For real this time.

 Hello everybody,

This is my actual last email from the CCM and I am not going to say a lot, I just wanted to put a few pictures on the record. It has been an emotional past few days, with everyone saying adios and such as that. It is just me and Elder Cole here in the computer lab, because everybody else left early in the morning. Our Bus leaves at four so that gives me five more hours to rest and prepare.

I have a request. There are two species of deer in Uruguay. One is known in english as the marsh deer, and the other is known in spanish as el venado del campo. If someone could find out for me the spanish name of the former and the english name of the latter, as well as their Latin names I would be greatly appreciative.

Reflecting back on my time here I have recieved a lot of spiritual food, which I am grateful for. I have also recieved a lot of physical food which I am also grateful for. I have not gained a lot of weight but I have lost a lot of muscle mass so you get the idea. Hopefully these will have prepared me for the rigors of the field. I will report later.

1: Us and Hemana Gutierrez, our morning teacher

2: An alright picture of a red and black bird

3: Us and Hermano Suaste, our afternoon teacher

4: A tree full of parrots stealing the branches for their nests

5: Me and Presidente Eggleston, who likes to recite poetry, and Presidente Suaste, who likes to speak English

Last Week

Dearest and most esteemed people who read my emails,

My travel came this week so it is getting real. I will be leaving Monday night at about 8:30 for an 8 hour flight to Santiago Chile. Then we have a three hour layover and a 2 and a half hour flight to Montevideo, after which we will be spending a night in the mission home. And then I have no Idea what to expect. We weighed our bags today to make sure they were under weight. I had about 24 pounds to spare, but Elder Cole was about 2 pounds over. I am going to see if we can cut out the lining of his suitcase, maybe the covers and non essential pages of all of his books, or the middle part of the soles of his shoes. It will work out somehow. There are nine of us going to Montevideo, and a bunch more going to Santiago, so the plane should be fun, but I probably won't sleep.

Yesterday President Bonnie Oscarson, the young womens general president visited. She gave a cool devotional about a number of things, like relying on the Lord's help, and accepting when He cuts you down to make you into what He needs you to be. It is nice to know that the people in Salt Lake havn't forgotten about us down here in Mexico.

I was talking with Elder Gray, the leader of one of the other districts in our zone, and he said something that really struck me. He said " I have found that you can learn as much as you want to here." He is right, and that is kind of the reason that we are here on the Earth, to see how much we will choose to learn. I haven't been able to stop thinking about that.

I have another spanish joke ¿ Cuantos estrellas hay en el cielo? ¡ Cincuenta! ¡ Ja Ja Ja Ja!

We had a really cool experince today that I would like to share. We were walking to the comedor for lunch, and decided last minute to take a shortcut. We passed a maintenance area and a work shouted at Elder Fa'amausili "Hey you the samoan!"( He is from Denver). He then told him that he had a coworker who wasn't a member and wanted to ask him about his beliefs. Elder Fa'amausili was able to share his testimont, and the man was very interested. That's not all folks. At lunch Elder Fa'amausili told us how he had been praying for a week that he would be able to share his testimony with one of the workers who wasn't a member, but that this morning he had decided that it wasn't going to happen and this would be the last time that he prayed for that. And then he was specifically singled out to share his testimony with someone who had only been working here at the CCM for three hours. It shows how the Lord awnsers our prayers, and how after the trial or your faith you recieve a witness. Pretty cool.

I Don't know if I will be able to email again before getting to the field, so I would just like to thank everyone who has been sending me emails. I am sorry that I don't have sufficient time to respond to everyone but I really apreciate your words of support and the opportunity to hear about what is going on back home.

With a sincere heart and truthful intention,

Elder Christensen

1: A blurry but otherwise cool picture of the moon

2: Antes

3: Despues

4: There is a bird in this picture

5 and 6: Some pictures that people in the district drew of me

Week Five.

Citizens of the Earth,

 

I have been here for over a month now and as of next Tuesday I will only have a week left. Pretty exciting. It is kind of funny becuase from day to day I am not sure that I could say a whole lot about what I have had learned, but looking back all the way we have really come a long way. One way that I know this for sure is that we are starting to have lessons where I can reallly feel the Holy Spirit guiding them. It is such a great feeling when you say something that you feel impressed to say and then your investigator responds in a way that shows that they really want to progress and come closer to Christ. I can only imagine what it is like in the field with real investigators. I guess I don't have to wait much longer to find out though. One of my favorite things about studying here at the CCM is group scripture discussions. That is where somebody in the district picks a chapter from the Book of Mormon or the Bible and we all sit in a circle reading it and discussing what think and feel. That is a really good way to bring the spirit and gain insights that you never would have other wise, and I would definately recommend it to anyone.

As for what happened this week: our Tuesday night devotional was broadcast live from Provo by Elder Bednar where he talked about what to do with your notes from general conference afer the fact. It was very informative. Elder Holdaway challenged me to a contest where we each have to memorize all of the wordds n our exteneded core dictionary, which is a missionary study tool, by next saturday and then battle each other to see who knows the most words. There are about 2,500 words and I have only gotten through about 450. We will see what happens. During Church this past sunday, Prsident Eggleston, the councilor to our branch president told a story about when he was serving his mission in Portugal a general authority came and had a conference where he told all of the Missionaries there to keep working realy hard "because for every door you knock on here in Portugal they have a baptism in Brazil". It was pretty funny. I laughed. The only other thing I can think of is that we were playing volleyball yesterday against another district in our zone. I was front and center, and the ball was right over the net. An enormous tall person jumped up to spike it down on me. I anticipating certain death, Ducked down like a total wimp and covered my face. He slammed the ball right down on the top of my head, which bounced right over the net and scored a point, leading my district to victory. It was without question the most spectacular athletic achievement of my life.

1: Elder Hale's new haircut

2: Our Casa which might be slightly haunted. We are not sure yet.

3: Elder Cole drinking root beer.

4: Hermana Lethbridge playing the Piano

5: An Extremely Red-Orange Bird

6: A very cheesy picture of my district in the group T- shirt that they forced me to buy.

Three and a half week email.

Fellow members of the human family,

Well I have made It past my halfway mark here at the CCM. The days and the weeks have just been going by faster and faster. I am a little worried that I won´t have much interesting to write about today because the days are mostly all the same, but they never get old or boring, which I think is one of the blessings of being here.

We had the opportunity to watch general conference this weekend on the big screen in the auditorium. It was really wonderful. All day long we just sat their and received spiritual ministration from the prophets and church leaders. Honestly one day would have been enough because by Sunday I was a little exhausted from all of it. It was interesting because for some reason I had had the feeling all week that Elder Hale would have something important to say to me and when he gave his talk he specifically addressed the question that I came into conference with. One of many small miracles. Also during conference I saw my friend Josh Hancock singing In the MTC choir, and I saw my great uncle playing the oboe before one of the sessions started. That was a cool treat.

I feel like my district and I have been improving a lot as far as teaching goes. I have really started to feel the spirit while I teach and when I listen to other companionships teach. We just might be adequately prepared to go into the field. Tomorrow we are going to teach a lesson to a real person from the community who may be a new convert less active member or something similar. I feel a little nervous to do that at this point, but I guess if God trusts us to do it then we are going to be just fine.

Other news this week: I ate my cerrano chile. It really wasn't that bad. I was expecting a bigger challenge. I just realized that I have been using accent marks instead of apostrophes because this keyboard is for spanish. My teacher told a funny joke that I would like to share with everyone. Here it is: ¿Qué es la diferencia entre de una pera (a pear) y la novia de un misionero? ¡ La novia de un misionero no espera! ¡ Ja Ja Ja Ja Ja Ja! All of the districts in the zone that were older than us left tuesday, so now we are the senior district. It is really strange how fast that turn around happened. We welcomed a new district in yesterday and that was really cool. They are good kids.

And that is the news from Lake Wobegon, now for some pictures.

1: A poor picture of a parrot

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2: another poor picture of a parrot. They don't like to comply with the photographer.

3: Me and Elder Michels

4: Me and Elder Fonotisitele

5: A mural from back when the CCM was a church run highschool

 

6: A poor picture of a dove. I don't think wildlife photography is my calling. 

Second week Through

Relatives, associates, compadres, and other assorted personnel,

Well It seems like every single day goes by faster and faster. Two and a half weeks in and i think that I have finally stared to learn some important things.

First of all It turns out that the good Lord really does care about your little problems and answers your little prayers, even if it is just to be able to remember all of the words to a hymn in English. 

Second it is totally true that it is the spirit that carries the message more than the words of the speaker. Living in a place where most people speak a language that you really can't understand you learn that quickly, as long as you can get an idea of what somebody means or what a scripture is talking about then the spirit can work in your heart.

Third I finally figured out for myself what it means to have faith like a mustard seed. If you let a little bit of faith into your heart, water it, pull the weeds constantly and give it enough sunshine, then it will grow rapidly, and it is amazing. I have known about that parable for as long as I can remember and I have just begun to finally understand what it means.

Fourth you will be so much happier if you focus on love instead of negative feelings. Whether It be for the people around you, the schedule, the food, the climate, or the traffic noises at night it is of the utmost importance to love.

This week in the news. I decided that I really want to qualify for the gift of tongues, so I made a commitment to only speak Spanish except during certain special occasions. It has been quite a ride. I think that I have probably made up a lot of phrases that don't really exist in Spanish. My district was sufficiently inspired by me that they decided to go all of Thursday with out speaking English. The punishment for someone who spoke ten words was that they have to eat a cerrano chile on monday. Anyone who goes twenty or more has to eat a habañero, both to be provided by Hermano Suaste. I only spoke seven words, beaten by Elder Holdaway who spoke one, but three of my words were when I offered myself as a sacrifice to trick the Hermanas into speaking English. I am going to eat the peppers just for the manly experience.

We got to go to the temple again today. It is a nice experience and I feel grateful because these may be the last few times I get to go for a while.

Funny story, we haven't really had a problem with mosquitos getting into our casa, but I woke up really early one morning, only partially conscious, and I thought that I heard and felt a mosquito buzzing around my face, so i would slap myself really hard, in a delirious, half a sleep manner and then I would think that I got it, but then it would start again. This went on for quite a while. It might have just been a weird noise from outside.

Other than that we got two new, pretend investigators this week. They are a lot more difficult and have actual problems that we have to figure out how to work with. It is really interesting trying to discuss the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ with someone who is pretending to be a sixteen year old girl whose mother is making her listen to you and you can only understand one in five words on a good day. Still though, my language skills have already improved exponentially.

The days are going by faster and faster, Before I know it I am going to be in the field doing this for real. Here are some pictures.

a weird bird

A depiction of our Lord and savior in resurrected form

a guy on a roof

A positive vibrations shop

A nice tree

District Leader Fa'amausili typing emails

First Email Home!

Friends and Folks,

Hey every body so two weeks in I finally got to my first p-day!!! It has been an amaizing exerience. I got to the airport in Atlanta and the first Elder I met was Elder Hobbs who is going to my mission. There were nine of us on the plane to Mexico City, which is really spectacular from the air. It seems to stretch on forever with mountains jutting out of it all over the place. Amazingly customs let me through without a hitch except that one of the people at a checkpoint was confused at why I had declared my bag of jerky.

We got into the airport and shortly many hundereds of Elders and Hermanas began to arrive from Mormonland ( also known as Utah) and we all crowded onto buses to the CCM. Mexico city is just as cool from the ground as the air. When we got the the CCM the people gave me a tetanus shot ( great first impression) and then they fed us costco pizza and I got my comapnion Elder Cole, from somwhere in rural Washington. He is great because he is super excited about the gospel, and he can come up with a lesson plan in no time flat. It's like I open my notebook and I look up and he is already done with scripture references and everything.

My district is also really great. There are only seven of us but we are all really dedicated and already great friends. Our p-day is on friday but since we didn't get to use it our first week. I had one less pair of everything that I needed to make the time so I had to figure out how to stretch my resources. We have already finished teaching our first investigator, Francisco ( really Hermano Suaste) It was quite the learning experience trying to figure out how to talk about the gospel in spanish while working with someone else at the same time, but I already feel like I have learned and grown so much.

The best part of the week is the Sabath. Its like you work your heart out all week and then you get rewarded by an entire day of intense spirituality. My branch presidency is also really great and consists of Presidente Suaste (my teachers uncle) and Presidente Eggleston who works at some sort of embassy thing.

A few notes about Mexico: The birds here are all diferent than back home. There are a bunch of noisy green parrots that live in the date palms, and these cute little super social doves that give each other hugs with their wings( which is on the top of my list of most adorable things ever). The air is really thin here at seven thousand feet so it's hard to work out for very long without feeling like your lungs are going to disolve. They really like fruit flavored yogurt drinks here, and in fact all manner of fruit flavored things. The weather is perfect except that sometimes heavy rain comes out of nowhere, like right now.

A couple of other notes: Recently in my zone there was an Elder named Elder Meldrum, who is the son of Jeff Meldrum, the nations leading Bigfoot researcher. Unfortunately he left a couple of weeks ago. It was almost the most important coincidental meeting in the history of the world. Also my mom made a blog if everyone would rather just look at that. elderelichristensen.blogspot.com

Me and Elder Cole

The Temple

Some giant moths

A bad picture of a bunch of houses on a mountain

Elder Holdaway and Elder Hale eating skittles

And a super farmacia where super heroes get their meds

My district from left to right Elder Cole, me, District Leader Fa'amausili, Elder Holdaway, Elder Hale, Hermana Lethbridge, and Hermana Briggs.