Jan 21

Bonjour mes chères!

désolé in advance for the lack of commas in this letter. The Keyboard is stuck in Canadian French, and I dont know where their comma button is.

This week was a lot. Tuesday we spent saying goodbye, and Wednesday we left. We met up with my new companion in montréal, made the exchange, and took off. We drove to my new area, and everything started going crazy. The Lord has been hard at work in this place. If I took the time to tell you about all the people we met, and all the experiences we had with them, wed be here all day, so ill just give you the best one. Jean-Marc.

Elder Miéville (new companion) met Jean-Marc last week, and he was drunk. We went back to see him this week on the hope that hed be sober and wed be able to have a real lesson, and not get thrown out when he could actually think about us. :P 

He wasnt home. 

But, elder Miéville has a gps with a little stand thing that was broken, and i got tired of not having it on the stand (Im driving. his license is expired. Long story) and just HAD to fix it RIGHT NOW, so I did. Upon finishing, we looked up, and who should we see but Jean-Marc! On his way home! Coincidence? I think you all know my opinion on that. ; )

So we went to see him, and.... well. He was sober. He didnt kick us out. He told us the long and heartwrenching story of his life, and how he fell into drugs and alcohol, and then how he climbed back out with the help of the Lord, and a lot of other things. We invited him to be baptized. He said yes without batting an eye.  When he came to church on Sunday he bore testimony to our priesthood group about the necessity of a second birth, and invited all of them to attend his baptism on the 23rd of February. We were.... impressed. 

Jean-Marc is one of the many miracles Ive seen in the four days that Ive been here in Laval. I think I have seen more people in the last four days recognize and be touched by the power of the book of mormon than I did in the first four months of my mission. Its incredible. One of the men we met told us, after reading only the first two chapters, that hes seen a change in his life, a change in HIMSELF. When he reads, hes at peace. When he gets angry, or upset, he picks up his book of mormon, lets its spirit fill his heart, and ease his troubled mind. That book has changed so many lives... Id encourage all of you the next time you pick up the book of mormon, to pause. take a second to think, remember the first time you REALLY read it, remember what it felt like when the spirit whispered to you of its truth. I think we as members of the church take for granted sometimes the wonderful blessing that we have in the form of a little blue book. I know the book of mormon is true, Ive seen too much good come of it for it to be anything else, and so Im excited to keep working with all these wonderful people. :)

Speaking of Church, that was another adventure. We have two teams of missionaries in this area that live in the same apartment and cover the same proselyting area. both teams cover both an english branch, and a French ward here, which means we have six hours of church every sunday, and the last hour of our first set of meetings is a stressful mix of running in and out of the meeting, taking and making phone calls, trying to make sure that all of the investigators that have been invited to church between the two teams, manage to arrive safely at church. Its a little piece of madness, but it only lasts a little while. The second set of meetings is much more relaxing. ; ) 

Needless to say, my experience here is going to be quite different from my past areas on the mission, but Im still excited to see how it all works out. :)

This Friday weve got my first zone council, the meeting with president, the assistants, and the zone leaders. Im super excited to go to that, The spirit in that room is going to be in-credible. :) Coincidentally, Friday will also be the day that Ive been on a missionary for one full year. Weird eh? Its passed quickly, and Im told its only going to get quicker from here on out.... :(

Well, ill leave you with that for the day. Thanks again for all the love and prayers you send my way! Keep working hard at doing right, and remember that the Lord is with you. :)

Love,

 

Elder Christensen

Jan 14

It was transfer calls this week! Sometimes transfer calls roll around, and you know somethings going to happen. Example. Elder Williams started his mission in Longueuil, and he's been here for three transfers now. Neither of us were super hopeful that we'd be staying together, and so we weren't super suprised when we found out that we won't be.

The surprising part was the reason we won't be.

President called us at 8:03. That was worrisome for two reasons. It's president, and it's really early. The first calls president always makes are when we call a new assistant (they're always called from among the current zone leaders) and when he calls a new...... a new...... a..... oh boy.

I've been called to serve as a Zone Leader in the IDM (Isle de Montreal) zone. 

Elder Williams will be staying in Longueuil, and my new companion will be Elder Mieville, who is from Switzerland, right on the french/swiss border. He's actually from Elder Thia (my last companion)'s home ward! I'm really excited to serve with him, and to serve on the Island, but I'm really not excited to leave Elder Williams.... or Longueuil.... I just started to love these people.

Well, no worries. The Lord knows what He's doing. :)

My new area is La Val, which is actually it's own small Island just North of the Island of Montreal. It's actually the area that my trainer, Elder McLean, went to when he left me! He'll be so proud that I'm following in his footsteps.

Oh, right, there was more week than that.

Monday we went snowshoeing, and the rest of the week we were attacked by la Ghrippe! The flu. Elder Williams and I have avoided catching it ourselves, but a lot of our investigators have it, which makes it really tough to go see people, but we got a bit done anyways. 

Monday we had a lesson with Joanna. I talked about her last week. She invited (strongly) her two daughters to come listen to us as well. I love spanish people. She's already in love with the young women's program, and she hasn't even been to church yet! But all three of them have already started to read the book of Mormon. They're amazing. :) I won't get to see them anymore. Dang it.

Wednesday we went to see a woman named Cecile Bouchard, who is a recent convert that fell inactive shortly after being baptized. She's also a miracle. Her testimony has been recently rekindled.... we're not really sure by what... and she was crying as she was telling us how much she misses the church, the peace that she had in her life while she was there, and the spirit that's been missing since she stopped coming. She's a sweetheart, and she's going to be an amazing member. :) Who I won't get to spend any time with. Dang it.

Thursday we got in touch with another family we;ve been trying to see, Tany and Danny. We spent an hour with them just listening to them tell us about all the questions they have, and how they're trying to raise they're children with good values, despite the world we live in today, and all sorts of other wonderful things. They're great parents, and they're great investigators! We're stoked to teach them.

I mean, Elder Williams is. Dang it.

I could go on, but I'll leave you with those three for now. Needless to say, the Longueuil ward is in for a big happy surprise as all of these wonderful people who are already progressing in their knowledge of the savior, truly start to see the miracle of His restored gospel change their lives. I'm so happy I got to be here and be a part of this, no matter how short my time here was. :)

Also, seeing as I have to pack, I'm a bit short on time... so I'm going to have to leave you for the week. I'll write to you again next week, I love all of you! Thank you for the love and support! I'm praying for you. :)

Love,

 

Elder Christensen

 

Jan 7

Remember the record snowfall we had last week? Well, it slowed down, but it hasn't stopped. This week we probably ended up with a grand total of almost half as much snow as we got last week, on top of everything we got last week. Everywhere we go peoples yards come up to my thighs. It's  great. :)

Our week was full of set-backs. By which I mean, people literally setting their appointments with us back until next week. Which is fine, because it gave us that much more time this week! Yesterday we had a really great little chat with our bishop about some of the recently baptized members in the ward who have ceased coming to church, and our quest this week is going to be getting in touch with as many of them as possible. 

My zone leader goes home in a week, and wants to Profiter du temps qui lui rest ici, so I don't really have a bunch of time today. But! I wanted to share with you the highlight of our week. Colombia. All of our favorite investigators are from Colombia. First of all, Louis. A 17 year old from Colombia, who came to church this week. What a guy. I will quote him for you "Wow, you guys have a lot of cute girls here" "Yeah we do Louis. You should come more often." Ah, the mind of a 17 year old male. ; ) Fortunately, our lessons preceeding this statement have given us good cause to believe that he is in fact interested in learning about our church, and not only the young women of our church. Either way, he's really cool young man, with a lot of really good questions. We have high hopes for Louis.

Next, Andrea and Juan-carlos. A young Colombian family who we knocked into on Wednesday. They invited us back over to see them again two days later, and they invited themselves to church, and to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. They're an amazing family, newly-wed, and newly arrived. They've only been in Canada for a couple months, which is why they haven't found a church to go to yet. Andrea told us she thinks God sent us as a response to their prayers. We love them. :) Those lessons are the best, because Juan-carlos speaks a lot of English, but no french, and Andrea speaks a lot of French, but no English. We repeat ourselves a lot, but never in the same language.

Finally, Joanna. A younger Colombian woman that Elder Williams found two months ago, and who we've been playing phone tag with ever since. We finally got a good solid chat with her, and found out that she's already read a lot in the Book of Mormon, and she has some questions to ask us about it. We have a lesson with her tonight. Pray for us eh? 

En Bref, Colombia is one my new favorite countries. :) 

Alright, that'll be it for me this week. January is one of the busiest months as a missionary, because everyone that couldn't meet with you during the Holidays, now has time. So, I'm sorry in advance if my e-mails shrink a bit for the next couple of weeks.

I love you all!

Love,

 

Elder Christensen

Dec 31

Hello everyone! And Bonne Année a vous tous!

And with the new year, of course, lots and lots of Snow. :) On the twenty seventh we had the biggest snow storm Québec has seen in about fifteen years. We were banned from Driving, and basically spent the entire day with snow shovels getting people out. I've heard a lot of people tell me different amounts for how much snow actually fell, and I'm not a hundred percent sure who's right or not, so I'll have to give you my rough estimate of somewhere between two and three feet in 12 hours. The snow storm made me realize that Utah has some really nice snow removeal services. i'm not sure what they do with all the snow that falls on the roads, but I know that they somehow manage to put it somewhere BESIDES right on the side of the road. Such is not the case here in Québec. There are walls of snow on the sides of every road, some of which are literally up to my eyeballs. on the main roads, either the sidewalks are buried except for where small paths have been cleared to allow entry to appartment complexes, or if there's an island in the middle, the sidewalk is clear but one lane of traffic is buried. On the smaller roads streets are still covered in several inches of frozen, hardpacked snow that was never properly cleared with sidewalks buried, walls of snow on either side, and just enough room for one car at a time to squeeze past any cars that may be parked in the road. There are lots of accidents, lots of hold ups, and well, lots of snow. I love it. :) It does make turning left a bit difficult when you can't see anyone coming from the right side because there's a white wall in the way.

mais malgré tout çela, the work rolls on. :) Obviously, with the holidays and everything, we had a bit of a hard time seeing any of our investigators this week, so any time we had that wasn't spent clearing snow, we mostly spent finding new people to teach. There are a large number of both Africans AND Haitians here in Longueuil, and they all have the same thing to say when we ask them how they're doing. "oh, mon ami, c'est FROID!!" Any of you who speak French will notice that that sentance isn't grammatically correct. No worries. Pacific Islanders have their own dialect in other languages too. ; ) Haitians are like the Jamaicans of the french world. I love them. :)

Also this week we had the confirmation of Marie-Paul Chartre, the woman who was baptized on the 23rd (what a christmas present eh?) She's a trooper, and was at church, on time, for the first time for her confirmation. :) She struggles with the nine thirty church thing. Fortunately, our church time changes to twelve thirty as of next sunday. Marie-Paul is quite happy with this change. :)

As far as missionary work goes, there isn't much new to say. I still love being a missionary, and I've Especially loved being a missionary during this christmas season of Service.  I hope all of you have felt the spirit of christ as strongly as I have during this last month, and I hope you'll join with me in trying to keep that same spirit with us throughout the rest of the year. Happy new years everyone, I love all of you. :)

Sincerely,

 

Elder Christensen

Dec 26

So, Basically I already talked to you all yesterday. But This morning has been pretty good so far. :)

Just wanted to say i love you. :)

Love,

Elder Christensen

Dec 17

Hey everyone! And MERRY CHRISTMAS! Our P-day next week is going to be on Wednesday, not Monday, so this is the last time I'll write until after Christmas. :)

As my subject suggests, I have no time at all. I wanted to just share a couple of quick deets and a spiritual thought, provided by elder Bangerter!

So the life of Elder Christensen has been quite an adventure. With not only a small wood goblin that follows him around (Elder Williams) He has also fought a gigantic hydra (Zone Leaders) and eventually plans to drown someone in the rivers of Muzoozala (Baptism this week). Spiritual Thought equals The Prophets of Old love you and the Ancient of Days will once again be upon the face of the Earth. I recommend that you search out the last words of the Prophets and discover who they are deep inside. I suggest the last words of Nephi in 2 Nephi. Just for a little teaser, here's a quote "I must obey. Amen." 

Love and kisses plus a spear.

Elder Christensen