MTC Happenings......

Ok! another week down at the MTC. It was a great week. First full week with my new companions. We work pretty well together. We are attempting to teach this guy named Juusi. He is a Finnish scientist. He yawns a ton in the lessons, and doesn't really pay attention. I always ask him to pray...we taught him how in the second lesson, but each time still he starts prayers off with : hey God, i am in a lesson right now....

It is pretty funny, he laughed a little the first time i taught him, he was moving around and stuff while i was saying opening prayer, and i said minä pyydän sinua auttamaan juusi tuntea henki. I asked heavenly father to help juusi feel the spirit. he quieted down after that. we teach him tonight on the plan of salvation.

We can now basically say present and past tense and negative tense. The Finnish prime minister has said, the only people that can learn Finnish are babies who are born there, and lds missionaries. The gift of tongues is real...but you have to work for it. Praying in english is hard now...i seemed to have forgotten the language of prayer...in Finnish you just say you, not thee...on sunday i have to pray for the devotional in english.

Me and my comps taught priesthood lesson on sunday, our zone is really small now...26 sisters and 24 elders. we keep shrinking every week. one of the new dutchies went home also...come on your mission ready to serve...leave that other stuff behind...it no longer matters.

In my new dorm, there is this one little gremlin. Vanhin (elder) lewis. he has been homeschooled his whole life. I love him to death, but he wakes up at 6 every morning and creates quite a noise. we are trying to get him to sleep in till 6:30...also for sunday, Sacrament meeting, he signed us all up to sing ... "i am a star shining brightly" in Finnish for a special musical number. we all love each other here.

Since i have been at mtc i have been trying to work on pride. if you are prideful, you won't be able to teach with the spirit. One of my favorite verses is : Jacob 2:18 but before you seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of god. If we first try to come closer to god all other things will come..."if we desire them for good" (language, money, education)

We read a talk called allegiance to God...by d todd christofferson...everything we own is God's. He gave it to us. don't try to prove how good your are or anything...god can outdo you...make sure you are humble.

ON tuesday, our devotional was by elder stevenson. he basically spoke out of preach my gospel...one thing he highlighted was on obedience. "sometimes being obedient means doing things we don't understand. being obedient brings blessings. blessings brings joy. be obedient. our zone discussed going to bed on time...10:30 is lights out. the old swedes and nords and dutchies weren't great examples of that. they played football and partied into the night. we want the new elders to know that obedience matters. God will bless you with more than just an extra couple minutes of sleep by you going to bed on time.

on wednesday i got asked to be a host. I got to welcome in new missionaries into the fold. Only 200 came in that day..when i got here, there was like 500 at least.  i got two elders, both were from idaho...there was this one car that was holding up traffic. this elder was like hugging his girlfriend for like 10 minutes. i felt bad for the host who had him. My elders were going to santa clara california and st. george utah.

That night we taught this thing called TRC..they are people who are members, but know Finnish. We taught a missionary who got back 3 weeks ago. it was pretty cool. we taught on the Book of Mormon. everyone can use a refresher. The Book of Mormon will defend everything about you. read and use it...it will protect you.

Elder Quigley and I.

View from the top of the new building.

Love you guys! elder Christensen

This is THE PLACE! Week 2.

Hyvää päivä!

Crazy Crazy second week! The MTC is still really awesome. We got to see the new MTC dedication. It was pretty cool. Everyone here really loves the new building. It is huge, there are tons of awesome pictures of Christ's life, it is really tall so you can see all over the city and mountains, peaceful music plays out of the chairs! and they have a couple of pianos also. It is an awesome place. They have these really nice rooms called ponder rooms...this is where me and my companions usually go to study.

One cool thing about the MTC is that every night, they take down about 50 flags, and then every morning at like 7:00, they put back up completely new ones. We all feel like they skip the Finnish one sometimes, the other Scandinavian countries seem to be up more. Every Saturday, we have to wake up at 6 and then do and hour and a half of service. Our job is to clean the new building. Both Saturdays so far, i have had to do bathrooms. 

Every Tuesday, we have a devotional, which is usually a guest speaker from the 70 or the 12 Apostles. This week was elder neilson from the 70. It was pretty good. He served his mission in Finland which was pretty cool...he gave us a nice shout out. His wife spoke about running. She said that one time, she decided to run a 10k. She wasn't very good at running though, so she planned to run some and then walk some. After the first mile though, she felt determined not to stop. As she got farther and farther into the race, she became more and more determined and she tried harder every step. She finished the race without stopping, and had the most fun she has had in a really long time. She related this experience to serving a mission, or it can also relate to any calling really...she said that the more you try, the more you will desire, the more you desire, the more you will not want to stop. You will have so much joy serving a mission, because you are focused on doing Christ's work, not your own. You put forth your best effort, Christ will fill in the rest.

As missionaries, as we do our part, are all entitled to the gift of tongues. Some missionaries think that someday they might just have a dream and wake up and *boom* they speak the language, or that heavenly father will just shove all that good language into their head. This is HöppöHöppö (nonesense). That probably will never ever happen. Trying to explain this to my companion, I read a page and scripture in preach my Gospel that says this, "The gift of tongues will come with MUCH labor and struggle." Learning a language is not supposed to be easy, missions are not supposed to be easy. You will try and fail multiple times.

My companion elder Homer has been struggling basically since he got here. Really homesick and stuff. We have been to the counselors for at lease 12-14 hours since we emailed last. While he was in his meetings i got to watch the Joseph smith history video and replay it quite a few times. It is really good though. I also worked on a really hard puzzle of Salt Lake city. I thought that I would be lucky to even get one piece, but slowly it came together. My companion did end up going home on Tuesday...but hopefully he comes back. We had to skip class that night, so we went on a walk...I asked him what his patriarchal blessing said about his mission. He waited like 1 whole minute before responding, but ending up saying "it says I will serve a full time mission." He was crying and the spirit was so strong. He knew he had to serve a mission, and that this is where he needed to be. Hopefully he will be back stronger than before.

I got kicked out of my dorm with the two Danes. I still hang out with them whenever I can. There is only 2 of them in a 6 person room. I got moved to a room with some or the other finns. Elders viitanen and Reed are my new comps, and elder englun (the swede, my fav) and elder Lewis. Their room is way gross. They have like a moldy cheese farm. they collected milk from like the first day of MTC and kept it in a container...all the oil and juicy stuff floated to the top and the bottom is all chunky...it turned yellow too. Smells decent though. Also some rotten bannanas. 

My new comps are good though. we taught our first two lessons at TRC yesterday. TRC is when random people come to MTC to be taught. they were some Finnish members. It went alright. It is a little different because you are teaching members, not investigators (even though they are all fake). 

Every wednesday we get new missionaries. In our zone, we have finland, denmark, norway, sweden, dutch speaking, and mongolia for some reason. we are all good friends, we are here so long that we will see 3 different sets of sweden norway and dutch, and two denmark and mongolia. we will outlast them all. We got new dutchies (dutch elders) yesterday. 4 of them. one is asian, he is really funny. elder leung.

We get to go to the temple on Thursdays. We all did sealings for the first time. It is pretty cool. The Provo temple is also really nice.

Everyone says to just make it to sunday...that is väärä! (ä = a from apple...means false) In our zone, we all have to prepare a 5 minute talk and 40 minute priesthood lesson each week in our mission language. But you don't know until they announce it after the sacrament who is speaking and giving lessons. you have like 5 seconds to prepare yourself. We are now the senior missionaries (we have been here the longest because everyone keeps leaving!) so we will probably get picked next week. other than that though, sundays are good.

The church is true!

Love elder christensen

My two new companions!!

Ryker's First Week in the MTC.....

Good Morning Everyone!

I have just completed my first week at the Provo MTC! I have 8 more weeks to go. My P-Days are on thursdays throughout the rest of my stay I think. This place is such a spiritual Fortress...I have never felt it so strongly in my life. A couple times I have felt it so strong that I basically become paralyzed haha...cannot take notes or read or nothing because than I just start to cry:) I love it here.

I arrived on wednesday around 12:00 pm...the host who took my luggage was really nice and cool, his name was also Ryker! We went straight to drop off my luggage in my dorm, and then straight to Finnish class. It was way crazy...The teachers would not speak any English and we couldn't understand anything they were saying...my companion elder Homer (From idaho) arrived 3 hours late because of the plane shuttle...he missed the entire first class. He is a cool guy. There are 14 Finnish missionaries right now, 10 elders and 4 sisters. We all get along great. 

In my dorm there is me, vanhin (elder) Homer, and two missionaries going to Denmark.. Elder Danielson-Jenson (from austrailia) and elder anderson (from utah). Elder anderson talks louder than anyone i have ever met. I think that we definately have the best dorm. There is this really awesome swedish elder who is going to finland also...his name is elder englund...he loves soccer and we always talk about it and it is fun.

the basic Day here is:

wake up at 6:30

breakfast at 7:30

than usually 2, 3 hour language classes...one in morning and one in afternoon. 

And 1 hour each for personal, language, and companionship study.

lights out at 10:30

In our dorm floor is all of the Scandinavian missionaries. The swedes and Norway missionaries left on monday. They sang a going away song during sacrament in their native language...It is so spiritual, "sisters in zion" and "sons of heleman". We all looked up to those missionaries as older siblings. It was sad to see them go. 

Never don't sing the hymns, you are only cheating yourself out of blessings. On sunday we got to rewatch elder Holland's talk from this past recent general conference. I Forgot my notes back at my dorm, but basically he was saying that God doesn't expect us to be perfect. "We dont have to give a 100 talents effort" just "100 pence" "which is clearly in our grasp" God doesnt and will never give us a commandment that we cannot keep. We also got to watch a talk by elder bednar, called character of Christ, it is a longer talk but really really good. THe part about the brother of Jared is really good. If you get the chance, watch both of them. watching is better than reading i think.

On one of the days here, we had the chance to do a personal prayer thing during our language class, we went to the newly constructed building and just walked around and prayed and looked at the pictures of Christ's life. For some reason, I was reminded of a time back in Florida where sister wooley was going home from her mission and wanted a blessing. In it my dad said that her Father in Heaven is proud of her and that He will say upon her return back home to Him: Well done my good and faithful servant, you have fought a good fight. You have sacrificed a little, but I shall make you ruler over many. "You have returned with honor"

I have made it my goal to do whatever it takes in this life/mission to have my father in heaven say the same thing back to me. 

I have been able to give my companion a couple blessings...he isn't getting the language and is a little homesick. The power of the priesthood is so real. Elder danielson-jensen told me that God is still "actively" running his church. This means that he is physically running it. he has been to his temples here on earth, he has spoken with the church leaders. Neil L anderson said awhile ago: "I have seen his face and heard his voice." Jesus Christ is real, and he lives.

On Tuesday we had to fly to L.A to meet with the Consulate to get our Finnish passports! IT was so bad. we woke up at 2:00 AM, got on a bus, drove to the airport, checked in at like 5:30. It turns out my driver's license fell out of my wallet sometime last week so i didnt have any identification. I didnt check my wallet because i never take it out of there. The police at the airport did like a fulll body and bag check at both airports. I was able to get through because i had a credit card and mtc card with me. (The MTC securtiy found my license and gave it to me today). L.A. is trash town. We met with the person for three minutes, scanned all our fingers, and then sat there until 7:00 pm for our flight. for some reason the building was in the middle of the hood. so we just sat on some benches and went to Jersey MIkes subs. We got back and were so tired.

It feels like everyone at the mtc knows someone that someone else knows. like their uncle or cousin or neighbour or someting random. IT is such a small world. We met tons of finnish people while in L.A.

The new swedish elders got here on wednesday. we decorated the door with so much stuff.

 IT was so exciting to see them come. They leave in six weeks though. we will still be at the MTC. we will meet 3 different sets of scandinavinan missionaries. If you want to send me random toys, or decorations or letter ;) 

MY address:

Elder ryker ace christensen

DEc 05 FIN-HEL

2005 N 900 E unit 25

Provo UT 84602

The church is true. No doubt about it. Love Elder Christensen

Heippa!

missionary in finnish : lahetysaarnaaja

P.S. Satan does not want missionaries to go into the field. My luggage which has locks on it like exploded three times the day i came here. my roommate elder anderson's dad got in car wreck and broke his arm. elder danielson-jensnen got really sick first day. Also the food here is thumbs down. it tastes alright, but you either have diarrhea after or are plugged up. we ate taco bell earlier this week, tasted so good but everyone had to keep going to the bathroom after. It was poisoned.