July 16

Hey momma! I don't have much time today because we're going to Parliament, but! I wanted to shoot you off an e-mail anyways really quick to say thank you for sending me Grandma's email! She's adorable. :) And I promise you I'll give you a big long letter next week, because this week was INCREDIBLE and I need to write you about it badly, I just don't have time....

I love you! Go read one of Jesus Christ's Parables, those are usually good spiritual thoughts. ; )

--
Elder Christensen

Hey again! It turns out I had a bit of extra time today because Elder Odle had to finish some emails too. So! I'm here to give a quick report of my INCREDIBLE week!

 

To begin with, this week was an off week because of that weird study on Monday, and our P-day being on Tuesday, then we had Elder Odle get sick on Thursday, and our Friday was given away to unexpected time constraints. So, we ended up only actually having Wednesday (which was pretty uneventful), Saturday, and Sunday to do our "usual" Missionary work. That being said, between Saturday and Sunday were miraculous, and we ended up doing about four days worth of work in those two little days, so our week ended up being about as productive as.... any... other week.... Which was a miracle! :D It's all in the details my friends. ; )

 

I found a couple things out this week. First of all, if Justin Taylor ever reads this, he should know that an Elder Oscar Dimas who served with him in the Philippines recently returned from his mission, to the ward in which I am currently stationed. WHAT?!?! That's right. Secondly, vertigo (or a spinning sensation in the head) can be brought on by a number of things, including rapid shifting of the pressure in your head, which is sometimes a side effect of having a lengthy cold. How did I learn this? My companion Elder Odle got vertigo Thursday. The poor guy could barely go to the bathroom by himself (I said barely, but he did in fact manage it all by himself thank you very much.).

 

Also yesterday we met a family that began investigating almost two years ago, during Elder Odle's first transfer out of the MTC, and then stopped investigating because a missionary turned them off. Principle: The more potential you have to do GOOD, the more potential you also have to do HARM. Please, whenever you are acting in a church calling, remember who you're representing. I have seen SO MANY TIMES out here the harm that has come when a missionary has spoken or acted rudely or unthinkingly. I guess what I'm trying to say is "O be wise; what can I say more?". Anyways, we met with them, and they're SUPER awesome, and way gung ho about learning about the gospel again. Granted, even the most golden of investigators sometimes turn out to be less than they appear, but this family really seems legit. Randy and Maryellen Siba, they have two children, Vegas (age 5) and Phoenix (Age 2), who are adorable, and they are looking for answers to all the right questions. So! You'll probably hear more about them in the future. :) Today for P-day we went to see the Canadian Parliament! That was way cool (Although, it's not nearly as cool as..... whatever our equivalent of Parliament is), but super hot. The humidity up here in Canada is KILLER. I'll send back a couple of pictures from my day.

 

Well, that's about all I've got time for. I love all of you, as always, and I'm super stoked to hear from you next week! Keep me in your prayers! You know you're all in mine. :)

 

Love,
--
Elder Christensen

July 10 (Tues)

Hey! You're alive! ; )

 

Actually I knew you'd been mentioning girls camp and stadium of fire, so I assumed you'd had some other time constraints. Don't worry about me, I'm just as happy as a clam. :) I wonder where that expression came from... now that I think about it, clams probably aren't all that happy in comparison with missionaries.... hmm.

 

Well! Let me give you a brief update of my week. Our bishop put us to work finding members on our records that we just don't know much about, which generally means lots of angry people, lots of people who have moved, and lots of time. Those were all true. But! In the process of our people finding activities, we happened across a family, who I immediately fell in love with. The Alward family. Brother Alward was raised in the church, but was inactive when he met his wife. Sister Alward was baptized shortly thereafter, and they were active in the church fo several years. When the ward in the area went through a boundary changed and meshed with a nearby branch, the members stopped spending time together outside of church, and the "family" sense of the ward sort of disappeared, and the family shortly went inactive. We talked with them for a good twenty minutes when we knocked on their door, and I got the feeling we were the first members of the church, missionary or not, that had taken the time to actually try and get to know them instead of just asking why they hadn't been at church. So. I have a commitment for EVERYONE reading this this week. Your commitment is to LOVE people! But not with words. Anyone can say they love someone, but you don't believe it until you feel it. So go out of your way to talk with people you don't know as well, spend a bit of extra time (even if you don't have any extra time) with someone that you don't know very well. Show the people in your ward that you love them, and that you really are a kind of family for them. I maintain that if every member of the church would make it a point to DEMONSTRATE their love for the people in their wards (and not just your friends in the ward, ALL of the members of the ward), the rate of church members falling into states of inactivity would decrease dramatically. So. Try and put that thought into practice this week, and who knows. You might even change some lives. :)

 

ALso! This week we had REVELATION via the INSPIRED leaders of the Lord's church! Our district leader wrote up a survey that we have started asking people to take when we talk to them at the door or in the stret, and the difference it's made has been huge! I've only had one person turn us down since we started doing this. It's literally a night and day difference between knocking on their door to talk about the gospel, or knocking on their door to ask for their thoughts on religion. So! Any of you who are writing other missionaries, pass the idea along. :)

 

This week was pretty fantastic. Elder Odle and I are two pea's in a pod, we just have fun. All the time. With everything we do. :)

 

The reason I didn't write yesterday, was because we had a special training given by our mission president instead! That was super neat. He had all of the missionaries who are going home in the next three transfers stand up and talk about what they wished they had known at the start of their missions. It was incredible. I learned. So. Much. It made me think about myself in the MTC, only a few months ago, and how much I've ALREADY learned here, and it really opened my eyes to how much I have left to learn. Serving out here is teaching me a lot about my own inadequecies, which would be pretty tough on it's own, but it's also teaching me about how Christ can help me overcome them! Once again, I'm so glad to be out here, and I'm so grateful to everyone who's helped me along the way to get here. I know I wouldn't be here without every one I've spent any time with (Granted, some moreso than others. *wink*), so thank you. To all of you. :)

 

Well, I've got to go see Parliament, so I'll talk to you next week!

 

I love all of you! Try hard and pray harder!

Love,

-Elder Christensen

July 2

Bon Semaine mes chers!

 

How is everyone doing? I heard Jacob is moving back to college and quitting pizz hut, THAT'S gotta be exciting! What else is new in the Christensen family world?

 

My week was fantastic. Now that it's over. We started out just averagely, except we did exchanges on Wednesday which is ALWAYS a blessing! Miracle splits. :P My new district leader Elder Williams is on his last transfer in the mission, and is positively bursting at the seam with little tidbits of wisdom he wishes he would have known at the beginning of his mission. I really learned a lot that day, and a lot of it was stuff that I think other missionaries have been trying to teach me, I've just been too stubborn to learn. He talked a lot about why we have Junior and Senior companions (because if any of you know me you probably won't be surprised to hear that I sometimes struggle when I'm told NOT to take charge of a situation.... hah...), and he asked me a really good question. He said "Elder Christensen, you won't be a greenie forever. Someday soon you'll be the experienced missionary, and someone else will be looking at you for guidance. When that time comes, what do you want from that other missionary?" It just hit me then. We're always trying to do our best, and to be the best, and to take all the responsability, to "lean on the arm of our own understanding", and sometimes we try too hard. Maybe this is a problem that most of the world doesnt struggle with, but hopefully there's someone out there besides me that can learn from this. :P But, the thing I took from it was that everything is important. EVERYTHING. It's a concept that gets talked about a lot, that the feet are just as important as the head, but it really came home to me this week. The Lord asks us to serve in the church for two reasons, A) He needs us there to help others learn and grow, and B) He has something He wants us to learn. So the phrase "magnify your calling" doesn't mean "Act like you're an Apostle all the time", it means be the best Relief society President you can be! It means be the best home teacer, the best Junior companion, whatever it is. It was a very humbling experience.

 

After our miracle split on Wednesday, we had a few very unproductive days. We were lead on by a member family and ended up spending HOURS at a bbq, doing nothing of any interest, then our investigator changed his mind on working on his house and didn't update us, just stuff like that. We still spent time with our investigators and stuff, we just FELT unproductive and helpless. Then Yesterday was Canada Day (a tiny Canadian version of the fourth of July), so we weren't allowed out after six p.m..... and it was looking like another heplessly unproductive day, but! Miracles do happen! We were busy all day long, we were super productive, and we spent the evening with a ward family that made us feel like part of said family. Yesterday was a great day. I'm beginning to feel like enduring to the end is the principle that missions are designed to teach people. :P

 

Well, that's about it for this week. I received a great spiritual thought from Elder Bruner that I'm going to steal instead of coming up with my own. It's about chastisement. In the Bible, Jesus chastised Peter a lot. Like a lot. I could be wrong, but I think Peter was the person in the Bible who received the most direct chastisement from the Lord. But, why? Peter was a great guy, why was Christ so hard on him? Doctrine and Covenants to the rescue! D&C 95:1, "The Lord chastises those He loves". Whenever we receive chastisement from the Lord, it's meant to better us. To make us stronger. Jesus Christ also chastised Judas Iscariot in the Bible. The difference between these two Apostles of the Lamb, chosen as such for their great potential, was in the way they reacted to chastisement. Peter humbled himself, and learned, and was shaped into the man who would hold the church together after Christ was gone. Judas became angry, and refused to learn, and ended up betraying his Savior. Think about it. Think about the last time you were given some "constructive criticism" by a loved one, or a church leader. How did you react? I'm afraid I have a tendancy to follow Judas' path, and become angry. Therein lies misery. Please, all of you, seek out opportunites to learn! Ask your spouse, your parents, your children, how you can be a better father, mother, husband, child. Accept their advice, accept chastisement gladly, learn! Humble yourselves, let the Lord bring you low, so that he can lift you up.

 

I love all of you! And so does the Lord. Til next week!

 

--
Elder Christensen