Week 22

Mommy & Co.,

First, a few more birthday Shout Outs to Grandpa this last week, and to my AMAZING Mommy on Saturday!! Mom, it is truly an honor to have been raised by you and called your son. I know I never would have played football or be where I'm at in life in general if it wasn't for you (and Dad too haha). Its obvious I'm the person I am today because of the people who molded me and supported me from the jump. Just for carrying the title of my Mom, for that alone I could never repay you. That's not even with all the hardships, struggles, and tears it took to raise and provide for me alone. So I honestly cant imagine doing it with 5 of us haha. You truly are the greatest blessing Jessica, Nicole, Caleb, Brandon, or I could EVER receive. I KNOW with everything I have that it was Gods plan for all of us to come together and be a family in this life, and for the Eternities. Thank You Mom. We could NEVER thank you enough.

"Mans mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." -Oliver Wendell Holmes

Wednesday, we had divisions in our District. So I spent the whole day with Elder Holmes. He graduated class of 2015 from Fremont, played football, then studied at Weber state for a year. It was fun and pretty entertaining because he has been in the mission less time than I have, so you can just imagine us walking around trying to talk and work in my area all day haha. We both have Latino companions, so this was the first time we´d been with someone who speaks English. All I can say is the Gift of Tongues is a really REAL thing haha. It was crazy all the Castellano we know and understood that we didn't know we knew or understood before. This was the first time we didnt have someone with us who could answer or talk when we didn't understand. The Lord truly blesses us when we need it and when we have Faith. We had to use every bit of Castellano we knew and we survived and understood almost everything. But we also knew it wasn't us, just the Lord working through us. By night fall we were in his area, talking with one of his investigators, Luis, about the Plan of Salvation. I love testifying about that and how he can be with his Family forever. It was great and he even has a testimony that we are all children of our Heavenly Father, One Big Family. I have a feeling they will be able to baptize him. Just little incidents throughout my days here like that, strengthen my testimony that much more.

Friday we had lunch with Hermana Nanzy. She is an 80 yr old lady from Chile, not even 5 ft tall, has lived in Argentina for awhile and has been a member since ´79. We visit her quite a bit because she cant come to church because she has major bone pain and can barely walk at all, and her husband is almost deaf, but if you talk really loud he can hear you haha. She has an amazing testimony of the church. Anyways, she asked me why there aren't many "People of Color" serving missions, that I was the first one she had seen, and asked about the racism in my life. She told me that 20 yrs ago she was talking with a friend and told her that when a "colored" missionary comes, shes gonna "open the door right up and welcome them into her home because racism just doesn't make sense." And 20 yrs later, here I am haha. What a blessing it is to be here.

Much Love,

Elder Christensen