3-4-13 The 3 Secrets to French Cuisine...

That would be butter, butter and butter. Which is something I needed to buy this week to make a delicious cake thingy that came from the good old US of A. Birthday cake, pudding, cake thingy. And I am blaming getting fat on the rice? Yeah, think again!

Man, time is flyin. I still feel like I'm fresh out of the MTC. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Amazing grace... No one gets that. Sigh. That's ok. Suits on the Loose yo.

So funny story for all y'all. Our mission president told us that people will not feel the Holy Ghost if they are actively breaking commandments. So as missionaries we need to always be following all the rules in order to be led by the Spirit. No problem. But this week, it had a different meaning for me. We went to teach one of our recent converts. She told us her husband is a missionary for his church, which she also said is a cult. Sweet. So we go visit. She says, "Eh, minor issue, my Mr. is in and he would not like you to visit." Just then, her hubby comes around the corner and says, "Who is that?" She says, "The missionaries." He says, "Cool, cool, come in!" Sweet, he is ok with us teaching his wife. But when we come in, he sits down with us and says, "So what do we do to start?" Oh man, he is sitting in. Hm. Well ok, maybe we'll just hit him with a brief testimony and bounce. But then, he takes things into his own hands. And from 5 feet away where I'm sitting, I can smell the alcohol on his breath. Oh boy. He just starts going to town on us and about how we are false and what not. Oh man. He doesn't leave us with time to answer questions or with time to even stand up and leave. Just goes on and on. And another wonderful bonus is that he isn't speaking Tagalog. The man speaks Visaya, which is a different dialect. So I speak English and Tagalog. My comp speaks Illongo and Tagalog. And this man speaks Visaya and Tagalog. We should all speak Tagalog. But this cat is so excited and smashed that he is just going to town in Visaya. I don't understand most of it, but enough to know that he is just destroying us. I won't go where he went, but I did have a few things learned from the experience. A man that is drunk that wants to fight is not going to feel the Spirit. Even if you were to destroy their religion and all of their questions about your religion, they won't accept the truth. For all who will be serving, if you run into a lovely child of God who is like that, just bounce! Not only did we not help this man in any way, we also completely lost the feeling of the Spirit for us. I admit, we left with no hard feelings, but I was upset that he wouldn't let us talk and he wouldn't speak Tagalog and he never gave us a chance to share with him. And thus, we had no Spirit. It made it very hard to teach our following lesson. So, when you have a situation like that, it is better to just leave. Leave them with a smile on your face and the Spirit in your heart.

But the week was still wonderful! Don't take a situation like that and think that missionary work is nothing but drunk preachers, darkness, misery and endless woe. The week was awesome! We have so many good things happening in this area! This is definitely the most successful area of my mission so far. We have an Iglesia man that we are teaching. He was thinking about bouncing and not having any more lessons. Man's girlfriend is Iglesia. But it was all good. Elder Sumagaysay came in and saved the day. We will be teaching that man again tomorrow. Yes! Also, yesterday, we had a guy just show up to the church. He was taught by the missionaries about two years ago and then they just moved here. He came looking for the church and for the missionaries. Ha! Is that not just exactly what a missionary wants to hear? Fun fact, it is!! So we taught him. He has a baptismal date. The work is just progressing so much. For every trial you have, you receive blessings if you are willing to push through and continue to be obedient. Every day we get turned away from appointments. "Next time na lang elders!" BAh!! But if you keep working hard, the Lord just throws you blessing. Free blessings! Come and get em! A man just showing up to church wanting to be taught? SWEET! Missionary work is just the best thing in the world. It is the best growing experience in the world. Serve missions yo!!

One other story. People always tell me that they can't come to church because of blank. They can't do this or that because of blank. They can't follow the commandments because of blank. Of course God expects us to follow the commandments. Sure He does. And if I didn't have this one thing, I would follow it. But because of this one thing I have, I am exempt. It's ok. Or even if they know they need to follow, well, oh well. Someday I can follow the commandments again when I don't have this one thing. This is a lie!!! AHHHH!! People are sooo fooled! 1 Nephi 3:7. Every person alive knows this scripture. The Lord doesn't give us a commandment that we can't follow. We always have a way to follow the commandments. The Lord will provide that way. We just have to be willing to do our part. The Lord provided a way for Nephi to get the plates from Laban. But if Nephi had just chilled in a tent in the wilderness with his family, they never would have gotten the plates. Nephi had to go back with his brothers to Jerusalem. They had to try a few different things. And then Nephi had to be willing to just go by faith, when he had done all that he could. Then the Lord gave him a drunk Laban. If we have a job that is in the way of us keeping the commandments, we talk to our boss to figure it out. If we can't make that work, we say sayang and we find a new job. We may have no job for a little. But then we go by faith and the Lord will not leave us hanging when we do our part to keep the commandments. Just because we have something in the way, that is not an excuse to not keep the commandments. That is a lie from Satan. We have to make those things work in a way that we can still follow the commandments, or we remove those things from our lives. We are so often blinded by Satan. We lose our eternal perspective and sight of what is truly important. If we want to find true happiness and reap eternal blessings, we have to be willing to make sacrifices. We sacrifice the parts of our lives that are worldy and natural to bring ourselves closer to our Father in Heaven. Now I'm rambling. But the main purpose is that we can't not follow commandments, just for now, or just because of blank. We have to make it work in line with the commandments or make a change.

First pic is me and the district. Good people. Next pic is me and Broadhead with my birthday cake...a few weeks late. Elder Sagario snagged a pic of me and my comp hittin our comp study. Then a pic of Filipino construction practices. Yeah, my house is surrounded by scaffolding. That funny little poorly placed bit of pipe is the only thing holding the scaffolding from all falling off backwards. You'd best believe I will never be involved in any of their construction. It may work for 70 pound men, but not for the slightly heavier kids. I know, I didn't tell you my exact weight. That's because it's appalling. It's kind of a women thing. But don't make fun of me for it. We took a pic with some random kids the other day. One was trying to take a pic of me on the sly. Of course I noticed, so I made a deal that they could use their camera if they would take one with mine too. Love kids. I think I spend more time talking to kids then anyone else. You tend to talk to people who are similar to you. I'm still childish. Wassup. And the last pic is my comp and I last night at FHE with one of our families. Good people.

This is a very short email and very short of details. But you do have a few pics and pic is worth a thousand words, so technically, my email is very long. Sorry for that, but enjoy! Have a wonderful week! And read your scriptures!!

Much love,

Elder Christensen