TRULY, the BEST TWO YEARS.

Dear Rakkaat,

Wow, This has really been the best two years. Ever. It seems now that it has gone by so fast, but it also seems so long ago that I was starting my mission, and i feel so old now.

This week was a great one to end on. I am going to miss serving here in Espoo 2 ward though. I have come to love the members so much. I have learned a lot about the importance of member missionary work here. They are so willing to help out and do stuff for the missionaries. We had one lady last sunday bring us food because she has a son who just left on his mission to Portugal and he has not been receiving any food appointments from the families there. She prayed that as she started to love and serve the missionaries here in Finland, that her son would be blessed as he served the people of Portugal. She also brought us food this sunday, chicken noodle soup in a little sac. so kind. And she said "God has answered my prayers! My son received his first Dinner appointment. Out of nowhere last sunday my son said that members called him and his companion saying that they were having a fiesta and wanted the elders to come. He said he has never eaten so much good food in his life!" Wow, I know that Heavenly Father is looking out for us. I know that he loves us and is providing for us! 

I had our last lesson with Anneli this week. It was so good! We met her with our bishop. We taught  the Restoration and read some of the Joseph Smith history with her. At the end we invited her to pray about Joseph Smith, and if he really did see Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and if he was a prophet. The next day she texted us saying "Elders, I prayed in the evening after you left my house about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I know that it is true. The spirit answered me yesterday, I felt great peace that it is true. See you tomorrow at church! :)" It has been such an amazing blessing for me to be able to teach Anneli and her son the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We also had a great filipino feast this week. Some of the members in our ward invited us over to eat with them. Some authentic filipino. they call themselves "the tribe". It was so good. I almost threw up because they kept saying "elder, eat more, take" One of these members is the one that I had a baptismal interview with two months ago. She is doing so good and still comes to church every sunday! 

I want to thank all of YOU for the support on my mission! I am so grateful that so many people have prayed for me, and all the missionaries. I am so grateful for the experiences that I have had here as a missionary. I have completely changed as a person, and disciple of Jesus Christ. 

One of my very favorite verses in the Book of Mormon is: Moroni 7:48

48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, ^apray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true ^bfollowers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall ^cbe like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be^dpurified even as he is pure. Amen.

I love where it says that as we develop this Christlike attributes, we will be able to see the savior as He truly is. I really believe that before most of us see Him and meet Him in person, we will come to know Him in our selves as we become more like Him. I love Finland so much because here is where I have come to know who our Savior is. I have come to gain a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus christ. I have felt a little bit of the true joy Heavenly Father has in store for each one of us!

I will see you all soon! 

Love Elder Christensen

"Life Motto"

wow, 

We had a great week here! I am loving these final moments. We just got done playing frisbee golf with the APs. That has been so fun for me this transfer. If anyone ever wants to go when i get home I am in! ps. i won this time. 

This week was superb. Very fast too. We had some great finding. 3 new friends and lots of great discussions with people. We also had the zone leaders doing splits with us this week. One of our lessons was on that day and it was so good. Maybe one of the best that I have ever taught. Her name is adina. She is a way cool Finnish girl. She said that she feels like her relationship with God is kind of the focus point of her life right now. I feel like she was really into the lesson and hopefully next time we meet we can set a date with her for when she will be baptized. Anneli our recent convert is doing great. She was at church this week and enjoyed General Conference last week. It is so amazing to see how the Gospel has affected her. I also ride the bus home every sunday with this filipino sister who was baptized 3 months ago. We have a special connection with each other because I gave her baptismal interview. She just went to the temple and is experiencing a lot of joy!

 

Cool story this week is that we were stopping people on the street and we stopped this young guy. It turns out that he is a player on FC Honka. The soccer team here. We told him that we were his biggest supporters and he loved it. In the end he was not interested, but we gave him our card and phone number!

Also, we had a first lesson with this guy from pakistan this week. Way cool guy. he works at this certain restaurant and invited us to come in and talk for a while. He gave us these huge burrito sandwich things. At the end I asked him what we could do to help him and he said "all I want is for you to do something good today for someone that you do not know." That really made me realize how much good we can do for each other. There are so many chances and things that we can do. Maybe at first we dont realize it, but I know that they are there. I feel like I want that to be my motto for the rest of my life. 

I love you all! I will see you next week!

TWO YEAR MARK.

Terve!

Hey all, we had a great week here! I hit my two year mark as a missionary on the 4th. I am so blessed to be able to have an extra 20 days! My time is quickly running out though. I leave on the 24th back to Florida. 

General conference was really good. I have not yet watched the women's conference or the sunday afternoon session, but I definitely will and I am excited for it. I really loved President Nelson's talk about Humanitarian aid. It got me so pumped to pay a generous fast offering when I get home, and to always pay a full tithe. It was super cool to see all of the good that comes from paying fast offerings. I also really liked sister franco's talk about missionary work, and then I think his name was elder alliaud who spoke about the Book of Mormon, and how we all need to receive our own testimony about the Book of Mormon. 

We unfortunately did not find anyone last week, but this is a new week and we are back to the grind. We found one yesterday, a young man and we taught him at the library. He was super cool. Said that we need more missionaries in the world. It is true! I can say 100%  that I needed to serve a mission. It has changed my life forever. I appreciate the gospel so much now and have learned a ton about life and working with others and responsibility. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ want us to serve as missionaries because they love us, and they love those who we can help. Imagine the change that goes into every one's life when missionary work is done.

Our friend Anneli is doing great. She is the one that was baptized a couple weeks ago. She is loving it. She said that the first couple days after her baptism, she felt like she was in Paradise. That is what the Holy Ghost does for us. It doesnt matter what our physical circumstances are. Hers did not change. But the feelings that she had did change. As we follow the example of Jesus Christ and do all that we can to keep Heavenly Father's commandments, we are so blessed.

We had a great pday today. We went and played some more frisbee golf. I forgot to send these pics last week of the national forest that we went to. It was super cool! It is called nuuksio. we had a makkara grill out and it rained but the fire never went out. These pictures of the angry birds is the headquarters of angry birds in our area! Isnt that crazy? clash of clans and angry birds are both Finnish companies. I hope that you all have a great week!

love Elder Christensen

Arctic Baptism!

Rakkaat ystävät,

Wow. We had an awesome week here in Espoo! Our friend was baptized! It was so good. We did not know how to turn on the heater, so we had the arctic waters in the font, but other than that is was super great! I am way grateful that I have had this opportunity to help her follow the example of Jesus Christ. She was met 5 or so months ago. She actually prayed that she would be able to find people who want to talk about faith and religion with her, and then the missionaries showed up at her door like the next week. She was taught a few times and then on a month trip to Estonia. Once me and elder pauole got here she was the first person we called and met with. She is doing so great. She was so excited to receive the gift of the Holy ghost this sunday. A scary thing that happened though, about 15 seconds before she was confirmed her son had to go to the bathroom. So she left and I tried to stop them but he had to go really bad. They walked out of sacrament right as they were announcing it. So there I was, sitting there, time froze, so after a second I ran after them and the kid went to bathroom really fast and we ran back in.....it all worked out ok. 

Other than that, the work has been really great. We found two new friends to teach last week, and one returning member appeared out of no where and came to church. We have been trying to get in contact with him for the last 7 weeks. We are going to meet with him tomorrow! 

Last p-day we visited this water tour in our area that is super tall and overlooks the country. It was very cool to look out and see like all of southern Finland. I could see my old areas that I have served in. Finland is such a pretty place. I am going to miss it for sure! 

I am super excited for general conference this weekend! What a wonderful time it is for us to hear from the prophets! I have been reading in the old testament my whole mission starting in my first transfer, I am now in the book of Samuel reading about David. I am very slow.... But I love how no matter what the circumstance is or the love that is shown towards David, he always supports the Lords anointed/chosen servants. For example Saul was chosen to be king, and even though he no longer was living a righteous life and was trying to kill David, David still chose to love him and not fight back. I love all those times when David spares king Saul's life. After Saul dies in battle David says to the one who killed him "How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the Lord's anointed?" Wow, if we all had that same respect for those that the Lord has chosen to help lead us back to him we would be a very righteous people. General conference is a great time for us to sustain our leaders and follow their council!

I love you!

"Wading Through Affliction"

Hei!

Wow, we had a really good one here in Espoo. The weather in the mornings bounces around 0 degrees Celsius these days, so we are back in the freezing temperatures again. no snow though. probably wont until November at least. We had a wonderful 3 day meeting at the mission home. It was awesome. It is to help the trainees reflect on the first 5 weeks of the mission, and to talk about what they have learned, what has been hard, etc... We had the camera crew there with us as well. At one point, in the meeting we do this thing called "companionship inventory" That is where you talk about the strengths each other has and also the things that bug you and how you can improve, and things like that. The one at this meeting in an hour long, so that you can go deep. Usually mine are like 15 minutes. The camera crew filmed us and got nice and zoomed in as we discussed deeply. I would be lying if I said that it wasn't very awkward. But the good news is, the crew felt the spirit as they saw everyone doing their discussions, so after the filming they went outside and did their very own and said it was a revelatory experience. 

The temple was also great! I love the Finland temple so much. I am going to miss it a lot.

The work is going along grandly. We have a friend, Anneli, who is going to be baptized hopefully this next Saturday. so next week you will be getting the update on that! She is super excited. she has been making a lot of friends in the ward and has come to church the past 5 weeks or so. We have our last lesson with her tonight and then her interview will be this Thursday, and the baptism on Saturday. We are going to be teaching about tithing and fasting so hopefully we will be able to help her understand the blessings that come from those commandments! She is from Estonia and has been living here for a quite a few years now though. Her Finnish is like a missionary level, so it is super easy for me to understand what she is saying, but the finns have a really hard time. it is kind of funny!

Soccer Saturday was great. I continue to play left back and left wing. I have no idea why they have me play there, my left leg is so weak. But I play better there than any other spot somehow. I scored two goals this week. the Nigerians went crazy.

I really like a scripture that we have been focusing on for the past couple weeks. It is Heleman 3:34-35:

34 And they were lifted up in ^apride, even to the persecution of many of their brethren. Now this was a great evil, which did cause the more humble part of the people to suffer great persecutions, and to wade through much affliction.

35 Nevertheless they did ^afast and ^bpray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their ^chumility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the ^dpurifying and the ^esanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their ^fyielding their hearts unto God.

I love how in this story, these righteous nephites, because of their situation, had to "wade" through much hardships and trials. When I think of the word "wade" I think of army guys walking through a muddy swamp, up to their chest, holding their guns about their heads, arms hurting, stinky and sweaty, mosquitos flying around their ears. Sometimes we all feel like that too in some sort of way. that we are "wading through affliction" I have felt the blessings that come through this "wading" here on my mission. as I have fasted and prayed oft, I have seen how I have become more humble and willing to follow the guidance from my Father in Heaven. as I have yielded my heart unto God I have seen how he has purified me. This really has been the greatest blessing I have received! We can over come our trials with the Savior and we can become better.

I love you all! See you soon!

The Most Important Part is the LEARNING....

Sorry, no pics again. 

We have been too busy to take pics. But this week we are going to set the goal to take a picture everyday, so I should be sending plenty next week! We have p-day on Monday this week because Tuesday through thursday we are going to be in this meeting where the trainees and trainers learn and discuss. I have been to alot of these because I have trained twice and was ap and i learn something every time. So we are way excited! 

This week was super great! We had a great time being in the work. We have a friend who is so close to being baptized! She has come to church now three weeks in a row and she is doing great. She has started to live the word of wisdom and is getting excited! Her son is also super cool. He is a 6 year old and has learned fluent english from YouTube and cartoons. She had a lot of questions about the temple so it was really cool that in sunday school this week we were able to talk a lot about Gods plan and temples and temple work. She really liked it! 

Other than that, we have been trying to find a lot of people. The work has been great. I love talking to people. I feel like everyone I talk to is my friend. We have such good conversations about anything and everything. I was talking to sister aura the other day and I was saying that I wished I had been able to do this my entire mission, but she goodly corrected me, and said that the learning part is the most important part. That is so true. It has forced me to re-learn the gospel in a more simple way. I have had to rely on the Lord and learn patience and humility. What a gift it has been to be able to learn Finnish, and to struggle, and not know what to say! 

We have been playing soccer with the Africans again. Let me tell you, I played so good. They had me playing left back always for some reason. I did make one bad mistake the led to a near goal, humiliating...and I asked them how I could get better and they said "you are getting better, we are African, we love everybody." So that is comforting. 

I got to go! Love elder Christensen 

Family History Work Brings BLESSINGS!!

Wow, what a good week.

We just got done playing frisbee golf, 18 holes. I averaged like a boogie on each hole, so that was great for me. 3 pars though! We went with the APs, my old comps. 

The weather here is really nice right now. Around 60s all the time, so perfect for being outside. We had the camera crew on us this week, that was an experience. My favorite part is when they want to get close ups of our faces when we are walking around, but they want to get the front view, so the camera man slowly walks backwards in front of us. It was a really awesome day when they were here. Some cafe gave us two loafs of bread for a grand opening,  and then 5 minutes later we stopped a lady who said she had a sick hungry friend. So we were able to give her some bread! We also set up a lesson with her to talk about Gods plan! So that is exciting! We also had a school presentation with some high schoolers. That was super fun and the kids loved it. They really liked us. 

One really cool moment we had this week: We have been trying really hard to help people get excited about family history. Even people just randomly on the streets. We had picked this less active member to go visit whom we did not know. We get there to her house and she says she has been atheist for 40 years and she wont change. So as we talk I say a prayer asking that she would be interested to learn about family history with us. And I ask her and she says "I would be really interested in that! Wow! We talk some more and i tell a little about what i had found that morning studying about my own family. So many stories ! Turns out I have roots from liverpool. No wonder I root for them! But these stories got me so excited, so it was awesome to talk with her. She is going to come to a class with us and we are going to do it together! 

I have really felt in my own life the joy that comes from learning about my family history. There is power that comes from that! There is a talk that I really liked that i read last week that named like 20 different blessings, it said "if you have ever prayed for any of these blessings, or hoped for these, or wanted these...you have already been given your answer. Do FH work. I am so excited to do more when I get home!

Love you all!

P-Day EXPLORATION.

Wow, 

We had a great week. The work moveth forward. Also, I got accepted to BYU this week! Perfect timing too, we had a meeting called my plan this week with all the other missionaries in my group. We met at the mission home and had a great day of discussion with president and sister Aura about how to keep up our conversions to christ after our missions. We talked about work, studies, marriage, self reliance, etc..it was super fun. 

Last p-day was really good. One of the best of my mission. We went to downtown Helsinki and explored the soccer stadiums and hockey halls. We also bought some accessories. This week we continue our exploring and we are going to go to some markets down by the sea and maybe a museum. 

The missionary work has been going really good. We can only seem to set up lessons with single ladies, everyday, so we have been working really closely with the members in the ward and it has been really fun to get to know them. We had a way cool experience yesterday when we met with a member that is 80. He joined 30 years ago and we asked him to tell us his story. He said that he was reading the Bible and came across James 1:5. The classic "if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God" and he had seen so many different churches and he really wanted to know which one was from Jesus Christ. So he prayed for the first time using his own words and asking God a question. 2 weeks later the missionaries knocked on his door for the first time. 

It is so amazing to me that each one of us can have these same experiences that Joseph Smith, and this man had. We can always ask God. I have felt this a lot on my mission, and how there is always an answer given. Sometimes I don't always notice it but I know that it is there. 

We had a funny story yesterday. We were talking to people on the street and we came across this guy, and he was pretty angry at us or something. At first he would try to make fun of us and I would play along and laugh, and he didn't like it. But then after awhile of this, he made me close my eyes and he blessed me and then we gave each other a hug..... It was a very strange experience. I am glad that we hugged though instead of getting punched. 

Sorry this is a short one. Till we meet again. 

Love elder christensen

0% Chance...

Good morning,

Wow, we had a grand week. The work has been very energizing. I love it. one down side is that We have made poor food purchases the last two weeks, so we run out of everything very fast. my lunches and breakfasts have been lacking. but we always have a great dinner. But today we are smarter and will buy enough. 

The summer is ending here and fall is coming quick. We no longer have daylight all the time. It actually gets pretty dark before we even get inside now days. Also there have been a few rains recently. I think i might be gone before the first snow comes. We shall see...

Today we are going to Downtown Helsinki, we are going to go shopping for some souvenirs and explore the area. It is going to be way good. we are going to go check out the soccer stadium too, and maybe the hockey stadium.

Well, our week together has been full of miracles. We have been finding a lot of girls to teach. I think that we had like 7 first lessons with girls, so we need to call a lot of members this week for some help. It was good though, because now we are introduced to all of them. We are both new to the ward so there has not been that connection with the members already. We did have a Filipino member give us a whole sack of fried chicken on sunday, which was awesome. It was a big blessing because saturday was the day we ran out of food. We had another miracle too! We recently found this elderly lady named sara. She is a big golfer. We taught her the restoration and she was way into it. we have very high hopes for her. At the end of the lesson we invited her to come to church and she said, if it is bad weather and I cannot go golfing, then I will come to church. And I said, "ok, then I will pray for bad weather every single day this week." so we made a deal. I prayed and all week and there was sun shiny skies. So I checked the weather it says that sunday is supposed to be 0% chance of rain, and sunny. So i decided to give her a call on saturday night and I said "So, it does not look like it is going to rain tomorrow." and she says "nope, it is going to be a beautiful day to go golfing." and we laugh and then i try to convince her and ask if she could come to just the first hour at 10 AM and then go golfing...but she says no and that one day the weather will be bad and she will come. so we part ways. But then right before sacrament meeting starts I see a girl that looks just like her come in and sit down.....I am thinking there can be no way, she doesn't even know where the church is. so i put the thought away. After sacrament meeting she leaves pretty fast and we never get to talk to her. But the member that went on the lesson was the door man, and he saw her and it turns out it was our friend! He said "I talked to her really briefly before she left. she was in a hurry to play golf!" wow. what a miracle. she came! In the evening I gave her a call and she said "I felt like those talks were just for me. Thanks for inviting me!" Wow, a blessing from a loving Heavenly Father to someone who shows desire! We can all have that every single week! As we put aside things to do the more important things, we will be so grateful!

I hope that you all have a great week!

love Elder Christensen

Elders on Film!

Hello!

Wow, the start of the last transfer! My mission has gone by so fast. I cannot believe it is already this time. This past sunday I saw a missionary give his homecoming talk. He served in Sweden and was in the MTC when I was there. I still remember seeing him on my very first day. 

My new companion is named Elder Pauole. He is from Nephi Utah. It has been fun to train again. I forgot how much patience it requires. I have already learned somethings in our first week together. We are opening an area in South Espoo. There are two wards in Espoo and I was just in the north ward for the past 6 months. Now we are in the other one. I told the members that I liked this new one better and they loved it. On sunday there was a member that gave us two baguettes and another that invited us to dinner, and then one gave us some chocolate. We shall be taken care of here. 

I have really loved this new area so far. We dont have a car so we travel with bus and metro very often...or we walk. It has been good though. Always an opportunity to be talking to someone. A day ago while we were talking with this older fellow and his dog in the park. We had  nice chat about being people's friends and serving people and then we said bye and I turned away and his little weenie dog ran up and bit the back of my calf. That is the first time that has ever happened to me. It was bizarre. but the work continues onward. There is this really cool woman here from Estonia that we are teaching named Anneli. We gave her a baptismal date for mid september. And she is really excited, so hopefully it can move along forward. She has a 2 week old cat that is really cute. It ran around The floor during our entire lesson. 

One way crazy thing that is going on right now is that there is a company making a "district 4" type video/documentary thing of the missionaries in Finland. They selected 4 of the new missionaries and have been following them around before the mission and at the MTC and now here in the field. My trainee is one of the 4!! It is SO crazy! We had 16 people plus the camera crew to drive to and from the airport, so I stayed as an AP for an extra day and got to go pick all the missionaries up! I got to drive sister Aura's car home. It was awesome. None of the camera crew or people making the movie are members of the Church...at least not yet....they keep feeling the spirit really strongly and the camera man actually started crying during the filming and he could not see what his camera was pointing at. I think it is really cool. One thing I do not like though is when the camera gets like a foot away from your face and you are supposed to act like it is not there and just keeping talking normal. One of the trainees asked me for a funny story that happened to me in finland, and out of the corner of my eye come the camera man zooming in and this person holding the fluffy pillow thing on a stick. Wow, that was a high stress two minutes. The crew will be staying with us in a couple weeks again so we need to plan some antics to get on film. just kidding...

But we had a way cool spiritual experience. The day after we picked up the trainees we were going to go to the Temple with all of them and the crew was going to be there. But the bad part was that it was the WORST thunder and lightning storm I have seen in Finland. But we all got into the cars hoping that the rain would stop. I just kept praying and praying that the trainees would be able to see the temple and walk around. The camera crew then sends us a text saying that it is impossible for them to film in the weather and they must pull out. But we were 2 minutes away from the temple, so we kept driving (they were already there). Right when we pulled into the parking lot everything stopped. No rain. What a miracle! You could see the Camera crew run from the shelters and start the filming again. After 10 minutes and right after we took the final picture, the rain started falling again harder than before. Wow. Everyone was way stunned. I think especially the camera man and the crew chief. In the car on the way back home, me and President and sister Aura sent them a text saying "Your crew has a chief director who has the grander vision." Heavenly Father really wanted to have the missionaries at the temple and for that to be in the film. Soak that one in. But, that ended my 6 months as AP. now I am back to the streets. It is going to be an awesome transfer!

One really cool verse I found while reading the Old Testament this week was : 1 Samuel 15:22

"And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken is better than the fat of the rams." What an important lesson. There is no replacement for being obedient to the Lord! I know that is true!

love Elder Christensen

Bees, Mosquitos, and TICKS... Oh My!!

Wow, this has been a way good week. My very last here as an AP. 

We prayed about transfers this Friday,

and no matter how hard I tried, it was not the Lord's will for me to stay. So for my last transfer I will be opening an area in South Espoo. There are two Espoo wards. I am currently in Espoo 1, or north Espoo. So tomorrow I will be transferring to South Espoo and opening up the area, and I will be training too! I was pretty surprised that it actually happened. We talked about it a few weeks ago but I did not believe it would happen especially because I was going to open an area and there were only three elders coming in, and I have also already trained. But it did, and I am way excited. I will also be District leader and work on getting everyone pumped. I will be in the same district as the one I am in right now. So basically no change. haha. 

Also, there are 11 sisters coming from the MTC, because of that, I am going to stay an extra day as an AP and help transport all the missionaries from the Airport. I will also stay around that night at the mission home with all the trainees. That will be super fun. 

For most of this week we have been organizing stuff to do with transfers and spending money with righteous judgement. I love this time of the transfer. Putting the travel together is a real task but so cool how it comes together. Also, for exercise in the mornings elder Krause and I have been going to play some frisbee golf a couple times...but never again... at least not at the place we went to. At first it was really fun, but quite quickly the course became our enemy. So many times our frisbees would fly into the woods. and I swear, every plant in there is poisonous, and that even if your sock touches it you get hurt. Bees, mosquitos, spider bites, horse poop, thorns, rain, and worst of them all, Ticks. We were attacked by all of these things. While "resting" two days later I found a tick deeply burrowed into my skin. I believe that I was blessed greatly and was able to pull it out with some tweezers, and not have to have to go to a professional to have it removed. But any way, I have had a few bad flash backs to that moment since that day. but all is well now in Zion.

The mission had its best week of the year. We had like 44 people in church as a mission and 36 new friends found, and 3 people baptized. We are all in high spirits! 

This is veli rosenberg, he told me that I was an angel in his life and that he loved me. finns dont do that. One reason i served here was to bring him back! probably my best friend i have made in the mission.

I really love a quote that President Aura told us a couple days ago "You need to love change more than you want to stay the same." If you are so set on keeping everything, our grudges, our kindness, pride, etc...we will never gain anything. This life is not about what you are able to gain, but about what you are able to give up, because that is when we gain the most. I have noticed also how my desires have changed, or maybe the reason to why I do things as I have applied this during my mission. I have never been disobedient, but there was definitely a time when I changed from doing things just because I wanted to obey the rules, and to do them instead because I loved Jesus Christ and my Father in Heaven, and that I wanted to show my trust and love for them. That is when I began to understand why, that is when it became more meaningful to me. 

Love you all! Enjoy last couple days of summer if it is still there for you!

.....Come on in.

Hello!

Wow, we had a busy week. It was way fun though. We had a meeting called MLC. That stands for Missionary Leadership Council. We usually have that every month. We had a grand time discussing the needs of the mission. But it was good to see all the buddies and go to the Temple. I am definitely going to miss the Finland temple and also being able to listen to it all in Finnish. the next morning we all went on a run and wow, I almost did not make it. I surely have been in the office too long. We are finalizing transfers though tomorrow and transfer day will be on tuesday, so we shall see what happens. 

We had two splits this week with missionaries. The zone leaders from Tampere and then the ones from Helsinki. They were both really really good. We did lots of Returning Member work. We had three of our friends come to church from that and then even one of our investigators! A young man named Tuomas. He is way cool. speaks so quiet that sometimes his lips dont move and no sound comes out. But that is ok. The gift of Tongues is real! He is doing way good. We have a lot of really awesome people we are working with right now. It is really cool to see how the lives of our returning members have really turned around after finding the light of the Gospel again. Two of them have now set the goal to return to the Temple and to get back on the path. 

We had a really cool tracting contact yesterday. We were following up with some people and there was one here and another one over there. And president Aura recently reminded the mission to not just do follow up, but to also tract around a little bit by each door. maybe a couple doors or so. So this thought keeps running through my head. We were in this area of town were there are a lot of immigrants. I love immigrants but it is really hard to share the gospel with them because they dont know english or Finnish very well. So I was looking for a Finnish name and we walked down a couple flights of stairs, and there we saw it. We knocked this guys door and at three different times we asked him if we could come in and teach him about the Restoration, but he always said no. So we just decided to teach it right there at the door, and wow, the spirit was really strong. He had never heard any of it before and he was super excited. He had looked for God most of his life and right now he does not have a lot of Happiness. At the end of the Restoration I asked him if we could pray with him, he thought about it for a second, and then said, "come on in". 

WOW. 

Sometimes you really need to give it your all and push past the no's. 
This message is the truth and will change their lives! 

All is well here in Finland. I am loving it. 

Love, Elder Christensen

Goodbye Veli Jakko

Wow! What a great week we just had. Maybe one of the best ones yet. 

We had to say goodbye to Veli Jäkkö on Friday. It was such a good time with him. He gave us a big boost for sure. The testimony meeting at the end of the week long adventure was probably the most spiritually powerful meeting that I have ever been in. It was so amazing to see all these 11 teenagers feel the spirit that strongly really for the very first time in their lives. It really cemented again my testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and how blessed we are as missionaries to be sharing it full time with others for these short couple of years! It was also really amazing to see that once you get even just a small taste of the joy that comes from helping someone else, you want to do it even more! All of these 11 youth want to serve missions now, and many of them did not have a testimony before. When I stood up to bear my testimony, I said "dear sisters and elders, and dear veli Jäkkö" and then he started to cry and hid is face, and everyone started crying and laughing. it was super funny.

But anyway, we had the best finding I have ever had on my mission this week. We had 8 new folks found. That is crazy! not sure that has ever happened in Finland. We were really blessed. There was one day when we had no lessons planned and so we decided to do a one hour calling session and call tons of potentials and we ended up setting up three lessons for that night! It was so cool. And they are all really awesome and ready. We are pretty booked now for this current week, which is a good thing, because we have two splits here in our area with some zone leaders, so that will help us out a lot. 

Today in district council we talked a lot about commitments, and how commitments help our friends in their conversion. The thought came to me while I was preparing "how has being the one extending invitations and helping others to commit affected my conversion" And that was a really deep question that I thought about for a while. After thinking about it, I know that for sure it has affected my conversion. I really do know that God keeps his promises. I have seen so many times of when Heavenly Father has given very specific blessings that were promised to my friends that were able to keep their part of the commitment. It is such a blessing to know that we have a loving Father in Heaven.

One scripture that I really liked this week is:

Mosiah 10:10-11 And it came to pass that we did go up to battle against the Lamanites; and I, even I, in my old age, did go up to battle against the Lamanites. And it came to pass that we did go up in the strength of the Lord to battle.

11 Now, the Lamanites knew nothing concerning the Lord, nor the strength of the Lord, therefore they depended upon their own strength. Yet they were a strong people, as to the strength of men.

I have seen so many times the importance of doing things the Lord's way. It is the best way! When we do it with him there is no way we can loose.

I love you all!

Our Mini Missionary

Moi!

Wow, it has been once again a while. We have had a really good past two weeks! So much fun! We have been working with a mini missionary. A mini missionary is a youth that does a 1 week mission experience. We were not supposed to get one because we are the assistants and we have lots of other stuff to do that is not really the "normal mission experience". But we could not find a family anywhere except in our ward to house him...so we were blessed with Veli Jäkkö! 

Sami Jäkkö is his name. He was actually in my ward 5 months ago for two weeks before our wards got split in two. He lives in a town called Lohja. It is about 30 minutes north of Kauniainen. So we actually have met/seen each other before. He is 19 and the coolest kid ever. Right when we announced his call that he was going to his same ward he was kind of bummed and everyone laughed haha. Some people are going to places 6 hours away. (11 youth in total) But he has loved it so much. We have too! We pick him up from his apartment at 9 AM and then start our day. It is grand. It has been super cool to see changes in him. President Aura told us that when Finnish youth are asked where they have found their testimonies usually it is from the "mini mission". 

There was one really spiritual lesson that we had with the returning member named Veli Rosenberg. He was the one we have been working with and is coming to church and now active almost again. It is amazing how living the gospel has changed his life. His nephew was staying with him during this lesson and we taught the Restoration to him. And at the end I told his nephew that I knew that we did not just knock Veli Rosenberg's door 8 times the past 3 months with no answer just to find him and bring him back to church, but also to find his nephew and share with him the joys of the Gospel. Wow, the spirit was so strong there. It was getting hard for everyone to breathe. The nephew in the end said he needed some time and was content with how his life was going, but what an experience for Veli Jäkkö! after the lesson he said: "wow, I had no idea this is what missionary work is like in Finland. I thought it was just people saying no." nope. dead wrong. I love being a missionary in Finland. There really are so many people here that love the Gospel and are interested. 

Today we just got back from the Temple. Veli Jäkkö was able to baptize me and then afterwards I was able to confirm him. Super cool! There are a lot of really good things going on right now in our area. Lots of lessons. we found 4 new investigators last week and we are super excited to get to work with them! 

That is all I can remember from the past two weeks, It is going way too fast. It feels like the day is just a blink of an eye and then time for closing prayer. ah well.....

I just remembered that we did have splits with the zone leaders in Oulu. we flew up there again and worked with them for the day. Really awesome. We were street contacting on this bridge and then they opened up the dam underneath us and all of this water came rushing out. Really cool!

Also, one miracle that we have had is that we are teaching the man whose house burned down a few weeks ago. I called him a couple days ago and asked if we could come back and share a message on how Jesus Christ can help us in finding joy through our challenges. And he says "of course!" It was really cool to teach him. It has been fun discussing in his home. They are rebuilding it right now. He gave us some really old Finnish newspapers that were stuffed in his roof for insulation. from the 1940s. That will be some good language practice! it is so cool how Heavenly Father prepares us for the gospel.

Love you all!