Monday, February 25, 2013

Hey!

How is it going around the world? I hope all is well. Things are going great here in Del-Rico. We had a pretty great week again. Especially towards the end of the week.

I got my new companion, Elder Bieber! From British Colombia Canada... So EVERYONE talks to him about his name haha. Great on contacts. But as he knows of, he is not related to him. But we think he is somewhere down the line. #GottaGetOnThatFamilyHistory... He is pretty cool. Big guy. about 6'5" so I look like a enano (midget in spanish)... But its allll good. He also likes to golf so HELLO P-DAY golfing. We had a great first week together. He goes home in December.

So this Friday we visited the two sisters that came to church last week and the activity. Eliana and Nena. Nena is visiting from New York for a long time and Eliana's husband is working in New York and visits here and again. They are from Ecuador. We went over with their friend that is a member (Ivelissee, Mrs. Missionary Work Herself) and when we pulled up to the house EVERYTHING was pink that could be pink. House, chairs, etc. haha.. Quite a site. Might take some pics for ya. And we got inside and there were pink rugs, etc. and they had a friend over named Jose. He is from Costa Rica "Pura Vida" (its like their main saying in Costa Rica).. So we taught the three of them and they were real cool. Liked the Restoration. Gave BofM's, committed to church but couldn't go cuz something came up, got return appointment with dinner! with all 3 of them. So that was a great little miracle. They are really cool.

Then on Saturday we had another pretty cool day. We visited this lady named Natasha from P.R., taught her outside (no guy) and we brought a P.R. member with us and she seemed to have the question "why does God allow evil and suffering to happen if He loves us?" And so we taught the PofS and at the end of the lesson, she said it all made sense! So I feel like that was able to answer her question, so that was great as well. And her and the member seem to get along good. And Natasha wants her hubby to learn as well, but he is a little hesitant, but I think we will be able to teach him this week :)..

Later that night we visited this guy named Lalo.. He went on a trip to Miami with a member that lives in Jacksonville for like a week to work and the member talked to him about the church and everything and they even went to church and Lalo really liked it. And so the member gave us the referral and we visited him. When we got there on Saturday, he had the bible, BofM, and all the pamphlets except 1 haha. The member did a very good job at preparing him. So we shared the Restoration with him to make sure he understood it all. And when we were talking about Joseph Smith he was saying he believed it is true. He hadn't had the confirmation of the spirit yet, but just believed that it was true. We then had the impression to have him kneel down, say a prayer, ask if it was true, and then wait. So we deviated a little from the lesson, and invited him to pray right there. He said the prayer with us all knelt and said amen. We waited, waited and waited. We were praying and praying that the spirit would testify to him the truth. I noticed that he kept praying after he said amen. We probably waited 2-3 minutes, then he looked up and said, "yes.. It is true." And the spirit filled the room :)... And then we talked a little more and set a baptismal date with him for the 19th of April. He will be coming to church this week! It was a great experience to be apart of. That is the greatest thing about our message. is that no one has to take our word for it, but that they can just ask God if it is true and that the Spirit will testify to them that it is true as long as they have faith, a desire to act, and have a sincere heart. It is the greatest message in the world. It is a blessing to know that our families can be together forever and also know what we need to do so our families can be together forever. This message truly helps others and helps them accomplish their dreams and desires. The truth doesn't hurt, it heals.

Today we have P-Day with the whole district, should be fun, going to a park and do some stuff haha. Kite fighting maybe? lolzz

Love you and thank you for the prayers. Miracles, Miracles, Miracles :)
Elder Christiansen
As President Hall always says... "Onward"

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Hola

So this week was amazing it ended so awesome! There was an activity at the church on Saturday for Valentine's Day. A dinner that you payed for to help the YW do or go something or somewhere haha. Missionaries free though. :) So me and my date, Elder Sharp, went. It was pretty good. And we have this member, Ivelissee Ortiz (Eee-Bay-Leas) who is just amazing. She shares the gospel like no one else I have ever seen in my life! And she just recently enrolled for English classes at the college here and so she is just preaching the gospel like crazy! And so she brought two ladies that she met at class to the activity :).. And then her husband, Javier, brought his friend and his son to the activity as well. And then there was another lady who brought her friend, but she lives over by Orlando, so we can't teach her, but will see if we can send other missionaries over to her... And we invited all 4 of them to church on Sunday. Sunday came along and BOOOOM! Best Sunday of my mission! Hands down. We had Ramon (ivelissee's uncle) and his gf Carmen come who are not members. Then the 2 other friends of Ivelissee and their kids, then the two friends of Javier, then Marta (more to come on her), Maria came, some YW's bf haha, and this other lady named Isabel who her friend brought her! So there were about 10 non member's at church! 6 of them we have taught, two of them we have and appt with, one said we could stop by, and we didn't set anything up with the bf yet. So we were blessed beyond belief so that was amazing! And then after church Marta de el salvador, got baptized! And 6 of the remaining 9 stayed for the baptism and then there was a little dinner afterwards! I think the church frowns on food after church, but hey, we like to party :).. So it was the best best best Sunday ever. Miracles like crazy. Marta is amazing. She was so happy yesterday. The Spirit was felt strongly and it was just a wonderful baptism. It was a blessing to teach her. She is on the kindness level of Grandma Jean if that makes sense. Just sooo sweet and caring.
 
Also this week we taught Ramon and Carmen (ivelissee's uncle) and we taught the Word of Wisdom, they through away all their coffee stuff and smoking stuff right there with us and committed to stop that night! And they have a baptismal date for April 13th :).. It is so amazing to see how willing people are to change to have the spirit in their life. It is the greatest possession we can have.

We also taught this other guy named Carlos. He is really cool. It was a sweet lesson. We taught him before and left him the Book of Mormon and he read part of it then he got on the internet looked up stuff and kind of got anti-ed, so he brought that up, then we taught him the doctrine, all of his doubts were just erased right there on the spot, the spirit took over the lesson, then we started just asking questions, bearing testimony, teaching doctrine, and just being bold with him, it was amazing. At the end of the lesson he could feel God loved him, he knew there was a purpose to this life, he felt that Jesus Christ could heal him, and he knew that the internet is garbage and that the spirit is the true teacher. It was awesome!

Your prayers are working miracles over here. I love you all
Elder Christiansen
143


Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Feb. 11, 2013

Well after all of my prideful past emails of how awesome this area is and how it was on a roll, the Lord decided to humble us a little bit. It wasn't a bad week, just every week was getting better and better in all the numbers for the most part. But, the Lord blessed us a lot. We just didn't have to much success at finding our teaching really but it is alright, this week we will make it a better week. That's what life is all about just progressing and trying our hardest. We knocked doors for like 5 hours Saturday and probably a total of 15 hours between Tuesday to Saturday and didn't find too many people, so we have to change it up a little bit! :) The definitely best part of the week was Sunday. Our top investigator, Marta, de El Salvador came to church and then we taught her afterwards. She has a baptismal date for this Sunday after church and is progressing really well. Last week we taught her the word of wisdom and she gave away her coffee and hasn't gone back since! She is the sweetest most kind lady ever. She is about 58 years old I think. She is just amazing. It has been a blessing to teach her. She just wants to follow Jesus Christ and do what is right. If all goes well she will be baptized this Sunday! :) So the week really wasn't that bad to be honest haha.. And some members brought a friend that they met at the gym to church and she seemed to like it, we have an appt with her this Wednesday. Also I gave a talk about scriptures in sacrament meeting. That was a good experience, learned a lot. So Sunday was pretty bomb to be honest.
We are teaching this one guy named Ramon who is the uncle of a member. The coooolest member ever possibly. And a while ago we gave him a blessing for health and we have taught him about 3 times now and last time he was telling us how he has just been so happy recently and feeling more peace than ever and his health is good, and he thinks it is because of the blessing and our visits and teaching him the gospel. Se llama el espiritu santo mi amigo! :) He has almost died like 5 times and God saves him every time, so he thinks there is a reason he is still alive. So that is awesome :)

We have a pretty cool week planned ahead of us so I am excited about that. We are going to teach a part member family tonight. The husband isn't a member and has been married to his wife for 10-ish years. Has read the BofM twice (his wife told us) and has had the discussions several times. She is active they are from Colombia. So we have been praying for him quite a bit. He is a really nice guy.

Wellll Things are good. Weather is really nice. Work work work. Thanks for them prayers! Love you all. The church is true

143 Elder Christiansen

Monday, February 4, 2013

Feb. 4th, 2013

Congrats to my auntie Karin on her baby Jeffery Douglas. Very studly name. And Happy Birthday to a lot of people out there.. Grandma Jill, Grandma Jean, Kenzie, and Brooklyn? Haha, to many B-Days right now.

This week was great as well, they keep getting better and better. And I am not lying. We set two baptismal dates this week! :) So that is definitely the highlight. We were very blessed. We also taught that guy that I told you about last week who is really really smart. He didn't bash at all, just had some real sincere questions! So that was good! Hopefully we will be able to teach his family here pretty soon and he also told us he would go to church with us :)... We have a lesson with him tomorrow, he is a really busy fellow, but we are going to try to get at least 2 lessons with him a week. His name is Rene. We also found a great guy named Carlos this week tracting around. He was pretty cool, we taught him the Restoration right there on the doorstep, he felt the spirit and liked it. He is an old fashioned guy and so he was thinking that he would have to change if we came back to teach him more, so he was kind of hesitant about that, so we are going to make a surprise stop at his house real soon haha. We found some other potentials as well this week by tracting. This Venezuelan lady named Lisett from Caracas, Venezuela... She opened the door and said, "hola" as in we look white so she didn't think we spoke Spanish, so we couldn't bother her, but one of the cool things about the gift of discernment is that you can tell when people can speak English haha. So even though we both could speak Spanish, we said, "hey, how are you doing?" (with confidence to show her that we knew she spoke English). So then she started speaking English, then later we threw the curve ball with the Spanish and finished the conversation in Spanish. Gotta keep them investigators on their toes haha. But she actually seemed to turn around during the contact and invited us back when her family was home.

We had a kind of awkward moment this week where we knocked a door and a like 18 yr old kid and his dad answered the door, and they let us in, and told us it was the grandparent's house, so we walked in the house and the dad asked his parents (the grandparents) if it was alright that we came in. And the grandparents were eating and didn't look too happy to see us and said, "Probably not a good idea while we are eating." And it wasn't a very nice tone, so we turned around and went back out the door haha.

We were blessed with 2 investigators at church this week. One of them is Marta from El Salvador. She is the sweetest lady in the world for sure! Her baptismal date is for the 16th of this month. She is awesome though. She is doing everything! Reading, praying, and going to church. And she is feeling the Spirit a lot in her life and at church! The greatest thing about our message is that we just invite (sometimes beg haha) others to just try it, see how it is. And it is as simple as CPR.. Church Pray Read... CPR isn't that easy, but easy to remember the letters haha. It is a blessing to share the greatest message in the world for these 2 years! Love you all and thank you for the prayers, we are being blessed because of your prayers and faith. :)

143
Elder Christiansen