My Second Finnish Christmas!

Wow! What a week! I had such a blast this week. Christmas was way fun! 

My new companion is Elder Kimball. We are still unsure if he is related to President Kimball, but we are working on finding the answer to that though. I picked him up from the mission home on Wednesday, and have had a way good start to our transfer. Every single train that we took was running late so we had to do lots of running to catch the trains, we even missed one and had to wait for an hour and a half for the next one to arrive. I was so close to catching it too. I ran and was pressing the button to open to the doors but the train had already locked and then it drove away into the dark. But the start to the transfer has been so good!

Elder Kimball is a great missionary! He has a lot of faith and he sets way high goals. He reminds me of when I was just getting started and I set way high goals. But I have seen how slowly and slowly I have started to set goals that are a lot lower and it all starts when someone says that we wont make that goal. And I want my trainee to keep his faith so I am not going to tell him to lower his goals but we will set high goals together! It is so easy to say, ah man, we have not found an investigator this whole transfer, lets just set a goal for one this week. But I think that shows little faith. one day during planning I asked my comp how many we could find that day and he said 3, and I was thinking in my head "slow down friend, we only got 3 hours of finding today that we can use" but i agreed. and we worked way hard that night and Heavnely Father lead us to the right doors and to meet with the right people, and We found 4 investigators! And one of them even fed us dinner too! and we also set up a lesson for this week. It is a testimony to me that God works according to the faith of his servants. I am so grateful that I have this opportunity to grow here in Finland and to see Heavenly Father's hand in my life!

Christmas was so fun! we have basically only eaten dinners the past three days because we are so full. We ate at our branch president's home Christmas eve. They gave us each a super soft blanket. The president's wife is filipino, so we ate a lot of Filipino food. Some was quite good, and some was very strange. The dessert was a sort of purple goop that came from a root that can only be bought in one store in Finland. Then on Christmas we got to eat with our relief society president. She fed us the traditional Finnish food. potato casserole, sweet potato casserole, carrot casserole and rhubarb and kidney. And lots of beats. Very good stuff. I actually liked it this year.

 And then yesterday, what a story, I have not eaten so much in my entire life. It just kept coming. It was very good food too. some meat that was flat like a tortilla that was rolled up and had some sort of purple thing in the middle. I am not sure if it was a chicken heart or a purple carrot but it tasted ok. But she is a 86 year old grandma and she loves to have the missionaries over. We had a great time with her. We laughed a lot and it hurt really bad to laugh. after the dinner it was getting hard to sit up straight because i was weighed over with much food. And she brings in the dessert. Smashed up prunes in a jelly form and some whipped cream. Very good stuff. I actually really liked it. but I just couldn't eat any more...just too full. So she went to the kitchen to grab some cookies so we looked around and found a baggy. so we took it and scraped our food into it and hid it in our backpacks. A Christmas miracle. 

I am so grateful to be serving here with these wonderful people! I love my mission! I am so grateful for this church and Jesus Christ!

I love you all! 

Mighty Miracles Coming Down the Pike!

Well, it was a short week, but a great one! We just got done with a 4 hour train ride from pori down here to my old area in Vantaa. I dont have much time so this will be a short one. My comps are going back home to america. They have completed valiant missions. I came down here for these next two days to drop them off and help people with transfers. Then I get my new comp! I am going to be training! Wow I am so excited. It is going to be way fun and we are going to work mighty miracles in Pori. This upcoming transfer is the one for sure!

We had some fun stuff this week. Our Branch Christmas Party! It was so fun! We got to sing the 12 days of christmas for the ward. I don't know why we keep singing for things. we are unbelievably bad. But I guess the ward likes it, so that is ok. At the party we ate rice pudding stuff which was so good. One of our investigators came an hour early so we met with him and talked about family history and he got way excited about it. This guy is named Bishal, from Nepal. Such a cool guy. He is super excited about the gospel. 

One of the things that I have actually noticed on my mission is how exciting the gospel of Jesus Christ really is! If you really think about it, how can you not get excited? and the best part about it is that it is all real!

I am so grateful to be a missionary!

love elder christensen

A CELEBRATION Burger!

Well, It was a great week! I had lots of exciting things happen this week!

last night we had the special opportunity to give a young man a blessing! He is from a different ward, but his city didnt have a hospital, so they came to our city. half of his face was paralyzed, and they were going to do some kind of surgery on him, but before they went in they asked for a blessing. so we hurried over. And we had a wonderful meeting with him! He is the happiest kid ever! We were able to give him the blessing and then talk with his parents while he got the surgery. It is always awesome when you can do little things like this that mean huge things to other people. This morning while we were walking to come email, we saw them walking to Burger King! So we ran over and started talking to them, and it turns out that they were getting a burger in celebration. His face was all better and the surgery had gone really well. What a blessing it is to have the priesthood in these days!

We also found two great investigators this week! One is from Nepal, a student who is really cool and talks really fast english. and the other is from Finland. We met the Finnish guy because we showed up at an old investigators house to visit him who we had never met yet, and we had the wrong address...and this guy was sitting outside smoking. And he called us over and started talking to us. It turns out that he knows the guy we came to visit. and he showed us his door. but before we could knock it he says "but you can come visit me" so we go over there and teach him and he is actually really interested! 

The Finnish independence day was this week. Last year it was a big celebration. it was actually my first day in Finland. but that was because it was the 100th year. This year there didn't seem to be anything. but thats ok. We were not allowed to go tracting on that day so we walked around on the streets a lot trying to hunt people down.

 

For a spiritual thought this week, in the Book of Mormon right now i am reading in 2 Nephi:9 and there was a pretty cool verse. Verse 18 : But, behold, the righteous, the saints of the Holy One of Israel, they who have believe in the Holy One of Israel, they who have endured the crosses of the world, and despised the shame of it, they shall inherit the kingdom of God, which was prepared for them from the foundation of the world, and their joy shall be full forever.

I love how this verse says that the righteous will need to endure our own crosses. Of course we are not going to go through what Christ did, we are not expected to go through everything He did. If we did not have somewhat of the challenge that He had however, how could we fully appreciate what He did for us? We are all going to have our own challenges and trials, but that is what is going to help us prepare and become better. And through it all, we will experience joy!

I hope that you all have a wonderful week!

love elder christensen

It is About US!

We just had a great week! It was a busy one!

We had an awesome mission tour! One of the 70 members came to visit our mission. His name was elder engbjörn or something like that. He is from Denmark. Really really nice guy and has so much love. I learned a lot from him. He got to interview me too, and that was pretty fun! Mission tour was awesome because almost all of my MTC group was there! and my trainer elder Fielding was there too. He is going home this transfer. That will be a sad day!

We started the month of December off with a big day of service! We gave out chocolate cookies to people in the center of pori. It was way fun. I had a blast. It was pretty hard to get people to take the cookies. but we did give out a few. We made 128 in total. It was really cold that day, so the cookies began to get a little hard and frozen. There was this particular experience when a grandma was way grateful and tried to bite into the cookie but it wasn't breaking. So she tried a couple more times but soon just put it into her pocket and walked off. Another crazy thing that happened was that I tried to offer this other elder woman a free cookie and she said no and wasn't very nice and walked off, so i moved on to the next guy and he was super excited for the cookie. We got talking a little bit and he took a bite and let out a grunt, and i thought it was because the cookie was way hard but he starts running past me. It turns out that woman had fallen down and banged her head, so we ran over and helped her and called the ambulance. She ended up being really grateful for us and our kindness towards her. Hopefully she will remember this the next time she meets missionaries! God is preparing people here to receive this message and not everyone is ready right now, but some are getting ready!

We had a great night of tracting last night too! we had two let in lessons which was sweet! Tracting is always good. I have really come to love knocking doors. On a normal day we usually tract for around 6.5-7.5 hours a day. I have really come to enjoy it. We cannot teach if we cannot find. Joy really does come from trying your best and being anxiously engaged in the work.

Our investigators are doing great. we have a lesson with Färzad (the 16 year old we taught last week). We are going to invite him to be baptized! hopefully it all goes well! 

One scripture that I really liked this week is Deuteronomy 22:1-4

 1 Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother.2 And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again.3 In like manner shalt thou do with his ass; and so shalt thou do with his raiment; and with all lost thing of thy brother’s, which he hath lost, and thou hast found, shalt thou do likewise: thou mayest not hide thyself.4 ¶ Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ass or his ox fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again.

I think that one of the most important lessons that I have learned here in Finland is that it isn't about me. It is about us. We cannot afford to not serve one another. One quote that I really like is : "See a problem, Fix a problem" These verses remind me that when i serve others I serve my Father in Heaven! By not choosing to be in the service of others, I choose not to be in His service. We are his greatest creation, and his greatest Joy. I am so grateful for all those times that I have been served, and for every minute that I am given to serve here in Finland!

Thanks for all the support! I love you all!

Elder Christensen

Heavenly Father Wants Us to Know Him.

Wow, what a wonderful week! I had a splendid time doing work here in Pori! We just had a big snowstorm yesterday! And the temperature was - 8 today. Winter truly has come. I had to wear a pair of woolen socks for the first time this winter. (The first tracting block of the day i walked out wearing my shoes that were missing a sole and i almost lost my right foot due coldness.) But the missionary work is going so good!

We found this way cool kid named Farzad. We found him street contacting about 2 weeks ago, and we finally taught him this week. Brightest kid i know. He wants so bad to follow Jesus Christ. We taught him at our church and showed him around and he really liked it. He asked the best questions ever! We taught him about Heavenly Father and he loved it. At the end of the lesson we taught prayer and invited him to pray. He asked if he could say it silently. so we said yes. I dont know what he said in his prayer, but it was one of the most powerful prayers i have ever felt. We asked him what he felt and he said that he knows everything is going to be ok. wow, This is why he is in Finland. There are so many people that are led to the places where they can find truth. Heavenly Father wants us to know Him. In the lesson, he asked "but why does Heavenly Father want us to be happy? why does he do things so that we can be happy?" I will let us all ponder that question. 

 

Thanksgiving was great. We made a chicken and ate some boiled potatoes w/ ketchup. We have mission tour tomorrow. A 70 member is coming to talk with us. Going to be pretty fun!

Love you all! sorry this is a short one!

4 WOOLEN SOCKS.

Wow, we had a wonderful week! It is always a good week. Pori is a great place. 

My companion hit his two year mark this week, so we celebrated in good fashion. We were going to go to burger king, but we were feeling merry, so we went to a fine dining italian restaurant. It was way good food. I got a pulled pork sandwich that might have been the best i have ever tasted. So good! The town is all lit up for the christmas season, Lots of the trees in the center have christmas lights up, and people have put out christmas flowers and snow tires are on the bikes and cars, some houses are decorated. We even have our christmas tree up in our apartment. We got our first christmas gifts too! While tracting, this man and his wife let us in, they were kind of drunk. They really liked me for some reason, but my companions they kept calling "bosses". They would call me "wild man" and kept saying that I had no idea what they were saying...which is kind of true. they were very hard to understand. But they gave us each a pair of woolen socks and that was really nice. I now have 4 pairs of woolen socks. 

Our investigators are doing good. Unfortunately, the Nicaraguan family was too busy this week to meet, and might be out of town next week. But Pekka is doing well, we taught him about the sabbath day. He hasn't been coming to church because his back has been hurting him. But he really liked the message that we shared about the sabbath being a delight. It was from the talk that president Nelson gave in 2015 in April. We can all do a lot more to make the Sabbath a Delight!

There is a really old sister in our Branch who turned 90 this week! She had a ton of people over for the celebration from all around Finland. We had to sing a song. They wanted us to sing a old American classic folk song...so we chose this song called "Some Folks" it was pretty good. Everyone there really liked it. We tried to sing it like cowboys. I am sure it sounded way bad, but they kept coming up to us saying it was so good and they want us to sing at the christmas party...We shall see. 

For a spiritual thought: Patience. I have been trying to boost my Christ like attribute of Patience this week. Patience is a lot like Endurance I think. There was a great verse I saw this week. Heavenly Father will mold us into who he wants us to be. We need to be patient and allow improvements to occur. I can definitely look back on the past year or even my whole life and see those moments that have molded me!   For, behold, I have refined thee, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.

I love you all! 

elder christensen

I Am Not the Gardener.

Wow! we had an amazing week! Pori is the best city with the best people :) The work is moving on.

Pekka is doing really well, I love meeting with him. His Finnish is really hard to understand but i still like him. Yesterday he was asking me to grab his gloves but i had no idea what he was saying, I kept thinking he was saying grab his tie or something. we went to the store to help him buy food 3 times last night, but we never actually ended up buying any food....we first got to the store and he realized that he forgot his wallet, so we rolled him back, and then 20 minutes later we were in the check out line and his credit card wasn't in his wallet...so 20 minutes later we showed up again and it was the wrong card...but we have a lesson tonight with him and we are super excited. He still has his baptismal date for January 19th and he is way happy about it.

We have been teaching the Nicaraguan Family this week! twice! They are elect. we teach in english and I cannot get out a sentence with out getting emotional from the spirit. Heavenly Father wants them so bad. This is why they have moved to Finland! We taught the Restoration and the plan of Salvation this week and they have the best questions and they really want to know what is true. Yesterday the spanish member from our ward came with us and he brought his young kid, so the two kids played together the whole time and it was amazing! next lesson we are going to be talking about baptism! fingers crossed!

One really funny thing that happened this week was, we were waiting in our car about to start tracting, and then all of the sudden !boom! this kid on his kick scooter runs into the front of our car and then he slides off our front window and smiles at me.  I am confused and not really sure what just happened...so I do the only thing I know how to do...I smile and wave! and then he scooters off into the dark!

We had Father's day here in Finland on sunday! Dad's are the best! not a whole lot of celebrating here. Lots of the people we talked to on the streets didn't even say anything about it and many even forgot. Ah well.

I had my best game of bowling i my life last p-day after the emailing. I rolled a turkey. 401 points in 3 games. that is pretty good. I am not pro yet, but it is decent.

For spiritual thought, I have been reading a lot in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants, Maybe one of my very favorite verses i discovered this week. This is when the Lord is correcting the saints for not building his temple. D+C 95:1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you whom I love, and whom I love I also chasten that their sins may be forgiven, for with the chastisement I prepare a way for their deliverance in all things out of temptation, and I have loved you.

Because God loves us, he corrects us...so that we can be forgiven and become better. It reminds me of the talk about the little currant bush :"how could you cut me down mr gardener? I was doing so well, how could you do this to me?" "I am the gardener here...I know what I want you to be.....And when you are laden with fruit you will say to me, thank you mr gardener for loving me enough to cut me down." How many of us have thought this before? all of us right? I am grateful for those little moments that I have had when i was able to think "how could you let this happen to me? or this isn't what i think it should be" and then coming to the understanding that I am not the Gardener. Someone else knows better than me what is best.

I love you all!

love elder Christensen

Our Liahona!

Moi! We had a wonderful week! We also took a couple pictures this week, so that is an improvement. It all started with Halloween! We ate so much sugar that day...I felt so sick after it. My companion made caramel covered apples which were so good! And it was district meeting day, so we met with all the other missionaries and everyone brought muffins and candies and cookies. And then we came home and made peanut butter cookies. So we aren't going to eat sugar this week :) 

One of the holidays here in Finland is Pyhän päivä. It is this day where they celebrate their ancestors. Super cool. Once it got dark, which is like 5 or 6pm now days, people began to go to the graveyards and to light candles everywhere. Really cool. And it was fun to go around and ask people to share a little bit about what the holiday is. 

The work has been going really well here in Pori! This transfer has been great so far, and it is fun to be in a trio! 

This week we had a lot of success tracting! That is the best! Nothing like sharing the gospel. We met this really cool family from Nicaragua! They just moved here and they don't speak any Finnish yet and the wife speaks English but the husband doesn't. They have a very well behaved two year old son too, which is awesome. we talked with them about families and the Book of Mormon. They are already catholic and do believe in God. They were really interested, and invited us back! We will be teaching them tomorrow! I know that Heavenly Father is aware of the work here in Finland. He is preparing people to send us to. We are so excited to meet with them again. And what makes it better, the one family in our ward that has kids (we have like 25 members all old grandmas) is from Mexico! and has the same last name as them! Perfect :)

Pekka is still doing good. we taught him twice this week and he is really excited still for his baptism in January. He didn't come to church this sunday because it was stake conference and there would be no sacrament...but i guess that  means he really enjoys the sacrament!

We spent a morning this week doing service tracting. we brought some rakes and headed out into the village to look for people to help rake up some leaves before the heavy winter snows fall. There was actually a mom that accepted our help. they had a way big yard so we only got to do hers. But it was still fun and a good activity! Hopefully she remembers the three hard working boys when she hears the church name someday.

For a spiritual thought this week, I have been reading in first Nephi, yesterday I read the chapter where Nephi brakes his bow. That chapter is chuck full of great verses. So many things to relate to ourselves. One of my favorite verses was when he was describing the Liahona, he said that it led their family along and through the fertile parts of the land. This got me thinking a lot, that this is exactly what is provided to us today! We have commandments, we have a living prophet and living apostles, we have personal revelation and prayer and scriptures! This is our Liahona! And if we follow it...we will be in those fertile parts of the wilderness!

thanks for everything you guys do! 

love elder christensen!

Choose to Be Kind.

Hello everyone! Wow, this has been a wonderful week! There has been much good!

We had our first snow fall in Pori! It really was more like sleet. wet snow. It didnt stick a whole lot to the ground...but every night frost appears and yesterday it looked like it snowed because the moisture had just all frozen. we have to scrape our windows every morning on the car. One cool thing that happened this week was that we had to change our tires on the car to winter tires! We just took it onto the church parking alot and did the work in our suits. The funny thing about missionaries is that you get so used to doing everything in a suit that it just seems normal. We got kind of greasy though...which wasn't good. But it was really fun and out of the ordinary.

Our friend who has a baptismal date couldn't come to church this sunday because he was sick, but we had two lessons with him this week and he is really excited about being baptized. We made him a baptismal calendar last week to help him stop smoking and drinking coffee...but he is going faster than expected because he wants to be baptized before my two companions go home in December. he was supposed to be on 9 this week but he skipped down to 7 smokes a day. That is awesome! Me and a missionary who is in his second transfer named elder hale taught him this week about the law of chastity...which he really likes. 

The reason that i was with elder Hale was because my two companions were down in Helsinki for a meeting with all the other missionaries that are going home too this transfer....so that left me here in Pori. So I drove for like the first time in 1 year! Pretty scary stuff. People here in Finland just walk out into the streets...sometimes with out even looking and they have the right of way, so you always need to be watching. But everything went OK. We forgot where we parked once, but after like 20 minutes we found it. 

We did some nice service again this week. We went to that same family that we went to last week. the ones that live out in the woods. We stacked some more fire wood and did some yard work. They fed us blood sausage for dinner and then some pretty small fish called "moikku" it is like a full fried fish. They served it to us cold. the fish was quite odd...the bones were a little crunchy. but the sausage was actually pretty good. I actually really like most of the Finnish food that I have tried. Lots of meatballs and potatoes and sausage. And then there are some really weird desserts here, but they taste good. This one dessert that we ate with this family was this red slimey goo stuff. Kind of like a red loogie. But with whipped cream it is really good. 

Church was really good this week. I blessed the Sacrament for the first time. Our branch is the best. I really love all of the members here. It is amazing how quick my allegiance has changed. Pori is the best city. No matter where you serve, you just seem to love it if you choose to! I read the talk that president Oaks gave in the women's session of conference this morning...and i loved how he talked alot about kindness. We can choose to be kind. It was a good time for me to reflect on the moments that I wish I was more kind and also on the good moments when my kindness might have made a difference. One of my goals these past two transfers has been that I want to become the companion that I would want to serve with. And that includes always being kind! It surely is not in my nature to be mean, but as i have fine tuned my attributes, i have seen huge changes. I know that Heavenly Father wants us to be kind to each other! So let us do it. 

Last fun thing that we have been doing on P- day has been monopoly! We play this game a lot. I have not been close to winning yet, but it is a fun game. 

I love you all! Love elder Christensen

We are Not Required to Follow Blindly!

Wow! What an exciting week! I moved out of Vantaa! I have been there quite a while. 6 Months in that ward. I will surely miss all the members and investigators! I was pretty sad at first, but i guess there is something special about being a missionary. You just get to love whoever you are with. I have already developed a huge amount of love for the people here in Pori! Such a good place! pori is an old little town on the west coast of Finland. Like right on the coast, so thats pretty sweet. We are in a trio here, which is always fun. never a silent moment thats for sure. This is my second trio, i was in one in the MTC. We have a car here, so that helps us stay warm and get around easily! There is supposed to be  the first snow fall soon, this week actually sometime. I am going to have to pull out my furred jacket. 

My two companions are named elder Winder and elder Madsen. (very tall guys, i feel like a midget with them) They are both going home after this transfer. We have been working hard though and we are doing great in talking with people and tracting and teaching. There have been a lot of really cool people this week that we have talked to. Many were pretty interested! Our Book of Mormons are all being given away! But that is a good thing! We set a baptismal date too! this investigator is named Pekka. He is trying to get over smoking, and really wants to change, follow Christ and be baptized. We set the date for January 19th. Each week he will drop to one less cigarette until they are all done! We are super excited! and he came to church this sunday! yesterday we sat down with him and had a heart to heart and set some goals and made a plan.....he is ready to go!

The branch here in Pori is quite small. We had like 22 people attend sacrament meeting this week including us 3. elder madsen plays the piano and is in the branch presidency. But the members are super solid. Lots of older sisters and stuff.

One day this week we headed over to a part member family and did a ton of service! we raked leaves for a while, then we stacked firewood, and then helped them move these three giant book shelves to their new house. They were super heavy...good thing there was three of us. It is always good to give service...always leaves me with a good feeling. Their new house was way cool. they are really rich, and everything in the house is electric. all the doors just open and close with buttons. 

I have been continuing to read the Book of Mormon. I am always amazed by Nephi's example. Whenever we have our own questions, we can always look to the examples of living or past prophets of God! when Nephi has a question about something he goes to the Lord and receives revelation. We are not required to follow blindly, but to seek our own personal answers! There is so much more that our Heavenly Father wants to give us!

I love you all! Elder Christensen

Goodbye Vantaa....Hello CAR!!

Well, it was a grand last week of the transfer! This transfer was 10 weeks long, but it has gone by pretty fast! They just get better and better. I will unfortunately be leaving Vantaa. I have really enjoyed the past 6 months and have met the best people here! My favorite investigators too! My new area will be Pori, which is over on the west coast. I heard that they have a really nice beach there, and we get a car (just in time for the winter :) ) I will be in a trio with 2 elders going home. That is going to get intense. I already served with one elder that went home. It is an experience. that is all I can say. You kind of feel like you are going home to...it takes some recovery time to get back to normal haha but there is nothing like continuing the Lord's work here in Finland! I have loved every second of it! 

We had a great last lesson with our investigator Risto! My favorite guy ever. He will get baptized someday! Hopefully next transfer. We invited him to be baptized on December 8th, but he doesn't feel that he has enough faith yet. But he said "we'll see" and that he will pray about it and get back to us. 

This week I started to read the Book of Mormon again from the beginning. That is one of the answers that I got from General Conference! It has been such a blessing for me so far! I love the example of Nephi! I have also been studying a ton about the attribute: Knowledge. How can I get more knowledge? I really like what Nephi does, every time he is wanting something, he goes to the Lord, and actively seeks it, he is obedient. I am pretty sure that he didn't start with everything already being known. It came little by little as he searched for it. I know that as we do just like Nephi did, then we to can come to know all of the mysteries of God! 

We had a way awesome experience last night when we were street contacting. We stopped this girl, she was in a rush, but we really wanted to share the Book of Mormon with her. So we asked if we could share a really short message about the book with her. We talked about how reading the Book of Mormon has really helped us come to feel God's love and to know that he really is our Loving Heavenly Father. She took it and we read a little of the introduction with her. And when she left she seemed really happy. There is so much power in this Book! As missionaries we get to tell people about the things that have blessed our lives!

I hope that you all had a wonderful week! Love elder christensen

These are from picture night a while back.