The Color Code ...

Hello my lovelies! It has been another wonderful, hard, missionary
week for me. No place I would rather be. A mission has really helped
me be excited for the future.

The reason I am so late in writing today is because, oh wait, I can't
tell you yet. You will just have to wait and see!

Monday - p-day, we played basketball and emailed. It was a good,
relaxing day. We met with the Domino family again. We went over the
gospel of Jesus Christ using 2 Nephi 31. That is a beautifully simple
chapter that tells us His teachings. Nothing like the Book of Mormon.
We then went and stopped by some people we wanted to visit but no
luck.

Tuesday - We had a zone conference. A zone conference is when a couple
zones get together and have a meeting directed by the Assistants to
the President and the Lead Sister Training leaders, and of course the
mission President. Mission president gave us some good direction on
how to improve our studies in the morning. Very helpful. But the main
theme was baptism. In PMG it says we are supposed to find those that
are prepared to receive our message, the message of the restoration.
The only way to do that is to invite them to be baptized. That was my
biggest take away, so I will be working on that. That went till about
4 and then we went out and proselyted. The only lesson we had Tuesday
was with Glenda. I love visiting with them but it might be time to
move on.

Wednesday - I had exchanges on Wednesday and this time I went with
Elder Cruz. Him and his companion are doing much better. We went and
worked, stopped by a referral, a lady that ordered a bible, and read a
chapter with her and she expressed to us that she wants to find the
true church. Pretty cool! We introduced the BoM and then set up
another appointment to come back. We then went and stopped by some
people in hopes that we could meet with them. Dinner was at 5 with the
good ol' Morins. They made us some yummy Mexican food which I have
come to love. After that we went and had a lesson with some ladies in
our ward. They lost her records and she wants to be baptized again so
we are working with her. Should be incredibly easy. They live out in
the country a little ways. They are awesome! Both 60+ and live in a
nice RV on 15 aces of land. They take care of it themselves and its
impressive. Every once in a while we go and help them with whatever it
is they need. After that we went back by the Morins and picked up the
leftovers. I must say I have been incredibly lucky to stay in an area
for 7 months. I know the people in the ward and they know me, I am
part of the family!

Thursday - Weekly planning. I just realized you probably don't know
what that is. It's just what it sounds like, we plan for the upcoming
week! We plan lessons we want to teach, things we want to do to find
new people, plan for baptisms, etc. After that we had our scripture
study class. 2 successful ones in a row! Then we went and worked for
an hour.

Friday - I don't think much happened on Friday. We went by some
referrals that we received and dropped off items. Invited them to
church and learn more about what we teach. Some said they would like
to come to church others said no thanks. Just one step in the right
direction, one step closer to the gospel. I think we finished up all
the referrals we had gotten which was an accomplishment. We then had
dinner at the Brown home again. Nice people.

Saturday - This day was supposed to be busy, but alas, 'twas not so.
It was busy, but all of our appointments fell through. We figured
there was some place else we needed to be. We went and stopped by a
less active in the ward. They have serious health issues and have a
hard time coming to church. They weren't up for meeting so we walked
around their neighborhood a little bit. We ran into a couple people
and had great conversations with them. One was a younger guy in his
late 20's that had lots of questions. He didn't want to take the
lessons but he seemed very interested. We will stop by later this week
and see if we can teach him. We pretty much taught him the
restoration, not in a formal setting though. Just standing. It was
fun, I enjoy talking about the gospel. We then talked to an older
black gentleman who liked us because we were "fellow Christians," we
get that a lot. We then had Derek's baptismal interview, so he will be
baptized this Saturday. He's so excited, he's been trying to get
baptized for the past 3 years but has ran into roadblocks. He came to
church on Sunday and we had recently taught him about tithing. We were
standing by the door and he comes up and says I made 20 dollars but I
only have the 20 dollar bill but who do I give it to when I have it?
For an 11 year kid he is very ready and very excited. The gospel makes
life so good.

Sunday - We had breakfast over at Bro. Forrest's house, our ward
mission leader. He's a funny guy. We teach the gospel doctrine class
so we then went home and got our lesson ready. Went to church, I love
church. I didn't go last Sunday and it felt so empty. Life without
religion is an empty life indeed. It's a good reminder that everything
is just fine. We met with the Lomas family. Jessica is still very
excited for baptism and it's going to be very soon! Excited for that.

Now, for the fun stuff. Today a lady in Mission Creek ward invited us
and her wards missionaries to go to the zoo and other fun stuff. It
was so fun. Her husband is a top layer for the military so she then
took us to her home which is on base and took us to this funny names
place. She told us all we needed was celery. So we went to the store,
bought celery, cut it up, put it into plastic bags, and then walked
over. We get in there and it's a big open courtyard with peacocks,
turkeys, geese, and ducks all over. So we fed celery and carrots to
the birds. So odd, but so funny. It was bizarre. All of the birds
would eat it out of your hands and were not scared. She then got us
some watermelon and sent us on our way. I will make sure to include
pictures!

All I have to say is the church is true, the gospel is real and very
true, the atonement is real, and we are all children of a loving God.
Life is good when you live the gospel!

I love y'all, have a great week!

Elder Christensen
Do Good Stuff

We went in this aviary place to feed some birds and the birds attacked
us. They scraped my head!