Sept 24th, 2012

Nothing to crazy happening this week, but just a lot of little stuff. Some guy tried to buy my bike off me for like $10, but I didn't sell it to him. And that is about as crazy as it got. We got soaked on Friday. It rained pretty bad. But we saw lots of little miracles this week. Being in the right place at the right time, etc. My testimony is strengthened every week as we follow our plans.

Right now we are teaching a lot of people, just having problems with getting them to progress! We had 9 new investigators last week and 7 the week before, but I don't know where they all went haha. But we got some good advice to try and help them progress. Its called getting bold and dropping them if they aren't progressing.

Right now we are teaching a guy named Elias. He is really cool. He is looking for the truth and is reading quite a bit in the Book of Mormon. We have a program in our mission where we try and hook our investigators up with a companion to read the Book of Mormon with about every other day. It is hard to get started, but when it gets started, it is money. He read all of 1 Nephi in 2 days. He has gone to church a number of times and is obviously reading the BofM, but he still hasn't felt it. He feels better, but he wants a little more assurance, so hopefully he will get baptized soon.

I don't know what to say this week... sorry.

We had invited about 16 investigators to church and about 10 of them seemed somewhat likely to come. We had 2 there haha. Kind of a let down, but 2 is better than 0 :).

We saw lots of little miracles this last week of finding random people.

Well yo se que la iglesia es verdadera. he encontrado muchas bendeciones por causa de ella. estoy agradecido por una familia que me ama y por su ejemplo para mi. agradezco que tengo muchos amigos que estan serviendo misiones alrededor el mundo. la oracion es real y se que nuestro padre celestial las contesta. el libro de mormon es la palabra de dios. les quiero mucho. y estoy muy agradecido por sus oraciones.

Elder Christiansen

143

Sept 17, 2012

The roller coaster ride is going back up! Haha. So on Saturday we had a Stake mission meeting. With all the missionaries of the stake and all the WML, bishops, and ward missionaries that could make it. It was pretty awesome. We even had Elder Munns from the Seventy come and speak. His brother is a lawyer here in St. Cloud, FL and is on a ton of billboards haha. The name Munns was sounded familiar when it was announced. He really gave a great talk. It was actually amazing. He talked about is a PRIVILEGE and BLESSING to share his testimony of Jesus Christ with others. He said missionary work is like a sleeping giant right now and is ready to be awakened. He talked about how with every thing that is going on, how this time is unlike non other to share our beliefs and testimonies. He talked about how the Wall Street Journal had had like 10 headlines with word Mormon in the title in the past week or something along those lines. He told of an experience he had where he was on a plane and he started talking about the church with the guy next to him on the plane. He said that is easy for him to talk about the church with anyone. The invitation is the hard part for him. He said as he was sitting there, the plane started its descent (sp?). And the scripture "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ" came to his mind. He looked at the guy and said,"if you will give me your address, I will send two young men to your house to share more with you." (so of course we are all expecting to hear how this guy got baptized 3 weeks later) And he went on to tell us that the guy stared at him for about 3 seconds turned his head, looked out the airplane window and never talked to him again for the rest of the flight. He said it was awkward, it was embarrassing, but he shared also how it doesn't matter what the guy thinks about him, for he will not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ. And then the Stake President later shared a story about how he was busy running to a surgery or something for him to do in a hospital that he rarely ever visits. And a lady came behind him and got his attention and he was trying to get away to get to his next appointment. He had sincerely been praying for missionary opportunities he said. The lady then said, "Do you remember me?", she said "You gave me a Book of Mormon 5 years ago, I am now ready to learn more." Miracle. A hospital he is hardly ever at, right time, right place, the seed was planted and took 5 years to be ready. He shared with us how he has a reminder on his phone to do missionary work. I invite you all to put up a picture, something on the fridge, your phone, whatever that reminds you of this work. It is important. The more we have missionary work on our mind, the more we will have opportunities to do it.

We also taught an old couple last night. He use to be a pastor in Cuba, almost got killed for his belief in God. They originally just wanted to "make prayer" with us in their house. The impression came to us to share a little more than a prayer. We taught the Restoration to them. The wife has been battling cancer for 9 years. She said she loved the way we taught. The peace that was there. The message of the restoration is TRUE. Peace is of God. It wasn't adrenaline or excitement we felt last night, it was the peace of the eternities that filled the room last night.

 

Love you all and miss you. Your prayers brings us miracles.

Elder Christiansen

Gotta put a smile on :)

So I am not going to lie. This week was rough. The area was on fire and we had a couple families we were teaching and it all looked really positive. We had a baptism planned for a family this Saturday which was going to be awesome and this past week it felt like everything just slipped through our fingertips. We set some really high goals which last week seemed achievable and we didn't come close to achieving them. It was pretty discouraging. We have no idea if we will have a baptism this Saturday, but probably not. But even though we had a lot of problems and everything just seemed to come down at once, we still saw many blessings. We are teaching this one guy and he is really awesome and we have spiritual lessons with him because he is just so hungry for the gospel. He committed himself to try and get his wife and kids behind him in learning more about the gospel. We could very well see an awesome miracle this week from his desires to want more in life. Another tender mercy from the Lord this week is that we found a family of 5! But the husband isn't here in town. He is in Tampa. But the mom is from the Dominican Republic and she is really nice and he is from Espana, and they have the chattiest 3 daughters I have ever met... Two of them are twins who are turning 8 this week and the oldest is also 8. I don't know how the mom does it. But they were so nice. The little girls loved us, they grew up in Espana too. The husband comes down here every Tuesday, so we have an appt with them this Tuesday. Hopefully it goes well!

I also had bike problems this week. Flat tire!!!

Well this week was kind of depressing, but this one will be better! Even though we had a rough week, we still taught more lessons than in my first two areas haha. Well the church is true no matter how short my emails are.

Thanks for the prayers! Love ya!

#GMC
Elder Christiansen

Sept. 3rd, 2012The Good Life

This week we had the opportunity to go on a temple tour with our investigators. They invited one of their friends to go as well! So that was really cool. I had to translate for them and the Lord helped me out so much with that, so that was really cool. We have a member in our ward who usually translates for our investigators, but he couldn't do it today, so I had to do it. The tour went really well and it is always a great experience no matter how many times we go. It is such an amazing blessing to have a temple so close and I love to feel the Spirit outside of it.

We had an insane day of being led and guided by the Spirit on Thursday. We were so blessed. We had an appointment fall through at 5. Our next appointment was at 6, and so we went to do our back up plans for 5 and 5:30. We had two options to try for the backup plans in different areas. So we kind of just chose the first one without too much thought. We went to visit a potential, and as we got out of the car, we met a Spanish lady and got a return appointment for her. Then we went to knock the door of our potential. There was a Spanish lady sitting on the stairs outside of the door that wasn't our potential. So we asked her if Barbara was home. She told us Barbara didn't live there (happens quite often). So we asked her if we could sit down with her outside and teach her. She said yes. So we taught her and in the middle of it, we asked her how she felt. She said that before we had come, she was angry and was upset and just not having a great day, but she said that now she felt good and calm, and just at peace. So that was awesome. Then after her, we visited a different lady and we got there and she wasn't home, but we talked to a little girl and she said she lived in the house and that her mom was on her way home and would be home in a minute. So we waited and she came home really fast, we taught her for the first time and set a baptismal date with her. It was awesome that the day just worked out perfectly and that the spirit guided us in the quietest ways.

The church is true.

Love you and thanks for the prayers!
Elder Christiansen