phantom of the opera, and they sang his favorite golden days songs. I’m surprised how many of the golden day songs that I knew from the few Broadway plays that I’ve seen such as “The Music Man” brought up lots of old memories from 10^th grade. Time flies by!!!!

Letter to Mom: 8/13/12

I thought I would share the letter that Jeff wrote to me this morning. I try to ask him a few specific questions so that at least he will answer those. We usually also get a handwritten letter about avery 1.5 weeks and he tends to write a lot more in those than he does in the emails. We also got an email from one of the members in the area where he is. They had fed him dinner and wnated to tell us how spiritual Jeff is and what a great job we did raising him, so he also comments on that below. Here is the letter below:

Yes the lightning storms are amazing out here!!!!! They have heat lightning too where is doesn't rain and its just lighting with no thunder. Have only had one of those but it was out of this world!! It was like a giant strobe light in the sky and didn't stop!! I really wish I could been at the wedding (cousin Steven's wedding last Friday) but I was in spirit! I wrote Cortney happy birthday in my journal. I didn't forget it ha ha that was weird but I only have to miss one more of her birthdays lol they time is flying already!! Ohhhhh Kyle (Kyle Cortez, Jeff's friend just came home from a mission last week.) I bet he has changed so much since I've seen him.( So ya the Morgans or Felix that Todd worked with is such a cool family that reminded me so much of our family at the dinner table and the oldest boy was teasing his momma OH I miss those days!!  They didn't really like Farmington but they have another house in Utah in Pleasant Grove I think so maybe you will get to talk to them one day?  And tell Kyle to write me!!!!!!!  My comp is from Kaysville, Utah by Lagoon ish area but he will be home in December but he is a great guy we've finally warmed up to each other !! It's very weird though like I'm the junior companion but in every discussion I'm always leading it or talking with the people more than the veterans lol?  But in my patriarchial blessing it says you will be called to an area were your skills and talents will be used to there full potential!  Ha ha I bought the safe for a reason....... (Jeff bought a fire proof safe before his mission and we have had 3 fires this year close to the house!)