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!