Week 32

Yes.

He came to Mission Resistencia, just next door, and did a video conference with both the missions. He was awesome. Hes a greeat spiritual giant, and rocks. He spoke a lot about being firm missionaries, and the thing that stood out most to me, was that he siad that the 12 apostles asked in prayer what they could do to help make the world a better place, and the answer was ´´keep the sabbath day holy´´. He then said that bishops would be getting more training and missionaries too on keeping the sabbath day holy. It made me never want to watch football on a sunday agian, and i dont think i ever will. And you shouldnt either. If you want, read in Preach my Gospel, lesson 4 of seccion 3, and read the part on the sabbath day. Then follow it.

I did divisions in a little town called Ituzaingó this week. Its a beach town. Seriously. Ive been so used to waliking around on red dirt roads, that walking around on white sand roads was really weird. Wild horses and crocodiles were everywhere, too. I was not expecting that.

Well in the Divisions, we went to ask a reference from one of the oldest members that lives there. She told us to go an visit a guy around the corner. He had listened to the missionaries once. So we went. Turns out, the misisonaries HAD talked to him for a long time, and he had almost gotten baptized. We talked aobut the book of mormon, and he said he had read something simmilar, but it was bigger, and red, and only talked about Jesus Christ. I asked ´´Did you read Jesus the Christ?´´ And he said ´´Yes! thats it!´´ So we found this guy who has read Jesus the Christ and the Book of Mormon, and has gone to church several times, and now is very excited to go to church. And its nuts.

Thats it for today! Have a nice day!

Elder Christensen

Week 31

Hello!

Well as you can guess from the title, the ward had a baptism this week!! But not really. Heres the stroy:

About 2 months ago, Elder Hawk and his old companion were in the mission office doing something on pday, and it was taking all of their pday. They got back to the apartment, and only had a tiny bit of time to go and buy groceries And write a little to their families. They wrote to their families, and bought groceries, and in the line waiting to buy, they started talking to this family. They sounded interested in the gospel, and they noted down their address, and left.

Well they got home, and it was 30 minutes past the time that pday is supposed to end. They debated between staying in and studying to finish pday, or to go out and proselyte. They hadnt studied yet, by the way. They decided to go and find the houuse of the family at the grocery store (which is WAL MART!! the first time I walked in, i said ``america`` under my breath. Its nuts!). Well they found them, and it turns out, that the mom and the oldest 2 sons of 19 and 14 are members. But the dad, adn the daughter of 8 ,a dn the son of 6 are not. So they started teaching them.

Well, to this day, the dad doesnt come to church, but still listens to the lessons we have been teaching to the mom and her children. The mom, has come every week for the past 2 months, and has started, by her own accord, 2 service projects, and still notices more things to do. The son of 14 just recieved the preisthood last week, and passed the sacrament yesterday. The oldest son doesnt reallly want anything to do with us. The 6 year old son rocks it in the primary. He asked us when he was going to be baptized. We told him in 2 years. He then said ``wait- is baptism the thing that wipes away all your sins??`` haha YES.

Anyway, yesterday we had the baptism. One of the coolest members of the ward did the ordinance. Hes theyoung mens president, and i think he visits every young man every couple of days. Hes such a hard worker.

Well thats the story for the week. It was the most notable thing. I really am enjoying this work. We are trying to turn around the culture here to a culture of work. Where everyone goes out and visits every menos activo, and every investigator. And it looks like its starting to work. Its complicated, and we leave on divisions with the members a lot,a nd its awesome to see how much THEIR teaching is improving. Its awesome.

If you want to hear something funny, at the baptism, the bishop announced the schedule of the events. Talks, the baptism, etc. And announced that elder christensen was going to be giving a talk on the gift of the Holy Ghost. Hello. So i was preparing for that. Then we forgot that we had to bring our dessert. So while i was going to be talkking, elder Hawk was going to run with one of the members to a members house to pick up some cookies that we were going to serve for the baptism. And i wasl the only talk, and had to talk until they got back. They took 15 minutes ahah. So i gave a 15 minute promptu talk. I read like 7 scriptures, and i feel like i sounded pretty fluent. But i dont know. Youd have to ask the members.

That is all. I love you all. I really do

Elder Emil Christensen

oh no. this first one is me in montecarlo eating cereal on our deck. It was great.

Week 30

Hello.

Posadas is a great area. Tacuari, the area im in, is pretty much the suburbs. So theres a lot of houses, and a lot of people. And a lot of members. We have had a lot of success in getting the members to come to lessons with us and befriend our investigators, and rebefriend the menos activos.

The elders that were here before me had a lot of success with recent converts and reactivating. In every lesson that i have gone to, they seem like normal life long members, but they only really started making these habits a couple months ago, and have changed so much!

Testimony meeting was awesome in a ward, because we filled up the whole hour, and there were some LEGIT stories. Just be sure that there are some members in Posadas, Argentina with very strong conversions to the gospel.

Not a whole ton happened this week... Im still kinda trying to figure the area out, and weve had to spend a lot of time in the office, so thats wasted a lot of time.

Im very happy, and now i have a vision of how i can be happier. The more I study with Elder Hawk, the more i learn about the characteristics of God. He really is the most selfless being on the planet. He created the world. Why? so that we could live here. He sent His son. Why? so that we could be saved and return to Him. He literally has NO LIFE except to get caught up in ours.HIs work, and His glory ( what makes Him happy) is to bring to pass our eternal life. Our eternal happiness. And we obey HIm and achieve our potential by serving others. because, if we do it right, thats what we will be doing for the rest of eternity. Serving others.

Have a wonderful day

Elder Trevor Emil Christensen

Week 29

Hello.

Yes. Finally going to live the big city life. Its funny because Posadas actually isnt very big, but its the biggest weve got. How we find out, is President emails all the zone leaders the changes early monday morning before the end of the transfer, and then the zone leaders call the district leaders, and tell them whats happening in their distict, and the district leaders call each missionary companionship in their distict. And then on Wednesday, we move to wherever were supposed to go.

So im going to a ward called Tacuari. Finally I will be in a stake. My companion is Elder Hawk. Larry Echo. Just kidding. But hes a gringo, and ive met him once, and hes very legit. Very. Im going to learn a lot about missionary work this transfer. And probably i will learn less about spanish. But i dont know.

Conference. Are those guys good or what?? It was kind of awkward for me, a young missionary, to listen to, like, 15 talks in a row about dating and marriage, but I still thought it rocked, even though it hurt my soul a little bit.

Elder Perrys talk about him and Elder Eyring going to the Vatican was pretty legit. Dale ´´the Dark Horse´´ Relund came out of nowhere and gave a rocking talk about missionary work. I really enjoyed that talk. It was one of my favorites. It was cool. Neil L Andersen mentioned a story about Elisha with the horses and chariots of fire from God going to battle with him, and it was a story that I read THAT MORNING. So that was awesome, because I knew exactly what he was talking about. Elisha is a great prophet. It was really fun to hear the 2 talks in Spanish. I think I was more excited to hear them than anyone else in the branch.

Well I finished the Bible this week, and the Church is true.

Weve been working with this menos activo family for a while now. They give us lunch on Wednesdays, and have started praying as a family every night, but still wont read the scriptures or come to church, but Elder Piriz will continue trying. Well randomly the hermano asked us ´´so what do we have to do to be worthy for the temple?´´ Yeah, baby. So we told him, and apparently pay tithing and hold a calling and come to church and read and pray as a family is reasonable for him. Earlier this week we also helped them keep digging their well. We dug down a couple feet, and I am recognized as a very good well digger.

Elder Piriz had to go to the hospital this week. His arm was hurting. Well we were waiting in the room, and the doctor walked in and said ´´Elders!´´ ... what? We didnt even respond we were so suprised, and then he said, in english, ´´I lived in Utah for a year. I went my sophomore year to Cottonwood High School. Your temple in Salt Lake is VERY pretty.´´ haha it was awesome. So we started talking about how bad our english is getting, and the church. Turns out, he went to church as a high schooler foreign exchange student, and really liked it, but was never baptized, and has never been back since. But he did meet Spencer W Kimball while he was there. We invited him to church, but he said no.

Well i enjoyed this week. I hope you did,  too.

Elder Emil Christensen

My old district leader, Elder Cross left his mark on my new wardrobe

First look at my companion, Elder Piriz. 27, from Marcos Juarez, Cordoba, Argentina.

I was confused at the sheer number of selfies that this guy took

He made me lunch this day!

Someone pushed the button on my camera a little too soon

Our district. The district leader was my companion, elder Piriz. Next to him was Elder Hodson, then Elder Taylor, then me. On the front row was Sister Dempsey from Louisiana, then Sister Anderson from Dubai, then Sister Murphy from Portland, then Sister Retana from Costa Rica.

Elder Taylor, a good buddy of mine. 6'10" and from Layton

At the end of 6 months, it's somewhat of a tradition to burn your tie. My first companion, Elder Silva, must have known that I was going to try to burn his tie, because he gave me one that was completely fire proof

My hair was outrageous.

I spent a lot of time out on this balcony, eating cereal late at night, after planning. I thought it was beautiful

Elder Piriz loved selfies

"Crhistiansen"... Almost got it

One again: Outrageous 

Elder Farnsworth was my zone leader again!

Elder Farnsworth gave me a haircut.

My hair was still outrageous but in a different way

Easter Zone Conference. I love the Jazz

Elder Farnsworth

You can see Sister LaPierre and also, Elder Duke is on the far right, sitting down. No, he's not wearing a watch

It was incredibly foggy every morning. I liked it

The well we dug

The same well

Sister Angelica was the bomb

Our branch president with one of his sons

My last day in Montecarlo

I looked forward to every opportunity that I had to play guitar

This was the mom of the family that we were working with. They were cool

A partial member family that we worked with a lot. Silvana was a returned missionary who was quite a joy to work with. Her husband and daughter started coming to church, and they were good friends of mine.