June 25

Bonjour tout le monde! Ca va bien? Bien. :)

 

SO. This week was something else. Since finding out Elder McLean was leaving we were just running running running all week long. He had to say goodbye to everyone, and it was heartwrenching! The ward was just in love with Elder McLean. He's done a lot of good around here, and he will be missed.

Wednesday he left, and I recieved.... a female companion! :D

 

Alright, so how transfers works is we here in the boonies send everyone being transferred on a bus up to montreal with a round trip ticket. They give that same ticket to their replacement missionaries and said missionaries then use those tickets to bus down here to the boonies! There's about four hours where those of us that are staying here are companion-less in the process, and we happened to have one sister in that boat, with a whole bunch of elders. We couldn't just leave a missionary all alone for four hours, so our zone leader assigned Elder Meza and myself to form a temporary trio with dear sister Ariiotima, and we had a trio with a SISTER MISSIONARY! I've been rubbing that into everyone's faces. I mean come on, how many non-senior missionaries do you know that get a companion of the opposite gender? Not that many. I'm putting her name in my preach my gospel. ; )

 

But all siliness aside, the wait was long. And boring. And we couldn't do any REAL missionary work because we had a sister with us, so we played a lot of phase ten. A LOT of phase ten. Finally the other missionaries showed up! Well, most of the other missionaries. Three of them had taken a different bus, and so they would be coming an hour later. One of those was my companion. This was getting ridiculous. So I grabbed two elders that were nearby and we went out tracting! In someone else's area! In 35 degree heat with humidity making it feel like it was 48! (That's celsius folks, and that's hot). We legitimately got in someones door by asking them if we could have a glass of water. Everyone felt bad for us. Then my companion FINALLY made it here, and we had just enough time to run over there, grab them, and run to our dinner appointment with the Gagnon's!

 

Mom. You're terrible. Brother Gagnon had found my facebook, and found the picture of me from my Jacob Lake Men's calendar, and had conspired with my mother so that when I got to their house for dinner I found about 15 pictures of myself with various different speech bubbles printed on them. We all had a good laugh about that, but I'm not sure what Elder Odle thinks of me anymore. ; )

 

The rest of the week was good. The districts in the zone changed a bit, so our new District Leader asked us to step up our game for the rest of the week, and me and Elder Odle had a spectacular three days in Chapel Hill! We saw miracles left and right, and we were able to give our Haitian family a new baptismal date, which was an incredible experience for all of us. They want to get baptized more than anything in the world, and watching their faces as we chose a date we could work towards was marvelous. I love this job. :)

 

So! Elder Odle! He's pretty awesome. He's a professional vocalist that's already performed in.....Operas. Our tastes in music are a little different (as well as our tastes in breakfast foods), but other than that we're quite similar! He's a funny little guy with a high pitched voice and a LOT of emotions. :P He's also an incredible missionary, and I have a TON of respect for him already! I'm really excited to spend the rest of this transfer with him. :)

 

I love being a missionary. All of the wonderful people that I've met up here have changed my life. Elder McLean changed my life, and I know Elder Odle is going to do the same. There is nothing that can rival the joy that comes through sharing the gospel, nothing at all. If anyone reading this is thinking about going on a mission, but hasn't made up there mind yet, do it. Just do it. It's the best choice you'll ever make.

 

Alright! That's me for this week, I'm sure I'll have more to talk about next week when we've settled in a bit more. Til then!
--
Elder Christensen

June 18

Hey momma!

 

So. I heard about Aunt Lea and Uncle Darron and I'm SUPER excited for them. :) Also looking forward to that flash drive, and please wish Dad a happy fathers-day for me. :)

 

Also thanks for the rest of the news. I'm praying for all of you, all the time. I really enjoyed your spiritual thought too! That's actually something that I've been trying to work on, so you may definitely have been inspired to write that to me.

 

My week. Was. Awesome.

 

We have a listing in our Area Book for a man named Jimmy that lives in the appartment next to us and was SUPER interested in the gospel, but the phone number he gave the missionaries didn't work. So we have a first name, and appartment building, and a note saying "find him!".

 

Right.

 

We haven't given much time or effort to finding Jimmy, but we were in that appartment complex this week doing our neighbor missionaries a favor and checking on one of their investigators, Nounouche. (She would be in our ward, but she only speaks French and we have an English ward.) We went to see her, but she wasn't there. Her husband was though! And her husband has, according to our neighbor missionaries, been making a bit of a fuss about his wife investigating the church. So we decided to sit down with him and talk to him about it. By the end of our talk, we'd found out that he isn't opposed to the church, he just doesn't know much about it because he can never be there during lessons (he works exact opposite shifts from his wife.). We committed him to read the book of mormon, and he agreed. We asked his name before we left. Any guesses?

 

Yep.

 

We went back to start teaching Jimmy a few days later, and he told us that he'll be baptized if he gets an answer to his prayers about the Book of Mormon. A beautifully golden investigator... for the Gatineau ward. :P

 

Then, on Thursday we knocked into a man named Justin! (Hey, that's me!) Our conversation at the door went like this: Justin- can I help you? Us- Yeah, we're just in the neighborhood sharing a message about Jesus Christ. Justin- cool, want to come in?

Us- well if you insist. ; )

 

He didn't have a ton of time right then, but he's just been laid off so we asked if we could come back the next day and he said sure thing. The next day we came back and started asking him about his life, about his beliefs, about his family, etc. He told us about being in and out of Jail as a kid, and how he'd always be in solitary confinement for fighting and stuff. In solitary all he had was one tiny window, and a bible. :P Out the window all he could see was a little white-barked tree. He told us about one day when he'd been so angry at life and everything that he'd been talking to this tree and telling it that he was going to go insane and kill everyone if it didn't bring him chocolate milk, hamburgers, corn on the cob, and a bunch of other stuff. That day the juvenile hall had a bunch of volunteers throw a barbecue, and since Justin was always in solitary the guards knew him really well and knew he wouldn't be out in time to go, so they brought him all the leftovers. With all the food he'd asked his tree for. He freaked out a little bit, but fortunately managed to associate that blessing with Jesus Christ, not the tree, and ever since then he's had a huge desire to follow Jesus and a knowledge of the love that Christ has for him. He was even baptized once, but the priest that baptized him was arrested a couple of years later for child molesting, so he feels like that baptism wasn't valid and he wants to do it again. We told him we could help with that.

It gets better, he showed up at church on Sunday with his Girlfriend and kids, and they loved everything about it. He is the most golden investigator I've ever heard of IN MY LIFE. Also he's moving back to London Ontario in two weeks.

A beautifully golden investigator for the missionaries in London Ontario. :P

 

Don't worry, we're both a lot more concerened about getting these people taught than about WHO it is that does the teaching. :)

 

I could go on, but I'd take all day. This week was pretty incredible. Also, we got transfer calls on Saturday. And the results are.... (Drum roll please) I! Am staying in Chapel Hill. Elder McLean is going Zone Leader in LaVal East, just north of the island of Montreal. My new companion is named Elder Odle, the Elder who just finished training Elder Bangerter, my MTC companion. I'm going to miss Elder McLean a TON, but I'm super excited to start this new friendship with Elder Odle, and I'm incredibly grateful that I was given another transfer in chapel hill with all the people that I've grown to love so much!

 

I wish I could take all of you up here and introduce you to all of my investigators, my ward members, all of my friends. They feel like a big extension of my family, I love the people here with all my heart. When the day comes that the Lord calls me away, it will be difficult. But! No use thinking about that yet, I've got six more weeks to work my shoes off in OTTAWA!

 

Thanks again for all the love, support, and prayers! It makes a difference. :)

 

I love all of you! The church is true! If you want a spiritual boost this week go read chapter twelve in the teachings of George Albert Smith (It may have been your lesson in priesthood and relief society recently...). And please! Pray for opportunities to share the gospel. All of you normal people have the potential to influence lives on a much more personal level than those of us wearing a black tag, and don't you forget it!

 

Love,

-Elder Christensen

June 11

Bonjour a Les gens d'utah! (et autres lieux)

 

Patricia's baptism was AWESOME! More than half the ward showed up, the two talks were awesome, her dad baptized her, the fallowfield elders brought an investigator and she bawled the whole time, and Brother Snook (A member of our ward that just happens to be a proffesional vocalist that recently quit his christian rock band, (we actually HAVE his music on my companions Ipod. He got it in Montreal. Cool huh?)) sang a musical number that punched the crowd in the face with the spirit. It was the best day of my life to date. Patricia and her family are the closest thing I have to REAL family out here, and they treat us like we're just that. Family. We were over there for a barbecue yesterday, they spoil us. :) Her husband, Joe, is coming along as well. He's a little behind her by way of progression, but we can see his testimony starting to grow and it's the most exciting thing in the world! the best part is that their three daughters are all young enough that Joe will be able to baptize them himself when they get old enough! They have a baby named Mia. I taught her how to shake hands, and now she reaches for me everytime she sees me. The only problem is that she won't let go of my finger. :)

 

So! That was probably the most exciting part of the week.

 

Not.

 

On sunday we had Patricia's confirmation. She asked me to do it. Oy. I was shaking so hard she could feel it. That's embarrassing. But, she said thank you afterwards, and she told me it was just what she needed, so hopefully it went alright. :P THAT was pretty much the coolest thing in the world. :)

 

With all that in mind, I don't have much else from this week. But! That stadium of fire business sounds awesom! AND! I got the E-mail about Aunt Lea and Uncle Darren. WAY COOL!!!! :D :D :D :D

 

This church is the coolest thing the world has ever seen. My companion actually asked me if I could try to be less excited about it during lessons (oops.) It takes a bit to see sometimes I think, but when you catch that vision, when you SEE the glory of the gospel, it's impossible to sit still! Please, all of you, we've been reading in the George Albert Smith book for Priesthood, and our lesson yesterday was basically that all of us, every single person, has the right to have the Spirit of God confirm the truth of the Gospel to us. I want all of you to get down on your knees, and ask God to remind you that He Is There. If you have doubts, that's nothing to be ashamed of. If you don't, EVERYONE could use a reminder. Go get on your knees, and tell your Father that some crazy missionary promised you that if you asked, He would show you that He was there. Do it, and I promise you that He will speak to your hearts, your testimonies will be found, refound, or rekindled, and you will catch the same vision that I've caught up here in Canada.

 

I love you all! The church is true! The book is blue! your Father Loves you!

 

-Elder Christensen

June 4

Momma (and Others, but mostly momma),

 

Thanks for the message! I'm glad to hear things are going well back there. :)

 

So! This week was a rollercoaster. Patricia told us on Wednesday that she didn't actually want to be baptized anymore. (What?!) She thought it would be better if she postponed her baptism until her husband was ready so that they could be baptized together. (Oh.) So, we prayed a lot, and asked her to pray a lot, and went to see her just about everyday, and by Friday she still wasn't sure what the best course of action was. Her whole family went up to visit with her parents in Montreal this weekend, so they left friday after we saw them. We didn't know what to do, so we did the obvious thing. We asked Dad for help. Only by Dad, I mean our mission president. :) We called up President Cannon and asked if he could meet with Patricia while she was in Montreal and just chat with her and comfort her. He was more than happy too. They met together Saturday morning, but didn't come home until last night, so WE were

pretty out of the loop until yesterday morning when she texted us and said she's ready and that we can go ahead with the baptism! So, we're still on for Tuesday. :D Like I said, Rollercoaster week.

 

In other news, we went for a bike ride in the pouring rain (that was SUPER FUN!!) because we were out of Klicks, we had lunch given to us by our favorite gas station attendant, and left, right, up, down, and in between the Lord was teaching us the principle of Enduring to the End. We saw it with Patricia, and we saw it every single day when we were being cancelled on left and right and knocking on doors every day. Saturday our schedule was PACKED to the brim, and we ended up doing nothing but knock doors. We were getting cancelled on and having doors slammed in our face for the whole day, until about half an hour before a stake activity that night, when we were just about ready to head to the activity early. We had about 6 houses left on the street that we hadn't knocked on yet, so we figured we'd go get rejected six more times and then we could be done. The first house was a lady named Linda who wouldn't even open her door for us, but ended up happily inviting us back over and saying she'd love to talk about the gospel with us (even though she wasn't comfortable praying with us or giving us her phone number. Hmm.). The second door had a sign on it saying "this is a smoke-free home". Oh man. For the first and potentially only time in my mission we did a door contact using the Word of Wisdom. And it was awesome. The woman (Annie) had been a smoker, but had quit. I told her about Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Fred quitting. We talked about values and how there are things that people just plain shouldn't do. Her husband (Francoise) walked up and joined the conversation right as we were about to set up a return appointment. We tentatively asked if we could come back and visit with the couple the next week.... and Francoise said "sure thing!" Before he even knew what we were talking about. (WHAT?!) So we're going back to see them on Thursday. :)

But wait, there's more! The NEXT door was a woman named Megan who had just turned away someone knocking on her door the day before, and was curious about why there were so many people doing it, so we had a great chat with her and left her a plan of salvation pamphlet. :) It was awesome. Then we had to leave to make it to our stake activity on time (A night of broadway, members of the church performing single songs from broadway plays. One of our members did "bring him home" from les miserables and did it wonderfully!). That was a huge testimony builder of the Endure to the End principle for me, and that was only one. They were everywhere this week. I know the Lord was trying to help us learn about that one thing, so that's the thing I wanted to share with all of you as well. Everything is easier to say than to do, and enduring to the end is no exception. The next time you give up, whether it be exasperation at a friend or family member, trying to solve a problem, or even just doing homework, I hope that you'll remember this, take a deep breathe, and give it one more try. Because if you do, I know you won't regret it. :)

 

So! That's my week in a nutshell. Thanks again for all the love and prayers! You guys rock my black calf-length gold-toed socks!

 

-Elder Christensen

 

P.S., we gave a book of mormon to a druggy on saturday. He was higher than a kite, but SUPER excited about the B.O.M. He wouldn't let us walk away until we gave him one. Maybe drugs can be good for you after all? (Don't take that seriously) See ya!

May 28

Hey momma!

  

How are things going back home?

 

Wanna hear about my week? Of course you do. ; ) So! Monday was Victoria day where all of the commonwealth celebrates Queen Victoria because she was on the throne longer than anyone else. So everything was shut down. We went to a carnival instead and I bought some cotton candy. Obvi. The MAJOR highlights from this week are as follows:

 

Remember the two people that just randomly came up to us and/or called us and asked to meet with us? They're both inactive members of the church that have just moved into our area. Cool huh? During this week we knocked into a haitian family that had never heard of the Book of Mormon before, and they happily told us to come back to teach them about it next week. The cool part of that story is the little girl named Selena. Selena is friends with our new Haitian families children, and she stopped us while we were knocking to ask if we were going to knock on her door. She said she loves church, but her mom won't go, and she really wanted us to go knock on her door and talk to her mom about it. So we did. Her mom didn't talk to us for six seconds before she closed the door. Yikes. We went to report back to our little Boss, who sadly asked "well... do you teach kids?" uh...... I guess? we told her that if she was over eight, and if she could get her mom's permission, she could come sit in on the lessons we're going to have with the Haitian family. Instantly a smile jumped onto her face and she yelled "I'm eleven!" as she started running to her house to get her mom's permission. Her mom turned out to be pretty cool, she had just thought we were Jehovah's witnesses. :P She said her daughter can learn about whatever she wants to, except the TJ's (French, les Temoins de Jehovah). So we grabbed her a book of Mormon, and a kids copy, and we left her happily flipping through her new books. :)

 

On sunday we went to a pentecostal church with a ward member and her friend, which was pretty interesting. Lots of Christian rock and loud prayers and stuff. It was cool. They had ten people up on stage with shirts saying "I took the plunge" that were being baptized that day. I decided we should definitely make "I took the plunge" T-shirts for our converts. ; ) They zoomed in on them while they were actually being baptized (In a font that looks a lot like ours, oddly enough!), and lo and behold, the youngest daughter of our new Haitian family was happily baptized into the Lifecentre pentecostal church yesterday. Does that count as a baptism in our area? ; )

 

So! This week was pretty cool. We saw miracles left and right, and it FLEW right on past us. The best part? Are you ready? Patricia agreed to be baptized. :D :D She set a date for the 5th of June so that her dad can come down and perform the baptism, and we're SUPER stoked for her. :) Her husband is way supportive too, we're expecting him to follow suite in a month or so. They're both doing wonderful, reading their scriptures, praying as a family, becoming friends with the ward, and we can practically WATCH their lives change. It's incredible. I'm so lucky to be out here, and I'm so happy I was put here as my first area so I could meet all of these wonderful people and be a part of the most important step in their lives thus far. The church is True. Thank you all for all of the love, prayers, and support. I feel it everyday.

May 21

Momma,

 

Thanks for all of your missionary quotes! I really enjoyed them, and I"m glad to hear your doing better. :) I DO actually have a bit of consolation for you, but it might be something you already know, and I can't remember for the life of me which general authority it was, but at one point in church history SOME general authority made the statement that as long as a family is sealed in the temple, any wayward  children will eventually come back to the fold, whether it be in this life or the next. You should look up who said that, and when, for me. :)

 

Well. let me tell you a bit about my life then. These last two weeks have been SO busy! We've seen more miracles than I ever have before, like strangers coming up and asking us for lessons. Not just one, but two. One woman flagged us down as we were leaving our apartment, and said she'd like lessons from us. Then she asked me for my planner and wrote down her information in it. The next day we got a phone call from an unknown number, and some dude said the missionaries left a card on his door TWO YEARS ago with a phone number, but he hadn't had a phone until just now. So he called us back. On top of that, a woman that I met last week requested a book of mormon off mormon.org this week, so we get to go teach her too. It's really proved to me how little control we as missionaries have over our success, and how much it's in the Lord's hands. :P So that's cool

 

We've also been dropped by a bunch of our huge potentials, so it's not ALL good, but it's still been pretty good. We also met a woman who was baptized in '88 and then went inactive and moved. She called the church and asked us to come over and see her, and she claims she was baptized a "mormon", but from the bit we've been talking with her we think she MAY not have been baptized in our church..... Her story contains some interesting details, and she says she's never seen or heard of the Book of Mormon before. But she said her church taught about Joseph Smith..... We can't be sure until we send a request to salt lake for her membership record, but I suspect that she was baptized with the RLDS. Hmmm. Did they change their name?

 

Alright, spiritual thought. We, as humans, have a tendency to get distracted. We get carried away in whatever little things our life holds for us and we lose sight of the really important things in life. Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy. Elder Richard G. Scott said in a conference address that (and I'm paraphrasing here) if you get too focused on working, even if it's serving the Lord, you can't feel the spirit. Elder Bednar said if you want to follow a prompting "be a good boy, or be a good girl, keep the commandments, honor your covenants, and don't worry about it." We, as Latter Day Saints, get so STUCK on trying to be the best! We're always fretting about whether or not we're good enough, we're always beating ourselves up about missing a prompting, or not being spiritual enough. The council of these our apostles of the Lord is simply this. You can be completely confident in your knowledge that you're doing the will of the Lord when you're just trying to be good. If you're worrying about it more than that, you're missing the point of life, the joy of it, and chances are your reading too far into things that aren't promptings, and missing some of the ones that are. My message? Don't worry about it. Just do good. :)

 

 

May 14 Photos

I don't have much time to write today, I'm sorry, so I figured I'd just send some pictures instead! Ta Da!

The sign on his back says Hinkley.