Hey all! So first things first, I am alive and dry and doing
very well. That said, there are many who do not fit into 1 or more of those
categories. So pray for the good people here. They for sure need it.
We were really blessed. Up here around Manila, we didn't
really see any effects of the storm. It didn't even really rain very much. So
all the people in my mission and likely Quezon City and Manila missions are
doing well. So well in fact that I haven't even heard all that much about the
storm. I saw it on a lot of TVs that we passed. And we had warnings come
through our mission president. But that's about it. I didn't see anything else
til this morning when I passed some news papers. So you all probably know a lot
more about it than I do even. But from the things I did read, things down south
are not as good as things up north. Matt will have a lot of work to do when he
gets into the field. Come ready to work son. The people who own the computer
shop are pretty frantic right now. They are on and off the phone with family,
trying to find out what's happening with their family members in Taclobon. It's
pretty sad. I am guessing most of the Philippines is doing the same thing.
Prayers folks.
If anyone can guess where the subject line quote comes from,
I'll be extremely impressed. And no using google, that's cheating.
As for us this week. Things have been good. We had a lot of
meetings and what not so we didn't get as much work accomplished as we'd like,
but we still had huge blessings in our work! Haha, I guess you know about most
of it though. I just remembered that we were here on Wednesday. Well, since
wednesday....not all that much has happened. We had a big meeting on Friday,
which limited our work. Wonderful message from our mission president. I will be
much better at attending firesides and what not when I get home. I'm actually
excited for things like that nowadays! Go figure! We were able to teach on
Friday though and Saturday as well. And yesterday at church, we saw some fruits
of our labors. It was the most people they have had in attendance in ages! The
Lord is doing wonderful things in this stake. Our relief society presidency has
caught on fire. They are out to bring everyone into the church, non-members,
less actives and active folk alike! It's been great to see their enthusiasm for
the work. And with the help of the stake leaders, our bishopric is starting to
get a lot of good things organized and functioning as well. I'm excited for the
progress we are seeing. I don't know if you have seen the work of salvation
videos on lds.org, but we are reminded that this
isn't our work but it is the Lord's work. I testify that when we do this work
in the Lord's way, we will see the blessings of His hand in our work. The work
will progress in ways it never could if we were doing it on our own and by our
own methods.
This week in my studies, I read Moroni 7. It's an incredible
chapter, I suggest you all check it out. There are a lot of important things
that Moroni talks about. But my favorite part was the final verse. Haha,
actually, I suppose I won't even get into it really. Study it for yourselves
and see what the Spirit teaches you. But it really brought home to me the importance
of charity. And that's really what this work is all about. It's about loving
the people. We have found that if we don't feel love for the people, we really
can't teach them or help them in any way. But if we do love them, we will do
all we can to help them learn of Heavenly Father's plan. We don't teach to tear
down their faith or their churches. We don't get angry when they don't
understand. I've seen the difference for those who teach out of love and those
who teach for baptisms or to prove others wrong. The difference is incredible.
Christ didn't teach to prove people wrong. He taught out of love for others. He
always acted out of love for others. If we want to follow His example, we have
to have charity for others. In order to have charity, we must be using the
atonement and repenting so that we can have the Holy Ghost with us and so that
Heavenly Father can bless us with charity. If you go into Moroni 7 and read
about some of the parts of charity, you can see how encompassing it is of the
attributes of our Savior. Looking at those, I realized that I have a hard time
feeling any of those things when I don't have the Holy Ghost. Moroni says we
also must pray to have this gift. So, I suppose that is what I would recommend
to you all. Strive to develop charity and pray for Heavenly Father's help. As
we do, we will come to love those around us in the way our Savior loves us and
we will be able to help them in the way our Savior would have us help
them.
Anyway. Sorry, the thoughts are a little all over. The
people on the phone kinda do that to you. But, looks like a good opportunity to
share the gospel :)
Pics for this week are few. Ha, zero basically. I took some
while Elder Wu and I were in a trike. That's all! Sorry!
Well, perhaps I'll have a better email next week? Haha, I'm
really sorry, I seem to be getting worse and worse at emailing! Til next week!
Take care!
Much love,
Elder Christensen
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