9/21/15 - The Whale Bible and it's still hot -

I realized I did not post this letter. So this is out of order .... Letter from 9/21/15 -
PS: This letter is SO Funny. We laughed until we cried. :) ENJOY.

My dearest friends and family,

Another week has come and gone. I have hit 7 months in the mission
field and this transfer ends next Thursday. We shall find out if I
stay or leave next Tuesday. If I stay, I will be in the SA 1st Ward
for 9 months. Zoo wee mama! That's a long stinking time. But alas, if
I am meant to stay I am meant to stay. I don't think I would mind at
this point. What's another 6 weeks? Not much compared to 7 months. I
love this Ward. It's a good one. Very humble, nice people. And there
is always stuff to do in this area since its massive. We definitely
have had dry spells before but at the moment that is not the case,
knock on wood. 

There are these things called media referrals which are
always fun to get. People will request things on lds.org such as a
bible or BoM or some free movie, and then we get a text saying what
they want, where they live and a phone number if they gave one. About
99.9% of the time people request bibles which is ALWAYS interesting.
If we get a request for a bible it's either a lovely child of God in
the country or in the ghetto. 

We had a wide variety of both this week.
Let me begin....

 1. Katrina. Requested item: Bible, could you also bring me a large
print bible because my husband can't see very well. Thanks!


 This is a complicated order. Step 1, order the giant whale bible from
the mission office. Step 2, wait 2-3 weeks to get the whale bible.
Step 3, pick up the bible the size of a whale, this thing was huge!
Step 4, take the bible to Katrina and her husband. They live over in
Adkins which is about a 30 minute drive. The only time we could go and
take it to them was at about 8 so we set it up with her and then we
were on our way! They were nice people, but interesting. We sat there
and we tried to share something with them and I think we achieved. He
was talking about his come to Jesus moment and we related it to Alma
36 when Alma the younger comes to God and is filled with light. Her
husband loved to share his knowledge about the bible, sometimes he was
right and sometimes wrong, like all of us. But here are two
highlights: Jesus Christ and Satan had a scripture battle and God put
Moses in a cave and then put His hand over the cave entrance so Moses
couldn't get out. Bizarre! Bless his heart. They introduced us to
their talking bird, Paco. They made us tacos, they are in the taco
business, and they gave us water and fruit snacks! Good exchange for
the whale bible if I do say so myself. At first they were a little
nervous about the BoM but they opened up to it a little. They both
took one so hopefully they read it. The gospel is the answer to all
problems, it's awesome! If they turn to it and follow its teachings,
they will find happiness. Oh, the people you meet in the middle of
nowhere in Texas.


 2. Gallon. Requested item: Bible

Plot twist, we meet her and she is wonderful and very nice! She
ordered one for her husband who recently had a bone marrow transplant.
We had a nice conversation and asked if we could say a prayer with
her. She said of course and we said one. People in the south love to
hold hands when praying so this was a hand holding prayer. It's funny.
But if it pleases their hearts than all is well. The spirit was there
and hopefully she felt it and wants that feeling back. She said she
would call us when her husband is feeling better and she would listen.
Hopefully they can hear the message of the restored gospel soon.

3. Antonio. Requested item: BoM in Spanish and Bible

We could not get a hold of this guy. We tried by his house three times
and each time we tried a very old lady would answer the door, say
Antonio was not there, and then talk to us for a while. She liked us
to call her Grandma Julie. Then one night we stopped by at about 8:30,
and this being the ghetto, she was way nervous to answer the door. A
mistake on our part. Anyways, I think she had her daughter answer the
door and she snatched those books from us and that was the end of
that! We will go and stop by a couple more times and see if we can
catch this mysterious Antonio. Hopefully we will be able to, if it's
meant to happen it will.

 4. Jana. Requested item: Bible

She lives out in La Vernia, another small city out in the middle of
nowhere. This one was about 35 minutes away. The country always makes
me a little nervous because I never know who is going to answer the
door or how many dogs they might have. You never know what to expect.
This one was looking like it might be one of those kind of situations.
We knocked a couple times and eventually a younger girl, I imagine her
daughter, opened the door and said she would give it to Jana. Most of
the bible requests don't want to talk to us at all, most of them just
want the free bible, which is fine, the bible will bring them closer
to God too.

Those were our bible requests this week. I guess Katrina was a while
back, we finally got it to her this week though. They were fun to do.


 Next weekend we will have 3 baptisms which will be awesome! So this
week we set up baptismal interviews and what not and worked with the
people that are going to be baptized. Next weekend we have Jessica
Lomas, Claudia, and Michael. All are very ready and prepared! And then
this weekend we had Derrick's baptism, which I will talk about.

Derrick is 11, soon to be 12, and has been trying to get baptized
since he was 8. Due to some family issues he has not been able to do
so. Some stuff changed and worked out so he was able to get baptized.
We taught him the lessons and set him with a date and he was good to
go. He has come a long way since we first met him. But at the baptism
we asked his grandma to say the opening prayer. In her prayer she
thanked God for allowing Derrick to be baptized and having everything
work out. She said she had been praying for this day for a long time.

The spirit was so strong and a lot of people showed up! It was a great
baptism, and afterwards we had cupcakes, juice, and cookies.

A couple of weeks ago we taught him about tithing and told him it was
a commandment that we promised God we would do. That Sunday he came
up to me and said I made 20 dollars but I don't have 2 dollars yet. He
was so excited to pay his tithing. He is very excited to be a part of
a community and be a part of something important. If he Ward gives him
responsibility and helps him feel even more apart of the Ward family
they will have a great new member.

The other day we had dinner with the Allreds. They are awesome! They
live about 40 minutes away in the country close to Floresville. Last
year their house burned down so they built a new one. They have two
young kids and the husband is a nurse. But they were still laughing
and smiling. Nicest people. They have the biggest spiders all over
their front porch. They also have some very fat hens and a couple
dogs. A cool garden too.

On Tuesday we had zone meeting. Me and Elder West gave trainings. The
focus as of late has been inviting people to baptism. The mission in
numbers has gone down in baptisms and the leaders have been worried
about it. It was a great meeting. Going back to basics to figure out
how we can get more people to come unto Christ through baptism. It's
so important that this church is on the earth. Without it we wouldn't
know Christ's true teachings and as a result we wouldn't know what it
is we need to do to return to live with God. Or even know the way we
need to live to have happiness and joy.

I was reading in Helaman 14 the other day. It talks a lot about the
atonement. We often think of the atonement as Christ's suffering in
the garden and on the cross. Central to the atonement is the
resurrection. Without the resurrection we would not be able to be
brought into the presence of God, if we couldn't be brought into the
presence of God we couldn't be assigned a reward for our works. If we
couldn't be assigned a reward we would all be lost. But because there
is a resurrection and we will be brought into the presence of God, we
need a way to be clean when that time comes. The way we become clean
is through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. That happens through
repentance. As we turn to Christ for a remission of sins we can
experience what Enos has felt, what Alma has felt, what anyone that
has turned to Christ has felt. The people of King Benjamin, the
Lamanites, the Nephites; the BoM is a book of repentance and the hope
found in Christ.

Sunday was wonderful. Church is so good and up lifting. No better time
to think of the Savior than during the sacrament. There's a great
Mormon message called Always Remember Him. I would recommend it! Also
a great conference talk on the sacrament called Blessings of the
Sacrament about how we can make it more meaningful.

Anyways, the church is true, Christ lives! And we know that because
Joseph Smith saw God and His Son Jesus Christ. If you don't believe
Joseph, read the BoM, it's evidence that Joseph Smith was telling the
truth.


 Hope y'all have a great week! Share the gospel with your friends, they
will be eternally grateful. They are loved by God too and He wants
them home!



Sincerely,
Elder Christensen
Do Good Stuff

Ps. In the 90's all week....

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!

6/8/15 - Lots of Service!

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

5/24/15 - A tender mercy from Texas ...

Wendy (Kade's mom here) -

I love the kindness of strangers ... I was touched by this photo of Elder Christensen and the little text that came with it:

Dear Sister Christensen, today we were visiting our son in Texas where we ran into your missionary son, serving. I am attaching a sweet photo of him with our precious grandson, named ... Kade Christensen same as your young man! Same spelling and your Elder even pinned his name plate on the perspective Elder. Thought you would enjoy the photo.
Hugs from another Sister C.

THANK YOU!

Double rainbows ...

Right after he opened his call, there were double rainbows in the sky ... Tender mercies from the Lord. :)

Evidence of His love and kindness and HOPE for each one of us!

So excited for you Elder Christensen ... Go and Do!!