Hey everyone,
Well, more about my companion, Elder Ojeda. He lives in West Valley City, Utah, he went to Hunter High, he loves to play basketball and go snowboarding, and his birthday is June 4th! Now, how crazy is that? We have the same birthday and have some of the same loves and we live like 15 mins. from each other! We have become really good friends and have had some good laughs together already. It's fun, we are working hard to find those people that are waiting for us. I am loving it so far.
This week we worked hard and saw some fruits of it: we found a family of 3 looking for something more. They are a young family the girl is like 5 months old or so and is super cute. And Carlos and Sofia are super awesome. They love when we come over and love to learn. They have so many questions for us and the lessons we are teaching them are answering all of them. It's so crazy how these things work, I love seeing the hand of God "Do Work!" but they have a little shop that they both work in and its hard to find time to teach them and its even harder to have them close up for Sunday, but we are doing our best. Please add them in your prayers.
Here is something from my mission president, it is super good and it helped me out a lot:
"As we seek to gain a greater understanding of the Atonement through our personal study of the Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel, let us not forget the importance of our own personal learning by faith. This we not only study and read about the Atonement but we must apply in our lives. We must be doers of the word and not just “readers” of the word. The following is a powerful recipe that comes from Preach My Gospel for becoming more like our Savior Jesus Christ:
“Even after we have accepted Christ and repented of our sins, we may fall short and sin again. We should continually try to correct these transgressions. In addition, we should continually improve—to develop Christlike qualities, to grow in knowledge, and to serve more effectively. As we learn more about what the Savior expects of us, we will want to show our love by obeying Him. Thus, as we repent daily, we will find that our lives will change and improve. Our hearts and our behavior will become more Christlike. We will come to feel great joy in repenting daily." Preach My Gospel pg 63
This is so true! We need to be the doers when we know the gospel of Christ, not be the readers. we need to help those that don't know it or are having a hard time following it. If we really understood the doctrine of the atonement of Christ nothing would stop us from going to church or reading the scriptures or praying or following the commandments. It's so simple at times and people so close around us don't know it's that close. We need to share it with them. (2 Nephi 2:8).
I know that this is the true church and the only church that has the power to save people and to bring them to live with God, Jesus Christ, and their families. I didn't really understand the meaning of why we do the things we do, and now I do. It's because we love our Heavenly Father and our brother Jesus Christ and of course our families, when we have a true love for Christ we will do what ever it takes to follow him. I know that Christ lives and is blessing all of us every day. But we need to do our part. I love you all.
Have a good week.
Love,
Elder Christensen.
Well, I think that Chile just doesn't want me to send photos - because every computer I use sucks or is broken in some way. So there won't be photos again, sorry.
since March 21, 2010
February 27, 2010
The national flower is the copihue. The Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral described it this way: "The climber betrays the grumpy austral forest; she revives it and practically makes it speak. The acrobat of the oaks and the dancer of the whitewoods harries its nursemaid-trees with the lasso of flaming fireworks."
The driest desert in the world, Atacama Desert - or Norte Grande - is in the northern half of Chile.
The monetary system of Chile is single-unit based, with the unit of Chilean money being called the Peso. The names and relative values of the coins depicted above are, from left to right:
* One Peso - (1 Peso)
* Five Pesos - (5 Pesos)
* Ten Pesos - (10 Pesos)
* Fifty Pesos - (50 Pesos)
* One Hundred Pesos - (100 Pesos)
* Five Hundred Pesos - (500 Pesos)
The ocean waters are very cold along the entire coast because of the Humboldt Current, which flows north from Antarctica.
The largest swimming pool in the world is in Chile. It is more than 1,000 yards long, covers 20 acres, has a 115ft deep end and holds 66 million gallons of water.
Easter Island is in the Chile North Santiago Mission, and is more than 2,300 miles from the Chilean mainland.
At the southernmost tip of Chile, there are glaciers as much as a million years old. Pieces of these glaciers break off and become icebergs. Icebergs here are a deep, clear blue, which indicates that they are very old and very compressed. Nearly all the oxygen has been squeezed out of them.
10% of the worlds volcanos are in Chile; 1,080 - 50 of them active.
The southern part of of Chile is made up of thousands of little islands. One of these islands is named Robinson Crusoe, after the novel by Daniel Defoe. Defoe based the story on the experiences of a seaman (Alexander Selkirk) marooned on that very Chilean island in 1704. He lived there for 4 years before being rescued by an English Pirate Ship.
