I Have Seen the Blessings of the Church

Working hard and loving it with Elder D

Hey Everybody,

I am doing well. You guys are the best and have been on my mind a lot this week. We have such an amazing family and I feel so blessed to be a part of it.

This week I have had a lot of tender thoughts go through my mind as I think about the gospel and how it blesses our lives. We are teaching some very great people right now and their questions often make me think. Last night we were teaching a guy who had been in a serious car accident a few months ago. It was a fantastic lesson. I really felt the spirit as we taught him and Elder D felt it as well. He asked us if we were born in the Church. Sometimes when people ask me that I worry that they won’t take me seriously, because they figure this is all I have ever known. When I answered “yes” his answer surprised me. He said it was interesting that we had such conviction, especially as young men to what we believe. He talked about how the youth today aren’t usually prone to be so strongly rooted in the gospel. He talked about how people in general need some tramatic event to bring them to the gospel. He was astounded that we were so devoted. He asked us “why?” The first thing that came to my mind was... Because I have seen the blessings of the Church and I am so happy here! That is why we do it!

I love being a missionary. It is such a great experience to get to know and talk to so many wonderful people each day. I have developed a lot this week as I have really strived to be more personal. We had stake conference and the stake high counselor, who is over missionary work, talked about how important it is for us to be sincere and how through the smallest actions we can share the gospel. Another sister who spoke talked about how through a small message in twitter or some other social networking program her brother-in-law came to know the gospel. What can we do each day to share the gospel in some small way? I have come to the realization that in every moment we have the chance to affect someone else’s life, as well as our own, for good or bad. It is our responsibility to affect it for the good. The small decisions do matter! Every moment we have the opportunity to do something just a little better. We just need to identify what it is we need to work on in that moment. If we just made a mistake we can do just a little bit better getting back up the next time.

Another thing that has astonished me is the importance of being humble. I talk with so many people everyday who miss the chance of the eternities to hear the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They miss it because they do not want to open their ears to hear. It has made me think. What do I miss because of my pride? We must humble ourselves so that we are receptive to the promptings of the spirit. We cannot afford to miss them.

I know that I make mistakes every day and I am overwhelmed when I realize how blessed I am. I am so grateful for the example of the pioneers and I hope that I can follow their example every day. I hope that I can humble myself sufficiently to receive the promptings and guidance of the spirit more clearly. I know the Church is true. It can’t not be true!

I love you all so much and hope I can be more like you!

Have a great Thanksgiving and ponder how blessed we are to have the fullness of the gospel in our lives!!!!!

LOVE YOU ALL!

Elder Christensen

Working Hard

Saying goodbye to a great companion in Los Angeles

Today Elder D and I were in charge of the zone activity and set up a sweet dodge ball bracket. We almost went undefeated but lost to my good friend Elder U's team. I think everyone really enjoyed it. I love my companion and where we are working.

It is so hot here and we haven’t even started summer yet. Someone told me today that Angol and Chillan are the two hottest cities in Chile. I don’t know if that is true or not, but if it is we are in for trouble this summer.

We have been working a lot to build our teaching pool this week. We are teaching the husband and son of a recent convert family that Elder D and his companion baptized a couple of weeks ago. This is a really great family and we really love them. We also found a nice family and we helped the dad a little bit with some remodeling in the house. We put up some sheet rock in his house. It brought back fun memories of putting up sheet rock with Andrew and Grandpa Reed in Heber a couple years ago. Anyways, we are really trying to teach more families.

I also had a great interview with President Bluth this week. Well, that is all for now. I have got to go. Sorry if it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Love you tons!!!!

Elder Christensen

Wonderful people Elder G and I taught in Los Angeles.

Beautiful Angol

Hey Fam,

I am doing well! I am so happy to be in this sector. It is a really beautiful place. I just can’t tell you how excited I am to be here. The ward is fantastic. The shower is hot. The sector is huge. The people are great. It is absolutely beautiful here. My companion is the best. This is the ideal situation for a missionary. I love it. Seriously, this sector is sooo beautiful. It is about the size of Heber I think, but there are beautiful hills surrounding the entire sector. It is so beautiful. There are trees everywhere and it is super calm. There are lots of cool houses. It is a really great town. The people are really nice as well.

My new companion is Elder D. He just finished his training. We have had a great time this week. He reminds me a lot of Connelly actually! He is super funny and just makes everybody feel good about themselves. We get along really well. He has been a great friend and I am really hoping we get two cambios together.

I have had a great week. I did get a crazy sunburn on Saturday at the service project we did cleaning up the ward. Our district is four elders and 2 sisters in our ward and 2 elders in a small pueblo just outside of Angol called Tijeral. We live with the zone leaders and they are in our district as well. Angol is a sweet zone because it has a ton of little pueblos. The other day when we were driving in it was awesome, you could see the huge snowcapped Andes Mountains in the distance and there were orchards all over the place and everything is green. There are lots of beautiful flowers too.

We had some cool stories this week. We were contacting and we knocked on a guy’s door and he was talking on the phone with his girlfriend who is Mormon. She told him to let us in and he did. So that was cool. He was a really nice guy and we are going to start teaching him. The lunches here are fantastic. I haven’t been disappointed yet. I am not sure, but today in the restaurant I am pretty sure I ordered an octopus sandwich because I mixed up some words. It turned out to be pretty good. It kind of tasted like turkey.

Life is good. I am doing really great! Love you all!!

Leaving Los Angeles

Well my time here comes to an end.  I am getting transferred to Angol. I will be companions with Elder Dyar from Mesa, Arizona. He is from the same group as Elder Gale. He sounds like a great guy. I head out tomorrow morning.

I really love this place. It has been a critical six months for my entire life. My perspective has changed a lot. I have grown a lot here. I love this city and the people so much. 

We had an absolutely crazy week. There was a lot of drama with some of our investigators. I was grateful for a member who was a returned missionary. He was an answer to many prayers as he dropped by and visited one of the people who we are teaching. He came at a time when she was struggling and answered questions with the scriptures. I am so grateful to be a part of this work with so many good people!

Sunscreen

Hello Fam,

How are you all doing! I hope it was a great week. I am not going to lie, for some reason I was thinking a lot about you guys this week. I am not sure if it was because of the football game or Claire’s birthday, or the fall season, or the sunscreen I have been wearing (sunscreen always reminds me of vacations, Newport, Bear Lake, Lake Powell.) But for some reason you guys were really on my mind all week. I hope you are all doing well. 

We had a good week we are working really hard. I feel really sad because I think I will be changing areas next week and I really like this area. I have made a lot of good changes here personally and I love the people here so, so, so, much. It is hard to move on. I cannot believe how fast time is moving. It is absolutely crazy. Being a missionary is very hard but I love it. You fight battles all day long and really just hope you are doing something right. 

Sometimes you just put your head down and go. 

We had a great experience this week. An investigator has been struggling with a lot of indecisiveness but this week we fasted with him to have an answer. Yesterday after the fast we asked him if he would be baptized and he said that he had the intention of doing it, he just wasn’t sure when. Then his wife told him that now that he had his answer, he had to act on it. That the Lord would tell him he needed to do it and that he would leave the details up to him. After that our investigator chose to be baptized on the 8 of November. So we are good to go! 

I am doing well. Love you tons! 

Elder Christensen