Oct 1

Salut mes amis! 

No worries about the short message mom, mine will be short too. We have a zone activity today, so we'll be driving down to Quebec city in about an hour. :P Then we have a zone study tomorrow, and interviews with President, then we're driving up to Rimouski afterwords for a split all day Wednesday, and then Thursday morning we're taking a five hour road-trip back to Chicoutimi. Basically, we only get three days in our area this week, but it'll be a super good week quand même!

So, this week was fabulously miraculous. We found five solid new investigators that each deserve their own story.

First of all, Caroline and Daniel. We were out knocking on doors on Wednesday, and we knock on the door of this younger girl. We start by asking a few questions about God, and her relationship with Him, and she ends up telling this crazy story about how she was pregnant, but she lost the baby, but then they found ANOTHER baby (apparently she had been pregnant with twins, but they hadn't noticed the second fetus yet), and then she develloped a huge tumor right next to the new baby they just found, and they told her that there was no chance they could save the baby, and that she was going to lose that one too. So her conjoint (either husband or boyfriend... we're still not sure...) prayed SUPER hard, and the tumor disappeared. Then she asked "do you want to see the baby?!" Duh. So she goes and gets Sarah, her adorable 21 month old girl, and says "alright, I'll listen to your message, and the baby will too." We taught her about the plan of salvation, and during the closing prayer her conjoint came home. Awkward. Turns out he already has a book of mormon because he collects religious texts, but he's really curious to know more about us. He kept asking questions, so we ended up teaching him about the restoration. :P They're amazing.

Then we found Ameni-felix and Jean-alex, two young African boys. Actually, we found their atheist older brother and devoutly catholic father, and after chatting with them for a few minutes the atheist told us to wait a minute, because he knew two boys who would love our message. He went and grabbed his two younger brothers, who are currently baptists (diverse family) and they contentedly listened to our message, and excitedly accepted the books of mormon we offered. The best part? They play football with one of our other investigators, and their dad thinks of our Elders quorum president like one of his own sons. Also amazing.

Alright, best for last. We went on exchanges this week, and I sent elder Thia to Alma. He comes back with a story for me. Alma has a recent convert named Roger, who was baptized the week before I came to chicoutimi. Roger has a friend named Manuel, who he met a few years ago. Manuel was wandering around Alma, a bit lost, and stressed for finals at school, and Roger saw him and invited him into his house because he thought the poor kid looked stressed. They've been friends ever since. When Elder Thia went to meet with Roger, Manuel happened to be there, and to be WAY interested in the Book of Mormon. The best part? He lives in Chicoutimi. Hehehe. :D So we met with him this week too, and we found out that he's got drinking problems, but he's trying to quit, and that's what pushed him to search for God. He is the single most prepared investigator I've ever met. I'm so excited to teach him. :)

Alright, out of time, but! I read an amazing quote today from my dear friend Sister Bice that I wanted to share with all of you.

"One of the great needs in our day is for Latter-day Saints to have
 balance in our lives – balance between zeal in keeping the
 commandments, and patience in achieving our goals; balance between a
 whole-hearted devotion to truth, and loving acceptance of those
 (including ourselves) who fall short. And in our personal lives there
 needs to be balance between a type of discontent – in which we are
 constantly striving to be better than we are – and what Nephi calls “a
 perfect brightness of hope” (2 Nephi 31:20), which is the quiet but
 soul-affirming anticipation that if we trust in the Lord and seek
 earnestly to do our best, He will make up the difference in time and
 eternity." -ROBERT MILLET 

Her mission president shared it at a conference. I encourage you to read into that a bit. There are two sides to every coin, and perfection lies right on the edge. Fortunately, we never have to fight the battle tout seul when we have faith in The Lord. Stay close unto Him, and He will stay close unto you, and strengthen you in all things.

I love all of you! I'll talk to you next week!

Love,

--
Elder Christensen