Dec. 14, 2014

Dear Family and friends! This week was fantastic! We started it off by going to the Mesa temple on Tuesday to get familiar with the visitors center, to see the Christmas temple lights and go through the temple with all the north zones. It was great, and warm! It has been over a year since I have gone to the temple. I love that place. Later on Wednesday we taught 2 ladies, a mother and a daughter, named Teresa and Jessica. They were referred to us by a lady in our ward. Both are going through some difficult divorces, and both are incredibly prepared to hear the gospel. They accepted to be baptized on January 17th! They are awesome. We also found another family we had just knocked into one day when it started dumping snow! They let us in almost immediately. The mother, Bertha, speaks no English, and the father, John, speaks no Spanish. Haha I have no clue how that happened still, but hey they are super cool! It seems like the Lord is preparing more and more Spanish Speaking people here to hear this message. This last week we decided to focus more of our time and effort on helping people come to church since we haven't had hardly any non members at church in a long time. Based on how many people said they would be there, there should have been at least 15 people at church. But 2 of them actually came and we were pumped! It was disappointing that not everyone showed, but to me I was glad that at least two of them got to come feel the Spirit. In our district there's been a difficulty lately with opening our mouths. We had a whole meeting based on this scripture: "Yea, open your mouths and spare not, and you shall be laden with sheaves upon your backs, for lo, I am with you" (D&C 33:9). It was pretty cool to see how each companionship really needed to change and be more open with one another, and also with talking to everyone they see. A lot of problems can be solved and ultimately prevented by open communication. We also had interviews this last week with President Griffin. He is hilarious. He definitely opens his mouth and "spare[s] not." He told me a lot of things I needed to hear. :) Well that's about it this week! I'm pumped for Christmas! Still not sure what we will be doing, but I'm sure we will get fed. And we will definitely get to skype home! It doesn't really matter what time, probably around noonish? Let me know what works best for the family. What are everyone's plans this year? Are you remembering to share the gift of Jesus Christ? :D I love you all, have an awesome week. Elder Collin Christensen SURPRISE!  Here's a picture with Collin's good friend and 1st cousin once removed--Sister Rebeka Kohler.  She is serving at the Mesa Temple Visitors Center!