04-23-13 Fare Thee Well Ogre

Hello all. And the transfer announcements for the Novaliches Zone. Elder Hubble, Elder Sagario, Elder Juario, Elder Barcarse, Elder Qaqa, Elder Ontoria, Elder Flanary, and....Elder Broadhead and Elder Christensen. Yes folks, after 6 months, I am leaving Novaliches!! Sad to see it go. I LOVE this ward and my area. It is wonderful. It also means I will miss the wedding and baptism of Danika and Michael. Sayang!! There are lots of wonderful things happening here! But the time has come and I'm moving out! "I said, Move out!" Mulan, in case you didn't know.

This week has been a bit tough. All of our area must be worried about a new world war breaking out because they all have gone into hiding! We had a tough time getting lessons this week. And then everyone decided not to come to church. But the lessons we had this week were awesome.

Haha, we had one lesson with the Buban family. Their one son, Jeff, was recently baptized. Then they have a bunch of kids that are less active. Still young kids though, still about 11-13? Crazy business. And they have cousins staying with them for a while. I think I sent a picture of them last week. The one cousin Jhoemar has no nose. Awesome kids. So Jhoemar has been sitting in on the lessons. We taught him how to pray this week. Since Jeff is a recent convert, we were letting him teach Jhoemar how to pray. He finally said, "Ok, I'll pray and you just say what I say". All was going well. Jhoemar had a hard time hearing some of what Jeff would say and ask him to repeat so that the prayer would be good. Haha, now, there are two words that came to be of extreme importance in this particular prayer. In closing, we say sa pangalan ni Jesucristo, amen. Pangalan is name. So everyone has got to say that. But there is another word, paa, which is feet. Now, as I mentioned earlier, Jeff's prayer was a little quiet, so Jhoemar was having a hard time understanding. At the end, he heard paa and not pangalan. Thus, he left the prayer in the feet of Jesus Christ. Missionaries are supposed to be representatives of Jesus Christ. We should be reverent. But I laughed so hard right at the end of the prayer. The whole group. Oh man. It was a hoot. Maybe it only is funny in the moment and in Tagalog. But it was hilarious.

We had a couple more good lessons with Danika and Michael this week. They live with a ton of Jehovah's Witnesses. The other folk tried to bash on Danika and Michael's new gospel knowledge, but they found good, strong faith. These two are awesome!! Michael still working out a small word of wisdom kink, but he's battling like a champ. Won't even be a problem. Basically they are just waiting for the government to work out their papers for marriage. Sigh. But they are progressing in a rapid fashion!

We also had zone interviews this week. That was awesome. President Sperry told a story about a herd of deer, which I believe came from a talk by Elder Packer? Eegh, don't quote me there. There was a long winter which left them without anything to eat. They started dying. So the mayor or whoever of the town folk was in charge started having folk leave out tons of hay for the deer. But, the deer continued to die. The doctors found that the deer were dying with their bellies full of hay. This happened because the hay lacks the key nutrients that the deer needed for survival. This was then compared to the members. We are fed with so many things! Church services, activities, meetings, socials, EFYs, and all manner of other things. Unfortunately, these things lack the key ingredients. They are very important to us, but we cannot live on those alone. That is why many fall away. The one thing holding the key ingredients for us all, is the scriptures. The pleasing word of God. Now this was exciting to me, because that's what I've been harping on for so many weeks! Ah! I love the scriptures! And speaking of which, we will go there, because that's what we did in zone interviews. Alma 31:5 Alma wants to try hitting folk with the virtue of the word of God. What in the world is virtue? If we go to Mark 5, there is a story of a lady being healed. Verse 30 says that when the women touched Jesus, he felt virtue go out of him. If we check the footnote, it says power or strength. Then we follow up on virtue in the bible dictionary. It seems to be the ability to heal or strengthen. Which is wonderful! So going back to Alma, they use the scriptures for their power to heal. Familiar yet? If not, lets hit Jacob 2:8, one of my favorites. It says the people came to hear the pleasing word of God, yea, the word which healeth the wounded soul. The scriptures will help to hear our wounded souls. The scriptures contain those key ingredients that we need in order to be healed and cleansed and to be able to fully accept and use the atonement. Thus back to what I just keep repeating over and over, please read the scriptures every day! Don't die with your bellies full of hay.

We had an opportunity this week to do a service project. It was for a less active family in Elder Broadhead's area. Their roof had a bunch of leaks and needed to be repaired or replaced. We decided to go with the latter. So we ripped it off and put a new one up. That was an excellent time. Awesome family. The same day, we went to a baptism for Casmir, our new friend. He is the one who had the excellent idea to play soccer. We met him at general conference and keep seeing him for random occasions. He got baptized on Saturday and the whole zone attended, which is rare. Excellent man. He's from Nigeria and studying here. Blessing from the Lord. Read the paragraph below and then return here. He knew no one here appreciates the sport so he sent the sport to me!! How marvelous!

Today is P-day, of course. No one cares, but I played soccer again this morning. It was awesome!! Oh how I miss the game. Somehow, I got sent to the one country in the world that doesn't do soccer. Sayang. But it's alright! We also celebrated our soon to split district by eating at our favorite expensive 10 dollar buffet. Thus, I am bloated to about the same size as Aunt Marge in Harry Potter 3. Repulsive. But what's new.

My pics! I've got my comp going to town taking the old roof off at the CSP. And Broadhead at the scene of the crime as well. Then just a few shots of the house to help you feel more like you are here, to more fully appreciate the story. Then me with a stuffed bear out behind their house that was as big as me. Impressive feat. A shot of the biggest maggots I've ever seen in my life. Also impressive, because I've seen many. And then a picture from Casmir's baptism. Excellent work mate!

And that folks is about it for the week. Tomorrow I will transfer. New comp, new ward, new work. Exciting, eh? But you will have to wait for next week for that. Sorry! Be sure to have a marvelous week!

Much love,

Elder Christensen

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