A Week of Firsts.....and a Beautiful .33 cent Train Ride!

Alright! So this week was decent, I got my first package in six months! Thanks grandma for the scripture stickers. 

This week was a week of firsts. Im a district leader for the first time here in cosquin, and I have a lot of new stuff to do. One of those things is that every week I have to run the district meeting with the other elders in the district, and the other main thing thats new is that I have to do the baptismal interviews for the people who the other missionaries in the district are baptizing. On Wednesday I did that for the first time, it was interesting because she was pretty confused about some things, and hadn't been taught about tithing. It was kind of stressful trying to explain all of that there in the interview, and for that reason it took about an hour, but thankfully the Lord helped me to explain everything well, and for her to be able to understand and accept the teachings. That sister was baptized this sunday. 

On thursday we tested out the new schedule of waking up at 7:30 and coming home at 10.  I for sure am a big fan of it, but we are going to have to see if our president keeps it this way, or makes his own. I felt like I had a lot more energy through out the day though, so I hope he leaves it this way. We had a lot of really great lessons on thursday, unfortunately one was with a lady that doesn't live here, she just has a vacation home here and she lives in another province. She has gone back to santiago del estero by now. But something cool that happened was that while we were teaching the family baez, the super old investigators we have (82, 83) there was a lady there who kinda helps take care of them sometimes, so when we shared the scripture James 1:5 -

 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. she said that just the night before she had prayed asking God for wisdom, and then the next day we shared that scripture with her. I told her that it was surely a sign from God. If she doesn't take that for an answer, then she won't take anything for an answer. We haven't seen her since though. 

On friday we had zone conference with president, we had interviews and everything, even though I just had one about 3 weeks ago. On Saturday the main thing I remember was that we had a soccer activity with the neighborhood kids and some less active members, it was really fun, plus we got a bunch of new investigators from that. 

Sunday was super stressful..we had to go early to pick up the family baez to come to church, but they are super old and half crazy I think sometimes, we were there with a taxi, but they made us wait 15 mins for them to finish drinking mate, and the taxi guy kept charging me the whole time.  Then we had to help them into the car and everything, finally we got them to church. We have to help them around everywhere because they can barely walk on their own! Its so different being at church with investigators, because the whole time we are focused on them, and making sure they are taken care of, and like it, etc.,  It was especially stressful with these older people because they really say what they think. Afterwards they were kind of irritated because they where tired, the old man, named oscar said that if he would've known it was so long he wouldn't have come, but then when we got them back to their house he calmed down and said that he actually liked it a lot, and that next week he will pay for the taxi. So hopefully we can help them to get baptized.

Monday was absolutely horrible, we had all our plans fall through and we had to knock doors the whole day.  We where rejected about 30 times I don't really want to think about it. 

Today has been a really nice p-day, we got up an hour early to catch the train, to come to cordoba and go to the temple. We were asked to help with the confirmations because they where short on people and needed help. It wasn't what we where planning to do, but I felt really really happy to be helping where I was needed! And also the temple in cordoba is beautiful inside and out. The train ride was also super fun! It was my first time being on a train in many years.  It was about a 2 and a half hour ride, and the best part is that it only cost 6 pesos! thats about 33 cents! a steal at twice the price. 

Im out of time! I sent lots of pictures to mom this week. 

Love you all! Hope everything is going good! 

Elder Christensen

Brand New Area, Cosquin, and Companion Too!

Hello! Its been a great week here in my new area Cosquin, and also with my new companion elder Mooneyham! He is brand new, im training him and he has no idea whats going on! He is awesome though, he is from California and before the mission he went to college in Georgia for 2 years and he played rugby there, they where actually national champs in his time there. Its pretty cool. He doesn't speak any spanish yet really, but he is super excited! I think he will learn quick.

So yeah, on Wednesday me and my old companion went to the mission home to pick up the new people, and also to get trained on how to train by the mission president. There where a ton of new people! There were 23 of them. Including another elder named elder Christensen, from Utah. I was kind of hoping that he would be my companion just because it would've been funny. However it wasn't meant to be, and Im super happy with my companion anyway. We barely made the bus on the way out of the station. We got there and it was already pulling out I ran up and stopped it. It was also kind of sketchy because neither of us had ever been to Cosquin our new area.  We had no idea where to get off, but it worked out. The bus went up through the mountains to get there, it was so pretty. 

On thursday, we had our first real day in the new area, because we came in real late on wednesday. The apartment is decent, I am really happy about the fact that it has AC. However, I am not happy that it doesn't have a washing machine. That is going to be super lame to wash by hand, that hasn't happened to me my whole mission. But we will deal with it. Well, because we were opening the area (actually re opening it)  there was a ton of stuff we didn't know. We had no investigators obviously, so we just went out to knock doors.  We figured out that this area is super rich. The houses here are all ultra nice, and the city is really pretty, up in the mountains and there are a lot of rivers and stuff too. We got rejected a lot knocking doors, but we found 3 new people to teach at least. 

I forgot to say that there is a huge festival rock concert in this city going on right now, its a super big month long thing that they do every year here. Its basically a party town, and there is a big festival area where they have a ton of tents where people are selling stuff. So on Friday, my "son" had inspiration to go there, I thought he probably just wanted to look at stuff but a random person called out to us and said that she was a member, and that she wanted to introduce us to her friend. She took us over to her friend who was selling stuff in one of the tents, and introduced us. It turns out that her friend speaks perfect english! She is from here, but shes been studying english in university for years because she wants to be an english teacher. What's funny though is that she speaks with an english accent, because that is what is taught here. Its super funny! Her name is Gimena. We have been meeting with her and its good for my companion to be able to speak english every once in a while. There are a ton of foreigners here for the festival, we also met a guy who lived in New Jersey for 30 years but then came to live here (he has a sweet new york accent in his spanish.) 

On saturday the folklore festival started, there was a huge horse parade! More than 4000 horses passed by us, it was really cool!  There are a ton of "gauchos" walking around all over the place here. Its basically an argentine cowboy. That night we also had a lesson with Gimena and her mom..we talked to her in english for a while, because she wants to study for her exam. But when it came time to actually teach her, I was about teach her in english but I remembered a scripture that says that the gospel will be taught to all people in all nations in their own language, so that they might understand. When I remembered that scripture, I knew I should teach her in spanish so that she would be sure to understand it all. The lesson went well and im glad I was paying attention to the spirit in that moment. 

On sunday we met most of the members here. Its a branch, but there was about 50 or 60 people there on sunday it was pretty good! They also don't have anybody to play the piano here, so I am playing here again. My piano has honestly improved a ton in the mission, I have no idea how! But they picked a few hymns I had never played before, from the green book, but Ive been playing all the hymns out of there without much problem, its great. Also on sunday our phone randomly stopped working, it just won't turn on. So we are without a phone once again, I think God just doesn't want me to have one haha. Oh well. 

All in all, the week was pretty good even though we didn't start with anything.  We found 10 new people to teach during the week, and we only had 3 days that counted for last weeks numbers. It was good! We were teaching some elderly people last night and they said they want to come to church next week, but we will have to pick them up in a taxi because they don't have a car. 

This week I finished doctrine and covenants. There was some crazy stuff at the end of it, But it helped me to really understand a couple things better and I learned a lot from reading it. All in spanish! But Ive started reading the pearl of great price, the book of moses. 

13 And it came to pass that Moses looked upon Satan and said: Who art thou? For behold, I am a ^ason of God, in the similitude of his Only Begotten; and where is thy ^bglory, that I should worship thee?

 14 For behold, I could not look upon God, except his ^aglory should come upon me, and I were transfigured before him. But I ^bcan look upon thee in the natural man. Is it not so, surely?

This scripture is good to think about. We wouldn't be able to see God, unless his glory had descended upon us. However, we can see the devil with our natural eyes. Its easy to see the difference between God and Satan, and Whats good and bad. However making the correct decision is almost always harder than making the wrong decision. But I know God will bless us as we try to do whats right. 

Well thats about it for the week! Im having a great time with my new comp! We climbed a mountain today, ill attach a bunch of pictures! 

Love you all! -Elder Christensen

Good Bye La Madrid!! Hello Cosquin!

Well it turns out that this week was my last one in La madrid! I didn't think that I would be leaving so soon, but I think that the 26 new missionaries who came in yesterday had something to do with it. My companion is staying here to train a new elder, and I am being sent to a place called Cosquin to also train a new elder, to open an area, and to be a district leader. Im sure that will be super hard, but im sure it will be fine. Im going to be picking up my new companion tomorrow. 

So the week was pretty good, On wednesday we taught some people who have a really bad past. Well this guy Diego does, he was in jail for 9 years. The lady he lives with is named soledad, she is super religious and a really good person. She wants to get baptized, but she cant because they aren't married. We talked a lot to Diego though, and he feels really bad about his past. He said what he wants more than anything is to be forgiven, and when we explained about baptism and how it purifies us, he said he would do anything to be able to get baptized. We explained that God requires us to be married before baptism (if we are living with someone) and he agreed to get married! Him and soledad are both super happy. Im just sad I won't be here for their wedding or baptism. 

On thursday we still didn't have a phone since the robbery, but there was an investigator that we have who lives in the hood who had an old phone that he gifted us, and it works perfectly fine! Its just super old, like the nokia brick phones. I keep it in my sock now when we go outside. 

On friday I received a ridiculous "telegram" message from the argentine post office saying that they had a package for me, and that if I didn't fill out a ton of paperwork online and pay 3 separate fees by the 15th of January, they were going to send the package back to america. I went there that day because it was already the last work day before the 15th, and the prices they wanted me to pay for it were ridiculous, also I couldn't pay even if I wanted to because I needed to have a number of an argentine citizen to do the online paperwork. They told me they have had the package for 3 months, but its probably half way back to america now. 

On saturday I found out that I was getting transferred, so from that point on I have basically just been visiting people saying goodbye. I have only been here for 3 months, which is the shortest amount of time Ive been in an area other than my first one, so I didn't get as close to everyone as I did in my other areas. It was still sad to say goodbye to some people though! 

Im already out of time to write, So im not going to put a scripture! But ill attach a bunch of pictures before I go. Ill try to write a better email next week and ill tell you about my new area/companion! 

Love you all! 

Adriana who Ive been teaching for 6 weeks and was really sad I was leaving (shes not a member yet),

and me and my current companion elder velaztiqui. 

the guy that sells us pizza almost every monday night.

My friends elder melo and leon from uruguay and chile.

The lopez family (i baptized some of them)

(Is this guy getting more handsome???)

"The Great Garbage Dump of Madrid"

well, another week, another baptism. I don't know if we will able to keep baptizing every single week, but thats the goal so why not? 

The first day of the week we were doing exchanges still, I was with Elder Gwilliam for the day. It was good to be with him because he is one of the most obedient elders in the mission I believe. We worked hard, we taught a lesson with a lady whos kids are members but she is like a rock, and not really paying attention I don't think we will go back there. 

On thursday we had the district meeting. The zone leader was demonstrating some weird exercise and I went over to watch, and suddenly he swung his arm up super hard I wasn't expecting it at all, and hit me super hard in the face. My jaw hurt really bad after I could barely chew my lunch. 

On friday we had interviews with the president of the mission. Its a normal thing we are supposed to have them ever 3 months or so, But I haven't had one since I was in Arroyito, in my first month there. It was good, he just told us some basic stuff about the mission that we already knew and to keep working. 

On saturday, things started getting a little more interesting. We had a super good lesson with adriana and jorge, our investigators, and they are totally into it all but they need to get married before they can be baptized, and that is whats holding them back. They are scared to get married because they doubt it will work out in the long run. I told them if they aren't sure after 28 years of living together they never will be. So hopefully they can make the right choice. When we left there it was dark, we were fasting and I was super thirsty and tired so I was walking with my head down not really paying attention to anything. We were passing by this huge garbage dump, its not a really garbage dump but lazy people just throw their garbage there and eventually it became a huge field completely full of garbage. I call it "The great garbage dump of La madrid". Anyway, We were just walking there right next to the edge of the garbage, we were alone, and suddenly this gangster jumps out of the garbage and he has this long knife and he's pointing it right at me, and says " throw your phones on the ground!" and my companion had it, so he tossed it on the ground, the guy picks it up then sticks his knife at me and tells me to give him mine, but I didn't have one! we only have one per companionship. He took my word for it thankfully and ran off into the garbage dump. But then my companion got super mad, and started chasing him into the dump! I couldn't believe it, they got way ahead of me into the garbage maze but the thief went through a hole in the wall and thankfully I stopped my companion before he could go in. It was really somethin. 

No big deal, we had another junky phone in the apartment from 2004 I reckon, it was probably worth about 13 cents. So we started using that one on sunday.  It was a good day other than when we went to pick up our investigators to go to church in a taxi, they weren't home, so that was a waste of 70 pesos. 

On monday we just went about our work, we had a nice lesson in the morning with adriana where we taught the word of wisdom and it was received well. However, on the way to lunch there was another incident. Im not trying to cause a scene or anything by telling these stories, everything is fine and I wasn't even going to tell anyone because I don't want to scare people. But anyway, we were arriving to lunch, mid day, and right in front of the members house this guy speeds right towards us on a motorcycle, he came right at me and I thought he was gonna hit me. I stepped out of the way, I thought he just lost control or something but then he whips out a gun and tells us to hand over our wallets. All we had were the scriptures and the crappy phone that we found in our apartment the night before, he took the phone and sped off on his motorcycle. And yeah we were in the hood, but I thought it would be safe in mid day, apparently not. The robbery did not bother me at all, I don't really care if they take our 13 cent value phone from 2004. But it really bothers my companion and he gets really angry about it. Thats all im going to say about it just don't worry everything is fine. 

Oh yeah, monday night we had the baptism of Rocio! They wanted it to be a family thing, so there was only about 12 people there, while last monday there were 60 or more. 

And here is a nice scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 127.

 2 And as for the perils which I am called to pass through, they seem but a small thing to me, as the envy and wrath of man have been my common lot all the days of my life; and for what cause it seems mysterious, unless I was ordained from before the foundation of the world for some good end, or bad, as you may choose to call it. Judge ye for yourselves. God knoweth all these things, whether it be good or bad. But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in. It all has become a second nature to me; and I feel, like Paul, to glory in tribulation; for to this day has the God of my fathers delivered me out of them all, and will deliver me from henceforth; for behold, and lo, I shall triumph over all my enemies, for the Lord God hath spoken it.

 3 Let all the saints rejoice, therefore, and be exceedingly glad; for Israel’s God is their God, and he will mete out a just recompense of reward upon the heads of all their oppressors.

Life is hard, somedays more than others, but it doesn't matter. God pays everyone back for their works, their own actions. So just control what you can control, and don't worry about the rest! 

Love you all! Elder Christensen 

Dedicated Bishop....Blood Splashed Everywhere!

Well this was an interesting week, we did some things that I haven't done before in my mission, such as blessing a house, and breaking into the church, but over all it was a good week and we also had another baptism yesterday. 

So starting on wednesday, we had lunch with the bishop for the first time since I got here almost 3 months ago, but we arrived a bit late because we were waiting forever for the bus, 3 of them passed and none of them stopped for us, I could tell the first one was full but I think the other 2 just hated mormons or something. Anyways that evening we had baptismal interviews for emiliano and rocio, they are cousins but their families seriously hate each other for something that happened 5 years ago. I can't remember if I mentioned it in my email last week or not but they can't even be in the same room together so they were really mad that we scheduled the baptism for the same day. It wasn't our fault, the kids picked the days. But thankfully we were able to get that all figured out, emilianos baptism was set up for the 2nd, and rocio for the 4th. 

On thursday was when we got a call from a family saying that their son has been acting very strange every night for a long time and can't sleep and that he has to sleep with the mom, and that on Wednesday night at 4 AM he was hearing voices calling him from outside, so he got up and went out but there was no one and then he got really scared. So they called us to give the boy a blessing, and I also thought it would be a good idea to bless the house too because they never had done it. It was the first time I have had to do it, but ever since that moment they said that nothing else has been bothering him and that he sleeps like a log! 

On friday there was some more interesting stuff, we were teaching this lady named sandra, we were trying to teach her the law of chastity but she just wouldn't stop talking, she was telling us this really long story about her life,  but the main idea was that she hates the man she lives with, they aren't married and she has tried to tell him to leave but he won't leave and she said she saw him walking around with a big knife the other day and she thinks that he's going to try and kill her. I was like what the heck! I told her to call the police, and to kick that guy out because she owns the house. I hope she did it and that she's okay, but Im not sure because we haven't been back there yet.

On saturday we celebrated new years eve with the other elders from the area next to ours, we went to a members house in their area to have  BBQ and it was super good, we ate way to much though and I felt way sick after. They shot off a ton of fireworks, and on the way back there were a ton of drunk people in the streets trying to talk to us. it was funny and everyone offered us drinks but we said no thanks and just kept walking. It reminded me of my second day in argentina, which was also new years eve and it was a really similar evening but the main difference was that im a lot happier now thanks to the fact that I know how to speak and I also know which foods are good and which are gross. Its crazy to think that that night in Ituzaingò was already a year ago..

On sunday we had church bright and early at 9:30, we had permission to sleep in a little because we got back at 1:30 am, but I had to get up at 6:30 anyway because bishop had called me the night before and asked me to give a talk the next day, and I had to prepare it. That is definitely the most annoying part of the mission...you cant ask people to give a talk the night before, but they do it to missionaries all the time. Church was good, I was surprised 40 people showed up, I was expecting less because everybody stayed up late the night before. It was still not very many people though, because normally there is more than 100. 

On monday we had our first baptism of the month, for emiliano, and like I said before his family has a lot of problems and they get mad really easily. I have been yelled at over the phone by them multiple times, and there has never been a baptism with this many problems. They were really making a big deal out of it and it made it difficult, the baptisms are supposed to be something simple. Jesus just went and got baptized in a river with no ceremony at all, but these people wanted cakes, balloons, blue flowers, music, a video with pictures of him, and a musical number performed by the missionaries. On top of all that, the janitor people changed the locks on the church building, and nobody could get in to fill the baptismal font before the baptism started. everyone was freaking out, especially the boys mom, so bishop broke a window with his hand to open a door from the inside, his hand got super bloody and it splashed everywhere. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There are still blood marks on the ground next to the window. Also, the kids grandma got mad at me because the white pants I gave them didn't go down past his ankles. Thankfully, it all worked out somehow. The musical number I was nervous about because my companion would have had to sing a solo while i played piano, but thankfully 2 other missionaries showed up from the other ward 10 mins before we had to sing so I handed them a book and said you are singing in 10 mins and surprisingly they agreed to do it and it turned out well. 

And lastly, today has been p-day, we went to the temple in the morning, then walked around the city a bit. The missionaries from south america wanted to go to Mcdonalds really bad so we went there. 

Here is a good scripture in 1 corinthians 10:13. 

13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

I like it because its true that there are lots of temptations, at times it might seem impossible even to resist, but It becomes easier when we remember that God will never let us be tempted more than we can handle! There is always a way out of the situation. 

Keep the Faith! 

Con Amor, Elder Christensen

The pictures are of the temple, the 4 of us in the district, and the kid who got baptized along with some of the many elaborate decorations.