Holland Conference

Hey everybody. 

Elder Holland came and spoke to the two missions here yesterday. It was definitley one of the greatest privelages of my life to here a living prophet speak to us face to face. We went to Maldonado today to visit some of E' Hemeyers converts so I don't have any time and will tell you all about it next week.

Love Eli

1)Josè e Irma got married at the judicial building this week

2) Elder Rodriguezth from Barcthelona. He likes pizza

3) A distant picture of Punta del Este

Hi

Hey everybody,

I hope you are all having a great monday. We had a pretty good week last week. We are seeing a lot of progress with our investigators. Are main core of investigators right now is basically four couples, There is José e Irma who are getting married this friday and baptized next week, then we have Eric and Dayana. Eric and I share a birthday so I am probably going to just go hang out with him when that comes around. Then there is Denis and Yanina. Denis ran some competitive races in the states a few years ago, and didn't really beleice in anything before, but he came to church yesterday and was really into it. Then we have José y Melisa. José has a lot of questions and reads El Libro de Mormón a lot but wants to take things slowly. And thats them. It is pretty great to teach and stuff.

We also went to Chuy this week. Chuy is weird. There are a bunch of arabs that live there so if you walk down the street you just hear a bunch of spanish, portuguese, and arabic all kind of mixed together. But that is okay because those are all languages that I want to learn. I bought a passion fruit and ate it. Not a fruit for the weak.

So funny story. We were out proselyting a few days ago and lunch time came around. We decided to stop at a little skate park on the way. Elder Hemeyer just popped his front tire up onto the curb and kept riding, so I thought that I could do the same, but it turns out that I have no skills so the next thing I knew I had flipped over the front handle bars and was lying on my face in the gravel. It was a good experience because it gave me an excuse just to lie on my face in the gravel. Oh and I will also be writing on tuesday next week because Elder Holland is going to be speaking to the mission on monday. Not my freind Elder Jacob Holland the assistant, but rather Elder Jeffery Holland the Apostle, so I will let you know how that goes.

Love Elder Christensen

1)Now I can never run out of sweetened fig pulp. Thank you Brasil. 

2) Maracuyá juice. Brasil, The biggest in the world.

3) The gente in Belloni. We did divisions there this week.

Hi everbody

Hi everybody,

We had a pretty good week this week. I got to explore some more of Rocha which was fun. We actually got bikes this week. They are pretty nice bikes. My legs and back are pretty sore now, so hopefully I will get back in shape. We also took Irma and José to the juzgado to register to get married. It went great and they have to go back on friday the 25th at 1:15 for the marriage. Then hopefully they get baptized a week later. We were also having a hard time finding any new investigators my first couple of weeks here, but then this week we found a whole bunch so that was great. We also got to bike out to this little neighborhood about six miles away called Riviera which is sitiuated at where the arroyo de rocha opens up into la laguna de rocha. Brasileños and argentinos like to come here to spend tranquil vacations on a nice freshwater beach, but there was nobody there because it isn't summer anymore so it turned out to not acutally be an effective use of time.

And yeah. The gospel is true, keeping the commandments is a great way to be happier, and Jesus Christ is our savior.

Love, 

Elder Christensen

 1) Me and Artigas

 2) Me at the Lagoon

3) A not very flattering picture of me in a bike helmet

Hey

Hey everybody.

We are having a great time here. Irma and Josè have grown a lot in faith the last week and we are going to go to the Juzgado tomorrow to register them to get married so that they can get baptized. We also had this mom and daughter come to church yesterday named Rosanna and Yanina and they liked it a lot so we have been working with their family. We have been struggling to find new investigators this last couple of week but we have seen some great miraclesthis week so it is great. Everybody give your moms a big kiss on the mejilla this sunday and tell them that you love them because moms are great.

Un abrazo

Elder Christensen

Rocha

Hey Everybody,

Well changes came this week and I ended my sentence as mission secretary, which was bitter sweet. Had to say good bye to the Eddys, and I didn't have time to despedirme de los investgators which was also kind of sad, But I am really happy about my changes. So I came to the city of Rocha, which is in the department of Rocha, which is about three hours from Montevideo by bus. My New companion is Elder Hemeyer from Mesa Arizona. He is in his very last change of his mission so his goal is to stay strong and focused and not fizzle out. But Rocha is cool it is a city of 30'000 inhabitants and it only has one branch and is part of a district. This is the first time I have ever served in a branch. It is actually kind of lonley, because when I got to the mission there were three companionships in the City and now the number of missionaries world wide is dropping, so they just closed the second to last area in Rocha and now it is just us two and we have do a half whitewash and have the whole city to ourselves, which is great because we will never run out of people to talk to or work to do. And besides that in the zone there are just three other companionships, one in Chuy, one in Castillos, and one in La Paloma, which are all other little cities. So we are the littlest zone.

But yeah we have been working like crazy, we are getting up at six doing all of our studies in the morning and leaving early and working like ten or eleven hour proselyting days, and this is me coming off of the four hour office shedule, so my body is kind of like wasted right now, and also there is less food here, so I see myself losing a lot of wheight in what will probably be my last area. But we had this huge miracle happen. My whole mission it has been really difficult to get people to come to church which is a requirment before baptism, so we have always gone out to pick up investigators before church, but it isn't easy. So this last sunday we had some investigators from the other area named José and Irma who were going to have us come pick them up, and 8:30 comes around and it just starts pouring rain and all of the streets flood instantly and we are thinking, oh no they aren't going to come but we called them and they said they were waiting for us so we go over and get soaked and they walked with us through the rain and stayed all three hours at church, and hopefully they get baptised on june second but please pray for them. And yeah I am super happy.

But anyway mando un beso and hope y'all have a great week

1: Me saying goodbye to Ruben Gabriel other Gabriel and Jorge. Super sad. 

2: Elder Heymer and I. Hopefully I will get some better pictures and a haircut by next week.