Dec 10

Hey everyone, I'm running way low on time this week, so I'll make this super brief! 

I did just get transferred to Longueuil, and I love my new area, AND my new companion. :) Elder Sam Williams is from park city Utah, and he's a great missionary. I'm excited to work with him.

The ward here is great. I love all of them. It's funny, there's an accent in the region of Quebec that I was just serving in, a very particular accent that is warmly loved by all in Quebec. Apparently I assimilated it, and my Ward members have been having a heyday asking me to say things and laughing uproariously when I say them like " un Bleuet". It's great for contacting too. I'm convinced that everyone in Quebec has family roots in Saguenay, because I have yet to talk to someone that doesn't love the accent and have fond memories from there. Saguenay is the heart of Quebec. :) 

I promise you a better letter next week when we have more time, it's just that we're down a computer for this week. the relief society is doing something.... and they talk a lot. for a long time. So we have no access to our other comp. 

Anyways, I love you! Have a good week!

--
Elder Christensen

Dec 3

I got transferred. Dang it. 

Alright, I guess it's not all THAT bad. I mean, I'm super excited to go see my new area and meet all the new missionaries and such and the like, it's just that every time you get transferred you leave a little piece of you behind. It's like leaving your family. Again. :P I had a hundred and two good reasons to stay in Chicoutimi, but The Lord had even more good reasons for me to leave, and if I've learned anything in my life it's that He knows what He's talking about. ; ) So. Leave I will.

I'm being transferred to longeuil (lon goy), which is the area with the temple in it! That'll be pretty cool, having the temple in my backyard. :) I'll be a district leader again, and in my district I'll have the Zone Leaders, and the Sisters. So I'll be a district leader with significantly fewer responsibilities. I'm looking forward to the break. :) My new companion is named Elder Williams, and he is fresh out of being trained, so I'll still have a large dose of Greenie Fire with me. :) That means that I leave Chicoutimi Tuesday afternoon and take a bus to Montréal Wednesday morning. Don't worry, there's good news too! My trainer, Elder McLean, is going home this week, but I'll get to see him at Transfers since I'm going to Montréal! So I get to go say goodbye to him. Also, my MTC companion and dear friend Elder Bangerter will be in my zone! He's a district Leader in an area called Sherbrooke, so I'll be working with him often. :)

Elder Thia is staying in Chicoutimi and getting a companion that took the plane here with him, so this area will have a couple of youngsters running around causing mayhem. Elder Thia's an amazing missionary though, so it'll be good. :) 

Alright, my week. This week was surprisingly.... Normal. We didn't have splits, for once in my life, so both of us stayed here in Chicoutimi all week long. It was nice. We didn't have a ton of time to go out knocking, since we found so many new people last week, so mostly we spent our entire week trying to keep people from slipping through the cracks. On Monday we made a list of twenty five families varying from one to five people each that had said we could come back and see them again over the course of this transfer, that we've never been back to see a second time, and we started going down the list. We got through most of them, there were only four that we didn't manage to contact this week. A lot of them weren't actually interested, but we had a few that were pretty legitimate. Elder Thia's really excited to go back and teach them. 

Let's see, as for something spiritual, lets talk about change.

A piece of wisdom from our wonderful assistants, and my dear friends, Elders Teuira and Bagnall.

"We live in a time of change. All around us, things are changing. From the people we know, to the place we live, to the season we're in, the world is constantly shifting and adjusting.Change can be hard, but some things will never change regardless of where we are or how cold it is outside. The gospel will always be true. Our purpose will still be the same. Our capacity for joy in the work will still be limitless."

It's sort of tailored for missionaries, but I still think it's great. No matter what happens in life, how much things change, how hard things get, the gospel will still be true. It will still bless our lives, and we will still have a loving Father in Heaven to guide and protect us.

I love you all! Have a great week!

-- 

Elder Christensen

Nov 19

Howdy-doodee everyone! Et un grand "bonjour" de toute la branche de Chicoutimi!

I love the people here so very very VERY much. :) This week was super boss. That's the only way I can think to describe it. Let me take a moment to try and think of the highlights....... Alright.

We found a new part of our area this week! We knew it existed, but we never grasped like WHAT it was. The place is called Arvida, and it's a suburb of Jonquière, but it's actually a city in and of itself. We went there because we heard a rumor that there were Anglophones (English speakers), and what we found was an Anglophone school, where all the Francophones (French speakers) that want their kids to learn english send them for english immersion. Not as exciting, but still pretty cool. :) 

On top of that, we invited a couple that we're teaching to get married, so that they can get baptized, which was ULTRA exciting! Everyone pray that I'll still be here in February so that I can plan a wedding AND a baptism! :)

Next on the list, the same couple has a pregnant dog. Had a pregnant dog. Now they have FOUR PUPPIES!!! The dog was giving birth DURING the lesson where we invited them to be baptized. I won't bother to try and describe the events of that night, because they were far too bizarre to repeat, but let it be known that that was QUITE an interesting lesson. :)

Next on the list, we split with the zone leaders! My number one favorite part of serving in a district leader area is all the exchanges we get to do. We have like an exchange a week, So I get to spend a lot of time with other missionaries, and it's super exciting. :) The zone leader split was incredible. We had miracle splits in both areas. I went to Québec with Elder Laguan, the remaining one of my two favorite zone leaders. (alright, alright, Elder Prawitt's not that bad either.) We talked a lot, about a lot, and we had some pretty cool revelations together while we were talking, which I was able to put into application this very week with one of the new investigators we found. That was cool. :)

Then, when we came back from splits, we got a call from an inactive member named Jordan Dufour. I might have mentioned him last week. He wants to come back to church. I've been struggling to have a spiritual discussion with this man since I came to Chicoutimi, he just won't talk about the gospel. When he called us today, he invited us to come over because he wanted to talk about the gospel. We don't know what happened, but we're grateful for it. :)

Then, DONALD CAME TO CHURCH!!! The young Haitian guy that we've been working with a lot. He hasn't been to church Since Elder Thia got here, and this week he came to church again. It was a wonderful feeling, seeing his face in the chapel again. :) We announced his baptism today too, for the 16th of December. Happy birthday to my little brother, and happy Baptism to Donald!

I'm so happy as a missionary. And I realized something this week. I'm so happy here, because I understand. I'm pretty sure that ALL unhappiness in the entire world comes from a lack of understanding. Whether it be the fact that you don't understand something, and it's upsetting you, or that you don't even know what you don't understand, human beings are ALWAYS happiest when we understand. That's how the Gospel makes people happier. It helps them understand the Plan their God has for them, the reason their here, and what they should be doing while they're here. It's so simple! And so difficult for some people... The ones that don't realize what they don't understand, and don't see the need to try and understand anything new. That's the saddest. But! We're out here working to fight that. Every missionary, every member, every one that gets it. We're all trying to help everyone else get it too, so that they can be as happy as we are. I sincerely hope that every single one of you reading this has found as much joy in the gospel as I have, and if you don't think you have, go study it some more. It'll come. :)

I love all of you!

--
Elder Christensen

Nov 12

Happy monday everyone! And what a couple of weeks it has been! Where to start... lets see.... Ah! Monday. ; )

Last monday we took off from our  little town of Chicoutimi at 9 a.m. to take a beautiful canyon drive the back way down to the city of Quebec. It took three hours. :P When we finally got there, I walked into the Quebec chapel and got surprise hugged by....... Elder Ian Mariott!!! One of my companions from the MTC who went to Tahiti on his mission. His shoulder injury acted up again in Tahiti and he was reassigned HERE! To my mission! He's now serving in my zone. :) That was the best day of my life. Next we had a bbq and played volleyball (inside) with other missionaries! I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be around other missionaries, it was crazy!  The next day we had a zone conference with the mission president. We cut his hair as part of a demonstration for how Elders should keep their hair cut (super funny) and Sister Cannon gave a talk about.... fiber. And all the...... health benefirts... that come with it. Bahaha. Then they talked about love, and how to get to know your investigators. It was AMAZING! I love my mission president so much! Ah, I was so spiritually uplifted! But wait, there's more! The next day we went to a zone study, which is basically the same thing, but without President. So we spent a whole day talking about how to work with members, how to help less actives, and what our purpose is as missionaries. It was incredible. I've got some pretty boss Zone Leaders as well. :) Finally, after days of conference, we hit the road again for the three hour drive back up to..... Rimouski! For our Exchange up their. I split with Elder Pehrson during the ride up, (he's from Utah) and we had a great time talking and laughing together. I love Elder Thia, but theire's something to be said for spending time talking with an Anglophone. ; )

We got to Rimouski late, so we did the actual split the next day, when I got to spend half the day out knocking with Elder Pehrson, and the other half out knocking with his trainee Elder Pihatarioe (he's from Tahiti). I. Love. Tahitians. All polenysians. They're great. We basically just spent the whole day laughing together. Elder Pihatarioe has really developed his missionary skills. Last time I split with these two he wouldn't even open his mouth at a door, this time He was running almost all the contacts! I was so proud. :) 

The next morning we were up at six to be out the door before seven to be to riviere-du-loup by eight so we could catch a ferry across the river. We were out the door by six fourty, but we forgot we had Elder Pehrsons GPS in the truck, so we had to go back. We pulled up to the Ferry parking lot in Rivere-du-loup just in time to watch the car-loading doors close as the Ferry pulled away from the dock. I snapped a picture while Elder Thia waved goodbye, and then we set out for the now EXTRA long road-trip down to Quebec and then back up to Chicoutimi. 

We hit our area again at about one on Friday. THAT is a long week. :P I was dead from driving, so we splurged and went out to A&W's for lunch (Did you know that place is NOT always in a KFC?! They sell burgers and stuff, it's like McDonalds!) Then we got to spend our week-end doing the things we love, in the place we love doing it. :) It was quite the rewarding week.  The thing that stuck out to me the most this week was love. All of our conferences were about love. For me, that's the essence of the gospel. God is Love. That's a scripture in 1 John somewhere. :P It's what we're all doing here. My momma sent me an e-mail today talking about the talk from conference "do you love me? Then feed my sheep" It brings to mind the other quote "If you love me, keep my commandments." I don't know, it seems pretty clear to me that Love is the most important thing we're supposed to learn here on earth, and not just loving those that love us, but loving EVERYONE. "That ye may be [children] of your Father in Heaven; for he maketh his [son] to rise on wicked as well as the righteous."

I love all of you. Thanks for the support. :)

Love,

-- 

Elder Christensen

Spotlight

Our ward did a spotlight on Elder Justin Christensen for the November newsletter. Here's what I (his mother) wrote:

Elder Justin Ray Christensen was born April 21, 1992. He is the second of four children. He was born in Salt Lake City and was raised in West Jordan, Salem and American Fork, Utah. 
 

Justin was a rather serious child. He would frequently stand to the side and watch other kids play, studying them. And then, he'd - I don't know, finish studying or something, and then he'd jump in and be just as wild or involved as any of the other kids. He was very serious, but also very imaginative. He had some trouble when he was little with being afraid of the shadows in his room, and when he'd say his prayers, he'd be thankful for all sorts of random things, like door knobs and clouds.
 

Justin started a thing in junior high where he had to give everyone hugs, and he just kept doing that, making friends everywhere he went. He earned his Eagle Scout about a day and a half before his 18th birthday. He did the whole project himself in about 2 weeks, organizing a blood drive with the local Red Cross. During his senior year he spent several months going to the temple weekly and doing baptisms for the dead. He also took 5 years of French. He also took an MATC cullinary arts class that he really loved.

 After high school he had trouble finding a job, or a car that worked. He found himself enrolled for a semester at Snow College, where he made tons more friends and even began teaching the gospel to a troubled roommate. He also tutored French there. While at Snow recruiters talked him into working at Jacob Lake Inn in Arizona, and he spent 9 months working there, making several hundred new friends.

 

Justin was called to serve in the Canada Montreal Mission, French-speaking. He entered the MTC the end of January, 2012, and flew to Canada the end of March. He is now serving in his second area, and he is a district leader, and is training a new missionary. The other 2 companionships in his district are elders who have been in the mission field less time than Justin, and both are also training. 

 Justin has an amazingly positive attitude. Every week is a new opportunity to serve. Every setback is a new opportunity to learn. Every person he meets is his friend. Every missionary he works with has something to teach him. He has a blog (which I update for him) at http://alampthatburneth.blogspot.com .

Oct 29

LIE Cleaning:

I had a revelation this week.

I've always wondered what happens to dry-clean only clothing when you machine wash it. So I have this pair of suit pants that got torn up by a bike in my last area, and as I was going to patch up the rip I said to myself "what the heck, why not give it a shot."

I washed those pants. I washed them in Cold water, and I dried them on low-heat dry, and they're fine. No shrinkage, no damage, no nothing.

Now, I could have left it at that, knowing that I could safely machine wash my suit pants......but now I had to know if I could wash my suit COATS too. So. I threw a suit coat in the washing machine, and said a prayer. Same deal, washed it in cold water, dried it on low-heat dry. Same results. No shrinkage, no damage, no nothing. So I washed my other suit coat and all of my remaining pairs of pants (this all took place over the space of two weeks. I did NOT just wastefully run four loads of laundry in the same day because I had nothing better to do.), and now I have remarkably clean suits that I didn't spend any money cleaning!

Machine wash your dry-clean only clothing at your own risk, but let it be known that this missionary will not be setting foot in the lie-cleaners again anytime soon.

In other news, my week has been good! We helped a woman move on Friday, which is always one of my favorite things to do, we did lots of knocking, lots of teaching, and we were remarkably blessed. :) We have two investigators that we recently found that actually knew missionaries last year, that are amazing. They made us blueberry pie. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't really like pie, or blueberries, but this blueberry pie was the most DELICIOUS desert I have ever dared to devour. It was amazing. I finally understand why people rave about pie so much. If all pie tasted like THAT pie, I don't think I'd ever eat anything but pie. It was incredible, and it was a wonderful way to start a wonderful week. :) Those two people have been to church for the past TWO WEEKS in a  ROW, which is a huge miracle because we hadn't had anyone come to church in over a month before we found them. They're great. The husband, Gaetan, doesn't read very well, so we gave him a childrens book of mormon. The next time we came over he said, with a toothy grin, "you're going to be so happy with me. Look how much I read!" and he'd faithfully torn his way through the first third of his children's Book of Mormon. And he was so proud. And I was so proud of him. I love these people. :)

That's something that I've really noticed about missionary work. Love. The two are sort of becoming one in my mind. If you love someone, you be a missionary to them. If you're a missionary, it's because you love someone. Missionary work IS love, and in the process of loving these people like missionaries do, you start to understand the tiniest fragment of the way Christ must feel about them. One of my all-time favorite quotes has become "when you start to see someone through Christ's eyes, they start to see Him through yours." My former zone-leader and current assistant to the president, Elder Teuira, would ask me every week. "do you love the savior?" and when I said yes he would say "Then share it. Share that love. You've got to love every one of these people like you love the savior. If you love HIM, love them."  It's a question that I still ask myself all the time. "Do I love the savior?" We had a stake conference yesterday, and one of the speakers said just about the same thing. Him and his wife had just been called to serve a mission in Madagascar, and he stood up to bear his testimony and said "I ask young people every time I hear that they've got a mission call, why they want to serve a mission. The best answer I've heard so far, is the answer that I hope to be able to give if anyone asks me the same question. because I love my savior."

That's what I'm working for. I want that love to be on my mind all the time. When we take the sacrament we promise to "always remember Him". That's my goal. It's a bit impossible, but it's good to have goals that are impossible sometimes. That helps us to rely on the savior, because with Him, it is possible. I hope one day that my love for the Savior will be the reason for everything I do, and that I'll be able to feel the Love that He has for me and for everyone I meet. That's how I see being a disciple of Christ. Feeling His love, for yourself and others.

But. That's just me I guess. :P

I probably won't be able to write you next week. We're going to Quebec Monday morning. We'll be in Quebec until Wednesday afternoon, when we head to Rimouski, where we will be until Friday morning when we will head back to Chicoutimi. Can anyone say road trip?

I love all of you! thank you so much for the love and the prayers. They really make a difference, I see miracles every day thanks to the faith of all of you. :)

Love,

--
Elder Christensen

Oct 22

This week snuck up on me. I just feel weird today, because my brain keeps telling me that I was in this room writing you all an e-mail YESTERDAY, but my planner keeps telling me there's been a whole week in between.... If being a missionary has taught me anything, it's to trust your planner. :P

Anyways, the first part of our week went pretty normally. The zone leaders came to our district study, which was exciting (we have district studies on Skype every Wednesday. I'm not the biggest fan... I just like being in person more. But, that's a bit hard when the other teams are more than an hour away. :P), and we did splits with Alma! I got to go spend some time with my good friend Elder Oviatt again. This split was particularly frightening, because I left Elder Thia here, in Chicoutimi, with the other Greenie from Alma. Two missionaries on their first transfer, alone for twenty four hours...... It was an act of faith. At the end of the day they didn't break anything or hurt anyone, but they were grateful to be in a truck. In France you can't drive until your 18, and getting a license is RIDICULOUSLY expensive, so elder Thia hasn't driven that much.... :P

Then Friday came. Friday was intense. We went to do weekly planning, and as we were planning we started talking about a woman named Chantale that we had invited to be baptized the week before but then we hadn't seen since. I felt like we ought to go see her, so we ditched planning and went to pass-by. She was home, which was good news, except that when she answered the door she said "If I had wanted to talk to you, I would have called. I'm grieving right now, and I would appreciate it if you would just leave." Dang it. So we left, but stubborn little me just couldn't let it go at that, so we went home, rolled up our sleeves, and set to work! We made her a little homemade card with a picture of Jesus on it, wrote her a letter, baked her Banana Bread, popped over to loblaws to buy her flowers, and went to doorbell ditch her with the whole bunch. I felt a bit silly, wearing a white shirt and tie, sneaking down a road, in broad daylight, with a bouquet of bright yellow flowers...... but I've done sillier things in my life I suppose. We dumped it on her porch, banged on the door, and ran as fast as we could! Or rather, Elder Thia ran as fast as he could. I, on the other hand, saw something extremely interesting on the sidewalk and felt the irresistible urge to take a closer look.

 

I didn't fall. No matter what Elder Thia says.

 

We both managed to get out of the way before she opened the door, so the operation was a success, and we went back to planning. Only we got a phone call not too long afterwards, and it was Chantale! She was really touched that we'd taken the time to do that for her, and she invited us back over. Conclusion? Banana Bread = Miracle. I'd like to include a special thanks to the young woman that gave me the recipe. This is not the first investigator that's been saved by the bread.

Anyways, that fiasco took most of our day Friday, Saturday wasn't much, but Sunday we had four non-members show up at church. :D A couple that we tracted into came an hour early because they couldn't remember what time it started, and instead of leaving they waited there for people to start coming. They. Are. So cool. 

Also! We got transfer calls Saturday, and my entire little district is staying together! :D I was quite happy to hear that. But, we're losing one of the Zone Leaders, which is depressing. Elders Laguan and Teuira are among my favorite missionaries, and I really enjoyed having the both of them for zone leaders. But! Elder Teuira is going to make a great AP. :)

Alright, that's my news for this week! Thanks again for all the prayers and support. You're all the best. :)

Love,

--
Elder Christensen

Oct 15

Hey, sorry, not a lot of time so this one will be short.

Our week was...... A roller coaster. On Tuesday we saw our investigator who was going to be baptized on Sunday, and he went overboard and denied believing in anything that we'd taught him and told us lots of very unusual things about himself.....which was... unexpected.... then, later that day, we got a phone call with a referral from the office. 

We went to see her the next day, Wednesday, and she turned out to be an investigator that Elder Fitzgerald had told me about that had loved everything about the church, and then seen some anti-Mormon garbage about the temple and called the missionaries, dropped them, moved, and changed her address. Apparently she had a dream about us and realized that this is what God wanted for her. Also unexpected. It was super cool, because she had some very weird beliefs about us left over from that anti-nonsense, but she was set on us anyways. It's just like more icing on the cake every time we tell her that this or that isn't true, and she gets all excited because she wasn't sure if she'd be able to accept it. (example, she thought we worshiped Thomas Monson.... uh.... what?) 

Thursday was normal, which was unusual for this week.

Friday we went to see the other investigator that we had that was going to get baptized, and he basically told us that his life had been wretched when he found us, but that it's all better now so he doesn't want to meet with us anymore. Also unexpected.

Saturday we went by to see an Investigator that we haven't been able to see in weeks because he plays football and he's been crazy busy, who hasn't been coming to church or reading his scriptures, and has stiffed us on our last several appointments with him, and all of a sudden he opened up to us and started asking tons of questions about faith, and he decided that he's ready to get baptized. Also unexpected. Then we went out knocking and found two separate families on the same street that met with missionaries over a year ago and would love to have us come back over again. VERY unexpected.

then Yesterday our miracle referral didn't show up to church (also unexpected, given the lesson we had with her...), but some guy that we met a few weeks ago and we've only seen once randomly DID show up to church. Also... unexpected.

I guess a better definition for this week would be unexpected.

Last week we were planning the baptisms of two individuals, and this week.... we're still planning baptisms for two individuals. But they're two different ones.... and we're still not sure exactly what happened with ANY of the four of them.....

I'd like to testify to you that God DOES in fact, have a plan, and that He always knows what's going on, even when it looks, to us, like nothing but insanity. Lots of things went wrong this week, but even more different things went right.... It's just impressed on me something that my best friend Richard Bruner wrote this week too. We actually do a lot less than we think we do. Mostly, we're just here, and God puts us where He wants us when He wants us there. Pretty much the only influence we have on the situation is what our attitude is about it. Which, oddly enough, is the most important part, because our attitude is what dictates whether or not and how much we grow from our experiences, as well as in what way we affect those around us. God only gives us a teen tiny bit of responsibility, but it's the biggest little bit He could give us.

Life's a funny thing.

--
Elder Christensen

Oct 8

Howdy everyone!

So, as I stated above, this week was marvelous. Monday we headed down to Quebec city, for an activity with the zone, and we took the scenic route through a national forest.

oh.

my.

gosh.

That was the single prettiest drive I have ever made in my life. Oceans of fiery red, vibrant yellow, and bright orange, with dark creen pine trees scattered throughout. Turns out Quebec has some very large hills. I would even call those small mountains. It was breathtaking. There's nothing quite like driving through the fire of Autumn and all of a sudden passing a break in the trees and seeing a lake, sitting perfectly still, reflecting the clouds hanging so low in the sky you can practically touch them.... Quebec is.... amazing. 

It was a perfect start to an amazing week. Zone study was, as always, spiritually uplifting and fantastic, and we had interviews with President Cannon! Sister Cannon is a doll. She took our pictures to send them home to our mom's. :P After a great couple of days in Quebec, we trucked up to Rimouski to do exchanges with them. The missionaries there are incredible. Elder Pihatarioe is the new missionary that Elder Pehrson is training. He's from Tahiti, and like most polynesians, his testimony could move mountains. I drove up with him and we talked about everything. He's going to be a stellar missionary. Elder Pehrson continues to exceed all expectations as well. I feel like I'm surrounded with the Lord's elite.... It makes me feel very small sometimes. :P But! I'm in a great situation to learn eh? :)

Thursday morning we left Rimouski at 9 to make a six hour drive back to Chicoutimi, then we had friday to WORK, and then conference started Saturday. We didn't have a lot of time in our area this week, but we had an abundance of spiritual nourishment, so I'm sure we'll make up for it next week. :)

CONFERENCE. BLEW. MY MIND. 

I feel like the world is about to be flooded with 18 year old boys and 19 year old girls, and the spirit they'll carry will is going to rock us. I'm super excited. :) Elder Jeffrey R. Holland definitely gave my favorite talk, but they were ALL incredible. We're so lucky to have these men to lead and guide us. Anyone that didn't get a chance to watch that conference, I exhort you. Hop to it. It's worth it.

I don't have a ton of time, because we were driving all last week, so I'll keep this short, I just wanted to share my favorite quote from Conference.

Men. Can. Change.

That's the message we're sharing with the world. That's the hope of the gospel. That's what Christ does for us. Really, at the base of everything else, THAT is the miracle. Change. The ability to CHANGE your nature, to turn AWAY from the things you're inclined to do. "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I Love". Inside of every single one of us there is something that wants to do bad things. We, as humans, are naturally inclined to sin. If we rely on our own strength, on our own abilities, we will fail every time. Trust me on this one, I've got a pride complex and I like to do things by myself. ; ) But really. "Lean not on the arm of men..." because that Arm is weak. That's the point. Do you get it? We can't do it. We can't do anything. We can't work hard enough, we can't learn enough, we can't BE good enough to get back off of this world, back to the world where we belong. We're like mice trying to climb up a glass wall. If we try to do it on our own, we're destined to fail. But we don't have to fail. Christ came down here and gave his life, so that you and I can climb that wall. So that we CAN do it. So that we can change our nature, so that we can get home again. Take a minute to think about that. That's something special.

I love you all. And I love my savior. And I love my Father. (Yes dad, you too. *wink*)

Love,

-- 

Elder Christensen

Oct 1

Salut mes amis! 

No worries about the short message mom, mine will be short too. We have a zone activity today, so we'll be driving down to Quebec city in about an hour. :P Then we have a zone study tomorrow, and interviews with President, then we're driving up to Rimouski afterwords for a split all day Wednesday, and then Thursday morning we're taking a five hour road-trip back to Chicoutimi. Basically, we only get three days in our area this week, but it'll be a super good week quand même!

So, this week was fabulously miraculous. We found five solid new investigators that each deserve their own story.

First of all, Caroline and Daniel. We were out knocking on doors on Wednesday, and we knock on the door of this younger girl. We start by asking a few questions about God, and her relationship with Him, and she ends up telling this crazy story about how she was pregnant, but she lost the baby, but then they found ANOTHER baby (apparently she had been pregnant with twins, but they hadn't noticed the second fetus yet), and then she develloped a huge tumor right next to the new baby they just found, and they told her that there was no chance they could save the baby, and that she was going to lose that one too. So her conjoint (either husband or boyfriend... we're still not sure...) prayed SUPER hard, and the tumor disappeared. Then she asked "do you want to see the baby?!" Duh. So she goes and gets Sarah, her adorable 21 month old girl, and says "alright, I'll listen to your message, and the baby will too." We taught her about the plan of salvation, and during the closing prayer her conjoint came home. Awkward. Turns out he already has a book of mormon because he collects religious texts, but he's really curious to know more about us. He kept asking questions, so we ended up teaching him about the restoration. :P They're amazing.

Then we found Ameni-felix and Jean-alex, two young African boys. Actually, we found their atheist older brother and devoutly catholic father, and after chatting with them for a few minutes the atheist told us to wait a minute, because he knew two boys who would love our message. He went and grabbed his two younger brothers, who are currently baptists (diverse family) and they contentedly listened to our message, and excitedly accepted the books of mormon we offered. The best part? They play football with one of our other investigators, and their dad thinks of our Elders quorum president like one of his own sons. Also amazing.

Alright, best for last. We went on exchanges this week, and I sent elder Thia to Alma. He comes back with a story for me. Alma has a recent convert named Roger, who was baptized the week before I came to chicoutimi. Roger has a friend named Manuel, who he met a few years ago. Manuel was wandering around Alma, a bit lost, and stressed for finals at school, and Roger saw him and invited him into his house because he thought the poor kid looked stressed. They've been friends ever since. When Elder Thia went to meet with Roger, Manuel happened to be there, and to be WAY interested in the Book of Mormon. The best part? He lives in Chicoutimi. Hehehe. :D So we met with him this week too, and we found out that he's got drinking problems, but he's trying to quit, and that's what pushed him to search for God. He is the single most prepared investigator I've ever met. I'm so excited to teach him. :)

Alright, out of time, but! I read an amazing quote today from my dear friend Sister Bice that I wanted to share with all of you.

"One of the great needs in our day is for Latter-day Saints to have
 balance in our lives – balance between zeal in keeping the
 commandments, and patience in achieving our goals; balance between a
 whole-hearted devotion to truth, and loving acceptance of those
 (including ourselves) who fall short. And in our personal lives there
 needs to be balance between a type of discontent – in which we are
 constantly striving to be better than we are – and what Nephi calls “a
 perfect brightness of hope” (2 Nephi 31:20), which is the quiet but
 soul-affirming anticipation that if we trust in the Lord and seek
 earnestly to do our best, He will make up the difference in time and
 eternity." -ROBERT MILLET 

Her mission president shared it at a conference. I encourage you to read into that a bit. There are two sides to every coin, and perfection lies right on the edge. Fortunately, we never have to fight the battle tout seul when we have faith in The Lord. Stay close unto Him, and He will stay close unto you, and strengthen you in all things.

I love all of you! I'll talk to you next week!

Love,

--
Elder Christensen

Sept 24

Bonjour mes chers amis!

Cette semaine était vraiment exceptionnelle, et je sais que c'est beaucoup grâce à vos prières, alors merci. :)

But really though, this week was fantastic.

Our prayers were certainly answered in many ways, we've met worlds of amazing people, and we've seen miracles every day. I love being a missionary. :)

Alright, so some highlights for the week. 

On Thurdsay we met a woman named Jenny. She takes care of 6 autistic kids, and she was really impressed with.... The law of chastity. Bahaha! She just went off for a good five minutes about how amazing it was that we don't "fait l'amour" before marriage. It was quite the interesting conversation that, we usually DON'T start an initial contact with someone by talking about the law of chastity, but I guess there's a first time for everything? :P Anyways, she's super excited to learn more about us, so I really can't complain about that. :) 

We also spent a lot of time knocking amongst the student housing (yes, there's a university here in our tiny town. :D), and have found many charecters in the process of doing that. We met one man that came from the edge of new brunswick. He spoke French, according to Elder Thia, but I certainly couldn't understand him at all. It was rediculous. Every time I think I've got French down, a new accent rears it's ugly (well, ugly might be harsh. We'll go with unusual) head. He told us about some of his relatives that speak a literal blend of French and English called shlack. Or something like that. Again, his accent. The example he gave us of that dialect was that when leaving they would say something like "watch moi je vais venir back". It was.... Interesting. I want to meet some of these people. :)

Other than that, me and elder Thia just knocked on a whole lot of doors this week. The great missionary fallback. Door to door. It was another one of those wonderful weeks where everything we THINK we have planned falls through every single day until Sunday when all of a sudden everything goes right. I run into a lot of those weeks. Go figure. Elder Thia is slowly adjusting to my American habitudes. He's finally stopped bringing me a knife when we sit down to eat, and he's started putting maple syrup on his bacon. Next week, I'll get him to put ketchup on eggs. :)

Do you all remember Marcel Tremblay? Funny old man with no teeth? Well, he's still amazing. the rest of our lessons with him went a lot like the one I detailed to you last week. Mostly our biggest problem with him is that his baptism is three weeks away, and we're out of things to teach him. :P We'll figure something out though, have no fear.

My mission president has a habit of dishing out tidbits of spiritual giantesse every week, so I'd like to share his latest one with you all this week as well.

"Agency is an interesting gift. We are not always free to choose our circumstances. Sometimes we can, but mostly 

we make a few big decisions and then live with the consequences of those decisions for long periods of time. Yet we 

believe that we have the gift of free agency all of the time. What gives?

Agency means that we can always choose how we respond to the circumstances that we are in. We can choose how 

we view our world and the life we live in it. We can choose to see our circumstances as hopeful or we can choose to 

view them as hopeless.  That is the nature of the choice that we make every day."

It's true though. Our Free Agency doesn't mean we get to choose the path of our lives, it means we get to choose how we walk that path. Do we skip or do we trudge? Do we keep our heads down and wonder why there's so much dirt on our shoes, or do we look around and take in the trees and sky? Our Agency is an interesting gift, but it's just that . A gift. One that we all have, and that we all get to decide what to do with. How are you using yours?

I'm going to use mine to make smoothies tomorrow. ; )

Alright, I've got some shopping to do, but! I love you all. Thank you again for the prayers and the support. It means a lot. :)

Love,

--
Elder Christensen

 

Always a P.S.

I almost forgot to tell you. Elder Thia rode the plane over here next to Elizabeth Smart. Yes, that Elizabeth Smart. He had no idea who she was. Most of his interaction with her was to borrow her barf bag. :P But I found out because she served in Paris, so she wrote her name down for him so he'd remember to say hi to some of the people she knew from there. Funny world eh?

I love you!

--
Elder Christensen

Sunset photo

Thought you might like this photo of a sunset, taken by Elder Heder, in my area. :)

Sept 17

 

Heya everyone! How's it going? I'm doing just splendidly, thanks for asking. :)

Training. Is. So boss. I'll be honest, I didn't want to train. I always said that Training was the one thing I never wanted to do on my mission. I'm sincerely grateful that the Lord didn't listen to me. :) My greenie is named Elder Thia Soui Tchong, but we call him Elder Thia for short. He's from France, but his ancestors are Chinese. Does he speak Chinese? No. Unfortunately. But! What he is really is amazing. He..... is a million times more ready to serve a mission than I was when I came out here. I feel like I'm about to spend the next 11 weeks learning a lot more than I teach, as far as this relationship is concerned. :P For starters, he's humble. That's a good quality to have for a missionary (and one that seems to be conspicuously absent from my list of strong suits..... :P). He's also very well-versed scripturally, and his testimony is rock solid. To top it all off, he's fearless. I abandoned him during a lesson last week, just to see what he'd do (I know I know, I'm so mean), and when he saw that I wasn't going to start talking again he just started testifying. It was glorious. The spirit was super strong. I'm so proud. :)

So. The week. Monday and Tuesday were spent with Elder Fitzgerald saying goodbye to everyone, and we drove down to Quebec city Tuesday night. I left my wallet home, so Elder Fitzgerald bought me a poutine so we could go have poutine together for his last day. What a guy. ; ) the next day we saw them all off. Then I went out teaching with Elder Teuira, my zone leader, while we waited for the new missionaries to come in, and we actually were a little bit late coming back to the bus station, so when I rolled up Elder Thia was standing there waiting for me. :P He's way quiet, so right at the start I wasn't sure how he was feeling, but I soon realized that while he's very introverted by nature, he's also hysterical whenever he opens his mouth. Or profoundly spiritual. Sometimes both. ; ) We went for poutine again as a zone next. We have a tradition here where the trainer buys his greenie his first poutine. Problem. I left my wallet in Chicoutimi. So my greenie bought me a poutine his first day in Quebec. :P That was the start of a beautiful relationship. We had a quick meeting with the Zone Leaders, then drove back home for the night. Thursday marked the first of many days where absolutely everything that we had planned was torn up and thrown to the floor, so we ended up spending a whole lot of time knocking, which means we spent a whole lot of time talking. Elder Thia and I are VERY different people, but in just the right way that we get along great. I'm really excited for these next few weeks. :) If you wonder what we're like together, imagine me, tall, loud, energetic, most politely described as Unrefined, and then imagine that my companion is small, quiet, reserved, and most accurately described as Refined. We're very much the stereotypical American and Frenchman. :)

I'll keep you updated on Elder Thia, but to date, that about sums it up.

During the week this week we met an Evangelical woman who started out our conversation by telling us that she did not agree with our book or our prophet, and ended up shortly thereafter inviting us in and offering us pie. Her name is Catherine, and I cannot describe how much I enjoyed the hour long chat we had with her. When we left we left behind a lot of church material, and a very curious middle-aged woman with a very different idea of mormons than she had had before. As far as I'm concerned, that's progress. :) We have an in to go back over sometime thanks to this incredible banana bread recipe that I picked up from a friend, so hopefully I'll have a bit more to say about her later on.

Also! Marcel Tremblay. Still doing great. We brought our Branch mission leader, Robert Truchon, to teach him a lesson about Jesus Christ. Frere Truchon is very bookish, and is great friends with Marcel, so he spent some time putting together some stuff for our lesson that he thought would help. We asked him what he had on the car ride over, and he gave us an astounding list of scriptural references about Christ being the creator of the World, the God of the old testament, and the only name under heaven whereby man can be saved, AND he listed off quite a detailed list of material on the importance of Joseph Smith as a prophet. I'll admit. I was afraid. So was Elder Thia. That's a LOT more information than you generally give to an investigator who doesn't fully understand why we pray...... but! A tiny voice in my head told me to go with it. So I told him we were going to let him teach the lesson and we'd just back him up. My poor companion looked at me with eyes the size of the moon.... hah! It was great. The lesson actually turned out great! Marcel has apparently decided that whatever Frere Truchon says is true, all the time. Which, actually, is accurate (he does a lot of research before he gives opinions on anything), and is also very useful for us. I'll give an excerpt from that lesson:

Fr. Truchon "Hugh Nibley said that no one in this dispensation can enter into the celestial kingdom without the knowledge and understanding that was restored to the Earth through the prophet Joseph Smith."

Marcel "Well of course. That's normal."

The missionaries "... Um, so you understand?"

Marcel "Of course! He was a prophet of God, that means we can't get to Heaven unless we know what he had to say!"

The missionaries "oh. Uh, great!"

That's pretty much how the lesson went. The biggest problem we had was that he didn't ask any questions at all, so we finished much quicker than we had planned. If I had a wish to make for every one of you, it would be that you could meet Marcel Tremblay. He's the funniest old man, in the world. :)

Alright, spiritual thought and then I'm out!

This week President Cannon sent a note to all the missionaries, urging us to continually work hard. He said "We can't be side tracked by results, our job is effort." I found that to be overwhelmingly true. Too often in our daily lives we get caught up in the results of our efforts. Sometimes we get discouraged if we don't see the "fruits of our labors" quickly enough. Even worse, we sometimes get prideful if we see those fruits too quickly. The results are important, don't get me wrong, they're just not our job. It's like President said, "our job is effort". What's the final step in the gospel of Jesus Christ? Enduring to the end. That's the step that we're all on as members of the church. The action word there isn't "end", but "endure". Our job is to keep going, to make an effort, to do our best, that's all Christ ever asked of us. The results, while they are important, they don't really affect us. If we're doing our best, really our very best, we can know with a surety that everything is going according to plan, and that at the end of the day we will have those results that the Lord has promised us. But it's not the end of the day yet, so for now we've just got to keep on running and quit worrying about the end of the race. 

I love all of you, thanks once again for your love and support, and please pray for my district. We need miracles this week. :)

Love,

--
Elder Christensen

 

(2nd email)

 

Hi momma!

Thanks for the news updates from home, It sounds like everyone's doing great. :)

Yes, I am District Leader as well.

I loved reading all of that about conference! I promise I won't go on using it to advise everyone around me, but I QUITE enjoyed it, nonetheless. Especially the parts you highlighted for me. ; )

In case you didn't get it from my email, training is going great. :)

I've got to run, but I love you! Please say "I love you" to dad, Jacob, Joshua, Jenseny, and Grandma for me. :) And everyone else too. ; ) 

Love,

Justin

Sept 10

So, transfers are this week. I completely spaced them this time around because I already knew what was happening to my companion. :P Elder Fitzgerald is being transferred to Orem Utah, but President didn't tell him who his next companion would be. He said he can figure that out on his own. :P But! My call was a bit surprising. 

Drum roll anyone?

........I'm staying in Chicoutimi! :D Also, I'm Training! :D My district is the really crazy news. In my district there are three areas, and of the six missionaries that will be in said district, I'm the one that's been out the longest. By two transfers. In Rimouski, Elder Pehrson is training, and he's only been in the field for six weeks, and in Alma (yes, there's a town called Alma, and no the church did not name it. The natives did. O.o) Elder Oviatt is training, and he's only been in the field for three months. District CAR (Chicoutimi, Alma, Rimouski) is going to be a brand new GREEN CAR!  Because of all the greenies. Get It? :D I was terrified at first, but as I was praying about it Saturday night after getting the call this huge wave of tranquility just hit me, with this overwhleming feeling that it's all going to be fine. Great even! Ever since then I've been nothing but excited to watch all the MIRACLES that I know are about to unfold! The other two trainers in the district are still freaking out, they feel a bit young, but they're both amazing missionaries and they're going to do great. We all get the greenies on Wednesday, so please pray for our new missionaries!

As for the week, it was insanity. Monday we drove for four hours and took a ferry to rimouski, tuesday we drove for three hours to Quebec city, and Wednesday we drove for another two hours back to Chicoutimi. We basically only had from Thursday on to actually work in our area. :P But! We still managed to have miracles. For example, Marcel Tremblay, the funny old man that's going to be baptized in October. We taught him the word of wisdom this week. We were nervous, because he used to be an alcoholic, and like lots of alcoholics that quit, he replaced the alcohol in his life with coffee. So we thought that could be a problem. :P When we brought up the word of wisdom we said "alright, there are five things that the Lord has asked us not to put in our bodies" then he pipes up "alcohol and drugs!" "

Yep, those are two of them. Also tobacco." 

"ah, right. Tobacco's nasty. I don't smoke."

 "Perfect, neither do we. Also, Coffee." 

"Coffee? Well that means the fifth one has to be tea."

He named off three of the five on the word of wisdom without having ever heard about it before. And he understood the other two without needing to ask any questions. That's a testimony to me about the word of wisdom. Even people with no idea what it is understand that that junk is bad for our bodies. :P

So, he then told us that he's already been trying to reduce the amount of coffee that he drinks because his kidneys are shot. So we read the promise with him, and told him that if he would keep the word of wisdom he'd see his health improve.

"Oh really?"

"yeah."

"well. Alright. I'll stop drinking coffee. Not because It will improve my health, just because I know I need to do it, and I don't like doing things halfway."

:D Marcel is so cool. He's French, but he knows a few random phrases, and one of his favorites is "Don't thinking it but doing it!" Which, as you can imagine, always cracks us up to hear. :)

Well, it's Elder Fitzgeralds last P-day as a missionary, so I've got to run so we can go enjoy his day! But, I love all of you! Thanks again for everything! Pray for my greenie!

Love,

--
Elder Christensen

Sept 3

Hey hey hey! Elder Christensen here, calling in from the far away land of Rimouski! We're on splits here now (beauty of having a district leader companion, splits.), and it's great. I was going to ask you to ask Chris Whetstein if there was anyone here in particular that he wanted me to say hello to for him while I'm here, but I forgot. But! We'll be here all day tomorrow too, so if you can get it to me like tonight there's a chance we'll still be able to see them. 

So, I'd like to start out this email with a news update from Chapel Hill! That was my last area, in case you've forgotten. ; ) I talked with Dear Elder Odle the other day and he told me how all of my old favorite people are doing, and in short, they're all doing amazing. Joe Balan, the husband of Patricia st.-Martin (the woman we baptized while I was there), will be baptized on the twentieth of October. Randy and Mary-Ellen Siba, a young couple we found right near the end of my time there, will be baptized on the 14th of October, and that's just the beginning. Almost every one of the wonderful People I was teaching in Chapel Hill are firmly on the path of accepting and living the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and it's changing their lives. 

I'm so excited. :)

Now, as for my area, Chicoutimi, we're doing wonderful as well. Marcel Tremblay, a funny old man that we found on my first day here, is chomping at the bit trying to get himself baptized. We set his date for october 14th so we'd have time to teach him everything and he said "whenever you're ready, I'm ready NOW." Which, is awesome (though not true. :P). We're also working a lot with a young man named Donald who I may have mentioned before, and a few other marvellous people that would take FOREVER for me to tell everything about. Don't worry, I'm keeping a journal. ; ) Chicoutimi is the greatest area, in the greatest mission, in the world. (no offense)

So, my week. Highlights. Wednesday, we committed Marcel Tremblay to be baptized. That was definitely a highlight. Then, on Thursday I had a split with Elder Oviatt! He's from Canada, and it's his second transfer in the field. We had a lot of fun together. Elder Oviatt fits in our dryer. I don't. :p Also, he's a great missionary. His first two transfers have taught him a ton, and I'm super excited to work around him more. The best part about splitting young missionaries? High possibilities of being companions with them one day.

Saturday we had a corn chow. Someone told me that the most corn on the cob any elder had eaten at the branch corn chow was 14 cobs. So I ate 15. Yep, no worries, I'm still me. :P If any of you were thinking about whether or not eating 15 cobs of corn is a good idea, allow me to assure you, that it is not. The next 45 hours of your life will be less than comfortable at best. Also we had two less-active members come out that haven't been out to an activity of any kind in years. That was really exciting. :)

Then, yesterday in church, they anounced that Elder Fitzgerald only has 9 days left in Chicoutimi, and that we'll be out of town for the next three of them due to splits and Zone Study. By the end of Church we had eight dinner appointments set up during the six days that he has left in Chicoutimi. There are definite perks to having a companion going home soon. After that church was super tough for Elder Fitzgerald. His recent convert started crying talking about how much she was going to miss him. Elder Fitzgerald is an incredible missionary, and he's done a lot of good things for this branch. It'll be tough to fill his shoes when he's gone, but I've been really blessed to have spent this transfer with him. I've learned a lot. 

This next week is going to disappear. We're in Rimouski and/or Quebec for 3 days, and then our 5 days left after that are packed full. We've got a lot of working to cram into this short time, but we're excited and ready for it! Elder Fitzgerald wants to go out with a bang, and I pretty much try and do everything with a bang, so if you'll all pray for us I know we'll see miracles before he leaves. :)

I love you all. I love the gospel. I love this work. I love the Book of Mormon. I love sharing it. Elder Fitzgerald told me I give out more copies of the Book of Mormon than any other companion he's had. Oops? I just want everyone to read it, to REALIZE what's inside of it! I hope all of you read it everyday, and that you never take it for granted like I know I do sometimes. 

Well, until next week! Thank you for all the love and prayers!

Love,

-- 

Elder Christensen

Aug 27

Dear family and friends,

 

I have the best job in the world.

 

Love,

Elder Christensen.

 

Alright, so this week was incredible. First of all, we had zone conference in Quebec city, which was AMAZING! It was all about the Spirit, recognizing it, teaching by it, acting on it, it was completely marvelous. President Cannon showed us how to help people recognize the spirit in their lives by asking them if they've felt the fruits of it, and then after THEY have identified the good feelings brought on by the spirit, how to teach them that those things they just felt came from God. It was incredible. Also we learned how to make a delicious breakfast out of fruit, granola, and yogurt, so we've been eating unusually healthy and fantastically delicious breakfasts every morning since. :) We had the area health advisor come talk to us about the top ten healthiest foods and things like that. It was well received. Then, after zone conference, the members cooked for us. This is my plug for French cooking. It is exquisite. It is indescribable. It. Is. Everything I've ever wanted. They made us chicken, but it didn't taste like any chicken I've ever had before. It tasted like the celestial kingdom.

 

Then, we got to do splits with the zone leaders! There are several perks to having a district leader for a companion. One of them is that you get to go on splits with the zone leaders with full confidence that it's NOT because your companionship is having problems. :P I split with Elder Teuira, a big tahitian. It was great because he doesn't speak that much english, so we were pretty much forced to speak french the whole time, which was fine by me. The really great part was that I can UNDERSTAND his french! I love understanding the things that people say. :) So that split was very fun. Elder Teuira came up here to Chicoutimi with me, and little innocent me was completely confident that my experienced, native french-speaking zone leader would have my back in any situation, and I proceeded therefore with absolutely no fear at all of making any mistakes during my first experience taking charge of an area that I've only been in for three weeks where the people speak a language that I don't understand. Elder Teuira's a way funny guy, so basically the two of us just laughed, and talked, and taught, and knocked, and it was a very enjoyable day for the both of us. Everytime you do a split with one of your leaders they conduct a "stewardship interview" at the end so they can get all the details about your efforts to take care of the area that God has given to you, and give you constructive criticism and advice to help you improve. After our fun filled day, I was expecting a fun filled interview as well.

I was wrong. 

 

We sat down and prayed, and Elder Teuira's smile disappeared as he started to talk. He said "I've been watching you Elder Christensen" Uh oh.... I started making a mental list of everything I hadn't done right that day. Then he asked me a question "did you notice what I was doing today?" "Uh.... laughing?" That got a chuckle. Good sign. "No, I was acting like a greenie." "wait, what?" "I wasn't doing anything." Again, I started to review our time together, and I realized that he was right. He'd been really quiet during all of our lessons and door contacts. I thought he was just enjoying a nice break from responsability while he was out of his area. Nope. The dog was seeing how I'd react if I had a companion that didn't do anything at all. He was testing me!

 

Don't worry, he said I passed. :P

 

It made me think a lot though. In that moment when he told me he'd been watching me, my first thoughts went straight to my failures, the things I hadn't done right. But what Elder Teuira started to tell me about was all the things that I'd done right. All the good he'd seen from me. It made me think about judgement day, when we'll be brought before the bar of God with, in the words of the prophet Alma, "a perfect remembrance of all your sins". At that day, when meet God again, I imagine he's going to say "Son, I've been watching you." and we are immediately going to start reviewing our lives, and think of all the things we've done wrong. We'll be sweating, standing in front of our maker, just about ready to cry. Heck, maybe we will start crying, just from thinking about our screw ups, our mistakes, all the times when we didn't measure up. Don't we know they will be many, those heartwrenching memories. How hard will it be to stand in front of Him, knowing that He knows. Knowing that you failed. Because you HAVE failed. All of us have failed. It's moments like that when I realize how much I need Christ in my life.

 

Anyways, that was my deep thought for the day. Other than that, our week was amazing. We had TWO investigators come to church, and one of them, Donald, met with us afterwards and told us that he knows he's not living his life the way he should, and that he wants to change, but he's scared that he won't be able too. The kid's 15. He's a spiritual giant. We promised him we'd be with him every step of the way, and we're really excited to get to work with him more often. :)

 

Thank you for your love and prayers! I love every one of you. I attached a picture just to give you a tiny hint of how GORGEOUS Chicoutimi is, like an appetizer for in a few weeks when Elder Fitzgerald brings the jump drive back home. Thanks again for everything!

 

Love,

Elder Christensen.

 

P.s., mom. My camera came! :D I'm super excited about it. :P I love you!

 

P.P.s., your stories from the week made us laugh a lot. :) Kloveyoubye!

Aug 20

Howdy howdy howdy!

 

This week in Chicoutimi was chalk full of Miracles. With a capital M. Every day before we go to work we pray and ask for the Lord's help in accomplishing the things we have planned for the day. We figure that what with doing the work we do, we sort of can't do it without some divine help. In that same prayer, however, we always ask that we'll be able to accomplish His will, just in case OUR will and HIS will are contradictory, so He'll know that we know that His will takes priority. It's weeks like this week that convince me that My God has a sense of humor.

 

Last Monday we had nine lessons set up for the week, to which we were planning on bringing members of the branch. We like to bring members when we teach because it shows the Branch that we are, in fact, working, and it helps them feel involved in the work. Helps them catch the vision. Also it helps our investigators get to know the members, which makes coming to church easier. Basically, it's just a million times better with members at lessons. As a general rule up here, we have a tough time bringing members to our lessons, due to a lack of, well, members. This week was going to be different though, because we had nine lessons set up with investigators, and members ready to come to every one of them. Guess how many of those lessons we taught.

 

Two.

 

That's why I say this week was full of miracles. What we had planned..... didn't work out at all this week. None of it. What did work out was what The Lord had planned. Because everything fell through we spent a lot of our time knocking, and to break up the life of knocking we passed by old investigators and less-active members every now and then as well. We ended up finding a guy named Rock, just sitting on his back porch in his underwear (not uncommon for Quebec). He told us he was having some trouble in life right now, and he's been praying, but he's starting to wonder if God really hears him or not. He said "It's funny, you guys showed up today. I was just asking God if He really cares." We also bumped into a group of guys that we met last week, only this week that got super excited about the Book of Mormon and the pamphlets that we had. They cleaned us out. ; ) And then, to top it all off, we had another miracle man show up to church. The son of a woman who was baptized last december, who she has been trying to pray to church for almost a year now, showed up at church today, and told us he wants to keep coming.  This week, our plans got destroyed, but the Lord's plans were carried through. Our will was swallowed up in the will of the Lord. It was pretty cool. :)

 

Anyways, Gotta drive to Quebec city for a zone conference today, so I'm out! I love you guys! OH! I almost forgot, I found a funny scripture in the book of mormon! As a representative of Jesus Christ, I have to remain neutral in all political discussions, so I would never try and influence your decisions on who to vote for, but you should all go read mosiah 22:13-14 before voting. :)

 

I love you all! Keep me in your prayers, you know you're in mine. :)

Love,

Elder Christensen