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