Hey there family! Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015

Hey there family!

Alright so I will just get down to my week then. I am honestly beginning to think that Heavenly Father is prepping me for some really wild kids in the future because I have never learned more about patience in my life!! haha The new area is good but everything is super slow right now because we dont have anything to work from. The area that we came into used to just be an area for sister missionaries and it is huge!! All the members live basically in one half of the area and so the sisters primaraly worked there for the sake of having people to work with. OUR half of the area is not this area! haha We work 3 different towns and they are a pretty good difference away from one another so we have to use the train if we want to get out there. The people here are super different than in Bessa and have a lot less money and are diffenatly more humbled but location is still a huge problem for us. But its all good. More about patience... Elder Wilson is a great kid, just wants to work which is great, but lets just say we have had a couple interactions in the road that were a tad interesting! haha oh man I must really have some insane kids when I am older. haha But i have faith that this transfer is going to be one of learning and loving.

Mom's questions: So we eat at members houses pretty much everyday for lunch. Lunch is 2 hours and we pretty much just eat a normal amount of food and then just hang out with them to fill the rest of the hour. The sun is at its worst during this hour so the mission just dicided that because no one is outside or doing anything that they would place our dinner hour right after our lunch hour (hence 2 hour lunch). This means that dinner doesnt exist here. The only things we make in house are things we make for breakfast or snacks after 9 oclock. Since I dont eat breakfast (sorry jen) I pretty much only use the kitchen to make some Quisquis or something easy like TopRoman. I eat a lot of cookies as well! haha Thats pretty much all I buy on mondays.

In all honesty the temperature here would be great if I didnt have to wear pants and a shirt and tie in it. The wind keeps it cool at night but you also have to remember that the only source of cooling yourself down is taking a cold shower or useing a fan to blow warm air at yourslef. (this only works if your already sweating and will only continure to work as you sweat!) haha 

Alright this was a pretty good letter I think. haha I have a bunch of picture too and I will try to send them next week if I remember to bring my camera. Right now Im going to go rest up, cool down and prep to distroy some brazilans in soccer this afternoon with our ward!

MUCH LOVE,

tchão gente!

ELDER CHRISTENSEN

Transfers and Humpday‏ Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2015

Yo yo Familia!

Hey everyone! So yeah a lot to talk about this week so lets get into it. Aright so all of our work in Bessa is starting to pick up! We had a investigator actually come to church! She is pretty incredbile. Super humble and she came all by herself even though her family baled on her! She is super prepared and not doubt will be baptized and maybe her sister as well. But yeah also we found some sweet people in the road the other day eating some green mangos in the street and then a few days after we went back and had a huge block party lesson in the road with all the neighbors and such! Ha they are some pretty hilarious people though. This one lady was totally for the BookofMormon and testifying for us that it was the real deal and she has never read it! haha so they might be a solid group of people. On top of this I celebrated my year mark with SUBWAY and soda... muito. haha It was pretty normal other than that though. Crazy to believe its already come and gone.. so quick! 

Transfers came! I got moved and Iam one neighborhood over from João Pessoa in a place called Cabedelo. There will be 4 elders in a house that used to be a sisters place. So we are sweeping in and all we really know is that there will be a baptism tonight.. haha I already know the bishop here and a family that lives here and they pretty awesome so I am pretty stoked. Elder Wilson (from texas) will be my companion. He has been out for one more transfer than me but he has always been in Brasil so he speaks pretty well. I am stoked to learn a lot more here though. We have tons more people here that will be taught I think so it should give me some space to get out there and teach and learn faster. Our area is on the tip of the Penninsila so we have a beach in 3 different directions. just in case you wanted to know!

Family! I love reading all your letters! I could just sit here all day and read and never write back but i need to! haha I dont have much time today to get into detail but next week I will! Jenny! Lanbsons! Congrats!! Thats so awesome! Zone Defense time! haha I like Wyatte the most... I think I coached a kid named sawyer in soccer and he was a pest so thats my reasoning. Maggie your walking! What!! Parents your the busiest people of all time. Dad, pumped about th raise. Your deserve it. Brooklyn you will greatly help the broncos one day! btw- Im going for Seahawks.. Gotta rep my Washington blood! haha 

Até mais família! Eu processo bora!

Gotta go!

Love 

ELDER CHRISTENSEN

1 Year mark!‏ Date: January 12, 2015 at 6:53am

Hey everyone! 

Can you believe it! One year out already? I dont understand it. I thought that 2 years was a long time but turns out it really just feels like 2 months. So yeah I will oficially hit one year this Thursday! No idea how we will ring it in but it will most likely be by walking around and knocking doors or something! haha But really they have a couple of Subways here so maybe I will just go out to eat there and get a taste of america right quick. Subway here is super fancy and expensive so it will be worthy of such an achievement! This past week was pretty good. Still dont have a really good progressing ivestigator but we are working hard. At the end of the week we found some really great people that will hopefully come to church the following week so we are praying for that. They really are some incredible people. Within 30 min of knowing them they were already pullin out the crackers and Coke and trying to feed us while at the same time the lady at the house changed the music from Bob Marley to a gospel CD to fit the atmosphear! haha So that was pretty great. We are finding it a little bit easier to get people to agree to Church in the afternoon in the brand new chapel. But they still doesnt mean that they go. The new chapel is like a 20 min bus ride and it really is a 3 hour commitment to go.. So yep we are just tryin to finish this last week of the transfer with something acomplished! 

Shoes are great. No problems there. Language is comming I thnk but I really think that what I need now is a new location with a brazilian comp. Where I cant get a away with speaking english when my comp cant understand and a ward that hasnt already decided that I cant speak anything so they actually try to talk to me instead of elder loveland. haha 

Ukulele is perfect. and Life just keeps on movin. No really funny thoughts or stories today. Got kinda sick at the latter end of this week and am still just tired and trying to get over it. Just a head cold. 

Family!- Mom&Dad - I dont think that you guys have been home for longer than a week since I left for my mission! Have fun in SD! (everone that chooses to wear Orange- SORRY THE BRONCOS LOST AGAIN! bummer guys.. it just really hurts me to see you guys get hurt again.) (now that there are 2 babies in the family Half of my emails are just straight pictures of baby..) 

ALRIGHT I LOVE YOU GUYS!

Have a great week 

Tchão gente!

ELDER CHRISTENSEN

2015! January 5, 2015 at 7:14

Oi OiOi! Familia! What it do!

Here we are in 2015!? What happened to 2014?  Man, time is moving fast! Well my week was pretty good. Really slow here because everyone is partying and living up the vacation time so everyone was gone to the beach or busy drinking! haha Brazilians go ham for the holidays. So yeah we did the best we could this week. For new years night.. we slept!! And I dont regret it! haha It was pretty anti-climatic. In other news, our ward also moved over to another church building so we have a brand new chapel and its pretty fancy. It has that AC and everything. The micraphone actually works from the pulpet so for the first time I have actually had a chance at understanding people in the chapel! What else.. Not much I can think of... We are still trying to shuffle through all these people we find everyday and actually find someone that is sincerly interested so keep us in you prayers. I know there has got to be someone here! 

In other news, I bought a Ukalele! After 1 year of waiting, I now im a proud owner of a miniture toy guitar! haha But seriously though the Ukalele is high quality and it was pretty cheap once you convert it over into US dollars. For P-day today we will most likely go get some grub and take it easy. Might play some soccer in the afternoon. I need to wash all me pants because everyone of them is stained blue because of the Book of Mormon that keeps rubbing off on my paints! haha #missionaryproblems 

FAMILY! I just want to tell you how incredibly happy I am to have all of you in my life. I love how close we have all stayed together and how much it means to me that everyone of us is living the gospel of Jesus Christ! Seriously though.. if being on my mission has opened my eyes at all it would be that now I have an overwelming amount of pride and joy from my family! Keep up the work everyone. We are just so great! haha

Romans 5: 3-5 is a pretty sick scripture if you want to read it! Helps me for sure!

Alright! Stop. I love you. 

BYEE

ELDER CHRISTENSEN