week 98

Mommy & All,

"Procrastination is the thief of time." -Edward Young

This week was pretty good. We had transfers this week so we were flying between our area and the terminal up until Friday. I saw a lot of good friends go who have helped me, so it will be cool to see the effect they have on the rest of the mission now that they are spreading out.

I had a pretty cool experience Saturday. I went on divisions with Elder Jimenez out to his area to visit an investigator they wanted us to see named Cristina. She has a smoking problem and something going that puts her a step back mentally, yet she has a desire to know the church and search for the truth. When Elder Jimenez and I went over, we talked about the Sabbath Day and how it is a day when we go to church and give thanks to God for what we have as we try to improve. We also talked about the word of wisdom and how through the power of the Book of Mormon and the faith that she has, God can help her stop smoking. While we were there, Elder Jimenez asked her if in these next few days she could get rid of all the cigarettes that were in the house to first try and eliminate the temptation. After he said that she just looked at us, then looked at the box of cigarettes on the table. Out of nowhere she grabbed the box, got up and went and just threw them in the garbage and came and sat back down. I looked at Jimenez like that was awesome! That is the first time in my mission that an investigator has done that on the spot.

Also, another cool thing is that basketball is coming back up here. The first counselor in our ward has a brother who isn't a member. They both love to play basketball and both play pretty dang good.  I was surprised. So he called my comp on Saturday and said that his brother wanted to play basketball with us. We both got super pumped since we both played and we talk about basketball all the time. We ended up winning 3 games in a row (which of course was fun for us) and we are becoming pretty good friends with this members brother. He says he believes in God and is Catholic, but doesn't like to go to church in general. His wife is Catholic and I think active and she wants absolutely nothing to do with us haha. So our challenge is going to be if one day we can get him to church so he can just see how it is. He also wants to play basketball against us again so that should be good too haha.

Much Love,

Elder Christensen