Week 6

So this place is awesome. i dont know what everyone was freaking out about.  The area is a little bit bigger than our ward, and there are probably just as many people living in it. Its awesome. it really is. We had like 20 people come to church on sunday, and the only reason we are a group is because only 3 men have the preisthood. But giv Lopez some time, and eventually it will be the strongest stake in the world!!! haha

So the bus ride here was a bit of an adventure. It was almost exactly like the trip up to the cabin. There was about an hour on a fairly busy and small freeway, then we went down a dirt road. Except the dirt road was in worse shape, adn we were in a bus with standing room only. And when I say like the cabin trail, I mean the whole way. There was a hill that reminded me of ours. And if they weren't pumping awful 70s music that I had never heard before, but knew that I hated, I would have been scared about falling down the cliff and dying. ahahha but thats okay

The other day, we went to the Paraguayan consolate to get our visas. we went to iguazu. They told us that we were less than a mile away from iguazu falls, and we were just chillin for 6 hours, but never went. That was a bummer. But it was fun to walk around the city.

There are a ton of Germans here. Its weird. Everyone never guesses that im from the US. They all guess Germany.  I didnt really expect that. One of our investigators is from Germany. Shes sweet. She came to church on sunday, and liked it a lot, and has come a few times now, so well see what happens.

Yeah, a ton of people here speak guarani. Its the native paraguan tongue. it sounds a lot like korean. And apparently its as hard to learn. Therres like grunts and stuff. Its weird. So I wont be learning that any time soon haha.

Hermano Ramirez is the group leader here. He is going to be the next prophet. He is freaking sick. He lived here for20 years and had the sacrament every week for his family. Its sick. He translates our lessons into guarani for our investigators that dont speak castillian. He is awesome!!

Dinner and Breakfast dont really exist here. Everyone just eats lunch. And siesta time sucks. Theres nobody anywhere. We have our study time during siesta time. We have a really weird schedule. And everyone goes to sleep at like 8 so its really hard to stay our for the whole time

Had my first barbeque on sunday. It ROCKED: Its as good as everyone expects it to be.

Missionary work is different than I thought it be. All we do is just go around sharing lessons and scriptures. I dont know why I thought it would be different. But its very chill. At least for the first few days in Lopez. AND I can actually speak a fair amount of Spanish. At least with Elder Silva- hes sick, I love him. But still I just cannot follow anyone else. Elder Silva says that it{s because everyone speaks castillian as a second language, and alll have way thhick guarani accents. So... sweet. Oh! and its probably because Elder Silva is from  Peru, and the peruvians are known to speak very slowly.

Everyone here loves  Portugese music, and crappy music that sounds like a shuffle of Casey Kasems top 700 from the 70s. Its awful but i can deal with it

Go to church. Read the scriptures. They're nice. Have a nice day!!

Elder Christensen

Posadas

HEy. so I made it. And the keyboard is really wierd, so forgive me of my misspellings.

If you want to know, the mission home address is 

Elder Trevor Emil Christensen

Misión Argentina Posadas

Córdoba 1243 Casilla #12

Posadas CP 3300

Misiones

Argentina

And mother: They have a lot of packages sent here, and they said theyve only heard of two that went missing. They open up every single package, since they dont allow food or electronics to enter. So keep that in mind. They say letters are as reliable as packages. And no one cares about the Jesus stickers. They ahve to open every package. Or you could just send me a Dear Elder.

Well travelling was fun. 10 hour flight. always a blast. The Uruguayan rugby team was aboard with us, so they were really fun to watch haha

On all 3 of our flights, I sat on a row of only missionaries, I guess they didn{t trust me to talk to anyone, haha. BUT the hermana in front of us on the flight to Buenos Aires started talking to the guy next to her. I heard him say that he didn{t want to talk about religion, then I forgot about them. She kept talking to him, thne like an hour later, I heard him reading aloud the first vision, haha and then I watched him read the entire Joseph smith history haha she leaned back and asked for a Book of Mormon, Which Elder Ah Quin (yeah, he{s poly) had. And they kept talking for a while. I couldn{t really hear what about, but it was fun to see. I wonder what will happen

So we had an 11 hour layover in the Buenos Aires Airport... Well a different one. We flew into one, then took a really... nice... bus to a different one across town. And yeah. like 50% of the time, there are painted traffic lines, and no one really uses them. not even as suggestions. For the plane ride, we just walked onto the tarmac as planes are taking off and went up the ramp onto the plane. It was fun. It was really loud. I was like 50 feet away from a plane that was taking off.

My first thought about Posadas was "wow" it's really big. And it kinda is. Theres not a lot of area to it, but its got a lot of skyscrapers. More than SLC. I guess we landed in Paraguay, then drove across a bridge to Argentina. That was fun. The mission home wasreally nice. reaally nice. It has a pool! haha But posadas is cool. It{s... I dont know how to describe it. There arent really any traffic laws and its just like any other south american city that I picture to be like.

It's REALLY nice weather here right now. Perfect. Not that humid. kinda cool. temperature wise. They said it gets up to 50 degrees here. Celsius. Oh yeah. So Im going to die in the next couple months.

Everyone here is really awesome. President LaPierre is the nicest, coolest guy I have ever met. I love him to death. He was great.

So my first area is going to be in Paraguay. In a town called Carlos Antonio Lopez. Legit. Theres not a ward there. Theres not a branch. Its called a group. So that means that theres a man thats allowed to give the sacrament to his family. He showed me where it was. Its not on the map. He showed me where the branch its based off of is located. THAT town isnt on the map haha. And its a two and a half busride of 70 Kilometers from the town with the branch to CAL. hahahahaha so this is gonna be awesome. President told me that the only place that has internet is a member´s home. one of the grown sons of this man. He said the internet might not work on Pday, so you might not hear from me next week. Or in the next 6 weeks. He told me it is literally the most remote area in the mission. He said "some people speak spanish" haha so I'll have to learn Guarani. My companion is Elder Silva. speaks very little english. But im replacing another tall white utahn, so I should be fine!!! hahhaahaha im so fetchin stoked

I love you all. Ill keep you in my prayers!! Remember to read your scriptures and pray!! It will do ya good!! I love to read Luke 12:27-28 if you were wondering. Look it up. Its fun

Have a nice day!!

Elder Trevor Emil Christensen

Elder Fallentine & Trev at temple

Adam Kemp (Church history tour) Harrison Rodgers (WXHS) Chase Jenkins (Church history tour)

Week 5

Hello everybody.

Pretty much this week has been the same as every other week that I have been here. So I will skip the secular stuff and just go straight on to what I have been studying in personal study, if that's alright with you.

I spent like 2 hours studying 2 Nephi 25, and I would recommend it to anybody. It pretty much just prophesies of Christ. It talks of his resurrection, and his life. It's legit. It just really hit home with me that day. Verse 23 says: "For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." We have the scriptures and we have the gospel today for the purpose of bringing everyone's children and everyone's brethren to a knowledge of Christ and his redeeming power. He is the only way we can gain salvation. It doesn't matter how good of a person is, how many kind deeds they do for men. They still have to believe in Christ, and verse 30 tells us that we "must keep the performances and ordinances of God." Verse 26 is awesome, too.

Remember that the only reason why we share the gospel is because we know that through the gospel is the only way that we can return to the full glory of God, and we want others to have that same chance to live up to their potential. So be missionaries. Spread the good word of the restored gospel. Go to the temple. It's awesome. I'll try my hardest if you do!

The only reason Mormons are so weird about sharing the gospel is because it brings us such joy!! We want everyone to get to know the living God through prayer and scripture study! We have  a living prophet on the earth, and he has the authority to tell us God's will. For everyone on the earth. Read the Book of Mormon. It's fun.

Sorry that this email is pretty much all over the place and really scrambled, I'm sorry. But I just want you all to know that I love you and I wish you the best! You're all awesome, and I'll be seein ya in Posadas, Argentina next week!

Have a nice day

Elder Trevor Emil Christensen

This is my district saying goodbye to our teacher Hermana Martinez, and two MTC volunteers Jose and Hely

Week 4

Hello family and friends and acquaintences and missionaries.

So I got my flight plans! woo! going to Argentina! I can wait for the 11 hour flight, but that's okay! Everyone in my zone got their flight plans! no one got reassigned! nuts!

I saw an Elder wearing a Kanab Football tshirt one day! He knows the Jensons, of course! I asked him what day he has TRC, and he said Tuesday! I told him that Grandma is there on Tuesday, and he totally knows her, and was stoked! hahaha so that was awesome. talked with him for a long time about Derek, Brandon, and Cristian.

Vai Sikahema... ?... The BYU/Green Bay football player gave us a devotional a couple nights ago!! He was awesome! Way dramatic and excited! It was pretty much on "every member a missiionary" he was way funny. He said that he can't wear a nametag, so he just wears BYU everything whenever he travels. haha and It's pretty much the same thing. It was awesome to hear him talk about loving to share the gospel with everyone he meets, basically. He was way funny. Loved it

 So we started teaching a little guy named Marco at the TRC. He is supposedly an investigator. He has polio. He's from Peru. and has a small family, but is an empty nester. He was awesome. He would pretty much share his testimony with us the whole lesson, after we would read a scripture and ask him what he liked about it. It's fun to talk with people. Spanish is starting to make sense. In the MTC, but I should be in for a suprise in a week or two. (We saw Marco in the Temple! AND another one of our TRC investigators! it's suprising that they let Catholics work in the temple ;) haha). I seriously look up to that man. He was wonderful.

Every single day is still the same. I'm loving my companions and we're having a ton of fun. We're pretty much a four-some companionship.

Hey!! IN SOCCER (we play ever day) I was probably 15 yards from the goal, and someone took a shot that went up in the air a little behind me, so i turned around, and I BIKED IT, THEN AS I TURNED AROUND TO WATCH IT,,, IT HIT THE CROSSBAR!!! OH!! IT WAS NUTS!! Everyone almost went nuts. Soccer seriously is my life now. Not really, but we play it every day.

That's about it! Have a nice day!!

Elder Trevor Emil Christensen

Week 3

Sorry guys, but pretty much every single day is exactly the same for me now.

Bad-ish, kinda good news. I went to the travel office on friday. And they told me that my visa hadn't come through yet, and that I was now going to stay in the MTC for 2 more weeks. So That was weird. But whatever. I will serve my time in the MTC the exact amount I expected to, So I shouldn't mope about it. The guy that told me said that he was in the MTC for 14 weeks waiting for his Russian visa, so I guess I still have it way easy. They did tell me that if I get my visa in the next 2 weeks, I'll go straight to Argentina. Like ASAP. But if not, then I'll be reassigned to Scottsdale Arizona, Spanish Speaking!! JK but that'd be legit.

My fingertip callouses from playing the guitar have all peeled off. It was pretty much the saddest, most unforgiving sight I have ever seen. I didnt want to take my hands out of my pockets. I was very sad. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. And now my fingertips are super soft. And ugly. I hate it.

The temple is fun. Going there every week is definitely a blessing. I won't have a temple for 23 months, so It's good to get going there a lot.

I read the Bible a lot here. And I have gotten to know it pretty well, since I use the footnotes and ccan somehow remember them. My branch calls me Elder Scriptorian. It's weird how much I am able to remember. Gift from God.

We are doing SKYPE lessons with an investigator right now. It's very hard. There are few times when we are not destracted enough by shoddy technology to feel the spirit. But it is possible. I have huge respect for missionaries that do those lessons often. David Giles.

HEY! I saw Grandma Jenson in the TRC again!! It was awesome! She's our favorite MTC person ever. Her Spanish is impeccable, and so is her smiling face! It was a great blessing to see her a second time!

The Melby's blanket found me, and now I am warm at night :)

I play soccer every day.

Elder Spencer Brewster is here hahaha I picked him up from off the bus and showed him to his room and his classroom haha it was legit! Love having another familiar face here.

So we were doing our laundry last night. The 4 Elders that live in my apartment. We walk in to the laundromat to switch our clothes, and we saw our TEACHER doing his laundry!!! Hermano Draut!! Hhahaha it was awesome!

That's pretty much it. Conference rocks. Everyone here is going crazy

Elder Trevor Emil Christensen