Pics for "Call Me"

2014/01/20 "He took my name and number and said he'd call me..."

Hey there everyone! Guess what? It's been another good week on this end! Weird how that goes, eh? Every week is a good week! 

But the reason for the subject line. This week, we did have some trouble getting into lessons because we didn't have any men working with us. Which meant extra time walking around outside looking for new people to teach. We walked past these kids and decided to talk to them. Adorable little kids. Wished them well and went on our way. Passed them again the next day, since we had extra time to find people, and they called us over. They said, "Hey, mom said we are going to come to your church on Sunday". WHAT?! Joke lang yan diba? We have people we teach promise to come to church and then they don't come. We have a woman we've never even met yet that wants to come? Awesome! So we decided to meet her and introduce ourselves. The news was correct, she DID want to come to church. And then she did! She came with all the kids! The members were awesome and took good care of her so we haven't even had all that much time to talk to her. But we have an appointment set to go and teach. She is awesome! So it was another miracle for us this week! It was just one of those, "It's him!" moments. Good times. 

Sister Fonacier is also doing just awesome. She and her daughter will be baptized on Saturday. WOOHOO! And it's a triple because the other elders have a sister being baptized too. One of the investigators I was teaching before the area split. So it's an exciting day! The work is rolling along!

Also side note; we had mail run this week. I got letters and packages from people from the ward in Michigan. Some silly dumb elder didn't write their names down, but it was awesome. Don't know if you know who sent them, but if you do, please thank them. I appreciated it! 

Weather has been beautiful. It's felt like spring time all week. We've been chatting up all manner of people, finding referrals, tracting, OYMing, all manner of good stuff! It's been a good week! Absolutely nothing to complain about! 

We sent out an Elder from our ward this week. Elder Santos. Good man. I'll include pics later. 

Other than that, the only news is that Elder Hendrickson and I threw down a mean lunch yesterday. It was so good I have to brag! I'll include pics. And I'll cook it again for all y'all. But it was awesome. 

Sorry. A little short on interesting news. You know when a man gets talking about weather and lunch that he must be coming up short on stuff to say. Sorry! 

Pics. The first is our leaving missionary. Good man. Worked with us a ton. We'll miss him. The second is just a picture of my area. Because it's beautiful. Then just some pictures from an awesome hike we went on today. Man. We live in a beautiful place. Enjoy! Sorry, no pics of lunch. Didn't fit. Oh well!

That's all though for the week. Take care over there and have a great week! Thanks for your support and prayers!

Much love, 

Elder Christensen

Pics for "Cut Loaf"

2014/01/13 "Instead of asking for a cut loaf..."

Hello everyone! It's been a while since you had an email here. Sorry! I will try to do better! This week was awesome and there are many things we could talk about. How many will actually make it into the email? Well, we shall see. 

First things first; I had a nice little taste of missionary miracles this week. One is mine and one was just an elder in the zone. But I will share both. First of course, is mine. So our bill shows up about the 18th of every month. Water and Electric. Water is usually about 300 pesos. And electric usually runs us about 2000. Well, the water was about the same as always. But the electric was not. They have some cool charts and graphs to show you how much you've used, to justify the ginormous hole they know they are about to burn in your pocket. And ours was going to be the highest it had been in a year, according to our usage. But then, right at the bottom, where it shows you the total, there was a big old fat ZERO. We discussed it for a while, trying to decide what these things could mean. Nothing. So we decide we should take it in and see if they will just ding us for it where we pay bills. But no. We pay for the water and when we pass the lady the bill for our electric, she looks at it and says, you're good elders. We ask how it could be zero. She said we must have overpaid or something last time. Double the amount? I think not. But regardless. It was a lovely little Christmas miracle that was wonderful for all those who live in the Burgos apartment. 

Secondly. On Tuesday, we had zone training. We were talking about obedience. We got talking about the stripling warriors (when talking about obedience, you can never skip them!) and about how they were blessed with protection (aside from other things) when fighting the lamanites. Of course, not a single one of them perished. We have an elder here who was in Tacloban when the typhoon hit and got moved up here after. He stood and shared how it was incredible that with all the destruction and death that took place in the typhoon, it was a miracle that not one of the missionaries perished. The 200 Tacloban missionaries as compared to the 2000 stripling warriors. It is awesome to me to see the same promised blessings and miracles of the Book of Mormon in our day. 

Teaching was good this week. We had people work with us 3 times, so we were able to get in a lot more lessons than usual. Ha, but this one lesson we went to. It is an old nanay and her 47 year old son and his 3 year old daughter. We were teaching a much needed lesson on repentance. The cute little daughter was very smiley and quiet when we came in. We commented on it. But little by little, she turned into an uncontrollable demon mess as the lesson went on! We couldn't finish teaching! Sigh. Had to come back the next day to finish. Some lessons don't go as well as we plan. 

We found a family that lives across the street from us that we were able to teach. In all the time the elders have lived here, they have never talked to this family. We've been knocking doors on our street. Most haven't been knocked before! So this family let us in. We taught them about the Restoration. There are often a lot of distractions when we teach and it's way loud usually. But this was a really nice quiet lesson and the family listened really well. The Spirit was super strong and they seemed to be feeling it. And....I don't have anything else to share about them because we didn't see them at church yesterday, but we will follow up this week. We have high hopes for them! 

We have a less active family that we've been teaching for a while. They don't come to church because they have been out so long that they are shy to come back. Sounds fishy to us. They probably have a different concern. But for now, that's what we are working with. We went to teach them on Saturday. Good lesson as far as lessons go. Also, awesome because her child decided to urinate mid lesson right off her lap into the middle of the floor. Wonderful. Thank goodness I hadn't set out my figuras yet. We started teaching them about the Plan of Salvation. And that led to agency and that led to...you guessed it, church attendance. It was an awesome lesson! I think we helped clear up some misunderstandings about the gospel and about our purpose in this life and doing all that we can to improve. A lot of people here have this idea that if they pray and love their neighbors, all is well in Zion. Ooohhhhh boy. Not so my dear friends, not so. So it was an awesome lesson. They also did not come to church. Sigh. Didn't wake up until 10 daw. But they promised to come next week. So we will see. 

We have one investigator who is ready to be baptized. She has already been interviewed and is all go for the 25th. Mom, this puts you in trouble. That doesn't leave you much time to beat me in our little agreement. But do your best, eh? Our lessons with her have been fabulous. She has really started getting into the Book of Mormon. She will read tons of chapters and have all manner of cool insights to share with us every time we come. She's loving it! Which we love! It's hard to get people into the Book of Mormon because the Tagalog is so deep that they have a hard time understanding it. But she is doing really well. She has made a lot of changes and is willing to change whatever she needs to. She is awesome. She also wants us to help her daughter get baptized, which should happen soon. Her husband is still in the works. Man is stubborn. But all in good time. 

We have had some referrals (YESSS!!!) that we were looking for this week. That can be a difficult task. We found some and some we did not find. But that's ok. Because when looking for referrals, it is a great time to OYM everyone! Do you know so and so? Nope. That's ok. We are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ.....and so on. So we have had some success with referrals and loads of people we oymed in the process to follow up with this week. 

Besides that. We've been eating crazy good lunches as of late. Elder Hendrickson and I have been putting our cooking skills to the test. Success. We've had many successful meetings with stake folk. Big plans for this area. I'm excited to see what happens. 

Anywho. This morning we went hiking. No worries, nothing serious. Just up a road. But it had a wonderful view. I will attach pics. 

Pics for this week. Ha, I don't know if I sent this in before, but here is a pic to show you mom that your package went to good use. Haha, oh the kids here love us! And as you know, I love the kids. It's been a good time. Then a pic of all the missionaries at the immigration office in Manila last week. Me with my favorite sign that I see everywhere. This one seemed kind of classy though, so I had to take a pic. A pic of my area over by the freshly planted rice fields. Beautiful. A picture of the zone after a service project this week. Good zone. And then a few from our hike this morning. And the awesome little house we found on the top of the mountain. Awesome. 

And that is all! Thanks for all the love and support. I love you all, have a fabulous week!!

Much love, 

Elder Christensen

2013/12/25 Post Christmas Call :)

Hey there everyone! That was awesome, eh? Don't stress on Tagalog. I'll hit you with more than enough of that when I get home. You'll be sick of hearing me muttering in Tagalog, I'm sure. But thanks a ton for your patience and your awesomeness! I love you all and hope your christmas is solid! Spread the good word with everyone! Take care!! 

Elder Christensen

Sorry, this computer is dumb. The pics will have to wait. 

Take care

Pics for Good Ground

2013-12-09 Good Ground

Hello there my wonderful family. I swear to you that I was just sitting at this computer sending you an email yesterday. But somehow, another week has passed and I'm sure before we all know it, I'll be writing one again. It has been a good week. As usual. The teaching was better this week, which is always nice. 

Probably the most interesting thing that happened was that we ran into a white guy who is only 24, and living in our area. That doesn't happen often! He is from Bristol. Super nice guy. Very athiest. Which has been a bit of a challenge. I have never ever taught an athiest before. But it has made me so much more grateful to have the gospel in my life and all the blessings that come along with it. 

We had some awesome lessons this week with some wonderful people and the best part is, we had some awesome church attendance! Not super huge as far as the numbers go, but huge blessings for us. It is so awesome to watch people who are willing to follow the gospel as they change and receive blessings! Which reminds me of an interesting story from personal study. In Luke chapter 8, Jesus gives the parable of the sower. The seed falls into 4 different types of earth. Some by the way side, where it is eaten and stepped on and yields no fruit. Some on the rocks, which springs up quickly but then withers because there is no roots. Some in the weeds, where after springing up, they die because they are choked. And then, there is the seed that fell upon the good ground where it brings forth fruit. Now, you can read the parable for yourself and figure out all the symbolism there. But the question is; what type of ground are we? And how do we become the good ground? Anyone that has ever planted anything knows that you need good ground. Sometimes the ground is hard and has rocks and has weeds. But that doesn't mean you can't grow good fruit. You just have to prepare the ground first. And that, I think, is an important principle for us. If we want to yield good fruit, we have to prepare ourselves to receive the word. We have to prepare ourselves to follow the will of the Lord, whatever it may be. We prepare ourselves through every small decision that we make. And if we don't prepare ourselves to receive the word of the Lord, we won't yield fruit. We will see it as we are stopped in our progress. Helaman 3:5 tells us how we can prepare ourselves to receive the word of the Lord. I hope that we are striving constantly to prepare ourselves, that we may always receive guidance from the Lord and be ready to work and bring forth the fruits of it. 

One other thought was from Luke chapter 2. It's a simple thought. But Jesus tells his parents they should have known that he would be about his Father's business. With the new Work of Salvation being given to us, I hope that we see that we are expected to follow the Savior's example and strive to always be about our Father's business. 

Other than that, is just our adventure today. We went back to this old church thing that I visited when I was in training. And then we hiked to Wawa, which I've been to a few times. Our friend from Bristol came with us, which was awesome. It was an awesome adventure! I have included a few pictures. Enjoy them!

That's all! So take care of have an awesome week!

Much love, 

Elder Christensen