Week 99

Mommy & All,

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." -Helen Keller

This week was pretty good. Our talking to everybody is starting to pay off. 

We were out contacting and contacted this house off the street in this back corner which we honestly didn't think it was a house to start with. Anyways there was a guy named Jose out front working and he came and talked to us. We shared with him the Book of Mormon and invited him right there to accept a baptismal date for April 14th and he accepted which was really cool. On Tuesday of last week, we went back to talk to Jose and met his wife Paula and his little 7 yr old daughter Rosita. We were able to sit down with all of them and just talked some more and Paula ended up accepting the same baptismal date as Jose which was super cool. On Thursday we had our leadership meeting where all the zone leaders meet up here in Comodoro and have counsel with Presidente. After that happened, ¨Presidente Salerno came with us to the lesson we had planned with Jose and Paula. We were able to teach them alongside Presidente Salerno which was awesome. Teaching with my mission president was something I honestly never ever thought would happen. This mission is soooo big and he has so many things to do that he is traveling and doing papers or meetings or interviews every single day. But he took the time to come with us and it was great. Jose and Paula also came to church yesterday so they are progressing and we hope to see them again a couple times this week as well.

Much Love,

Elder Christensen

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

Week 97

Mommy & All,

"And if you don't know what it is that you showed up to do, I encourage you to start figuring out what your purpose is and what your life work is!!" -Les Brown

This week was pretty good. 

We were able to find and start teaching these 2 people named Franco and Diana. Franco is a guy my comp contacted when we were on divisions. He is 20 years old and his whole family are members except him. He told us he didn't get baptized with the rest of his fam because he likes to drink and smoke and party and he told us that straight up. But he honestly has a testimony of the church and has been a bunch of times already and has a desire to truly learn and grow. Diana is his girlfriend who is living with him right now. She is 23 and believes in God, but doesn't know anything about our church. Franco invited us to come back because he wants Diana to learn about the church and Book of Mormon because he likes it and thinks its a really good thing. During the lessons, he is even able to explain things to her and testify with us and its way cool. They even came to church on Sunday when we had Stake Conference. It's also really weird to be teaching someone who is my same because we always treat people like they are older than us. We did the math and he is only 2 months older than me and only a month older than my comp. So its really cool to get to know them.

Another cool thing that happened to us yesterday when we were at the bus stop. We went to the bus stop yesterday in the afternoon to head back to the church to do some stuff. In the bus stop right next to us there were 4 guys who walked up with a bunch of wine and just start drinking and getting lit. The law here with alcohol is that not only can you not drink in public, but you can't even carry it in public. When you buy it you have to put it in a bag or a backpack so that no one can see it until you are inside the property of a house. So as we are there at the bus stop, 3 cops from what looked like Call of Duty roll by on their motorbikes. One of them glances over and sees those guys in the stop next to us. He flips a really quick U-turn and the other 2 follow him. They fly over into the other bus stop and slam all those guys up against the wall like in the movies haha so that was pretty cool. We didn't get to see the end because the bus showed up. But it was cool to see though.

Much Love,

Elder Christensen

Week 96

Mommy & All,

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." -William Shakespeare

This week was pretty good. 

This week I almost had to get another couple Argentine stitches. We were chillin in our house Saturday afternoon eating some lunch when I bee flew in and started getting in my face. So I got up to end it, and grabbed a towel and proceeded to chase it around the house making attempts to take its life. So in kitchen, we have the counter and the front window right above. On the counter below the window, the plates I'd just washed were drying. I had chased this bee through the hall, out of the bedroom and back into the kitchen. As all bees do, when it saw the window it headed straight for what it thought was freedom, but of course, just kept slamming up against the glass. I came running over, swinging as usual. I start to take some swings at the window trying to smash the bee and I saw that the plates there right in front of me but didn't really care all that much because the bee had to die.  The bee decided to fly down into the plates. I took a nice right swing with the towel down into the plates and the next thing I know my left hand is covered in blood. I hit the plate and it jumped off and landed on my left hand that was chillin on the counter still. I was surprised I only broke one of them, haha, but I was also mad because the one I broke happened to be my Ramen eating plate. I cut my finger pretty good and everyone told me to get some stitches but I fixed it up and it is healing good. 

We were able to teach some people named Diana and Mario and Mario's his wife who I can't remember her name. They were people I taught just once with Nelson and they were really cool. They live in our neighborhood and have a really nice house, like most where we live. They let us in yesterday and gave us a bunch of food and we were able to talk a little about the Book of Mormon with them. We read the intro that just talks about what the book is and really the most important part is the invitation and the promise at the end. That if we really read the Book of Mormon and pray to find out it is true, we will know for sure and will be able to gain a firm testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ. 

We had a conference this week with President and one of the things we did was have us sit down and list a bunch of truths we wouldn't know about or would miss out on if we didn't have the Book of Mormon. That was crazy to see and made me even more grateful to be able to have the restored teachings of Jesus Christ at my fingertips.

Much Love,

Elder Christensen