Week 42

Yes, im moving areas AGAIN haha

Area number 5. im going to a city in Northern Paraguay called Salto del Guaira. Yes, you heard me. -Northern- Paraguay. Well... almost. But its like a 14 hour bus ride away. Makes Carlos Antonio Lopez sound like a nice sunday drive. Its known as the area most like america. They have mcdonalds. with mcflurries. so i will be spending lots of money on ice cream and getting really fat.

My new companion is Elder Hutchison. Hes from Portland, oregon. Hes cool. He played Lacrosse and i have talked with him a couple times. I even went on divisions with him 3 weeks ago. The dream of the 90s is alive in Portland. Im super stoked hes relatively new in the mission, so were both going to be very new haha. Im so excited to get up there.

Elder Averett is going home tomorrow. He finished the 2 years, and is going back to idaho. I will miss him a lot. I really enjoyed being his companion. I really did.

Theyre making Tacuari ward an hermana area, so thats different.

Well, heres an experience for ya, if you want it.

I was doing divisions with the elders in Centro in Posadas. And we went contacting all night. Its an area that is very closed, with not a lot of members. They do not get into a lot of houses. We walked up to a house, and i saw a family sitting around a dinner table... and i did not want to talk to them. So i looked beside the giant window, and there was a staircase up to the upper leveel of the building. And there was a door bell.... so i rung it. And a 20 year old kid came down. We just said ``hey were representatives of Jesus Christ. Can we talk with you?`` and he said ``yeah, come in`` haha what? since when does that happen?? so we went.

it turned out to be this 20 year old couple. The guy was kind of clueless, but the girl was AWESOME. She sid that she was kind of Evangelical, but not really. She had gone to a lot of churches, and didnt really feel right at any one of them, so she stopped going. She had a ton of questions about what we believed, and all that and was very proactive about finding out our beliefs. it was AWESOME.

Then we started talking about the Book of Mormon, and she was astounded. it was great. We invited them to church then they said ``acutally were moving to Buenos Aires tomorrow.`` and so that kind of killed my mood. But then she asked how she could hear more about the church. I said there was a website. She asked me to write down the website. I did. And then we left.

Well... I hope she finds the missionaries in Buenos Aires... Go, my little seed. Go!

And thats it. It is not such a big coincidence that we found them the DAY before they move to Buenos Aires, and she has been looking for the right church. Well it was really cool to be apart of and it made me happy.

Elder Christensen

Week 41

We finally did it.

We went into the Laotian barrio in our area. Pretty much everyone there just pretends not to speak spanish, and rejects us. But they all speak a language that isnt english, spànish, or guarani, so i think its pretty legit that they speak laotian. Plus the two members that live there have and read the book of mormon in Laotian. We are trying to get them to come back to church, and its super weird to be around a different culture. They all came over from Laos in the 70s during the Vietnam war. They still have an Aisian style culture, and i feel even more out of place when i go there.

But the people there are great. Its cool to hear the conversion stories of the two. One of them has a son that moved to utah and is a laotian man from Argentina living in Utah and is very active in the church, so were hoping that he will help us with his mom.

We just had stake conference. Our Stake presidency was switched up, and  two general authorities came. it was cool to hear them talk. They both focussed on self suficciency. Which is what the peopple here really lack. They spoke a lot about education and learning english, and holding a job for your family. They also really stressed going on Recreational activites with your family. Elder Gonzales said that recently, the general authorities talked, and put a huge emphasis on the Day of Rest, and then told us nothing more... just that we would hear more... they have been telling us we would hear more about that for three months now, and its killing me. I think theyre going to crack down on watching tv on sunday, but im not sure. I wasnt there, and they still havent told me anything. But it was awesome to hear two 70s and our mission president talk all in the same conference. Talk about an all star weekend. They pretty much all talked a ton about the family. it was awesome.

Wee are also preparing four recent converts to go to the  temple. And they all ahve serious drive to go. We have had several very spiritual lessons about the temple, and they all ask lots of questions, and all eat all the scriptures up and the pamphlet that is aobut preparing to enter the temple. I love it. I love the temple. I am very happy that i went so many times.

Have a nice day.

Elder Emil

Week 40

I totally wish that we went golfing. But we went the course here in Posadas, and it was closed. Then one thing led to the next and our PDay was pretty much destroyed. Sorry.

But we did play paddleball today and it was great.

We also went to the Cruz de Santa Ana. Just this 500 foot cross in the middle of Misiones, Argentina.

I was sick again this week. I wasnt really bad, but I just had a sore throat that destroyed my voice. I sounded like Uncle Drew. I just walked around saying ´´youngbloods´´ all week, and im 95% sure that no one could understand me.

It feels like every single thing that we sets up falls through. Its really turning into quite a joke. But whatever. Somehow we end up having successful days, even though we follow the plan and nothing ends up how we expect it. That is what has happened the whole transfer. Do you see a segway here? Good. finish it in your mind.

Well.... I love you. Nothing really exciting happened this week. Just a normal week. Studies, divisions with the members, getting rejected by Argentine men drinking mate.

Elder Christensen

Week 39

Yes, it finally happened!

Someone proposed to me! as in marriage!

I said no.

We were trying to visit a partial member family, and none of the family members who are members were home, but one of the 17 kids was there. She told us to sit down and that she wanted to talk to us. We said alright. Pretty much tthe first thing out of her mouth was ´´you guys are american right? Ive always had a dream of going to america... but its probably very expensive right? But its probably easier if i got married with one of you two!´´ we kind of pushed it away, and started asking her about church, and then she kind of cut us off and asked us if we could have a girlfriend. By this time, we were just trying to get out of there as comfortably as possible. we said no. We kept trying to end the conversation, but she just refused to let us say anything. Finally she just asked us ´´so could i marry one of you two
?´´ and we said no, and then said like a sentence about the temple, and then we prayed and left.

It was pretty nuts.

Well another cool thing that happened here was that we had a reference from a way awesome member here about her exboyfriend. We had one lesson with him, and he was WAY smart. Hed already talked to the missionaries, and claimed to be reading the Book of Mormon. He was VBERY intelligent. Well, we asked him to be baptized on june 13th, and he said yes.

this was like 1 month ago. More than 1 month. We tried to set up a bunch more citas and stuff like that with him. one time, he claimed that he was going to paraguay, and then his ex girlfriend told us that he didnt. We tried to set up another cita, and he claimed to be sick. Hed come to church like 6 times, but always left early, and we talked with him very little. Plus in one of the church meetings, the bishop started talking about clenliness of the church, and brought in examples... diapers, etc. it was nasty. He left early. We thought for sure we wouldnt be hearing from him again. We called him last week, and he said that he was still interested,k but that he didnt know when he had any free time and that he would call us when he did.

we thought for sure we would never hear from him again. Well yesterday, he texted us seeing if we could meet this morning. And we did. We asked him if he stillw anted to be baptized. He said yes. I said ´´well.. i dont think that we can THIS saturday.´´ and he asked me ´´why not? do you not have faith??´´ it was pretty dang funny. Turns out he really DID go to paraguay and was sick, and turns out hes read almost half of the Book of Mormon and loves it. Hes a super prepared person, because we literally have done nothing and he just does it all. He even asked us´´what do i have to do to be a member? because i heard that you cant drink coffee.. Is there anything else?´´ it was dang suprising. Well i wouldnt have guessed it

So... that was probably the weirdest lesson i have ever had because it totally turned out the opposite of what i was expecting.... I think he might get baptized.

I love you

Elder Emil Christensen

hooray for pictures. This is me waiting for elder Averett to get his hair cut. And the next one is me in the middle of downtown, posadas.

Week 38

yeah, sorry. Boring week. just kidding. I had a ton of fun, and we worked really hard, but not a whole lot happened. Just one of those dead weeks.

wait. Elder Viñas from the Seventy came and spoke to our mission. that was pretty cool. I really enjoyed it. He talked about the Expiación, and about the plan of salvation, and about being better missionaries. He said that it is true that just being on a mission is a success, even if you do just enough to not be sent home for 2 years. It was hard to understand and hard to believe for me, but ill deal with it. He was such and intelligent man. He made us give counts of all of the recent converts that we have in our areas to make sure that were making sure that the church is growing. And when we had never heard of someone, he callled us to repent, and it was nuts.

He has almost 20 eyars experience of being a 70, and i could not believe that a man had that much intelligence

OH! WAIT!! we had a noche de hogar with The family with whom we skyped. The ones whose dad is not a member, but the family is way active, and the dad used to hate missionaries but now hes softening up to us, and as it turns out, he asks his family all the time about callings in the church, and what baptism requires and all this stuff. He will be the next patriarch, im not even kidding. Well we had it on forgiveness. And i9t was the greatest noche de hogar ever. One of the funniest things ever was that his daughter used situations of what would yhou do if... from his life. it was funny. and also kind of bad. But i feel like he learned a lot, and he is changing rapidly. Well... thats all.

I love you all. Os quiero. Heres some pictures of me in posadas

Elder Emil

by the way, i got a package, and enjoyed the spaghettiohs

¡oh posadas, oh posadas! ¡cuantas veces os hubiera juntado como la gallina junta sus polluelos, y no quisisteis!

Week 37

I really love this place

This week went by so fast, im really not even sure what happened.

But i will tell you a story.

Saturday was an awful day. The elders from the branch next to us has a baptism this week, so we had to give the hermana an interview on saturday. We knew it was coming,a nd they knew it was coming, and we constantly hounded them for the time that it would be at, because we had a ton of citas that day, and they always told us that they had to check with the hermana. Well saturday rolled around, and we planned our day, and just pretty much gave up hope on giving the interview and didnt plan on it. After lunch, we got a call from the elders that we had the interview right then. Thanks. So we went.

We had to walk to their area, and we got to the intersection where we planned on going, and long story short, they werent there, and we called them, and they were lost, and we were lost, and then 4 hours passed by. And then we both finally learned where we were at, and agreed to meet at a certain location. and then 2 more hours passed by. and they were 15 blocks away, as it turns out, so we had to walk way over to them, and it started raining, and we didnt have umbrellas, and i was freaking out, and some guy was playing basketball, and then ran off the court and started yelling at us, and it was awful, and then we finally found the elders and went to this hermanas house to interview her. by this time it was 730, and the whole day was wassted i felt like.

Well this girl was 12, and i was kind of unsure of how the interview was going to turn out. But as it just so happens, a few months ago, she had a dream that a latino and an american found her and baptized her. then a week after that, she met the missioinaries, and has gone to church every week since then. She has recieved many answers to her prayers and her neighbor is a member and goes with her every week. She was the most prepared knowledgeable 12 year old girl i have ever met. It was awesome to hear her give her testimony. And to end it off, we started talking about our favorite Book of Mormon stories. it was nuts.

Well by the time we got back to our area, it was 8 45, and we needed to go back to our pension within 15 to 45 minutes. I was just pplannin on eating an ice cream to soothe my pains of a very frustrating day, but i just decided to go to the family that we skyped at´s house. Theyre all members except for the dad.

We went, and the dad has a really good relationship with us, and 3 months ago, he hated themissionaries. Wouldnt even look at Elder Hawk. Hated the missionaries. Well we were talking for a little, and then we just watched the 5 minute video of Elder Holland giving his testimony of the Book of Mormon. And it was way spiritual.

Then he told us he had started reading the Book of Mormon.

Hallelujah

have a great day

Elder Christensen

Week 36

I was way sick this week, but thats a different story. I got a blessing, and we still left every day

Well... Elder Hawk is leaving me. Hes going to train in Miguel Lanus. Poor guy. Ill miss him. And ill be with another Gringo, Elder Averett here in Posadas.

Well this week was one of the best ever because we got to see a baptism!! A faather baptized his 13 year old son, and 2 months ago, they were inacitve! Now they both have a lot of drive to work in the church and spread the gospel, and its great. It was a perfect day.

I was way sick. On thursday night, i just didnt feel very good. I asked for a blessing, and went to sleep. And then on friday, we went out and worked and i was doing fine. Saturday, too. except at the baptism. I was dying. And everyone came up to me and asked me if i was okay, and i told them that i was a little bit sick, and they all started telling me all their witchcraft healing methods, and then literally EVERY SINGLE PERSON at the baptism was talaking about my illness. It was really uncomfortable. I never want to be sick again just so i can avoid that.

Well another highlight of the week was seeing the dedication of the temple of Cordoba Argentina!

Every chapel here was an extension of the temple. And the Spirit was just as strong in our stake center as it was in the temple! it was awesome! i loved it! It was a great experience! I really could not have been happier to be sitting in the temple again. Elder D todd Christofferson and President Uchtdorf were there. Elder Christofferson Directed, and he speaks spanish SO WELL!! Just as well as any gringo i have ever heard! He praactically has a latino accent! I could not believe it. Who knew? President Uchtdorf gave a wonderful message on helping  your neighbor. We go to the temple to remind ourselves of how we should be always, not just how we should be in the temple, and it should give us that light to share with other people.

Also, the new temple president in Cordoba is from Posadas, anad his son is our stake president. So everyone here knows him personally, and we got to see our stake president on the broadcast,t oo, sitting in the audience. it was pretty cool

Well i was loving it. One of the perks of being sick, is that you get to sleep without a timer. I always expected that if i did that i would sleep until like 5 at night, or through a whole day. But i woke up at 8. It was quite disappointing, really. Well... yes.

Love you all.

Elder Emil

oh. one of these pictures is me playing with our stake presidents Boxer.