Elder Christensen: Letter 7/29/13 LOVE vs. LOVE

Well family, this week has been a crazy one and it just keeps coming. I feel like sometimes I'm running with my head cut off, but that can happen when you companion does absolutely nothing when it comes to planning, teaching, or finding. Ha! Ha! On top of struggling missionaries in the District, Im doing all I can to NOT kill anyone. Ha! Ha! If I do I'm counting on you to come and bail me out of jail! ;)

 

This p-day we also had our golf tournament and that was super fun, but also very hard. We had to give out snacks for hole 17, and when your comp has ADHD it's very hard to stay in one place all day and be quiet for the golfers. Ha! Ha!  Can't complain too much though... So after that we went to the chiropractor just to see how stressed I am with all this stuff that has been thrown at me lately and found I'm doing much better than I thought I'd be. He said my nerves are super solid and my muscles are great but a few are over worked and need to relax. No doubt it's from all the service we've had !! Waking up super early for the gym has been a huge blessing for me though because that's my stress outlet! Ha! Ha! And this will be a shock to no one, but my heart was my weakest part for stress. He said I'm kinda like the Grinch! Ha! Ha! I started laughing so hard! He said though being away from your family is a huge part of that, but I'm doing the best I can to keep my heart locked on the work !! Dang family why do you have to be so awesome!!

Well as far as teaching this week we had a killer lesson with Nathan. That kid is so ready, he is dragging his dad to the font! Ha! Ha! We also did tons of finding this week when we had the ZL's up here on exchanges. Elder Nelson and I found a super great family. She is a single mom, has 3 kids, and her husband passed away in March. So I'm really looking forward to teaching the plan of salvation to her. I could just feel her pain as she wept telling us her story. At least my broken heart can still feel sympathy for others! And we talked about the spirit world and how her husband still has a chance to turn around and accept Jesus Christ. That doorstep has been one of my favorite of my whole mission.  It was so nice to serve with a companion that wanted to teach and find. It just gave me this fire that I knew we would find someone that really needed our message that day. I'm so glad we found her! :) We also were tracting and asked this black guy if someone had lived in the house we were about to knock and he said nobody lives there and so we walked over to talk with him and he was like "no, I'm not hearing it. Keep on walking guy," and we tried again and he was like "I said no !!!" So we got shutdown pretty hard. I had to cheer Elder Nelson up after that. Then after tracting for 3 hours we had to walk back to our car and the same guy was staring us down. So I looked him right in the eyes and just smiled and he says "come herrre white boy." So I did and he apologized to us and said he was going through some hard times and is mad a everyone and he vented to us for 10 minutes and said "so what can your message do for me?" We both shared our testimony of the Book of Mormon and how specific scriptures have helped us through tuff times and he said "I'll read yo book," and we left it at that.  I felt like that was a huge deal though because walking away from him I was like wow he really isn't ready and then 3 hours later he was! Ha! Ha! It just goes to show you how fast the Lord can work on someone's heart! So don't lose hope on those who take more than the first time you meet. The Lord will do it in his time when they are truly ready ! I love you all!

Love Elder Christensen

Elder Christensen: Letter 7/15/13 "MMA and AMISH"

Well we had a pretty crazy week. All together went on exchanges to Macon this week. Nothing super fun there but we did tract for 4 hours and met a brother to one of the Chicago bears players so that was pretty cool! :)

 

So we did fight our bishop last week and he is dang good, but I guess 12 years of Pro MMA would make you a pretty good fighter! lol Out of all the elders, I did last the longest. I escaped 3 of his best choke-outs, but he did get me with the last one! It was the craziest move I've ever been in for sure. He choked me out with my own arms. I couldn't even tap out. I had to say "tap." It was way fun tho. I haven't sparred in forever !! I think I'll do some MMA on the side when I get home. It reminds me of wrestling when I was little and its always a good skill to have to beat those that are stronger than you. :) 

 

Then we went to a couple of the Amish stores. I'm so glad I'm not Amish. Life seems so much harder without a car or electricity. I would die without those!!  It was cool to see how they make a living. Very humble and honest people. I bought some sweet potato pancake mix. ha ha! Dang good stuff !!

 

This week we found some new investigators in Paris and we will be teaching them on Friday so hopefully something will come of this. I hate going out to Paris cuz only like 500 people live there and they all work out of Moberly, so we rarely see anyone when tracting ....  and its been tracted at least 20 times. We've done the whole town 3 times in these past 2 transfers. I counted 374 doors! ha ha!  The only reason I like going to Paris is for Bro. Reeves. He is old and just lost his wife so he is very lonely but he loves our visits and I can tell they lift him up a ton !! His family lives in Florida and Georgia and Alaska so he doesn't see them much ... His maid makes the best lunch ever though. Her pies are legendary I'm getting the recipe for sure!! We started playing soccer on Saturday in the morning with some non-members and the O'loughlin family and one of them came to church this week. He is 19 years old, his name is Dillan. The other elders are starting to teach him. Should be some good from that. He knows something's about our church. He had dated a member at one time. Hopefully we can get more things rolling in this area. Just need to work out all the kinks. ha ha! Hope all is well at home :)

Love Elder Christensen

Elder Christensen: Letter 1/8/13 "BOOM BOOM POW"

Well another good week :) Hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July. I really did. Got to see roman candles fire at my companion cuz he is from Canada. ha ha! We had a rough week finding this week, but I'm happy to say we should have some baptisms coming up in August. This area has been dry for many many months and infact our area has never had a baptism so this will be great !! We are working with a LA (less-active) member getting him ready to baptize him and his 9 year old son and another one is Terry and Julie, but they still haven't been to church yet.  We had a great lesson with him this week. We taught him the plan of salvation and he really loved it then and the end of the lesson we gave him a blessing of healing.  He was ran over by a car a few weeks ago and can't get around too well so hopefully this blessing will be the testimony builder for them that this in the true church and God's priesthood power is on the earth again.  We have dropped John but I feel he will be coming around soon. I always send him text of good talks and scriptures that I read and I can tell it opens his eye more and more each time. :) 

 

We did exchanges with my MTC companion Elder D'ewart. He is awesome! I loved serving with him. He's going through a rough patch in his mission but it happens. I'm glad I get to help him through this rough trial. I'm also glad for the friends and family I have to help me through my tuff times:) 

 

We got to meet president Morgan (new mission president). He is a way cool guy. Loves to ski, and his motto is work hard play hard ha ha! That's our old mission motto. lol Can't wait to know more about him!  We have some cool service coming up soon. We will be running a golf tournament for a fund raiser in Columbia. Should be fun. I sure hope so. We will be there for 8 hours and its on P-day and I don't let my P-day go to waste !!!!! Today for P-day we will be fighting our Bishop! ha ha! He has done MMA for 16 years and will beat all of us but it will be fun!! How many missionaries get to punch a bishop in the face?? I will see what I can do to get it on video :) I love you all and miss you !

Love Elder Christensen

Elder Christensen: Letter 7/1/13 "Good day to be an American :)"

Well we had a great week of finding this week. We got 8 new investigators. Just what this area needed; a fresh start! We had mini missionaries from Columbia for 4 days and we ran ours into the ground! ha ha! We tracted like crazy and he did great. It really paid off in our finding efforts.  We also had 2 investigators at church this week so that was good. The members seemed shocked like its been forever since they've seen a new investigator come in. lol

 

Tons of Service this week. We got to bail 3 tons of hay, so that was fun. Ate up the skin and had some nasty bugs burrow in the skin but time heals all wounds. lol :) We also did some service for some new investigators. We tore down their deck and it was all nasty and moldy, but I was happy to get some more hard work. I live for that in the summer! :) They were shocked at how fast we got the whole job done they said you guys are just like the Amish, minus the beards ... They also fed us dinner and we had a great lesson. I just sat back and let my greeny and the mini handle it. If they got stuck I'd step in. Other than that it was all them! :)

 

We also taught/ rebuked John in Paris this week. I found a great pamphlet that destroys the RLDS line of authority and he just didn't feel it.  I then kindly said we taught you everything that we can, and you know have the knowledge to pray with real intent for your answer and we will see if that goes anywhere? It's very hard to drop people especially when they are so close but they just need to put their trust in the Lord and let him guide them.  I love you all and hope you have a great 4th of July !!! AMERICA > Canada 

Love Elder Christensen 

Elder Christensen: Letter 6/24/13 "Heat of the Moment"

This weeks Transfer meeting was the hardest one yet. It was president Clark's last one and we lost tons of great elders and sisters.  Sister To'ala was my mission sister and she sang a way good hawaiian song she wrote about our mission and it was a tear jerker for sure! 

 

Well another good week in Moberly. We got to teach Terry and Julie Gross the Restoration and it was our best lesson yet in this area. They seem really interested.  They read the Book of Mormon together and they have read 1st and 2nd nephi in one week so they are doing awesome!!  We put a ceiling up for them in their home this week. That house has a lot of work to be done but I love helping them and they love us. We also had to fix a window on our truck this week it was a shorted wire, but Terry was like I'd love to spend 3 hours with you at the Chevy dealership, so we talked the whole time and really got to know one another.  They didn't make it to church this Sunday not sure why, they seemed really sincere.  We will be seeing them again this week so we will see what the deal is?

We did tons of service this week. Tuff work too. We did 2 big loads of mulch by hand and then we did cement fencing for another family. It was a good day.  My companion is from the city and has never done work like this so that was a great joy for me to see him do some real work ha ha!  Then after our long day of service I thought it would be a good day to do MY GREENY PRANK. The other elders helped me out on this one. It was epic! So our neighbor has tons of snakes and Elder Rausch hates snakes so we asked him for a dead one.  Then when Elder Rausch was in the shower the other Elders and I planted the dead snake in his bed and he got in after our prayer and put his hand up his pillow and right on the snake. hahahaha! He flipped out and threw the snake he thought it was alive ! Then he took apart every piece of his bed and checked for snakes. lol He does this a lot now!:)

Well I don't think the church can make missions any easier than they are. Now you can go right out of high school, and still waste your time on facebook, twitter, or what ever you want!  I'm going to tell my kids I had 1 year of a real mission then 1 year of a lazy geeky mission. Tracting puts hair on your chest, and sitting at a computer just makes you fatter this will lead to many new fat Missionaries and you can quote me !! I have failed to find any scripture in the bible or the book of Mormon where the prophets texted or emailed the gospel, and called it missionary work, but I don't make these decisions.  I really hope this tool does more good than evil but only time will tell :) I love you all and hope to hear from you soon !

Love Elder Christensen

Elder Christensen: Letter 6/17/13 "I cannot come down"

Well this week we finally found some solid investigators. They just moved into Moberly and let us right in and we talked for a good hour on our conversion. They came to volleyball and met some members that same night.  They love motorcycles and they are in the C.M.A. Christian Motorcycle Association. They are in their 50's and have known tons of Mormons and love them, so they said they would hear us out and come to some services so that's great!  We knocked on at least 500 empty doors this week to find them but it was totally worth it, and knocking on all those doors just means your wife will be prettier ha ha !

 

Our other investigators are feeding us this Saturday and we are teaching them this Tuesday as well so hopefully we will get them to volleyball and church this week! They come from Arkansas and are in very humble living circumstances but we are helping them the best we can to improve with what they got. This week we rebuilt the brick stairs off the back of their home and moved a lot of dirt to do so. I love that hard work! I miss it !! Brings back so many memories of working with my family. :) 

We got transfer calls this week as well and I got some very unexpected news. Moberly area 2 is now the District Leader area and I'm the new Ditrict Leader so that's going to be fun. Ha! Ha! this will be the longest transfer in the mission as well. It will be 8 weeks because we get president Morgan (new mission president) this Wednesday.  I will miss president Clark very much but hope to keep his work ethic and motivation in this mission!

We did tons of service this week but one of my favorite was after eating 17 tacos at the Donald's home, they let me milk their cow! Ha Ha! That was pretty cool. I'm never wasting milk! It's hard work for every drop!! They might have a friend for us to start teaching soon which would be great. This area is very tuff to find, teach, and baptize, but we are doing the best we can and won't give up ! As Nehimiah said in the bible "I'm doing a great work and can not come down," so is our work. We just need to keep going and get past this hard summer :)

 

Love you all and hope to hear from you soon !

Love elder Christensen

Elder Christensen: Letter 6/10/13 I'm hot blooded 103

Well this week was a lot harder for finding people, but we got through it, and did all we could. We tracted a lot this week when we had time from all our busy service!! I was super excited. I was gonna be a head coach for summer tee-ball, and it was all set up then the ZL's (zone leaders) said we couldn't do it... I was way mad! Ha! Ha! If I wasn't working on my patience some missionaries might have got a tee-ball hitting lesson for free :) I felt bad telling the manager at the YMCA that we had to back out. He wasn't very happy about it either. :/

 

We did our district leader exchanges this week, and I got to workout at the YMCA with Elder Gibbs. That was amazing, other than I was still recovering from a fever (of 103) I got earlier in the week.  Elder Gibbs is a great leader and he is way into motorcycles so we talked about bike for many many hours on this exchange.  He talked me into a Ducati so I'm set in my ways now. Ha! Ha! :) We also got to visit some part-member families in Macon and they had a lot of country in them! Ha! Ha! It was super fun!  I'm very glad I wasnt stuck with Elder Esplin. My poor companion endured that trial well! Ha! Ha!

 

So I found tons of nasty mold in our apartment so I went crazy on cleaning that place top to bottom! I bought huge contractor bags and wrapped my twin bed and all the couch cushions and slept on the floor for one night. Glad I don't have to do that too often. I'm pretty sure we have the cleanest apartment in the mission now :)

 

This week Danny was dropped (as an investigator) because he went crazy on our ward mission leader and I thought they were going to duke it out! Ha! Ha! So we had to leave. The Spirit was gone long before that, but you learn from it none the less ... John Ekstrom is our most solid investigator. He is RLDS so he loves and believes everything we teach other than being married for eternity or anything that we teach that involves eternal progression.  This is new for me and its hard because I'm training as well, and Elder Rausch is doing the best he can, but this guy is far from a routine investigator and the normal lessons. Ha! Ha! It's been fun though !! We have some firesides soming up soon so hopefully that will be a good finding tool for us this week. We need some new investigators !! Love you all enjoy your summer mine starts 360 days from now but who is counting? ;) 

Love Elder christensen