Only one more week to go here guys

Yup,

Well Anther week has come and gone. I only have one more week to be here in Ferrocarril, so I need to start packing, but I know that not everything I have will fit into my suitcases so I need to find someting heavy to press it down. We didn't actually have a lot of time to work in our area this week. First I had divisions with Elder Araùjo in his area. He was excited because District leader Espìnola is broken and can't proselyte very much. He also taught me some more Portuguès. Then we had divisions with the zone leaders in their area. I went with Elder Lockhart, and it was weird because it was like being an oro again except I could actually contribute. THen we had a service project all day with the whole stake on saturday. So yeah.

We had some chill milagritos though. Our investigators Daniel has a teenage son named sebastian who was totally not interested in the church because the uruguayo youth thinks that churches are strange. But then he sat in on a lesson we were haveing, and we found out later that He went to the youth activities at the church and wanted to come on sunday and learn more. Which was super cool. But then Daniel and his Pareja Alejandra had an argument on saturday night so they didn't come the next morning, which figures. But still super cool!

We are also teaching this girl that for some reason we call Marìa but everybody else calls by her other name Yanila. Her dad and her dad's wife are active members, and she recently moved in with them, and has been taught by anterior missionaries, and wants to be baptized in a couple of weeks which will be super cool.

Some other details from my life. So a couple of weeks ago somebody sacrificed a couple of chickens and some popcorn and potatoes on a street corner near our house, which wasn't really a problem, except that the chickens got pulled into the street by dogs, and repeatedly run over, so now there are a couple of smelly squished chickenysmears that we have to walk past everday.

One of the things that we have to do as missionaries is shave everyday, except that on mondays I don't like to shave until the tardecita when we go out to proselyte. However before coming to the cyber today I went into the bathroom and saw my face in the mirror, and the Holy spirit said " Elder Christensen You got to shave" And I said, " No its okay" and then the spirit said "Afeitate" and I said "No, no quiero" and left the room. Then I went back and shaved and the spirit was content, and I am content because the spirit is content. So seguid el espìritu pues.

Also we were walking down the street today and I little girl asked  us something and I didn't understand because I wasn't listening, but I realized she wanted help, so she led us down the street to where a lady was reaching into a big green dumpster. So the lady told us that they were passing the dumpster and heard it make noise and asked us if we could get it out. So we lookid in the dumpster and there was a little baby puppy crying. SO we got it out. Somebody threw away a puppy man. Not cool.

Besitos,

Elder Christensen

1) This is Nestor. He sings tango. He is also a false prophet who is flying to rome tomorrow to talk to the pope and reform the church.

2) Elder Lockhart gave me a Book of Mormon in arabic. I want to learn arabic. I also want to start a collection of holy writ.

Baptism, Not just a mythical occurence.

Hey Everybody!

Well I subject my email like that because we finally got to help somebody get baptized here. His name is Hernàn and he is a niño of once años. Elder helske and I were praying and fasting last change that we would be able to have that experience, and he just kind of showed up although it is a sad story. His dad died a few weeks ago in an auto accident, and his granpa, Julio showed up at church and started taking him. Julio has beleived that the church is true since the 70's but has never been able to get baptized because his wife is super atheist, and won't let him. But we have been working with Hernàn, and he decided to bautizarse. He is a really quiet,intelligent kid that reminds me of my brother Micah. Probably my favorite niño after my brothers. But we have been working a lot with the ward and president Eddy to make sure he gets all of the support he needs to have success as an active member which has been great. But we were mostly dealing with that all week so we didn't get much other stuff done.

We also went over to the area of La Paz to help the hermanas ( which I guess in english is probably sister missionaries) With a fun service project for one of there recent converts who has Parkinsons. We besically just tore sheet metal off of his roof and took out the old rotting planks so he can put a new roof on. But the thing is that winter has gone so i got a sweet t-shirt burn.

And yeah, Other than that our new director de la obra misional Josè Marìa Rodriguez and his wife Yolanda are fantastic. They are super hard working and organized the whole baptizmal service for us. Also we are having ward council regularly again, so I am really happy not to be doing everything on our own anymore.

Here is a joke. What is the difference between una vaca argentina y una vaca uruguaya? ¡La vaca argentina da leche, y la vaca uruguaya dale che! Love that one.

Creyendo a mi manera,

Elder Christensen

1) This is Hernàn with Manuel Sandes who baptized him. The sandes family is acting as his surrogate family in the ward for now.

2) One of the members from La Paz let me hold her pet rat after the service project. One of many small blessings we experience daily.

3) There is nothing to do around here so we went to drink mate with the zone leaders and have an asadito this morning. This is elder paulson. He is from salt lake city. He is weird. But so is elder Lockhart so they get along great.

13 months

Hey everybody,

Well It was one of those weeks where it seems like we did a lot and nothing really happened. Except we did discover that one of our investigators is a false prophet. He is over 80 years old likes to sing tango, and has a plane ticket to rome for the 31st of this month because God personally told him to go talk to the pope and reform the catholic church. Apparently he is going to be able to understand italian and the vatican police wont be able to touch because of the power that he has been filled with. Although papa francisco is from Buenos Aires so I am sure that they will enjoy speaking castellano to each other, viste. He also has an urugauya flag that he is going to gift to Francisco, because apparently Dios es uruguayo. I was feeling kind of down and without energy before that experience, but then afterward I felt super excited to go talk to as many urugayos as possible about the gospel as I could, becuse they are the best. Elder Helske had the opposite experience, and got pretty down and sad that everyone we meet or care about is crazy. He is a sweet kid.

 Also Elder Araùjo gave me A Sagrada BÌblia, which is like is like La Santa Biblia but written in portuguese and a lot sillier to read. Definitley the best gift any missionary has given me.

The church is true, repentance works, analize the scriptures and pray daily to receive the holy spirit.

Love, 

Elder Chris

I can't really remember what week it is. If someone could do the math and let me know that would be great.

Hey everybody,

How's it been going? Well,I hope. I have been hanging in pretty well. We had a good week this week. We found some cool new investigators. one is named Nacho. He mostly cuts hair and plays soccer. I have gotten a lot better at soccer. I suppose I would call it a blessing, but I am still really bad. We also got to do some cool service projects this week. My favorite was when we went and move a bunch a logs into a burn pile for some church members that had cut down a tree. It reminded me of home. I always really liked stacking firewood. We had a conference with president eddy. That was also very helpful. 

We also ran into an american. We just sat by these kids and started talking to them about some basic gospel principles. Then some of there friens came and they pointed out one who they said speaks english. So we started talking to him, but my brain was confused so I kept switching between languages on accident. His name was kevin from georgia, but he has lived in Uruguay for the last seven years so he kind of talks like a robot. Don't tell him I said that though. It is always fun to run into americans.

So yeah thanks for listening,

Elder Christensen

1) The first Cigarettes That I have ever confiscated from an investigator. I am thinking about starting a collection

2) Biscochitos

Yo

Hey everyone how is it going? It has been a pretty good couple of weeks. We have had some interesting stuff go down. First of all changes went down. Elder Vera got upped to district leader, but not my district leader, so I can just treat him like normal, so only a tiny change in the house politics. The best thing is that my dad Elder Lockhart got transfered here to be our zone leader which is pretty great. Although I think he is mad at me for forgetting to call him on his birthday that one time. And yeah. 

 Last sunday we had an investigator that we found by our own initiative come to church. His name is Nestor. He is this old secretly rich catholic guy that has a super cool army bike from the fifties with a side car. Elder Helske really likes motorcycles. He came to the first two hours of sunday school and then cut out before sacrament meeting becasue it had been three weeks since he went to the Misa and he couldn't miss. Which was pretty funny.

Elder Helske has a personal debit card. He went to the ATM to get some money. For reasons unknown the machine ate his card. So later when the bank was open we went to try to get it back. We went in and sat down and the strangest feeling came over me. It was like all this responsibility lifted of my shoulders and all I had to do was sit in a comfortable chair in a climate controled environment and listen to pleasant ringing sounds as I let other people take care of things I had absolutely no control over. I kind of hope it happens again so we can go back.

We also got to go to general conference. General conference was excellent. The first session on saturday answered a lot of questions I had about things and stuff. I am really grateful for the opportunity we have to listen to living prophets. we listened in the stake center. I was really struck by something this one leader guy said,which being translated, says something like " Love without service is like faith wihtout works. Dead."

Keep it real

Besitos

Elder Christensen

1) I found a giant millipede crossing the road today. I love giant millipedes .

2) I really love giant millipedes.

3) we went to the hospital to try to visit one of our investigators, which actually turned into an interesting adventure, but the hospital was pretty sketchy and included this stray dog.