Week four or five in Ferrocarril

Dear Gente,

Well it has been a kind of normal kind of interesting week. During the week we didn't really have much going on but then by the week en d everything started picking up. We found A few new investigators. One of them is named Jonathan. He is a young father who has been in and out of prison for robbery and drug use, but he beleives in Jesus and wants to change his life. So thats cool. We also found this guy named carlos. It was strange because most Uruguayos talk and talk , but he just gave direct answers to our questions and listened. We weren't sure what to do. He practices Quimbanda, which is kind of like Umbanda, but they do ritual baths with sheeps blood instead of chicken blood. Other than that I am not really sure what the difference is. We also found the Peireira family again after they recovered from the flu so that was great.

A commentary about Uruguay. First I am going to make a comparison. In Kentucky it is very common to find middle aged Mothers pushing strollers in the park smoking cigarretes, which can be shocking. Well in Montevideo it is very common to find middle aged Mothers pushing strollers in the park smoking Marijuana ( i.e. Porro) which is very shocking. sometimes as missionaries we are temted to complain about how wicked everything is and how duro the gente is, but then we just have to take a step back and remember that as bad as things might get, Buenos Aires will always be worse. I love this country.

Today for preparation day we enjoyed an asado casero. I don't know why they don't do this allà in the states because fatty ribs are really tasty.

Also last night I had my first dream in spanish that I can remeber very well. We were in a factory of somesort, and Elder Diaz started  trying to flirt with this girl, and I was like " No podès hacer eso, estàs rompieno las reglas" and then he got really mad and yelled "¡Callate!" and that is all.

Congratulations to my brother Michah who fulfills twelve years this saturday. Also congratulations to cousins Alan and Emily for managing to get married. 

 1:  Peñarol, peñarol, peñarol

2: sunrise in the back yard 

3: Asado

I feel kind of dizzy and light headed right now and I am not sure if it is the cold, low blood pressure or the Mate. I need to stop drinking half a liter all at once

Dear colegues in the mortal experience,

Well what can I say about this week. We have had some interesting experiences. For example We found our first inestigadora who is umbandista. Umbanda is an interesting religion that has most of its religious vocabulary in portugues. We have actually been finding a lot of investigators for this zone but we only have one that is activley preparing for baptism. We need to change that. A lot of our investigators have been sick latley because in winter people get sick here. Among other things, Pablo has been pretty stressed because his duaghter Antonella is was having serious heart problems so I am worried he  has been smoking a lot.

I had an interesting experience this week. We were with a member and we got out late, and we have to be in the house by nine thirty, because you know if your obedient you get blessed and thats a fact, and they live as far a way as possible and we saw that we weren't going to make it so we started running in rain boots and everything for like a kilometer. It is the first time I have really run in nine months, so my lungs were kind of destroyed but we got home just in time. 

Also our area has a border with the other mission, an area called barrio peñarol. We were walking on it one night and we ran into the elders from that area. They were a paraguayo and a peruano. It was fun.

1) a caballo

2) fall

3) A happy sight

Week Three in Ferrocarril

Hey people,

Well lets think about what happened this week. So far we have found some new investigators. There is Cayetano, Sergio who wants us to teach his kids good moral values, Ruben an old man with two greyhounds and a bunch of Uruguayo cardinal birds in cages, and Diego whohas been an investigator on and off for about six years because he has a busy family and an interesting work schedule. We are continuing to  work with the peireira family. This tuesday we taught them the restoration and it went really well, todo entendido. We shared the importance of praying to receive an answer from God to know if The Book of Mormon is true. At the end of the Lesson Patricia closed with a really spiritual prayer saying that she recognized the promise and would do her part. So we just have to count on the Lord to do his part.

Pablo is continuing to work on overcoming his drug and nicotine addiction. We gave him a calendar with a goal to completely quit in the next three weeks. We also had a Noche de Hogar( Like family home evening but more relaxed to comply with Uruguayo culture) with him and the Hoage family where Hermano Hoage shared his testimony and his experience overcoming drugs. Hermano Hoage is super cool because he gives us food, and he tried to rob me in the sketchy part of our area one night. Also pablo always starts laughing when I talk because my accent is really bad so that is another challenge we are overcoming.

One of the weird things about being a missionary is that you get to know all of the dogs in your area really well. You know which ones are mean, which ones are freindly which ones are going to start barking if you pass by. I need to be more careful because i have been bitten a lot more in the past few weeks then in my whole mission. But that makes things more interesting.

Somethings about Elder Diaz. He has a funny laugh. He drinks really strong mate. He likes to use his time before bed to watch these cool bible videos from the life of Christ.

Also My cousin Sam got called to serve as a missionary in Korea. Good luck Cuz

1: The Neighbors Dog 

2: Elder Diaz

3: A couple of coins from the seventies and eighties that we found stacked on top of each other on the stairs outside of the church. Most likley a Macumba offering. Black magic folks, Its real.

Dearest friends and family,

Well I am continuing to have a good experience here in Montevideo. We are slowly but surely building up our pool of investigators. The hardest thing is two have a second appointment with somebody that doesn't fall through. As far as some of the people we are working with last saturday we ran into a ward member in the street. She told us about a family of old investigators that was super great. So we tracked down their registro de enseñanza and went and taught them. They are the familia Peireira and they are super great. The two parents and three of their children are currently listening to us. We also found this guy named Asiul from salto who is sad because he is all alone but is a great person, and this guy named Diego who when we taught him the restoration asked about how he could recognize the answers two his prayer throgh the Espìritu Santo which is what we want. He remembered that years ago somebody had given him a copy of the book of Mormon with a note written inside, so I think he might actually  read and pray about it. Pablo keeps working to change his life and overcome drugs and tobacco.

It keeps getting colder and darker hear. I can now feel confident that if I shower and use my towel if I don't hang it up outside it will still  be wet the next morning. 

Jesus loves you, the gospel is true, life is good,

Con amor,

Elder Christensen

The only way to survive the cold is to consume unreasonable quantities of stimulant weeds with boiling water