Week 29

Mommy & All,

First off, wanna give a Birthday Shout Out to Grandma Christensen this coming Friday! Thank you Grandma for the millions of snickerdoodles I ate at your house, and for raising Max ll to be the Man and Father he is today. You know as well as I do that Grandpa is smiling down and is more than proud of You, My Dad, Cindy, and Dave. Thank You. Also thank you everyone who gave me a Birthday Shout Out this week! So thankful for all the people around me who made me who I am. I apologize if I don't answer all of you back this week, so if I don't email back this week next week for sure! Second off, we have a conference with Elder Teixeira of the Seventy next Monday or Thursday. I've heard both but more likely Thursday. So just in case I don't write next week that is why.

"We should be too big to take offense, and too noble to give it." -Abraham Lincoln

So Saturday morning we were cleaning the church and Elder Aquino was outside cleaning the steps and a drunk guy in the street came up and started talking to him through the gate. They´d already been talking for a few min and by the time I got out there he was screaming at my Comp and I was like what the heck. Apparently he asked Aquino where our "Pastor" was because he wanted money to go buy a sandwich (or more beer) for lunch. Aquino told him he was at work and the guy asked how could he be at work when he just lives off our money. We were both just thinking oh boy here we go. So Aquino told him we didn't have any money to give him. So he looked at me and asked how can Aquino be a Saint if he is snot even helping people. So I told him again we didn't have any money to give him. He told us we had no right to be in the church because we really weren't helping people we were just hoarding all this money from them. Then he looks at us and tells us that when Jesus cones and when the Apocalypse happens that we are going to Hell and we are going to remember him. He also called me Aquino´s boyfriend haha. So at that point we told him to have a good day and turned and walked inside. He then told us to have a very bad day and called us every Spanish bad word he could before we got in. A neat experience for sure haha. But if 'Im being honest, its just another day in Comodoro for us as missionaries. 

We´ve been working a lot with Alejandrea, her 10 yr old daughter Milagro, and her 81 yr old mother Ramona. We have baptismal dates for Dec 10 with them but they didn't come to church yesterday. Javier didn't come to church either. But I walked into the chapel yesterday, and the first person I saw was Luis, the "If God Wills It" guy! Apparently God willed it yesterday haha so it was good to see him. We had a family home evening this week with Javier and his Girlfriends family Elder Harris and Carasco came with us because Javier used to go to their ward. We talked about how keeping the Commandments equals Love because it is showing love for our Heavenly Father. Elder Harris said that even though he is white and from the U.S., he still loves all of them and they are his brothers and sisters. Javier said that really impacted him and that Elder Harris was right. After that he said something that really hit me. He said, "just because we may not know a part of the world or people from there, we need to have love for them just for the simple fact that we know they exist."

Much Love,

Elder Christensen