Hola Hola!

This week was really fast seriously I feel like I was writing an email to you guys yesterday. We only have one week left in this change! Wow the time is really going to fast for me now. We had an awesome experience this week. We are trying to invite all of our menos, active members to do something really simple in the church to help them reactivate as members. We asked one member named Goyo  to give a class on car mechanics to the young men for mutual. He said he would do it. Then we invited him to come to church on Sunday and he came!!.  It was really awesome because it was the first time he has come to church for 3 months or more. But he has been inactive for years so we are excited for that. 

On the other end we have an investigator named Elivira who has been listening to a lot of rumors about the Mormons and she is saying really weird things now. She said every time she reads the book of Mormon she gets a really bad headache and she feels it again when we go to her house to teach. We gave her a blessing to help her feel better and she said when we put the oil on her head it was really hot and she felt like it was burning her head. It was a really weird lesson but It really just shows that she is listening to the rumors about us and not searching for herself with real intention. It is sad but it is her decision to accept or not to accept.

I am trying to be a better teacher this week. We have been talking a lot about obedience in the mission and it is cool to see that when we are obedient we improve in all the other aspects of the mission too. For example, if we are obedient to have shorter lessons no longer than 45 minutes then we have more time to teach more lessons and to find new people to teach. Also if we focus on the doctrine in our lessons and the commitments and not just visiting we really help people to come and change their lives. So the Goal for this week is to have shorter lessons. To go in and teach the doctrine quickly and then leave a commitment and help the investigators understand how the commitment will bring them closer to Christ and help them resolve their doubts. This is the way we can help people change their lives. 

I am thankful to be here in the mission right now. It rocks and I love it seriously. I am glad that I can keep getting better and that Christ is working here with me and helping me do these things I thought I couldn’t. I know I still have a lot of things to improve on like all of Chapter 6 in PMG and I need to be more positive but I know I will always have help. 

An investigator shared this scripture with me D&C 112:19 I thought it was really cool and it says there will always be a door to open for the people who preach the word of God and it is true. There will always be at least one door open for us.

Les Quiero

Elder Christensen

This week we have been searching for a new house for the sister missionaries who are going to share the ward with us next change. It is harder than I thought, especially because we are looking in a brand new neighborhood that was just built.  We did find two options so we are just praying we can obtain one of the two.

I think it is so cool that we are putting two more missionaries in this ward because that means the work is going to move faster and going to touch more lives.  This is such a blessing.

The best part of the week was that we were able to go to the temple. Tuesday we didn’t go because we could only go if we had recent converts going and both of ours cancelled the day before. But we were able to go Thursday and do the work for the two names that already had been baptized. But I forgot how awesome the temple really is. It feels like you enter a different world in there because there is no noise, there is no news from the world and it is a time to focus only on Christ. I was able to clear my mind of some things and get answers to some of my questions and I just felt good after. I want to help people come to the temple so much now because I really felt the power of the temple. It is a refuge that everyone needs to break away from the world and have a couple of hours for God. I have such a testimony of the power of the temple and why everyone needs it. We have questions and the temple has the answers.         

                                         

I am trying to be more positive this week.  I have been a little down on myself as I usually am and my comp told me that I need to have more confidence in myself and also be optimistic and everything will be better in the mission. I love the mission right now but I do lack confidence in myself and I have always been a little of a pessimist but I am going to be optimistic from now on. When we doubt ourselves we are denying the help of God.  I am going to get better in that and exercise more faith.

This week we taught a person when we were looking for the house for the sisters and he had been a missionary for 7 years for the evangelist church. He was really open to our message but also at the same time didn’t want to believe. He thinks that all churches are from God. How blessed we are to know that there is only one Church of Jesus Christ and we are part of it. We know the truth and the more dedication we have to the Gospel the more desires we will have to share the gospel. This man was a good person and had the desires to help people know Christ and I admire him for that.  I wish we had more time to talk to him and show him the power of this message. People don’t even know the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ but we are going to help them.

Les Quiero

Elder Christensen

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

CHANGE

I thought it was awesome to talk to all of you, especially my Mami and yes they do say Mami here in Chile.   Thanks mom for everything!  Dad sent me an awesome email that said you have a natural beauty and you also have the ability to bring the best out of people and it is true. Also I would like to add that you have mastered the home. You could say that you are a mother to the home as Yoda is a Master to the Jedi.  I dont think there can be a mother better on the planet than mine. I think that is why you always end up in the primary because who better than a master mother to help teach young children the gospel. Thanks for all you do for me mom!! I love you and feel blessed to be your son. I really can’t think of a person more kind, loving, and fun  to be around. I know I have said this a lot but I still miss your sense of humor and that also is very important.

This week I have been thinking a lot about change. The mission is to help others change their life and really help them be reborn in a life devoted to Jesus Christ.  But what about the missionary?  I know a purpose for me is to help me gain a testimony that is part of me.  I was reading a talk by Elder Bednar from October conference that said there is a testimony and then there is conversion. Conversion is as offering of ones self and soul to the Lord and the desire to do that comes from the gratitude we have for our testimonies. I often think to myself “am I serving a mission because I love the Lord and if not what do I need to change to make that happen.” 

I really feel like I am serving here for the Lord and to help people know this joy of repenting and coming unto him. I think of Alma 36: 21 when he tells his experience of before and after repentance.

This week we had a special conference on repentance.   We learned how to teach it better and how we as missionaries struggle with repentance. Repentance is a change in our lives and our thoughts and desires that brings a greater drive to put our lives in line with the example of Christ.  This equals change everyday. But I think what a lack right now is that change. I don’t feel like I have changed that much on my mission but I have not been searching for that change ether. 

I decided the other day that I am going to search out this change that I want the blessings that come through the repentance process. I set goals of things I want to change and I now have a lot of questions to find answers in my studies too. But I want to change to be the missionary that God wants and needs. I have been asking almost every missionary I have met what I should look for and what I should feel when I have really changed from my mission. None of them gave me an answer. But I realized that they don’t know. No one can know except the Lord and I have to search for the answer in study and prayer and in my actions as a missionary and then I will find the answers. It is a promise in the scriptures, “ask and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.”

Repentance doesn’t necessarily mean you have done a bad sin, it is just a change that brings stronger devotion to Jesus Christ.

Also we had a miracle this week. There is a family in our ward who have had the desire to be baptized for almost a year but couldn’t get married because they had some legal things to work out, but they got permission to get married this week and tomorrow are going to get legally married.  In 1 or 2 weeks they can get baptized! I can’t wait for that! It will be such an awesome moment for this family because they have wanted this for so long and now they can finally make these covenants with the Lord. That is so Cool!! They definitely endured through this trial and the blessings are just waiting for them now.

Last we have a new investigator named Brijitte. She is in a trial right now with her ex- husband who is trying to take her daughter away from her. She told us she needs a lot of help and she has been investigating a lot of religions to find it and has not found it. She is really open to our message and we invited her to get baptized on June 9 and she said yes only if she knows it is true. But I feel really good about her because she  is prepared for the gospel and it is going to change her life. We just need to rely in Moroni's promise, If we have faith and real intention to know the truth it will be manifested to us. I know this promise is true because I have felt it and  I know that Brijitte will feel it too as she studies the Book of Mormon--which she has already started to read. I am so thankful to be serving in the mission right now. I know this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that He  leads this work. He is the Savior of the world and will never leave us. The mission is a great place to learn more about what really matters it is not about money or cars it is about Christ and helping others.

Thanks for all your help, love and support  you have given me and thanks for talking to me yesterday.

Les Quiero

Elder Christensen

Let the Good Times Roll!

First I have to say CONGRATS to my cousin WILL and Welcome to Chile.   He will be a little south of me but that is all good.  It is the same Spanish and the same awesome people. Seriously, he is going to love working here.

Also, another really cool thing happened this week. I felt my first earthquake so that was really fun. It was at 6 in the morning and lasted for about 15 seconds. I woke up really confused because all the walls were moving.  Then I just fell back to sleep for another hour and a half because we get up at 7:30. But that was really fun.

                                    

We had our interviews with the President King this week and it was great. They are going to divide my sector into two and put in Sister missionaries to work in this ward with us.  That will be awesome!  Our ward is huge we have to walk 30 to 40 minutes to the other half of it to work there so I think it will be really good to have 4 missionaries working here.  We still have a ton of work to do. We need to find new investigators and work well with them because right now the mission is struggling to find new investigators to teach. But we are going to change that. Pres King also asked my comp how my Spanish is. I hope it is good. But I know I talk with a really strong Gringo accent so I am working really hard with the accent and also the grammar so I can be more fluent and understand better. But Elder Guevara is helping me a lot with that.

Also at the same time we started to teach English classes and I have to do a lot of teaching.  It is a lot harder than I thought because I never thought of how English works the way it does, I just speak it. So sometime I just want to say ´Just talk´ but I don’t think that would  work really well.

                                        

Well that is all this week I just want to tell you guys that I love the mission seriously. I love working here and talking to people about the Church and about my testimony of Jesus Christ every day. I know that my testimony is so much bigger than it was before. I love the Gospel and my Savior Jesus Christ and I know that he exists and lives today. I know that this is His work and I know that as members of the church we can really help people change their lives for the eternities. There is no greater pleasure than that.

Alma 30: 34,44

Les Quiero

Elder Christensen

Found this for Peter in a Sushi Restaurant!