Hello everyone! I hope I find you all happy and smiling and
enjoying yourselves some cheesecake. Don't ask why. But that would be wonderful
and I do believe that you would all enjoy this email more should you be doing
the above mentioned things while you are at it. Also, don't worry about the
subject line. Just a sign that we see all the time. Funny thing is kung walang
sign, pwede! Grabe talaga! Kahit saan! Just makes me laugh. Anyways.
Game!
This week has been awesome. Elder Jensen and I are going to
have to take a few days off work to construct ourselves a rowboat. Not exactly
the ark by any means, but at least a rowboat. It has been raining and raining
and raining! I'm convinced the Lord is ready to cleanse the wickedness from the
Philippines and is about to flood us all. Maybe. Joke about the boat. But we
have been loving it. Two missionaries walking down the road through puddles in
the rain are about as happy as 5 year olds at a carnival. It's wonderful! Some
of our area is pretty prone to flooding so that gets interesting as well. But
lets talk about the week, shall we?
Maybe first, lets just talk about the fact that we had a
baptism! Sister Renalyn was baptized this week! It was wonderful! She was so
ready! And she bore a sweet testimony after. The Holy Ghost was testifying to
everybody. It was awesome! She has been pretty sick too. But she came and got
baptized anyway. She is awesome! But yesterday was stake conference, so it's
one of those weird ones where she has to wait til next week to get confirmed.
Oh well! Gives reason to celebrate!
We also taught Durado a few times this week and got them all
prepared for their interviews which they had yesterday. We will have 3 more
baptisms next week! We just need to help their dad get baptized and then get
them all focused on the temple! We are so excited for them!
We have two other investigators that have been doing
awesome. Finally got them baptismal dates. But neither of them were at church
yesterday, so, we will have to see.
We have a teacher that has been giving us tons of referrals.
He introduces the church a little to his students and then gives them to us. He
always opens his classes with a prayer and a spiritual thought. This week, he
invited us to come give his spiritual thought. So we did. And we got a bunch of
referrals and people that wanted us to come teach them. On Thursday, we headed
out to the hardest part of our area to find a bunch of those referrals. We
asked EVERYONE for help finding them. Seemed like no one knew any of them or
where their address was. It was a bit disappointing. But that day ended all
good because we ended up randomly running into an investigator that we teach at
the church. We had no idea where their house was. But we found them and were
able to teach them and their family. And then, we got into a LA's house that
has never let us in before. They started coming to church two weeks ago and are
way excited to come back! Thank goodness for visiting teachers! But we went
back to find those referrals on Saturday. It took a lot of asking, but we went
straight and found two in a row. Good lessons, good investigators. And then we
were able to just talk to a ton of random people because we were asking around
so much for directions. Never had so much success in that part of our area. So
it was an exciting turn of events! We will be spending a lot more time
there!
Elder Jensen and I have been putting in some study in
Revelation. There are a lot of blessings promised to those who overcome. Which
leads to the question, what does it mean to overcome? I see it as withstanding
temptation, repenting, and enduring to the end. Rev. 7:14 says, "And
I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which
came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb." Amidst the temptations of satan, we are in
tribulation. Our giving in to temptation causes us grief and sorrow or
tribulation. We have to overcome all of that and wash our robes. Coming out of
tribulation and washing our robes takes action. We will not be brought out of
tribulation and our robes will not be washed by another. Sometimes, we expect
the Heavenly Father will just make our lives good for us. There are even some
who assume that their sins have been "taken care of" and that all
they need do is enjoy life. The whole eat, drink, and be merry philosophy. But
that is not the case. If we want to enjoy the blessings reserved for those who
overcome, we have to act. We have to change. We have to follow the Savior's
example. In 3 Nephi 27:21 he says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, this
is my gospel; and ye know the things that ye must do in my church; for the
works which ye have seen me do that shall ye also do; for that which ye have
seen me do even that shall ye do". It is my prayer that we will all seek
to keep our robes clean through the Atonement. We don't re-wear stinky and
dirty clothes, and as such, when our spirit becomes dirty, we need to wash it.
We must always seek to be coming better, cleaner, and closer to our Heavenly
Father. To do the things He would have us do. In Matthew 7:21 the Savior says,
"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the
kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in
heaven". I hope that we will all strive to keep our robes clean through
the blood of our Savior and seek constantly to do the will of our Father.
And on to our pics for the week! Last P-day, we discovered
that our wonderful zone leaders had never tasted smores. WHAT?! So, we decided
to correct this wicked tradition of their fathers. And that we did. We bought
the needed materials and cooked em up over the stove!!! It was delicious! And I
may be a little overboard on the pics there. But they were good! Then a pic of
my comp and I after we taught the spiritual thought for the school with our
nearly empty box of BoMs! Then us with some kids that we love to play with. And
a pic of our baptism!!! Woohoo! Me and one of the bakery kids out and about
taking a look at one of those signs I mentioned earlier. Ha, us and a cute
little girl that we talked to in a random alleyway. This morning, we stopped in
at a little place by the church to play badminton. The whole zone came. It made
for a good morning. Good exercise for this fatty. Alright, that's it! That's
all!
Thanks everyone for the support! I love you all and hope you
are just rocking things!! Have a great week!
Much love,
Elder Christensen
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