May 26, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,
It has been one heck of a week. It flew by and yet it seems like it
lasted forever. I got to go to a specialized training for the mission
for music. It was pretty cool meeting, we had William Joseph come and
speak to us on how to use music to invite the Spirit, and fulfill our
calling to "Invite others to come unto Christ." He is a cool guy! He
got to play the piano a lot on his mission in Perth, Australia. He is
actually from Glendale, AZ! Anyways, you would have enjoyed it a lot mom. :D

So the real crazy part of the week started on the way back up to
Flagstaff! A brush fire closed down the highway, so after waiting in heavy traffic for 4 hours, we had to turn around and stay with some elders back down in the valley. Fortunately they had contained the fire so we went back up he next morning, only to get stopped by more fires between Sedona and Flagstaff. We found another way home, and by the time we got back the whole sky was filled with smoke and ash was falling all over. We probably spent at least 10 hours in the car those two days. As soon as we got back we were told by President Taylor to immediately pack 24 hour kits in case of evacuation. We spent the rest of that afternoon helping people pack and prepare for evacuation down in Kachina, where the fire was about 4-5 miles away. It was pretty cool, we just went from house to house helping people get prepared. One guy was pretty disabled and super stressed about not being able to pack. It was cool to be able to help him, and others, and tell the, what we do as missionaries. As of now no one has been evacuated as far as we know, but the last I heard the fire is still 0% contained and a National emergency. There's still smoke in the air but we aren't too worried about anything happening anymore since the wind is pushing it away from Flagstaff. So yea! It's been a crazy week!

Teaching wise, we set a baptismal date for June 21 for Leander,  a member of a part member family here. He is pretty cool, and really quiet with us still like most Navajo people. We are excited for him though. He came to church for the first time along with another new investigator named Ray! We had a lot of people at church actually, we didn't have enough chairs in our Gospel Principles class!
Well its crazy to think that May is already almost through. I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As we apply it, it gives us "hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise" (Moroni 7:41). I know we can be forgiven, that the burdenof guilt can be lifted from off our backs, if we choose to walk side by side with the Savior, and allow the burden he already bore to carry us through. It is true, it is real, and it's His promise to us! I am so grateful to know that is true, by personal experience and witnessing it in the lives of those we get to work with.
Thank you for all your prayers and support! I love you all and pray
for you regularly!

Elder Collin Christensen

May 19, 2014

Dear Family,
This has been a great week. We found three new people to teach, one is from a part member family. His name is Leander and we are teaching him again tonight and inviting him to be baptized! The other two are Dave and Christina, a couple who has a pretty rough past. We finally got in to teach them last week and they came to church yesterday! They are awesome people and want to get married and everything. We are pumped to work with them! Also at church was a recent convert family that we have been working with, and we found out they were taught by Elder
Brandon Royse!
We also taught a recent convert's husband named Mike last week who has talked to missionaries for a long time. He told us he didn't get anything out of missionary visits, and wanted to move on to some greater knowledge past what we teach. He said it was because he doesn't feel there is enough evidence to back up what we teach, especially from the Bible. We asked if he had ever read the Book of Mormon, and he said he'd never opened it. We promised him he would
never know what we taught was true, or not true, unless he read the
Book of Mormon, which is the true evidence of everything! He ended up
coming to church without his wife...so she didn't drag him there!
Hopefully he found some higher knowledge! :D It was a cool experience
for me, because I realized how small of a role we play as
missionaries, and how little we really can do for people. That's not
to degrade our role at all, but there comes a point where we all have
to act, and being acted upon is no longer enough. When we act, The
Lord blesses us with a knowledge that what we are doing is either
right or wrong. The gift of agency is amazing!

Well, we have been enjoying the Family History we've been working on.
A Chinese man sat by me in the library as I was working on mine, and
he told us he loved Mormon people. So we looked up his family on
www.familysearch.org with him and he thought that was cool! But then
he told us that 120 generations back he comes from a royal Emperor
Family, so he was satisfied with that. Haha oh yea then I found out we
weren't supposed to contact/proselyte in public places like
libraries...oops.

Well that's about it for this weeks update. I pray for you all each
day and feel your prayers for me! This mission is changing me slowly,
and that's really what the gospel should do to all of us! I know that
as we come unto Christ through covenants and continued obedience, we
can receive the healing and freeing blessings he promises us. It's
like a gift he's already given us, but because our agency is so
important to him, it's our choice to receive it or not.

Here is my favorite scripture of the week:
"And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto
Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation,
and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your
whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and
praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be
saved" (Omni:26).

Elder Collin Christensen

May 12, 2014

Dear Family!
Well it was awesome to see/hear you all yesterday! As for the
appointments I told you about last night, one of them happened. We taught the older Mexican lady. We found out half way
through that she was not following what we were teaching at all. She may not be totally there, so we will see where that goes. Haha Besides her  we found 3 new people this week. 2 are
friends/coworkers of a less active member who invited them to listen to us.  We had a powerful lesson with
them about Enos' story. It helped me realize the truth of a Preach My Gospel phrase: "Although they may not know why, [those you teach] need relief from feelings of guilt that come from mistakes and sins. They need to experience the joy of redemption by receiving forgiveness of their sins and enjoying the gift of the Holy Ghost.... You are called to represent Jesus Christ in helping people become clean from their sins" (1: What Is My Purpose as a Missionary?). It's true that a lot of people don't even realize they are carrying burdens of guilt. Everyone needs the gift of forgiveness, whether they think so or not.

So Olin  was baptized Monday! He was part of another part member family and we are working to help that family become active again. It was a cool baptismal service, but it's been hard to get ward members to come.

Other than that we found out that at least three of our investigators
are on probation and/or are felons...explains why it's been so hard to find them!

Sorry this is a short email, but that's the basic update. I love you
all and hope you are doing well!

Elder Collin Christensen

Climbing Mt. Humphrey

Hola Familia y amigos!
Well we just got back from climbing Mt. Humphrey! It is the highest
mountain in Arizona! It took us almost 6 hours...I will say I am
sufficiently whooped. We weren't super prepared for the distance, or
the snow, or the 50 mph wind at the top. But it was definitely worth
it! From the top we could see part of the Grand Canyheon. I loved it! My
camera died so I didn't get many pictures...sorry. (this photo is off the web)

Elder Christensen's picture

Elder Christensen's picture

 

So this week was pretty good, I'm feeling pretty settled in and
finally starting to learn the area alright. Jr and Tracey  were
both both baptized this last Saturday! It has been cool teaching these
young kids, but they are solid and we are working on reactivating the
whole family so that they can have the support they need! Again, we
don't have pictures yet but we will send me when we get them!
There are so many Navajos up here! We cover the Flagstaff Hospital in
the area so we get called to give blessings at least 3 times a week.
That's been pretty cool.

We had some awesome meetings this week, we received training on Family
History work, which we are going to start doing as a mission! They
want us to know how to do our own so we can help others do theirs and
find new people to teach through it. Within the first minute of
working on it, I found out that my zone leader Elder Arave is my 5th
cousin or something like that! We have the same great great great
grandfather, Nelson Arave Arrivee! That's sweet! It's been cool
learning about all of this, the Spirit of Elijah is so real.

Also we had a focus on talking with everyone in our Zone meeting.
Since then, we made some changes in the way we do things and  have
found some solid new potentials just because we rent afraid to talk to
someone walking into their house, or sitting outside smoking. It's
been great.
Well, we don't have much time at all today, so that's the update!

Also, I need to know what time to call on Sunday! Please respond and
let me know before 6. Sorry it's late notice, but were just supposed
to have  set time. Looking forward to seeing you all! Let me know what
time works best!

I love you!

Elder Collin Christensen

4 PM Mother's Day call was scheduled.