Dec 17th Letter

WHATS UP YALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How is everyone back in Utah!!!!!!!!! How is the weather? Still cold haha? Well it’s humid and rainy for the past couple of days and I was told that, that is Houston’s Snow ha. I’m just glad that it isn’t white. The coldest I have seen it here is 37 and that was in the morning. And that was soooooo Cold I actually saw frost for the first time in Texas It was crazy I thought I was in Utah.

Man lately it has been so busy! I love it but it’s crazy sometimes, this week we started out having Interviews with our mission president. That was really good it is always good to talk with him, whenever I talk with him one on one I can feel the love that he has for us. It is really true that mission president and there wife are your parents out here. We learned at interviews about lesson plans and how we prepare better for our lessons our Mission mom Sister Pingree taught us about manners haha that was really funny. After interviews we met with Kelsey Hodson she is doing good she bore her testimony two weeks ago in church and she wants to do it again real bad. It’s good that she has a desire to share her testimony more often. We met with Leticia Banos she is doing well she is still going through the grieving process of her dad passing. But we are just showing her love and support from the ward and from us.

Wednesday was a very busy day that started at 5:45 in the morning when we woke up. Our zone had the opportunity to do some service at the HUGE Houston Food Bank. We worked there from 8-12 in the morning and while we were there we processed about 14,000 pounds of food and that feeds 12,000 people. I think that was pretty amazing I didn’t have part of that fun. They needed some volunteers up in the administration offices so that was where I was and all we did was put stuff in envelopes and put them to the side so they can be shipped off, let’s just say we did about a 1000 of those and it was alright. Not the best job but it was cool to see what goes behind the scenes. After that is when our day got hectic. We had a baptismal interview for Elena Kent for her baptism on the 22nd than we had another lesson after that with a new investigator her name is Bobby Jo, than off to dinner with Monica and Justin at around 8pm so the whole day we were walking around with our heads cut off but I’m not trying to complain because in a couple of weeks it’s going to be slow with the holidays and we won’t be busy as we have been these couple of weeks.

Thursday was pretty good day. We met with an 18 yr old teenager that was baptized when he was 8 yrs old but has never come to church. So we have been able to go to his house and sit down and talk with him. He has a HUGE desire to come to church and loves it; he said that it is helping him make some important decisions in his life. He has received some good support from the ward and the young men. When we meet with him we treat him like we do investigator that means go through the whole lessons and teach him. Well this week we were teaching him the gospel of Jesus Christ which talks about faith repentance baptism receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end it was a pretty good lesson the spirit was strong. After we were taught him the lesson we got into the conversation of missions and he ask if we had any interesting stories or experiences we have had on our missions as I was talking I felt the spirit more strong I told him about the Rios family and the wonderful opportunity I had to find them and teach them. After my companion and myself both shared stories he ask if you can go on a mission when you are older like 24, we said yeah but you should go sooner my companion and i had the feeling to mention to him that he shouldn’t wait but you should go when he had the chance. He said yeah. He said that he doesn’t know a lot but he is going to church more often and now is going to seminary which is awesome. We promised him that if he continues to do this (going to church, reading, praying, going to seminary) that he will know enough that he will go on a mission he said yea i want to do that. It was a blessing to be in this area and find this kid and meet with him and bring him back to the fold and get him a huge desire to come to church it’s a tender mercy of the Lord.

We had another huge spiritual lesson this week. It was with Elena Kent. We are getting her ready for the 22nd and we went in to answer questions that she might have or concerns. She had one and that was prophets. She has never been exposed to the thought of prophets on this earth, she was concerned because when she went to this one church the pastor she thought was leading them and guiding them wasn’t really doing that for them and some things were going on there so she has a lot of trust issues, so she said that there couldn’t be another person that is leading and guiding us. But we read a scripture in Matthew that says that a prophet of god won’t lead us astray it was good that we brought a return missionary with us he has been home a week and he help us out so much. He connected with her a lot and we watch the restoration dvd and we bore her our testimonies about prophets. And we challenged her to go to sacrament meeting with this concern that she has and we promised her that if she does that her testimony will strengthen and that she will come to an understanding that we have modern day prophets on this earth in these days. So yesterday we were fasting for the chance that she will be able to know for herself that we have prophets and she will get her answer. We are meeting with her and find out if she has come to knowledge of prophets. BUT she is still good for baptism on SATURDAY

This week is going to be very special I’m having two people that i have taught getting baptized. One is Elena Kent and the other is from my old area Spring Branch Jacob Alonzo. He is getting baptized I’m so glad that i have been seeing fruits of my work being coming about this work is true. I wanna leave you with my testimony. That i Love this work it has changed my life and i love it, i know the gospel is true.. I know that our savior Jesus Christ loves us and I’m so glad for this time of season for the love that we feel and the spirit. I CANT WAIT TO VISIT WITH YALL NEXT WEEK. I can tell you one thing counting down to Christmas makes the month go slow so don’t ever count down any days.

Love yall

Elder Christensen

ELF QUOTE. CONGRATULATIONS THE WORLDS BEST CUP OF COFFEE GOOD JOB EVERYONE!!!!!!