Merry Christmas from Finland

Hyvää Päivä!

I hope everyone's christmas was awesome this year! And the joulupukki (santa) came to everyones homes. Christmas here was excellent! We have been so full for like 5 days straight! The members give us so much food, and lots of chocolate. That is the big thing here...everyone loves to give chocolate as gifts. I think that we got some from probably every member in our branch. 

Personal study:

This week I read more out of the book of Mormon. Back in the MTC, our zone goal was to read out of the book of mormon daily, and to allow it to be your friend. I always make sure that I read from the book of mormon first. I also started reading the old testament this week aswell. I remember back in seminary that this was probably my favorite year. Some many cool stories in it. I saw that in like chapter 4 or 5 it talks about how enoch walked with god. So i have been doing a study on Enoch lots of this week and reading all the footnotes and the book of Moses. It is really good. My favorite verses of the week are moses 6:31-33

31 And when Enoch had heard these words, he bowed himself to the earth, before the Lord, and spake before the Lord, saying: Why is it that I have found favor in thy sight, and am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech; wherefore am I thy servant?

32 And the Lord said unto Enoch: Go forth and do as I have commanded thee, and no man shall pierce thee. Open thy mouth, and it shall be filled, and I will give thee utterance, for all flesh is in my hands, and I will do as seemeth me good.

33 Say unto this people: Choose ye this day, to serve the Lord God who made you.

I love that the Lord gets to choose. He knows what we can do and what he can mold us into. Often times we don't always feel up to the task...but we can always do what the Lord commands of us. "I will do as seemeth me good." I also love verse 33. Our whole message this christmas season is to help people feel christ's love for them through service. Choose to serve God. I am going to keep the little christmas calendar with service ideas with me so that I can use them throughout the next year. The goal isn't just to serve during the time of the year...but always!

My Week:

We ate at a lot of members homes...the traditional christmas meal. It snowed a ton too. Especially these last three days have been crazy snow. Finland weather can be really weird...sometimes we have a huge snow and then the next minute it pours rain and then all the snow turns to ice. I had my first on bike wipeout on sunday. Here, they dont put ice on the roads or sidewalk...they use gravel. I got a little adventurous and road off the gravel and onto the straight ice. It was on a kind of turn aswell. My back tire like flew forward and I like flipped around and banged my knee and the ground. my coat was good padding though. I see tons of people wipe out here all the time. My comp does too. A couple times this week I got real brain freezes. 

The 23 was the last day this week we could proselyte because 24-26 are holy holidays here. We gathered all the last christmas light the world cards that we had and passed them all out. We put some down peoples mail boxes too. On christmas, we had the great sype call. Which was cool. We ate at the Liukku's home. He reminds me of my grandpa dana. 

Here in finland, they open presents on the 24th. They also think it is weird that santa comes through chimneys in america. The rotsalainens are awesome... we played a couple board games with them and watched "the snowman" which was awesome. brings me back to my childhood where we watched it every year this time. It is tradition in finland. 

cool things:

the toilets here dont have alot of water in them, but when you flush, tons of water jets out and shoves all the old water down the hole. 

I drank some piimä this week. Weird milk they have here. It is basically sour cream in a jug. Tastes exactly like it. My comp likes all the weird food.

people here eat everything with forks and knives. When we go eat pizza, we look like cavemen. people order pizza and chop it up. For christmas, the rotsalainens gave us each a ten euro coupon to go to kótipizza (best pizza place here) we are going this week i think. I want to get some kebab pizza. very famous here.

love you guys, hope christmas was great! The work is moving along here! we might teach a lesson next week to a nonmember! woo-woo!

love elder christensen

Second Week in Finland!!

Seinäjoki is really awesome and I love it here. So many crazy things happen to missionaries. And there is a ton to write about this week. First off, we just got  back from p-day shopping and lunch. I had to buy some ties...because all mine are sock ties or too skinny...and they are illegal. But i got a good deal on them...50% off. Then I had to buy some boots...which is good because my current shoes haven't got any grip. I am always slipping and sliding everywhere. It can get very dangerous sometimes. I had my first couple wipeouts also. My last one happened while we were tracting and I fell down and dented the Book of Mormon I was holding. (our books are hard cover) We have yet to give one away. I still carry that one everywhere I go though just in case. 

Personal Study:

Here is what I am studying in personal study. I love this time in the mornings. It is usually an hour long...In the MTC it is a lot harder to concentrate because you can just hangout and mess around, but here it is a certain time that is set apart just for that purpose. I wrote before on always reading while holding a marking pencil or something to take notes with. It helps a ton. It takes a lot longer to read because you are pondering on what you are actually reading. I usually can only get through two chapters.

My favorite verses of the week are:

mosiah 24 : 14-15___ God does care for us and will always help us. We need to be patient with what he gives us. He knows better than we do.

14 And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.15 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.

mosiah 25: 22___ The church is the same here in Finland as it is in florida...just smaller.                                            22 And thus, notwithstanding there being many churches they were all one church, yea, even the church of God; for there was nothing preached in all the churches except it were repentance and faith in God.

mosiah 29:33___This is a very important verse. King mosiah is explaining to the people why they should choose to not have a king. Throughout the entire chapter, he is explaining to them so that they can understand. This principle is so important especially to missionary work. Sometimes we want to just jump right in on the lessons and keep going forward to baptism...but if they don't understand, you can't just keep going forward...they will end up being confused. I remember at the MTC, We were teaching jussi, and like the very first lesson we taught about prayer...but for like the next month and a half, he still prayed how he did in the beginning. So in maybe our last lesson with him, we went completely off script to talk about prayer so that he could better understand it. He was awesome after that! Had mosiah not explained it to them so that they could understand, then there probably would have been a unrighteous king.                                                                                                                                        33 And many more things did king Mosiah write unto them, unfolding unto them all the trials and troubles of a righteous king, yea, all the travails of soul for their people, and also all the murmurings of the people to their king; and he explained it all unto them.

Last thing, Alma 2 has got to be the best chapter in the book of mormon. I read that yesterday and thought about it like all day...so interesting. I think that is right around where the seminary kids are though so I won't spoil it.

My missionary week:

Tueday:

Last tuesday after I wrote, we had a lunch with the Liukku family. They are an old couple. They brought us to lunch at this old person buffet place. Really interesting. Everyone was like 80 years old and we come walking in. We ate a classic christmas dish in finland. It was ham with liver casserole and sweet potato casserole and rutabaga casserole. It was one of the things I have ever tasted. We had a lesson planned with a guy named esa...He lived like a 45 minute away bike ride and it was snowing like crazy and all uphill. It is hard to ride your bike in the snow because you keep getting hit in the eyes...so you basically just ride with your eyes barely open. We passed a ton of new star wars posters too on the way there! Elder fielding really likes star wars, we got some pictures with it. There was this one really steep hill in front of his house where we tried to go off roading but we wiped out and fell down into some deep snow.. We were planning to ask Esa to be baptized, but we knocked on the door and he gave us his Book of Mormon back and said to come back in a year...so that is what we shall do...We did some tracting over by his house after that. I think I was stunned afterwards..it was as if I was just attacked with a critical hit. 

Wednesday:

Our mission area is so huge...I'll try to put a picture of it on there. We taught our first lesson! It was to veli (brother) Uusipirosi. He lives in ilmajoki (about 30 mins from seinäjoki using the bus) He is really cool and loves soccer. Very fun to talk with him about it. On Sunday for Christmas he gave me a Liverpool jersey from like the 1990's...very kind of him. It smelt of death though, so we washed it a couple times. Also on Wednesday, we taught a school presentation at the seinäjoki lukio (high-school) about our church. just facts and basic beliefs. Finnish kids are the biggest punks. They all ride around dirt bikes and these little buggy cars that you can drive without a license. We ate lunch with the teachers at the school. (same christmas meal) One of the high school kids asked us how we survived off 200 euros a month. 

thursday: 

We visited sisar mannistö today. she lives in Kauhajoki (like an hour away) she is a less active. We shared a christmas message with her. Veli Lahti, our branch president went with us. She made us really good pancakes with jam and sugar. Finland has the best Jam.

Friday:

On Fridays, we do weekly planning. This is like a 3 hour period where we plan a basic outline of our whole week. The members here (all 15 of them) are really nice to us. One of them brought us to a pizza place for lunch which was really good. Also, all next week we have our dinners planned out. everyone wants to feed us. (hopefully not the christmas meal) We do a lot of tracting. I like tracting too. kind of fun. Our district goal is to share the christmas video that the church made about sharing the light to the world 1 time a day. It sounds like a small goal, but it is super hard to get here. However, we have successfully showed it 8 times this week!

Saturday: 

We met a lot with this college student named Daniel. He is from austria and a really cool and nice guy. College just ended here so everyone is going back home. Elder fileding was really good friends with him. We ate a last supper with him before he left. We also had the ward christmas party. We sang a lot of songs and ate christmas food and everyone told their favorite christmas memory. All the members are really funny and like to roast each other. they are really old too so it can be really funny. 

Sunday: 

I got asked to share my testimony again. I also played piano during church. They love me now. They want me to learn some Finnish songs to play during church, but I dont know if my skill level reaches that high. We tried making cookies for an old man that we met while tracting but he wasn't home. Gingerbread is actually so good! we ate a ton ourselves. After church, we do some more tracting and street contacting. After 8 here you cant do tracting so we try to find people on the streets. Not really anybody walks around though at night because really cold.

monday:

We found this really awesome guy named renato. We have been trying to talk to him since my first day here and we finally got to talk last night. He wants us to come back and teach him some Finnish and about the gospel. He is really cool. We always ride around hoping to see the northern lights. One night we drove to this huge lake and looked up at the clear sky for a while. we were in the middle of nowhere and it was pitch black. we turned off the lights on our bikes too. So cool. Hopefully we see them...I think winter is when the are most common. Usually October is the best month though.

cool facts:

dec. 21 is the darkest day, so now all days will be getting brighter by a couple minutes each day until summer, when there is no night!

On P-day we played bean boozled. the best flavors are canned dog food and rotten egg. They like explode in your mouth and filled our apartment with stink.

we eat a lot of chocolate. we ran out of bars this week, so we eat hot chocolate powder.

I think that is it. love you all...merry christmas! remember to put the church name and then my address if you are going to send something. 

Love elder christensen

FINLAND - 9 Hour Time Jump!!

Good Morning everyone!

I have been in Finland a whole week! it is freezing here. I had to buy a new coat! This one has fur on the hood. Real nice. I love Finland so far. It is very awesome...The people here are quite interesting thats for sure. My new p-day is tuesday.

My new address is:

Myöhempien Aikojen Pyhien Jeesuksen Kristuksen Kirkko 

(Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)

Upseerinkatu 3 C
FI-02600 Espoo
Finland

If you dont put the church name on the letter, then it might not make it to the mission home...that is where all the packages and letters go to first. For some reason, if there isn´t the church name, then the mailman doesn't know where to put it so they sometimes send it back.

I forgot my camera, so you will have to wait for pictures of Finland till next week...but these are the last of the MTC pics. The picture of me really sweaty was after our last work out session at the MTC...elder Jordan and I did a run and we were going so fast...I have never been so tired in my life.(until I got my bike) He is a cross country runner and does push me.

We left the MTC at 6:50 AM on monday, and took a bus, to a train in Utah. We only had like 3 minutes to get like 50 missionaries luggage off the train before the train closed the doors and left, so lots of people were freaking out and panicking...it was mayhem. But in the end, everyone made off the train and got to the airport. My companions brother showed up also, so we talked with him for awhile. Pretty cool guy. Our flight from utah to dallas was about 3 hours I think, and then dallas to london was 9. They fed us two meals on that flight...Pretty good too. It was a fun flight, but we couldn't sleep at all. So we were super tired the rest of the day. We chilled in the london airport for 3 hours i think. We walked around for a while. Some elders bought watches. I bought a water with american money, and they gave me some British pounds back...so now I have some sweet coins of the great queen of England. 

We got our seats split up on the flight to finland, so I sat next to a finnish guy who lives in miami. He is flying to finland to visit his mom. Apparently he owns a really successful business that is going to be on shark tank he said. Super cool guy. He used to be a pilot, so we talked about planes like the whole time. 

We got to finland at like 3 or 4 in the afternoon on wednesday. Finland is a 9 hour jump ahead in time i think from utah. The mission president and his wife (the auras) and the APs were all at the airport waiting for us. Pretty cool. They are all super nice. 

There are only a couple cars in our mission, and they are all toyota yaris...gray in color. so we all shoved ourselves in to those and made it to the mission home in Espoo. The mission home is really awesome...and super big too. We sleep upstairs in the attic where the ceiling is really low, so we kept bumping our heads. It is everyone's dream to buy their own house in finland, but not many people do. They mostly live in apartments. That night we had interviews with president aura, and ate dinner and then went to bed. He is a super nice guy. And very spiritual. 

The next morning, we got our assignments! The mission wasn't going to assign anyone new to rovaniemi (highest city we can go right now) this transfer...so lots of people got bummed. I know that a couple of our elders had been praying for that every day haha...but I wanted to go there too just to experience the arctic circle. Hopefully! 

I got assigned to Seinäjoki! (wall river) Very awesome place! It is a huge area too, one of the biggest i think. We are in the north Zone. My companion is elder Fielding! he is awesome. very funny. loves star wars and music. I think that he has been in his mission almost a year. I am his first trainee and this is the first time he has been senior companion. we are learning together. 

We stayed the night in Haaga (in helsinki city) with a couple other elders. Elder lewis and elder skinner are in my district too (kokkola and vaasa(Swedish speaking...bad luck...doesn't know any...nor does companion)) which is awesome. We have had two district meetings already. On district meeting days, we get on a bus for a 1.5 hour bus ride to vaasa. Our district has the seinäjoki, vaasa 1, vaasa 2, kokkola, pietasari, and a senior couple. All are very awesome. I have to play piano at the district meeting . Good thing that I brought my simplified hymn book. Also, the Finnish hymn book doesn't have all the songs we have, so we have a good time trying to figure out which song is which when we can barely understand what it is saying.

In seinäjoki, we basically just tract. We dont have any investigators, and there are only 15 active members. Our church building is an old bank...There is a really cool safe in the basement were the extra meetings are held. Very cool. (We are emailing at the church right now.) Sunday was a fun day. I got to give a little introduction in my ward and tried understanding their questions...I can speak fine, but understanding is the hard part, because they talk lightning fast. If only I knew what they were saying. haha. I know that the gift of tongues is real, so I am not worried about it. I have a talk assignment on dec.31...my birthday. And i think the branch wants me and my comp to sing a Christmas song the Sunday before that.....we shall see...

I love my branch, the members are so cool! We got like 5 dinner appointments covering the week of Christmas which is awesome! And one of the members gave us a goodie bag with chocolate and toilet paper!

Tracting is also fun...We have had some neat experiences. Our goal is to share the christmas video that the church has put out. (light the world) We usually share it at least once a day. We have met a couple of cool people. We met a kid last night who is from nigieria and turned 17 yesterday...so we made a fake phone call and ran to the store and bought chocolate and a card and then ran back to his apartment and gave it to him and sang happy birthday. His parents dont like the church, but like us, and say we can keep coming back. We showed them the christmas video and the kid said that it was really touching and more people should watch it. He is going to share it with his family. Really cool guy and really down to earth. It is important that we are grateful for our blessings. He knows no finnish, cant go to school till he learns some, his dad works all day and all night, and they are poor. Our whole message this christmas is about christ and serving others...Make some goals to serve people in your community, and that are around you. There is always someone who needs your help! The church is true! And it doesnt get any less true the more times old people yell at you when you knock on their door!

cool stories:

met a harley motorcycle man and he took us to his shed to show us his collection...Started rolling drugs in front of us and then smoking....neat guy...we shall return back to him.

A guy on the street gave us some money, so we put it in tithing for him...he was drunk...but we called president aura and he said something like this : Missionaries have a certain light around them. when people are in dark places, they are attracted to you.. that is why this happens so often.

My first day tracting here was a blizzard...and today was also. you ride your bike and cant open your eyes because snow gets in them. The first day, we went outside and the had to return home because we were frozen...our hair was white and crispy. we got beanies then went outside again...and met a guy who really wanted to go to church who happened to be named jussi! we called him on saturday to make sure he was going to come....but fake number :(    Elder fileding says it happens a lot.

Bikes are the worst thing to ever happen to me. my trainer rides so fast...my legs are jelly. usually after like ten minutes, my legs start cramping up...and the roads are straight ice...we dont have bike spikes yet..I will be ripped by the time I get off my mission...while tracting, we must have slipped a million times...

“If you are on the right path, it will always be uphill. And as the world becomes darker and more dangerous, we must keep climbing. It will be our choice whether or not to move up or to stay where we are. But the Lord will invite and guide us upward by the direction of the Holy Ghost, which He sends to His leaders and to His people who will receive it.” 

Elder Eyring

love everyone! I will email again nest Tuesday i think.....with pictures of finland!

love elder christensen

Last 3 days in the MTC!!

Hei! Hyvää Päivä!

I hope that everyone is doing awesome! We are all really pumped because we leave in 3 days! The days just get better and better here. I think that you can feel the spirit here more than anywhere else. There is a special work that goes on here. I remember that on my second week, we had to fly to LA to get our visas and there was no longer that happy peaceful feeling. Going to Finland is going to be awesome but we will also be going into the real world again. We are no longer in our little bubble. We are very excited for the challenge. And the cold. it will probably be around 20-25 degrees F on we get there I think. And then We spend the night in Espoo, Finland which is a city near Helsinki. We might spend a couple of days there...not sure yet.

We met the old Finnish Mission President one of these nights. He was really cool. He is now one of the branch presidents here at the MTC. He came into our dorm and talked to us all about Finland and what to expect. Really great experience. We got a picture with him also. If president Aura is like him than it is going to be a blast there.

On sunday, we found out that our branch president, President Coombs, is being released. We all really liked him a lot. He went on his mission to samoa and had tons of good stories and mission experiences that he told us. We are usually with the branch presidency on Sundays and Tuesdays. This is because those days we have devotionals and discuss those with them. We have the best branch in the MTC. Brother Svendsson is branch 1st counselor and he is so cool. He also really loves sock ties and wants me to wear them on sundays and tuesdays. I might give him one before I leave. 

Sunday night we had a devotional and it was about turning your weaknesses into strengths. We were asked to pray to God, and ask him to show to us what we can improve on, and then to give us opportunities to make it happen. It was really cool. We should always be moving forward. "improving" in Finnish, repentance means improvement. We all need to improve on something. Use the atonement of christ to help you improve no matter what it is. And this doesn't have to be dealing with just sins. You can use the power that comes from it. On tuesday one thing that I got out of it was that "we are representatives of Jesus Christ" There is no greater honor than to represent him. He is the most perfect person to ever live. Who else would you rather represent?

The Dutchies and Mongols left this week too. We are the lone survivors. Elder Leung, the big chinese guy was a dutchie. I would always chill in their room because it was always quiet and clean too. Our room is really gross. No matter how many times you vacuum it, or clean it, you cant get it to smell good.

In my personal reading this week I read about abinadi...he was talking to the priests and king noah, and he was asking them if they keep the commandments and teach them to the people. Mosiah 13:26 I say unto you, Nay; for if ye had, the Lord would not have caused me to come forth and to prophesy evil concerning this people.

Often times we hear the same things in talks and in conference. But we forget why sometimes we might be hearing the same things. Those talks are planned through what God wants. If we keep hearing the same thing, we must not be doing something. "The lord would not have caused me to come" If we were doing it right...we wouldn't be told again to do it. Do it the first Time. And if it is wrong, improve the second time.

Before we go off to Finland, this week we have been doing infield training. it is another class where we learn about ideas to use while in the field. The members are the best tool. 50% of people that members find to teach are baptized. Only 20% of people missionaries find are baptized. Members...invite...help the missionaries...I wasn't very good at it always, but now i have learned. What can go wrong? There is a 50% chance that you just changed their life forever. We need your help.

Cool things:

On sunday, I passed the sacrament and when I partook of the water, there was a hair in my cup and it wrapped around my big tooth and got stuck there. It was Quite interesting.

Me and my companions are the new sacrament coordinators for the last week that we are here...so we make sacrament and pick people to pass and bless.

I no longer use bed sheets. I sleep on the top bunk, and it is really annoying and hard to put them on when they fall off...so now I no longer try and just sleep on the mattress. 

We got to write letters to ourselves that will be mailed to us in 10 months. We can read them and see how we have changed. We wrote us advice and thoughts and worries.

Minä rakastan teitä! 

Next time you hear from me I will be in the land of 2000 lakes freezing.