Come As You Are!

Wow, Good Good Week. I have so much to write about I dont know if it can all fit in one email. Also, it has been quite difficult to write in my journal recently, so I am going to have to make this one a good one so I can remember all of the memories. 

I said last week that we went and played soccer outside for like 3 hours and practiced headers. My noggin still hasn't recovered yet. I have had a head ache for like a week now. I am probably never doing one of those again. My comp decided though last week that he wants to get fit, so we have been waking up 30 minutes early to go work out and do some conditioning. It has been fun. He hopefully is going to help me boost my skills. We also woke up this morning and went on a run, so we are working hard right now for sure. 

The missionary work has also been going really well. We spent a day in Oulu, which is a city pretty far up in Finland. We got to Fly there so that was great. A train would take around 9 hours or something, but the flight was only an hour. We had to wake up at 4 AM though, and head off. We get to go on exchanges with all of the Zone Leaders which is 4 sets, and then also our District leader. So that is fun. On the way home, we took a night train and it was super cool! We had beds and our own little compartment that was nearly a yard wide.  In Oulu I was talking to this girl about Heavenly Father and that we are all his children and all of the sudden she starts going on the attack and says that she doesn't need Christ to be a middle man and that God is closer to her than her jugular. I was so caught off guard and I kept laughing after that. It was a way good experience though, and we left on good terms. 

On Wednesday we had a phone call with President Aura and Sister Aura and Salt Lake HC. We are becoming a technology mission! It is way crazy. We found out like 4 weeks ago or so and have been keeping it quite until the call, but some info got leaked and lots of the missionaries found out, so we had to do an emergency reveal. It was exciting though. At first i was not super happy about it, but I am starting to get pumped for it though. There are so many good things that can happen with it. Me and my comp are going to get some trial phones tomorrow and then teach the rest of the mission about it in a month i think.

We had this really cool contacting experience last night also...We just got done teaching a lesson to this really awesome Finnish student, and we had like 15 minutes until we needed to be back home, and we were at the office, so we were going to watch some required videos. I logged onto my computer to pull them up and it wasn't working. It was glitching, and kept playing the same one that we have already watched. So the thought just kept coming to my head. "get outside, there are people that you need to talk to" So I told my comp and we decided to go head outside. The first person we tried stopping was a biker and she zoomed past us. But the very next people (right in front of the office) was this couple and they were so prepared. I dont know if I have been in a better contact. They thought that Joseph Smith made so much sense, and that a world needs a prophet today. They were super excited to meet and learn more, and they have friends in Guatemala that are members. It kind of scares me to think what would have happened had we not listened to that prompting. What if those videos did work? What if we just went contacting and never were in the situation to talk to them? I know that Heavenly Father is there, He loves us, and loves all His children. He really is placing others in our paths and putting us in theirs. It is so important that we follow the promptings of the spirit. I am so grateful that I have these two years to be molded into a tool that can bless people's lives when I am obedient to the commandments Heavenly Father has given me!

Also, to end, this week we had a dinner appointment with that family whose husband served in Satellite Beach on his mission. They made us dinner and it was this really spicy chili stuff. It tasted pretty good, but it destroyed my innards. It went through the digestive system very quick and after a matter of 15 minutes i was in exquisite pain. But i didnt want to ask to use their bathroom. After the first incident it reoccured every 5 minutes or so and each time it got longer and more intense. and i started sweating really bad and the guy kept seeing me wipe my forehead and saying stuff like "haha, i think i made the chili to spicy" We had to leave pretty quick and actually even had to miss our lesson that was after it so we could hurry home. My right leg was cramping way bad too..... But the spiritual thought during dinner was so spiritual. The Holy Ghost was definitely there. They are a less active family and we talked about coming as we are to Christ...but not planning to stay that way. When we do all that we can, we can have a promise that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ will do the rest for us. We all make mistakes and none of us are perfect, but when we are with them, we are enough. Usually I am the one that is crying way bad in lessons, but this time the parents were feeling it super powerfully. The mom had to leave the room three times because she was crying so bad. I really do know that each one of us is loved. We are all precious cargo. i hear all the time that missionaries say "God doesn't need me to do this missionary work" maybe that is true, but I dont really like it. Each one of us, each less active member, each bishop, we all mean so so much to Him. He feels happy when we are happy. He knows we are happy when we live according to the commandments and the Gospel. Imagine what he feels when we choose not to participate, when we choose to go away from Him. I feel like He does need us on His team, He does want us to be a part of His family...and that is because He knows how much we need Him!

That is all that I have today! I love you all!

Love elder Christensen 

A Plethora of Meetings......

Wow, time is going so so fast here. I think that it has already been like a month. That is crazy. We have had quite a few meetings these past couple days. One is called EMLC, and that is all of the leaders in the mission. That was way fun though, and tons of my MTC group were there. almost all of them. Elder Weeks and I had to conduct all of the meetings and I also gave this report called "the state of the mission" basically stats about how the mission is doing in certain areas. It went well! We also were able to go to the Temple after the meeting. I love the Finland Temple. The pictures on the LDS website dont do it justice. MLC was a meeting the next day and it was just us and the zone leaders and sister leaders. so around 16 of us I think. 

We just got back from playing soccer for 3 hours this morning. My legs are way weak. There is this heated turf field in our city which is pretty sweet. Everywhere around it is snow but the field is nice and green. My comp is a soccer player so he destroyed everyone. We practiced doing headers for the final 30 minutes and my skull still hasn't recovered. Anyway, the weather is warming up quite a bit here. Maybe up north it is a little cold, but usually now down here it is hovering around 0 or 32 degrees Fahrenheit. not too shabby. Also been really rainy recently so that stinks. 

We had another really good week of finding investigators. Our next job is to get them to church so that they can continue to build their own conversion to Christ. We have been meeting with that family, and we invited them to be baptized...they said that they will think about it. So we are excited to meet again with them this week. 

We have a meeting with President every monday and it is usually around 2.5 hours. And each time we start off with a spiritual thought. This time it was my turn. I talked about how it is important to walk with God. In the book of Moses we learn that Enoch walked with God and that the people feared him. I was just thinking that in a way, Heavenly Father is inviting each one of us to walk with him all the time. We do that by following his Commandments, following the example of Christ, and accepting all the help that they are trying to send to us! 

1 John 2:6 says:  He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.    When we walk the way that Christ walked, that is when we gain access to all of the many miracles.

Unfortunately, we dont have any more time today. 

Love you all! i also dont think we have a pday next week so we shall see if I email. 

Wow!! That is a Really Good Message!!

Wow, this was another really really good week.

We have been quite busy the past couple days. Teaching! We found 7 new people since last p-day I think. They are all so awesome. 3 of them are a family from Lithuania. They are so cool. We stopped one of their boys on the street and started talking with him. He was way cool and we tried to switch numbers but he didnt have his telephone with him. So he took us to his home and invited us in so that we could switch numbers. We started talking with the rest of his family and they are interested. We ended up teaching the Plan of Salvation.... The one that is the most excited is a 15 year old boy. He is just like all other boys, likes video games and sports and food and girls, but there is one thing that separates him from most young boys. He asked what we do as missionaries and we told him, "we help families to learn about God's plan and we help them to learn about how they can live together as a family forever." And he gets so happy and says "wow, that is a really good message"..... "yeah it is."

It just got me thinking about what an amazing thing God's Plan for us really is. Do I really appreciate all that it is? What does it mean to me? This message that we share with others really is the greatest piece of information that you can find. There is nothing better. I am so grateful that I have this knowledge and that I can share it. 

We also had some other awesome experiences. One was on this cold rainy night and I saw this guy standing on his balcony. I have been working on pushing my boundaries and doing things that maybe I dont like doing. So i just started climbing up the snow hill that was underneath his balcony and we started chatting and it was way cool. We get to share the gospel with everyone...it is not really our pick, who is ready, and who is not.

Also, a fun experience was: We stopped this guy on the street and he was a talker. And he knows a lot of church members, he really liked us...so he gave me one of his friend's numbers and called him for us. so I talked to his friend on the phone, and my comp talked to the other guy. I climbed up on this mound of snow so that I could not hear their conversation, and out of no where, it gave way and as I fell off this snow mound I was mid conversation so I decided I better keep talking as i fell. I think I almost broke my knees on the ice, I laid there for a few seconds still just mid conversation. The guy my comp was talking to didnt see, so that was lucky. 

Also, last night at like 8:40 we were at a meeting eating some mämmi (weird smashed raisin mush stuff that is one of the things I have ever tasted) with some members, and then President Aura calls. When he calls, you need to answer...and i said "oh no, it is President" so they said ok, you can answer it...so I answered.  I told him all about this first lesson that we just had...and then he says, "we were just wondering if you were nearby and could come over and get some smoked salmon?" So we left and got some. I have loved working with President Aura. It is so fun and special to get to know the Auras better. Spiritual Giants!

Love elder Christensen

God's Miraculous Placement.....

Wow, Crazy week.

I feel like I say that every week, but they usually are. Each day is so different even if you just go tracting for 9 hours. To start off, knocked on this older, less active guy's door who lives in our ward. He was home and we chatted for a while and then we started talking about Florida, because that is where I am from, and believe it or not, this guy served his mission in Satellite Beach, Florida. He lived there for 6 months and attended the very same Melbourne ward. That might have been one craziest/miraculous things on my mission. We are hopefully going to start helping him come back to church and feel again the joys of the gospel! It is so amazing to me that God places us in positions to help certain people at certain times. 

Also, this week we had zone conference. We visit all the zone conferences every other time. This time we didnt, but next time we will make the journey around finland. Zone Conference was really good and we talked a lot about inviting people to be baptized. We really want to invite people to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. That night after zone conference Elder Weeks and I had a first lesson with this man, and we decided that we were going to invite him to be baptized. During the lesson, he has this 3 or 4 year old daughter, and she was jumping around the whole time and laying on me and sitting on me and wow it was bad... but eventually she got off and started coloring with my companion, and we began to invite him to be baptized. The spirit was definitely there, and as we testified, he knew that he wanted to do it and he said yes! We are way excited for him! 

This sunday, our ward got split in half. It reminds me of the time my ward back home got split. There were 2 full wards in this tiny little building. Usually we meet at different times, but the third ward is taking members from both, so we all went at the same time. Every seat was taken and the rest us of just stood there right in the middle of the room with the line going all the way out to the exit doors. It was crazy. Me and my comp just inherited the biggest part of the city though, so we are way excited. 

Also, another cool thing, was that on sunday, it was some kind of holiday that the Lutherans have. You eat pea soup on that day and this special pulla thing....like a cinnamon roll with out frosting....kind of. I love pea soup, none of my comps have ever liked it, so I eat it for lunch at least twice a week on my own. Also, the pulla was so good. We put raspberry jam and then also tons of whip cream and ate it like a sandwich. I will have to make it for folks back home sometime. 

For those wanting to know the schedule, we usually are in the office on mondays and wednesdays. We also have a special meeting with president, as well as district meeting. Tuesday is our pday. Thursday - saturday are usually normal days though, unless we have special meetings and stuff. We usually do every week have something. Like this week we have a thing called My Plan. That is when we get together with all the missionaries going home this transfer and everyone discusses after mission goals and stuff. The mission is going super well right now! I love it so much. Unfortunately no spiritual thought today...but next time!

Love elder Christensen