From the Mom...

It seems unreal to me that we have just posted Dallin's final email from the mission field.  What a great ride this has been.  I am so proud of him.  And I am so excited to have him home.  I cried as I wrote to him yesterday, I cried as I read his letter, and I am sure that I am not done with the tears.  The finale is always a mixed bag.  Thanks to any of you that have shared this adventure with us.

As my son Matt always says...Peace out!

2014-03-17 "The Last Melon..."

There goes our last female. 

Holy smokes. I don't know what happened. Time is just cruising. But you already know all about that. You are all counting. So we won't even talk about it, eh? 

We have had a good week. We had a less active family....well wait. They are recent converts that then quickly went less active. They also haven't been letting the missionaries in. But we went and took the second counselor in the bishopric with us this week. They let us in. Thanks to our second counselor, we were able to resolve their concern and teach them about the temple. They are willing to let the missionaries in and come back to church and fulfill their callings. It was a really good experience! 

One day, we were trying to find a less active family that we've never met before. We knocked on their door, but no one was home. While we were waiting for someone to answer, a lady came by selling delicious banana stuff. We chatted her up for a minute and she said, "Oh, you seem like you would be wonderful to talk to, but I have to keep working" and then she started to walk off. We stopped her and said we'd love to come visit her at her house. We got her address and she invited us back that night. We went and taught her and her daughter. She also has a husband that we will teach and a son. While we were there, her neighbor came by for something. She asked the nanay who we were. She said, "Christians", to which her friend replied, "Whew, I thought they were Mormons". Haha, we told her right away that we were both. Wish you could have seen the look on her face. She has had some other religions visiting her that have said some not nice things about us. But we invited her to sit and listen in. She loved our lesson and wants us to continue to teach her. Hopefully, things will go well with them!

We also were able to have a baptism this week. Xedric is the boys name. And his sister's name is Xednyph. Awesome, eh? They are both young and with their baptisms, the family is complete! Now we are looking to help them get to the temple! 

We have some recent converts that we are still visiting. They are getting into member missionary work and working all kinds of miracles for us. Don't forget that as members we play a huge role in the missionary work. Invite your friends, and your neighbors and everyone else to listen to the message of the Restoration! They all need it. 

Pics. We have a sunset. Love em still. Then we have a pic from our baptism. Yes!!! Then is me and some kids, "riding a jeep". I'm still such a child at heart. Us with some of our ward missionaries. And the stake high councilman? Or is it the one without him? Don't know. The icons are small. Me and my good buddy Elder Azuela outside of SM. He is headed back to Tacloban. Lunch at our apartment. Mostly fish. Sardines for me. I realized that I had hardly taken any pics in this area. So my companion and I decided that we had to take pictures every day!! So far, it's been a success. 

I am quite out of time today. Gotta get moving. It is my last email. So....guess I'll see you all soon? Can't believe how fast the time has gone. It's been such a blessing to serve the people here in the Philippines these last two years. I'm pretty sure the blessing has been bigger for me than for anybody else. I'll miss the people here so much. But, we'll carry on in the work over there and wherever else we go. So no need for a big long farewell thing. We will talk about it some other time. Keep working hard over there!! Love you all!!

Much love, 

Elder Christensen 

2014/03/09 "The Storm Will Soon Pass"

Alright, first one to guess that quote gets 100 pesos!! Which in reality, isn't that much. But hurry get it! 

Wow. We have to hurry. I have 10 minutes. And a few more emails to do. Patay. 

Ok. Speed email. Sorry! Ha, i know you are so sick of those! 

But this week was awesome. We moved on Wednesday. That was quite an adventure that ended up with us taking a trip to the emergency room. And by us I mean me and on the the couple missionary elders. Who doesn't speak Tagalog. It was an adventure! But I'll tell you about it some time in the next few weeks instead. Our new house is beautiful. 

Thursday consisted of a meeting with the mission leaders. That was fabulous. 

We had some sweet lessons this week. No new investigators, which is a bummer. But next week we have no weird meetings or house movings or anything! Should be awesome! Our good man Xedric is all on for baptism next saturday with his sister and an investigator from the other elders in our ward. Woohoo!! Yay for baptisms!! Ah! Running out of time! 

We made 78 sandwiches this morning for our p-day activity. PBnJ folks. Oh yes. Delicious. 

Also. I'm out of time. Sorry! But I must be off. Have some pics. 

Pics. The first is our church, with the catholic church in the background. Nice touch, eh? Then a few from our service project. And I never get tired of sunset pics. So, another one of those. 

Bear with me folks. One more email. You can do it!!!

Love you all! Have a fabulous week!

Much love, 

Elder Christensen

2014/03/03 "Working hard or hardly working..."

That's what I always say! Shrek folks, it's shrek. I hope you can all still keep up with me. Well, it's been a good week. My shoes have lost a considerable amount of rubber off of the sole. And you know that means good things. I don't know if I have mentioned yet, because my last few emails have been, well, they've been non-existent. Sorry about that! But! We walk sooo much here! It's incredible! And there is so much work to do! We have no time to mess around. Usually no time to take pictures. No time to do anything but walk and teach! It's been insane! We are definitely wearing ourselves out over here. It's been great!

Our area is not as beautiful as matt's. No beach here. But we do have plenty of open space that is super nice! We are not in the city. But we live within about 15 minutes. It's pretty where we are. But we work mainly in just subdivisions. Great place! And letting me work off all the excessive....padding I've put on. Awesome!

The work here is awesome. The zone is doing great. Lots of hard working missionaries. We are doing well in our area. The only thing is with everything being so spread, we only get to see people about once a week. If they are home. If we miss them....AH! Makes for slow progression. But progress not the less. 

I will try to get you some happenings from the week. But everything is blurring together a bit. The time is flying so fast! I suppose I'll go backwards. Because I definitely remember today. First, we went and got fingerprinted. Now, let me tell you, the immigration office is crazy. Lots of white folks there. Lots of people that want to bash with you. We get targeted pretty quickly. But it can make for an interesting experience. Lots of chances to share the gospel. Then they slapped our hands in some ink and sent us away! Hopefully, we won't go back!

Yesterday, we had a bunch of less actives come to church and a few investigators. Our one investigator is named Xedric. And his sister's name is Xednyph. Yeah, don't ask. They are way cool though. Just young kids. Xednyph is 8 and will be baptized with her brother who is our investigator, hopefully next week. They are super cool. Their mom is solid. And they have a dad who is less active. He works in Dubai and is only here for 2 months, every two years. Life is tough. But they are an awesome family. They came to church and we were able to teach them afterward. The kids are brilliant. And they understand everything. Awesome. We went and taught their family this week and we asked them about another family that was on the records of the church. We went and found them. Active pala sila. They turned out to be the home teachers for 2 other LA families that live near by. And they own a jeep and can now drive the 2 LA families to church. So that turned out to be a blessing for us all. 

We've been spending a lot of time trying to help bishop clean up the CMIS for our ward. They haven't updated it for a long time. So we've been going through our area, looking for all of the families on the list. Finding people that have moved out or died and what not. No joke, we found one house and asked about the tatay that lived there. He's been dead for 8 years. So. Yeah. We've got a lot of work to do with the CMIS! But it is a wonderful opportunity to find new investigators! We spent a few hours on Wednesday cleaning up one of the parts of our area. We found a lot of things that needed to be corrected and were able to find TONS of people to teach! We have about 10 follow up appointments in that one area alone this week. OYMing people, it turns out, is way fun! 

On Saturday, we had a service project where we went and helped clean up trash in a barangay. That was awesome! I have pics later. And another opportunity to find people to teach. I think we talked with just about everyone we saw. It was awesome!

We have a recent convert that we've been teaching. She is progressing so well. She's only been a member a few months, but she has already gone and done a ton of family history work for her family! We went to teach her this week. And she invited her two neighbors over to sit in on the lesson!! Brilliant! If we could only help our members do that! The one liked the message of the restoration so much, that she decided she wanted to be baptized. We didn't even commit her. She wasn't sitting in with us. But we ended up giving her a pamphlet at the end and when we came back the next day, she said she wanted to be baptized. Awesome. 

Anyway. I'm going to run out of time to send personal emails. Just thought I'd get off a real email to the fam this week for once. Hope it's decent. We're killing it over here. Might burn right through my shoes and come home wearing nothing but socks! Yeehaw! I wish you all the best this week and hope you have much inspiration for your missionary work! 

Pictures. Well. There are a few of the area. And the service project. And....I think that's all I put up. 

Have a great week!

Much love, 

Elder Christensen

2014/02/24 Hey There

Yep, you guessed it. no time again. But the work is rolling on as usual. I promise to email something real next week! I think. I have a few pics....but only a few. NO time for pics. Too much work. AHH! The computer is being dumb!!! No time. sorry. next week na lang. love you all! 

Dallin

2014/02/19 "And you are wearing...HIS MERCHANDISE!"

Hey there folks. Well, it's 5 minutes na lang today. So i have to write fast. Sorry. just the way it goes. But I'll be back on Monday, so I suppose it's all good. Yikes, and I just gave up some more minutes to add pics. Sorry! Super lame. Basically, you'll have to ask mother for info. Cuz i have to go. Pics. We really had no time for pics. But one is my comp and a ward missionary in our area. And then I think just us at lunch today. No time there. sorry. We are working really hard. OUr area is really cool. OUr bishop is the best. So masipag. And we have some great people that we are teaching. But more on that next week! Love you all and hope you're doing good! Take care!!

much love, 

Elder Christensen