week ending 11.21.10

Hey everyone,

Well I just want to say thank you everyone! I am so grateful for all the support you have given me throughout my mission. Thanks. And I hope that Thanksgiving goes well for all of you!!!!!

This week was super-great, we had a conference with Elder Corbridge from the 70. He talked to us about the Holy Ghost and a lot of other stuff. There was one thing that I really liked a lot and it was this: "the gospel isn't hard, going to church isn't hard, the only thing that is hard is life." I have to agree with him, the world makes all of it hard, the world tell us that being obedient to the Word of Wisdom is lame but the truth is that it's cool to do it.

Because what are some of the blessings for following it?
•knowledge
•strength
•health
•protection from evil
And the down sides of not living the Word of Wisdom:
•loss of free agency (needing to smoke, drink, take drugs)
•loss of money
•bad health
•loss of mind control

I am going to have to say that living the gospel and the commandments are a lot better than not. And the other blessing we get from living it is going to the Celestial Kingdom. Who doesn't want to go there?  It's full of happiness and joy - who doesn't want that? Once again, I say living the gospel isn't hard - it's a blessing. The Word of Wisdom was only a example. We need to be thankful that we have the gospel in our lives, and all the people that have given their lives so we can have it and live it. Starting with Jesus Christ, he gave his life so that we could live the gospel and be saved. And Joseph Smith, who fought to restore the gospel in our days so we can have all the blessing of the gospel. There is a lot more - but there is a lot of thanks we owe all the people that sacrifice to bring the gospel to the world. (okay when I started to write this it wasn't my intention to be like, "be thankful for me and the missionaries," it just came out that way - whoops.) I love you all and I am thankful for you all as well! Have a good week!

Love,
Elder Christensen

week ending 11.14.10

Hey everyone,

Well I have to say that I am loving my new sector because I am in the field again and it's so hot and I feel at home. But the only bad thing is that I have to ride a bike and my butt hurts so bad!  I never want to ride the bike again!  And on top of that it broke on me and I have to go get it fixed. But that's just me complaining - it really is great having a bike because we get around faster and we are still getting things done that I want to get done.  It's fun.

So living in a house with 4 missionaries is a more fun then I thought it was going to be.  I thought it was going to suck, but it's not that bad. This last week we got the crap kicked out of us. We had to do so many things and nothing was going the way I wanted it to go so I was getting a little upset.  But I learned this week that getting upset doesn't help anyone or anything. We just need to do our best to make the best of it and make sure we are being obedient.

There is a little town in my sector that is call "pueblo sin ley" (town without law) it's a pretty funny name.  We finely went there last night and I can see why they gave it that name - but its a good little town and I feel like we are going to have some success out there.

Something I learned today:  some one asked me why did God have to come down from heaven to call Joseph Smith to be a Prophet? So I started looking for scriptures and things in study guide and I found nothing.  And then I was in the bathroom (yes you can receive revelation in the bathroom) and I started to think of the Bible.  The Bible says that Christ and God are one and never says anything about the body of God. And everyone thinks that God and Christ are one. Well, when God come down to call Joseph Smith to be a Prophet it was showing the world that God has a body of flesh and bone and is a different person then Christ. And that comes from the 1st article of faith. Yes, I felt good after finding that out but it came from God - I was so pumped! haha. Just thought I would share that with you.

If you have any questions feel free to ask me about anything, I love getting asked questions! haha.

Have a good week!  Love you all! Please pray that we can find some new people this week! thanks!

love,
Elder Christensen

week ending 9.13.10

Hey everyone,

Well this week we have seen a lot of things happen... from changes in the mission to people telling us that they didn't feel like following any more and then calling us later in the week and saying that they want to keep learning and be baptized. Yes, I was talking about Guillermina, She told us that her heart is closed and doesn't want to follow her answers. It was like taking a 90 mph fastball to the back - it hurt really bad, but I know that she knows that everything is true. I even told her that I know that she knows and she said yes you're right. Thanks to the spirit I could know those things. We left feeling a little down but she gave us a call on Saturday telling us that she wants to keep learning and doing all the stuff. Man, it brought more joy then the pain we felt. It was great!

Let's see, what else happened?  Well, we are teaching a guy from Austria and speaks less Spanish then me and speaks German. He said a prayer in German the other day and it was cool! I could understand a little, I think, but it was cool.  I want to learn how to speak German now. haha. He has a baptism date for the 10 of Oct. So I am really excited for him!

I have been learning more about the importance of being 100% obedient.  Man it really kicks my butt but its so worth it. haha. There are things that I don't understand but I do them anyways because I know that I need to do them to show my love for Christ. There are lots of times that we don't understand why we can't do things or why we have some commandments but they are there to help us and we need to trust in the Lord that he knows best and that he has the way ready for us to complete. I have learned this through putting it to the test and seeing the blessings that comes from being obedient. So be obedient.  haha.

I love you all and I know that this is the true church and there is no other church that can bring the eternal life to men. only the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

love,

Elder Christensen

PS. a guy just came into the internet place selling pens that say I Love Chile and have a flashlight on it for 50 cents or 250 pesos, and yes, I bought it.  haha.

week ending 8.1.10

Hey everyone,

 

I was having a good week and then I got sick and I was told to stay in the house. So that brought my spirits a little down, but I was talking to a member one night and she was asking some questions. I started to receive thoughts that weren't mine, I knew that they came from my Heavenly Father.  I told her that when we are going through hard times we need to be happy, because, when we are sad, satan is attacking us because he knows that we are doing something good. He is going to do everything he can to bring us down and not enjoy what we are doing. So next time you are having a hard time, go to our Heavenly Father and ask for strength to overcome satan and enjoy the good things in life. And then another thing came into my head - it was a scripture from the Bible, James 2:26.  It talks about that our faith is dead if we don't have works.  Works are those little things we do, for example, pray every day, read the scriptures, go to church, follow the commandments, try and become like Christ every day, set goals, forgive others, and most of all forgive ourselves. If we can do some of those little things everyday we will have stronger faith. I know this because I have been putting this in practice and it has been working for me. I know that this is true, I know the Church of Jesus Christ is the true church on the earth. I will tell anyone that, that I come in contact with. I love my Savior.

 

love,

Elder Christensen

week ending 7.18.10

Hey everyone,

 

This week was great, I have been growing so much. I have learned that I am in one of the biggest tests of my life, I have a lot of responsibility and I haven't been really used to having so much to worry about. But this is teaching me so much to get me ready for the life after the mission. And I have realized that I am getting converted to the gospel still, I have a strong testimony but I am missing something and I have been doing the small things that we need to do to find and fill those things that we are missing.

 

First, we need to read the scriptures everyday and apply them to our lives.

Second, we need to pray everyday and ask for help and follow what the spirit tells us to do.

Third, meditate what we have read and learned and pray again.

Fourth, go to church every Sunday, not only to go but with a question or a doubt that we might have and search for the answer.

 

I know if we can do these 4 small things we can have the help of the Holy Ghost in our lives so much stronger and we will know what we need to do. I have a scripture for you all, 1 Nephi 17:13:

"And I will also be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you, if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments; wherefore, inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall be led towards the promised land; and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led."

 

I love this scripture, it has been a helping hand for me in the hard times. I know that the Savior is our light and he has made a path for us, we just need to follow what he wants us to do and we will be lead by him. I know this is the true church on the earth and that Christ lives and has his Prophet Thomas Monson to help us in the hard times. I love this Gospel, it has changed my life and it's still changing.

 

Thanks for all the help everyone and for your prayers. Have a good week.

 

Love,

Elder Christensen

week ending 5.23.10

Hey everyone,

Well last night we had changes but we didn't change so Elder Ojeda and I are together again. Oh yeah man (a kid in our ward says that all the time.). And I am excited to work with him again, I feel good about this change.

This week was a tough one for us, Elder Ojeda got sick and we couldn't work. I tried calling every person in our ward and even another secter and I couldn't find anyone that wanted or could work with me. So I sat in my house reading, yes reading for all the people that know me - that is something I didn't do a lot before the mission, because I didn't like it.

But now I love to read and I read like 5 to 6 hours each day, and because of all that reading I got to finish the Book of Mormon in English, yeah it's about time now I am studing all in Spanish. I have put my English books away and am only studing in Spanish . Oh man, now my head will hurt 2 times as much. haha. But I love it, I am trying to only speak Spanish and just forget English, so if I can do it, it will be interesting. =)

I was reading in the Liahona of Feb. 2010 and I read a talk about "what we should do if we don't know what to do" (something like that). And one part that really stuck out to me is when it talked about "not knowing something is not an excuse for not doing it." like some of the rules in the mission or commandments, we might not know why we do them but we do know that we need to do them. Just because we don't know why we do things doesnt make it okay not to do them. So that is going to be my saying now, I hope I can live it.
Read the February 2010 Liahona; click here.

I love you all and thanks for all the help you give me.

Have a good week.

love,

Elder Christensen

week ending 5.17.10

Hi everyone,

Well this week has been a cold one. On Friday it started to rain at like 6 in the morning and didn't stop until 6 in the morning Saturday. Friday was a fun day to work. Check out my photo of all my stuff that I put on to go out and work. Lets just say I was really warm the whole day even though it rained the whole day. We started off this gloomy day with some service for a lady in our ward. She has a palm tree in her yard and she wanted to trim it up a little, like take off all the dead parts. Well we got there and thankfully it stopped raining for 2 hours so we could do service. This palm tree isn't very short, so we climbed a ladder to cut the old leaves. We had a old shacky ladder and a pair of old cutter things, they worked really well. lol. I don't think I have or ever will trim up a palm tree again in the way we did it. But we couldn't get high enough to cut all the leaves off so she is going to ask for a better ladder that is taller. So we are going to finish up what we started, and the next time I will remember my camera. Well we did all that in 1 hour so we had another hour, we asked what else she needed and she needed help cleaning out her gutters. So Elder Ojeda got up there and started to pull out mud, and it was really gross mud. I was laughing and then I got up there and I wasn't laughing anymore. Her gutter is lop sided so I took a hammer and a screw driver and punched a hole in the lower side so the water could drain. Man, service is some good times. After that it started to rain and the day was a really good day for us.

I have learned something really important in my life this week. I learned why I am obedient. I don't do it because someone told me to do it, or because I am going to baptize more people. I do it because I love my Heavenly Father and I love my brother Jesus Christ, if I do it because I love them I will be blessed with the things they want done. well that is what I learned this week that helped me a lot.

I love you all and I hope your week goes good.

love,
Elder Christensen