Special thanks to the angel in Texas who sent this photo to me via text! Made my day ...
Elder Christensen and Elder Acor
San Antonio, Texas
:)
Monday, April 27, 2015
A photo via text -
Special thanks to the angel in Texas who sent this photo to me via text! Made my day ...
Elder Christensen and Elder Acor
San Antonio, Texas
:)
4-27-15 *in crazy Ezma voice* AAA LLAMA?!? HES SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!!
Howdy y'all!
I have not heard one person with a southern accent yet and I am disappointed! Apparently I need to get out of the city in order for that to happen.
Anyways, this week was long! I don't know why but it just was so thank heavens its p-day!
I think the re-occurring thing I learned this week was my role and purpose as a missionary. They pound this into your brain and they try and give you a head start to understand this in the MTC ... but I think I am finally starting to get it. I am learning grace for grace. I also spent a lot of my personal study this week trying to understand the nature of God and our true relationship to Him. It is so strange how we as humans don't learn unless we are forced to.
On my mission I am forced to learn and confront what I believe and truly know. I have expressed this thought in past emails but it fits here too. We can know something, the info can be in our minds but we don't truly know. We don't truly understand how this bit of knowledge fits into the puzzle. We do not see how this knowledge applies to us. I think knowledge applied to self is wisdom. Well knowledge applied to self is the beginning of wisdom because once you see how it applies to self you can apply it to the world and all that you do. And that's one aspect of God's nature.
He has all the knowledge and He knows how to use it and apply it to all things. Therefore making Him the wisest of the wise. So anyways I was studying my relationship to God and His character and it just made me have more questions. Trying to understand God's nature is ridiculous and I referenced some conference talks and they pretty much said as we keep the commandments and understand the relationship between the Father and the Son we will begin to understand who They are and who we are to Them. If anyone has any ideas on this topic please share your knowledge! But there is an excellent talk by Holland called the Grandeur of God. I recommend it!
I am often overwhelmed by how much I have to understand. Its truly incredible! I think that's going to be my personal goal this week. To constantly strive for revelation. I am learning that the carnal mind and self cannot learn these things. I think Doctrine and Covenants gives us the answer in 121:45. Look it up, I am too lazy to write it out.
Central to our ability to learn is Christ. I need to and we all need to have faith that these things will be revealed to us. I guess patience is key aye?
Oh this is always a problem, I cannot remember what happened this past week!!!
We did ride our bikes again which was super fun. I love riding bikes and hopefully I get put in at least one bike area. Something about it just puts you on the same plane as other people. People begin to see you as real people, but whenever we use the car we seem to be like robots or something. I don't know. But it was fun.
There is this thing called Festival going on right now which is pretty much like a week long party so we did not have a lot of success trying to stop by people because no one was home. Which was fine, we stopped by a members house to get some water. Hes a nice guy, he always gives us HEB gift cards and helps us out when ever we ask.
We bought a ton of food last p-day. I have not had to learn how to budget for myself yet which is probably a curse but its made this whole money thing easy. Me and Elder A live the law of consecration so normally we just buy meal food and then make something together. Its fun, I enjoy cooking with him and making food.
We also some how got viral infections. We both had coughs last week but instead of taking it easy and resting so we did not get sick we did the opposite. So on Saturday me and Elder A called sister s (The Mission Mom) because we had no idea what was going on and she pretty much told us not to leave the apartment so we listened. That was a long, long day. I cannot believe that I would do that all the time before I left on my mission. Sitting still and doing nothing for long hours at a time is painful to say the least.
So we got sick this week, rode bikes, tried to find some new investigators which continues to be a struggle. But the members in the ward are starting to feed us dinner a lot more which is appreciated. It is starting to become very humid here. It was 87 and 98% humidity the other day. Can you saw ew? It was bad.
Aaron is still going strong. He is trying to help his wife see how the gospel will bless her and how she needs it. He said he has been taking a step back and letting her come to it instead of forcing it on her and its working. So we will meet with her and teach her the lessons. They have a wonderful family and I hope they come back.
Kenneth and Jeannie have kind of dropped off the radar. They were ready for baptism but some complications arose so we had to wait. I don't know I am a little worried about them and I hope they come to their senses. But whatever happens happens.
We also taught a new guy this week named Kenneth. He requested a bible and we went over and asked him if we could teach him as well and he said yes. So we taught the restoration and invited hi to read the BoM. He did when we went back but his wife is hesitant so hopefully he will come to church regardless of what his wife thinks. So many individual trials people go through to come to the knowledge of the gospel. I am so glad we have a loving Heavenly Father who is aware of these peoples needs and concerns.
We also taught a guy named Jordan this week. He is a lost guy in his 20's who is looking for some guidance so we went over and taught the restoration. Hopefully he will read and come to know what we have to share is true.
I continue to become more excited to share the gospel everyday and hopefully you guys are sharing the gospel and your light as well!
I would love to hear from all of you and I do apologize that I don't send letters very often. It just takes a lot of time that I don't have. You don't even need to write me a letter just a short email saying hi would truly be appreciated!
I love you all and I really hope all of you are doing well. Keep on keepin on!
Elder Christensen
4-20-15 / The Lamanites are CERTAINLY Blossoming
Hello wonderful friends and family!
Some cool stuff happened this week. At the beginning of the week I was having a harder time because I wasn't sure if what we were doing was making any difference in the lives of others so I said a prayer for the ability to see God leading us and to see His hand in the work. Heavenly Father answers prayers.
The other day Aaron (Monday) we were going to take Aaron with us to a lesson. So we were texting him and such trying to get it set up and it ended up being that he couldn't go. Well I was like I can just ask him how his Book of Mormon reading is going. He says its going well and that hes on 1st nephi 5. I thought oh cool he is almost to chapter 8 so I told him that chapter 8 is a good one. Then we go and meet with him on Wednesday and this is where it gets cool. So we sit down and he was excited about something but we weren't sure what and so he says I have something I wanted to tell you guys. At this point I am pretty sure an awesome spiritual experience story is coming so I am all ears! I don't feel like its appropriate to explain it so I wont but it has something to do with 1st Nephi chapter 8. And then he brings up that he was looking at paintings of this subject and he wished that someone could paint it according to his experience. Well what are the odds! The Lord's hand is truly in our lives even if we do not see it. I was prompted to ask him about his reading and certainly prompted to bring up Chapter 8. So when I get home I am going to paint this for him and give it to him as a super late baptism present. So that pretty much made my week. So it turns out the Lord does know what He is doing! Imagine that?
Cool seeing the Lord's hand in our lives story 2. So Elder A is really good at remembering addresses. So he punches in the name of a street because he cant remember exactly what house it is. So we go to that street walk down the street and look for the house we were looking for. We couldn't find it but as we were walking back to the car I had a subtle thought that we needed to do something else here. So we kept walking and out walks a sister from our ward. She is a sweet lady and asked us if we wanted to come inside. We would of probably said no but all of a sudden I needed to pee really, really bad so I just asked if I could use her restroom. We ended up listening to her husband Jerry who needed to talk. He loves the missionaries but hes an old catholic guy. Total old-timer who is a ww2 vet. He talked and we listened and then we left. Apparently Jerry needed a visit that day. Listening to people is such a simple way to serve and I am glad that the Lord loves me and all of His children enough to allow me to have these kind of experiences.
But about the title. All the religious Hispanics around here are so humble, gentle and incredibly spiritual. Every time they talk about gospel related material I am just in awe. They are powerful because they are humble. So impressive!
We taught a few restoration lessons this week and hopefully people will read and pray. Its un-worldly that a book can bring so much peace and joy. This work is definitely hard and mentally challenging. Parts of you are exposed to yourself that you have to confront and it is hard. But as we have faith in Christ we can overcome and become strong. Its like a broken bone. Its broken but as we turn to a cast, Christ, then the bone can heal. As we turn to Christ our cracks will heal but be stronger than before. Having faith is hard but it is the anchor to our souls. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Every day I begin to see more and more that I am weak but God is not, and God is in me.
I love the hymn Master, the Tempest is Raging.
Monday, April 13, 2015
4/13/15 - Who even has a pet turkey?
So one transfer is gone already! How its been 6 weeks already I don't know but it has.
I know I have said this before but I really can't remember last Monday. So I will talk about stuff that I do remember.
The past 2 days we have had some awesome lightning, thunder, and rain. Today we have a darker rainy sky with the sun shining. Its a cooler day today. So we have a miles limit for the month and we get 1200 miles a month. They were cut this week; normally we have 1375 but it was cut 175 miles so we were over our daily mileage. Hopefully this is making sense. So the other day we tried riding our bikes but that lasted about an hour before we gave up. We weren't quite sure what to do when we needed to walk around. Here in Texas people love to strip bikes or just steal them. So I was a little hesitant about locking my bike to the church. I like riding my bike though! It was a good change from the car.
On p-days our normal schedule is email at the library, get food at the glorious HEB, go back the apartment and put food away, play basketball for 4-5 hours or play board games and write letters. We were going to go to the San Antonio art museum last Monday but its closed on Mondays. Lame! We visited with a family yesterday though that was saying there is another museum somewhere close to here that has some Monets and Renoirs. We might have to check that out. I kind of suck everyone into it but they are good sports about it. We have a washing machine in our apartment so its easy to do laundry. We occasionally eat fast food and we haven't played soccer yet :(
The other week we had a turkey follow us around a neighborhood as we walked around. It walked in front of us and tried to cut us off. Who even has a pet turkey they let wander around in the front yard? Apparently that guy.
The highlight of this week would be A's baptism on Saturday! It went very well. He was excited and it was a process for him. I think when things are harder to achieve its that much more rewarding. He had the biggest smile when he was baptized. There was such a tender, humble spirit there. I hope he continues on the path that hes on and we will continue to help him do so.
Sometimes I question if I am truly serving anyone. I often think of service as temporal service. But it is truly the gospel that we serve people in a way that cant be done any way else. Everyone needs what we have to offer. We have the key to exaltation! The more we know about the gospel and scriptures the more we can be an instrument in the Lord's hands. The stronger our conversion to Christ the more we can help others come unto Him. I didnt realize how central Christ is to what we believe. He truly is everything!
Elder A shared a good insight with me the other day. We were talking about aligning our will with Christ's. Heavenly Father and Christ's purpose is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. My dad had a quote from Monson that talked about when we truly begin to love our fellow brothers and sisters we are on the path to eternal life. These 2 points tie into a general conference talk given last conference titled (I think) Eternal Life: To know God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. If we think about what it means to know someone what does it mean? To understand them. How perfectly will we know Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ if we have the same goal? If we align our will with God's, helping others have eternal life, than we are going to know them PERFECTLY! Once we love those around us we begin to desire their exaltation, once we are filled with charity this becomes our goal and desire and that's God's desire too! I can't say I know the way to gain charity, its hard, its really really hard. But that is how we come to know our Father and Christ, but developing Charity. And once we truly develop charity it won't even become a selfish desire, it will be out of love for others. Which makes eternal life that much sweeter.
Boy do we need the Savior's help in all that we do! He is always there to listen and ready to help. Turn to Him and find rest. I testify that He lives and the world can know it too by reading the Book of Mormon consistently. The more I learn the more I realize the depth of the gospel and the universe. The universe is profound!
I love you all,
Elder Christensen
PS I can only write letters on p-day so it takes me a while to get them done
Monday, April 6, 2015
I can't think of a witty title for this email so this is what you get
4/6/15
Hello friends and family. Another week has come and gone!
Hello friends and family. Another week has come and gone!
I enjoyed conference. All the talks were great and I loved how centered on Christ they were. I loved Eyring's talk about fast offerings. It made me want to do good. I love the apostles and their willingness to serve others, and ultimately Christ.
The sun here is really different than the sun in the tri-cities. It is HOT! But its a beautiful big sun. Its wonderful here. Its growing on me.
I don't think I am supposed to be using last names so I am going to stop. We are struggling to find good, solid investigators at the moment. We have a big pool of potentials but we have a hard time setting up solid appointments with them. Were going to focus on that this week. Focus on finding!
I can see myself becoming more and more converted to Christ and as that happens I stop caring so much about myself. I begin to want to share the gospel with others and help them. I wish people would just accept it! We had a training this week and one of the sentences in Preach My Gospel is if people don't understand than they aren't going to change. If I don't explain why they need to do the thing I am inviting them to do in a way they will understand than they wont do it; they don't see the purpose.
Its almost like begging people to be happy! Yes I see that its hard, I know its hard! But you know, Heavenly Father is probably doing the EXACT same thing to me. Hes probably like, Elder C stop doing that. Cant you see that its hurting your progression and the amount of happiness you can feel?
Our mortal vision is so limited. I am grateful for the Holy Ghost which allows me to understand spiritual things. I have seen that a lot lately. As we resist temptation we show God how much we love Him and how much we want the knowledge that He has.
I love the savior! I am barely starting to see what He has truly done for us. It hit me at general conference. Its funny how we can have the knowledge in our mind but it takes the divine guidance of God to create a path where that information can enter into our hearts. It is only through God's grace that we obtain wisdom.
We write our emails at the library and right next to my computer I can look out the window and look at the beautiful greenery. I love the scripture that says everything denotes there is a Christ. How true! Everything is so profoundly beautiful when looked through the lens of the gospel. No wonder God weeps! Look at all that He has done for us. Let us all strive to be grateful and give praise unto Him.
Love you all, be safe, make the choices that lead to Christ and you will find happiness and peace. We ultimately make the choice. Like 2nd Nephi 2:27 says, we are free to choose eternal life or captivity and death. The Savior has already freed us, I pray that I and all of you will not make decisions that put the bands of death back onto our wrists. And if we do, the Savior is right there for us, ready to reach out and grab us and pull us into eternal life. It is my testimony that the atonement works. Christ lives and He is the redeemer of all men.
Have a wonderful week and choose life through Christ, I beg of you!
Elder Christensen
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