Feb 28

Somtimes these comupters don't have the option to put the keyboard in french, which is really frustrating because by now I'm used to typing in French and so it takes me SIGNIFICANTLY longer to do it in english. Grrr....

 

Anyways, how are things going?! Did you get my last letter? I hope Jenseny enjoyed my stories from the MTC. Tell Dad I'm sorry about all the testing and security nonsense at work, if it makes him feel better there are idiots that do things like that everywhere, even here at the MTC. Sad but true. AH! MY WATCH IS BACK!! :D I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am about that. A missionary without his watch is like a sheep without....... three of it's legs. It's bad. So thank you. And! Thank you for the nutella which I am about to enjoy. :)

 

I thought you all should know, I've been praying for everyone.... In french. So if something REALLY unusual happens to any of you, I probably asked for it by accident. Just say a prayer of thanks to God for listening to my prayers.... And having a sense of humor. :P

 

Alright! Time to talk about the week eh? I met a girl today who's dad went to the Montreal Canada mission. It was cool. Also I've noticed a severe surplus of people here from my high school lately. I was wondering about how strange it was that they're all showing up now.... until I realized they're all from the grade beneath me. :P C'est la vie.

 

Last tuesday we had a WONDERFUL discours during our devotional by a member of the seventy about what it takes to be a missionary. He talked a lot about sacrifices, and what exactly you had to give up to achieve which traits. It was good. Also I lied, that was this Sunday. :P The TUESDAY talk was by Elder Wilson, a member of the seventy still who talked about using the Book of Mormon to help our investigators. We'd been hearing a lot of talks on such topics, so during the week we started reading the Book of Mormon with one of our investigators in a lesson, and it was Awesome! Elder Bangerter made her cry. He followed the spirit and pulled out a scripture that our actual teacher, not her investigator persona, needed to hear. It was very cool.

 

Speaking of teaching, we teach more than any other language-learning district here! Most districts have three to six companionships so they teach once every day or once every other day or so. We have two. We all teach twice a day, every day, except for Sundays and P-Days. On WEDNESDAYS one of those teaching appointments is at the Training Resource Center, where we teach real live people. Members of the Church who speak foreign languages volunteer to be taught by learning missionaries, it's sort of like a family home evening setting and it's REALLY cool! :D Also, starting tomorrow we'll be taking turns being investigators for the other companionship, so we'll be teaching an ADDITIONAL two lessons a week. For the next four weeks we teach eleven lessons every week, on top of all the time we spend learning the language AND the gospel, as well as everything else we have to do here. It's insanity. I can't even explain it.

 

Oh! One of our investigators (Fiacre) Is going to be baptized next week! It's super exciting, I don't actually know what happens after that point. :P But! He didn't show up to church on Sunday because the JW's came over and stopped him! Like six of them. It was weird. Anyways, if he doesn't come to church this Sunday he can't be baptized yet, and worse yet, I think if he keeps letting the JW's stop him from coming to church he'll miss the importance of being in church on a regular basis. We could really use some insight here.... How can we impress upon Fiacre the importance of coming to church to the point that he'll actually make the JW's (Who are also his friends) leave in order to come to church with us, without coming across as too harsh or inadvertently bashing on his friends? Any thoughts?

 

Mmk, spiritual thought for the week. Some of you know my all time FAVORITE prophet is Isaiah. If you don't understand that, go read the book again. You will. :P Anyways, I found a chapter during my studies today that I wanted to share with you guys. Three verses in particular. Isaiah 60:18-20 says

"Violence shall no more be heard in they land, wasting nor destruction within they borders; but thou shalt call they walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall they moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall end."

 

Wow. That is SO COOL! And here's why, Think about the effects that violence has on us? Sadness, anger, pain, suffering, etc. Isaiah is speaking in these verses to the nation of Israel about their land and country and so on, but when we shrink the scope down to us as individuals, the area of effect shrinks as well down to our own lives. The promise being made to EACH of us, individually, is that through the Lord our lives will be freed of all sadness, anger, pain, suffering, loss, and everything else associated with violence and warfare.  Furthermore, we will have walls of Salvation. The salvation offered to us by the savior is a LITERAL wall against evil. A bulwark against the sins and temptations of the world. It's our own personal little fortress, with a gate called Praise. The gate is called praise, because that's how it operates. We open the gate by praise, and whatever we open it to is enabled to enter. If we spend our lives praising and worshiping God, his light and his love will flood through our open gates and into our lives, to fill us with joy! If, however, we devote our attentions to the world, put God second, and worship the natural man, the world will enter through our gates. It will bring with it all the darkness and sin that it has, and it will render null and void the walls of Salvation that the Savior has given us. Be careful what you put first on your list of priorities.

 

Next it goes on to talk about the sunlight and the moon, both of which will be replaced by the eternal light of the Lord, and I do NOT have enough time to get into those as much as I want to, but suffice it to mention that sunlight gives us vitamin D, and is essential for our Health and Happiness. Through the light of the Lord, and the Glory of God, our lives will be filled with a health and happiness greater than the Earthly sun that we rely on could ever give us, and it's a light that will never end. A sun that will never set. A moon that will never darken. Love without end. And the days of our mourning will be over.

 

Gah! Time, up! Must go! I love all of you so much and I KNOW that this church is true, and I'm SO EXCITED to spend the next two years of my life spreading that sunshine to the entire world so they can all feel of the love of God and the joy of this gospel!

Also, remember that's just the scripture according to Elder Christensen... They're could be SO MUCH MORE IN THERE! I exhort all of you to study the words of Isaiah, for great are his words.

 

I love you!
--

Almost forgot! I had a language thought to share.

 

The word for "Lord" in French is Seigneur, and the word for "blood" is seinge. They're not really related, but I can't help but think of Seigneur as being literally translated as "Bleeder" or "the one who bleeds". Even an earthly Lord sustains his subjects with his own provisions. Gives them a little bit of his own life, his blood you might say. Our Celestial Lord did the exact same thing for us, giving us of His life and His blood so that we could be provided for in the eternal world.

 

Ta ta!

Elder Christensen