Time is a Valuable Thing

Look who's back again!! (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) 

Hello my peeps!! I really can't believe I'm writing again!! The time just shoots by here. Ha, kind of. The way Elder Quinney put it, every day is a week and every week is a day. Sometimes it feels like time is going by so slow, but at the same time, when the end of the week rolls around, you have no idea where the rest of it went!! Anyway, I'll move on!!

It was a very good week this week!! To start us off, last week after emailing, I got my first ever haircut in the Philippines. It was different. But, at least as far as I can tell, it turned out pretty well!! I prefer my dad's work, but my hair isn't easy to cut, so I give the man full marks. 

And then, exchanges! Elder Quinney and I did exchanges with the Zone Leaders this week. One of my favorite elders is one of my zone leaders, Elder Freuan. He's from New Zealand. I know I've talked about him before, cuz he's awesome. Well, yes, he worked with me. We had a blast of a day. He's super awesome. He came in and taught my people like he'd been teaching them for weeks. He's way nice. All the people loved him. We had a very successful, yet fun day. And the man appreciated my cooking. Score. He ate balut. I was going to with him, but we decided I'd better do it my first time with my trainer. But the day is coming. Everyone wants me to eat it. Yuck. 

So, really quick, you may have heard that people can just "go", whenever and wherever they want to here. I've seen people randomly stop to relieve themselves on the side of the road. But the whole whenever and wherever thing made itself so much more real to me this week. We are teaching one of our more poor sisters. 2 cinderblock walls and some metal across the two as a roof. She's holding her son. Mid-lesson, he re-adjusts himself on her lap and just pees right there on the floor. Hahahaha! OH my goodness! I almost died! But I somehow held in the laughter. Thank goodness. So funny though. 

So we found several new investigators this week. Randomly. And so much with the Lord's help. The best is that we go along the same road almost everyday. The kids have been talking to us and they'll follow along the road with us. We have one in particular that really started talking to us and following us everywhere on that road. He told us to talk to his family. Then he came to church with us yesterday and brought 2 friends. We met his family after and their families and hopefully will have some new people to teach! We never have investigators or usually many less actives at church. But yesterday we had a bunch of investigators and LA's show up!! It was soo cool! We got out two more baptismal dates yesterday. So we have 4 that we are shooting for right now. It's way exciting! 

We have one less active that is trying to help us get a new investigator. The only problem is....she's less active! Not exactly the example you want for an investigator. And we were pretty sure that she had a word of wisdom problem and that she was having that problem while she was with the investigator! Geesh! So, we had a lesson with her this week, about the word of wisdom! It was so good! She told us she was just waiting for that lesson. She talked about how much struggle she's had since the last missionaries stopped visiting her. We got her all cleared up and we're trying to help her with it. Checking with her every day. She'll be better in no time! She's way willing to change. Which is good. Usually here, people are fine to accept our commitments, they just don't keep them. They don't really have a desire to change or they don't understand why it's important to keep commitments. So we've been trying to help them understand. And we've been seeing some good things coming from that! 

The people here are so great! They are all way nice. They are patient with my less than lousy Tagalog. And they are way willing to help us out. The youth here are awesome! We get one with us almost every single day! We can wake them up and they'll come with us. We can get them any time! They are so good! And of course, as a result, they will be rocking missionaries! We really are so blessed here! 

It's amazing how sometimes during lessons, we will have a plan. And either the people will say something that gives us an easy set up for a different topic, or we will just feel the need to teach something else. It worked out several times this week. The Lord truly works miracles for you if you are prepared! 

We had a lesson with a less active. He was worried because he was feeling bad about repentance. We didn't want to get into that. But he said he's been working with the bishop on repentance. But he wasn't sure if he had done it properly because the temptation kept coming back. Luckily, the guy speaks pretty decent english, so I was able to add to that conversation. We were able to help him understand that Satan will tempt you even if you've repented. He will keep trying to breach that weak place in your armor. We shared the scripture about the Lord being able to make our weaknesses become strengths. We told him to just keep studying the scriptures and praying, especially in times of temptation. Apparently, that's been going very well for him. I was glad we could help. 

More priesthood blessings every week. Everyone here wants you to pray for them. The people with less gospel knowledge especially. They think that we are more righteous and that the Lord will bless them more if we pray for them. Ha, we've had to explain that one a few times. But there are just a lot of opportunities to bless people here. It's awesome! 

We are officially moving into rainy season! It has been raining here every day! Last night was especially wet. It rained on us on and off through the day and all night long. We were in a rush to get home on time and my name tag jumped ship. We didn't notice til we got home. Unfortunately, it's quite gone. Blast. So I'm wearing my P-day magnetic tag which just doesn't look as nice. Sad day. But it rained all through the night. Really hard. I don't remember if I mentioned the construction on our house? But they were building an addition on the back for our kitchen. We moved the kitchen out and it's been really nice! We seem to have a ton of space now. But, we woke up this morning to a very flooded kitchen. They goofed somehow with the gutters and they overflowed in to the kitchen. We had about 4 inches of water in our kitchen. So we spent the morning taking care of that. But then we had a lovely pancake breakfast. Love it! We are moving soon though, so we will hopefully not have to worry about the flooding kitchen. 

Anyway, time is up here. But it was a wonderful week. This is definitely the Lord's work. And he is here with us. There is a scripture in Jacob, in the parable of the vineyard. I read it this week. It talks about the Lord of the vineyard sending his servant and some other laborers to work. It says they did all he commanded them and they were obedient in all things. And the Lord of the vineyard labored with them. He is definitely laboring here with us as we are obedient in all things. It is always important to be obedient in all things. Even the small things. The Lord can only bless you as much as you allow Him to through your obedience and faith and hard work. There was another scripture I read this week. Maybe the end of jacob? But the Nephites put all their trust in the Lord and were obedient. And then they fortified their cities and were able to come off conquerors over the Lamanites. We can have faith but we still have to do the work as though we are going at it alone. And then the Lord will bless us. We can't expect to sit back and let Him do the work because we have faith in Him. We still have to work. But if we have faith, and if we work, being obedient in all things, then He will bless us. He surely is blessing us here. I love the work and the people! Now just for the stinkin Tagalog!! 

Have a wonderful week! I love you all!!

Much love, 

Elder Christensen