week 16

Mom & the Homies,

"Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at Change." -Wayne Dyer

First I wanna give a S/O to little bro Caleb for playing a heck of a game it sounds like Friday Night against Logan. You look better in the SV jersey than I ever did haha seriously. Keep the Bane alive.

This week I talked in Zone Conference on Tuesday about Obedience. President Salerno has beaten us to death about obedience and that,s about all we have talked about since he arrived in the mission. Possibly because there are some missionaries who aren't that super obedient I'll just say that. Its a real bad cultural thing in the mission. But Elder Jimenez (From Herriman. Didn't play football but still gives me tons of crap about the game. Got here a transfer before me), Me, Elder Harris, and Elder MacDonald (From Mt Crest, didn't play football or basketball. Got here a transfer after me) are trying to change that tradition. It is one of our goals. We also went to Ushuaia again on Wednesday for a conference with President. It was really really good and just re-strengthens everyone to be better and President Salerno is GREAT. I like him a ton and he loves to make jokes so I really like that too haha. He is perfectly fluent in Spanish, English, and Portuguese so he can literally talk to every missionary in the mission in their own language when he wants. Also, it was great to see Elder Harris again as well! He is doing AMAZING things for the people for Ushuaia. Great to catch up with him!!

I encourage all of you this week to read Mosiah 27 and 28! Its about Alma the younger and the 4 sons of Mosiah. Great Story! 

We are now doing a lot of service here in Chacra 13. Hermano Nelson is a less active member in our ward and we do a ton of service for him. He lives in a little TINY house about 3 feet behind the house of his ex-wife who he divorced last December. He lives with his 10 yr old daughter Augustina and his little tiny poodle Luna. Last week we helped him tile his bathroom and Thursday we helped him clean all the garbage in his lawn and under his house because there is garbage everywhere here haha. But unlike my Bro Colton in the Dominican Republic, we dont need a permit to clean it up. He says he doesn't come to church because he wants to see his ex-wife as little as possible (even though he lives in her backyard which is a whole different story) but she is inactive as well so we are trying to work with him. Him and his daughter were just baptized in 2014. I also got to weigh myself Thursday for the first time in Argentina. I weighed in at 113 Kilos which is about 249 lbs. I left the MTC at about 243. Putting on a little weight haha. Hermano Nelson also loves English and loves to learn it and try to talk it so he makes me talk in English all the time haha. Thursday, he wanted me to pray in English. So for the first time in the mission, I prayed out loud in English. It was one of the hardest weirdest things I have ever done. I have already forgotten a lot of the prayer words in English and it was so hard to keep myself from flipping to Spanish which was cool. Its just so weird to hear an English prayer here especially out of your own mouth. I'm far from having the language but that is a good start. 

Much Love,

Elder Christensen

Week 15

Mommy & ALL,

"Some people drink from the fountain of knowledge, others just gargle." - Robert Newton Anthony.

This quote is for all my people back in the U.S. getting ready to start school. Good luck to all!

This week I encourage all of you to read Ether 2 and 3! It has TONS of great principles that can apply in our lives today that we can apply in our lives today that I never noticed before! I also just like the story of the Brother of Jared. 

So here's a little story for the week. Wednesday afternoon, we were eating lunch in our house. There came a knock at the door. My comp scrambled to the bathroom and made me get it, both of us thinking it was the guy who brought us drinkable water. It was actually the police. I thought I was doing good understanding and speaking until I talked to them. haha. I was also a little nervous. Apparently the night before someone dumped oil all over a car on our street. So they were going around taking names and getting witnesses. He tried to talk to me until I told him I was from the United States. Then he used probably all 10 of the English words he knows to ask for my name, how old I am (he didn't believe I was 18 either) I.D., and phone number. So, now I may get called to court as a witness, although I didn't see anything haha. The best part is that I don't have a Visa yet because the paper work for it has not yet reached here. So I had to give him my U.S. I.D. and he almost asked for my Visa which then they would have thrown me out of the country hahaha. 

I can't help but laugh a little when we contact here. Not at the people, but at what they tell us, specifically the Catholics and Christians. We knock on the door and the person says, "Oh I'm Catholic." We say, "Oh cool, do you attend church?" Almost always they respond "No are you crazy? But I was baptized Catholic, so I'm Catholic" It is funny. We knock on another door and the person says "Oh I'm Christian too, you don't have to teach me." We say "Oh that's cool, what church do you go to?", and almost always they say "Oh it's um...the one 4 blocks (or however many) from your church building." So they know our church, but they can't remember the name of theirs. haha It is funny to me. 

We have 2 main investigators here, Mariela and Yolanda. They own a Kiosco about 5 min from our pension. They pretty much live there because they work a lot. They are Catholic but love talking to us and have great questions. We just walked in one day to buy some food and Elder Cardenas started talking to them and we ended up teaching them and we keep going back. haha. He always buys a bottle of water and I buy Dulce de Leche (caramel) filled muffins then we talk and teach. We talked about baptism with them, but they said they are baptized Catholic and already have their religion. But they do want to learn more about ours. Its really cool and great to be here meeting and befriending people of so many different religions and seeing their views. We seem to always get 2 questions: How many religions are there in the world, and if there is only one Gd, how do we know which one is right? That is our job. We are in the business of Saving Souls.

Much Love,

Elder Christensen

week 14

Mom & Everyone,

"Most folks area about as happy as they make up their mind to be" -Abraham Lincoln

I first wanna apologize to all of you for some of the negativity in my emails. Its been a big flaw of mine since I was young. So I promise from now on I'm going to be a lot better and I am sorry about my past emails. Negativity can just bring everyone down. 3 Nephi 13:25-26 says, "And now it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words he looked upon the twelve whom he had chosen, and said unto them: Remember the words which I have spoken. For behold, ye are they whom I have chosen to minister unto this people. Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?  Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?" 

I know that through Faith and the Pure love of Christ, God will take care of us if we stop worrying and trust in the Lord. That is really hard sometimes. But in the end, It will be worth it.

Besides the move this week, nothing really new. Our pension was really really dirty from the last Elders, so we had to spend all day Wednesday cleaning but it was definitely worth it now. Our new area is really dirty too because it doesn't have any roads, only mud haha. So when it rains out here, its game over, you are gonna get mud up to your knees haha. Our District also gained a new name. There is only 4 of us now with my comp and I and 2 Hermanas. So we are now called District CPP: Chiquito Pero Peligroso haha (Small But Dangerous). 

There are only a few old investigators in the area and since we are really new, we do a lot of contacting and just trying to get into new houses and share our message and offer service for anything. For some reason I get asked how many kids I have all the time. Saturday we did some service and helped a family in our ward, the Beloquis, paint there house. We also went and cleaned the church like we do every Saturday night. It was all really good. Sunday night, we talked with my first drunk guy in the mission. He said he´d talked to the other missionaries just last week and that he´d let us in because we literally don't have a bad thing to say about anything he says since we are missionaries haha. We talked with him, his friend, and his girlfriend who he called his boyfriend because he was so drunk. His friend kept getting mad because he would try to talk serious with us about how our bible is so much different and things like that, but the drunk guy would cut in and just make jokes and be super loud so it was kinda funny. We didn't get very far with them because they are firm Catholics. But they like to talk religion with all the different types of missionaries here on the Island, and there are quite a few different churches represented by missionaries here. 

Much Love,

Elder Christensen