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  

Elder Christensen: Letter 6/3/13 Slapped by the word!

Well this week was great because we didn’t die in a tornado! Four of them were in our mission. Crazy stuff! And one was 40 miles from us but I have no doubt that we will be protected! We got 2 new investigators and had awesome lessons this week with Mike and Danny and our newest investigator John. He lives in Paris which is a small town like 30 miles from Moberly and he believes everything we taught. He love the restoration, but he just thinks that the prophets to follow aren’t correct so we are working through his concern but he is well prepared and we did invite him to pray to know if president Monson is a true prophet. We will be seeing him again this Friday to see how that went J We also might be teaching Miss Moberly. She ran into us at service and was helping out and was either interested in our message or us... Ha! Ha! We will find out in 2 days, but as President Clark (PC) says “Elders, we need to flirt to convert” Ha! Ha! I love PC im gonna miss him for sure !! His mission President is finished with his mission this summer, so he will be getting a new one.

 We had a baptism this weekend. A part-member family baptism. Nicholas got baptized by his dad and confirmed by his brother. That was cool to see. We taught Nicholas the discussions mainly for practice for my greeny, but they went very well and we got technically a convert baptism. Ha! Ha! Fun stuff, but hopefully we will get some of our investigators to church this week and get them rolling J

We also had a lot of District unity this week as we went to the Pizza Hut buffet and battled to see who could eat the most. To say the least I still hold my title! Ha! Ha! I almost lost to Elder Peterson. He is a beast he weighs 285 and played college football as a center, but I still got it! Definitely had some running to do after that !!

Things are picking up out here hopefully will get some fun stories and more memories. JI also got rebuked hardcore this week in my studies as I was listen to a talk from Elder Ballard. He read D&C 49:15 and if that wasn’t the biggest slap in the face I don’t know what is ha ha so I’ll be looking a little more openly on the subject from here on out haha !!!! I love you all hope all is well!

Love Elder Christensen

FYI, I had to look this one up. D&C 49:15- "And again, verily I say unto you, that whoso forbiddeth to marry is not ordained of God, for marriage is ordained of God unto man." Jeff has been saying that he probably won't get married, so I guess he is reconsidering after hearing this!

Elder Christensen: Letter 5/28/13 Truck + Me = :)

Well this week we got all settled into our new apartment and got our truck nice and dirty with all this rain we’ve had. It's been nice!! We got 5 new investigators this week, which is good because this area is dead otherwise. My new companion is Elder Rausch. He is from Alberta Canada and is 18 years old and is the youngest of 9 kids. Only one older brother wet on a mission out of 5 so he is breaking the curse and trying to get his 19 year old brother to go.  I can say I see a big difference in the age drop now that I'm training an 18 year old, and I must say Im pretty shocked at how immature 18 year olds are! I was one of the least mature at that age but the Lord will make up the difference... I hope J 

It's been really fun being back in the farmland. At least we have the proper tools for this area. I love our truck! The ward is great. The members feed us almost every day and its really good cooking out here. I had some Amish milk and oh my goodness it’s a good thing there isn’t a lot in Salt Lake or I'd be 500 lbs !!!  We are working with some part member families that seem pretty sweet and I can already see why my comp is in this area with me for these specific families.  Can’t wait to see where this goes in the time we are here! Other than our district leader, I'm the oldest one in the district. It's very weird but its cool to see my greeny learning new things every day.  I love you and hope to hear from you soon!

Love Elder Christensen

Elder Christensen: Letter 5/20/13 "The best way to leave!!"

Well this was the big Sunday and everything went perfectly. I was able to baptized Alecia Louis Mata and Dorris Jean Carter and see Martin Mata get baptized! I couldn't believe how many people from the ward came to see these baptisms. We filled every chair in the Relief Society and then some! We had at least 50 people there. It was awesome. The talks at the baptism were very good. Sister McCowin really hit it home for Dorris. I'm so happy that she has a fellow-shipper like that in this ward. She is blessed to have her.  It's funny because Sister McCowin was in my families ward in Montana in the 80's. She told me about my uncles and my mom in the ward and all my grandparents did with their callings and it's way cool how small the world really is.  I can't wait to see how far all these new member of the Church go and how many people they help along the way! 

It was my last Radichel Sunday but it was a good one! I'm gonna miss that family a lot. They have been such a blessing for me in this area. Can't wait to see them after the mission :) This area will be one to come back to for sure !!

 

My new area is Moberly Missouri. It's a small farm town but we get a truck so that's gonna be fun and I'm training a new greeney. Lucky him ha ha ! This will be great! Hopefully this new area will give him a good taste of what this mission is all about! Love you all and hope to hear from you soon my new address is 306 North College ave apt 6 Moberly MO 65270

Love Elder Christensen

Elder Christensen: Letter 5/13/13 "Love yo ma!"

 

Well this week I got to see my beautiful family. They are all doing very well. I was also able to see my grandma and grandpa Christensen. I miss them so much and they are doing great :) 

 

This is the big week Martin and Alecia are getting married and baptized. I still don't know if I'm baptizing either of them. I hope so because I might not be here for the confirmation if I get transferred, so we will see what happens !!

 

Mother's Day Sunday was great. The talks were really good and had tons of greats stories to go with them.  I cant believe how old everyone is back home blows my mind and I'm not getting any younger! Won't be long till I'm dead! Ha! Ha! Missionary term ;) means I'm going home!  Hope everyone had a great Mother's day and showed appreciation for their mama! If you didn't I'll beat you up when I get home.

We had tons of great appointments this week with all of our investigators. Half of them made it to church we had 4 there, so that was cool. It's been a while since I've had that many come to church! Hopefully more baptism dates for the next missionary to come here... my companion goes home in 5 weeks so crazy, but ending your mission with baptisms and obedience is the way to do it for sure!! Glad I've been able to help him trough the hardest part of his mission especially with getting dear John'd and everything its taught me a lot about putting others needs above my own. I love you all and hope to hear from you soon.

Love Elder Christensen

Elder Christensen: Letter 5/6/13 "One LOVE, Bob Marley"

Well this week was Awesome have some good news on Martin and Alecia. After the blessing and all the events that took place in her downtime and reading the Book of Mormon like crazy they are wanting to move their wedding day forward! :) My comp and I will be the witnesses for their wedding and the only thing we are waiting on is paperwork for the wedding, which should be coming this week or next week.  So I'm super excited for that! I didn't think I'd be here for that and I will be so that's awesome !!!  This Sunday we got to be with Martin and Alecia for their daughters 2nd birthday and that was a blast. Yhey are so much fun. I can't wait to see them when I come back to visit !!

 

Oh and according to Apples to Apples, I'm Healthy, Cool, Sexy, Depressing, Glorious, Funny, Loveable, Worthless, and Desperate ha ha ha (We always take the cards that we win and they suposedly describe you) Hope you enjoyed your week and the NBA playoffs as the Heat will be winning it again this year!

Transfers are May 22nd, just 2 days before my birthday so that's a bummer if I go. I hope I stay but we will see what happens?  It rained, no joke, all week other than Monday. We went to the Zoo and played some golf with Brother Marco. It was a super P-Day !! We did more service on Wednesday for the Tornado. I used a chain saw and cut more trees and had the youth carry them off. Fun stuff, but hard work !!

 

We set another baptism date with Dorris Carter for Mothers Day, but I feel she will want to push that back more. We will see how that goes but that would be a cool Mothers day !!

 
I was thinking a lot this week about how I can continue to improve both as a missionary and a Human being and through all my diligent studying and praying this was what I got.  The biggest stumbling block to the missionary work is self. Self that refuses to sacrifice. Self that refuses to give. Self that refuses to go. Forget Yourself :) - Elder Christensen. So I'll be trying to do better at this for the next year. Hope I get there! :)

I love You all!

Love Elder Christensen