Week 82

Mommy & All,

"I see love as a powerful moving force that, if magnified to its divine potential, will quicken my soul with eternal joy and will exalt me on high." -Max Christensen Sr.

This week I've been reading a lot in Grandpa Max's journal about his mission and his life and this is something I really liked. He talked a lot about love and how to live the gospel, the most important thing we need to have is love. Because if we love God, we are gonna do everything we can to live the commandments, to teach and instruct, and just to help our fellow man or our brothers and sisters. When we love people we do everything we can to help them and when we do that, we are always helping ourselves as well.

This week was okay. On Thursday we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner with our zone and its was pretty cool. We made milanesa and mashed potatoes and bought a bunch of pie. My black Brazilian cousin Elder Otoni turned 19 on Sunday, 2 days after me. So we also celebrated our birthdays during the dinner as well. Its a little crazy being zone leader, especially with the zone being pretty big, but its been good. Also forgot to mention that Elder Vega who I trained in Perito, got made the new secretary when I came up here, so I see him like every other day and that's really cool haha. 

Friday we had my birthday and to celebrate, we had the baptismal interview of Luis. He was supposed to get baptized Saturday, but the really sad part where my birthday went south was when he ended up not passing the baptismal interview. That's the first time I've had someone not pass and it was way sad. My comp elder Nelson and I were shocked and we didn't know what to do. So that part of my birthday sucked haha. That night though some members made me a bunch of pizza and a cake so we got to go over and eat that. With Luis, he just wasn't as ready as we thought, and we are still working and progressing with him, and hopefully we can see his baptism happen in a few weeks. Elder Nelson is the best guy ever haha its been great to get to be with him and he is just like a friend from back home. He keeps me laughing and really helps me to just be a better person and missionary. We have been having a good time trying to hold down the fort here in Comodoro.

Next monday we have Elder Braggs from the 70 coming to talk to the mission, so we will probably not be writing next monday.

Much Love,

Elder Christensen

Week 81

Mommy & All,

"If you wanna thing bad enough to go out and fight for it, to work day and night for it, to give up your time and your peace and your sleep for it. If all that's you dream and scheme is about it, and life seems useless and worthless without it...see its time now it you wanna make this your decade, you've gotta start saying YES to your life, saying YES to your dreams, YES to your upholding future, YES to your potential!! As opposed to saying no!" -Les Brown

First off I just wanna give a huge shout out and thank you to everyone who sent me birthday wishes! I hope everyone enjoys their Thanksgiving this week! 

This week went pretty good. Elder Nelson and I are working nicely together and its been really fun to be with him and getting to know him a better. We have been working a lot with Luis this week. At the beginning of this week, he told us he was for sure gonna get baptized before Christmas, so he put his own baptismal date for the 23rd of December. Elder Nelson and I about that a lot, and we prayed and talked and could just see that he was sooo ready now. So we planned a really good lesson for him and we sat down and told him we were gonna put the goal with him to get baptized the 25th of November. At the beginning he thought that was really soon and that he wasn't gonna be prepared for that. But then we showed him how he already had a testimony, how much he had already accomplished with the problems he had with smoking and drinking, and how he can become completely clean through baptism. We helped him just to believe in himself. And he did! So we accepted the date for the 25th and we are hoping to do his baptism this Saturday which will be really cool.

Last Thursday we had Consejo here in Comodoro where all the zone leaders from the mission come and we have a meeting with Presidente Salerno about what he need to do for the mission, goals we need to set, and what we need to do in our specific zones where we are serving. So I got to see Elder Jensen, Holmes, Ekblad, Hollingsworth, Richards, and Rosas again which was awesome. All those guys have helped me a ton through the mission and have made me a better person. It was also funny to see all of them in Comodoro. That was the first time Elder Rosas, Ekblad, Holmes, and I were all back together in the same place, since almost exacly 1 year ago here in Comodoro when we were all in the same zone. Its crazy to see how far we've all come and how the mission has helped all of us. Its been a great experience thus far. We are just praying we can continue to find success.

Much Love,

Elder Christensen

week 80

Mommy and All,

"Now if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth, but you gotta be willing to take the hit!!....and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him or her or anybody!! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that!!" -Rocky Balboa

This week was pretty good. We woke up early almost every day, flying around trying to find packages and pick up and send off people from the terminal. It was pretty tiring. We had to go halfway to another city in bus to find a package and my comp and I were like holy crap haha but its been really good. My area is pretty dang big too, probably the biggest area I've been in during the mission thus far. We have walked a ton these first few days too which is normal, but doing circles in the area we have is something else haha. The best part though is that Tuesday, all the city bus drivers here went on strike because they weren't getting paid on time or something like that. So since Tuesday we've taken a ton of taxis or we just have to walk forever haha. The taxi guys love it because they are bringing in all the money right now. Its also just been great being with Elder Nelson. He makes me a better person and we just have a really good time just talking about sports since we both play and we both like the same music and the same artists and its all been really cool and way fun with him. We've really been enjoying eating all the dirt and gnats here as the wind continues to blow haha.

We have been teaching a few people here in our area named Luis and Juan. Luis had a baptism date for this coming Saturday, but he didn't come to church yesterday because he slept in so we have to move his date for next week. He has been really cool though in the few times I've met him. He is 21 and lives in a hard family where is mom has to walk with a walker, his dad and brothers drink and smoke every single second and they don't have a ton of money. He told us his family spends 1000 pesos a month just on cigarettes which is quite a few. Its amazing to see him as he is doing great because he used to smoke and drink and he is climbing out of it really fast and is reading the Book of Mormon. Its great to see the power that the Book of Mormon has in all our lives and how it can affect our daily habits and just makes us want to be better. 

Juan is another investigator who has been to church like 10 times, but cant stop smoking yet. Hes 50 and lives alone and is way nice to us. He talks all the time about how amazing we are as young kids who aren't out smoking or drinking or partying. He is someone who I'm learning a lot from. He walked 40 minutes to church on Sunday which was something I hadn't seen an investigator do in the mission yet. haha  He is awesome.

Much Love,

Elder Christensen

week 79

Mommy & All,

"If you still talk about your dreams, if you still talk about your goals, but have not yet done anything, just take the first step!!" -Dream

This week was pretty good. Transfers happened which came as a bigger surprise as we thought. As you can see by the pics, the whole basketball team stayed, but I headed out haha. I'm now the new zone leader in Comodoro so we will see how it goes. For the 6th time in my mission, I gotta take the rousing 26 hour bus ride between the island and Comodoro so that's always an nice trip. I can't believe I'm back in this city serving again haha but now I'm on the north side instead of the south. I know all of Comodoro from centro to the south, but I know nothing of the north, so its gonna be a kind of new experience for me getting to know the area, but all in all Comodoro is Comodoro haha.

My new comp is named Elder Nelson from Utah. He played soccer at Olympus down in Salt Lake, then played a year at Westminster before coming on the mish. He is easily the best soccer player out of all the U.S. missionaries in the mission, and the Latins love playing with him since he doesn't suck like most of us (or maybe just me haha). He is really cool and was one of the first missionaries I met when I got to Argentina since he started in Rio Grande too, so its cool now that we are gonna be comps. It is kinda weird though now having a comp that speaks and understands English haha. Out of the 10 comps I've had before him, 8 of them didn't speak or understand anything, and I've only had one comp from the U.S. here with me in Argentina because the other one was Elder Harris in the MTC. So now I get my 3rd U.S. comp and it should be good. He goes home in 2 transfers, so unless they move him I will probably see him till the end. 

I was a little sad to leave the squad down there in Ushuaia there with Holmes, Jensen, Bell, Taylor, and Harper. Its good that they all stayed together though so they can keep playing basketball haha. Bell and I became pretty good friends, and that dude knows a ton about sports so of course we had some good talks. I will still get to see Jensen and Holmes once a transfer when we have leadership counsel here for all the zone leaders, so that's a good thing too. I'm excited to be up here in Comodoro again with Nelson and it should be a really interesting experience to add to the list of my mission haha.

Much Love,

Elder Christensen

Lots of Photos this week.  A few of them are from Max, some from a member and others from the mission site of their Zone meeting where they put on war paint an ran an obstacle course and compared it to preparing to fight the good fight.