With chainsaws ...
Hello all, this week was a fun one.
It was me and Elder R's first week and it was a good start. On
Monday or Tuesday, whichever one, I got all the birthday cards.
I'm
not sure if I told y'all or not but someone tried to peel off the
apartment mail box so it's broken. We now have to pick our mail up at
the post office so it takes a little longer for me to get mail. But
boy was it fun to have 6 birthday cards waiting for me. Y'all are
awesome! Loved it and love y'all.
Some highlights from this week:
Our zone got iPads!! It is soooo cool. I have every ensign going back
to 1971 and every conference talk going back to 1973 all on this nifty
little thing. It makes studies faster. But it is making me a tad lazy.
Now when I use normal scriptures I don't even want to look up cross
references I will just get my iPad to do it. Only downfall. We are
going to have a zone conference on the 16th and learn more about how
to study with them. It will be great.
On Wednesday we helped some members of our ward pack up their
apartment and move it all into a truck. I have been sick this past
week and wasn't feeling to good but felt like we really needed to go.
Thankfully we did because we were the only ones there for a while
before bishop showed up. We really can be the answer to others prayers
when we decide to listen to the spirit. Along those lines we also went
on Saturday to a small town about 67 miles away from where we live in
San Antonio to help with flood clean up. We never see the news but
apparently we have had some really bad flooding and peoples houses
were picked up off the foundation and carried away.
But we got up at 5
and got ready then went over to a members house who offered to give us
a ride. When we got to the meet up location we got these cute little
jerseys to put on that said Mormon helping hands. Then we went to the
next meet up spot and got our assignment. They broke the groups up by
wards so we were the 1st ward group. Our assignment was tree clean up.
We went and helped people who requested help. The water picked up
debris and trees and carried it and it ended up stuck in people's
trees and yards with no way of getting rid of it. So we went in with a
bobcat and chainsaws and cleaned it up. Very fun.
We all felt unified
by the end of the day in getting the job done. It was a pleasure to
serve alongside such wonderful people. We might do it again next
weekend, we will see! Some people were assigned to house demolition
where poor people lost everything in the floods and their house was
destroyed. That would be rough.
But we got done with one house then
drove up the road to see if the group next to us needed the bobcat.
They did but when we got out of the car this lady was standing there
and asked us are you here to help me? We weren't but we helped her
anyways and she bought us lunch and when we were all standing there
when we were done she said I was just praying that someone would come
and help me. It was sweet. So many opportunities to help others if we
just look outside ourselves.
I was thinking the other day about Christ and how inadequate words are
to express our testimonies of Him. The spirit can speak where words
cannot. So something I am going to start studying is how to bear a
powerful testimony of Christ through the spirit. There is a verse in
the bible, sadly I don't know where, but it says if a man testifies of
Christ it is through the spirit. So if we testify of Christ it
automatically has power from the spirit. Cool scripture.
How grateful we should all be for the gospel. I take it for granted
but I am beginning to see how precious it truly is.
Just the simple
truths of the gospel are incredibly powerful. For example: we have a
living prophet on the earth today, God is our Father, Jesus is the
Christ, He is the Son of God, God speaks to man today, prayer works,
God loves us, He knows us, etc, etc.
Those small things that we take for granted have affected us so deeply
and how deeply they can affect the lives of others if we would only
share them. Seek to obtain my word, then we can share it, because we
know it and love it!
Love you all! Have a great week!
Elder Christensen
Do Good Stuff
