Week 57

Hello.

Well this week went by really fast. I was in Ciudad del Este until wednesday, so i was just cruising around out of my area for a while... Good times.  Made a smoothie. It was delicious. I ate a lot of beans and rice. which, believe it or not, is starting to become my favorite meal. I eat so many beans. I used to STRONGLY DISLIKE beans before i came here, and now, i cant get enough!! Oh how the times change. If your wondering what i eat most, itd have to be

beans and rice

corn bread (sopa paraguaya)

mandioka

Noodles with chicken

juice

coke. actually, coke is probably at the top of that list.

Cereal. Just kidding. Cereal is definitely at the top of that list.

Egg sandwiches.

THis week, we had fast and testimony  meeting. And it was wonderful. What really stood out to me was that as sacrament meeting started, the back 4 rows were empty! Everyone sat up front! Such a different sensation for me! It was a crazy sight to see, that everyone wanted to be up front, and paying attention. It had rained yesterday, and when it rains, NO ONE leaves there house. Usually. But we had an abnormally HIGH assistance. All of the children were very calm. It was cool. As in the temperature. The windows were open. It was very peaceful, very spiritual.

As the meeting started, i said inside myself ´´if there is ONE SECOND of silence, im going to stand up and bear my testimony.´´ And there was a constant line. The whole meeting. We even went a little bit over in time. It was incredible. Everyone went up to bear their testimony. Love it. The Church is true.

Back to the temporal.

Today in kickball, elder christensen had an amazing catch. it was raining, so we were playing in an indoor futsol field. concrete. I was playing centerfield, and  someone kicked a long bomb. I was running back, I could sense that the wall was close, but i was closing in on the ball. I kind of jumped, and immediately as i caught it, a metal drink cooler appeared out of nowhere and took my legs out from under me, and i almost flipped completely over it. But i ended up just laying on top of it. It was an insanely good catch. You would have been impressed if you were there.

I ended up 3 for 5 with a triple and a double. I was a home run away from going for the cycle.

I hope you enjoy your day.

Elder Christensen

ps halelujah! pictures!! yes, i am very tall. And if you look closely in the second one, you can see the cooler that almost destroyed me

Week 56

Wow are those guys good, or what??

I dont know about all of you, but I went to conference with some deep, thought provoking life questions that i had, and All of them were answered!! I love conference. We tried so hard to listen to it in english, but it just didnt work out... Elder Christofferson speaks Spanish better than the majority of the translators, if you were wondering. His accent is truly incredible.

Well The new apostoles were called! And my home-boy, Elder Renlund gave another GREAT talk!! He just keeps coming through in the clutch! I cant wait to hear him every 6 months for the next few years!!

If theres anything i learned its that you can know that an urge you have is from the Spirit if you feel it in your heart and in your mind. Both. At the same time. And that I definitely need to be more charitable. I have a lot to work on.

And Devin Durrant gave some awesome insight on memorizing scriptures! It was called meditizar in spanish, i dont know what he called it english, but i thought it was cool, and i need to start memorizing scriptures again.

Well, those are my thoughts. I hope they didnt bother you too much.

Me and Elder Diaz are doing great. A few days ago, we walked past a house and a car pulled in the driveway. we saw a hand pop out the window and wave us over. So we went. We sat down with this guy, his friend, and his wife. The guy that waved us over was WAY drunk. Out of his mind. His friend and his wife were fine. Not sure what happened there. Anyway, He started trying to speak to us in portugese, even though he doesnt speak portuguese, and then after about 2 minutes, his friend told us that we should probably leave. So we agreed, and stood up to leave.

And then the drunk guy got way angry and yelling at us. He grabbed my arm, and Elder Diazs arm, not wanting us to go. Elder Diaz got away, then the guy tried to run after him and grab him. Well, me, 6´3´ and 200 pounds versus a short not to mention very drunk paraguayan is not really a contest, and he didnt really go anywhere. I pretty much held him in place and pulled him back. Well, he eventually let go of my arm, and we drove away. He was very sad.

Thats my story.

Alll of our progressing investigators just moved in with their girlfriends, so thats a pretty solid sign of a spiritual blockage.

I hope you have a joyous day

elder christensen

ps well the computer refuses to download my gorgeous pictures... My sincerest apologies.

Week 55

Hello, world

Well, sorry, but not a whole lot has changed this week. Besides the fact that fanny got baptized and confirmed! The baptism was awesome and super awkward at the same time. They messed up the prayer like 5 times, and didnt go all the way under the water for 2 times, and it was kind of uncomfortable, but finally, everything ended up fine! Whew. It was awesome because its an awesome person who really understands everything she is doing and has 100 percent of a desire to change her life and to serve a mission, and to help others here. Yeah. She has an insane amount of knowledge.

I dont know if i told you, but last year, she was very active in the catholic church. In fact, she was the equivalent of the relief society president. She said that every week for 2 years, she gave a talk, and taught a class in church. What? haha she stopped because she moved here, and then never really had desires to go back to the catholic church, and then started researching other chruches online.... man. I cannot believe her story.

She kind of gave us a hard time about not talking to her earlier, haha

She said one of her favorite parts of being baptized is that now when people ask her what religion is she from, she can say ´´from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!´´ She's the best.

Well Elder Hutchison left. And I miss him. And Elder Diaz came. He's an insanely good missionary. I couldnt believe it. Its crazy to hear this guy teach. He will be very successful on his mission, and later in his life. Especially in the church. He lives 5 minutes away from the cordoba temple, and both of his parents and his sister are temple workers. But if hes telling the truth, Cordoba, Argentina is more advanced economically and socially than the US and the chruch is also stonger there than it is in Utah.

Hes got a bit of Argentine pride. But I have a lot of American Pride. So well make a great team.

I hope you read those last couple sentences with a light heart.

I love you all very much.

Elder Christensen

ps i would send you photos of fannys baptism, but this computer will not accept my camera.

Foto de la conferencia Argentina con Elder Viñas

Week 54

Will get baptized on tuesday! tomorrow!

we got changes. Elder Hutchison is leaving... im super sad. ill miss him. but he´ll still be in paraguay. We kind of figured hed be leaving. thats why we changed the date of the baptism to tuesday and not saturday, so that he could be there. i dont know if thats cheating.

well in other news, one of our investigators started reading the book of mormon very intently. like almost memorized every verse. and can barely read. he told us the story of up until lehis dream. so we knew that he serioulsly had been reading a lot. he told us that he started praying, too, and loves it. feels so good. he told us he has real desires to go to chruch and be baptized.

we were thinking ´´this kid is awesome!!´´ he was so sincere, and showed great desire. Well, the next week, we went back, and he hadnt come to chruch. we asked him about why he didnt come. And he told us that he couldnt come because he got baptized in the chruch next to his house! ah!! didnt see that coming! So we explained the restoration of the preisthood again, and he listened intently, and said that hed be willing to be baptized again. but... he didnt come to chruch this sunday.... i guess he changed his life, so thats good. he definitely repented of a lot of things and thats good... but we did not expect that our visits and his reading of the book of mormon would get him baptized into another church

more importantly, we played kickball again today. i was 5 for 5. with 3 doubles and a home run. I probably should have gotten a triple on one of the doubles i kicked, but i made a base running mistake. so i guess im out of my slump.

Elder crhistensen

ps oh!!! my new companion is elder diaz. hes argentino. from cordoba. like elder piriz.

Week 53

Fannys terrific.

She has almost finished the ´´´faith´´ section in her Personal Progress. She just needs to visit a member and share a scripture with her. She just read ´´our search for happiness´and ´for the strength of youth´´ and told us shed be a great visiting teacher. We fasted with her and she talked with her grandma and mom and they both gave her a soft ´´yes´´ to baptism. So the plan is the 26 of september. Me and Elder Hutchison are trying to bring as many handsome 1ñ8 year old jóvenes to her house as posible so that she doesnt have to decide between us to as the one to baptize her. Im only half joking about that.

We went to posadas and learned a lot about leadership. It was super interesting. we read a discussion by Elder Bednar. He said that equally as important as what you do as a leader, its just important as what you leave behind. he said that when he was first called as stake president, the first thing that they told him was that it was now his responsiblitiy to train a multitude of men who would be fit to replace him. and that changed almost everything he did over the next 8 years as stake president... interesting.

We have had many people come to chruch and read the book of mormon this transfer, but none of them have followed the answer that they recieved that it was all true, so that rocks. But I have been very blessed to have met these people.... not that im planning on leaving or anything. But transfers are next week, and me and Elder hutchison are really crossing our fingers that well be together for a third transfer. Cant get enough basketball.

Actually, the other mornign, we woke up at 6, and i was ready to go. ´´Elder lets go! Elder lets go!´´ Elder hutchison says to me ´´no! its raining!´´ i look outside. it definitely is NOT raining. ´´Dude it is NOT raining! lets go!´´ ´´no! its raining´´........ fine. so i hop back in bed and sleep for another 30 minutes then wake up and work out... Thats usually how the mornings go.

Have a kevalicious day

Elder Christensen

PS I completely forgot. One of the other elders´investigators asked me to baptize him. Because im big. Thank you mom and dad.

Week 52

We had to do tramites in posadas. I think paul had done them the day before we got there... so thats a bummer.

this week went by super fast because we travelled so much. we went to ciudad del este for a conference, then went to posadas. we had to go and give two baptismal interviews (they passed), and we didnt get to work in our area a whole ton. But it was still fun.

im trying to think of anything really spiritual that happened this week...

oh yeah. fast sunday. turns out that Fannys mom is very catholic. And doesnt really like us or the church. Fann lives with her and just barely told us... so we told her about a fast. And we fasted with her this sunday. we were in posadas for the last couple days, and we just barely got back, so we dont know if the fast worked. i think it did. It probably did. ill keep you updated. but it was awesome.

Fanny is now reading our search for happiness by elder ballard. she still reads the book of mormon every day. She said that she has looked up a bunch of videos by the church on her phone and has watched them. She also told us that there are a lot of bad videos about the church on the internet, too. But that she hasnt watched any of them. Hooray!

Well, we also got to have an interview with president this week, and he told us that we need to emphasize our search for menos activos and investigators on families with men that can act as leaders in the church. because thats what we are really struggling with here in the mission. So many awesome women, but the men are almost non existant.

have a wonder ful day

Elder EMil

this computer cant send pictures... sorry... i tried.