......So We Knelt Down and Prayed.

This was a pretty good week we had a baptism that we weren't expecting!

On Wednesday we had our district meeting in las varillas. Its that place that's 4 hrs away in bus, but our bishop had to go there for work so we went with him in his car for free! Another benefit of going in car is that you can take this dirt road that cuts off 3 hours of travel. Nice! The district meeting was good, we cooked lunch there in the house chapel that they have. After the meeting the sister missionaries had an appointment but they sent us go visit this Lady Vanessa that I knew from before. We were supposed to teach her a lesson but we got there and she was super stressed with a lot to do so we just ended up doing service there. I washed a huge mountain of dishes, I felt like I was back at Haru again haha. She made us a banana milkshake after so it was worth it.

On Thursday we had our weekly planning in the morning...its supposed to be 3 hours long, not my favorite. After that we ate lunch with this family varela. The parents are both return missionaries from Columbia, they actually met in the mission. But I've been here for 4 months now, and we eat with them every single week. And every single time they give us noodles. I don't care haha its fine but my comp is getting mad about eating noodles all the time he didn't even finish his one plate. He wants to cancel lunch with them he says haha. After that we visited the recent convert Nancy...I'm super happy for her, she's changed so much in the past 2 months. She used to have depression and sleep till 3 pm everyday but she's a completely new person. She told us about how ever since she's been baptized and confirmed she has a little voice that tells her to wake up and get out of bed in the mornings and read scriptures. And she laughs now, and she goes outside, and she wants to bring her kids to church with her.  Its amazing how much she's changed.

On Friday my comp decided he wants to go visit a doctor for his back. We went to 5 different places but there wasn't a single doctor available. I don't know what we would do if one of us was actually seriously sick here, because there are no doctors. I suppose we would just die. Haha After that we tried to visit Asusena. She wasn't home but we met her 13 year old daughter who might be pregnant. Her boyfriend is 20. She's a nice girl but the world must be pretty messed up because her mom is acting like its totally normal and is apparently okay with it. After that, a sister from the ward asked us to go to the church to help set up for a dance that night. So we did that and it took forever but it was good. There was this crazy kid named Franco there who wouldn't stop popping all the balloons, he's really something. His mom kept yelling at him but he wouldn't stop and he was hitting babies in the face with balloons too, so me and my comp used black trash bags to tie his hands and feet together so he couldn't escape, and we put him in a room and shut the door. Its okay his mom thought it was funny. Later that night we taught that girl milagros Ortega a lot of stuff in one lesson...the law chastity, tithing, and the word of wisdom. She accepts all of it and wants to follow it, but she knows it will be hard. However, she agreed to have a baptismal interview on Saturday.

Saturday morning the zone leaders came to our area to do the baptismal interview for milagros. While they were here, they asked me if we had anyone else who has enough church attendance's to be baptized. We've been teaching Valeria, the lady with 7 kids for a long time and she has come to church 4 times. However she hasn't been ready yet. But the zone leader, elder Stewart had me take him to her house and he said that a miracle would happen. She was kind of reluctant to have an "interview", but she trusts me a lot, I've been going to her house every week for 4 months. So I kinda convinced her to do it, and waited for the miracle to happen. When she came out of the interview, she said she wanted to get baptized that very day! Haha I did not wake up that day expecting to have a baptism. Luckily there was already a baptism scheduled for that day, for a girl who turned 8 years old. So everything was all set up for 2 baptisms at 4 pm. Milagros Ortega also passed her interview, kind of haha. She needs to talk to our mission president before she can get baptized. 

So anyway, me and my companion went to the church at 2 to fill the font with hot water. It usually takes about 2 hrs to fill. It worked fine for about 15 mins, and then suddenly stopped. In fact, all the water in the church stopped working. Something like this happens literally every single time and I can't tell you how much of a testimony it is that the church is true, because the adversary tries so so hard to stop the baptisms. My comp and I didn't know what to do, so we knelt down and prayed. After the prayer I immediately remembered a story I heard, I don't know when or where, but the story was about a man, a member of the church, who was traveling alone at night in Africa, on his motorcycle. Obviously a little dangerous, and his motorcycle stopped working. Nothing he did made it work, until he started singing a hymn. And it continued to work as long as he was singing, and if he stopped singing, it stopped working. The songs of the righteous are a prayer to the Lord! I remembered also that sometimes the spirit helps us to remember things at exactly the right moment. So I took that to be my hint that God wanted me to go play hymns on the piano. So I went and played, and prayed while I played, and maybe I'm crazy but it worked somehow. Soon after I started playing bishop showed up and started working on the water, and I kept playing while he worked on it and somehow he got it to work. I have no idea what he did but I know it was Gods will that those 2 baptisms went through on Saturday because the font normally fills in 2 hours minimum, but it filled in less than an hour that day. And although the water ended up being freezing cold, those 2 people were able to be baptized and confirmed. The little girl who turned 8 (Luz) asked me to do her confirmation so that was quite the honor.

On Sunday I had to give a talk. It was the first time I've given a talk in Spanish where I know the people have actually understood everything and that it had made an impact. I shared a part from the book called "The Miracle of Forgiveness", and afterwards everyone was talking about it and asking me if they could borrow the book. The part I shared in English is a lot stronger than it was in Spanish, but I'm going to copy and paste it here sorry if its too much haha:

 

"What must I do to be damned? Nothing. That's all. You're damned condemned if you just sit still. That is the law of this physical world. If you sit still long enough you'll never get up again. If you never lift your arm, you'll soon be unable to raise it at all. If you remain in darkness and never use your eyes, you'll soon become blind. It is the law in the mental world. If you never exercise your brain never read, study, nor talk to anyone, never permit anyone to talk to you your mind will became blank maybe you'll become insane. The most horrible punishment that could be inflicted upon you is not twenty years of hard labor, but twenty years of solitary confinement. It's the law in the spiritual world. Simply shut your heart to all truth, and after a while you won't be able to believe anything-that is the severest penally for not accepting truth. The process of disintegration and death begins when a man shuts himself out from the forces that make for life. The body and mind and spirit are kept alive through constant constructive use." 

My point was, that we need to go to church. If you just stay in your house on Sunday mornings and make excuses not to go to church, that's not okay. The scriptures explain that the sacrament is very important and that we are commanded to always go to church. Obviously we are going to be sick sometimes, or have to travel occasionally but we need to be doing everything we can to try and go to church every week.

Im going to end this email with a scripture about the power of prayer. Mormon 8: 24 "And he knoweth their prayers, that they were in behalf of their brethren. And he knoweth their faith, for in his name could they remove mountains; and in his name could they cause the earth to shake; and by the power of his word did they cause prisons to tumble to the earth; yea, even the fiery furnace could not harm them, neither wild beasts nor poisonous serpents, because of the power of his word."

Sincere prayers of faith can "move mountains". I know that it was Gods will that those two people were baptized on Saturday, and I know that he answered my prayer. I know that he will continue to do so. Whenever you have a problem always try to remember to pray. I know that God hears our prayers and that he answers them in his own way. God knows best and I promise everything will workout somehow. Everything will be okay.

I love you all and I hope all is well!

Love, Elder Christensen

Love this!  Working his little heart out decorating :)

Valeria.

Men of God.  Going forward in Faith.

Ethan said this has been the Happiest week of his mission so far. 

I Believe in Second Chances.

I have passed the 10 month mark in the mission. Hallelujah. Our week was pretty normal, other than that it felt a little shorter with p-day on Tuesday now. Its a bit unnatural but I'm basically used to the change already.  I'll give you the summary of the week starting on Wednesday.

We found one new investigator that day, her name is asusena. We had been trying to find her for about a week and There was a lot of confusion because I thought her name was "asusana" so every time I knocked on the door her little kids answered it and had no idea who I was talking about. I'm special haha. But finally we talked to her and we set a return appointment for later in the week. Our work was slowed down that day because my bike tire popped for the 5 millionth time in my mission and we had to walk and wait for it to get fixed. I also managed to lose the receipt so the money I used to repair it will not be coming back. Brilliant! That night we played soccer at the church just like every Wednesday, I scored a really good goal with my head everyone went crazy haha but I will admit it was luck.

Thursday my comp said was crap but I actually thought it was a good day. First of all, I found 2 old area books hidden in our apartment. For those who don't know, the area books a huge binders full of names and addresses of people who the missionaries have previously taught in the city, but who they gave up on for one reason or another. And it also lists the lessons they have been taught, who taught them, and why they don't teach them anymore. We had one area book, but I've already visited everyone in it who I felt we should visit (including 2 of them who ended up getting baptized!) But there was nobody else in the book to visit. I'm basically famous in the mission for being someone who loves to work with "antiguo investigadores". In English I believe they are called former investigators. I don't like giving up on people. Its true that in the mission sometimes we have to give up on people because the just aren't ready to change, but I believe in second chances and I believe people really do change. Especially over long periods of time, because some of these people are from the early 2000s. I also love using the area books because with the information in the book we already know a little bit about the people before we knock on their door, and it helps. I'm happy to say that of all the baptisms in my mission so far, 4 of them were former investigators from years past that somebody else gave up on. So when I found those 2 old area books it was like Christmas morning haha.  On Thursday we also visited this old guy named Luis. When we got there he said that he was reading the bible that morning he said he knew that we were going to visit him that day. We hadn't visited him for a long time so that was cool. We also visited milagros Ortega..I don't know if you remember her, she was someone I was teaching 2 months ago but nothing came of it.  Well we had a really good talk with her, she has had an operation and couldn't go to school or do anything for 15 days. I'm sure she had a lot of time to think about her life, and she told us she wants to come to church and be baptized. And she was sincere about it, so I'm happy that her situation is revived. She always wears this Chicago bulls shirt its funny.

On Friday we went at 9:30 am to teach asusena, its weird because we normally never go out earlier than 11. But that was the time she wanted, and it went well. She had been to church once before with her 7 year old daughter. The daughter has really puffy hair and she's really funny! She also has a 13 year old daughter who might possibly be pregnant so that's kinda a disaster.

On Saturday we ate lunch with a family. The mom's mad because she made an alcohol joke in the church group chat last Sunday, and someone told her she shouldn't do that on Sunday and she got mad and left the group. The members here fight so much about the dumbest little things. If they all got along I bet there would be double the number of active members. After lunch we went to church to try and drain out the water from the baptismal font. The drain isn't working. So we may have to end up removing the water with buckets like we did in La Rioja. It is a lot harder than it sounds and it takes about 3 hours. There is ALWAYS something wrong with the baptismal font. That's just a testament of how important baptism is. Because Satan always tries to attack it any way he can.

On Sunday milagros Ortega came to church with us. She isn't well enough to ride a bike so we walked to church, thankfully she lives close.

Monday morning we did a little bit of service for the bishops grandma. She's the only member of his whole family who isn't a member of the church. She also is not interested at all, but she's a nice lady. I was trying to hang up a curtain for her outside but apparently I didn't do it how she wanted and she was yelling at me in Spanish about how I was doing it wrong and I didn't understand how she wanted it so I just let my companion do it haha.

That's about it for the week...hope everyone is doing well. 

Love you all

Elder Christensen

The Bishops family :) 

Q-T-Pie!!

He said there were many birthdays this past week.

Two handsome young men!

With Walter, a recent convert.....(looks pretty tough!)

Our Choices Determine Our Destiny.

Today is the first time we have had p-day on Tuesday. Its really weird because everything had become a routine, so yesterday it was strange working a normal day. But its also kind of nice to have a break in the middle of the week. Honestly it doesn't really matter because if we stay here in Arroyito there is nothing to do anyway. Our new president is changing all the rules. We can't even watch Disney movies on p-day anymore haha...oh well.

So last Monday we were in San Francisco, and we stayed the night there for the meetings on Tuesday. Thankfully we didn't have to sleep on the floor again because we realized that we could sleep in the abandoned apartment of sister missionaries there in the city. They took the sisters out last month. So we slept there and their apartment is sooo much nicer than all the elders apartments. Its crazy how much more comfortable the beds were. I slept great.

On Tuesday we had the meetings of our zone. Its was our zone leader Elder Valdez's last meeting, he's Mexican and he's probably home by now. He's about 300 lbs. and he's really funny. He told us that his uncle is "el chapo" a famous Mexican drug Lord and some of the Hermanas in our district actually believed him. In the evening we came back to Arroyito in time to eat dinner with some members. We ate ñokies, it's this kinda pasta stuff, its probably my favorite food here. And we watched the Uruguay-Paraguay match, Uruguay won so my companion was super happy.

On Wednesday we taught some people. Our main investigators are named Valeria and Alicia. Valeria has been an investigator for years and years..she has a son who was baptized, his names Leo but he hates the church now and ever time he sees me he curses in English cause he thinks its the funniest thing ever. Valeria was going to get baptized 2 years ago but they all stopped going to church because some sister missionary offended them or something. They have a big long story about it haha, but now we really have the trust of her and she is making really good progress. She's come to church twice, and she wants to get baptized but she wants to get baptized together with her husband. He's the real delay, he doesn't believe in God because one of his brothers died as a baby. However, today we were able to read him portions of Moroni chapter 8...

Verse 19 Little children cannot repent; wherefore, it is awful wickedness to deny the pure mercies of God unto them, for they are all alive in him because of his mercy.

22 For behold that all little children are alive in Christ, and also all they that are without the law. For the power of redemption cometh on all them that have no law; wherefore, he that is not condemned, or he that is under no condemnation, cannot repent; and unto such baptism availeth nothing.

So we were able to explain that all little children who die, are saved, because they are pure and innocent and they cannot sin. Also all persons who don't know right from wrong. So hopefully, that will help him be able to get back on track.

Our other main investigator Alicia wasn't able to do her reading. It hurts her eyes so we are going to help her download the audio app of the BOM next time we go.

On Thursday it got really hot and it was a day of failure basically we couldn't get anything done. No one was home. We ran into bishop in the street he said that he pulled a muscle playing soccer with us the other day haha. Before we went home at the end of the day, we went to a fruit store they had watermelons. I was super excited to buy it because I love watermelon and I haven't eaten it for 7 months. They were imported from Brazil the Lady told me so I bought one and we ate part of it that night. It was warm inside, and me and my comp both got sick, but he was way worse than me. He threw up in the night 3 times, I never did but I felt like it.  So the whole next day he was in bed dying and we couldn't go outside. Its so depressing being inside all day long in the mission I can't express how awful it is. You read for about 4 hours but after that there is just nothing to do but think and that doesn't end well, at least not for me because I think about home. I felt like I was back in my first area with my "sick" companion. So anyways that's probably the last time I'll buy watermelon here.

By Saturday he felt good enough to work. We helped set up a birthday party for a little girl in the ward who turned 8. Her mom makes all these balloon decorations, she does it really well. She does it at weddings and stuff too. Saturday was also the day where we found out the transfers for the next 6 weeks. Me and my companion are both staying here.

Sunday was the first ever ward conference of Arroyito. A bunch of people from the stake came, and also a ton of less a active members came for the conference so it was great to have the church full. It was my best Sunday here by far, but not because of the stake people, but the normal members from our ward did a really good job with the classes and it was really spiritual. Bishop Carranza gave a great talk and he talked about how choices determine our destiny. Our destiny isn't predetermined, we can choose who we want to become, who we want to be. The choices we make have eternal consequences... In one of the classes we talked about sacrifice. We were told to imagine how Abraham felt when he was about to have to sacrifice his son Isaac. And then imagine how God felt when he actually had to sacrifice his only son, for us.

On Monday it was just a normal day, we taught Valeria and we taught the law of chastity. Our favorite thing to teach! Not. But we found out that she's actually married, we thought she wasn't for some reason. So that's a big obstacle gone. So this week we will be teaching her how to stop smoking then hopefully shell get baptized!

That's about it! 

Happy birthday McCauley!

Love, Elder Christensen

God Loves us More Than We Know.

We are in September now, people are saying its springtime here but its still super cold! I think this last week was the coldest week since July. Its still so weird saying cold and July in the same sentence haha.

Anyway, all of our best investigators got baptized last week, so now we have been working with the more difficult ones..the ones who need to get married before they can get baptized, etc. One of them is named Valeria. We taught her on Tuesday, and She has been having a really tough time lately. She has like 6 kids and she's not married, its always really crazy in her house (loud). But she told us she thinks God is mad at her and punishing her for something that she's done. I explained to her that God loves us more than we know, and that he's not mad, rather that he "chastises" us to help us change to be what he wants us to be. I had her read 

Helaman 15:3 "Yea, wo unto this people who are called the people of Nephi except they shall repent, when they shall see all these signs and wonders which shall be showed unto them; for behold, they have been a chosen people of the Lord; yea, the people of Nephi hath he loved, and also hath he chastened them; yea, in the days of their iniquities hath he chastened them because he loveth them." as an example. That scripture really works for me in a lot of situations! So we left her with the homework of reading 

3 Nephi 27 (which talks all about baptism) and then to pray about what God wants her to change in her life.

On Wednesday we had our district meeting like always. We have the soccer activity in the night time and its always really fun. My comp plays incredibly well! And also our bishop...he literally weighs 300 lbs. And he looks like an NFL lineman, but he is somehow amazing at soccer.

On Thursday we printed photos of the baptism last week for our converts. I also printed some for some people in La Rioja finally, I've been procrastinating it for 3 months. I don't really know if I trust missionaries to deliver my mail to La Rioja but I don't have any other choice.  We also had an activity in the church. They call it "noche de hogar", which would be family home evening, anyone is invited and all we do is eat haha. Nancy brought her friend José. I can't remember if I've written about him or not, but he has some kind of problem with his vocal chords. He speaks with squeaks and whistles it's awesome haha and he wants to come to church.

On Friday a new family moved into our ward..the mom is from Argentina but the dad is from Washington. He doesn't know Spanish, he only speaks English and Portuguese because he served his mission in Brazil, where he met his wife who also was in the mission. So me and him speak English together. Its funny, they asked him to say the prayer and he said it in Portuguese. On this day we also taught Valeria again. I was excited to see how her reading and prayer went. When we got there she said she felt great reading, and afterwards she went into the bathroom to pray. But she said while she prayed, she said she felt a really bad feeling come over her, and she stopped praying but the feeling didn't go away, and it stayed with her all day and she felt like crying. She said she didn't understand why that happened because she felt super good reading and usually feels good when she prays. I had no idea what to say. I wasn't expecting that at all that's not what normally happens. I didn't know what to do but I just started talking and suddenly the Joseph Smith history came to mind. I know it was inspiration because I've never shared this part with investigators before (the part where he is praying and gets attacked by Satan). We usually don't share that part because we don't want people to be scared to try praying. But it was perfect for this situation. Her situation is a lot like Joseph Smith's because she doesn't know what to do, and Satan knows if she finds out the truth it will impact a lot of people (all her kids) and he doesn't want that so he tried to stop it. The difference is that Joseph smith kept praying when he got attacked, and Valeria didn't. So in the end she understood really well and she's going to try again.

Saturday we found two new people to teach: Carlos, a police officer who wants to join the Argentine equivalent of the marines, and this old lady named Blanca.

On Sunday, it was the day that Mariano, Milagros, Antonia and Nancy where supposed to be confirmed. The plan was to have members confirm them like always, but apparently Antonia and Milagros asked me to do it for them. It was my first time in either English or Spanish but it went well I hope. My companion confirmed Mariano, and Nancy didn't get confirmed because she slept in. All she does is sleep, we always say she hibernates like a bear. "Osa" we call her. She will get confirmed next week. In church, we also had to teach the class. They never tell us ahead of time so we have to improvise the class almost every single week. At first that kind of stuff made me really mad but I'm basically used to it by now. It always happens. After church we ate pizza with bishops family. Argentine pizza is nothing like American pizza, but it's still pretty good. There is ward conference next week, so we had to go to choir practice for 2 hrs to prepare for that haha.

That's about all...wish Lawson happy birthday for me.

Love, Elder Christensen

PS: the picture is my comps first time eating Mac n cheese...a historic moment. Thanks for the package.

Also heads up: my pday got changed to Tuesday so I'll be emailing on Tuesdays now :(