06-17-13 I hate it, But I love it!

Hello folks! Here we are again on P-day. Time today is limited, so let's get down to business. 

This week, we had a mission training. They are making some changes to missionary work, and especially here in the philippines. We have been a mission focused on LA members, but they want us to shift our focus more towards investigators again. And to do that, we need to OYM and tract more. And, they want us to teach rich people in English. WHAT?! Yes, so big changes. We have dropped a lot of non-progressing folk and we are working like mad men to try to find new investigators. It has been crazy, but it is yielding some good fruit. We have a lot of people to follow up with this week. Should be a lot of fun! I'm excited to see what will come with all the changes. 

Interesting thought for the week. We are teaching a lady who doesn't believe that Jesus was crucified. She is way into the bible and studying. At first, my only thought was how in the world can you believe that if you read the bible? And still, I am a little baffled there. The whole Old Testament points to the fact that Christ would be slain for us and that through His blood, we could become clean. And in the New Testament, Jesus and the apostles teach about the sacrifice of the Atonement and how we need it to be cleansed and resurrected. And it just got me thinking about how crazy hard Satan is trying to deceive the whole world and how he will go to any lengths to do it. How lucky we are for the knowledge we have of the gospel and the plan of salvation and how lucky we are to be able to share it with everyone else! Spread the word!

We had an opportunity to bless a child this week that was bitten by a child and was having issues with rabies. That was awesome!

I forgot! Back for transfers, we were trying to get the sisters headed off to their new areas. We were sending them in taxis. We tried to flag down a bunch, but they weren't stopping. We flagged one that passed and then came back. Said he just felt like he needed to come back for us. Awesome. Promptings of the Holy Ghost can touch even people that aren't members. Hopefully, the sisters shared with him. 

And we have been having flooding like crazy! Rainy season is officially upon us. It has been wonderful! It's made for a very good time! 

Man, there is so much more to share, but no time to share it. Sorry! I will hit you all with a few pics and then I must be off!!

Nope, joke lang! My computer doesn't want me to put up pics. Sorry, next week na lang!!! Well, have a wonderful week! Share the gospel with your friends! And be good!

Much love, 

Elder Christensen

Pics for the Monkey

06-10-13 The Monkey's His Uncle?

The monkey in question may indeed be my uncle. Then again, most of my uncles seem to have evolved past the whole monkey stage. So maybe we can count out the uncle thing. But the monkeys and I are sure closely related. The whole theory of evolution probably didn't consider the fact that there were still some people who are still monkeys in heart and mind. I suppose that makes me a scientific discovery. Upon my return to the promised land, should you all turn me in, you may come across a lot of money. Just be sure to pick a good research facility, one that is against animal cruelty. Although, should they be into the whole "testing shampoo on animals" thing, that's ok. I could use a good bath. 

This week was...I admit, kind of lacking in the teaching department. We had a lot of meetings and trainings and interviews and baptisms and what not. It seemed to be a crazy long and busy week. And here we are again, emailing. You know what we did have a lot of this week though? Rain. Ah, it's been glorious! We are officially moving into rainy season. It's my favorite here!! And being in a very cityish area, that means flooding. The last few nights we've had to take random, long routes home to avoid the yucky flooding filthy water. It's going to be a good rainy season!!

It is a new transfer. We have 4 new missionaries in the district. Elder Bustillo, my house mate. Also came into the mission the same time as me. He's super cool. Then we have 3 new sisters. 2 trainees, one Filipina and one American from Hawaii. Then the trainer of the American sister. Everybody is super cool. Just more to add for another great transfer. 

I have learned some new good things this week. There will be some changes in the work we do here. We have had a less active focus since I got to the mission. But that means that baptisms are super low. The area presidency has decided we need to start going back more towards investigators. So.....we can shelf all of our non-progressing LA folk and find some investigators! It will be an interesting week! 

One of the few lessons we did have this week was with a LA family who is starting to return to church. A momma, Pop, and 3 sons. The dad is always out and about working, so we rarely see him, including at church. The momma and her youngest son (16 years old) are doing really good. We teach them a lot and they have been coming to church pretty steadily. The older two sons (18 and 20) are alright, but not as good as the younger bro. But they are doing ok at getting to church. The youngest is all into seminary and church activities and getting ready for a mission. BUT! The older two do not want to serve missions. So we had a really good lesson about missionary work. It's something that's very easy to share about. We'll see what happens for them. 

Hey, speak of the devil, here comes the rain! And it is pouring!!!! WOOHOO!!! But guess who didn't bring his umbrella when he left the house 7 hours ago! Oh yes, that would be me! Busted!

Also, we had temple tour this week. We didn't have any investigators come with us, but we did have 2 less actives. That was a good experience for them. And they've had questions about the plan of salvation and the temple and how that all works out, so that was great!!

Cool thought from President Sperry this week. Impatience is to question God's omniscience. Sometimes we expect things on our own schedule. But of course, we have to have faith and trust in the Lord and know that all things will happen according to His wisdom in His time, in the time when we will benefit the most and have the most growth. So everybody practice your patience! Practice your faith!

Pics are dece this week. The first few are the flooding last night on the way home from the church to our apartment. It was awesome!! We had to do some fun things to stay out of the water. Also, some wonderful person figures they pretty much live in Zion and labeled our wonderful city as such. I don't know that I agree. But still had to have a pic. Then a few more pics. Me with my monkey pals. Thus the whole monkey thing at the beginning. The temple tour we took. And then a little something we saw earlier today on Youtube. What do you know? I'm famous!!

I know, I know. It's a lousy email, at best. But that is all I have. Oh, I suppose I could add the fact that I saw some simple calculus yesterday, and man was I beyond stumped. I have officially forgotten the entire school experience I've had up to this point in my life. I am in some trouble folks!!! Anyway, I wish you all a wonderful week! 

Much love, 

Elder Christensen

Pics for No Carrots

06-04-13 No Carrots

Yes, I will be pleased with the man....or woman, that names this quote for me. It came out of the blue as I was chopping carrots for a wonderful meal. And I pleased myself by knowing where it came from. How marvelous. 

So, you will never believe this, but I did not keep a list of things to email about. I am terribly sorry. There just wasn't a spare moment to write such things. It was a good week, but it was tough too. Our very best investigator was sister Renalyn. She had just married one of the members. But he got himself kicked out of the house this week, so they moved about 8 hours away to the province. Bummer! Hopefully, they will continue taking lessons there, or they will come back. I don't know. Then our next most progressing investigator decided not to be around for us to teach her this week and she didn't come to church. Her friend that lives with her said, "ayaw niya". Stick that in google translate. Bummer. We'll see what happens there. And then there were a few things similar to those things which happened throughout the week. So all in all, a little tough on the work side, although we did have a lot of good things happen as well. 

Another thing with the work this week is that there wasn't tons of it! We had a lot of days where the work was a little on the low side. We had zone conference this week. That was soooo good! Incredible. I love our mission president. He's an incredible man with incredible insights. But I forgot my notes, soo, guess I'll have to share all that another time. We also had a wedding. Sweet. They are super poor and wanted to keep it small, so we were the decoration crew! That was a lot of fun! Yesterday was our district meeting and celebration and a baptism for the sister that got married. And we also had a record amount of punts this week! But no worries there. It's just one of those weeks. We are super excited for this week and all of the amazing lessons waiting to be taught. The area here is loaded with awesome people just waiting to hear the good word. 

Study topics for the week. I'm looking in to Sanctification and Retaining a Remission of Sins. Good things there. I recommend it. 

Also. We are having some crazy changes happening with rules and with the way things are run out here. The biggest one is that for transfer day, we always have a big transfer meeting. Every zone rents a jeepney for the day and picks up all the transferring folk and their comps. Everyone goes to one chapel. They are told who their new comp is and where their area is. They get with the new comp and then everyone hops on their prospective jeep and heads to the area. They have run it that way forever. Now, transfer meeting is done. No more. Instead, the zone leaders get the announcement and get in contact with the other zone leaders to set up a meeting point for the new missionaries. Everyone travels alone. It's a big change and we'll see how it goes. It's been a little crazy so for. Being kabahays with the zone leaders means we've gotten to be in on all that action. Yikes. We'll see how that goes. Thankfully, I am staying here with Elder Sojor in Valenzuela. No worries there. 

I feel like there was a lot of things I was supposed to mention this week, but I forget. Hehe, sorry. I'll try to do better next week. 

In the pics department. We attended a wedding for some marvelous folks in which we sang a decently marvelous song. Then I also caught pics of a marvelous household item battle that went down between the zone leaders. Man, are they funny. We also have a chap that works for our bishop's advertising business that we are about to start teaching. Grabbed a pic with him. Cool guy. Also, yesterday's district meeting happened to be the last district meeting before transfers, in which we will lose half the district and also the birthday of one of the zone leaders. I thought donuts and chocolate milk to celebrate would be appropriate. Everyone else seemed to think so too! 

But that is all for the week folks. Have a wonderful week! Take care! Read your scriptures!!

Much love, 

Elder Christensen