Week 59

Mommy & All,

"I flinched, when I should`ve scurried." -Uncle Max (Lion King 1 1/2)

First off I wanna wish my Little Big sis a happy 21st birthday! Wow we are starting to grow up. Second I wanna give a Shout Out to my Ole Dad for Fathers Day yesterday. Like Mom, I cant thank you enough ever for all youve done for me. You've given me the best example in my life of how to have a work ethic to get what you really want. Never seen a harder worker or more dedicated person when it comes to reaching the goals he sets. And of course with the goals I've had in life, your example has more than helped me. Thank you for that.

This week was pretty good. We got to see Raul last Monday and he made us Ostrich. Its kinda like Road Runner and actually isn't that weird for people down in this part to eat it and I thought it was pretty good.

We headed to Las Heras Monday night and didn't get back till Thursday afternoon. While we were in Las Heras we got to stop by and see Cyntia for a bit and that was cool. She's struggling with health problems so we shared Ether 12:27 with her about how God gives us weaknesses so that we can be humble and through faith he can make them our strengths. She really liked that and invited us back this week to eat empanadas haha. 

Friday it snowed all day long which was pretty cool I thought and we got about 5-6 inches. So Friday morning we trudged through the blizzard to go visit Luisa. We shared Alma 34 with her that talks about how we shouldn't put of the day of our repentance till the end because by then its too late. She understood what we were saying perfectly, but told us she is not getting baptized outside and the blizzard going on while we were teaching this lesson didn't really help the cause. So we asked her what she thought if we somehow found a place inside here in Perito and she actually said yes to that. So we are hoping that in the coming weeks we can have a chance to see her baptism. Friday we also gotta see Gisel. Julian finally got back from his trip to Cordoba so we were able to talk to the both of them together and it went pretty good. We were able to talk about marriage and baptism and how the 2 together can bring all these blessings into their lives and the lives of their little girls. We were able to sit down and read The Family: A Proclamation to the World with them and that was really good. Like I've said before, my comp and I are both able to testify because of the example our parents have given us while we were growing up, and what kind of blessings an Eternal Family can bring. So they said they will start the talks about marriage so it will be interesting to see how that plays out.

 On Sunday, Augustin came to church so that was really good and we got to go visit with his family that afternoon as well, with his parents Marcelo and Maria. We shared with them The Family: A Proclamation to the World as well and sat and read it with them and they seemed to enjoy it. They ask a lot of really good questions and ended up telling us that they are planning on getting married at the end of this year which was really cool to hear. I'm pretty I wont be around here to see that or their baptism, but its good to hear they are starting that process. We also talked a lot with them about the Plan of Salvation because they have a tons of questions about that. Marcelo, Gisel, and Yanel are losing their Mom to cancer and are of course struggling with that and have a lot of questions about what goes on after all this. It does help us out a lot that their brother is a Branch President and the questions that we cant answer he can. We say that the Plan of Salvation contains the answers to the questions of the Soul. Where did I come from, what is my purpose here, and where am I going after this life. It's great to help people recognize this Plan. A plan we all chose and accepted before this life, we are just here to give a reminder. Everyone talks about Eternal Life and Eternal Families, but we are able to give people the formula and steps to make it there.

Much Love,

Elder Christensen

Week 58

Mommy & All,

"I wondered what would break first. Your Spirit...or your Body." -Bane

This week was pretty good. We left Perito Tuesday night and didn't get back till Saturday morning because we were traveling. 

Tuesday morning went well. So for some reason we get all these flies in our house that are 3 times the size of a normal fly. They don't bite or anything but for some reason here they are way bigger so the buzzing sound is a lot louder. So that morning I was killing flies and it was going good. About 2 min before we left that morning to go work, I was standing by the door waiting for my comp. And I saw a huge fly sitting right on our front window. So I sized it up and came after it. Now this has never happened before in my life. I've smashed tons of flies against windows before and its gone good. So I go to hit the fly and the next thing I know my first is through the window and there is glass everywhere haha. I was more shocked than anything and it scared the crap outta my comp who was in the other room. So I walked outside just to see if it was that noticeable (it was) and to clean up the glass. the good new is that big fly was lying there dead in the middle of the wreckage so i got him. Bad new is I had to spend all day Tuesday dealing with a window replacement haha. Sure making a lot of memories out here in Perito. Also Monday was cool because Elder Smith our district leader, and I were throwing the Football around and a bunch of little Argentine kids who've never seen a football before came up and were just amazed. So we got to teach them how to throw and play football for the first time and they loved it. 

We were in Las Heras Tuesday and Wednesday and we headed to Comodoro on Thursday. Friday we had conference with President so we had all of Thursday free in Comodoro. So I got to go back and see La Prensa for the first time in 6 months and it was really cool. They cleaned up most of the water and mud from the storm but there is still a bit. I gotta visit the Familia Alvarenga where I lived the whole time I was there, and the Familia Cercuetti who treated me great when I was there so it was awesome to see them again. Friday I also got to see a lot of the bros from Comodoro who I haven't seen in about 6 months as well and it was good to catch up with them. 

Saturday morning we came back to Perito. We gotta visit with Luisa which was good. We just talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and of course baptism. In the end, she ended up telling us that she knew all of the things we said were true or she never would have opened the door to us after the first time 6 months ago. So we asked her what was keeping her from getting baptized and she honestly just said its because its cold and she doesn't even wanna be in the water for 10 seconds outside in the Perito winter. So we are again seeing what we can do about that little problem haha. We were also able to visit with Marcelo and Maria. They are the parents of one of our investigators named Augustin and I never really had the chance to talk with them. We hadn't even seen Augustin in about a month and a half. Marcelo is the brother of Gisel and Yanel, 2 of our other investigators and Maria is his "wife". They have 3 kids together the oldest being Augustin at 15 and the youngest is less than a year old. The brother of Marcelo, Gisel, and Yanel is the Branch President in Pico Truncado as I've said before so that's how they know the church. The one time I talked with Marcelo, he didn't want anything to do with marriage or baptism. Saturday night, we were walking in the street in the opposite direction of their house, when the random thought came to mind that we should go visit Augustin. Remember we hadn't been to his house in almost 2 months. Augustin had just barely left when we got there, but Marcelo and Maria gladly welcomed us in and said they'd been waiting for a visit from us for a long time which shocked me haha. We ended up talking for 2 hrs, with them asking asking us how they can get married, go to Pico Truncado to get baptized, and then later get sealed in the temple! Marcelo even told us he has a desire to get married so that was awesome. So hopefully we can start the process of working with them towards that goal now as well as with Gisel.

Much Love,

Elder Christensen

week 57

Mommy & All,

"Dig deep down, deep deep down and ask yourselves Who Do You Want To Be, figuring out for yourselves what makes you Happy." -Unknown

This week was pretty good. On Tuesday we got a fridge, washing machine, and the chairs to have church meetings brought to the house so that was good. On Wednesday we got to see R. again. We got to his house and started talking to him for a bit and then he looks at me and tells me he is going to share a secret with me. He continues to tell me that there is a reserve of pure fresh water under his camping ground. And its the only unused pure water source in the World, and that he is the only living person in Argentina to know about it. He goes on to explain that before the World ends, all the water on the planet is going to become contaminated and undrinkable, and that he is sitting on the planets last hope for drinkable water. He told us that NASA came and visited  him and talked with him about it and that other people have offered him tons of money and all sorts of things for his land because they know something is underneath but they don't know what according to him. So he tells me that he is telling me this because he says he thinks I'm best buddies with Barack Obama because I'm black and from the U.S. (that's what he told me). So with him as a friend I have to have friends in high places. Then he looks at me with wide eyes and says, "I want you to talk with your United States friends because I know you have a lot of influence up there. But don't freak out and just be really calm and cool about it. I want you to tell them about the pure water reserve and have them come down here and I will sell it to them. Then after I sell it, you'll get a chunk of the money, and we will release this secret to the public and you will be one of the most famous people in your country. WE WILL BE BUSINESS PARTNERS!!" He continues on saying he doesn't wanna sell it to Argentina but to the United States because he thinks we will give him a lot more money. He says the reserve is like liquid gold, and says it actually talks about his place in the Bible hahaha he said and I quote, "It actually talks about my place here in the Bible. I don't know which Bible...but its in one of them!" I can just picture someone reading in the Bible where it talks about the end of the World and reading the words "Mini Camping R." as a part of that. Vega and I had a good time with that one after haha. Guys I promise, even if I wanted to make these stories up about the things he tells to us to make my mission sounds more interesting I honestly couldn't do this good. For those of you who know me, you  know my creativity level is not this high so I have to be telling the truth hahaha. Anyways after that he changes the subject and asks how old I am. I tell him I'm 19 and he tells me I look old enough to be 40 so that made me feel good haha. He tells me I'm big for being 19 and that I'm young enough and big enough to fight a bear. Super random. he tells me he knows a guy who owns a bear, and he is going to call him up and tell him to come to his mini camping so I can fight his bear. He wants me to go 3 rounds with this bear at his mini camping and then we will both be super rich because he says tons of people will come and watch. The stories honestly get better and better every time with this guy. 

Sunday we had the first church meeting here in our house. We had a total of 9 people counting us and Luisa with her 2 little daughters. So only 4 members showed up. Natalia and Nahuel were in Gallegos doing medical stuff, but everyone else just decided to sleep in so that wasn't awesome. We were missing like 10 people but we had the meeting anyway of course and it wasn't too bad. Yesterday we also gotta teach Gisel and Yanel. We talked about the "banquet of blessings" that are waiting for us if we choose to show our faith and act and we showed them the Elder Uchtdorf video that talks about how we shouldn't have to wait to find our our blessings until its too late, but that we should look now. And of course we talked about baptism. Gisel is ready and told us that when her boyfriend comes back from Cordoba that she is really gonna try and convince him to get married so she can get baptized. So that was awesome to hear. 

Much Love,

Elder Christensen