Week 94

Well, on Tuesday, we finally will say goodbye to our beloved presidente LaPierre.. And we will welcome with open arms Presidente Svec, from Chile. It's kind of bittersweet. The last time we got to see him was at our zone conference on Friday.  It was SO spiritual. We talked about a lot of things. Mostly our missionary callings, and how to love one another. The best part for me was that a couple weeks ago, we gave everyone a calendar, and a list of little services that we had to do for our companion. We had to do a service every day until the zone conference. And then we talked about it. I'd say that everyone had a great experience. I did. I'll tell ya some stories later, but the best ones were about writing notes to our companion, thanking them. There were many good experiences.

The highlight of the week was an investigator that came to church today. He lives litterally across the street from the chapel, but he has a bunch of friends in a different branch, and has a lot of family members in Asuncion that are members. He's always heard from the missionaries, but never was interested until about a month ago when he finally started to read the Book of Mormon. One of his friends invited him to Stake Conference, and he said that as they were singing the opening hymn, he just started bawling "I have no clue why I was crying... then during all of the talks, I was just crying the whole time!" He's like this 50 year old mechanic. It's pretty funny.  Well he's attended church ever since, but in the different branch, like I said. We went by his house with the hermanas from Rama 3, and then we started teaching him from then on. We passed by with the Branch President, and yesterday morning, he passed by his house in his car to pick him up - yes. He lives across the street, and he still went in his car.

Well he liked the reunion, and at the end of Elders Quorum, the teacher said to him "we're here to help you in your investigation of the church. We're your neighbors, we want to get to know you better, and were here to help." and then Hermano Roman said "It's not an investigation, sorry. I'm not investigating. I already know that it's true. I WILL be baptized. It's not a matter of if, its a matter of when. I'm not offended or anything, but I just want to let you all know."

YEAAAHHHH!H!H!!!!!!!

He's got a date to be baptized for the 9th. Such a huge blessing to know this guy. His family still doesn't really want to attend, so were working with that, but he, in his own words, is convinced.

Another great miracle happened about a week ago. Walking down the street, a girl called out to us "when are you having English classes?!" and we said "can we share something with you?"  She's obsessed with the States. She wants to live there. She's 18, and has gone to English class before in the church. Well we're not currently teaching English, but we taught her the gospel! We gave her a Book of Mormon.

In a week, she's already almost done with 2 Nefi. She reads an hour a day, no matter what. She has now downloaded Gospel Library onto her phone, and has all of the general conferences down. She's on the group message list for the youth of the church here, and she walked all by herself to church yesterday. She loved it, and now is great friends with all the members.

We asked her if she wants to get baptized. She said kind of, but not really. But we`ll see about that. She's prayed to know if the Book of Mormon is true, and totally received an answer! She's awesome!

She lives with her parents. We invite her parents to come and listen to us. They politely said "no", and then proceeded to make us lunch. I love food.

Elder Christensen

Week 93

Templo de Asunciòn
I got to go to the temple on Tuesday! It was the greatest! We had to do tramites, I had to take my fingerprints, and sign papers, and have my picture taken in Asuncion. What a fun 6 hour bus ride. But while we were there, just seeing the temple is such a great spiritual experience. We cant go in- it's against the rules- but just being on the grounds you can feel the Spirit there.

We went to the distribution center where I bought a hymnal in Portuguese- I've been singing 2 or 3 hymns in Portuguese every day since then- and I think that its probably the nicest building I have ever entered in my entire mission. Wow. They had central air, and the walls didn't have dirty fingerprints OR mold running all down them. It was incredible.

Our most exciting investigator is named Melquisedec. haha he's on the path to full activity in the church just by having that name! He's very evangelical, and knows a ton about the Bible, and we had a lesson of about an hour just talking about the organization of the church using Bible references. We had both memorized scriptures and their references, and were both asking each other questions. It was pretty much the most intense lesson I have ever had. At the end, he had an extremely great desire to read the Book of Mormon. He has now read a good portion of 1 Nefi, and says that he loves it. It was fathers day yesterday, and he went to visit his dad, so he couldn't attend church, but he said that he wants to. So we'll see how that turns out!

One of the recent converts here lives in a place thats VERY hard to find. You have to make like 5 turns to get there. There's not a straight shot street that gets you there. And we still don't know the area very well. We tried to find it, and got lost. I was pretty frustrated. We looked for another 15 20 minutes, and could not find his house. What ever. Then we decided to say a prayer and ask for help. As we ended the prayer, we just started walking, and took 1 turn, and walked another block, and we could see, a block away, his house! What a miracle! We immediately said a prayer of thanks, and then had a great lesson about going to the temple. So that was nice.

It's pretty great being a missionary. I love you

Elder Christensen

PS, here in Ciudad del Este, its known for having a ton of imported American stuff! look at this gem we found downtown!

Photos

Week 92

A Cidade do Leste

Hey

Yeah, Ive been studying a lot in Portuguese lately. Ive been praying in Portuguese and ive been reading O Livro de Mòrmon. I will learn. We actually find a lot of Brazillians around here. They all speak Spanish, though, and dont really try to speak to me in Portuguese, so its kinda hard to practice, but whatever. The other day, we were with a woman in the first lesson, and she told us that she doesnt like going to church, but she likes learning things in her house, and always accepts missionaries. In fact, she was waiting for some sister missionaries to come in that instant!

And guess who walked in?? The Jehovah`s Witnesses! It was pretty awkward. Just us with the investigators of two young Brazillian women. We beat them to the punch. They didnt really stick around long, but they just set up another appointment with the lady, and left.  well, It wasnt a great lesson, and she said she doesnt want to go to church, but it was the first time that other missionaries had walked into one of my lessons. It was weird. What a great experience.

We had a meeting in Encarnacion, and I got to sit next to elder Baskin. That was the greatest. I had forgotten how much he made me laugh.

Paraguay and the US played each other in soccer on Saturday. Do you know who won? Yeah, you better believe it. Now everytime a 10 year old kid in the street starts ridiculing us, instead of just taking it, i yell back ``did you watch the game on saturday? Yeah? Do you remember who won?!`` then they kind of shut up. So thats a good little tool i have now against the Paraguayan youth.

Yesterday, it was one of the funnest church meetings ever! It has been FREEZING cold lately, and one member was trying to turn the heater on. he turned it on, then sat down as someone started to pray. Little did we know that he accidentaly turned on the AC! It was blowing cold air! It was horrible haha and we had to wait until after the prayer to turn the AC off. It was pretty nippy. Then during the meeting, some 15 year old kid walked into the chapel and started shaking everyones hands. It was the middle of the meeting. We sat next to him. As the meeting ended, we asked him where he was from, and he said ``from a place of suffring and misery.`` wow. Ive never been there before. during the next class, he stood up, then took his pants off- luckily he was wearing some soccer shorts underneath- and kneeled down next to the teacher, and started reading the hymns out loud. Our teacher wasnt even fazed. Then he kind of wandered around the room, and left.

So it was a great week.

Elder Christensen

Week 91

Well my new companion is named Elder Pettit. He's got 10 months in the mission. He's from Highland. He's pretty great.

We came into the area, and Elder Baskin had left us a map of the investigators that they were teaching. One of them was named Diego. Well, they taught him like, twice, and had given him a Book of Mormon. When we went by, he brought it out, and showed us that he had already read through 1 Nephi. Wow! He said that while he's in college, he just reads in all his free time. It's been like a week! One time, one of his friends, asked him about it, and he started reading it to her! She liked it so much that they photocopied a few pages so that she could read it at home! We gave him a new book for her to read!

Another day, he was reading in class, and his professor came up to him, and asked him what he was reading. He told him, and the professor said "oh! I'm mormon!" It was great! And apparently, started teaching him a bit more about what we believe! What a miracle! This kid was super prepared! He said that he already believes that it's true, and wants to go to church, but his grandma is extremely catholic, and wont let him go to another church. We'll work on that.

Another great miracle is that Elder Baskin baptized a guy here a few weeks ago. He's pretty quiet. But I was just sitting there, talking to him after sacrament meeting, and he asked me "what can I do so serve in the church? There has to be something that I can do! I'm too scared to go and give a talk or teach a class, but there must be something!" Yeah, we directed him straight to the branch president, and now his assignment is to come early and greet all the members as they walk into church!

The last great thing that happened was that during testimony meeting, a member walked in kind of late. All in one motion, he picked a chair to sit down on, looked up and noticed that no one was sharing their testimony, set his books down, and went up to the pulpit and bore his testimony; haha it was pretty great.

We were contacting the other day, and a lady answered, and we asked if she knew a bit about the church. She said "Yes. My daughter was married there a few weeks ago." Wow! So we started talking to her, and we had a great lesson. Basically, it all started out with her saying that she didn't know much about what we believed. We talked about the Bible. She's Catholic and believes in the Bible. But she asked US if we believed that everything that Christ had done in His life was recorded in the Bible. Promptly, I whipped out the last verse in the book of John that says that if all the acts of Christ were written down, not even all the books in all the libraries in the world would be able to fit it all! And then right after, we whipped out the Book of Mormon. And she understood VERY well, and now is VERY interested.

We were pretty happy, and headed out to a family's house to have a family home evening. As we walked in, unexpectedly, we saw this lady's daughter and new husband sitting there! This family had miraculously invited them to the family home evening! We said "hey! We just had a killer lesson with your mom!"

During the family night, we were given time to bear our testimonies. And this girl had said that she was baptized recently and was married and that her parents had always given her a hard time about the church, and that they didn't really accept anything that she had told them about what we believe, and that she was really hurting about it. She said that hearing that her mom listened to us, and not only that, but participated, too, gave her so much comfort. She started to cry and it was pretty spiritual. So she's getting baptized pretty soon. We have another appointment with her on Thursday.

Sorry no pictures, I forgot my camera

Elder Christensen