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