Nov 4

Internet was down at the church, so Justin was unable to write his letter.

Oct 28

What a week!

Well, I only have like two minutes to write this.... hah... my bad?

But! This week was amazing! Last saturday our mission president had a seminar with Elder Nelson, and he's just BRIMMING with things to share with us! Our week was full of conferences, meetings, lessons, and MIRACLES! But, I don't have time to share them all this week. :S SO! I'll share the best part!

Yesterday we had a stake conference with an area authority over here, and he talked a LOT about family history and temple work, even going so far as to say that it is the MOST important work that will ever take place in the stake here in Longueuil. That's pretty strong language, and I imagine it's similar for the rest of the stakes of zion. 

So! with my apology for the length, I'd also like to invite all of you to look into your family history! The Prophet has asked us to do it, and when we do what the Prophet asks, the blessings flow. :)

I love you all! have a good week!

Elder Christensen

Oct 21

Well.

What a week.

I guess there wasn't MUCH that happened that was different this week, except for a jaunt down to Sherbrooke and another day spent with my dear friend Elder Murphy. Man, it's always nice to spend time with an old friend. It does a body good. 

But, other than that little bit of excitement, it's been relatively normal here. Which means, days full of hectic changing plans and running to and fro trying to help people understand the gospel.

with the new emphasis the Church has been placing on rescuing those who are lost, we've been spending a lot more time with the members of our ward who don't make it out to church very much. It's been wonderful. Just yesterday, a young man named Francois came to church for his second time in two years, and brought his little girl Lilyanne (you know me, a succor for the toddlers). It was great. It's been a week since the last time he smoked, and it's looking like he's in the clear to be really quit!

It has been really surprising seeing how much difficulty people have with quitting smoking. I mean, I've always known it wasn't an easy thing to do, but over the course of this mission I've seen so many people fight and struggle and strain to get out of the habit. For some, it's the only thing holding them back from being baptized and enjoying the benefits and blessings of membership in the church. It's been sad, to see these people, and to realize how such a small decision, that first cigarette, caused so many problems later on, not to mention the health problems. But! All that in mind, it makes it that much sweeter when we're able to help someone overcome that addiction, and progress towards the life they'd like to live. :)

Well, that's probably all the major excitement we had this week..... Except for getting a new Ward Mission Leader! Fr. Plouffe is young, enthusiastic, and, dare I say it, inspired. We had a lunch/correllation with him Friday, where he talked to us about what he'd been reading in the church manuals and Preach My Gospel about the role of a DMP (Dirigeant de Mission de Paroisse), and how we could work together to better fill that role. It was amazing, and then I accidentally insulted his wife's meal. Dang it. Two years in Canada, and I still say things that don't mean what I think they mean. :P

Well. Nobody's perfect.

Have a good week everyone!

-Elder Christensen

Oct 14

Transfers week? What?

Yep, really really. We had transfer calls last week. My companion and I are both staying here in lovely Longueuil, but it was surprising (again) to see how fast time flies. As of this week I've got three complete transfers left before real life. It's insanity....

Well! We had far too many things happen this week (as usual) to write about, but I'll tell you about the best one. Saturday, we had a samedi de sauvetage (saturday of.... saving.... is the best translation), where we got all of the ward leaders together, and went two by two to visit members of the ward that we haven't seen in a while, and invite them to the ward conference and ward potluck the next day. It was incredible. It was one of the coolest things I've seen on my whole mission, watching ward members going out independently of the missionaries to visit the less-active members of the ward. I think it marked some real growth here in the stake, as several of our wards have had similar activites. 

My comp and I split with some of the members, and it was a great experience. :) 

The results were wonderful LOTS of less-active members came out to church, but even more gratifying than seeing them there, was seeing the effect it had on the members of the ward. It was crazy! Everyone was talking with and helping out the people that they had invited, and the ones that hadn't been able to see the families they'd tried to visit were talking about those families with EVERYONE and telling us all about their plans to go out and try again this week. It was amazing. It reminded me of an experience I had in a deacons quorum in Utah, where they sent us (the quorum boys) every sunday to go knock on a less-active boys door and invite him to church. At the time I didn't realize how great that was, until his testimony as he was leaving the ward told all of us what an impact those visits had had on him. The words of our prophet and apostles in general conference rang true in light of this samedi de sauvetage activity, and the whole ward was able to see the huge effect that a simple gesture of love can make in a persons life 'for by small and simple things are great things brought to pass'. 

Lets keep that in mind as we approach the Holiday season, and try to warm someone's heart with the light of the gospel, even if their own light seems to have grown dim.

I love you all! have a good week!

Oct 7

Conference week!

Man! What a week this has been!

Madness, miracles, and everything in between, it's been quite the ride. Where to begin... where to begin.... Man. The hardest part about all of this e-mailing business is that I can never tell you everything that happened! Fortunately for you, I've done a (relatively) decent job at keeping a journal, so I should be able to tell you in a bit more detail after I get back. :P Did you all hear president Eyering AND President Monson give their plugs for journal keeping in Conference? I sure did!   

Well. First of all, this week we had zone training meeting, and all the missionaries from our whole zone came up here to our area for it! It was quite exciting, even President Patrick was there! One of my old companions is floating around our zone somewhere too (Elder Murphy), and any chance to spend time with him always does me some good. :) So, zone training meeting was splendid, all of us were quite pleased with it, and we had a blood drive at our chapel that started immediately afterwards, so the whole zone went to give blood together after it was over. Good times. Only ONE sister passed out. ; )

What with all of that, however, our Friday was pretty shot, but it was worth it. We didn't get a ton done on the rest of our weekend either, what with conference, but it was amazing. We even had a few non-members and less-actives show up. For some of them, it was the first time they'd set foot in a chapel in YEARS! That was cool. :) Our mission president has been focusing a lot lately on why were really here, and what we really do as missionaries. He's had all of us start keeping track of our weekly sacrament attendance at church (not of investigators, of everyone!), and explained to us that 'after all, what we're trying to do here isn't just baptize people, what we're trying to do is build a church!' So, that has been cool, kind of seeing the whole WARD grow, not simply our teaching pool. It's all part of the 'haste the work of salvation' program the church is implementing. If you didn't get a chance to watch that broadcast they put out, I would highly recommend it. You'll even get to see my mission president, President Patrick! 

The whole point of the above program is to help us to understand the complete futility of missionary work without the full support, comprehension, and involvement, of the members of the church. It's also to help us break down the imaginary line we've drawn between 'Missionary work' and 'less-active work'. President Harold B. Lee once said

 "Missionary work is but home teaching to those who are not now members of the church, and home teaching is nothing more or less than missionary work to Church members"

So, with that in mind, when it comes right down to it, everything we do in the church, from missionary work, to going to church, to home teaching, it's all the same thing. Living and acting and loving and caring, like Christ would. Let's keep that in mind this week, and maybe we'll get some miracles done. 

I love you!

Elder Christensen

Sept 30

What a week!

Phew! This week was busy. Between a couple trips to Montréal for meetings (and to get our car fixed), a service project or two in the ward, companion exchanges, and the REST of the insanity of every day missionary life, I think I can say it honestly.

I'm pooped.

But it's a good kind of pooped. :)

I learned a good lesson this week, a lesson that Dad tried to teach me once actually! I remember, a year or two before I came out here, when Dad was out of job one winter, he would shovel snow. For everyone. All over the neighbourhood. I'd leave for school in the morning, and he'd be shoveling, and if it snowed during the day he'd be at it again when I came back. I remember being really proud that my Dad wasn't a couch potatoe, or depressed about not being able to find work, but that he was out helping people and being productive, so I asked him why he did it. What he told me then was 'son, there are some things in life you just can't control, and it doesn't do any good to sit around and brood about them. All we can do is do our best to help someone else's day go better, and leave the rest to God.' 

Words of Wisdom from the mouth of a.... well, not a babe, but still! That's the lesson the Lord repeated to me this week. My companion and I were a little frustrated this Thursday as we were planning for the week. We just hadn't had the TIME between everything we'd been trying to do to see everyone we needed to see. Things kept coming up, Somebody in the district or the ward needed help, our leaders called and asked us to do something, we just felt like a lot of things were getting in the way of our responsability to, you know, do missionary work! We just felt like we had too many demands on our time, and we couldn't get everything done that we needed too. So, Sunday as we walked in to Church, God told us not to worry about it. We had two people three non-members come to church this week that we didn't know. One of them was invited by a member of a different church and came to the wrong place, the other two were invited by members of our church, from different wards. It was nuts.

As we were running around trying to meet and greet the newcomers, while still keeping track of OUR investigators that had come, I could feel the voice of the Lord tell me 'Just do the best you can, and take care of the people around you. I'll make sure the work continues'.

So. That was my aha moment of the week. :) Let's all do our best this week just to do what we can, 'then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance to see the salvation of God, and to see his arm revealed.' Doctrine and Covenants 123:17 (I think)

I love you all! Have a good week!

 

Love, 

Elder Christensen

 

Sept 23

Another Week, Another Miracle

Man. This week was nuts. We had to do two splits this week, so tuesday and wednesday were just sort of a blur..... but all week long was sort of a blur. All I really remember is falling into my bed every night and dragging myself back out every morning. But, it was super great.

One of the formers that we looked up right when  I got here took off for a vacation in Mt. Tremblant last week and was going to be gone until october, but he called us on tuesday to let us know that he'd been reading his scriptures and praying every day and couldn't resist the urge to come back down and keep meeting with us. When he came to Church on Sunday all the members remembered him and were super stoked he was back, and he bore his testimony in priesthood meeting! 'Cette fois-ci, j'suis la jusqu'à la confirmation!' 'This time, I'm here until my confirmation!' It was pretty cool. :)

After that miracle, we had another miracle! A pot-luck! Pot-lucks are always miracles. The potluck was a huge success, we had a few less-actives, a few non-members, and almost all of the members. Sometimes I feel like we overlook the importance of the members in all of this work. We always talk about how many less-actives came out, which investigators made it, and sometimes the poor members get overlooked. The active members coming to church activities is more important than anything else, because if they don't come, the activity doesn't happen. Part of our ward's mission plan is to have a meaningful activity each month that people can invite their friends out to (non-member or inactive, etc.), and it's been going super well. Seeing all these great members come out to all these great activities kind of reminded me how little effort I would make back home to come out to Church activities..... A lot of work and a lot of prayers go into these things! I never thought about that before. Anyways, just food for thought.

Next week we've got President Patrick coming to visit our Ward Council, and we're super excited! We'll let you know how it goes.

I love you everybody!

-Elder Christensen