June 29, 2015

Hey Everybody!

We had a pretty great week, and ended up having 5 less active members come to church and participate in our Sunday School class! Our investigators seem to be getting harder and harder to contact, but we continue trying! 

As far as cool stories, we found a less active member who hadn't been to church for years and whose records were no where to be found. We taught her as well as her nonmember godchildren who just moved here from Mexico! She told us she hadn't had contact with the church for over two years and she was so happy we found her. The Lord works in mysterious ways! 

We have really been focusing on the less active members and strengthening them. I feel that as we've been doing that I have been strengthened in my own desire and commitment to live the gospel. And it's been super fun to hear their stories! We got to weedwack one inactive members yard which brought back a lot of fun memories of the Christmas tree farm. Haha! It was fun though, in all seriousness. We actually had a lot of service opportunities this week. I feel like that is partially what has been helping me. I've really come to know and believe what President Monson said: "Unless we lose ourselves in service to others, there is little purpose to our own lives. Those who live only for themselves eventually shrivel up and figuratively lose their lives, while those who lose themselves in service to others grow and flourish—and in effect save their lives" (October 2009, What Have I Done for Someone Today?). 

This week was also pretty special for me. I've been blessed to return here to this ward. Last November we began teaching Taylor and her then inactive husband Eli. She was so solid and almost got baptized, but then it didn't work out. The sister missionaries then took over the area and kept teaching her here and there, and just this last Saturday Eli baptized Taylor. It was awesome to see the fruits of seeds planted months ago! They will be sealed next year in the temple. The other awesome part of this week was yesterday at church. 

I got to confer the Melchizedek Priesthood to Kevin, one of the people we taught and baptized last August. He was one of my favorite converts. It was incredible to be back here and to see how he has progressed and to have him ask me to ordain him an Elder. Another awesome example of how the fruits of our labor a can never really be measured completely, especially not at the time we plant the seed.

I wanted to include this brief portion from President Griffin's letter to us this week:

"Dear Missionaries,
Hasten – “To cause (something) to happen sooner than it otherwise would." This is what the Lord is doing with the great APM! How is it being hastened? Sometimes our missionary work shows that He is hastening His work by calling us to take the sole responsibility of finding, teaching, and baptizing and only calling the ward members to fellowship. Elders and Sisters that is NOT the Lord hastening His work, that is us hindering His work by not enlisting the rest of the Army of God.
Are you enlisting the whole army of God in your areas? If not, review Preach My Gospel chapter 13 and establish a vision of how you can help the members “Come join the ranks! Come join the ranks!” ... I promise you that Heaven will help you “rally round the standard of the cross” with these members and then will His work truly be hastened in your areas."

I hope this helps you think about our responsibilities, not just as missionaries but as members of Christ's family.

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Élder Collin Christensen

June 22, 2015

Hey everyone!

Well tonight we will be having a Father's Day Potluck at the church
building and we are excited to have a ton of people come! We will see
if that really happens, but either way, it will be a great experience
for everyone who comes, both member and non member alike. At least to
get to know the church building and other people they can relate to
and communicate with. This week consisted of a lot of busy visits and
making invitations and inviting everyone we had time to in between
teaching appointments.

We were referred to a former Investigator named Genaro last week that
we had lost the records and information for. He called out to some
Elders in our district who were riding their bikes past his place and
he asked them to send him the Spanish speaking Elders. We went that
night and taught this man about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how he
could be cleansed from his sin. He loved it and was so happy to see
us, I have never had someone so excited to meet with us I don't think.
Then we came back last night and taught him how to pray, and as we
explained to him that he could ask Heavenly Father questions, he just
stared at us and said "You mean I can ask him? Anything? I can do
that?" It was a cool moment for him to understand what his true
relationship with Heavenly Father is. He began begging us to let him
say the closing prayer, and we did, of course! It was one of the most
sincere and heartfelt prayers I've heard anyone offer. Afterwards he
told us he had the most beautiful feeling he had ever felt, and he
wanted to know how he could keep it with him always. I love the Holy
Ghost because it is so hard to describe sometimes and yet so distinct
once you can recognize that it's God's way of communicating truth to
us. Well anyways, he wants to be baptized and take his family to be
sealed in the temple one day. He has a lot of changes to make, but I
couldn't help but look up at the stars that night and say a true
prayer of gratitude. The Lord placed a truly prepared man and family
in our path, just as we have been specifically praying for for the
last 6 weeks. I do know and believe that God hears and answers prayers
at just the right time, when our heart is right and our faith is ready
to grow. I know that if we ask for the opportunities, God will place
people in our path who need the message we have. But don't let that
scare you from asking him for those opportunities! Sharing these
truths with others really is the most fulfilling and rewarding thing I
have ever done.

Well I love each of you and hope your week is wonderful!

Élder Collin Christensen

Last Transfer! June 16, 2015

Hey family and friends!
We have had a pretty awesome week. Although none of our investigators
came to church on Sunday we had three less active members come and one
of them decided he's going to help us build up our group again! His
name is Gastón. We are still trying to figure out how to provide
better translation for those who speak Spanish, but we should be
getting new equipment soon. 

Other than that there haven't been too
many changes. But we have a family we are teaching who came to a
missionary Christ centered musical fireside the stake did, and they
loved it. We got to show them the baptismal font (the only one we have
is not at the building we meet at) and it was just super clear to us
that they are ready. So we are excited to keep working with them. 

José is doing well. we weren't able to meet with him last week
unfortunately because he was visiting family. But we are teaching him
tonight and hoping to give him a tour of our church building!
We have another returning less active member coming out with us
tonight to that lesson to help get people excited to come be a part of
the group. His name is Antonio, and he had been hesitant when it came
to church and meeting with us for quite a while. He was embarrassed to
tell us about some of his issues he was having, and we finally taught
him about the Restoration and invited him back to church. He came, and
the next lesson we taught about the sabbath day and left him with a
pamphlet on the Word of Wisdom. He came to church again, and then we
met up with him again and he had a grin from ear to ear. He invited us
in and showed us his huge tub of powdered nesquik drink mix and said
"Elders, this is what I drink in the morning now!" Come to find out he
quit drinking coffee, smoking, and working on Sunday's and no he is
reading his scriptures each day and coming out with us to lessons.
It's pretty incredible because we don't feel like we did anything, it
was as if the Lord was preparing and guiding him and all he needed was
the invitation to come back, to feel needed in the church. I think
it's the same way for so many who are members and even those who
aren't yet. Our testimonies and invitations can be powerful when
combined with the Lord "pour[ing] out his Spirit on all the face of
the land to prepare the minds of the children of men, or to prepare
their hearts to receive the word" (Alma 16:16).

Well today was pretty laid back. Looks like I'm finishing out my last
transfer here in Flagstaff as I had suspected. Definitely have some
mixed feelings about finishing, but that's not a worry. I'm happy to
be here in this place and with these people I have grown to love.
I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Élder Collin Christensen

June 8, 2015

Hey Everyone!

Elder Thiel and I had a great week! There are a lot of great things happening here. We began our week with some stretching goals that we prayed pretty hard over, and despite tons of setbacks everything seemed to fall into place. 

Not only did we reach our goals, but we had some amazing spiritual experiences with a few of our Investigators who really needed it. One of them was José. He has been struggling a lot with having the "ganas" to keep his commitments to read the scriptures. But we hadn't been able to keep appointments with him or even finish teaching him the most important part of our message yet, so we finally just sat down with him and taught about how God calls prophets in every age so that we can know how to return to live with him. We taught about how Christ's church fell when the apostles were killed. Finally we shared with him in Joseph Smith's own words his experience of the First Vision, and as we did he began sobbing. He kept telling us he didn't know why, but he felt good, and he felt like all the questions in his mind were being answered one by one, and that he knew that what we were telling him was true because he was feeling it. It was one of those moments where I knew that the Lord answers prayers without a doubt, because just that day we had prayed that people would recognize us as representatives of Jesus Christ and that we would be guided to those who would be ready to receive the message of the Restoration of His church. It reminded me how much I love sharing this with people. The Holy Ghost testifies of the truth, it's as simple as that. And we don't have to worry about trying to convince everyone our message is true, because if they are willing to learn it and ask Heavenly Father "with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto [them], by the power of the Holy Ghost" (Moroni 10:4). I've given up trying to convince people, I simply can't. I can't offer them a lasting testimony, but the Holy Ghost can, and I do know that it will teach them that our message is true if I teach it clearly. José accepted the invitation to be baptized by someone holding the restored Priesthood authority of God that night.

Well we had a great turnout at church, and our Sunday school class is getting bigger and bigger each week. 

Today we spent the day at the Grand Canyon and got to see a lot of cool things including a wild Black Bear! 

I love you all! Have an awesome week!

Élder Collin Christensen

June 1, 2015

Hey Everyone,

Today will be a quick update. Our Spanish group is growing slowly but
consistently. We had new Investigator named Ruth come to church for
the first time yesterday, and she definitely wouldn't have come unless
she had the member support that she did. It reminded me of how
important and crucial it is that members and missionaries work
together to bring souls to Christ. Man, it makes me pumped to hear
about Kess, please tell him congratulations and that I'm proud of him.
I'm sure several of you played a critical part in the process of his
conversion.
So it was Ruth's first week at church, and she seemed pleased with
everything's she heard and learned. But I couldn't help but notice her
figetting with her translation headset throughout the beginning of
sacrament meeting, so I decided, you know what? I can't expect these
people to come and wear headsets in a so called "white person" church
if I won't do it myself! So I got my own headset and learned a lot. I
learned how they must feel to be one of the few people who need
translation. I learned how frustrating it is when the translator
doesn't say things exactly because they can't be translated exactly,
and how frustrating it is to have old translation equipment that makes
loud static and sometimes doesn't work. I learned that it is difficult
for a member, let alone an Investigator, to stay very interested in
the church if they have to deal with those kinds of things. Now, I'm
not blaming anyone or anything. But I am growing in both my compassion
and love for these people. So often I get down or discouraged because
they seem to not care as much or not to be flocking to the doors of
the church! Why not? Well it's hard! It's hard to be a Latter Day
Saint, and it's especially hard when you can't speak the language. We
will work out the kinks, things will get better as time moves on and
the Lord answers prayers and guides us to those who will gain
testimonies and stay strong. This work was never supposed to be easy,
but it sure has been worth every effort I've put into it so far. This
is the salvation of God's children! It's the fulfilling of the
prophecy that “Every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his
own tongue, and in his own language, through those who are ordained
unto this power” (D&C 90:11). I'm grateful for all these opportunities
to learn and to serve.
We have been praying that we find families that will be prepared to
receive the gospel and be baptized. Last week we found three different
families and a total of eleven new Investigators. It's been clear that
Lord wants this group to grow!
Well I love you all!

Elder Collin Christensen

May 25, 2015

Hey Family and Friends!

This week surpassed our goals and expectations in almost every single way. It was a bit disappointing when our three investigators on date for baptism felt they weren't ready and became too busy to meet consistently with us. One of those was Eduardo unfortunately. His work schedule picked up so he is now working all day all week. But he has the most sincere and humble heart, so we haven't given up, and we won't. 

But our area has also been super busy and successful lately besides that. We had four Investigators at church, and four native Spanish speaking members, and 4 Spanish speaking RMs to create a Sunday school class of 12. It kind of blew us away. We are working hard, but I think I've tried to do that most of mission. I think here what's making the difference is God's will and the urgency of our prayers. I'm finding that I'm praying for my Investigators and members by name because I really sincerely do want them to be baptized and have the happiness I do. It's pretty amazing what the Lord can do if we just place ourselves into his hands with a willing heart.

This week we are praying to find families. Families ready to accept the gospel and be baptized in June, and families who are members maybe haven't found out about the Spanish group. Your prayers would also be appreciated!

We had some pretty funny food this week, including cabeza and some sketchy pastel and Peruvian mystery juice. Gotta love these Peruvians, they're legit! Elder Thiel gets sketched out by the food sometimes, it's pretty fun. 

I don't really have much else to update you all on, things are just dandy. I'd like to hear everyone's plans for Memorial Day today and how all the families are doing!

Have an awesome week!

Elder Collin Christensen