New Transfer!‏ Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 11:22

Yo yo! My Family!

Glad to be able to hear from all of ya! I have a new companion now! His name is Elder Lauti from Oakland, California. Tongan heritage! haha I am so pumped to have all of these brownie companions! haha It's awesome! I am in love with my first born in the wilderness! Sad to see Elder T leave but it's funny now to introduce all the members to Elder Lauti and just watch their heads flip as they expect him to speak with an accent! haha The other best part is that his nametag is in Chinese because he is also a VISA waiter! haha He is waiting to head out to Taiwan here pretty soon. They only recently changed the application process so his should only take 1 transfer to get here.. He is pumped to be here though and working together is already a blast. 

The area is awesome as ever. Our investigator Patti accepted a solid baptismal date now for the 12th of Oct!! (Elder Lauti owned the baptismal invite and it was actually set for the 10th aka MY BIRTHDAY but then we found out it would conflict with members schedules and other things that are semi important) WE ARE STOKED! She keeps looking better and better with every time we teach her. She actually reads the pamphlets and takes notes in them!? Nobody does that! haha She is incredible and it will be a joyous day when the ELDERs kids want to join in and we just have a branch dunk fest! haha It will be something that we work towards for the next few weeks. So yeah Training has been pretty tiring. DL has been pretty tiring only because of the long meeting I had to attend on friday! For our first four days together, me and elder Lauti had probably 4 hrs total to work! We got 5 lessons in and Elder Lauti commented on how slow the week was for us once or twice and I keep thinking to myself, "that's a great week for Ritzville!!" haha Guess I got to raise my game here to break Elder Lauti in!! haha 

(Cooper's Visa has finished processing!!!)

I am excited for the B-Day package! Thanks so much! I can probably already say that it will be over the top! Ha thanks MOM! Love you. About the VISA.... idk what to feel about it really. It would be rough to start all over again.. I really am torn apart by it all. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to talk about it haha! Don't get me wrong, I would be stoked to have two mission experiences and get to spend some time where I was actually called but, Washington has my heart right now! I love these people. I guess we'll just see how it all pans out in the end but for now I really don't know what to think about it. 

Know that I love you all and that next week I will probably try to send Pics! For now I am on the Clock so Tchao!

Com Amor!

ELDER CHRISTENSEN

Transfer calls‏ Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 12:31

What it be FAMILY!

 

Transfers have swept through and no lie it was a little bit predicted, nonetheless exciting. So first of all Elder Tekanene is outta here... I'm pretty bummed but its always fun to have a change too. I am going to be TRAINING this next transfer. Bring in the young blood! haha I am stoked actually. It will be interesting to be the first impression of what missionary work is like for someone. Hopefully, I can set a good standard. It will be so awesome though! Also I was made DISTRICT LEADER so that adds on to the freshness. haha I guess I am excited. It really wont be that much different than before. There is only one other set of missionaries in our district so idk It's an honorable thing I think. 

We also have our investigator Patti lined up to get baptized in October!!! She is still trying to figure out a date that she is comfortable with (MY BIRTHDAY would be an obvious choice if you asked me) but it's a solid commitment we think! She is an awesome person and the gospel is already improving her life and outlook on all that she has had to go through. We had a pretty sweet lesson on Friday night with some members and it was one of those where a "I'm gonna need some more time" turned into "yes! I would love to follow Jesus Christ and be Baptized" The spirit was pretty strong the entire lesson. That's without a doubt one of the greatest feelings you can have, not only as a missionary, but as members bore there humble testimonies, we all could feel it and everyone could sense that all of this really is true. That God loves us, He wants us to be happy, to come back home. Love being a missionary. #DoubtNotFearNot #D&C6 haha 

So yep Patti will be baptized out here and then the Elder kids should follow suit once they have a enough time to themselves to think! haha Running around with kids in sports and all that jazz! I have no idea how moms / families do it all! I can't think of anything much else too say that's that compelling or interesting. Just trying to find and teach everyday. This morning we did a bunch of service for Patti (#sacraficePDAY4DunkDay) and then we are driving out to have a BBQ with all the zone. Most people are leaving and there are a lot of people there are going to be a bummer to say good bye too. 

Alright Know I love ya,

ELDER CHRISTENSEN

On the clock today!‏ Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 13:30

FAMILY!

I am on the clock today! The family history center is no longer available to us missionaries so we are now at a library in Cheney WA and I feel so much pressure to write! There is a ticking clock in the left hand corner and I can't stop looking at it! Dang ok better start writing something that's important to you guys! haha Alright so we had a sweet week of driving and teaching and knocking doors! We are now on our last week of the transfer! How crazy is that! Elder Tekanene thinks that he might go because nobody has survived more than 4 out here in the RITZ but I hope he stays! Such a thug. Anyways the people we are teaching are pretty much the same. Elder Family is awesome! The kids are beginning to like talking to us and so we joke around with them and they are starting to think about Baptism. So it will definitely happen before I leave! I will make sure of it. And then the other lady I was telling you about, Patti, the one who had a tree fall on her house! haha She is so ridiculously excited about the gospel too! She is gonna be baptized before I leave as well. And then on Saturday we tracked into this awesome family that lives in a town called LIND and they have the most ridiculously cute girls! We just knocked on his door looking for the dad (because we talked to him before) and the son answered and said that him and his wife were, "definitely interested in learning more!" SO I will let you know who that one goes next monday. WE plan on seeing them Wednesday. I SERIOUSLY LOVE THIS AREA! So much growth and potential in this area! I never would have thought that the church was growing so rapidly before my mission, especially when you look at small towns that look more like forgotten pit stops between cities! The lord is hastening his work! So yeah we also had interviews with president on friday. He really is an awesome guy! I told him in my interview that if he ever took me out of my area I would cry.. haha But he is beginning to talk about the chances of me getting my VISA as well so that bums be out a little bit! He is a great president though. Him and sister mullen are both awesome. This next week we have a lot of appointments and should be busy most of the week! Lets all hope a pray that most things don't drop though.. Curse of ritzville is that 90 percent of everything you plan goes down the toob! 

I am trying to think of any funny stories from the week or anything like that and I am drawing blanks! We gave talks on sunday and then taught gospel principles! I talk about you guys all the time in them so don't be surprised if you guys already have reputations  up here!

You guys.. Mom&Dad- both of you are awesome! Thanks for calling and dealing with SLC for me mom. Your a trooper. Dad keeping working hard and know that I use you as an example in all my talks! This week I was talking about titles that we all go by and said that you refer to yourself as a "stud muffin!" Apparently nobody up here really knows what that means cause I only got a few laughs out of it. but of well! haha Love you guys dunkin got dunked! haha Congrats for him! Glad you guys could make the trip up to support them! Way to go family! 

Alright well I love all of ya! Keep saying your prayers and reading the scriptures! Seriously though, scriptures are where its at! I am reading through the New Testament / Anything in the BofM and there are some precious gems in there! Just finished Acts.. let me tell ya, Paul is a stud. Read chapter 20:7-till the story ends..?? haha I know.. Love the weird stories.. But in all honesty I really am beginning to love reading the scriptures. They are the word of god for us to "search, ponder and pray" about. Helaman 3:19 I think??? Idk look it up! 

Love you all again!

Much love,

ELDER CHRISTENSEN 

Family History Center closed..‏Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2014 12:49:

Hey family! Sorry for the wait on the letter but where we normally go to do emails, (family history center in cheney stake center) was closed and so therefore we had no other way to email you. So hopefully this short letter on tuesday will get you through the next week! We have had a pretty slow but normal Ritzville type week. New investigators come and go but the problem with people here is that they are too friendly to say "No" when they really just aren't that interested. Never before I came out on my mission could I have thought that I would want someone to get all mean and closed right away in a contact instead of them letting us come by over and over while they sit inside and pretend not to be home. We picked up one new investigator however that came to church this week! Her name is Patti and a tree fell down on her house when the HABOOB swept through, giving us a reason to knock on her door and ask if she needs help with the clean up. Turns out that she has been contacted before by missionaries and that she would love to start to learn more about the church! Who would have thought that Heavenly Father would just drop a tree on someones house in order for us to find someone!

Temple was awesome. Watched the 2nd of the newest films and it was not my favorite but still legit. I love having the temple as an option in this mission. Sometimes it's what gets you through the transfer! Elder Tekanene is the man! I love this kid. We pretty much laugh all the time. The only times that we ever get frustrated with each other is when I forget that he is from an island and comes from an entirely different culture than I could imagine. We get along perfectly and yeah it will be hard to ever contact him after the mission but he has a facebook and is planning on going to BYU-Hawaii after so who knows?! 

New Bishopric! Crazy. I guess I never thought about how long they have been together before! That's exciting though. Let me know what goes down. Dad could be pulling a fast one on all of us so who knows! I can't believe the Charles is home! That's insane. And B has his release date already! Ahhh that's too fast! 

Thanks for calling SLC! It would make you happy to know that people are getting VISA's left and right around the mission. There are two that I know of right now (both from Texas actually) that are headed out at the end of the transfer. Elder Owens (if you remember him) is leaving and he is the one that came out here with me from my MTC district! So yeah who knows I could only have one more left in this mission... Looks to me like they will just keep missionaries through the transfer so If I did get mine in the next 4-6 weeks I would be here through October. So no need to hurry up on the B-day package! haha I do want some Green Chili though! New shoes would be awesome too because my poor nikes are thrashed from all the service and P-day stuff. Some casual nike braatas would be sick. haha jk you really don't have to send anything.

You all sound awesome and I am glad each of you had a chance to write me. I am seriously blessed to have such an awesome family!

I don't think we have any more time to write you specifically back but just know that I read all of them! Dad get better soon! TODAY IS YOU STINKIN BIRTHDAY! ya old man! love your guts. Your my hero!

K love ya all,

ELDER CHRISTENSEN

Holidays...‏Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2014

Hey all you people,

Well this week as you know we had a holiday on Monday and thus the letter on Tuesday. "American's celebrate weird things.." - direct quote from Elder Tekanene. So yep we have been prepping ourselves for the the long work week. Today we are actually not taking our P-day because we are going to the Temple on Thursday. Because we live so dang far from anyone else we have permission to write today anyways because we wont have any reasonable amount of time to on Thursday. This week was pretty slow but fruitful. We found a new investigator in a Motel complex that our Less Active owns. She is pretty cool and her husband was baptized 3 years ago so she said he has been trying to get her interested about going. She hasn't been to church yet but maybe next Sunday! Other eventful things that have happened to us have been us finding out that one of our towns that we cover for our branch is not included as part of our mission area.. and that getting a parking ticket there is surprisingly not fun at all. haha You don't even want to get me started. It was super dumb. Holy smokes I am getting frustrated just thinking about it. haha So Elder T and I usually have to make our way out to this middle of nowhere town once every so often just to see if we can find out where the "member" that used to live in the rotting meth lab trailer happened to move just so that we can update our branch member list. We get done talking to this guy who assures us that if we ever wanted to take a load off of this preaching the gospel business that we could just swing on by and play some x-box, to which we said, "yeah.. thanks so much for that offer but we gotta bounce!". So we are headed towards our next town when we see this sign for a waterfall. And we both look at each other and were thinking that there is no way there is a waterfall in the middle of this nothingness. We take the little exit and look out at this waterfall. We get back to the car and the park ranger lady just finished putting a ticket on our car. I walk up and start talking to her about how we were just stopping by and that we weren't planning on camping or anything and we had no idea is cost anything just to look over a fence she just looked at me, looked away and walked off... So dumb. Turns out that if you don't pay ten dollars straight up to look at this lame excuse of a water fall then you get a 100 dollar ticket... I know.. it was so dumb and we called the mission office and they were cool about it but there is pretty much  nothing that they can do about it. Turns out that it is actually a half mile just outside of the mission area.. haha so yeah the mission office was understanding and the mission boundries don't even cover half of our branch area anyways soo.. yeah they didn't really care! haha bottom line of this story is don't get parking tickets outside of your mission area! also Washington State Park people are dumb...but they are still children of God. 

You guys seemed to have a pretty sweet week. I know they go by so fast it's unreal! Mom&Dad - Mom I know that by this point you pretty much are freaking out about the ticket. Don't worry. We already took care of it and its all settled. I love you and I am sorry I let you down! haha Wedding pictures looked amazing! You defiantly have a talent my mother. Thanks for calling SLC! Glad to hear they didn't forget about me! Last night I had a dream in Portuguese which was weird cause I don't know how to speak it.. haha yeah its kinda just one of those things where if I got it I would be stoked but I really don't think about my VISA at all. I kinda forget that I wasn't actually called here quite often, until a member reminds me by asking about Brasil. NANO! I didn't forget your brithday! I just held back from telling you until TODAY! I WISH YOU THE BEST WITH YOUR NEW AGE AND THAT YOU LIVE LONG AND PROSPER. Get off my back already about this guilt trip thing... jk I love you homie. (ps you can always remember that I will remember your birthday as the day I broke mission rules and got a parking ticket!)

Also I was finally able to watch the videos! haha I love them all. Sorry I let you down west but we cant afford ice (not even ice trays).. haha CONWAY you animal I am so proud of you. I first watched Britton's and I had no idea Conway was behind him cause the video was kinda choppy and then all of the sudden I heard the scream! haha SO FUNNY! I busted out laughing. Conway you are such a stud. LOVE YOU ALL,

ELDER CHRISTENSEN