Week 49

Hey man

Well this just about sums up the week-

Elder Hutchison bought a basketball, and now we run 2 miles every morning to the closest court, and play. It requires us waking up 30 minutes early. its awesome

our branch had a service project at a local elementary school. They invited us to go. we went, and then when we got there, no one else was there. So we called a few people, and they said they werent going, so we ened up doing home.... yeah.

The other missionaries told us that some members are accusing me and elder hutchison of not working. wow. i think thats the first time in my life i have ever gotten accused of NOT working. i always thought that my work ethic was one of my biggest characteristics. So we will continue working. its pretty much just because none of our investigators have come to church in a long time. but we call them on sunday morning, we pass by their houses, and they choose not to come. but... whatever.

one of the missionaries in our branch had to stay with us for 5 days this week. hes been in the mission for 2 months. super new. and all the days, he was giving us advice. most of his advice began with ´´at the beginning of my mission, i did this.... now i do this...´´ and i would just laugh to myself. I learned that i still have some issues of getting frustrated with people. So ill tell you if i ever fix that.

and lastly...

There's this 18 year old girl who lives right next to us. She always says hi to us, and we always say hi to her. its super awkward. shes always just sitting on her doorstep... anyway. it was 8 oclock at night. we had to go to the house because e hutchison had to take some medication, and we saw her just sitting there. we passed her, went to one of our appointments. the people werent there. I was down for just buying a pizza, but my comp said ´´no lets go and talk to our neighbor girl.´´ i had the same impression, but my stomach was ignoring it.

So we went. we just walked up and asked ´´´can we share something?´´ she said yes,a nd went and broght out some chairs. we started talking, and she was super cool. just this 18 year old girl whos really outgoing, but super chill, just talking to us about college, and what not. we were just breaking the ice. she was easy to talk to.

she asked us if we had learned any guarani, and i said yes. how? i sAID THAT  i was studying out of the book of mormon in guarani. I said, yes, we have a nother book of scripture. she said ´´yeah, i know about the book of mormon´´ oh really? what do you know? she siad that she had just read the title page, and learned a bit. She siad that she hadd alwyas been interested in learning about religions, and had always looked up stuff on the internet to find stuff out.

she said that she knew that the book of mormon had other books, like the bible. she siad ´´Nephi... theres 4 of them, right? and jacob... and alma....´´ then she pulled out her phone, and pretty much immediately said ´´omni, words of mormon, mosiah, alma, heleman´´ what??? haha we asked her what she was using to look up the books so fast. she hid her phone. we pressured her. she showed us. SHE HAD THE BOOK OF MORMON APP ON HER PHONE. DOWNLOADED.

Fanny then told us that she was now in jacob 4!!

We asked her how long ago she started reading. 1 month ago!! she said that she had read almost every day

background- the elders have lived in this apartment for almost 5 years, and she had lived in her apartment for more than 1 year. And she said that no elder has ever said anything more than ´´hi´´ to her.

what... it was so suprising. She said that she really likes it. We told her to ask any question she had. yes ´´what is the Atonement?´´ was her fIRST question haha we explained it a bit. Then she asked about the really pretty building we had. The salt lake temple. yes. She said that was it. then she said ´´you guys just had general conference, didnt you?´´ YES. She siad that she really liked what Thomas S Monson said. she said that hes really wise. She also said that shes read a few talks frmo Elder Bednar, and says that she really likes what he says, too.

we were so stunned. Then she asked us if we knew that L Tom Perrry had died. Then she told us that it was okay because they were going to choose a new apostle in the next conference in october.

we walked 2 steps to our pension, and lended her our ensign magazine that has all the conference talks in it.

She told us that she had watched Gods Army. The mormon movie. And liked it... We invited her to church after talking about the book of mormon and the modern day prophets a bit more, and she said that she would love to come. we shook her hand, thanked her then left.

we got to the house and just started crying.

she walked to church yesterday with us and really enjoyed it. She even explained to some of our other investigators the differences between gospel doctrine and gospel principles classes.... 

I am so grateful that God loves us.

Elder Christensen