March 24, 2014

Hello Family and Friends!

Well this week has been both hard and amazing! We found a couple new
people to teach, and Juan got baptized and confirmed! 
 His baptismal service was so awesome, he had a ton of
support from the ward, even members who didn't speak Spanish. He was
so happy and kind of giddy too. Haha. After I baptized him I gave him
a hug and he told me that I could trust him with anything and  he
would do anything for us. He is the coolest guy ever. :)

The difficult part of the week was when M. called us and told us she was canceling her baptism again. We have no idea how to help her anymore, because literally the day before we had met with her, made her baptismal program, and she was super pumped about it. She has given us a few different reasons, but mostly just excuses because she
is scared of committing. Elder Hicks and I were pretty down for a couple days, because it seemed like everything was falling apart with everyone. The more we talked about it the harder it got, especially for Elder Hicks. There were a couple of days where he just didn't seem too healthy physically, mentally nor emotionally. But we prayed a lot,
and we were blessed with one great baptism this week, and our little depression phase didn't seem to matter anymore. We knew everything was in the Lords hands, and that was the most comforting thing.

One of the best "lessons" we had this week was with a new investigator
named A. When we had first knocked on her door she told us that
she had a recent neck injury, so we came back and trimmed her terribly
overgrown bushes that were taking over her front yard. So as we
chopped her bush up she sat there in a lawn chair next to us and we
taught her something from every single missionary lesson...it was
awesome. Haha she had some great questions, and by the end she told us
she wanted to try out our church! She ended up not being able to make
it because she fell in a hole and hurt her back. But it was cool!

Church yesterday was crazy. I think we had the most Spanish people we
have ever had at church! It was good for Juan, but our translating
system kinda shut down and was super fuzzy for everyone with the
headsets...I was running around pretty much all of sacrament meeting
trying to help everyone and fix their receivers. But it was great
anyways!

Oh yea, a couple months ago we went to dinner with a less active
family in our ward. They had invited their mom Linda over as well, who
wasn't a member. Well eventually we got to talk to her a little bit
and give her a Book of Mormon, but she lived in another ward so we
introduced her to the other missionaries. Well last Saturday she got
baptized as well!

Well we are doing pretty well up here! :) the weeks are really
starting to fly by. We are excited for Tamrah's baptism this Saturday!
Hope you all are doing great! I appreciate all the support I feel from you!

Favorite scripture of the week:
"And the Lord provided for them that they should hunger not, neither
should they thirst; yea, and he also gave them strength, that they
should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in
the joy of Christ. Now this was according to the prayer of Alma; and
this because he prayed in faith" (Alma 31:38).


Elder Collin Christensen

Mom,
I did actually get to play the piano recently! Not anything like
Raphsody, but I played at Juan's baptism and then for a Spanish family
who sang in sacrament meeting yesterday. People seem to be pretty last
minute, and they also seem to know I don't care, so they always ask me
to help day of or day before. Haha   :)

March 11, 2014

Hola familia y amigos!

This has been a fantastic week! First of all, both Elder Hicks and I
are staying here for another transfer! We are both pretty glad too,
things are really picking up in this Ward from what they were before.
We now have 4 people scheduled for baptism in the month of March!
We are so excited for them.

J. has been progressing a ton as well, and is more excited about his
baptism than ever. We met with him about 5 times last week. He came to
church this last week and loved every minute of it. He was giddy later
that night when we visited him because of how much he liked it. Haha.
He's a real seeker of truth and just soaks in all our lessons. When we
invite him to do something, or when we leave his apartment he always
says "Si! Primero Dios!" At first we thought it was kinda funny, but
the more I think about it the less funny and more real it becomes.
This man truly has put God first in his life. For him it has been a
form of repentance, a change of priorities. I love the definition of
Repentance found in the bible Dictionary: "a change of mind, a fresh
view about God, about oneself, and about the world...repentance comes
to mean a turning of the heart and will to God." As missionaries we
invite people to repent. I never realized it, but whenever we invite
them to do almost anything, we are essentially inviting them to
repent! I am learning so much about that word, and about the real
blessings that come when we just turn our will over to God, and choose
to see ourselves as he sees us. It is so apparent in the lives of
these people! It is a huge blessing to be a part of it and literally
watch it take place.

M. went to Mexico for spring break, so we have no contact with her
at all. We are hoping and praying she will be able to keep all her
commitments and a stay on board for her baptism. Your prayers are
appreciated as well.

This morning we got a call from a less active member who never has
really believed in God. He grew up in the church and never gained a
testimony, and after 10 years away from the church in the military, he
started having some doubts and questions. His name is M. and
whenever we meet with him he has a hard time believing what we say.
But he is always willing to keep our commitments because he really
wants to know the truth. So for the last few months he hasn't been
progressing at all, and so in our last visit we invited him to just
pray and test God. Well, he called us this morning and told us he did
it, and had some crazy miracles happen this last week that were direct
answers to his prayers. Prayer is so real! This guy is definitely also
gaining a fresh view about God and about himself. It is an answer to
our prayers as well as his.

On Sunday Elder Hicks and I got to participate in J.'s
confirmation! I love that kid so much, he is the most committed and
solid person I have ever taught. He is studying Preach My Gospel and
wants to go on a mission! He is only a Junior. I still can't even
grasp the fact that just about a month ago we started teaching this
guy who knew nothing about the Gospel! Talk about a "change of mind,
and a fresh view about God and oneself"!

Mom, don't worry about missing the email. We were pretty busy last
week anyway and got to go hiking in the gorge in Paulden! Hermana
Baumgartner was serving up there as part of our district, and she
finished her mission today. She was a captain of the Harvard Hockey
team and she actually was taught by and knew Clayton Christensen who
wrote The Power of Everyday Missionaries! Pretty sweet.

Well, I love you all! You are all a blessing in my life and I am
grateful for your examples and kindness to me and my family!
This church is true. Repentance is real. I am grateful for the
Atonement of Jesus Christ, and I don't know what I would do without
it.

Elder Collin Christensen

March 3, 2014

Hola Familia!

This has been another great week! And.......M. J. is getting
baptized March 22! As long as she can stop drinking coffee! tomorrow
we are following up and potentially ridding her house of coffee. :))
she is super excited, ready, and determined to do what she needs to
do. In our lesson I was leading up to invite her to be baptized, and
she just stopped me and told me to invite her to be baptized...Never
had that happen before! That's how excited she is, and we are too!

J. was baptized last Monday by his friend Brandon! So cool to be a part of that and see his growth just in the last few weeks.

Well, we got to be a part of the Gilbert Arizona Temple Dedication yesterday. There were no LDS services in all of AZ, and only temple
worthy members could attend the broadcast of the dedication, It was a weird feeling having to tell investigators they couldn't come to church. :( but the Dedication was so great! President Monson, Eyring
and Elder Callister were all there, and it was definitely a neat/new experience. Something that jumped out to me was a comment made in one
of the talks about how the temple literally gives us an eternal
perspective, and should remind us of the things we need to be doing
(or not doing) everyday. He said that if people from the outside world
were to see through the walls of the temple at what happens inside,
they might very well say "how ridiculous"; but when we enter we
understand the eternal importance of the Lord's House, and if we were
to look through the walls of the temple into the outside world, we
might just as well say to our selves "how ridiculous". I'm grateful
for the knowledge the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ gives me. I am
grateful for the blessings of the temple that allow my family to be
together forever! :)
As for the rest of the week, it was a little slower as far as work
goes. But I went up to Chino Valley for a day with Elder Sutcliffe. He
is a great missionary! I learned a ton and enjoyed going to a new area
with new people I would never see again. I think it helped me be more
bold and confident.
Well, I hope all is going well. I love hearing from you all and your
testimonies and experiences! Sorry this is so short, but we are doing
well and loving the work.

Elder Collin Christensen
edication. It was a

February 24, 2014

Hello Family and Friends!
Well I guess I will tell you about my birthday first, since I will
probably forget by the end of this email. It was great! I found out I
am a terrible chef! Not too much different than any other day, it was
a fantastic day though, and I will explain why a little later. Thanks
for the water bottle mom!

So here we go, we had probably one of the best weeks so far ever! I
truly have felt Heavenly Father blessing us and answering our prayers,
and all of your prayers as well! People are progressing and things are
looking great. We have been working better with the Ward and the Ward
mission leader, which helped us to have 10 lessons this week with
members present - more member support than we have ever had! We worked
our tails off too!
The J. family is doing fantastic. This last week the teenage
daughter, K, expressed a desire to be baptized with her mother
next month! We are praying we can actually meet with them more so we
can prepare the whole family.

We found a new investigator named P. who is the husband of a
less active Spanish member. He is quite an interesting guy! He didn't
come to church this week, but she did for the first time in quite a
while. But we are excited to start working with them.

So J....J. is a boss! We set a baptismal date for him for March
22! He is super excited and so are we! He feels he isn't ready yet
because he wants to know more, but he prayed out loud for the first
time EVER I think in his life with us that night, and he asked if he
could be ready for baptism by the 22 of March. The Spirit was bien
fuerte, and we all just kinda sat there when he finished. He kinda
started giggling cause he didn't know why he felt different. We feel a
great love for that man. It was a great way to close off my birthday.
:) we also finally got him into the church building and gave him a
tour with our Ward mission leader who thankfully speaks Spanish too!
We are praying he can actually make it to church this next week.
Speaking of church, we had a total of 8 investigators there yesterday!
It was crazy! :) !!!

We found out D. is willing to do anything to be baptized, and she
has made her decision on what she needs to do. So we decided to back
off and just keep encouraging her. We found an awesome friend for her,
a recent Spanish convert named L. who was abandoned by her entire
family when she joined the church. They related perfectly.

So I don't think I ever told you all about Jn.   A Priest
in our Ward randomly texted us a few weeks ago, and told us there was
a guy from school who was interested in the church (we later figured
out they weren't even friends-Jn just knew the priest, B, was LDS and
came asking questions). Well now they are pretty good friends. We
taught him that night in B's home, and two days later we met
again. He had read 15+ chapters in the Book of Mormon, and had prayed
about it. He knew it was true and we committed him to be baptized the
22 of February...he accepted and has come to church the last 3-4
weeks, and is getting baptized tonight because his family couldn't
come last Saturday! He is awesome, and so prepared. We ended up
handing him over to some other Elders because he didn't live in our
boundaries but was being taught in our members home. It has been so
cool to see him grow! This last week, his cousin saw the changes in
him and wanted to figure out what they were, so he invited him to
listen to us! So Jn helped us teach his cousin, Js, and he
said he wanted to be baptized too! We handed him off to yet another
set of missionaries as well. 

We have generated probably 5-6 solid
prepared referrals to other Elders in Prescott Valley in the past 2
weeks. Not only is The Lord allowing his work to hasten, but the
evidence of the power of everyday missionaries is incredible. We
couldn't have found any of these golden, prepared people were it not
for members who were willing to open their mouths and let the world
know who they are and what they know. Let's be careful not to miss
those prepared souls The Lord is placing in our way!

Family and friends, I love you all so much! I am so grateful for your
words of encouragement, testimonies and support! I do know that this
church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the only
true church here on the earth today. Because it contains the fullness
of Jesus Christ's Gospel, it also contains the fullness of Happiness
for each of us. This is evident as we strive daily to live that
Gospel, and learn, and grow. I hope we all can feel greater happiness
as we do so!

Thanks again! Have a great week!


Elder Collin Christensen

Feb. 17, 2014

Hello Family!
Sorry this email is so late, it will also be fairly short. We had a zone activity today and played a lot of basketball and chair soccer.  Glad you guys got my package, sorry it was so late!Sounds like everyone is staying busy! Thanks a bunch for the  valentines package! :)) we got it the night before valentines day so
we enjoyed ourselves.

So this week I learned a lot about how to work hard, but also smart. There are some good things we can do to take up our time, like driving around and trying to find people home, but there are better things, and even best things we can do. Being effective is pretty important.  We took a couple hours one afternoon and began coding out our area, and we called probably 50 people and set up loads of appointments.  When we could have spent that time driving around and potentially talked to 3 or 4 people and not taught anything. So that is what Elder Westlund taught me on our Zone Leader exchange this last week. Oh yea! Elder Westlund is from Medford and was friends with Jordan Bowers up at BYU-I! Small world. :D

\We had an awesome zone conference this last week. I ended up helping with a musical number last minute that I got to run through once before, haha. Typical. I was grateful for your sight reading skill mom. Thought you might like hearing about that.

We got to go to the Gilbert Arizona Temple open house with M. J.! It was so awesome! We had tickets and  everything set up with the Moore family to drive us all down there, and the night before she called us and canceled. We were pretty bummed, but decided to go over and visit her. We still don't know why, but with the help of the Moore family, and the Spirit, after our visit she decided she would come with her daughter. It is a sweet temple, and I really think she felt the Spirit there. We are praying to have a baptismal date for her this next week.

We had a great lesson with the T.J. family! and the feeling was so much different this time, all the kids came and listened and participated as we talked about the armor of God, Ephesians 6:10-17.  We had to twist it and compare it to football, but hey it worked!

Well I am glad to hear all is going well! I love you all and know that the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is true! I am thankful to your support, you love, your mail, your prayers, and your birthday wishes!
:) Have a fantastic week!
Elder Collin Christensen

February 10, 2014

Hola Familia y amigos mios!

Last week was great! Elder Hicks and I seem to be working together better than ever before. Even now that I'm not quite the timid unsure greenie I used to be while he was training me, we are still learning loads from each other. We have just been feeding off each other's desires to work hard, and MAN things are changing for the better! I already got used to his little quirks and he had already gotten used to my humor etc, so we just jumped right in to the work and the needs of the people here in Prescott Valley. We still have our weaknesses and such but we can solve issues so much better now. 

An example- we had all our lessons fall through one night, so we were going around trying to find people at home. We were having no success teaching or finding, and finally someone came out and talked to us. But it started to get late, so we said goodbye and got in the car to head home. I sat there for a couple minutes because I was kinda ticked that we had just stood outside for 20 minutes in 30 degrees talking about nothing! Well once I calmed down, I talked to Elder Hicks about it. He agreed we had wasted a perfect opportunity and failed to fulfill our purpose, and he kinda started to beat himself up about it. Well, I loved and trusted Elder Hicks enough to take the initiative. We stopped proselyting for the evening and did a hardcore analysis on our purpose, and on our goals and plans to fulfill it in everything we do. Instead of coming our of that depressed because we had failed, we were both pumped because we had created a plan to succeed! The next day we began implementing our plans and tasks to achieve our goals, and we started loving what we were doing! As the week went on we had more success and more energy about the work. I have a real testimony of goals, and of failure, and of the ability to rise up and move forward through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

I used to let little things about other people bug me, especially companions, but I think I realized what a waste of time it was to worry myself about something I can't control. The time spent being annoyed is time that could be used helping someone else. That is the main thing I learned this week. If I can stop thinking about ME and I, I can give so much more. We had a couple crazy days this last week with so many appointments, so many calls to make and things to do, and I stopped and thought for a second in the middle of it all. I was loving it! Serving others will always be better than serving myself!

We had an awesome lesson with M. J.  and her husband last night. We brought The Family: A Proclamation to the World. After the lesson, Elder Hicks and I just sat there in complete love for that family. The Spirit was so strong when we testified of our own eternal families, and I felt an increased love, desire and gratitude for the opportunity to be with my family forever. We invited to pray about the decision to be baptized. This morning, M. texted us saying she got work off to come to the Gilbert Temple Open House with us this Thursday! So now we can go, we are stoked for them to be able to feel the Spirit in The House of The Lord! 

T. J. is still solid. Her and her husband  have totally changed in the perspective of preparing for her baptism. Now they are looking forward to the temple and an eternal family. It has been so cool to see. They have some pretty troubled teenage kids, too. The shy daughter asked me if her horse could be sealed to them in the temple....I didn't want to crush and dreams on that one so I told her she would see her horse in heaven. Haha The dad,  actually went in and cut the cable to the Xbox his sons were playing because they wouldn't come into our lesson. Pretty crazy! But awesome that they see how much their family needs the gospel.

Well, that's about all the news! I hope all is well at home and that people are planning to achieve! If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. It is so true. :) I love you all! Have a fantastic week.

Elder Collin Christensen

February 3, 2014-- New Companion

Hello everyone!

Another interesting week! Elder Cardwell is now serving in Glendale in the Solano Ward. He has about 3 months left on his mission and has never been on a bike, but now he's probably in his last area and gets to ride a bike around Phoenix! Haha Well, guess what else is crazy?! My new companion is Elder Hicks! Yea, my trainer! Also, he was trained up in this area about a year and a half ago, so he knows like all the Spanish investigators and members better than me! Pretty crazy that we are back together, but he has a real strong desire to work hard, and we are both pumped. He is actually the new District Leader here, and we had an awesome District Meeting on President Taylor's "R2" challenge. The challenge is for each companionship to baptize 2 "real people". Not just to have 2 numbers, but two quality new members if the church. The focus on the recent 20 lessons a week has actually decreased our numbers in baptism, new investigators, and lessons taught to investigators in the past month. While the less active / active member work we have been doing has been great and nearing the 20 lessons per week goal, president Taylor kindly reminded us of our purpose. Those 20 lessons=20-40 opportunities to find real new people to teach and invite to come unto Christ. 

So no one ever responded to my question, how have the family mission plans been coming? Have we made them? Are we working on them? Do we actually remember the visions, goals, plans, tasks, and accountability we set for ourselves each day? I hope so. :) I am excited to hear how it is going. When members and missionaries work together it can really be an amazing thing.

So with all the transfer stuff we didn't have too much progress this week. Elder Hicks is still meeting all the English people, but we had some great lessons with J., M., D. and T.. They all could be baptized this month! We are really hoping and praying to have 2 baptisms this month, and these people are so ready! They all just have one or two issues holding them back.

 I don't know if I have Introduced D. yet, but she is a lady from Peru who used to be a child psychologist. Her husband is white and from a hardcore Catholic family. Well, he isn't too religious himself, but after they got married a year or two ago he makes her come with the family to the Catholic service each week and won't allow her to come to our services, even though they are at different times. She has such a solid testimony of the church and the Book of Mormon and wants more than anything to be baptized, but she hates the contention it causes in the family. So we have used FB to help her, which has been cool. She went with her friend to see the Gilbert Temple Open house on Saturday which was a miracle! She loved it. And we actually had a feeling to go by last night after fasting with Dami, and we did and met the husband! 

 

M. is in the same sort of boat, except she has the approval from her husband. But what she wants is his full support before she will be baptized. We are praying that she will be able to come to the Gilbert Temple Open House with us on the 13th. 

 

J.works a bunch, but has a huge desire to learn and study. He is a humble guy and loves it when we come over! We just saw him at the car wash and he got so excited. Haha

 

T. is ready and committed to baptism as well, we are just working on keeping the Sabbath day holy. She is also waiting for her husband to be able to baptize her. It should be soon!

Well, that's all for this week! I hope you are all doing great things! I love you and keep you in my prayers always. 

Sincerely,

Elder Collin Christensen