Chocolate cake, coming right up!!! Wham, wham, wham!!! They
were singing me praises!!!!!! "Dad is great! Gives us the chocolate
cake!!!!" And we were having a ball! Until she came. "Where did they
get chocolate cake???" And I said, "They asked for it!" And
these wonderful children, who moments before had been singing me praises, lied
on me!!! They said, "Uh uh!!!! We asked for eggs, bacon and milk and he
gave us this!!!!" ---- Wonderful isn't it? I felt similar only yesterday,
but we'll get to that later.
This week was great! As all weeks happen to be. Secret to
happiness; serve a mission. No, that's not even it. Secret to happiness
restated; do missionary work. That's more like it. If you want to have your
journal start every day saying, "Today rocked!" or "Today was
soooo good!" or "What do you know, another solid day!" or something
to that effect, just do missionary work. We talked about that last week, so I
will assume you are all already all stoked and fired up to do missionary work!
For us this week, it wasn't as successful as we'd like on the numbers side of
the scale. But that's not very important. Ha, I don't think many of you have
numbers to report on your missionary work anyway. But the sharing and talking
and Book of Mormon giving and OYMing and what not; that side of the work was
great. Yes. We did get punted our fair share this week. And then some. But no
matter! We used that time to find other people who have been waiting for the
gospel! What do you know, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Sometimes, His
schedule is different from ours and although we may have thought that Suzy
needed a lesson, we didn't know that her neighbor John was actually ready to be
taught. The Lord just helps us adjust to His schedule. Pretty awesome eh?
Funny story that just popped into my head, speaking of doing
random sharing. I do like finding random service to give. It's a good way to
meet people. Sometimes, it's not. All you do is try to follow Christ's example
and give service when you can. This week we were late for a dinner appointment
(never want to be late to THOSE appointments) and as we were walking, we saw a
garbage truck that had died. Haha, oh were those men surprised when a white man
all dressed up fancy and what not hopped in to help them push it. We didn't
stay long enough to talk to anyone, but it was a good experience anyway. And
it'll be great when some missionary some day finds a guy that wants to be
taught that says, "Yeah, I met one of you guys before. He helped us push a
garbage truck." Sweet!
We also have been told to work more on trying to get into
the richer houses. Those people have the means to actually get to church. And
usually, they are the ones that become leaders. But, from the experience we've
had, they usually are too busy to listen to us. It's way easier to teach the
people with not much money. But, as we were taught, just because it's easier,
does that make it the right thing to do? Ignore the rich because they are
harder to teach? Sigh. No, I suppose not. After all, there are rich folk in the
church here. How'd they get here? Missionaries. Blast. Guess we have to keep
trying. So we knocked some rich houses this week. I admit, I'm nervous to knock
rich houses. It's not as smooth or easy as poorer houses. And we don't have
anything to show for it yet. Only places to follow up with. But hopefully we
have good things come from that. I know that if that is what the Lord wants us
to do, then we had best do it. We will find people. And we will be able to
learn and grow in ways that we don't expect. So, we will keep ringing real
doorbells! Yikes!
You may be starting to think that I may not have kept a list
of things to talk about again this week. Should that be the case, you are
correct. Hehe. Oops.
But I suppose I should go ahead and tell you about the whole
Bill Cosby experience I had this week. So Saturday was temple tour. We have had
two young men coming to church with us every week for about 2 months. They are
solid. But we have a hard time teaching them often or quickly because they are
really only available on sundays and they are super...mischievous? Anyway. So
we took them to temple tour saturday. And we have a good time with these kids,
they are fun. So anywho. Temple tour is a good experience. Funny stuff
happened, but nothing more than the regular day. Didn't give a second thought.
Sigh. Sunday rolls around. Fast sunday. Testimony meeting. One of my little
champs gets up to bear testimony!! Sweet! We haven't talked about that! Still
on lesson 3! But he gets up. Thinking, man this'll be sweet. About 3 minutes
after that I wanted to sink into the floor and disappear. He says something to
the effect of how it was fun and pretty and the elders were naughty and it was
hot and how funny things happened. But they didn't sound that funny or good
coming out of his mouth. And he got down from the stand. The congregation
laughed the whole time. So these are the missionaries eh? Oh man, I was so glad
that none of the other investigators decided to show up. It sounded terrible!
Me and Bill Cosby probably felt very similar in that moment.
But on a good note; we were able to teach their mom this
week. And she is doing super super great! She is the bakery woman? I've talked
about her before. Anyway. We've only taught her 2 or 3 times. But the lesson
with her this week went very well. We just teach her at the bakery. And it's
very loud and noisy and people come in and interrupt the lesson and she has to
help them out. But even with all that, the Holy Ghost was able to testify to
her as we taught. She felt as we talked that the church is true. It was super
awesome to see the change come over her. Awesome awesome. She wants to come to
church and keep learning. And she is very very interested in the temple. But,
the bakery, is the issue at the moment. She and the papa man are always working
at the bakery. So we are hoping to find a way around that. All on the Lord's
time, eh?
Pics this week! Mainly of the district. First is me and the
district after district meeting. Then, me and the boys chomping on some
delicious seaweed! Then us at temple tour. Then the district again. And again
this morning when we went bowling. Good time. Didn't make it above 100
though....don't ask.
Anyway. The gospel is as true as ever. Heavenly Father loves
every single one of us, despite our shortcomings and weaknesses. He is cheering
us on and applauding every step we make in the right direction as we strive to
come closer to Him and become more like our Savior. I testify that He also
loves the sheep that are lost and He will help us as we seek them out and help
them come unto Him.
I love you all and hope you have an excellent week!
Much love,
Elder Christensen
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